English Works on Switzerland

Hooper, Nicholas, and Matthew Bennett. The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare. Vol. 1, The Middle Ages, 768–1487. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Although only one chapter of this atlas deals with the period covered in this entry, those forty pages provide a substantial number of well-drawn and useful maps as well as a concise narrative summary of the Hundred Years’ War, the Hussite Wars, the Wars of the Roses, the Burgundian-Swiss War of 1465–1477, and other conflicts.
Winkler, Albert L. “The Swiss and War: The Impact of Society on the Swiss Military in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1982. The Swiss wars of the late Middle Ages ultimately had great influence on the Renaissance-Reformation art of war, but the secondary literature on the subject, especially in English, is limited. Winkler’s dissertation is solidly researched in the printed primary sources and in the German-language historiography. Aims mainly to address “war and society” issues but also contains a good deal of traditional military history.
Spruyt, Bart Jan. Cornelius Henrici Hoen (Honius) and His Epistle on the Eucharist (1525): Medieval Heresy, Erasmian Humanism, and Reform in the Early Sixteenth-Century Low Countries. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006. Examines the humanist, medieval, and popular origins of Hoen’s arguments against Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, as well as their influence on Swiss and German reformers.
de Beatis, Antonio. The Travel Diary of Antonio de Beatis through Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, France, and Italy 1517–18. Translated by J. R. Hale and J. M. A. Lindon. Edited by J. R. Hale. London: Hakluyt Society, 1979. When Antonio de Beatis accompanied Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona on his European tour, they approached France from the Low Countries and sought a Channel crossing from Calais but were dissuaded by news of the sweating sickness in England. In France the cardinal met Francis I and encountered Italian exiles. His chaplain took particular care to record the history of Mont Saint-Michel and the contents of the Royal Library at Blois.
Naphy, William G. Plagues, Poisons, and Potions: Plague-Spreading Conspiracies in the Western Alps c. 1530–1640. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002. Examines judicial records and town minutes at Geneva during plagues of the 16th and 17th centuries; argues that a small and interrelated community of health professionals, principally the cleaners, were responsible for spreading plague from self-interest.
Pagel, Walter. Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. 2d ed. Basel, Switzerland: Karger, 1982. A comprehensive study of Paracelsus’s ideas.
Pagel, Walter. From Paracelsus to Van Helmont: Studies in Renaissance Medicine and Science. Edited by Marianne Winder. London: Variorum, 1986. A collection of essays by Pagel on various topics related to Paracelsus, chemical medicine, and concepts of disease. Includes several essays on Harvey.
Webster, Charles. Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. The definitive biography of Paracelsus, drawing on extensive manuscript research alongside printed works.
Palmer, Robert. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1769–1800. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959–1964. Robert Palmer argues that the French Revolution was part of a movement that spread over the urbanized areas of western Europe and North America. He discusses how democratic movements across Europe held common views but also adapted their programs to the situation within each country and to the problems particular to each country. As such, the book offers one of the major statements in opposition to the view that revolution in western Europe was imposed by France.
Vaughan, Richard. Valois Burgundy. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1975. Chapter 7, “Military Power,” is an excellent summary of the military structures of the Burgundian duchy and state, by the author of a series of biographies of the Valois dukes of Burgundy (1364–1477).
Winkler, Albert L. “The Swiss and War: The Impact of Society on the Swiss Military in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1982. The Swiss wars of the late Middle Ages ultimately had great influence on the Renaissance-Reformation art of war, but the secondary literature on the subject, especially in English, is limited. Winkler’s dissertation is solidly researched in the printed primary sources and in the German-language historiography. Aims mainly to address “war and society” issues but also contains a good deal of traditional military history.
Baur, Alex. “Chilean Exiles Return.” Swiss Review of World Affairs 7 (July 1994): 10–14. Baur structures his work around a narrative relating the tales of multiple Chilean exiles who fled to Switzerland. These stories detail the issues confronted by exiles upon their return—predominantly financial instability and tensions with those who stayed. Baur further chronicles the changes wrought in the exiles during their time abroad. Overall, the author offers a compelling, if largely anecdotal, analysis of problems facing returnees.
Baylor, Michael G., ed. and trans. The Radical Reformation. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought Series. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991. English translation of thirteen major German and Swiss political writings from the radical reformation during the years 1521 to 1527.
Calvin, Jean. On God and Political Duty. 2d ed. Edited and translated by John McNeill. Library of Liberal Arts 23. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1956. A selection and English translation of Calvin’s political writings.
Kingdon, Robert M., ed. The Political Thought of Peter Martyr Vermigli: Selected Texts and Commentary. Geneva, Switzerland: Librairie Droz, 1980. Texts and English translation of an Italian Augustinian who bridged Lutheran and Calvinist positions of obedience to secular authority.
Höpfl, Harro. The Christian Polity of John Calvin. Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics Series. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Major treatment of Calvin’s political theology by an established expert. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511571435
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Höpfl, Harro. Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991. A selection and English translation of Luther’s and Calvin’s writings on secular authority.
Head, Randolf. “Lordship, Authority, and Administration: the Exercise of Dominion in the Gemeine Herrschaften of the Swiss Confederation, 1417–1600.” Central European History 30 (1997): 489–512. Shows the conundrum of an anti-aristocratic Confederation that acted as overlord over the Gemeine Herrschaften (condominions) at their disposal. DOI: 10.1017/S0008938900015636
Kingdon, Robert M., ed. Transition and Revolution: Problems and Issues of European Renaissance and Reformation History. Minneapolis, MN: Burgess, 1974. Collects essays on the intersecting Renaissance and Reformation movements, mostly during the 16th century, with contributions by Kingdon himself, Eric C. Midelfort, and Elizabeth Eisenstein, raising questions about the radicalism of the Genevan Reformation, the existence of witches, and the impact of print technology that point to newer approaches ahead.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore. 2 vols. New York: Harper, 1958. Classic translation (1878) of the original 1860 German Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, frequently reprinted, and available online through Boise State University. The foundational statement of the modern conception of the Renaissance as an era of aggressive individualism and creativity in the political, social, and cultural realms.
Bonjour, Edgar. A Short History of Switzerland. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955. Still useful owing to the author’s particular expertise in international history and the history of foreign affairs, as well as the history of Swiss neutrality.
Harder, Leland, ed. Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents. Classics of the Radical Reformation 4. Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1985. This English translation of primary source material from Switzerland contains much of the correspondence of Konrad Grebel, one of the first Swiss Anabaptists, as well as related material.
Holenstein, André, Thomas Maissen, and Maarten Prak, eds. The Republican Alternative: The Netherlands and Switzerland Compared. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008. Fine articles comparing Swiss and Dutch republican practices in the early modern period, with attention to institutional, legal, and ideological dimensions. DOI: 10.5117/9789089640055
Mathieu, Jon. History of the Alps, 1500–1900: Environment, Development and Society. Morgantown: University of West Virginia Press, 2009. Magisterial synthesis setting the societies of Alpine Europe in their agrarian, demographic, social, and political contexts. Translated from Geschichte der Alpen (Vienna: Böhlau, 1998).
Pfister, Christian. “Weeping in the Snow: The Second Period Little Ice Age-Type Impacts, 1570–1630.” In Kulturelle Konsequenzen der “Kleinen Eiszeit.” Edited by Wolfgang Behringer, Hartmut Lehman, and Christian Pfister, 31–86. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005. An update and interpretation of the overall results reported in Pfister 1984.
Guggisberg, Hans R. Basel in the Sixteenth Century: Aspects of the City Republic before, during, and after the Reformation. St. Louis, MO: Center for Reformation Research, 1982. Collected essays on Basel politics, society, and religious practice
Monter, E. William. Calvin’s Geneva. Huntington, NY: Krieger, 1975. First published in 1967, this is a systematic social history of the city where Calvin settled and developed his ideas on ecclesiastical and civil governance.
Wandel, Lee Palmer. Always among Us: Images of the Poor in Zwingli’s Zurich. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990. A theoretically innovative investigation of the hermeneutics of poverty and “the poor” in Zwingli’s rhetoric and in the culture of early-16th-century Zurich.
Head, Randolph C. Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons: Social Order and Political Language in a Swiss Mountain Canton, 1470–1620. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Analyzes the political culture of rural communalism in the Grisons and its relation to the political languages of early modern Europe. A German translation was published in 2001. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523335
Groebner, Valentin. Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts: Presents and Politics at the End of the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Relying considerably on evidence from Switzerland, this methodologically innovative study combines hermeneutic and network methods in studying the political culture of gifts, rejecting both simplistic notions of “corruption” and the idealization of communal officers’ dedication to the common good of their cities. Translated from Gefährliche Geschenke: Ritual, Politik und die Sprache der Korruption in der Eidgenossenschaft im späten Mittelalter und am Beginn der frühen Neuzeit (Constance, Germany: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 2000).
Puff, Helmut. Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400–1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Using primarily Swiss sources, Puff investigates “sodomy” from 1400 to 1600 with legal, social, and literary approaches. Despite the crime’s “unspeakability,” early sodomy prosecutions sometimes ended without executions if the accused fit other gender expectations; however, rigorous prosecution increased over the 15th century, and sexual discourses became virulent in Reformation polemics.
Puff, Helmut. Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400–1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Situated in the social history of language, this study examines the late medieval prosecutions, the discourse on sodomy in pre-Reformation religious manuals and sermons (focuses on the metaphor of “unspeakable”), the 16th-century trials and the everyday sexual encounters that they reveal, the centrality of Sodom in Reformation polemic, and cases of defamation, slander, and insult.
Teuscher, Simon. Lord’s Rights and Peasant Stories: Writing and the Formation of Tradition in the Later Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Studies legal documents from Francophone and Germanophone Switzerland to reveal changing deployments of text in political processes. Embodying the “material turn” in documentary history, Teuscher’s study critiques current theories of progressive development from oral to literate cultures, and shows how new techniques of writing and keeping documents undergirded new forms of politics. Translated from Erzähltes Recht: Lokale Herrschaft, Verschriftlichung und Traditionsbilduing im Spätmittelalter (Frankfurt: Campus, 2007).
Gordon, Bruce. The Swiss Reformation. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002. The most accessible history of the early Reformation in German Switzerland in any language, avoiding the intense particularity of local developments. The narrative does not include Calvin’s work in Geneva and does not discuss the later Reformation period or confessional division in the Confederacy, nor does it take Catholic developments into account.
Blickle, Peter. Communal Reformation: The Quest for Salvation in Sixteenth-Century Germany. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992. Blickle sets the southern branch of the early Protestant movement—exemplified by Zwingli in Zurich—firmly in the context of the communal political culture and society of the region, and argues that the movement’s success depended on the communal orientation of the specific theological arguments found in Zwingli’s work. Translated from Gemeindereformation: Die Menschen des 16. Jahrhunderts auf dem Weg zum Heil (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1985).
Bruening, Michael. Calvinism’s First Battleground: Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Verlag, 2005. Bruening argues that the difficulties that Calvin faced in shaping the new church in the Vaud, neighboring Geneva but ruled by Zwinglian Bern, affected his approach to spreading the Reformed movement into France as well.
Campi, Emidio, and Bruce Gordon, eds. Architect of Reformation: An Introduction to Heinrich Bullinger, 1504–1575. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004. Articles from leading European and American Bullinger scholars, constituting the first fruit of the post-2000 “Bullinger revival.” Articles cover both Swiss and European aspects of Bullinger’s career as theological and political author as well as head of the Zurich church after 1531.
Kingdon, Robert. Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Kingdon is not simply interested in adultery and social discipline in this book: rather, his goal is to show how Calvin adapted and showed great flexibility and humanity as the institutions of the Calvinist church tradition were developing in Geneva after 1536.
Burnett, Amy Nelson. Teaching the Reformation: Ministers and Their Message in Basel, 1529–1629. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Systematic study of university teaching of theology in post-Reformation Basel, identifying major generational changes in the message, audience, and employment of university graduate clergymen.
Gordon, Bruce. Clerical Discipline and the Rural Reformation: The Synod in Zurich, 1532–1580. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 1992. A detailed study of rural Reformed clergy in eastern Switzerland, emphasizing the issues of discipline and confession-formation under the guidance of the Zurich synod and directed at the rural population subject to Zurich’s political control.
Hacke, Daniela. “Church, Space and Conflict: Religious Co-Existence and Political Communication in Seventeenth-Century Switzerland.” German History 25 (2007): 285–312. Hacke uses biconfessional churches in the Aargau to explore the communicative context of religious conflict in post-Reformation Switzerland as expressed by control over, occupation of, or intrusion into sacred spaces. DOI: 10.1177/0266355407079904
Head, Randolph C. “Fragmented Dominion, Fragmented Churches: The Institutionalization of the Landfrieden in the Thurgau, 1531–1630.” Archive for Reformation History 96 (2005): 117–144. Traces the evolution of ecclesiopolitical compromises and conflicts in the biconfessional Thurgau after 1531, arguing for a series of accommodations that generated new areas of conflict, but shaped by the legal and political context of a divided Confederacy.
Ehrstine, Glenn. Theater, Culture, and Community in Reformation Bern, 1523–1555. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002. Centered on the theatrical works of Nikolas Manuel Deutsch (see also Menz and Wagner 1979, cited under Visual Arts), this study traces changing theatrical responses to church reform before, during and after the 1520s in Bern.
Kavka, František. “Bohemia.” In The Reformation in National Context. Edited by Robert Scribner, Roy Porter, and Mikuláš Teich, 131–154. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. “Reformation” in this case refers to the Protestant, especially Lutheran Reformation, and how it impacted Bohemia. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511599569
Bower, Tom. Nazi Gold: The Full Story of the Fifty-Year Swiss-Nazi Conspiracy to Steal Billions from Europe’s Jews and Holocaust Survivors. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. A very detailed indictment that covers more issues than the ones listed in the title; based on Swiss, American, and British archives and with very extensive notes.
Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland, Second World War. Switzerland, National Socialism, and the Second World War: Final Report. Zurich, Switzerland: Pendo, 2002. This summary of numerous published reports covers many specific issues, including turning away Jewish refugees, accepting Nazis fleeing justice, Swiss banks stealing assets of murdered Jews, the Swiss government lending Germany money to buy war materials and finance espionage inside Switzerland, converting stolen gold to foreign exchange for Germany to critical materials from other neutrals, the utilization of slave labor by Swiss firms in Germany, and the transport of troops and material across the country to fight the Allies. The commission had special access to archives in government and bank records in Switzerland, even as banks were busy destroying relevant records.
Kreis, Georg, ed. Switzerland and the Second World War. London: Cass, 2000. This is an especially helpful book, because it contains information from specialists on many issues, including refugee policy, gold and fund transfers, military preparations, and air force incidents. Because of its wide coverage and the ability to take advantage of revelations in the preceding decade, this is an excellent place for students and scholars to begin their examination of the wider subject.
Wylie, Neville. Britain, Switzerland, and the Second World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. This book, although rather kind toward the Swiss, explains why Great Britain’s relations with Switzerland remained decent during World War II in spite of serious differences. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206903.001.0001
Clasen, Claus Peter. Anabaptism: A Social History, 1525–1618: Switzerland, Austria, Moravia, South and Central Germany. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972. A detailed study that parallels other sociohistorical works in examining the social and economic, as opposed to the exclusively theological or ecclesiastical, roots of Anabaptism. Clasen also examines the relationship between the state and the Anabaptists, and the persecutory consequences of the conflict between the two.
Stayer, James M.. Anabaptists and the Sword. Lawrence, KS: Coronado, 1972. One of the most thoroughly researched studies of 16th-century Anabaptists and their relationship to political power (and to the magisterial Protestants). The Swiss Brethren and upper German sects, as well as the Melchiorites, are examined, particularly with regard to their views on “taking the sword” (the “sword” being rule and authority in this world) or choosing nonresistant pacifism.
Coats, Catharine Randall. Embodying the Word: Textual Resurrections in the Martyrological Narratives of Foxe, Crespin, de Bèze and d’Aubigné. Renaissance and Baroque Studies and Texts 4. New York: Peter Lang, 1992. Coats provides a comparative analysis of martyrologies and analyzes the quality that made them distinctly “Protestant,” namely, their upholding and embodying the notion of the Gospel Word in their narratives.
Walzer, Michael. The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. A controversial though well-argued work, asserting that Calvinists—not only English nonconformists, but also their Genevan, Swiss, Dutch, and Scottish counterparts—aimed for radical social reconstruction in pursuit of political ideals, in the manner of the Jacobins or Bolsheviks, and in doing so contributed to a process of modernization. Walzer, however, has been refuted by historians such as Conrad Russell.
Mallett, Michael Edward. “Mercenaries.” In Medieval Warfare. Edited by Maurice Keen, 209–229. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. This excellent chapter in an edited volume on medieval war provides a clear picture of medieval mercenary use, with explanations of Swiss involvement and particularly of the expertise of Swiss pikemen.
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McCormack, John. One Million Mercenaries: Swiss Soldiers in the Armies of the World. London: Leo Cooper, 1993. The only book-length treatment of the history of Swiss mercenaries. A good starting point for further research, with very detailed accounts of Swiss mercenary action and the rise and decline of the trade, but without scholarly referencing and primary source material.
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Potter, G. R. Zwingli. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976. This biography of Zwingli contains a useful discussion of his views of mercenaries. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511561290
Maag, Karin. Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 1560–1620. Aldershot, UK, and Brookfield, VT: Scolar, 1995. Analysis of the structure and personnel of the Geneva Academy, which began teaching in 1559, and its influence on other Protestant institutions of higher education, notably the Zurich Academy and the universities of Heidelberg and Leiden.
Campi, Emidio, Simone De Angelis, Anja-Silvia Goeing, and Anthony T. Grafton, eds. Scholarly Knowledge: Textbooks in Early Modern Europe. Geneva, Switzerland: Librairie Droz, 2008. Since the vast majority of the textbooks discussed in this volume were used to teach university subjects, this is a partial introduction to university teaching on subjects ranging from biblical students to science. The focus is northern European institutions of higher learning, especially the Zurich Academy. The article on student note-taking by Ann Blair (pp. 39–73) is particularly interesting.
Hillerbrand, Hans Joachim, et al., eds. Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. 4 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Provides short articles on the universities of Cambridge, Heidelberg, Oxford, and Wittenberg, on the Geneva Academy and the Zurich Academy, plus articles on the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris, and an overview of universities in the Reformation and Counter- Reformation.
Schnitzler, Arthur. Jugend in Wien: Eine Autobiographie. Vienna; Munich; and Zurich, Switzerland: Molden, 1968. Posthumously published autobiography by the celebrated Viennese Jewish author and playwright. Sheds colorful light on his personal life and the general Viennese cultural milieu at the turn of the century. (Published in English as My youth in Vienna. [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970].)
Christianson, Gerald. “Wyclif’s Ghost: The Politics of Reunion at the Council of Basel.” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 17 (1985): 193–208. Despite the fact that his writing had been condemned as heretical and his corpse consigned to the flames, Wyclif continued to impact the Church as late as the 1430s, when Hussites used his arguments in the Four Articles of Prague.
Cook, William R. “Negotiations between the Hussites, the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Church, 1427–36.” East Central Europe 5 (1978): 90–104. By 1427, it was clear that the emperor could not restore Catholicism to Bohemia and Moravia through military means. The Hussites, led by the Taborite army, had defeated every crusade; therefore, the emperor and Pope Martin V sought a diplomatic solution, which culminated in inviting Hussites to the Council of Basel. DOI: 10.1163/187633078X00043
Black, Antony J. Council and Commune: The Conciliar Movement and the Fifteenth-Century Heritage. London and Shepherdstown, WV: Patmos, 1979. Examines the origins of conciliarist thinking and the challenge to the popes that came to full expression at the Council of Basel-Lausanne (1431–1449). Examines the broader, more radical origins of the conciliar movement in the rise of communes and in treatises on communal authority that viewed communes as microcosms of the church and its government.
Stieber, Joachim W. Pope Eugenius IV, the Council of Basel, and the Secular and Ecclesiastical Authorities in the Empire: The Conflict over Supreme Authority and Power in the Church. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1978. Studies the councils of Constance (1414–1418) and Basel (1431–1449), constitutional thought, and negotiations to resolve the crisis when Eugenius IV dissolved the council but it continued to meet without him, renewing Constance’s decrees and advancing an antipapal agenda. Looks at Eugenius’s emergence from the crisis, the beginnings of the Renaissance papacy, and dissatisfaction with reform efforts before the Reformation.
Eckert, Edward A. The Structure of Plagues and Pestilences in Early Modern Europe: Central Europe, 1560–1640. Basel, Switzerland: Karger, 1996. A quantitative analysis of 850 parish burial records plotting the spatial-temporal distribution of plague sites in seven successive plague cycles from 1560 to 1640; discerns two patterns of transmission: a maritime pattern based on long-range ship transport and an internal one with decade-long waves that spread throughout most of northern Europe.
Eckert, Edward A. “The Retreat of Plague from Central Europe, 1640–1720: A Geomedical Approach.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 74 (2000): 1–28. Compares the patterns of plague transmission through central Europe, 1560–1640 and 1640–1720, finding fewer waves introduced across the seas for the later period. Finds a significant difference after 1640 in the effectiveness of internal plague controls with a transition from local community quarantine to larger state-imposed systems of plague control.
Pagel, Walter. Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. 2d ed. Basel, Switzerland: Karger, 1982. General depiction of Paracelsus and his ideas that sees him as an important figure in the history of medicine. Important attempt to explain his medical neologisms to modern readers. Considers Paracelsus a reformer and founder of modern chemical medicine. Originally published in 1958.
Shalev-Eyni, Sarit. Jews among Christians: A Hebrew School of Illumination of the Lake Constance Region. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols and David Brown, 2007. A close study of a group of Ashkenahzi manuscripts produced in the early 14th century and the interactions between the Jewish and Christian artists and communities that they reveal. A much more nuanced and sophisticated reading of the visual and material record than that provided by Mellinkoff 1999.
Stieber, Joachim W. Pope Eugenius IV, the Council of Basel, and the Secular and Ecclesiastical Authorities in the Empire: The Conflict over Supreme Authority and Power in the Church. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1978. Studies the councils of Constance (1414–1418) and Basel (1431–1449), constitutional thought, and negotiations to resolve the crisis when Eugenius IV dissolved the council but it continued to meet without him, renewing Constance’s decrees and advancing an antipapal agenda. Looks at Eugenius’s emergence from the crisis, the beginnings of the Renaissance papacy, and dissatisfaction with reform efforts before the Reformation.
Heymann, Frederick G. “The Crusades against the Hussites.” In A History of the Crusades. Vol. III. Edited by Harry W. Hazard, 27–41. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1975. Though brief, Heymann’s account of the crusades launched against the Hussites is enlightening, especially when read in the context of late medieval crusades against heretics generally.
Maag, Karin. Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 1560–1620. Aldershot, UK, and Brookfield, VT: Scolar, 1995. Analysis of the structure and personnel of the Geneva Academy, which began teaching in 1559, and its influence on other Protestant institutions of higher education, notably the Zurich Academy and the universities of Heidelberg and Leiden.
Stauffer, Richard. “Calvinism and the Universities.” In University and Reformation: Lectures from The University of Copenhagen Symposium. Edited by Leif Grane, 76–98. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1981. Begins with Calvin and his views as they were reflected in the Geneva Academy, followed by other Calvinist institutions of higher learning. Concludes that theology instruction became less humanistic over time.
Kingdon, Robert M. Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 1956. A study of the training of Reformed church ministers in Geneva, their clandestine insertion into France, and the delicate political position of tiny Geneva as religious war broke out in its powerful neighbor. Reprinted in 2007 (Geneva: Droz).
Nicholls, David. “France.” In The Early Reformation in Europe. Edited by Andrew Pettegree, 120–141. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992. An accessible introductory overview of the transition from currents of dissent that lacked central organization and a common program to the implantation of Reformed churches sharing a common Calvinist theology.
Bouwsma, William J. John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. An intellectual biography by a distinguished intellectual historian, setting Calvin into the context of the broader currents of Renaissance and Reformation thought.
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Cottret, Bernard. Calvin: A Biography. Translated by M. Wallace McDonald. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000. A traditional biography, well written and well researched, that traces Calvin’s life chronologically and then takes up his beliefs and their expression in polemics, preaching, and the Institutes of the Christian Religion. First published in French in 1995.
Kingdon, Robert M. Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 1967. Still the best examination of how the pressures of religious war tested the relationship between French Protestants and their co-religionists in Geneva in terms of both politics and leadership.
Benedict, Philip. Graphic History: The Wars, Massacres, and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 2007. Analyzes the historical sources used to produce the famous series of forty prints narrating the religious conflicts in France and published in Geneva in 1570, as well as the technical and visual dimensions of their production.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Basic Political Writings. 2d ed. Translated by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2012. An extremely influential and often mesmerizing author, Rousseau is often associated with republicanism, but his writings are subject to widely divergent interpretations. He is at is most republican in the dedicatory letter “To the Republic of Geneva.” With some exceptions, however, contemporary civic republicans usually do not regard Rousseau’s overall work as properly belonging to the classical republican tradition.
Hall, David W. The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2003. Hall argues that the founders’ understanding of liberty, their concern for human depravity and thus the depravity of rulers, their concomitant commitment to limited government, and specific institutional arrangements adopted in modern representative republics were heavily influenced by the ideas of John Calvin and the Genevan Reformation.
Kingdon, Robert M., ed. Transition and Revolution: Problems and Issues of European Renaissance and Reformation History. Minneapolis, MN: Burgess, 1974. Collects essays on the intersecting Renaissance and Reformation movements, mostly during the 16th century, with contributions by Kingdon himself, Eric C. Midelfort, and Elizabeth Eisenstein, raising questions about the radicalism of the Genevan Reformation, the existence of witches, and the impact of print technology that point to newer approaches ahead.
Fehleison, Jill. Boundaries of Faith: Catholics and Protestants in the Diocese of Geneva. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2010. Examination of how three bishops in the late 16th and early 17th centuries were or were not successful in promoting and restoring Catholicism in the shadow of Protestant Geneva. In arguing its points this book makes very effective use of records of episcopal visitations.
Bonney, Richard, and D. J. B. Trim, eds. Persecution and Pluralism. Calvinists and Religious Minorities in Early Modern Europe, 1550–1700. Papers presented at a conference sponsored by the British Academy held at Newbold College, Berkshire, in 1999. Studies in the History of Religious and Political Pluralism 2. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2006. A collection of thirteen conference-derived essays with a particularly good introduction outlining issues inherent in the Calvinist experience of religious diversity and accommodation. The Reformed movement and its religious and political adaptations are examined from the perspective of Geneva, England, Scotland, the Dutch Republic, and France.
Knox, S. J. Walter Travers, Paragon of Elizabethan Puritanism. London: Methuen, 1962. A good overview of the life and thought of the chief apologist (along with Thomas Cartwright) of Presbyterian puritanism. Travers’s experiences in Geneva, Cambridge, and Dublin (as provost of Trinity College) are documented in full.
Solt, Leo. “Revolutionary Calvinist Parties in England under Elizabeth I and Charles I.”Church History 27 (1958): 234–239. Applies historian Robert Kingdon’s definition of “revolutionary Calvinism” in Geneva to the case of England, including its criteria of “synodical organization, noble leadership, and a resistance theory” (p. 234). In the end, however, Solt concludes that the connection between “revolutionary” Genevan and English Calvinists is negligible, given the more relatively accommodating nature of Puritans and the different historical conditions behind the civil war. DOI: 10.2307/3161388
Obinger, Herbert, Stephan Leibfried, and Francis G. Castles, eds. Federalism and the Welfare State: New World and European Experiences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. This edited volume presents case studies of the welfare states in six federations: Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, to understand under what circumstances federal systems retrench or limit redistribution. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511491856
Erk, Jan. Explaining Federalism: State, Society, and Congruence in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. Routledge Series in Regional and Federal Studies 17. New York: Routledge, 2008. This book raises the argument that dynamics in social makeup drive corresponding changes in federal institutional design. Erk applies his theory to the integration of the European Union (EU), arguing that institutions of the EU will develop to reflect the social structure of the EU.
Taylor, Larissa J., ed. Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001. A collection of eleven essays by as many scholars, this volume has three parts: the sermon as genre, the social history of preaching, and preaching and the geography of the Reformations. Includes consideration of Catholic and Protestant preaching in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the Low Countries.
Hainsworth, Paul. 2008. The extreme right in Western Europe. London and New York: Routledge. Hainsworth discusses the concept of the extreme right, examines various aspects of parties in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain, and addresses whether they pose a threat to democracy.
Mammone, Andrea, Emmanuel Godin, and Brian Jenkins, eds. 2012a. Mapping the extreme right in contemporary Europe: From local to transnational. London and New York: Routledge. Essays on local activities, international communications and exchanges, and the white power music scenes of groups in Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Britain, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Scandinavia, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and Ukraine. Accompanies Varieties of Right-wing Extremism in Europe (Mammone, et al. 2012b).
Whimster, Sam, ed. 1999. Max Weber and the culture of anarchy. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan. A collection of essays treating Weber’s involvement with avant-garde anarchists in Ascona, Switzerland, before the outbreak of World War I: his concerns about Tolstoyan anarchism and anarchist practices as well as the impact of the encounters on his subsequent thought.
Koopmans, Ruud, Paul Statham, Marco Giugni, and Florence Passy. 2005. Contested citizenship: Immigration and cultural diversity in Europe. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press. A central contribution of the book is the introduction of an index of national citizenship regimes using multidimensional empirical indicators that go beyond conventional ethnic vs. civic categorizations. The index is used to explain the variations in the way that immigration and cultural diversity have become a contentious issue in Europe since the 1990s, by comparing collective actions by migrants, xenophobes, and antiracists in Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
Hempel, Eberhard. Baroque Art and Architecture in Central Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland. Painting and Sculpture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries; Architecture: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. Translated by Elisabeth Hempel and Marguerite Kay. Baltimore: Penguin, 1965. Part of the Pelican History of Art series, this volume provides a useful survey of Baroque art and architecture in central Europe without delving into the theoretical issues and debates regarding the definition or application of the term “Baroque” or the qualitative characteristics that separate the Baroque period from the Rococo.
van Gelderen, Martin, and Quentin Skinner, eds. Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. A massive, pan-European collection of specialized essays on the role of republicanism in Renaissance and Enlightenment political thought, with contributions ranging from Italy, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Britain.
Global Commission on Drug Policy. 2011. War on drugs. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Global Commission on Drug Policy. The Commission concludes, “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world” (p. 2). Calls for a reduction of supply-side and punitive drug-control strategies. Recommends a series of harm-reduction, public health, and legal regulation approaches. Case studies of Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands are marshaled to support their position.
Nadelmann, Ethan. 1998. Commonsense drug policy. Foreign Affairs 77.1: 111–126. This article utilizes cross-national comparisons to advocate for a harm-reduction approach to drug use and policy. Nadelmann outlines the negative health consequences of prohibitionist drug policy and the harm-reduction benefits of more progressive approaches. Examples include cannabis in The Netherlands, methadone maintenance, and safe injection facilities in Switzerland and Germany. Excellent introductory overview of harm-reduction policies. DOI: 10.2307/20048366
Fledermen, Alan John. And Direction Was Given: A Daring Escape from a POW Camp and a Dramatic Journey to Neutral Switzerland. London: Athena, 2008. The memoir of an American POW in Italy who described his journey with other escaped POWs though the Italian countryside in the last days of World War II.
Otterness, Philip. Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. A study of the migration of a group of three thousand people from southwest German territories and Switzerland via London to New York who developed a collective ethnic identity as “Palatines” only after their arrival in the colony.
Viazza, Pier Paolo. Upland Communities: Environment, Population, and Social Structure in the Alps since the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Based in part on ethnographic fieldwork, but also drawing on demographic and other information going back to the 16th century, this book explores the insights and problems raised by conceiving of Alpine villages as ecosystems.
Berschin, Walter. Greek Letters and the Latin Middle Ages: From Jerome to Nicholas of Cusa. Translated by Jerold C. Frakes. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988. This comprehensive overview is arranged chronologically and by geographical region. It covers not only resources for learning but also the transmission of texts and translations. A full bibliography is included. A translation of Griechisch-lateinisches Mittelalter. Von Hieronymus zu Nikolaus von Kues. Bern and Munich: A. Francke Verlag, 1980.
Colley, Anne C. Victorians in the Mountains: Sinking the Sublime. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010. Explores invocation and undermining of the sublime in travel accounts, as well as popular literature and spectacle, emerging from the Victorian reformulation of the Alps as a major tourist location. Includes discussion of female mountaineers, as well as a section on the major Victorian writers John Ruskin, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Audisio, Gabriel. The Waldensian Dissent: Persecution and Survival, c.1170–c.1570. Translated by Claire Davison. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999. A good overview and sympathetic treatment of the Waldensians by France’s most distinguished historian of the movement.
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Cameron, Euan. The Reformation of the Heretics: The Waldenses of the Alps, 1480–1580. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. A compelling study of the Waldensians’ theology and religious practice, the change from intermittent persecution to outright massacre in Provence, and the slow assimilation of Waldensians into the Protestant movement, more out of shared persecution than shared theology.
Dann, Otto, and John Dinwiddy, eds. Nationalism in the Age of the French Revolution. London and Ronceverte, WV: Hambledon, 1988. Collection of essays highlighting the diversity of European experience of nationalism in the “Age of the French Revolution.” Collection focuses on this transition in different nations in Europe, including France, Britain, Ireland, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, and emphasizes the impact of state transformation on the ultimate potentialities of nationalism.
Sciacca, Christine. “Stitches, Sutures and Seams: ‘Embroidered’ Parchment Repairs in Medieval Manuscripts.” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 6 (2010): 57–92. Examines needlework additions to parchment pages that were naturally blemished, inconveniently shaped, or that had been cut to prevent buckling. A practical necessity, the technique was developed into an art form in central Switzerland and southwest Germany, especially at Engelberg, Weingarten, and Interlaken. Includes a catalogue of surviving examples.
Behringer, Wolfgang. “Detecting the Ultimate Conspiracy, or How Waldensians Became Witches.” In Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe: From the Waldensians to the French Revolution. Edited by Barry Coward and Julian Swann, 15–34. Aldershoot, UK: Ashgate, 2004.
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An important analysis of the cross-currents linking trials against those accused of Waldensian heresy and of witchcraft in the early 15th-century Swiss Alps.
Harder, Leland, ed. The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents. Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1985.
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A volume in the Classics of the Radical Reformation series, this annotated and edited analysis offers a selection of sources associated with the important reformer Conrad Grebel and his circle. A collection of nearly two hundred letters and other documents chronicles the rise of the Anabaptist community in Switzerland and their theological separation from the mainstream Reformation.
Bender, Harold S. “Anabaptist Vision.” Church History 13.1 (1944): 3–24.
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A classic article promoting the monogenesis school of Anabaptist origins and seeing the movement and their theology as an unbroken line stemming from Switzerland, through southern Germany, Austria, and Holland. Distinguishes the Anabaptists proper by their pacifism and separates them from the more radical sects and elements, such as those who took over Münster in 1534.


Yoder, John Howard. Anabaptism and Reformation in Switzerland: An Historical and Theological Analysis of the Dialogues between Anabaptists and Reformers. Kitchener, Canada: Pandora, 2004.
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This English translation of Yoder’s seminal German-language original Täufertum und Reformation im Gespräch: dogmengeschuchtliche Untersuchung der frühen Gespräche zwischen schweizerischen Täufern und Reformatoren (Zurich: EVZ-Verlag, 1968) traces the development of early Anabaptist theology out of interactions, discussions, disagreements, and disputations with the circle of reformers organized around Zwingli. The account provides the best study of the theological issues between the mainstream reformers and the Swiss Anabaptists.
Packull, Werner O. Mysticism and the Early South German–Austrian Anabaptist Movement 1525–1531. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008.
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A major proponent of the polygenesis hypothesis, Packull’s now-classic revision of his original 1974 Ph.D. dissertation connects South German and Austrian Anabaptism, and especially its millenarian and mystical strands, more with Thomas Müntzer and like-minded radicals than with Swiss Anabaptism. Of interest is the book’s assertion, later explored by other authors, of early South German Anabaptism as a transitional identity between a revolutionary social movement and a religious brotherhood.
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Huldrych Zwingli
The Zurich patriot reformer became both a symbol of the spread of the Reformation and of its ideological and theological splintering. Bibliographic collections of this great Swiss reformer include the older Locher 1969 and the newer Baschera, et al. 2007. For an assessment of Zwingli’s life and work in the context of the Swiss Reformation, see Gordon 2002. Büsser 1985 focuses more on the much discussed question of Zwingli’s intellectual origins, while Gäbler 1999, as its title suggests, offers a competent overview of Zwingli’s life and work.
Baschera, Luca, Hans Jakob Haag, and Christian Moser. “Neue Literatur zur zwinglischen Reformation.” Zwingliana 34 (2007): 149–167.
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A serial bibliography of Zwinglian and Swiss-Reformation studies that provides an insightful look at recent scholarship. See Zwingliana 35 (2008): 187–212, for a continuation of this article.
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Büsser, Fritz. Wurzeln der Reformation in Zürich: zum 500. Geburtstag des Reformators Huldrych Zwingli. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1985.
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This entry in the Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought series focuses on the much discussed question of Zwingli’s intellectual origins.
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Gäbler, Ulrich. Huldrych Zwingli: His Life and Work. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999.
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A competent introduction to the life and works of the Swiss Reformer by an expert in the field.
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Gordon, Bruce. The Swiss Reformation. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002.
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The book restores the Swiss Reformation to a co-equal status with its German counterpart in terms of its impact on the spread of Reformation thought, without ever losing sight of the importance of the local social and political context in the theological development of Zwingli and Bullinger. This detailed narrative is well informed by references to primary and secondary sources.
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Locher, Gottfried W. Huldrych Zwingli in neuer Sicht. Zurich, Switzerland: Zwingli Verlag, 1969.
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While somewhat outdated, this detailed bibliography is still indispensable for a serious study of Swiss developments.
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Works
The writings of Zwingli propelled the Reformation into territories unforeseen by the major early reformers. For a scholarly edition of Zwingli’s writings see the Sämtliche Werke collection (Zwingli 1905–1968) and the English translations in Zwingli 1987. Bromily 1953 focuses on some of Zwingli’s major theological themes.
Bromiley, G. W., ed. Zwingli and Bullinger. Library of Christian Classics. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953.
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Published by the Library of Christian Classics series, which also carries titles on the Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, Melanchthon and Bucer, and Luther and Erasmus, this book serves as a thematic introduction to the work of the two major Swiss reformers. Content-wise skewed heavily towards Zwingli, it discusses the Zurich reformer’s major themes of baptism, the Eucharist, educating the young and the certainty of the Word of God.
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Zwingli, Huldrych. Huldreich Zwinglis Sämtliche Werke: Unter Mitwirkung des Zwingli-Vereins in Zürich. Edited by Emil Egli und Dr. Georg Finsler. Corpus Reformatorum 88–101. Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn, 1905–1968.
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The scholarly edition of Zwingli’s collected writings in the major Corpus Reformatorum series offers the best source for the understanding of his theological positions.
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Zwingli, Huldrych. Early Writings. Edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson. Durham, NC: Labyrinth, 1987.
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A featured collection of the Swiss reformer’s early theological writings translated into English by an expert in the field.
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Debus, Allen G. The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2002.
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An overview of alchemy, chemical medicine, and Paracelsianism from the precursors to Paracelsus through his successors. Volume 1 proceeds roughly chronologically from antiquity through Robert Fludd; volume 2 examines Van Helmont and 17th-century

Pagel, Walter. Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. 2d ed. Basel, Switzerland: Karger, 1982.
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A comprehensive study of Paracelsus’s ideas.
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Pagel, Walter. From Paracelsus to Van Helmont: Studies in Renaissance Medicine and Science. Edited by Marianne Winder. London: Variorum, 1986.
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A collection of essays by Pagel on various topics related to Paracelsus, chemical medicine, and concepts of disease. Includes several essays on Harvey.
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Schott, Heinz, and Ilana Y. Zinguer, eds. Paracelsus und seine internationale Rezeption in der frühen Neuzeit: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Paracelsismus. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1998.
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Essays by leading scholars on Paracelsus and Paracelsianism in German, French, and English.
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Webster, Charles. Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
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The definitive biography of Paracelsus, drawing on extensive manuscript research alongside printed works.
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Williams, Gerhild Scholz, and Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr., eds. Paracelsian Moments: Science, Medicine, and Astrology in Early Modern Europe. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002.
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A collection of essays on Paracelsus, his influence, and his time period.

Kohler, C. Les Suisses dans les guerres d’Italie de 1503 à 1512. Geneva, Switzerland: Julien, 1896.
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Since the Swiss were at the height of their martial renown and significance at the start of the 16th century, this study of their role in the Wars of Italy serves as a diplomatic-military history of those wars from 1503 to 1512. Publishes documents from numerous archives in 130 pages of pièces justificatives.
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Reichel, Daniel, ed. Grandson, 1476: Essai d’approche pluridisciplinaire d’une action militaire du XVe siècle. Lausanne, Switzerland: Centre d’Historie, 1976.
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The most valuable contribution to this collection is probably Charles Brusten’s study of the Burgundian compagnies d’ordonnance. Other topics include the disputed causes of the Swiss-Burgundian wars, arms and armor, and the battle itself. Essays in French.
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Schaufelberger, Walter. Der Alte Schweizer und sein Krieg: Studien zur Kriegfühurung vornehmlich im 15. Jahrhundert. Frauenfeld, Switzerland: Huber, 1987.
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Covers the mobilization, equipment, training, supply, morale, and war experience of Swiss soldiers, mainly in the 15th century. Based largely on thousands of letters written from armies in the field. First published in 1952 (Zurich: Europa Verlag).
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Vaughan, Richard. Valois Burgundy. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1975.
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Chapter 7, “Military Power,” is an excellent summary of the military structures of the Burgundian duchy and state, by the author of a series of biographies of the Valois dukes of Burgundy (1364–1477).
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Winkler, Albert L. “The Swiss and War: The Impact of Society on the Swiss Military in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1982.
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The Swiss wars of the late Middle Ages ultimately had great influence on the Renaissance-Reformation art of war, but the secondary literature on the subject, especially in English, is limited. Winkler’s dissertation is solidly researched in the printed primary sources and in the German-language historiography. Aims mainly to address “war and society” issues but also contains a good deal of traditional military history.

van Gelderen, Martin, and Quentin Skinner, eds. Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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A massive, pan-European collection of specialized essays on the role of republicanism in Renaissance and Enlightenment political thought, with contributions ranging from Italy, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Britain.

Head, Randolf. “Lordship, Authority, and Administration: the Exercise of Dominion in the Gemeine Herrschaften of the Swiss Confederation, 1417–1600.” Central European History 30 (1997): 489–512.
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Shows the conundrum of an anti-aristocratic Confederation that acted as overlord over the Gemeine Herrschaften (condominions) at their disposal.

Taylor, Larissa J., ed. Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001.
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A collection of eleven essays by as many scholars, this volume has three parts: the sermon as genre, the social history of preaching, and preaching and the geography of the Reformations. Includes consideration of Catholic and Protestant preaching in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the Low Countries.

Stayer, James M.. Anabaptists and the Sword. Lawrence, KS: Coronado, 1972.
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One of the most thoroughly researched studies of 16th-century Anabaptists and their relationship to political power (and to the magisterial Protestants). The Swiss Brethren and upper German sects, as well as the Melchiorites, are examined, particularly with regard to their views on “taking the sword” (the “sword” being rule and authority in this world) or choosing nonresistant pacifism.

Clasen, Claus Peter. Anabaptism: A Social History, 1525–1618: Switzerland, Austria, Moravia, South and Central Germany. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972.
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A detailed study that parallels other sociohistorical works in examining the social and economic, as opposed to the exclusively theological or ecclesiastical, roots of Anabaptism. Clasen also examines the relationship between the state and the Anabaptists, and the persecutory consequences of the conflict between the two.

Parish, Helen L. Clerical Marriage and the English Reformation: Precedent, Policy, and Practice. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000.
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From the earliest days of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland, clerical marriage acted as a clear marker between the evangelicals and the celibate Catholic clergy. Parish’s study of clerical marriage in England concludes that there was also a clear division between printed anti-Catholic rhetoric and practical realities.


Graham, W. Fred, ed. Later Calvinism. International Perspectives: Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies. Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal, 1994.

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The focus of the articles in this collection is on Calvinism after Calvin’s death. There are sections on Reformed churches in the Swiss lands, France, the Rhineland, the Netherlands, and England.

Eire, Carlos. War against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

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An authoritative view of how iconoclasm was associated with the spread of Reformed religion from the 1530s. It is extremely helpful in tracing antipathy toward images, crosses, and statues as ideas about reform spread across German- and French-speaking communities in the Swiss lands.

Wandel, Lee Palmer. Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

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This text looks at the role played by iconoclasm in the emergence of Reformed religion in south German and Swiss towns. It highlights the degree of popular anger against idols, which at times boiled over during iconoclastic riots.

Holtrop, Philip. The Bolsec Controversy on Predestination, from 1551 to 1555. 2 vols. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1993.

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Ideas on predestination within the Reformed tradition developed partly in response to attacks from critics. This work on Jerome Bolsec highlights tensions over predestination in Geneva and among the Swiss churches.