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    STUDIA HISTORIA - Issue no. 1-2 / 2008  
         
  Article:   THE CONCEPT OF “CONFESSIONALIZATION”. A DEBATE ON THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL PARADIGM.

Authors:  UTE LOTZ-HEUMANN. 		 
       
         
  Abstract:  The Concept of “Confessionalization”. A Debate on the Historiographical Paradigm. Since the year 1980, the concept of “confessionalization” has been one of the main interpretative categories for the historiography on early modern Germany. The present paper seeks, first and foremost, to explain the paradigm of confessionalization, as formulated by Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling in the late 1970s and in the early 1980s. A second part is devoted to the objections to the concept, divided into four categories: macro-historic criticism, the discussion on the stages in the confessionalization process, the controversy surrounding the issue of theological truth within the process of confessionalization, and finally the critique of the so-called “etatistic narrowing,” namely, the top-to-bottom approach to the concept of confessionalization. In this context, we can say that in recent years the paradigm of confessionalization has become a much debated topic within the tense confrontation between micro- and macro-history. It can be expected that, in future, the shift in the interests of historiography and the new attention given to micro-history, to the history of daily life, as well as the new cultural history would lead to an increase in the number of studies regarding the impact of confessionalization upon the life and the identity of the common people.

Keywords: Confessionalization, Historiography, Reformation, Germany, Early Modern Epoch
  
         
     
         
         
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