C. Scott Dixon received a degree in history in 1989 from St Andrew's University, Scotland, and completed a doctorate at Cambridge University, England (1992) on the effect of the Reformation on the rural parishoners in the German territory of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach. His thesis, which was later published as the book The Reformation and Rural Society (1996), was supervised by Robert W. Scribner. Since receiving his doctorate he has held research positions at the Institute for European History, Mainz, and the Herzog-August Library, Wolfenbüttel. His research intersts include the effect of the Reformation on the subject population of Germany, as well as the emergence of Protestant identity in the early modern age. At present (1998) he lectures on European History at the Queen's University of Belfast.