Calvinists (or more properly the Reformed) were sometimes accused by their contemporaries of bringing the supernatural too far into human life, deprecating human reason, and subverting human polities by their clumsy attempts at erecting theocracy. Did those who taught at Reformed universities across Europe teach distinctive and extreme political and revolutionary doctrines? Too often scholars and students in the … More Calvinists on Warfare and Resistance

Was the justice of religious war widely accepted in the Seventeenth Century? Some Jesuits argued that war fought for the sake of religion alone was always unjust. And they identified the Franciscans as advocates of that kind of illicit religious war. These Franciscans erred in this way, said the Jesuits, because the great theologian of their … More Franciscans, Scotists, and Holy War

Franciscan friars educated by university teachers who stood in the Scotist tradition played a vital role in early modern European culture. These friars were deeply embroiled in peace-making, war-mongering, popular violence, and evangelisation, both inside and outside Europe. But at present we know very little about the political doctrines that they were taught in their colleges and … More Franciscan Political Thought

We are currently badly informed about the ways in which distinctively Reformed political theory was received inside and outside the universities in Scotland and England in the years preceding the outbreak of civil war in the Stuart kingdoms. Ms Karie Schultz is currently completing a PhD thesis which will investigate that topic.