Third volume in the series Dynamics of Religious Reform

Piety and Modernity examines the dynamics of religious reform from the point of view of piety and devotional life between 1780 and 1920 in Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Germany, and the Low Countries.

The 'long' nineteenth century saw the introduction of devotional organizations as a means of channeling popular religion. This era also witnessed the translation and publication of devotional books, journals, and pamphlets on a massive sc...

The construction of gender in Belgian Catholicism.

Although women were called the 'pious sex' much earlier, it was during the nineteenth century, when the differences between men and women were being made more explicit, that an intense bond between women and religion was developed. Religiosity was thought to be a 'natural' part of femininity and turned religious masculinity into an oddity. This clear-cut gender ideology, however, remains an ideology (prescribed and contested) that needs to be...

Strategies and characteristics of scournful criticism and fierce debate in the Humanist tradition

Renaissance humanists were often engaged in a wide variety of polemics, ranging from matter-of-fact debate to scathing invective. The programmatic nature of Renaissance humanism, intent on a fundamental reform of language, education, and society at large, led the humanists almost inevitably to conflicts with those who represented other intellectual traditions, first and foremost the Scholastics. ...