The Protestant Clergy of Early Modern Europe provides a comprehensive survey of the Protestant clergy in Europe during the confessional age. Eight contributions, written by historians with specialist research knowledge in the field, offer the reader a wide-ranging synthesis of the main concerns of current historiography. Themes include the origins and the evolution of the Protestant clergy during the age of Reformation, the role and function of the clergy in the context of early modern history, and the contribution of the clergy to the developments of the age (the making of confessions, education, the reform of culture, social and political thought).

Preface Notes on Contributors Introduction; C.Scott Dixon & L.Schorn-Schütte Before the Protestant Clergy: The Construction and Deconstruction of Medieval Priesthood; R.N.Swanson The Making of the Protestant Pastor: The Theological Foundations of a Clerical Estate; R.E.McLaughlin The Emergence of the Pastoral Family in the German Reformation: The Parsonage as a Site of Socio-religious Change; S.C.Karant-Nunn The Clergyman between the Cultures of State and Parish: Contestation and Compromise in Reformation Saxony; J.Goodale The Clergy and the Theological Culture of the Age: The Education of Lutheran Pastors in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; T.Kaufmann The Protestant Ministry and the Cultures of Rule: The Reformed Zürich Clergy of the Sixteenth Century; B.Gordon Teaching the Reformation: The Clergy as Preachers, Catechists, Authors and Teachers; I.Green The French Pastorate: Confessional Identity and Confessionalization in the Huguenot Minority, 1559-1685; M.Greengrass Index