Ethan Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003).
Chapter 5 (pp. 162-196).
Mark Valeri, “Religion, Discipline, and the Economy in Calvin’s Geneva.” The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 28, no. 1 (1997): 123-142.
Karen E. Spierling, “Making Use of God’s Remedies: Negotiating the Material Care of Children in Reformation Geneva.” The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 36, no. 3 (2005): 785-807.
Raymond A. Mentzer, “Morals and Moral Regulation in Protestant France.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 31, no. 1 (2000): 1-20.
Questions for Writing Assignment – Write a 300+ WORD response to EACH of the following questions:
1. Shagan’s chapter examines the dissolution at the Abbey of Hailes. Shagan asks “what did it mean” (p. 164) for locals to spoil and destroy the monastery there? According to Shagan, how and why did they engage in this activity that, only a few years before, would have been unthinkable?
2. Calvinism spread from Geneva and had an international following in many regions of Europe. Yet Calvinism did not take hold in each of these in the same way. Benedict’s chapters on France and the Holy Roman Empire offer an opportunity to compare the way in which Calvinism was introduced and the circumstances in which it developed. Write a response that explains any significant similarities and any significant differences between them.
3. Taking the articles by Valeri, Spierling, and Mentzer, explain why Calvinism emphasized a proper morality among its congregational communities and the measures Calvinism—in Geneva and neighboring France—took to establish it.
Format of responses must be double spaced, Times New Roman, 12pt.
Please cite responses and must include page numbers where cited.
