PDF The Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany by R. Po-chia Hsia in History

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Although the French Revolution is associated with efforts to dechristianize the French state and citizens; it actually had long-term religious―even Christian―origins; claims Dale Van Kley in this controversial new book. Looking back at the two and a half centuries that preceded the revolution; Van Kley explores the diverse; often warring religious strands that influenced political events up to the revolution.Van Kley draws on a wealth of primary sources to show that French royal absolutism was first a product and then a casualty of religious conflict. On the one hand; the religious civil wars of the sixteenth century between the Calvinist and Catholic internationals gave rise to Bourbon divine-right absolutism in the seventeenth century. On the other hand; Jansenist-related religious conflicts in the eighteenth century helped to "desacralize" the monarchy and along with it the French Catholic clergy; which was closely identified with Bourbon absolutism. The religious conflicts of the eighteenth century also made a more direct contribution to the revolution; for they left a legacy of protopolitical and ideological parties (such as the Patriot party; a successor to the Jansenist party); whose rhetoric affected the content of revolutionary as well as counterrevolutionary political culture. Even in its dechristianizing phase; says Van Kley; revolutionary political culture was considerably more indebted to varieties of French Catholicism than it realized.