In 1631, at the epicenter of the worst excesses of the European witch-hunts, Friedrich Spee, a Jesuit priest, published the Cautio Criminalis, a book speaking out against the trials that were sending thousands of innocent people to gruesome deaths. Spee, who had himself ministered to women accused of witchcraft in Germany, had witnessed firsthand the twisted logic and brutal torture used by judges and inquisitors. Combined, these harsh prosecutorial measures led inevitably not only to a co...

Winner of the Sixteenth Century Society Gerald Strauss Book AwardShortlisted for the Ecclesiastical History Society Book AwardThe defense of the cult of saints and relics was an essential element of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Europe. Facing attacks from Protestant denominations of all kinds, the Roman church redoubled its efforts to promote the veneration of its holy figures and to house their earthly remains in dramatic style. Bedazzled Saints chro...

How Catholic pilgrims in an era of revolution challenged state authority and redefined the practice of their faithIn the days of the French Revolution, as zealous government officials sought to sweep away the vestiges of a less enlightened age, they made a concerted effort to clamp down on religious “superstition” and to fix modern territorial boundaries. Catholic pilgrims on the western edge of German-speaking Europe, however, refused to let worldly barriers stand...

Inspired by recent efforts to understand the dynamics of the early modern witch hunt, Johannes Dillinger has produced a powerful synthesis based on careful comparisons. Narrowing his focus to two specific regions—Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier—he provides a nuanced explanation of how the tensions between state power and communalism determined the course of witch hunts that claimed over 1,300 lives in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Germany. Dillinger finds that, far from re...

As the wealthiest German merchant family of the sixteenth century, the Fuggers have attracted wide scholarly attention. In contrast to the other famous merchant family of the period, the Medici of Florence, however, no English-language work on them has been available until now. The Fuggers of Augsburg offers a concise and engaging overview that builds on the latest scholarly literature and the author’s own work on sixteenth-century merchant capitalism. Mark Häberlein traces the hi...

A short little book about the history of the Pennsylvania Germans. Chapters include, European Backgrounds Of The Germans Settled In Pennsylvania, Immigration Trends Are Divided Into Three General Periods, Pioneer Immigrants Were Farmers And Tradesmen, Language And Education At First Neglected, Then Promoted, Religious Groups Were Numerous Before The Revolution, and The Derivation Of Family Names Is Always Interesting.

Pandemics spread throughout early modern Germany on a regular basis and profoundly affected public policy and private lives. While plague was central, other diseases such as French pox, which appeared in the 1490s, were of concern. This volume examines both historical data and textual evidence to explore how early modern states, communities, and individuals responded to such outbreaks, how they dealt with ensuing political, ethical, intellectual, social, and pragmatic issues, and how they ...

Body Size in Early Modern Germany uncovers the significance of fatness and thinness in early modern German society and culture. It explores how early modern people conceived of fat and thin bodies, in terms of both the cultural meanings attached to body size and personal perceptions of the body. Holly Fletcher argues that body size became an increasingly prominent concern throughout the German-speaking regions from the late-fifteenth to the early-seventeenth century. During this p...

A pioneering book that sheds crucial light on the distinctions between Kant's philosophical project and German Idealism as a whole, resolving problems that are as relevant to scholars today as they were to Kant's immediate successors.This ground-breaking study is the first detailed exploration of 'transcendental hylomorphism'", or the division of all mental faculties and acts into form and matter. Identifying hylomorphism as the fundamental unifying dynamic in post...

This book is a translation of German versions of both Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. The introductions to each play place these versions of Shakespeare's plays in the German context, and offer insights into what we can learn about the original texts from these translations.English itinerant players toured in northern continental Europe from the 1580s. Their repertories initially consisted of plays from the London theatre, but over time the players learnt German, and...

The most prolific historian of early modern German literature in the twentieth century, Klaus Garber has largely remained unknown to English-language scholars. The seven essays selected here are translated into English for the first time and represent the ’essence’ of Garber’s work. Central to Garber’s outlook is a break with the traditional canonization of culture into national categories. Moreover, he argues that literary history consists not only of intellectual history, but also politi...

Focusing on the territories of the Holy Roman Empire from the early Reformation to the mid-eighteenth century, this volume of fifteen interdisciplinary essays examines some of the structures, practices and media of communication that helped shape the social, cultural, and political history of the period. Not surprisingly, print was an important focal point, but it was only one medium through which individuals and institutions constructed publics and communicated with an audience. Religious...