Toleration in post-Reformation Europe (in the 16th-18th centuries). Reading of key sources - ZIP

elective courses

Students should have a basic knowldege of European history of the Early Modern period including the history of the European Reformation; they should be aware of the historical role of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin in 16th century Europe as well as of the history of the Reformation in Poland-Lithuania.

Students are expected to have a reasonable (at least passive) command of the English language enabling them to understand and interprete source texts presented in English.

The course aims at making students familiar with Early Modern thought on religious toleration in post-Reformation Europe. It offers a selection of relevant key texts and documents to be jointly read, analyzed and interpreted. The source texts are selected under two criteria: They offer, on the one hand, insights into the European discourses of religious toleration before, during and after the Reformation. On the other hand, they document contemporary efforts at ending confessional conflicts on the basis a peace treaties. The course is ment to broaden students' knowledge of European history in the Early Modern period. At the same time, it aims at encouraging students to critically reflect on main-stream narratives in European historiography on the 'progress' of tolerance in Europe since the 16th century.

"This course is offered within the University of Warsaw Integrated Development Programme, co-financed from the European Social Fund under the Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development 2014-2020, path 3.5."

In most parts of Europe the idea of tolerating other religious confessions remained more than controversial until at least the 18th century. Assuming that there could only be one understanding of the 'true faith', most contemporary Christians considered it impossible, if not reprehensible, to accept the existence of diverging creeds, namely within Christianity. Every Christian seemed to have the duty to lead the respective dissidents in faith out of their 'errors'. Therefore, the attitude to tolerate what seemed intolerable (unbearable) by nature appeared to be a sin rather than a virtue. For that reason the Reformation came as an unprecedented challenge to European societies and political entities in the 16th century: It led, on the one hand, to a lasting ecclesiastical schism within European Christianity and it gave rise to increasingly radical 'confessional fundamentalism'. On the other hand, both the ecclesiastical and the political actors on both sides had to learn that the conflicts (and wars) that emerged from the confessional divide could not be settled without some kind of peace arrangement – i.e. without the establishment of sustainable rules for confessional toleration.

The course aims at enquiring into the following questions:

1. What were the intellectual/theological traditions of conceptualising religious diversity within the Roman church? (The concepts of orthodoxy, ecclesiastical unity, heresy).

2. How was confessional diversity conceptualised and discussed during and after the Reformation?

3. Which modes of negotiation between different confessions were proposed and practiced (persuasion, colloquia, national or trans-national synods)?

4. What principles guided the different arrangements for confessional peace in 16th century Europe (from the Augsburg Peace and the Warsaw Confederation to the Edict of Nantes)?

The joint reading of key sources should allow to answer these questions. One group of texts illustrates the general debates over religious diversity and confessional dissent, both in a Catholic and a protestant perspective. Another group of texts consists of peace treaties and other normative acts that aimed at regulating inter-confessional relations in different European countries until the beginng of the 17th century.

The reading course should also serve as an exercise in critically analyising and interpreting Early Modern normative texts in different languages (and translations). We shall also pay special attention to the methods of comparative European history (terminologies, structural similarities, the phenomenon of functional equivalents).

Bérenger, Jean: Tolérance ou paix de religion en Europe Centrale (1415-1792). Paris 2000

Diversity and dissent: negotiating religious difference in Central Europe, 1500 – 1800. Ed. by Howard Louthan etc. Oxford, New York 2011

Kaplan, Benjamin J.: Divided by Faith. Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe. Cambrige/Mass. 2007

Konfederacja warszawska 1573 roku. Wielka karta polskiej tolerancji. Ed. by Miroslaw Korolko and Janusz Tazbir. Warszawa1980.

Konfessionelle Pluralität als Herausforderung. Koexistenz und Konflikt in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Ed by Joachim Bahlcke etc. Leipzig 2006.

Kriegseisen, Wojciech: Ewangelicy polscy i litewscy w epoce saskiej: (1696–1763): sytuacja prawna, organizacja i stosunki międzywyznaniowe. Warszawa1996

Kriegseisen, Wojciech: Stosunki wyznaniowe w relacjach państwo-kościół między reformacją a Oświeceniem. Warszawa 2010

The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750. Vol. I. Ed. by Hamish Scott. Oxford 2015

Rublack, Ulinka: Reformation Europe. Cambridge 2005

Tazbir, Janusz: Reformacja – kontrreformacja – tolerancja, Wrocław 1996

Schilling, Heinz: Jedność i wielość Europy we wczesnej epoce nowożytnej. Religia – społeczeństwo – państwo. Warszawa 2010

Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation. Ed. by Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner. Cambridge 1996

Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Ed. by Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter. Cambridge 1999

Students should acquire a broader knowledge of the ecclesiastical, intellectual and political history of Early Modern Europe. The should develop an understanding for the dynamics of confessional dispute and political conflict as well as of the modes of conflict management in that period.

On a pragmatic level, they should develop their skills in critically analysing and interpreting normative texts of the pre-modern period. They should train their capacity to deal with sources in languages other than Polish.

Students should not only thoroughly read the source texts and to actively participate in their interpretation, but they are also expected to individually present one of the texts in the course (origin and historical context, terminology, content). The brief presentation (up to 10.000 characters) should also be submitted in writing during or at the end of the course; the written presentation will serve as the main basis for individual assessment.