This thesis investigates religious life in Glasgow, Scotland in the sixteenth century. As the first full length study of the town’s Christian community in this period, this thesis makes use of the extant Church documents to examine how Glaswegians experienced Christianity during the century in which religious change was experienced by many communities in Western Europe. This project includes research from both before and after 1560, the year of the Reformation Parliament in Scotland, and therefore eschews traditional divisions used in studies of this kind that tend to view 1560 as a major rupture for Scotland’s religious community. Instead, this study reveals the complex relationships between continuity and change in Glasgow, showing a vibrant Christian community in the early part of the century and a changed but similarly vibrant community at the century’s end. This project attempts to understand Glasgow’s religious community holistically. It investigates the institutional structures of the Church through its priests and bishops as well as the popular devotions of its parishioners. It includes examinations of the sacraments, Church discipline, excommunication and religious ritual, among other Christian phenomena. The dissertation follows many of these elements from their medieval Catholic roots through to their Reformed Protestant derivations in the latter part of the century, showing considerable links between the traditions. This thesis argues that although considerable change occurred through the establishment of a Presbyterian Church polity and the enforcement of new conceptions of Church discipline, many elements of popular devotion remained stable throughout the period. The research in this project challenges many of the traditional narratives of Scottish Reformation historiography. It disputes notions of the decay of the Church in the years previous to the Reformation parliament, and it questions the speed with which the goals of the Reformation were achieved in the town. It also challenges traditional interpretations of the martyrdom of John Ogilvie, a Jesuit executed in the town in 1615. In this way, the dissertation offers an alternative approach to the period that could be applied to research done on other Scottish or European towns.

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This study examines Reformed identity as an aspect of religious identity formation during the early Reformation period. It contributes towards an understanding of the character of the English Reformation by examining the reception of Swiss theology. The research is principally focussed upon the theological concept of covenant which blossomed in a distinctively bilateral and conditional form in early Reformation Switzerland. Patterns of thought discerned in English theology are related to this Swiss pattern, thereby assisting the process of identifying individual reformers according to continental models and elucidating an important theological development of the period. The concept of covenant had implications for contemporary discourses regarding the doctrines of justification and sanctification. It also made an impact upon sacramental theology in the way that sacraments were viewed as covenant signs. Despite the essential uniformity of the Swiss Reformed concept of covenant, three distinct emphases arose in Swiss Reformed sacramental theology with regard to the efficacy of the sacraments as means of grace. Having identified cases of English reception of the Swiss concept of covenant, their specific influences are determined using patterns of sacramental theology. Chapter one considers the problems involved in discerning different forms of religious identity in this period. Evidence for Reformed identity in England from the 1520s to the 1550s is surveyed from various different angles. The transmission of Swiss ideas through the Low Countries is considered, and alternative explanations for the failure of English Lutheranism are evaluated, particularly Lollardy and humanism. Chapter two demonstrates the essential consistency of the concepts of covenant espoused by leading Swiss reformers. Chapter three examines the concepts of covenant of four English reformers. Chapter four highlights different patterns in Swiss sacramental theology, and chapter five analyses English cases in light of those Swiss models.

Cette recherche se penche sur l’oeuvre polémique du réformateur Jean Calvin et plus particulièrement sur le corpus d’opuscules qu’il publie entre 1531 et 1564, pour prendre position sur la scène théologique. À partir de l’analyse historique de ces prises de plume, la thèse s’attache à éclairer le fonctionnement du dispositif polémique, à souligner les spécificités et l’évolution de la guerre des mots au XVIe siècle et à mettre au jour des normes discursives, des pratiques d’écriture et des habitudes de lecture caractéristiques de la période renaissante. Postulant l’existence d’un jeu polémique, fait de contraintes sociales mais aussi de choix individuels, cette étude cherche, dans le même temps, à comprendre les conditions de l’engagement de Calvin, en analysant les configurations qui président à chaque intervention publique et les motivations qu’elles traduisent. Pour conduire cette analyse d’histoire du discours, l’étude se concentre sur les jeux de posture du polémiste Calvin, c’est-à-dire sur les modalités de la présentation de soi et la fabrique d’une légitimité. Comment des stratégies auctoriales et éditoriales sont-elles ainsi élaborées, pour circonscrire un public de lecteurs et porter un message efficace ? Que dénotent-elles du positionnement du polémiste sur la scène religieuse des années 1530-1560 ? C’est une conversion dans l’ordre de l’èthos, un glissement de l’autorité des Lettres au ministère de la Parole, que le corpus polémique invite à suivre. / This research examines the controversial work of the reformer John Calvin. It particularly investigates the corpus of pamphlets he published between 1531 and 1564 in order to take a stance on the theological stage. Based first on a historical analysis of these pamphlets, the thesis seeks to elucidate how the controversy operated, to highlight the features and the evolution of the war of words in the sixteenth century, and to shed light on discursive norms, writing processes and reading habits of the Renaissance period. Firmly claiming the existence of a controversy, one that is constructed by social constraints but by individual choices as well, this study also analyses the specific qualities of Calvin’s undertaking by interpreting the salient patterns in his public interventions and the motives behind them. In this historical analysis of discourse, the study focuses on the polemical postures of Calvin, that is to say the manner in which he presents himself and creates his legitimacy. How did Calvin devise authorial and editorial strategies in order to circumscribe an audience of readers and convey an effective message ? What did these choices reveal about the polemicist’s positioning on the religious stage from the 1530’s to the 1560’s ? Analysing this polemical corpus enables one to witness a conversion in the order of ethos, a shift of authority from Letters to the Ministry of Word.

This study examines the role of the Austin Friars in pre-Reformation English society, as distinct both from the Austin Friars of Europe and from other English mendicant orders. By examining how the Austins formulated their origins story in a distinctly English context, this thesis argues that the hagiographical writings of the Austin Friars regarding Augustine of Hippo, whom they claimed as their putative founder, had profound consequences for their religious platform. As their definition of Augustine's religious life was less restrictive than that of the European Austin Friars and did not look to a recent, charismatic leader, such as Dominic or Francis, the English Austin Friars developed a religious adaptability visible in their pastoral, theological, and secular activity. This flexibility contributed to their durability by allowing them to adapt to religious needs as they arose rather than being constrained to what had been validated by their heritage. The behaviour of these friars can be characterised foremost by their ceaseless advancement of the interests of their own order through their creation of a network of influence and the manoeuvring of their confrères into socially and economically expedient positions. Given the propensity of the Austin Friars towards reform, this study seeks to understand its place within and interaction with English society, both religious and secular, in an effort to reconstruct the religious culture of this order. It therefore investigates their interaction with the laity and patronage, with heresy and reform, and with secular powers. It emphasises, above all, the distinctiveness of the English Austin Friars both from other mendicant orders and from the European Austin Friars, whose rigid interpretations of the religious example of Augustine led them to a strict demarcation of the Augustinian life as eremitical in nature and to hostile relations with the Augustinian Canons. Ultimately, this thesis interrogates the significance of being an Austin Friar in fifteenth- or sixteenth-century England and their role in the religious landscape, exploring the exceptional variability to their behaviour and their ability to take on accepted forms of behaviour.

When Martin Luther supposedly nailed his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, the small town had only a single printing press. By the end of the century, Wittenberg had published more books than any other city in the Holy Roman Empire. Of the leading print centres in early modern Europe, Wittenberg was the only one that was not a major centre of trade, politics, or culture. This thesis examines the rise of the Wittenberg printing industry and analyses how it overtook the Empire's leading print centres. Luther's controversy—and the publications it produced—attracted printers to Wittenberg who would publish tract after tract. In only a few years, Luther became the most published author since the invention of the printing press. This thesis investigates the workshops of the four leading printers in Wittenberg during Luther's lifetime: Nickel Schirlentz, Josef Klug, Hans Lufft, and Georg Rhau. Together, these printers conquered the German print world. They were helped with the assistance of the famous Renaissance artist, Lucas Cranach the Elder, who lived in Wittenberg as court painter to the Elector of Saxony. His woodcut title page borders decorated the covers of Luther's books and were copied throughout the Empire. Capitalising off the demand for Wittenberg books, many printers falsely printed that their books were from Wittenberg. Such fraud played a major role in the Reformation book trade, as printers in every major print centre made counterfeits of Wittenberg books. However, Reformation pamphlets were not the sole reason for Wittenberg's success. Such items played only a marginal role in the local industry. It was the great Luther Bibles, spurred by Luther's emphasis on Bible reading, that allowed Wittenberg's printers to overcome the odds and become the largest print centre in early modern Germany.

In broad terms, this thesis is a study of what Protestant theologians in early modern England taught regarding the interdependence between physical health and spirituality. More precisely, it examines the specific and complex doctrines taught regarding health-related issues in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and evaluates the consistency of these messages over time. A component of the controversial Protestant-science hypothesis introduced in the early twentieth century is that advancements in science were driven by the Protestant ethic of needing to control nature and every aspect therein. This thesis challenges this notion. Within the context of health, sickness and death, the doctrine of providence evident in Protestant soteriology emphasised complete submission to God's sovereign will. Rather, this overriding doctrine negated the need to assume any control. Moreover, this thesis affirms that the directives theologians delivered governing physical health remained consistent across this span, despite radical changes taking place in medicine during the same period. This consistency shows the stability and strength of this message. Each chapter offers a comprehensive analysis on what Protestant theologians taught regarding the health of the body as well as the soul. The inclusion of more than one hundred seventy sermons and religious treatises by as many as one hundred twenty different authors spanning more than two hundred years laid a fertile groundwork for this study. The result of this work provides an extensive survey of theological teachings from these religious writers over a large span of time.