Forging Social Solidarities during Religious Wars

This project is part of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies' new flagship programme of research, Inventing Futures (IFs).

IFs emphasizes future-oriented consequences of the Institute’s past-oriented study. Its three flagship projects each involve a PhD student and an early-career researcher working with academic staff. The other projects are ‘Daphne and her Sisters: Framing Gendered Violence’ and ‘Imagining Alternatives: Utopia in the World’. All have been generously funded by Joanna and Graham Barker. For more on Inventing Futures, please click here.  

‘Forging Social Solidarities during Religious Wars’ asks how far a society can hold together when civil war breaks out because of religious differences. The Dutch Revolt, French Wars of Religion, and Thirty Years War – for example – are known as some of the most violent conflicts in European history. Confessional division pushed social solidarities to the limit. Yet Europe’s religious wars also prompted unprecedented experiments in peace-making and gave rise to extraordinary works of literature, philosophy, and political theory. How effectively did people respond to the problem of living with religious difference? And how have their responses been understood and reworked all over the world in societies torn apart by religious and civil strife?