A Linking of Heaven and Earth

Carlos M.N. Eire's deeply innovative publications have helped to shape new fields of study of the Reformation, intertwining social, intellectual, cultural, and religious history to reveal how, lived beliefs had real and profound implications for social and political life in early modern Europe. Reflecting these themes, this volume celebrates the intellectual legacy of Carlos Eire's scholarship, applying his distinctive combination of cultural and religious history to new areas and topics.

The Reformation of the sixteenth century shattered the unity of medieval Christendom, and the resulting fissures spread to the corners of the earth. No scholar of the period has done more than Carlos M.N. Eire, however, to document how much these ruptures implicated otherworldly spheres as well. His deeply innovative publications helped shape new fields of study, intertwining social, intellectual, cultural, and religious history to reveal how, lived beliefs had real and profound implications for social and political life in early modern Europe. Reflecting these themes, the volume celebrates the intellectual legacy of Carlos Eire's scholarship, applying his distinctive combination of cultural and religious history to new areas and topics. In so doing it underlines the extent to which the relationship between the natural and the supernatural in the early modern world was dynamic, contentious, and always urgent. Organized around three sections - 'Connecting the Natural and the Supernatural', 'Bodies in Motion: Mind, Soul, and Death' and 'Living One's Faith' - the essays are bound together by the example of Eire's scholarship, ensuring a coherence of approach that makes the book crucial reading for scholars of the Reformation, Christianity and early modern cultural history.

'... the quality of the essays collected in this volume is high.... scholars will undoubtedly find these essays rewarding.... makes for fascinating reading, and would appeal to anyone interested in Eire's scholarship.' Renaissance & Reformation '... a lightness of touch, imagination, and the most rigorous scholarship. [Eire] is a unique historian, willing and able successfully to counter the assumptions of modern Western academia about the meaning of religion, the body, and of history itself, and should be studied by anyone hoping to understand any aspect of the early modern period.' Sixteenth Century Journal

Autorentext

Emily Michelson, University of St Andrews, UK, Scott Taylor, Siena College, USA, and Mary Noll Venables, independent scholar, Ireland.

Klappentext

Carlos M.N. Eire's deeply innovative publications have helped to shape new fields of study of the Reformation, intertwining social, intellectual, cultural, and religious history to reveal how, lived beliefs had real and profound implications for social and political life in early modern Europe. Reflecting these themes, this volume celebrates the intellectual legacy of Carlos Eire's scholarship, applying his distinctive combination of cultural and religious history to new areas and topics.

Inhalt

Contents: Introduction, Emily Michelson, Scott K. Taylor, and Mary Noll Venables; Part I Exploring Boundaries: 'When Heaven hovered close to Earth': images and miracles in early modern Spain, Alison Weber; An Italian explains the English Reformation (with God's help), Emily Michelson; The Gadarene demoniac in the English Enlightenment, H.C. Erik Midelfort; Miracles: an inconvenient truth, David D'Andrea. Part II Living One's Faith: Principalities, powers, and Philosophia Christi: Erasmus on spiritual warfare, Darren Provost; Teresa of Avila: woman with a mission, Jodi Bilinkoff; Responding to God's anger: Sigismund Evenius and the siege of Magdeburg (1631), Mary Noll Venables; Telling the truth about vocation: the death notices of the Visitandines in Brussels, 1683-1714, Ping-Yuan Wang. Part III The Physicality of Spirituality: Pueblo to Señor: intercession in 16th-century Spain, William A. Christian Jr; 'In my Father's house there are many mansions': Heinrich Bullinger on death and the afterlife, Bruce Gordon; Peyote, ever virgin: a case of religious hybridism in Mexico, Martin Nesvig; 'A miserable captivity' or 'happily redeemed from captivity to liberty': tobacco addiction and early modern bodies and minds, Scott K. Taylor; 'He flew': a concluding reflection on the place of eternity and the supernatural in the scholarship of Carlos M.N. Eire, Ronald K. Rittgers; Bibliography; Index.