Acknowledgements; List of Illustrations and Tables; Abbreviations; Introduction Doctrinal Controversy As a Window onto Lay Religiosity; Chapter One A Portrait of Mansfeld in the Sixteenth Century; Chapter Two Competing Views of Original Sin and Associated Arguments and Meanings; Chapter Three The Pastors and Their Parishioners; Chapter Four The Counts and the Controversy; Chapter Five The "Heretics" of Mansfeld; Chapter Six Extra-Doctrinal Forces Affecting the Laity; Chapter Seven Lay Understandings of Original Sin and Lutheran Theology; Chapter Eight Conclusion; Bibliography; Index
Summary
Using evidence generated by the Flacian controversy over original sin as it transpired in the German territory of Mansfeld, this study demonstrates that by the late sixteenth century, much of the laity there had developed a complex understanding of Lutheran doctrine
