Peace and Religion (original) (raw)

A Cultural History of Peace by Ronald Edsforth vol. 3: A Cultural History of Peace in the Renaissance (1450 - 1648), ed. by Isabella Lazzarini, London, Bloosmbury, 2020, 67-83

There are various possible perspectives for thinking about how peace and religion interact in the early modern age. If we interpreted peace as union, we might start with the failed attempts of the Greek and Latin churches to unite in the decades leading up to the fall of Constantinople (1453). If we looked at the area of the Mediterranean where members of the three so-called “religions of the book” (Christians, Muslims, and Jews) had been living side-by-side for centuries, we might examine the cohabitation between Christians and “infidels” that developed despite conflicts and religious antagonism, dwelling on the peace treaties, trading agreements, and cross-cultural exchange with the Muslim empire. From there we might move on to the world of the pax Ottomana (“Ottoman peace”), which held together the mosaic of ethnic groups and juridical-religious communities in the huge domain of the sultan. If we shifted our attention to the role of the peacemakers, we might analyze the action of those transcultural go-betweens across the globe who were the missionaries – the Jesuits in particular. Instead, in the following pages I shall be considering Europe, starting from Luther’s Reformation (1517), as that religious break radically changed how the old continent thought and lived, posing new problems. The European space then became the theatre of many practical attempts by various historical actors to build a religious peace and coexistence between different faiths that would enable the community, the state and society to survive.