Search for Authority in Reformation Europe

Helen Parish is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Reading. She is the author of Clerical Marriage and the English Reformation (2000), Monks, Miracles and Magic (2005), Clerical Celibacy in the West: c.1100-1700 (2010) and a number of articles on religion, church, and clergy in the early modern period. Elaine Fulton is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is the author of Catholic Belief and Survival in Late Sixteenth-Century Vienna (2007) and co-editor of Communities of Devotion (2011). Peter Webster is Web Archiving Engagement and Liaison Manager at the British Library. His research focusses on issues of church and state and on the religious arts, in both early modern and twentieth century Britain.

• Introduction The Search for Authority in the Protestant Reformation, Elaine Fulton, Peter Webster; Chapter 1 ‘Arguing About Religion’: Luther’s Ongoing Debate with Islam, Adam S. Francisco; Chapter 2 The Authority of Scripture and Tradition in Calvin’s Lectures on the Prophets, Jon Balserak; Chapter 3 Spiritual Authority and Ecclesiastical Practice: John a Lasco and the Forma ac ratio, Michael S. Springer; Chapter 4 History as Authority: Johann Sleidan and his De statu religionis et reipublicae Carolo Quinto Caesare Commentarii, Alexandra Kess; Chapter 5 Touching Theology with Unwashed Hands: The Preservation of Authority in Post-Tridentine Catholicism, Elaine Fulton; Chapter 6 Authority and Method in the Eucharistic Debates of the Early English Reformation, Korey D. Maas; Chapter 7 ‘To conseile with elde dyuynis’: History, Scripture and Interpretation in Reformation England, Helen Parish; Chapter 8 The ‘Challenge Controversy’ and the Question of Authority in the early Elizabethan Church, Mary Morrissey; Chapter 9 Augustine ‘falleth into dispute with himself’: The Fathers and Church Music in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England, Peter Webster; concl Conclusion, Helen Parish;

'This anthology provides readers with a detailed, nuanced understanding of the searching questions and debate regarding the nature of authority occasioned by the Reformation implementation of the principle of sola scriptura.' Lutheran Quarterly