Ritual, Gender, and Emotions

This volume presents important essays by Susan C. Karant-Nunn for the first time in collected form. The essays deal with the social and cultural change triggered by the Reformation and investigate its influence on gender relations, rituals, and emotions. Often in critical dialogue with sociological and anthropological theories, but at the same time very close to the sources, the author analyses how the religious change of the Reformation was implemented in practice, what problems arose in the process, and how the diverse early modern living environments changed as a result of the Reformation.Matthias Pohlig: Preface − Susan C. Karant-Nunn: Introduction

I. Social and Cultural History of the Reformation
What Was Preached in German Cities in the Early Years of the Reformation?: Wildwuchs Versus Lutheran Unity − Preaching the Word in Early Modern Germany − Neoclericalism and Anticlericalism in Saxony, 1555-1675 − Patterns of Religious Practice: Nontheological Features − Popular Culture as Religious Dissent in the Post-Reformation Era − Confessional Ambiguity along Borders: Popular Contributions to Religious Tolerance in Sixteenth-Century Germany − 'Sing unto the Lord': An Anthropology of Singing and Not-Singing in the Late Reformation Era

II. Ritual and Reformation
Ritual in Early Modern Christianity − Liturgical Rites: The Medium, the Message, the Messenger, and the Misunderstanding −'They Have Highly Offended the Community of God': Rituals of Ecclesiastical Discipline and Pastoral Membership in the Community in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century German Parishes −Babies, Baptism, Bodies, Burials, and Bliss: Ghost Stories and Their Rejection in the Late Sixteenth Century −A Women's Rite. Churching and the Reformation of Ritual

III. Gender Relations and the Reformation
Kinder, Küche, Kirche : Social Ideology in the Sermons of Johannes Mathesius −Reformation Society, Women and the Family − The Emergence of the Pastoral Family in the German Reformation: The Parsonage as a Site of Socio-religious Change −'Fragrant Wedding Roses': Lutheran Wedding Sermons and Gender Definition in Early Modern Germany

IV. Emotions
'With Covered Faces': Emotion Rituals in Early Modern Germany − Postscript on the Religious Emotions in the Late- and Post-Reformation Era: Path Dependence and Innovation