Nicole Reinhardt. Voices of Conscience

It would be foolish to attempt to determine the classic question for any period of historical inquiry. But if one were to attempt that task for the study of seventeenth-century Europe, the relationship between religious belief and political action—the problem of “reason of state”—would likely wind up on most shortlists. In Voices of Conscience, Nicole Reinhardt approaches that problem from what, in retrospect, seems like a rather obvious angle: those officially charged with the Christian consciences of the men who headed and incarnated their states. She does this through a comparative study of Spain and France—complementing Robert Bireley’s (less ambitious) study of confessors in the Holy Roman Empire during roughly the same period—that juxtaposes the history of political thought, particularly around counsel, and of theological thought, particularly around confession and the role of ecclesiastical persons at court. The result is not an easy read, but it rewards careful attention. It illustrates how the Tridentine vision of a world morally regenerated through theology, example, and sacrament deeply influenced politics at an ideological and sometimes an institutional level. The book also suggests a new chronology of that vision’s decline and the emergence of a secularized order, connecting the royal conscience with Paul Hazard’s “crise de la conscience européenne” toward the end of the seventeenth century.

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Conscience · Empire · Historiography · Ideology · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Secularization · State (computer science) · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies