In the early 1610s, some Italian Lutheran propaganda came to the attention of the Holy Office. Such propaganda is an anomaly for the period, and questions the current scholarship on the topic. Via the bibliographic study of pamphlets previously neglected or unknown, this article investigates this activity, mostly attributing it to Antonio degli Albizzi (1547–1627), sometime secretary to the Cardinal of Austria. This curious case elucidates the longevity of interest in Lutheranism in the Italian peninsula, and, even if in the mind of just one man, the belief that seventeenth-century Italians could still turn to Protestantism.

The Reformed Church was the official denomination at the Dutch Cape of Good Hope. Lutheran immigrants constituted the second largest Protestant group, and received recognition in 1780. This article argues that Cape Lutherans had an ambiguous relationship with their Church. They oscillated between the two denominations, guided by personal preferences, but also due to restrictions imposed on Lutherans by the Reformed authorities. The prolonged inability to secure recognition prompted the Cape Lutherans to seek support among coreligionists in the German lands, India and elsewhere in the Dutch Empire. This network challenged, but did not overcome, their restricted social and religious position in Cape society.

Hobbes's eschatology in Leviathan is one of the most striking aspects of this classic work and has received considerable scholarly attention. Nevertheless, its scriptural interpretation has rarely been examined. This article closely analyses Hobbes's scriptural case for two aspects of eschatology: the doctrine of mortalism and the terrestrial kingdom of God. It shows that, to a large extent, Hobbes's biblical exegesis for these two eschatological issues was preceded by that of his contemporaries, including Richard Overton and John Archer. It is likely, in particular, that the scriptural interpretation for Hobbes's mortalism was directly indebted to Overton's Mans mortalitie.

This article traces the history of twentieth-century Ethiopian Orthodox student movements formed in response to modernity, especially the influential Maḫbärä Qəddusan, ‘Association of Saints’, established in 1991 when Ethiopia's Communist regime fell. It explores parallels in Egyptian and Indian miaphysite Churches; balances the prevailing narrative of explosive Pentecostal growth which has obscured the influence of such movements; provides insight into networks that have stimulated renewal and responses to contemporary challenges through strong engagement with traditional literary and intellectual heritage; and explores training and publications promoting contemporary reflection on this heritage, the revival of important religious practices and the targeting of influential ecclesiastical and public positions.

This article builds upon recent scholarship on the role of church ‘reform’ and the cult of saints in English royal politics around the turn of the second millennium, arguing that the infamous ‘St Brice's Day massacre’ of 13 November 1002 may have been planned for that date in part because of the associations of the cult of Brice/Brictius. After outlining this hypothesis, the article explores the broader implications of the emergence of a universal martyrological calendar for historical writing and political action, and for the exercise and communication of violence in particular.

This article focuses on the work Politica e religione nella persona, parole ed azioni di Giesù Cristo (1706–7) by Giovanni Battista Comazzi, an emissary of the last duke of Mantua at the court of Vienna. Comazzi examined the actions and teachings of Christ described in the Gospel of John as a source for political guidance. The research reveals an attempt to establish an exegetical basis for challenging ecclesiastical interference, asserting the primacy of politics and advocating a poor and exemplary Church. Censored by the Holy Office, the work was ultimately framed within the clash between the papacy and the Empire.

Drawing upon unpublished financial accounts, this article sheds new light on how an ecclesiastical institution in southern Germany navigated the tense military and political environment of the Holy Roman Empire during the Hussite wars. The accounts of Ellwangen Abbey offer a compelling window into how its community dealt with a series of military, economic and diplomatic challenges – from raising extraordinary war taxes and hosting the visiting emperor-elect, to equipping its own military contingent – encouraging a reassessment of the burdens borne by ecclesiastical foundations during the Hussite era and offering new perspectives on how holy war impacted on daily life in smaller communities in Central Europe.

Despite the paucity of written sources for fifth- and sixth-century Britain, there are many inscriptions containing brief texts in Latin or Irish. This paper reinterprets these inscribed stones, showing that, contrary to the universal current assumption that most represent the memorials of secular notables, a much stronger case can be made for understanding them as ecclesiastical monuments associated with the cult of saints. Read in this way, they offer new insights into the fifth- and sixth-century British Church and the evangelisation of the west and north of Britain during these centuries.

Studies of the ecclesiastical reform of the eleventh century have often highlighted conflict between reforming monks and simoniac clerics. This was especially true in the urban contexts of Milan and Florence, cities that played a leading role, at the time, in the history of Italian religious life. Through the presentation of an exemplary case study, this paper shows how around an important Florentine monastery, an episcopal foundation, the conflict between ‘conservatives’ and reformers did not obliterate the genesis and permanence of long-term devotional and cultural traditions. Although these traditions emerged in a context of conflict, they were able to overcome it and develop into a new and enduring form of religiosity that lasted from the Romanesque period to the Early Renaissance.

The academic commemoration of Philip Melanchthon, humanist, reformer and ‘teacher of Germany’ (‘praeceptor Germaniae’), occurred for the first time on a large scale in 1760, the two-hundredth anniversary of his death. This article offers a first exploration of the bicentennial. It explores how Melanchthon's commemorators in central Europe positioned him as a hero of the early German Enlightenment (Aufklärung), singling out and reinterpreting his labours for the ‘improvement of humanity’. Shorn of context, divested of theological and ecclesiastical commitments, Melanchthon became the model scholar and the pride of Lutheran Germany, who transcended confessional particularities to instruct all of Europe.

The article sheds light on the significant fundraising and relief activities for Ireland during the Great Famine (1845–50) initiated in 1847 by the Italian philosopher and cleric Antonio Rosmini and his network in Savoy-Piedmont, Lombardy-Venetia and England. By analysing Rosmini's philosophical and political writings, the article demonstrates that Rosmini considered aid in times of crisis as an act of social justice for which individuals have to take responsibility. By analysing documents from the Italian and Irish archives, the article gives an account of the fundraising effort's practices of networking, appealing, almsgiving and delivery.

Between 1947 and 1965, 408 British children were sent to Australia under the auspices of the Church of England Advisory Council of Empire Settlement and its successor bodies. Situating this work in wider policy contexts, this article examines how the council involved itself in this work with support from some senior clergy and laity despite being poorly resourced to do so. Noting the council's failure to maintain standards expected of this work by the Home Office and child-care professionals, the article considers factors underlying this which both reflected wider tensions over child migration in the post-war period as well as those specific to the council.

The concile national of 1811 was one of the greatest flashpoints in the struggle that pitted the Napoleonic Empire against the papacy. This episode, which deserves to be situated within more recent historiographical trends, reveals much about the nature of Napoleonic imperialism and the Church's distrust for the power of the state. This article puts forward the view that the failure of the concile national was not strategic but tactical. Several bishops were frustrated with the pope's recalcitrance over episcopal investiture and fearful of schism. But their initial openness to neo-conciliarism turned to hostility when confronted with the state's intolerance.

The article focuses on an episode concerning the photographs of the famous Belgian stigmatic, Louise Lateau. Examining the events leading up to the bishop's decision to restrict the circulation of her portrait, it becomes clear that the ‘affair’ of 1877 was as much about creating her public saintly image as it was about controlling it. Studying the ecclesiastical response to grassroots initiatives adds a more religious perspective to the young field of celebrity studies and offers a more complex view on sanctity, and the role of the media and modern techniques in its creation, use and misuse.