Beschreibung:
Historians feel the need to label their research. These labels can be either descriptive, for example by dynasties, such as ‘Tudor and Stuart history’, or interpretative (analytical), such as ‘the age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation’. Alternatively, labels can be used as heuristic devices: ‘confessionalisation’ in preference to ‘Reformation and Counter-Reformation’. The theoretical approach expressed in the ‘confessionalisation paradigm’ claims to open up a perspective on all the essential forces at work in the era, whereas the empirical research, assumed to be covered by the more conventional labels, is deemed too compartmentalised.