Verffentlichungen des Instituts fur Europische Geschichte Mainz

The subject of marriage and sexuality among the Baptists of the 16th and early 17th century lies at the center of this study by Katharina Reinholdt. The explosive nature of this subject stems from its potential for innovation: Within this fragmented religious minority there were a number of secret marriages as well as divorces and even cases of bigamy and polygamy. These events not only shaped the image of the Baptists in the eyes of their contemporaries, they also heavily influenced the development of the Baptists from radical outsiders at the beginning of the Reformation to an established religious minority in the 17th century. The historical reception of the Baptists was also long overshadowed by the so-called "libertarian" tendencies of the era. This new study on the concept of marriage among the Baptists is also relevant to understanding the role of marriage in the context of the Reformation. The Baptist idea of marriage may also be seen as a conscious counterpart to Luther's concept of marriage as a "worldly thing." Between the poles of the old (Catholic) and the new (Protestant) understanding of marriage lay the Baptist position as an independent answer to the question of a new balance between the religious and the worldly aspects of this institution. The marked parallels to the more radical ideas that later emerged suggest that the Baptist position toward marriage was indeed a genuinely reformatory phenomenon and not, as long thought, a belated result of the heretic movements of the Late Middle Ages.