In this fascinating collection

Auke Jelsma explores the byways and outer reaches of the Reformation: groups and individuals who, in an age of confessional strife, eschewed the certainties of the established churches and sought religious truth in unconventional ways and across confessional boundaries. The author, one of the most distinguished Dutch Church historians of his generation, casts a humane and sympathetic light on forms of belief that in their own day attracted censure from the orthodox of both sides, and have been little considered in subsequent general treatments of the Reformation.

Subjects include the Congregation of Windesheim and its influence on Protestantism; the role of women in the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster; the Devil in Protestantism; the Protestant attack on popular culture; marriage and the family; the sixteenth-century reception of St John of the Cross and Protestant spirituality.