Linking of Heaven and Earth

The Reformation of the sixteenth century shattered the unity of medieval Christendom and the resulting fissures spread to the corners of the earth. No scholar of the period has done more than Carlos M.N. Eire however to document how much these ruptures implicated otherworldly spheres as well. His deeply innovative publications helped shape new fields of study intertwining social intellectual cultural and religious history to reveal how lived beliefs had real and profound implications for social and political life in early modern Europe. Reflecting these themes the volume celebrates the intellectual legacy of Carlos Eire's scholarship applying his distinctive combination of cultural and religious history to new areas and topics. In so doing it underlines the extent to which the relationship between the natural and the supernatural in the early modern world was dynamic contentious and always urgent. Organized around three sections - 'Connecting the Natural and the Supernatural' 'Bodies in Motion: Mind Soul and Death' and 'Living One's Faith' - the essays are bound together by the example of Eire's scholarship ensuring a coherence of approach that makes the book crucial reading for scholars of the Reformation Christianity and early modern cultural history.