REVIEWS:
“Joe Bergin has built his reputation as the world’s leading authority on the early modern French church … He knows the church of the grand siècle from the inside, and in analyzing its structure and workings he has attained the stature … of a great historian.  …This should now be the first port of call for anybody wishing to understand why and how this persistently perplexing phenomenon emerged as and when it did.”
-William Doyle, French History

“[Bergin’s] new work Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580-1730 is a monumental study that only a scholar with his past achievements could contemplate undertaking … A focused and readable survey.  There is no question that this book is an important and welcome addition to the field … This book is more than just a survey, it also provides a guide to where further research will transform our understanding of the French Church.”
–Eric Nelson, Reviews in History

 “The accessibility of a work of such scope makes it worth the the cover price alone.  Moreover, in its crucial contributions to historical methodologies which force us to rethink a French “Catholic Reformation” which had fizzled out by 1660, makes this book an essential text for students and academics alike.”
–Jenny Hillman, Journal of Early Modern History

 

DESCRIPTION:
This wide-ranging and authoritative book is the first to fully synthesize the French experience of religious change in the period stretching between the Reformation and the early Enlightenment. The traumatic experiences of the wars of religion and the continuing challenge of Protestantism, made France an unusually potent site for significant religious upheavals and developments. The country was a crucible for theological doctrines and inventive practitioners, which generated considerable conflict but also stimulated religious reform and innovation. The dynamism of the French version of the Catholic Reformation surpassed anything elsewhere in Europe.Vividly rendering the religious history of France through its social, institutional and cultural contexts, Joseph Bergin explores the different agents, instruments and techniques employed to engineer religious transformations. Through a comprehensive examination of a huge volume of didactic religious literature, he shows how new religious ideas and practices were disseminated across French society in the hopes of shaping a new kind of devout Catholic. Assured, nuanced, and ground-breaking, this book illuminates the continually developing interaction between church and society in France, and uncovers the religiosity of the seventeenth century.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
Joseph Bergin is Professor of History at Manchester University, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His previous books include The Rise of Richelieu, Cardinal Richelieu, and Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, all published by Yale University Press.

SUBJECT CLASSIFICATIONS:
Christianity
History of religion
European history: c 1500 to c 1750

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Illustrations: Illustrations
Number of Pages: 506
Dewey: 282.4409031