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"For German townsmen, life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was characterized by a culture of arms, with urban citizenry representing the armed power of the state. This book investigates how men were socialized to the martial ethic from all sides, and how masculine identity was confirmed with blades and guns"--

The ideal of orderly family life in early modern Germany did not exclude drinking. In fact, drinks shared at the family table were closely tied to early modern notions of the marital bond and were also a necessary component of normal work relations. Drinking became a problem only when it threatened the stability of the household. The amount of alcohol involved in such cases might be as little as one drink if the circumstances were unsuitable. On the other hand, drinking that would by our standards be viewed as excessive or chronic could be considered acceptable. Even during and immediately after the period of Reformation, when polemical and prescriptive literature addressing the household was dominated by the problem of sin, drunkenness was rarely treated as a spiritual issue. The primary concern of both authorities and populace was not to protect the health or the rights of individuals but to protect the sanctity of the household and the stability of the community.

"It is good for those who are sad or down-hearted […] It brings one back to bodily strength, and makes one lusty and merry," wrote Hieronymus Brunschwig of brandy in his Book of Distilling in 1532. Distilled liquors were was "wonder drugs" of the early modern period, prescribed medicinally both as prevention and cure for virtually every known malady, of the spirit as well as the body. According to Brunschwig, the capacity of brandy actually to lengthen one's life was the basis for its medieval appellation aqua vitae (water of life). The potential for the abuse of these "medicines," however, was evident to medical and legal bodies alike; the "water of life" could become a "water of death," as physician Sigismund Klose noted in 1697.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One: Deviating from the Norms -- A Married Man Is a Woman -- The Reform of Masculinities in Sixteenth-Century Switzerland -- "The First Form and Grace" -- Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany -- Part Two: Civic and Religious Duties -- Father, Son, and Pious Christian -- Masculinity and the Reformed Tradition in France -- Rumor, Fear, and Male Civic Duty during a Confessional Crisis -- Part Three: The Man Martin Luther -- The Masculinity of Martin Luther -- "Lustful Luther" -- About the Contributors -- Index