Social Forces in the German Reformation

Abstract

The period of the Reformation touches the interests of most people in one way or another and consequently receives attention from historians with a great variety of interests, running the gamut from dialectic materialism to theology. Much of this concern stems from our preoccupation with the strong revival of religion subsequent to the first World War and evinced in neo-scholasticism, Barthian evangelicalism, neo-orthodoxy, the Luther renaissance, the ecumenical movement, and similar manifestations, on the one hand, and our great concern with the widespread social tensions and revolutions which are springing up in all parts of the world and are keeping us poised on the brink of another world war.

Is there a social history of the reformation?

“…He points to the role of the putting-out system in depriving the middling and poorer artisan of his economic independence and control over the means of production, so creating a distinct lower middle class within the towns. 35 For the countryside, Blickle and Sabean have indicated the lines along which investigation of the social effects of economic changes might be carried out (2, 8), but a major point of contention is still how capitalist developments may have influenced the countryside at large. Here we must look more closely at the involvement of the feudal nobility in capitalist investment, and at the effects of a money-goods relationship intruding into the rural economy.…”