Christianity and European Society, 1400-1700

Catalog description

For over a thousand years, the Christian religion has helped shape western thoughts, emotions, and actions; and because of Europe’s imperial conquests, Christianity’s impact has also extended to other societies around the world. Today, about 30 percent of the world’s population identify as Christians, and Christian ideas and imagery shape the outlook of many non-believers as well. Understanding Christianity– its belief systems, practices, and indirect impact– matters for understanding the world we live in today. This course explores a critical time in the long history of Christianity, the three centuries after about 1450. During this period, Christians across Europe redefined their beliefs, and they sought to remake their institutions and even their daily lives so as to conform to their new ideas. We’ll ask what it meant to be a Christian in these years and how that meaning changed; and we’ll examine what caused these transformations and what effects they had on politics, economic life, and social relations.