Keywords

• This contribution
• that analyses the religious development in the principality of Anhalt in the second half of the sixteenth century
• is presupposing the thesis of confessionalization elaborated by Heinz Schilling and others. According to this paradigma the rearrangement of public and private life in confessional terms during the early modern epoch (ca.1550-1650) is a fundamental process
• that in its main features took place similarly in the different confessional contexts. Under these circumstances it was not possibile to affirm
• in the long run
• an intermediate position. This thesis is exemplified here by the central german principality of Anhalt
• in which humanistic and Melanchthonian influences had brought about
• in the middle of the sixteenth century
• a position that intermediated between Lutheranism and Calvinism.
• Initially
• the principality of Anhalt participated in the process of Lutheran confessionalization
• that was concluded in 1580 by the Book of Concord
• later on
• however
• it maintained a critical distance to it
• and until the end of sixteenth century the principality gradually joined the Reformed party