Political and religious history often operate as unrelated disciplines, or worse yet, become antagonistic in their treatment of historical documents and sources. In Reformation and the German Territorial State, however, William Bradford Smith invites scholars to reexamine the intertwined relationship between religious reform and territorial formation. He challenges traditional interpretations that place the beginning of the territorial state in the sixteenth century, instead claiming that the roots of territorial state-building appear in the late Middle Ages and continue to grow through the mid-seventeenth century. Using the Upper Franconia region of Germany, he establishes that religious reform movements played a significant role in defining the relationships between territorial authorities.

During the 1980s, the confessionalization thesis became an established theory, arguing for a connection between the development of confessional churches (Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed) and the rise of territorial states. Smith's work contributes to the ongoing conversation around confessionalization with an exploration of Bamberg and Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach. These territories were both part of the diocese of Bamberg during the Middle Ages, but by the turn of the seventeenth century had diverged religiously as Bamberg remained Catholic and Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach, under the leadership of the Franconian Hohenzollern dynasty, became predominantly Lutheran. These differing paths allow Smith to compare these territories and to test the role of confessionalization in their territorial development. Smith concludes that early modern confessionalization is actually the end, rather than the beginning, of a process of territorial state development. Smith's evidence also reveals that this process occurred through a negotiation between a variety of parties.

Smith demonstrates how a web-work of local, territorial, and imperial interests and authorities interacted in both religious reform and territorial formation. The book's chronological organization allows readers to easily follow the overall narrative while gaining glimpses into the lives of participants in this drama—and that is an inclusive feat. The book includes maps that readers unfamiliar with the landscape of Upper Franconia will find helpful as well as a chart of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Smith draws heavily on both archival and print sources and presents a rich bibliography that other researchers in this area will find helpful.

The first three chapters cover the rise of territorial states in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Here Smith discusses how these territories formed, placing particular emphasis on how different groups allied themselves in order to improve their own territorial positions. Further, Smith shows how religious reform interacted with political activity in this formation process. To close his discussion of the Middle Ages, the author discusses how the prince-bishopric in Bamberg and the Franconian Hohenzollern margraviate developed during the fifteenth century.

Chapters 4 and 5 cover the early Reformation period through the Peace of Augsburg (1555). Particular attention is paid to the ways Martin Luther's theology interacted with existing religious and territorial conflicts bequeathed to the sixteenth century from the Middle Ages. Leaders across territorial boundaries, both Lutheran and Catholic, faced the prevalent concern that Lutheranism might pose a threat to growing social order in the territorial states. However, their approaches to this problem differed. In Bamberg, the solution was to reassert the Catholic faith. Those who became Lutheran in Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach attempted to authoritatively define the faith and church ordinances. Both the Catholic prince-bishopric in Bamberg and the Lutheran margraviate experienced difficulties while trying to enforce their respective religious reforms.

In chapters 6 through 8, Smith moves into the latter half of the sixteenth century, arguing that many of the conflicts housed in confessional language expressed preexisting hostilities inherited from earlier time periods. He discusses the Hohenzollern margraviate's slow Lutheran reform movement. Then he details clerical and marriage reforms and the chasm between the proposed reforms and their implementation within the territorial states because of substantial local resistance to these reforms in both Lutheran and Catholic circles. Finally, Smith details Counter Reformation efforts in Bamberg after the Council of Trent.

The final two chapters conclude during the Thirty Years' War of the seventeenth century. Concerns particularly arose in Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach as some suspected the Hohenzollern margrave of being a closet Calvinist. Simultaneously the Bamberg prince-bishop imposed Tridentine Catholicism on his territory. In chapter 10, Smith discusses the witch trials held in Bamberg, one of the worst in German history. Smith explains that in Bamberg there were interested officials who engaged in the witch trial process as a way of demonstrating allegiance to both the church and the territorial leadership. Thus, this event served as the result of three hundred years of combined religious reform and state-building that resulted in a melding of state policy and confessional identity. The upswing in enforcing Counter Reformation principles combined with concerns about heresy, prophecy, and divination, resulted in the witchcraft trials. In the Lutheran territory, concern was less about witches than the potential advancement of Calvinism into the territory.

Smith makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of how religious reform and territorial consolidation strongly related to one another in these territories. Smith's treatment of gender, however, does invite further research. While he ably highlighted throughout the book the involvement of women in local communities, particularly in confraternities and as victims of the witch hunts, his work could have included an even fuller discussion of the significance of gendered elements. As he continues to work on the topic of the witch hunts, one hopes that he can explore gender issues in fuller detail. Readers should look forward to seeing that research. This book is about the relationship between religious reform and state building; it is not a study of gender relations. However, women were involved in these communities and this phenomenon should be examined further.

This book challenges both political history's excising of religion from the process of state-building and the tendency of Reformation history to ignore religious reform that occurred prior to the sixteenth century. Smith's work provides significant insight into the interrelationship of politics and religion on both a micro and macro level and will find a warm reception among those interested in confessionalization or late-medieval and early modern religious reform.