Obedient Heretics

This case study examines the history of the Netherlandic Mennonite community living in and around Hamburg after the Thirty Years War. Based on detailed archival research it expands the scope of Radical Reformation studies to include the confessional age (c. 1550-1750). During this period Mennonites had to conform politically while trying to preserve many of the nonconformist ideals of their forebears such as the refusal to baptize children bear arms and swear solemn oaths. The research presented in Obedient Heretics will therefore be of interest to scholars of minority communities in addition to those concerned with the Reformation's legacy confessionalization and confessional identity.