Early reference works and textbooks
Most nineteenth- and early twentieth-century reference works were theo-
logical in orientation, with some openness to the history of religions. The
Encyclopédie des sciences religieuses(Lichtenberger 1877–1882; cf. Reymond
1977), a Protestant work which explicitly aimed at going beyond the theological
canon of knowledge, is now almost forgotten. But the benchmark-setting
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by the Scottish Free Church
Minister James Hastings (1852–1922), was in use throughout the twentieth
century. Another important reference work was the German Religion in
Geschichte und Gegenwartin five volumes, first published from 1909 to 1913
and, unlike Hastings, updated three times (1998–2006).
The Dutch ‘founding fathers’, Cornelis Petrus Tiele (1830–1902) and Pierre-
Daniel Chantepie de la Saussaye (1848–1920), produced several influential
textbooks. The only journal from the early period that has been published
continuously up to the present is the Revue de l’Histoire des Religions(founded
1880). A Catholic imitation, the Revue des Religions, was published 1889–1896
(Cabanel 1994: 69–70). In Germany, the Zeitschrift für Missionskunde und
Religionswissenschaftappeared 1886–1939, the Archiv für Religionswissen-
schaft 1898–1941/42, and the Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und
Religionswissenschaft1911–1937. In 1925 Raffaele Pettazzoni (1883–1959)
founded Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni, two years after he obtained
the new chair in Rome (Carozzi 1979; Piccaluga 1979).
Subsequent institutionalization throughout Europe
Aside from Sharpe (1986: 119–143), the literature on the institutional devel-
opment of religious studies focuses on single countries (Denmark: Tybjerg 2000;
England: Cunningham 1990; Byrne 1998; France: Pulman 1985; Cabanel
1994; Baubérot et al.[ed.] 1987, Baubérot 2002; Norway: Ruud 1998;
Scotland: Walls 1990; Cox and Sutcliffe 2006; Wales: Williams 1990) or even
single departments (Rudolph 1962, 1992: 323–380; Sharpe 1980; Borgeaud
2005, 2006). In the Netherlands the history of the field has in recent years
developed into a fruitful branch of scholarship in its own right (Molendijk 2005,
Platvoet 2002, Bosch 2002). Aside from van den Bosch (2002), serious
biographic research is otherwise rare, the main exceptions being Sharpe (1990)
on Söderblom and Gandini (e.g. 2005) on Pettazzoni.
While the study of religion was already established in much of Western
Europe by the 1930s, in some countries the process has continued into the
present. The first professor at Åbo Akademi, Finland’s Swedish university in
Åbo/Turku, was appointed only in 1960 (Anttonen n.d.; Helve 2004), a
position held successively by the Swedes Helmer Ringgren and Sven S. Hartman
(1917–1988) and the Latvian Haralds Biezais (1909–1995). At the Finnish
university in Turku a chair was established in 1963, first held by Lauri Honko
1111
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1011
1
2
3111
4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
30111
1
2
3
4
35
6
7
8
9
40111
42222
3
411
WESTERN EUROPE
21
