Pietism's Predecessors
The Pietist movement drew inspiration from diverse streams of Christian thought, especially the writings of the early church and later mystics. The emerging movement also borrowed freely from non-conformist Christian communities operating largely outside of the church-state power structure including the Anabaptists, Schwenckfelders, Puritans, and Moravians. This section of the exhibition presents pre-Pietist literary works whose texts or authors contributed to the development of Pietism.