The studies united in this volume explore themes of community, politics, religion, gender, and social conflict and accommodation during the first decades of the Reformation movement. Other chapters investigate historiographical themes, especially the interpretation of early modern German history. Two longer chapters address European themes: the historical sociology of early modern societies in terms of legal definitions of status and modern conceptions of economic class; and the difference between central and western European development in a global context. Taken together, the studies explore the transition zone between medieval and modern history in both microhistorical, especially urban and regional, and broadly comparative contexts. Some of the studies are supplementary to the author's books on the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation at Strasbourg, in southern Germany, and in the Holy Roman Empire.