Eckhardus Theutonicus, homo doctus et sanctus. Nachweise und Berichte zum Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart ed. by Heinrich Stirnimann, and Ruedi Imbach (review)

262 BOOK REVIEWS they became nuns or lived in the countryside, were of urban origin. He presents his findings about the Béguines' social origins in an appendix. The movement was thus a response to both the problems and the opportunities created by medieval urbanization. The publication of the Constitutions of Vienne in 1317 accelerated the institutionalization of the movement; the Béguines were forced to become Franciscan tertiaries to escape the suspicion of heresy. Some of die urban houses remained true to the original ideals of ministering to the needy but were closely supervised by the municipal authorities. The majority of new late-medieval foundations were established in the countryside, but these communities were small. These rural Béguines assumed many ofthe characteristics of inclusae whose cells were attached to a parish church or anchoresses. It is impossible in a short review to do justice to the complexity of Wilts's arguments, but his book is required reading for anyone with an interest in the Béguines. John B. Freed Illinois State University Eckhardus Theutonicus, homo docttis et sanctus. Nachweise und Berichte zum Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart Edited by Heinrich Stirnimann in collaboration with Ruedi Imbach. [Dokimion, Band 11.] (Freiburg/ Schweiz: Universitätsverlag. 1992. Fp. x, 312. 49 S.Fr. paperback.) In the 1980's a movement to request an official reconsideration of the 1329 condemnation of excerpts from Meister Eckhart's writings began to gather strength, both in the Dominican Order and in wider circles of readers of the great Dominican mystic and theologian. Given recent Vatican willingness to reverse earlier judgments, as in the Galileo case, the time seemed ripe for such a request, though not all readers of Eckhart (including myself) found it either necessary or appropriate. This volume of essays is intended to contribute to this effort, at least in part, by providing new information and consideration of the actual condemnation process itself—one of the best known and most fully documented of all medieval condemnations for heresy. Like so many collective volumes, however, the title is not really fulfilled by what we find in the volume. This is not to say that a number of the essays in Eckardus Theutonicus are not useful contributions to recent Eckhartian scholarship. Four of the eight essays have substantial relevance to John XXII's condemnation . Winfried Trusen provides a competent, if not original, overview of the whole process, stressing the canonistic aspects of the Cologne and Avignon proceedings. The long article of Tiziana Suárez-Nani on the interpretation of BOOK REVIEWS 263 those articles that were finally censured in the Bull In agro dominico is often insightful in its detail, but suffers from a perspective that is more interested in showing how the Avignon investigators misunderstood Eckhart than in uncovering how they also disagreed with him. At least some Eckhart scholars may be inclined to think that had the inquisitors understood him better the comdemnation would have been even more severe. This judgment would not be shared by all, as witnessed by E.-H. Weber's article. "Maître Eckhart et la grande tradition théologique." Massively documented, but fundamentally wrong, this article seems designed to demonstrate that there is no difference between Eckhart and Thomas Aquinas, especially on the issue of mystical union. By far the best article in the collection is that of Georg Steer, demonstrating how the German sermons ascribed to Eckhart and excerpted by the inquisitors are far more the product of his authentic "authorship" (with all the medieval complexity of the term) than much previous scholarship has been willing to admit. The other essays in the volume deal with aspects of the Dominican's reputation and therefore have sometimes marginal connection to the condemnation itself. Among these we can single out those of Loris Sturlese which provides important information on how Eckhart's writings continued to provide a resource for theology in German-speaking rearms in the fourteenth century, as well as the lengthy and provocative piece of Alois M. Haas, "Aktualit ät und Normativität Meister Eckharts." Haas's essay raises issues of how Eckhart's theology relates to the wider normative theological tradition that go beyond the scope of the...