The Negotiated Reformation

In The Negotiated Reformation, Christopher W. Close revisits the urban Reformation and the models of reform developed by a previous generation of historians, not to call into doubt the famous claim that the Reformation was an ‘urban event’, but rather to re-examine the framework of social, political, economic and cultural relations between the cities and how this framework influenced the process of reform. More specifically, Close sets out to examine the ‘centrality of regional politics’ to the whole process of Reformation, that is, the extent to which regional relations between the evangelical cities influenced the course of domestic events. In doing this, he is not only introducing a novel dimension to the study of the urban Reformation, with a marked emphasis on the methods of compromise and negotiation, he is also challenging some of the traditional models of reform, and in particular those based on the idea that the essential dynamic came from within the commune or that the momentum of the urban Reformation waned with the rise of the Protestant principalities in the 1530s. In his words: The Reformation in these cities did not result solely from dynamics within the local community but rather relied on regional political and power constellations. Urban reform in Eastern Swabia developed out of a complex process of intercity negotiation that allowed external agents to shape each city's internal reformation. (pp. 2–3)

Centrality · Compromise · Economics · Economy · Epistemology · Negotiation · Of Reformation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Protestantism · Sociology · Urban politics · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity