• Law and the Protestant Reformation

    Author(s):
    John Witte, Jr. (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Subject(s):
    Church history, Law, Protestantism, Religion
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Christianity and Law, Church and State, Law and Religion, Political Theology, Protestant Reformation
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/qkb3-yr57
    Abstract:
    The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation revolutionized not only theology and the church, but also law and the state. This northern European reform movement, though divided into Lutheran, Anabaptist, Anglican, and Calvinist branches, collectively broke the international rule of the medieval Catholic Church and its canon law, and permanently splintered Western Christendom into competing nations and regions. The Reformation also triggered a massive shift of power, property, and prerogative from the church to the state. Protestant states now assumed jurisdiction over numerous subjects and persons previously governed by the medieval church, and they gave new legal form to Protestant teachings. But these new Protestant laws also drew heavily on the medieval ius commune as well as on earlier biblical and Roman jurisprudence. This chapter analyses the new legal syntheses that emerged in Protestant lands, with attention to the new laws of church-state relations, religious and civil freedom, marriage and family law, education law, social welfare law, and accompanying changes in legal and political philosophy.
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    Oxford University Press
    Pub. Date:
    2018
    Book Title:
    The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History
    Author/Editor:
    Heikki Pihlajamäki, Markus Dubber, and Mark Godfrey
    Page Range:
    583 - 610
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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