Assessment

Continuous Assessment 20% + Essay 80%

Module Aims

This module aims to introduce learners to the key personalities, theological developments, and events in the history of the Church in the later Middle Ages and the sixteenth-century European Reformations, and to facilitate their engagement with the most up-to-date scholarship on the period. It also aims to help learners better situate other theological disciplines within their historical context, and to appreciate the continuing relevance of some of the issues faced by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Christians for Christian believers today.

Indicative Syllabus

• The Renaissance Papacy – Politics, Culture and the Arts
• Reformers before the Reformation – the Case of John Wycliff
• Reformers before the Reformation – the Case of Jan Hus
• The Late Medieval Church and Paths to the Reformation
• Martin Luther and the Early Reformation
• Huldrych Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation
• John Calvin and the Reformation in Geneva
• The English Reformation

Learning Outcomes

• — At the end of the module students should
• — critically evaluate current scholarship concerning Christianity in the period of the Reformations
• — appraise the relationship between secular and religious authorities in the period of the Reformations
• — extrapolate from the history of Reformation Christianity relevant perspectives by which to consider the legacy of such issues today.
• — employ what s/he has learned about Christianity in the period of the Reformations to better understand historical and theological developments over time and to appreciate the relevance of this for theological discourse today
• — demonstrate an appreciation of the diversity of theological views and religious practices in the period, in particular the diversity of theological positions across the various reformist groups in the first half of the sixteenth century
• — demonstrate a good historical sense of the period and display a willingness to “attentively listen to” the diverse arguments of a range of individuals / groups in key historical debates, and consider these judiciously in written work.

Bibliography

• — Duffy, Eamon, Saints and Sinners: a History of the Popes. 3rd ed., New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
• — Eire, Carlos M. N. Eire, Reformations: the Early Modern World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.
• — Hsia, R. Po-Chia, The Cambridge History of Christianity volume VI: reform and expansion, 1500-1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• — Kelly, Joseph F., The Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church: a History. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2009.
• — MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490-1700. London: Allen Lane, 2003.
• — Madigan, Kevin J. Medieval Christianity: a New History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
• — Marshall, Peter The Oxford History of the Reformation. Oxford: OUP, 2022.
• — McGrath, Alister E., Reformation Thought: an Introduction. 3rd ed Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• — Methuen, Charlotte, Luther and Calvin: Religious Revolutionaries. London: Lion, 2011.
• — Miles, Margaret R., The Word made Flesh: a History of Christian Thought. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
• — Pettegree, Andrew (ed.), The Reformation World. Abingdon: Routledge Press, 2000.