Religious Toleration and Social Change in Hamburg, 1529-1819

A study of the way in which ideas of toleration were received and gradually implemented.

The emergence of religious toleration was one of the main features of the development of Western society after the Reformation. While previous research has concentrated largely on ideas of toleration, this study of the Lutheran Imperial City of Hamburg analyses the way in which those ideas were received and gradually implemented. Hamburg was one of the most dynamic mercantile centres of early modern Europe. It attracted substantial numbers of Catholics, Calvinists and Jews. Dr Whaley examines the factors, which influenced the often uneasy relationship with the Lutheran majority. He illuminates the interaction between religion, politics and social change, and shows the impact of international movements and German Imperial legislation on local controversies. An analysis of the major religious and secular festivities, like the centenaries of the Reformation, illuminates those deep-rooted political and ideological factors which cancelled out the obvious economic and humanitarian arguments in favour of open toleration.

Preface; Abbreviations; illustrations; Introduction; 1. The struggle for political stability and purity of belief: Hamburg from Reformation to French Revolution; 2. The politics of toleration: the catholic community; 3. The limits of toleration: Sephardim and Ashkenazim; 4. The growth of toleration: the calvinist communities; 5. Patriotism versus Orthodoxy: the struggle for limited religious freedom, 1760–85; 6. The image of the city: the search for a tolerant society in early modern Hamburg; 7. The aftermath; Bibliography; Index.

This study of the Lutheran Imperial City of Hamburg throws new light on the history of religious toleration. It reveals the relationship between high theoretical principles and practical problems of society and politics in Germany in the three centuries after the Reformation.