Banishment was vital to the efforts of the town council in the south German imperial city of Ulm to punish and control vagrants during the sixteenth century. While the efforts of Ulm’s authorities to expel impoverished outsiders often faltered in the face of the determined recidivism offered by these seemingly powerless offenders, the local magistrates never despaired of banishing the alien...
Jews & Jesuits in a Confessional Age
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The early age of orthodoxy in German Lutheranism was a crucial period of transi-tion and solidification between the conciliatory Formula of Concord in 1577 and the work of early seventeenth-century dogmaticians such as Johann Gerhard (1582– 1637). During this “confessional age” Lutheran theologians struggled to protect the “pure teachings of Luther” while consolidating religious reforms and...
Hucksters & Huckstering in Early Modern Southampton
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Historians have long recognized the prominent role women played in vending food and fuel on the streets of early modern towns, but huckstering was a profitable part-time trade that attracted men as well as women. Indeed, there were probably more male than female hucksters operating in Southampton and other towns. While many scholars have been skeptical of the commercial opportunities open to...
James ap Gruffydd & International Opposition to Henry VIII
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This article argues for the historical significance of the career of James ap Gruffydd ap Hywel, a gentleman from south Wales who was the first lay subject of Henry VIII to go into foreign exile as an opponent of the king’s break with Rome and repudiation of Queen Catherine. It examines James ap Gruffydd’s movements around Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and continental Europe in the 1530s and 1540s...
Multiconfessional Celebration of the Eucharist in Wesel
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The fierce debates about the Eucharist during the Reformation era highlight a central tension between individuals’ desire to secure confessional purity and their instinct to protect the communal nature of Christian worship. Preserving confessional coexistence required balancing these forces, often by expelling nonconformists or driving them underground. Instead, civic leaders in sixteenth-...