The Urban Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire

Hamm, Berndt

doi:10.1163/9789004391680_008

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…One might remain concerned about time-varying, territory-specific unobservables that drove both the adoption of Protestantism and resource reallocation. For example, a large literature documents a wave of urban support for the Reformation across Germany and that cities (as opposed to towns) were the locations where reformist ideas and constituencies developed (Ozment, 1975;Hamm, 1994). 42 This suggests a possible alternative theory: just at the time of the Reformation, urban areas may have experienced socioeconomic change that drove both the Reformation and the economic change we observe.…”

Section: Construction Activitymentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Another natural concern is that time-varying and territory-specific unobservables may have driven both the adoption of Protestantism and the reallocation of resources toward secular purposes. A large literature documents a wave of urban support for the Reformation and that cities were key locations where reformist ideas and constituencies developed (Ozment, 1975;Hamm, 1994). One might wonder whether cities at the leading edge of the Reformation drive our findings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

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Religious Competition and Reallocation: The Political Economy of Secularization in the Protestant Reformation

Cantoni¹,

Dittmar²,

Yuchtman³

2017

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Using novel microdata, we document an unintended, first-order consequence of the Protestant Reformation: a massive reallocation of resources from religious to secular purposes. To understand this process, we propose a conceptual framework in which the introduction of religious competition shifts political markets where religious authorities provide legitimacy to rulers in exchange for control over resources. Consistent with our framework, religious competition changed the balance of power between secular and religious elites: secular authorities acquired enormous amounts of wealth from monasteries closed during the Reformation, particularly in Protestant regions. This transfer of resources had important consequences. First, it shifted the allocation of upper-tail human capital. Graduates of Protestant universities increasingly took secular, especially administrative, occupations. Protestant university students increasingly studied secular subjects, especially degrees that prepared students for public sector jobs, rather than church sector-specific theology. Second, it affected the sectoral composition of fixed investment. Particularly in Protestant regions, new construction shifted from religious toward secular purposes, especially the building of palaces and administrative buildings, which reflected the increased wealth and power of secular lords. Reallocation was not driven by preexisting economic or cultural differences. Our findings indicate that the Reformation played an important causal role in the secularization of the West.

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Section: Construction Activitymentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%