Honor Your Fathers: Catechisms and the Emergence of a Patriarchal Ideology in Germany, 1400-1600

Download or read book Honor Your Fathers: Catechisms and the Emergence of a Patriarchal Ideology in Germany, 1400-1600 written by Robert J. Bast and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-11 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a fresh perspective on the patriarchal ideology of reform in early modern Germany by revealing its roots in a pan-European catechetical program that had endured a cyclical process of growth and decline since the twelfth century, with each new phase sparked by crises in Church and society. Based on sermons, reform ordinances, devotional treatises and especially catechisms, the book explores the programs developed by reformers and codified in works of religious indoctrination designed to fashion godly fathers (real and metaphorical) in home, church, and body politic. The chief product of this program, argues the author, was an ethos of social discipline that permeated the institutions of each major confession, with government gradually empowered to reach more deeply than ever before into the lives of its subjects.