Die Debatte um ein Widerstandsrecht im frühen elisabethanischen England 1558 – ca. 1587

»Resistance Theory in Early Elizabethan England, 1558 – ca.1587«

Theological controversies are a well-known phenomenon of post-reformation Europe. However, the role those controversies played in Elizabethan England has so far been underestimated by scholars of political thought. The current study will show how theologians on either side of the confessional divide (namely conformist and nonconformist protestants and exiled catholic authors) used the context of confessional polemic to set out their religious-political outlook and communicate it within a premodern public sphere. This study seeks to decipher for the first time the messages of the controversies on the right to resist. The controversies emerge as a most valuable source category for understanding how contemporary notions of monarchy, resistance and obedience, power and conscience surfaced and evolved.