Irena Dorota Backus

Historical Method and Confessional Identity in the Era of the Reformation (1378-1615 (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions) Irena Dorota Backus

This volume deals with the basic problem of how theologians of all confessions handled ancient, mainly Christian, history in the Reformation era. The author argues that far from being a mere tool of religious controversy, history was used throughout the 16th century to express profound religious and theological convictions and that historians and theologians of different confessions sought to define their religious identity by recourse to a particular historical method. By carefully comparing the types of historical documents produced by Calvinist, Lutheran and Roman Catholic circles, she throws a new light on patristic editions and manuals, the "Centuries of Magdeburg," the "Ecclesiastical Annals" of Caesar Baronius and various collections of New Testament Apocrypha. Much of this material is examined here for the first time. The book substantially revises existing preconceptions about Reformation historiography and view of the past.