Historiography of religion

The historiography of religion is how historians have studied religion in terms of themes, sources and conflicting ideas. Historians typically focus on one particular topic in the overall history of religions - in terms of geographical area or of theological tradition.

The field has focused mostly on theology and on church organization and development. Recently the study of the social history of religious behavior and belief has become important.

Jacob argues that there has been a dramatic shift in the historiography of the Reformation. Until the 1960s, historians focused their attention largely on the great leaders and theologians of the sixteenth century, especially Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. Their ideas were studied in depth. However, the rise of the new social history in the 1960s look at history from the bottom up, not from the top down. Historians began to concentrate on the values, beliefs and behavior of the people at large. She finds, "in contemporary scholarship, the Reformation is now seen as a vast cultural upheaval, a social and popular movement, textured and rich because of its diversity."

...
Wikipedia