In the early modern period, deceit and fraud were common issues. Acutely aware of the ubiquity and multiplicity of simulation and dissimulation, people from this period made serious efforts to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon, trying to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable, pleasant and unpleasant, wicked and virtuous forms of deceit, and seeking to unravel its principles, strategies, and functions. The twelve case-studies in this volume focus on the use of deceit by several groups of people in different spheres of life, as well as on its representation in literary and artistic genres, and its conceptualization in philosophical and rhetorical discourses. The studies testify to the rich variety of deceitful strategies applied by people from the early modern period, as well as to the subtlety and diversity of the conceptual frameworks they construed in order to grasp the many aspects of the elusive yet all-pervasive phenomenon of deceit. Contributors include: Daniel Acke, Jacques Bos, Wiep van Bunge, Evelien Chayes, Paul J.C.M. Franssen, Paul van Heck, Toon van Houdt, Alfons K.L. Thijs, Bert Timmermans, Johannes Trapman, Mark van Vaeck, Natascha Veldhorst, and Johan Verberckmoes.

Morality after Calvin' examines the development of ethical thought in the Reformed tradition immediately following the death of Calvin. The book explores a previously unstudied work of Theodore Beza, the Cato Censorius Christianus (1591). When read in conjunction with the works and correspondence of Beza and his colleagues (Simon Goulart, Lambert Daneau, Peter Martyr Vermigli, among others), the poems of the Cato reveal the theoretical underpinnings of the disciplinary activity during the period. Kirk M. Summers shows how the moral fervor of the latter half of the sixteenth century had its genesis in a well-formulated theology that viewed a Christian's sanctification as a process of restoration to an original order created by God. 00.

In this book, twelve scholars of early modern history analyse various categories and cases of deception and false identity in the age of geographical discoveries and of forced conversions: from two-faced conversos to serial converts, from demoniacs to stigmatics, and from self-appointed ambassadors to lying cosmographer.

This collection of essays seeks to analyse historically these influences, connections, and impact from multiple points of view, such as – but not limited to – the links between war and rebellion, the issues of trust and religious violence, early modern university debates on war and peace, the problems engendered by intolerance and the difficult management of tolerance, the delicate matters of politico-religious accommodation and the implementation of peace in towns and contested territories, the reappraisals and changes in the narratives of military prowess and religious fidelity, the role of women in the religious conflicts in the 'long sixteenth century', the porous boundaries (imagined or real) which existed between 'enemies' in times of war and the issues connected to the cohabitation with the 'Other' in times of peace.

Thought about lying and perjury became increasingly practical from the end of the twelfth century in Western Europe. At this time, a distinctive way of thinking about deception and false oaths appeared in the schools of Paris and Bologna, most notably in the Summa de Sacramentis et Animae Consiliis of Peter the Chanter. This kind of thought was concerned with moral dilemmas and the application of moral rules in exceptional cases. It was a tradition which continued in pastoral writings of the thirteenth century, the practical moral questions addressed by theologians in universities in the second half of the thirteenth century, and in the Summae de Casibus Conscientiae of the late Middle Ages. Lying and Perjury in Medieval Practical Thought argues that medieval practical ethics of this sort can usefully be described as casuistry - a term for the discipline of moral theology that became famous during the Counter-Reformation. This can be seen in the origins of the concept of equivocation, an idea that was explored in medieval literature with varying degrees of moral ambiguity. From the turn of the thirteenth century, the concept was adopted by canon lawyers and theologians, as a means of exploring questions about exceptional situations in ethics. It has been assumed in the past that equivocation, and the casuistry of lying was an academic discourse invented in the sixteenth century in order to evade moral obligations. This study reveals that casuistry in the Middle Ages was developed in ecclesiastical thought as part of an effort to explain how to follow moral rules in ambiguous and perplexing cases.

Early Modern Europe was teeming with impostors. Identity theft was only one form of misrepresentation: royal pretenders, envoys from imaginary lands, religious dissimulators, cross-dressers, false Gypsies - all these caused deep anxiety, leading authorities to invent increasingly sophisticated means for unmasking deception.

This collection examines the widespread phenomenon of hypocrisy in literary, theological, political, and social circles in England during the years after the Reformation and up to the Restoration. Bringing together current critical work on early modern subjectivity, performance, print history, and private and public identities and space, the collection provides readers with a way into the complexity of the term, by offering an overview of different forms of hypocrisy, including educational practice, social transaction, dramatic technique, distorted worship, female deceit, print controversy, and the performance of demonic possession. Together these approaches present an interdisciplinary examination of a term whose meanings have always been assumed, yet never fully outlined, despite the proliferation of publications on aspects of hypocrisy such as self-fashioning and disguise. Questions the chapters collectively pose include: how did hypocritical discourse conceal concerns relating to social status, gender roles, religious doctrine, and print culture? How was hypocrisy manifest materially? How did different literary genres engage with hypocrisy?