Shapers of Religious Traditions in Germany, Switzerland, and Poland, 1560-1600

xx, 224 pp. Reformation studies have been distorted for a long time by excessive concentration on the movement's founders, Luther and Calvin. Their charismatic personalities, their dramatic careers, their mastery of vernacular prose, the availability of their works in full editions and translations--all tempt the scholar to dwell upon them and go no further. But we must go further if we are ever to have a full and balanced study of the movements they launched. We must also consider the dozens of lieutenants who developed, modified, and applied their ideas. We must consider the thousands of leaders, both lay and clerical, who passed the new message on to the laity. We must consider the millions whose ideas and behavior were influenced so profoundly by the sixteenth-century reforms of religion, whether contained within the traditional structure of the Roman Catholic Church or within the new structures of Evangelical, Reformed, and Radical churches. - From the Foreward by Robert M. Kingdon.