Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Chair of Early Modern European History

The early Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire was a field of experimentation in terms of decision-making culture: a new plurality of religious decision-making options was discussed, but it was also debated whether one had to decide at all. After all, it was uncertain and ambiguous what exactly the options were – even whether there was a religious decision-making situation at all and, if so, who could decide and between what options. Although the polemics of the Reformation propagated a sharp dualism between true and false church from the outset, there was in fact a multitude of still fluid confessional options. It was disputed whether and how individual and political decisions about religious questions should be made. Could questions of faith be decided individually or collectively at all? Perhaps taking such decisions became possible only during the Reformation? How were religious decisions thought about and discussed?

The primary focus of the project is, among other things, on the communicative production of the need to make decisions - i.e. the framing of certain constellations as decision-making situations. In a second step, it investigates the procedures, stagings, and narratives of decision-making. The project argues that the early Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire provides an example of what happens when an established decision-making constellation collapses and a new one has not yet been established.