Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief in Reformation Germany

Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585

Kat Hill

Oxford Historical Monographs

Offers a new approach to studies of the Reformation, exploring new ways to look at the Anabaptist faith in particular
Makes use of rich, unexplored archival material
Uses various approaches, such as the history of emotions, anthropological analysis, and close attention to language, history and memory
Maps the spread of Anabaptism to give the reader a clear idea of how the faith developed

Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief in Reformation Germany

Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585

Kat Hill

Description

When Martin Luther mounted his challenge to the Catholic Church, reform stimulated a range of responses, including radical solutions such as those proposed by theologians of the Anabaptist movement. But how did ordinary Anabaptists, men and women, grapple with the theological and emotional challenges of the Lutheran Reformation? Anabaptism developed along unique lines in the Lutheran heartlands in central Germany, where the movement was made up of scattered groups and did not centre on charismatic leaders as it did elsewhere. Ideas were spread more often by word of mouth than by print, and many Anabaptists had uneven attachment to the movement, recanting and then relapsing. Historiography has neglected Anabaptism in this area, since it had no famous leaders and does not seem to have been numerically strong. Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief challenges these assumptions, revealing how Anabaptism's development in central Germany was fundamentally influenced by its interaction with Lutheran theology. In doing so, it sets a new agenda for understandings of Anabaptism in central Germany, as ordinary individuals created new forms of piety which mingled ideas about brotherhood, baptism, the Eucharist, and gender and sex. Anabaptism in this region was not an isolated sect but an important part of the confessional landscape of the Saxon lands, and continued to shape Lutheran pastoral affairs long after scholarship assumed it had declined. The choices these Anabaptist men and women made sat on a spectrum of solutions to religious concerns raised by the Reformation. Understanding their decisions, therefore, provides new insights into how religious identities were formed in the Reformation era.

Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief in Reformation Germany

Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585

Kat Hill

Oxford Historical Monographs

Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief in Reformation Germany

Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585

Kat Hill

Oxford Historical Monographs

Author Information

Kat Hill, Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of East Anglia

Kat Hill has been a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford and recently became a Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. She completed her DPhil, supervised by Professor Lyndal Roper, in 2010 and her Masters in 2006, both at Balliol College, University of Oxford. She has published on the history of Anabaptism more broadly in the sixteenth-century, including a forthcoming article in Past and Present, and she is currently working on a project on Lutheran culture in the later sixteenth-century.

Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief in Reformation Germany

Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585

Kat Hill

Oxford Historical Monographs

Reviews and Awards

"This is an ambitious book that promises many new and exciting things to its readers, who should include scholars not only of Anabaptism but of the Reformation and of early modern religious history more generally....[V]ery good book..." - Geoffrey Dipple, Renaissance and Reformation

"thoroughly researched" - Alastair Hamilton, The Times Literary Supplement

"Hill's work is an exemplary case study of confessional dynamics, and a look at the emotional concerns and anxieties that animated theological affiliations of individual Christians in the era before confessionalization." - Aaron Klink, Lutheran Quarterly

"Her book is exceptionally well informed, in short, an important and rich contribution to current research, not just on central German Anabaptism, but on the sixteenth-century Reformation in Germany more generally." - Kaspar Von Greyerz, University of Basel, History