The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors

Description

From 1618 to 1648, Christian princes waged the first pan-European war. Brought about in part by the entrenched passions of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Thirty Years War inevitably drew in the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, who stood at the vanguard of Catholic Reform. This book investigates for the first time the Jesuits' role during the war at the four Catholic courts of Vienna, Munich, Paris, and Madrid, and the challenge to the Jesuit superior general in Rome to lead a truly international organization through a period of rising national conflict. War goals varied and changed at the courts as the conflict progressed. Advocates of 'holy war' contended with moderates or politiques. As conflicting ideas about the proper relationship between religion and politics came to shift under the pressure of events, it became clear the extent to which the Thirty Years War was a religious war.

'The author's treatment of this and other episodes throughout the book is admirable, and the work is undoubtedly an impressive achievement.' European History Quarterly 'He is the first to offer a comparative perspective and analytical narrative on the role of the princely and royal confessor in seventeenth-century European diplomacy ... Professor Bireley presents us with a detailed analytical narrative wrought from painstaking research in European Jesuit and non-Jesuit archives.' Reviews in History 'Bireley's meticulous study of the generals' correspondence thus offers an instructive inside view of the workings of ecclesiastical diplomacy in the Thirty Years' War ...'. Journal of Ecclesiastical History '... detailed analytical narrative wrought from painstaking research in European Jesuit and non-Jesuit archives ... Scholars and students working on the history of the Society of Jesus and the complex political and religious history of the first half of the seventeenth century will ignore it at their peril.' Reviews in History '... a useful and thought-provoking work for any scholar of the period.' Tryntje Helfferich, University of California, History '... the author not only displays unrivalled mastery of his source material but also an understanding of the relationship between religion and politics that is the product of over thirty years' research and reflection.' Sixteenth Century Journal