The French-Speaking Reformed Community and Their Church in Southampton, 1567-c. 1620

Bibliographic Data

ID16610832
AuthorsCharles G D Littleton Charles G D Littleton, Charles G D Littleton (corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume30
Issue4
Pages1183-1184
Publication date1999-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSixteenth Century Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0361-0160 • E-ISSN: 2326-0726
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/2544700
OpenAlexW2797481142
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited38

In the opening decade of this century Max Weber initiated the still running historical debate on the relationship between capitalism and Protestantism.In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber sought to identify the distinctive elements of Western capitalism in order to explain why modern industrial development had occurred in the West rather than in India, Babylon or China which had all possessed forms of capitalism.' Weber also sought to explain why 'business leaders and owners of capital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labour, and even more the highly technically and commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises, are overwhelmingly Protestant'. 2 The disproportionate dominance of Protestants over the Catholics in these areas had been revealed by a study of the Grand Duchy of Baden in the late nineteenth century, where 60% of the population were Catholics and the remainder were Protestants. 3 Weber suggested that the key to this Protestant ascendency should be sought in the Protestant Reformation.This period witnessed both the division of Western Christendom and the emergence of what Weber termed as modern capitalism.By modern capitalism Weber meant the existence of a disciplined labour force and the regularised investment of capital.He believed that this form of capitalism could be clearly distinguished from any earlier forms of capitalism that had existed. 4 Weber also emphasised the role of national or religious minorities.He observed that such groups are 'likely, through their voluntary or involuntary exclusion from positions of political influence, to be driven with peculiar economic activity ... It has in earlier times been true of the Huguenots in France under Louis XIV, the Nonconformists and Quakers in England, and, last but not least, the Jew for two thousand years'.'But', Weber continued 'the Catholics in Germany have shown no striking evidence of such a result of their position.In the past they unlike the Protestants, have undergone no particularly prominent economic development in the times when they were persecuted or only tolerated, either in Holland or in England'. 5 Unlike the Catholics, Protestants appeared to be economically successful and so Weber concluded that the reasons for their economic 1

Political science · Sociology · History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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