Faith in Law: The Legal and Political Legacy of the Protestant Reformations

John Witte, Jr. and Amy Wheeler, eds., The Reformation of the Church and the World (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 105-38

44 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2018

Date Written: May 2018

Abstract

The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation revolutionized not only theology and the church, but also law and the state. This northern European reform movement, though divided into Lutheran, Anabaptist, Anglican, and Calvinist branches, collectively broke the international rule of the medieval Catholic Church and its canon law, and permanently splintered Western Christendom into competing nations and regions. The Reformation also triggered a massive shift of power, property, and prerogative from the church to the state. Protestant states now assumed jurisdiction over numerous subjects and persons previously governed by the medieval church, and they gave new legal form to Protestant teachings. But these new Protestant laws also drew heavily on the medieval ius commune as well as on earlier biblical and Roman jurisprudence. This chapter analyses the new legal syntheses that emerged in Protestant lands, with attention to the new laws of church-state relations, religious and civil freedom, marriage and family law, education law, social welfare law, and accompanying changes in legal and political philosophy.

Keywords: Protestantism; Reformation; Lutheranism; Anabaptism; Anglicanism; Martin Luther; John Calvin; Menno Simons; Philip Melanchthon; Henry VIII; Thomas Cranmer; Richard Hooker; Calvinism; Church-State Relations; Crime & Punishment; Marriage & Family; Education; Social Welfare; Christianity & Law; Poli Th

Suggested Citation

Witte, John, Faith in Law: The Legal and Political Legacy of the Protestant Reformations (May 2018). John Witte, Jr. and Amy Wheeler, eds., The Reformation of the Church and the World (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 105-38 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3292399

John Witte (Contact Author)

Emory University School of Law ( email )

1301 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322
United States
404-727-6980 (Phone)
404-712-8605 (Fax)

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