Here are two of the most tantalising questions in Western history: how could the Protestant Reformation take off from a tiny town in the middle of Saxony, which contemporaries regarded as a mud hole? How could a man of humble origins who was deeply scared by the devil become a charismatic leader and convince others that the pope was the living Antichrist? Martin Luther founded a religion which up to this day determines many people's lives in intimate ways, and so did Jean Calvin in Geneva one generation later. This is the first book which uses the approaches of the new cultural history to describe how Reformation Europe came about and what it meant. It also challenges the idea that Protestantism was a more rational religion of the Word, providing a unique and lively discussion of Protestant everyday culture across Europe.