Calvinism in Transnational Perspective

While engaged in my archival investigations of the Huguenot minority under the regime of the Edict of Nantes, I also researched and wrote a large synthetic history of the Reformed tradition in Europe from its origins to 1700: Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002; paperback edition 2004). The book was awarded the Philip Schaff Prize of the American Society for Church History and the Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Prize of the Renaissance Society of America. Since Reformed churches took shape from Scotland to Transylvania, working on this book necessarily meant adopting a transnational perspective, tracing the movement of ideas, books, and people across borders, and comparing the course and outcome of the Reformed Reformation in different national contexts. Comparisons between national situations and the ways in which the impact of Calvin’s ideas differed across time and space have been central concerns ever since of conferences I have co-organized and essays I have written.

Related Publications

“The Historiography of Continental Calvinism” in H. Lehmann and G. Roth, eds. Weber’s Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 305-326.

“Calvinism as a Culture? Preliminary Remarks on Calvinism and the Visual Arts” in P.C. Finney, ed. Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), p. 19-47

“Introduction” in P. Benedict, G. Marnef, H. van Nierop and M. Venard eds., Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in France and the Netherlands (Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1999), p. 1-22.

“Some Uses of Autobiographical Documents in the Reformed Tradition” in K. von Greyerz, H. Medick and P. Veit eds., Von der dargestellten Person zum erinnerten Ich: Europäische Selbstzeugnisse als historische Quellen (1500-1850) (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2001), p. 355-368.

Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002; paperback edition 2004).

“Max Weber on Calvinism, Society, and the State: A Critical Appraisal in Light of Recent Historical Research” in H. Lehmann and J.M. Ouédraogo eds. Max Webers Religions-soziologie in interkultureller Perspektive (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2003).

(With Silvana Seidel Menchi and Alain Tallon), “Introduction” in P. Benedict, S. Seidel Menchi and A. Tallon eds., La Réforme en France et en Italie. Contacts, comparaisons et contrastes (Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2013), p. 1-15.

“Elites and Reform in France and Italy” in P. Benedict, S. Seidel Menchi and A. Tallon eds., La Réforme en France et en Italie. Contacts, comparaisons et contrastes (Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2013), p. 351-359.

“Concluding Remarks: Calvinist Republics? The Beggars in the Bonnes Villes of Flanders and Brabant” in Monique Weis ed., Des villes en révolte. Les ‘Républiques urbaines’ aux Pays-Bas et en France pendant la deuxième moitié du XVIe siècle, Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800) 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), p. 89-96.

(Co-authored with Irena Backus), “Introduction” in Calvin and His Influence, 1509-2009 (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 1-32.

“Prédication et vie religieuse dans les armées des Réformés à l’époque des guerres de religion, 1529-1660” in Gianclaudio Civale ed., Predicazione, eserciti et violenza armata nell’Europa delle guerre di religione, Collana della Società di Studi Valdesi 34 (Turin: Claudiana, 2014), p. 10-27.

“Calvinism and the Making of the Modern European Economic Mind: A Comment and Call for More Research” in Gijsbert van den Brink and Harro M. Höpfl eds., Calvinism and the Making of the European Mind (Leiden: Brill, 2014), p. 199-209.

“Global? Have We Even Gotten Transnational Yet?,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 108 (2017), 52-62.

“Of Church Orders and Postmodernism: The Convent of Wesel, the Construction of the Dutch Reformed Church Order, and the History and Nature of History,” BMGN–Low Countries Historical Review 136 (2021), 59-77.

“Of Handbooks, Companions, and Essay Collections: Recent Multi-Authored Volumes on Calvin and Calvinism, the Genevan Reformation, and Global Protestantism,” Church History 93 (2024), 126-140.

“Aux origines du système ecclésiastique réformé: modèles, fondements et influence” in La France huguenote. Histoire institutionnelle d’une minorité religieuse (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) eds. Philippe Chareyre and Hugues Daussy (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2024), 19-38.