La Religionsgeschichtliche Schule nella storiografia europea

Can we recognise a sort of methodological legacy of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule in European historiography? Our research starts from Göttingen of the late 18th century as symbolic place of reflection and historical and historical-religious production - though the latter still in embryo – where a sort of Vor-Schule exists and is thriving. Since this time, the spread of the new comparative method applied to the study of religions occurred by philosophical-theological mediation, which has connected the birth of that study to religionist themes that are tangential or of theological relevance. The fil rouge that from the research of Gunkel, Bousset and Troeltsch unravels throughout Europe and not always runs on the surface, crosses liberal instances and modernist crises in a path characterised by a common battle for freedom of research.