Alec Ryrie's ‘strange death of Lutheran England’ is with good reason one of the most recognized arguments addressing the English Reformation and its relationship with Lutheranism.Footnote 1 After noting similarities between early Henrician developments and Lutheran ideas, Ryrie argues that Reformed notions came to predominate during the 1540s and thus set the stage for the Reformation under Edward VI. His title (some may say underlying assumption) overestimates the degree to which England was actually ‘Lutheran’ during the 1530s, but his case for the ascendance of Reformed thinking is compelling and accords with much subsequent scholarship. The article also stands as something of a watershed in the historiography of Anglo-Lutheran relations during the sixteenth century. Indeed, earlier work had shown some of the loose affinities and concrete examples of influence and collaboration across the North Sea, though during the 1980s and 1990s historians of religion in England tended to ignore Lutheran aspects in favour of Reformed ones. Ryrie's article determined otherwise for the early decades while simultaneously nailing down the Lutheran coffin by Henry VIII's death at the latest. Since 2002, however, the historiographical renaissance of ‘Lutheran England’ has clawed back, and Ryrie has been among those leading the charge.Footnote 2 This scholarly trajectory reflects the twists and turns of the English Reformation itself, as the Anglo-Lutheran relationship was fraught with complications from its optimistic but frustrating adolescence during the 1530s, through the mid-life crisis of the mid-Tudor years, and finally to its backseat role when a younger generation took control during Elizabeth's reign. This article first briefly reviews general historiographical trends on the Reformations in England and Germany, showing how the fields have moved independently from relatively internal, theological discussions a century ago to a more outward-looking perspective sensitive to broader cultural and international factors. Second, scholarship directly addressing aspects of England's contact with German Protestantism – primarily Lutheranism – during the sixteenth and to a lesser extent seventeenth centuries will come into finer focus. Finally, in the light of activity during the last decade or so, it is suggested that although Anglo-German relations may remain a secondary field to many, the ground is fertile for further research.
I
Scholarship on the English Reformation has, in short, moved from the English Reformation to the Reformations in England. This shift is no simple matter of semantics, for the historians' move, from a single and inevitable event unique to England, to overlapping and contingent developments with direct relationships to the European mainland, signifies the maturation of the field.Footnote 3 Indeed, most now look beyond Pollard and the insular discussions of the early twentieth century, however much previous generations may have longed for the imperial past. To be fair, early Tudor England was never held in complete isolation from the mainland, though A. G. Dickens did much to bridge the Channel during the 1960s.Footnote 4 Dickens was also responsible for stamping as official the argument that the Reformation was the result of popular and elite co-operation to rebuild religious life after centuries of decay and corruption under the Catholic church. This collaboration, readers were told, led to the English nation's relatively speedy conversion to Protestantism. The narrative is forceful, though revisionists – with Haigh and Duffy in the vanguard – have demonstrated beyond question the continued strength and vitality of Catholicism before and during the early sixteenth century.Footnote 5 The ensuing historiographical debate created the fast/slow–above/below matrix and has since been further complicated by post-revisionist scholarship, which has not so much displaced the revisionists as confirmed and developed their arguments by adding full-blooded/partial to the mix.Footnote 6
The waters have further muddied, but the picture has in some ways become clearer. The relative strength of Catholicism and limited successes of sixteenth-century Protestantism, for example, have shown that the Reformation in England was more a prolonged process over several generations rather than a brief or decisive event.Footnote 7 Nevertheless, by the second half of Elizabeth's reign Calvinist doctrines dominated within the clerical establishment such that a loose consensus existed among many of its leading lights, and the necessary relationship between Reformation politics and religion has come back under review.Footnote 8 Historians have also shifted away from focusing primarily on doctrinal debates in the religious and political centres, and towards the reception of these ideas and pastoral concerns in the localities, illuminating how the laity could be active in the process. Such a move from traditional interpretations of ecclesiastical and political topics in favour of social and cultural history has been repeated elsewhere.Footnote 9 If the speed and success of the Reformation in England has come into question, so too has the degree to which it was removed from the mainland; although previous generations of scholars did not entirely fail to recognize Anglo-European connections, more recent work has emphasized such contacts. Diarmaid MacCulloch and others have situated England on the Reformation map, as it were, demonstrating that while the early modern English were to some extent peculiar, they did forge meaningful links with and borrow from others in the Protestant world, most notably those in Zurich, Geneva, and other Reformed communities.Footnote 10 Indeed, as Patrick Collinson noted in a volume of proceedings from a British Academy symposium in 2007, ‘[w]e are now out of the tunnel and into sunny uplands. England is both part of a Britain whose diversity is now more amply acknowledged and a major European player at the heart of Europe.’Footnote 11 Seeing English developments in a pluralistic, international context is symptomatic of wider trends within the European Union and liberally inclined circles in the United States and elsewhere, and for historians, recognizing the diversity and contingencies of the past can help scholars (and their students) appreciate a more accurate, if complicated, representation of the past. Work on the German Reformation has roughly followed the same lines but with special differences along the way.
Before the Second World War theological, forward-looking, or otherwise anti-historical approaches dominated the field in Germany. Concentrating primarily on Martin Luther, Karl Holl was particularly influential among a generation of scholars, though others focusing on a more general history of the early modern period offered a wider perspective.Footnote 12 During the 1950s and 1960s, both anglophone and germanophone scholarship began to broaden attention further by seeking new sources and engaging trends in social history and context. Bernd Moeller's notion that the Reformation was, as Dickens later put it, ‘an urban event’ generated a great deal of research testing the grand narratives on a smaller level and led to a more nuanced understanding of the variegated experiences throughout the Protestant territories and cities from Zurich to Erfurt.Footnote 13 The role of the nobility, the development of the burghers and their initiatives, the differences between town and country, and the attitudes and actions of the common people and pastors also came into clearer view, particularly in discussions of the Peasants' War and early dissenters like the Anabaptists.Footnote 14 Additionally, the traditional perspective that the late middle ages were a period of darkness and decay began to find new critics in, among others, Heiko Oberman, whose work was widely and justifiably influential among both English and German speakers.Footnote 15
By the 1980s, German Reformation historiography had thus considered a range of social strata and perspectives, even going so far as to bridge the divide between Before and After Luther. Among more traditional and conservative scholars of theology, whose interaction with wider historical discussions was limited, however, Luther and other prophetic figures retained their primacy of place and were not entirely situated in context.Footnote 16 Nevertheless, socially and contextually sensitive readings of the period continued to press forward until cracks came from within. Particularly in works leading the ‘cultural turn’, greater attention was afforded to popular religion (as distinct from high theology), lay piety, and the roles played by ordinary or ‘simple folk’, women, and marginal groups.Footnote 17 Also, new and grand narratives of early modern state formation and modernization by Heinz Schilling, Wolfgang Reinhard, and their followers began to compete with micro-histories written by social and cultural historians. The confessionalization thesis – or ‘paradigm’ – has been criticized and qualified since its beginnings in the late 1970s. Indeed, many have disagreed with its central tenets asserting a teleological and institutional framework for religious experience and a relatively uniform, top-down direction of an orderly society in a proto-modern European system of religion, politics, and diplomacy.Footnote 18 During the 1990s and more recently, debates about the relative ‘unity and diversity’ of German Protestantism have surfaced in the wake of arguments for modernization and uniformity, while Irene Dingel and others have brought attention to the vitriolic and sometimes violent disagreements among those opposed to Catholicism.Footnote 19 Overall, as the periodization between the late medieval and early modern periods has broken down, so too has the notion that the Reformation was complete by the mid-sixteenth century. In fact, the recognition of a long or ‘second’ (but less internationally connected) Reformation in Germany has come to resemble discussions of the situation in England; just as Haigh pluralized the Reformation, what was once understood as a cataclysmic event or revolutionary upheaval, ‘The Reformation has become a great many reformations’ in Germany.Footnote 20
II
The study of the relationship between England and Protestant Germany during the Reformation – however long understood – is not really a new field. Unsurprisingly, during the mid-nineteenth century, when history as an academic discipline was maturing into the form now recognized, scholars such as Leopold von Ranke and Heinrich Heppe observed parallel and related developments across the North Sea. Shortly after Ranke completed his Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (1839–47), he turned to English history and, although he remained sensitive to national differences, he noted similarities when relevant. His distinction between Germany (where doctrine was the primary concern) and England (where papal influence and politics were paramount) did not detract from the idea that the Reformation movements in each locale bore ‘a deep inner analogy’ (‘eine tiefe innere Analogie’).Footnote 21 More importantly, Heppe followed up his own Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus in den Jahren, 1555–1581 (1852–9) with a dedicated study and edition of the intercourse and correspondence between England and Germany.Footnote 22 This book was relatively short, but its significance lay in the use of German archival material and emphasis on the relationship between religion and politics. By the late nineteenth century, projects were underway in both countries to edit enormous bodies of primary sources. Well worn among English historians, the Letters and papers of Henry VIII, Calendars of state papers, and Historical manuscripts commission reports became bases from which to work, as did the Corpus Reformatorum and editions of princes' correspondence for German scholars.Footnote 23 As historians like Moriz Ritter used these materials, a better sense developed of the evolving relationship, but the disconnect of English politics and German doctrine largely continued; and despite German scholarship recognizing the international nature of the early Reformation, anglophone discussions remained predominantly insular with the exception of Henry Jacobs's full-length study.Footnote 24 Jacobs, a Professor of Systematic Theology within the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, argued beyond all others for the heavy influence and effect of Lutheranism in Reformation England. Of course, in consequence he overstated the case and seems to have been largely ignored by English historians of England. The same could be said for Charles Herford's grand study of the literary (and to a lesser extent religious) relationship.Footnote 25
During the first half of the twentieth century, the English Reformation remained a largely political and isolated affair despite studies by Wilhelm Walther on Henry VIII's personal contact with Luther, Albert Hauck on ecclesiastical comparisons with Germany, Friedrich Prüser and Philipp Lang on Henry's negotiations with the Schmalkaldic League, and Josef Bihl's more limited article on Elizabeth's dealings with the duchy of Württemberg. Along with Johannes Schulze's doctoral thesis on the political relations between Elector August of Saxony and Queen Elizabeth, Prüser's and Lang's work in the archives and edited collections demonstrated the extent and impact of English correspondence and diplomatic efforts; nevertheless, these interpretations tended to emphasize English political machination as opposed to Lutheran religious sincerity.Footnote 26 Such assessments, as Rory McEntegart has shown more recently, also characterized analyses by James Gairdner and A. F. Pollard, the latter of whom wrote that Henry VIII sought ‘relief from the necessity of paying attention to German divines’ and never took seriously ‘a union with the Protestants’.Footnote 27 Indeed, to most scholars, Anglo-German relations during the early stages of the Reformation constituted essentially a dead letter. Works qualifying the prevailing indifference were the dangerously unreliable volume by Erwin Doernberg and the better but overstated work of Neelak Tjernagel, another Lutheran professor who thought that the English Reformation was Lutheran in its origins and in consequence ‘left a Lutheran imprint on the Church of England … under Edward VI and Elizabeth I’, and that ‘the formative and determinative influence was that of Martin Luther and German Lutheranism’.Footnote 28 L. J. Trinterud adopted a more balanced approach in his reappraisal of Tyndale as a Lutheran; and a similar line was taken by William Clebsch in his evaluation of England's earliest Protestants – such as Barnes, Frith, and Tyndale – whom he saw not as mere conduits for a solely Lutheran Reformation in England but rather as multi-faceted theologians receptive to multiple influences and capable of thinking on their own.Footnote 29 A few additional studies during the 1980s contributed to the discussion by focusing specifically on divine right kingship vis-à-vis the Henrician royal supremacy, English translations of the Confession of Augsburg, and the German-born English denizen and perennial royal representative in Germany, Christopher Mundt.Footnote 30 Thus, by 1994, when Carl Trueman's Luther's legacy brought a further nuanced view of early reformers like Tyndale and demonstrated how English evangelicals could employ Lutheran elements without adopting wholesale Luther's doctrine, only a few analyses of the Anglo-German theological relationship were considered to be of sufficient academic merit and without the confessional biases of former years.Footnote 31
For the early decades of the Reformation, Anglo-German political relations remained a confessional curiosity (at best) or academic scarlet letter (at worst) until McEntegart's reappraisal in 2002, when he overturned the ‘deterministic outlook’ and ‘inevitability thesis’ of previous generations. Using a wide array of sources relative to domestic and foreign policies, from both English and German archives, McEntegart demonstrated the utility and reliability of diplomatic records for studies of Reformation England. Only by using these materials could he conclude with confidence that ‘ideology, the ideology of religion, entered the stage for the first time as the essential determinant of political allegiance and behaviour’, and that ideological motivation was ‘why England engaged in such in-depth diplomacy with what was little more than a rag-bag collection of minor princes and provinces’.Footnote 32
McEntegart's reassessment of Henry's dealings with the Schmalkaldeners opened the door to further research in Anglo-German relations just as Ryrie's argument tried to nail it shut, if only for a time. Since 2002, a number of studies have shown that, far from falling into a confessional backwater, work on the English and Lutheran Reformations has picked up steam. For the earlier period, Craig D'Alton has investigated the Lutheran threat in England during the 1520s, finding that Catholic powers sought to reform the heretics along humanist lines; John Schofield and multiple German scholars have revisited the difficult issue of charting Melanchthon's influence from Henry VIII to Elizabeth; Carl Trueman and Carrie Euler have tracked the reception and translation of Luther's works over the long Reformation; and Korey Maas and Katharina Beiergrößlein have, once more, evaluated Robert Barnes as well as his theology and diplomatic activity, concluding that while the reformer was much indebted to Luther, he was also heavily reliant on history for theological backup.Footnote 33
As historiographical trends on the Reformations in England and Germany have independently extended the chronology under review, so too have investigations of Anglo-German relations considered more and more the Elizabethan and Jacobean reigns (in the English context) and the era after the Peace of Augsburg (in the German). Although Heppe had evaluated the situation under Elizabeth, his work was largely forgotten and during the 1960s and 1970s several studies examined the period from multiple perspectives. Continuing a well-established tradition, Carl Meyer's Lutheran sympathies were evident in his appraisal of the Elizabethan Settlement of Religion. Seeing Melanchthonian sources and influences at work in 1559 and beyond, Meyer estimated that at least half of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion were heavily indebted to the Confession of Augsburg, the Württemberg Confession, or other Lutheran documents.Footnote 34 Indeed, just as James McConica found an Erasmian spirit pervading much of Tudor England, Meyer held that Melanchthonian attitudes could be found directly and indirectly not only during the reformer's lifetime, but also after his death in 1560.Footnote 35 William Clebsch qualified Meyer's assessment with his own regarding Elizabethan attitudes towards Martin Luther, demonstrating that the English would not blindly adopt much that was solely characteristic of Luther and his doctrines. Instead, the reformer's influence was imprecise, according to Clebsch, and the ‘spirit of Luther's religion and theology began to settle on Elizabethan England like a London fog; hauntingly unspecifiable, and with real welcome only after his death, it just seeped into the atmosphere’.Footnote 36
Another factor taken into account by scholars was the role of diplomacy between England and the Empire after Augsburg. In an impressive evaluation of Elizabeth's prolonged marriage negotiations with Archduke Charles of Austria, and using a wealth of manuscript and printed sources, Kurt Diemer provided the most complete narrative to date and supplied several document transcriptions. Concluding that these negotiations constituted a series of missed opportunities, his work is particularly valuable to those yet to work in the archives of Vienna, Innsbruck, and Stuttgart.Footnote 37 A second occasion for Anglo-German co-operation during Elizabeth's reign arose during the 1570s when hard-line Lutherans sought to codify their body of doctrines (and condemn outsiders, Elizabeth's Church included) in the Formula and Book of Concord. W. Brown Patterson's brief appraisal of English attitudes and efforts observed that ‘Elizabeth's diplomacy in Germany was dogged by frustration’, and so ‘for both religious and political reasons, informed Elizabethans were inclined to look with suspicion upon Lutheranism and the Formula of Concord’.Footnote 38 Thus, by the late 1970s, historians of various backgrounds had investigated a range of issues – theology, religion and politics, literature, international diplomacy, and various case-studiesFootnote 39 – and the time had come to take stock. Basil Hall's essay on the rise and decline of Lutheranism in England offered an overview of previous scholarship and charted a course for the acceptance of Lutheran ideas in Henrician England followed by their weakened influence among Elizabethans. (As such, Hall in some ways anticipated Ryrie.Footnote 40) Indeed, Hall found that nearly all Elizabethans admired Luther
for his stand against the pope, and for his great insight in rediscovering the truth of justification by faith alone, but they believed that he and his followers allowed in the Lutheran churches the development of dangerous doctrines and the continuation of certain ‘popish’ practices which must be totally rejected.
Hall's understanding of the attitudes espoused by later Tudor Protestants confirmed a growing unanimity among historians on the ‘Calvinist consensus’ within the Elizabethan church.Footnote 41
Despite the predominance of Calvinist (or better, Reformed) ideas relative to Lutheran ones among Elizabethans and scholars of the 1980s, research continued on the historical and diplomatic links between Protestant England and Lutheran Germany. Tempering Hall's arguments for the gradual decline, Ronald Fritze and J. Wayne Baker held that the person of Martin Luther may not have been crucial, but he was nevertheless significant to many Englishmen; Baker located Luther's falling-off in the second half of the seventeenth century, a full century later than had Hall.Footnote 42 Looking at a wider context than Luther himself, Dewey Wallace investigated Melanchthon's reputation in Stuart England, and Jill Raitt updated Patterson's investigation by drawing attention to Elizabeth's efforts to forge a Protestant league despite the balkanization of the Lutheran world during the 1570s.Footnote 43 The most significant contribution to scholarship on Elizabethan diplomatic overtures towards Germany, however, was E. I. Kouri's. His use of archival material from dozens of archives in several countries, along with the usual and less-known printed editions, showed the depth of sources for the latter half of the sixteenth century. Kouri's Cambridge Ph.D. and book were a thorough case-study of the late 1560s, a moment of acute confessional and diplomatic tension, and concluded that Elizabeth's overall policy and individual attempts failed because of, among other issues, lacking sensitivity to religious divisions among the Protestants of the Empire. In this respect, Kouri's analysis tended to privilege political over religious motivations in foreign policy during the wars of religion, thus reflecting many of the same assumptions among previous historians of Anglo-Schmalkaldic relations. Interpretations of the topic have changed since the early 1980s, but looking back on Kouri's achievements in covering so much ground – particularly before German reunification – his most important lasting impact may have been simply to uncover the wealth of material in Germany, Austria, Denmark, and elsewhere.Footnote 44
During the 1990s, a few studies focused directly on Lutheranism and the Reformation in England. In addition to Trueman's study of Luther's legacy among early reformers, Hirofumi Horie's examination of the Elizabethan Settlement brought a sensitive reading to political and diplomatic sources alongside those of a more religious nature; moreover, Horie incorporated a variety of underutilized materials including treatments and editions by Heppe and Ernst, as well as manuscripts in Stuttgart.Footnote 45 Along with Horie, Roger Bowers emphasized Elizabeth's preferences for an earlier, more Lutheran style of Protestantism as exemplified in the Prayer Book of 1549 instead of that for 1552. According to this reading, Elizabeth and others like Edmund Guest were relics of a Henrician (or early Edwardian) and conservative Protestantism evident in Elizabeth's partiality for the Real Presence in the Eucharist and her fondness for her former chaplain, Edmund Allen, who held similar views.Footnote 46 A careful if speculative assessment of Elizabeth's religious convictions, however, offers something of a qualification. Patrick Collinson understood Princess and Queen Elizabeth not as the politique previous generations had seen, but rather as a religious conservative consistent with an ‘odd and eclectic kind of Protestantism’. This hybrid of older and newer views situated Elizabeth ‘in the Augustinian-Catholic-Lutheran tradition’ regarding images and, further, within ‘quasi-Lutheran, proto-Protestant, Augustinian limits’ on soteriology.Footnote 47 Building on but disagreeing to some extent with Collinson, Susan Doran's reading of Elizabeth's letters holds that the queen ‘stood firmly on the Protestant side of the confessional divide’ and was not a ‘crypto-Catholic’ or ‘indifferent to religion’. In contrast to the stark and pessimistic theological tastes of many holding positions in her Church, Elizabeth ‘seems to have been frozen into the religion of her youth which was heavily dependent on Erasmian, evangelical and Lutheran (of the Melanchthon ilk) influences’.Footnote 48
In the past decade, just as research has returned to diplomacy during early decades of the Reformation, so too have scholars revisited the later stages and generations. McEntegart, it turns out, was one of many interested in the topic. From an English point of view, David Trim considered the motivations and sincerity of efforts to build a Protestant alliance in his article seeking to move the discussion of Elizabethan foreign policy beyond the secular attitudes of decades past.Footnote 49 Offering a German perspective, Inge Mager brought forth a wealth of material from German archives in her treatment on Elizabeth's overtures to the Protestant princes to forge a defensive league during the 1570s, and in so doing she demonstrated how many more sources were available than those used in previous studies.Footnote 50 Drawing on sources in both England and Germany as Kouri had, Simon Adams's relatively unknown contribution investigated England's relationship with the Protestant Reichsfürsten before the Thirty Years War, finding that discussions of alliance remained central to the ‘Calvinist International’ well into the reign of James.Footnote 51 A historian of Denmark, Paul Lockhart conducted an admirable study of King Frederik II's relations with a range of Protestant leaders (German, English, Dutch, and French), and in the process he corroborated newer trends in taking religion seriously and mining a range of archives.Footnote 52 These works paved the way for a re-evaluation of Elizabeth's religious and diplomatic relations with the German princes over the duration of her reign, and these findings will likely shed light elsewhere, too.Footnote 53
From a more traditional approach to Reformation studies, several works on theological aspects during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have also recently come forth. In addition to Euler's on English translations of Luther, Michael Whiting has studied the influence of Luther's Law–Gospel dichotomy on Tyndale, Frith, and Barnes, while Robert von Friedeburg has explored the English use of arguments by Luther and Melanchthon regarding tensions between church and state during the 1570s.Footnote 54 These direct lines of contact via translation and appropriation have extended beyond Saxony to the Palatinate, for Anthony Milton has noted the impact in England of divines like Zacharias Ursinus, whose commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism was published twice as often as Calvin's Institutes.Footnote 55 Indirect and subversive influences were also at work in Jacobethan England, however, as Peter McCullough and Keith Stanglin have shown for Lutheran and Arminian doctrines espoused by Lancelot Andrewes and Peter Baro.Footnote 56 Most symbolic of the resurrection in interest have been the symposia organized by Dorothea Wendebourg of the Humboldt University of Berlin. These two meetings focused on the ‘Sister Reformations’ in England and Germany, and attracted an impressive group of historians from multiple countries. At the first meeting, in 2009, commentary and investigations by, among others, MacCulloch, Trueman, McEntegart, Wendebourg, Spinks, Davie, and Kaufmann illuminated the various ways the two Reformation movements were necessarily connected yet nevertheless distinct; predictably, many of these papers considered the most direct and visible instances of contact. Ryrie offered historiographical perspective and noted his previous explanations why Lutheranism declined, arguments which ‘seem to have held up tolerably well’, but he similarly acknowledged that ‘Lutheranism's supposed “death” … no longer seems so clear-cut. It has become increasingly clear that the schism between Lutheran and Reformed Protestants was not seen as a permanent or final one by the 1540s.’Footnote 57 At the second conference in Berlin, in 2012, participants considered a variety of topics focusing on ethics with relation to identity, war, politics, diplomacy, and beyond; as before, the proceedings have been published.Footnote 58
III
Given the recent surge in research on Anglo-German relations during the Reformation, it seems likely that further light will be cast on issues familiar and less so. Much if not most of the work conducted to date has evaluated and re-evaluated the most accessible or visible topics. Early evangelicals like Tyndale, Frith, and Barnes have received a lot of attention over the years, and it seems more is yet to come; the same may be said for dealings with the Schmalkaldic League. Among Lutheran theologians, Martin Luther has been the obvious first port of call when looking for an influence in England, and historians considering his works in translation have shown their significance, but widening the scope to include secondary and tertiary figures would offer a more accurate measure of German Protestantism's reach during the long Reformation. Additionally, despite maturing, nuanced views on the relationship between English and Lutheran confessional documents, many still feel compelled to show doctrinal similarities across the early denominations opposed to Rome. This impulse to demonstrate Protestant affinities has uncovered much that is useful and correct for the sixteenth century, though it also reflects modern ecumenical attitudes seeking greater co-operation between the Anglican and Lutheran churches, and in consequence runs the risk of distorting past polemics for present purposes. In the future, historians of early modern religion and theology would do well to integrate their studies with other fields – the dangers and difficulties of ‘interdisciplinarity’ notwithstanding – and looking to the history of ideas would be a sensible first option.Footnote 59 Moreover, cross-fertilization from other sub-disciplines like economic history and literary studies has already shown potential, yet some of these studies have gone largely unnoticed.Footnote 60 In addition to the symposia in Berlin for post-doctoral and established academics, conferences in the UK and USA have welcomed presentations on aspects of Anglo-German relations by doctoral students like Russell Dawn and Benjamin Guyer, and it is hoped students will continue to bring fresh research from the archives to such meetings.Footnote 61 Further investigation should look into the similarities between Puritan and Gnesio-Lutheran attitudes regarding adiaphora, English translations and appropriations of lesser-known Lutherans such as Niels Hemmingsen, and the wider cultural significance of diplomats' and travellers' reports on their experiences in Protestant Germany and Denmark.Footnote 62 Moving forward, less energy ought to be spent searching for ‘Lutheran England’ than thinking about how Lutheranism mattered on a range of issues in England over multiple generations. If the rediscovered but still underappreciated older scholarship and more recent research is indicative regarding these ‘Sister Reformations’, then future work should have little difficulty bringing early modern Anglo-German relations out of the long, dark shadow of the twentieth century, out of the woods, and into the sunny uplands.Footnote 63
