In June 1722, three families from Moravia settled on the estate of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Berthelsdorf, Saxony. Known as the community of Herrnhut, their settlement quickly grew to become the epicenter of a transatlantic religious movement, one that would attract thousands of Europeans, American Indians, and enslaved Africans: the Moravian Church.Written by one of the leading archivists of the Moravian Church, this book investigates the origins of Herrnhut. Paul Pe...

At the end of the 1740s, the Moravians, a young and rapidly expanding radical-Pietist movement, experienced a crisis soon labeled the Sifting Time. As Moravian leaders attempted to lead the church away from the abuses of the crisis, they also tried to erase the memory of this controversial and embarrassing period. Archival records were systematically destroyed, and official histories of the church only dealt with this period in general terms. It is not surprising that the Sifting Time beca...

Masculinity, Senses, Spirit brings together current work by leading scholars in the fields of gender studies, religion, history, and cultural studies to examine the complex interrelationship between gender, sexuality, and the realms of the spirit and the senses in the Atlantic world from the eighteenthcentury to the present. Ranging in scope from the bridal mysticism of eighteenthcentury German Moravians, through the education theories of the German "Gymnasium," the creation of ...