Topographies of Tolerance and Intolerance : Responses to Religious Pluralism in Reformation Europe

Topographies of Tolerance and Intolerance challenges the narrative of a simple progression of tolerance and the establishment of confessional identity during the early modern period. These essays explore the lived experiences of religious plurality, providing insights into the developments and drawbacks of religious coexistence in this turbulent period. The essays examine three main groups of actors―the laity, parish clergy, and unacknowledged religious minorities―in pre- and post-Westphalian Europe. Throughout this period, the laity navigated their own often-fluid religious beliefs, the expectations of conformity held by their religious and political leaders, and the complex realities of life that involved interactions with co-religious and non-co-religious family, neighbors, and business associates on a daily basis.

Contributors are: James Blakeley, Amy Nelson Burnett, Victoria Christman, Geoffrey Dipple, Timothy G. Fehler, Emily Fisher Gray, Benjamin J. Kaplan, David M. Luebke, David Mayes, Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer, William Bradford Smith, and Shira Weidenbaum.

Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer is the Susan C. Karant-Nunn Chair of Reformation and Early Modern European History at the University of Arizona. She has published numerous works, including From Priest’s Whore to Pastor’s Wife: Clerical Marriage and the Process of Reform in the Early German Reformation (2012).

Victoria Christman is Associate Professor of History at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Her publications include Pragmatic Toleration: The Politics of Religious Heterodoxy in Early Reformation Antwerp, 1515-1555 (2015), and articles on publishing, trade, and religious prosecutions in the Low Countries.