Luther and Suleyman

S-Tier
Journal: Quarterly Journal of Economics
Year: 2008
Volume: 123
Issue: 4
Pages: 1465-1494

Score contribution per author:

8.043 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Various historical accounts have suggested that the Ottomans' rise helped the Protestant Reformation as well as its offshoots, such as Zwinglianism, Anabaptism, and Calvinism, survive their infancy and mature. Utilizing a comprehensive data set on violent confrontations for the interval between 1401 and 1700 CE, I show that the incidence of military engagements between the Protestant Reformers and the Counter-Reformation forces between the 1520s and 1650s depended negatively on the Ottomans' military activities in Europe. Furthermore, I document that the impact of the Ottomans on Europe went beyond suppressing ecclesiastical conflicts only: at the turn of the sixteenth century, Ottoman conquests lowered the number of all newly initiated conflicts among the Europeans roughly by 25 percent, while they dampened all longer-running feuds by more than 15 percent. The Ottomans' military activities influenced the length of intra-European feuds too, with each Ottoman-European military engagement shortening the duration of intra-European conflicts by more than 50 percent. Thus, while the Protestant Reformation might have benefited from—and perhaps even capitalized on—the Ottoman advances in Europe, the latter seems to have played some role in reducing conflicts within Europe more generally.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:qjecon:v:123:y:2008:i:4:p:1465-1494.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-02-02