The Reformation in National Context ed. by Bob Scribner, Roy Porter, and Mikulăš Teich (review)

98BOOK REVIEWS him when he refused to obey orders. The pope took Perugia without a fight, entering it surrounded by a strong military guard, contrary to Machiavelli's famous account in die Discorsi. As head of the Papal States, Julius insisted on having his own army, but could never find effective commanders for it. The victories he won depended on assistance from his aUies. Shaw caUs him the "warrior pope" not only because of such memorable incidents as his personal supervision of die siege of Mirándola, but also because of his deep interest in such military things as fortresses and strategy and his personality which was more given to action dian to diplomacy. While references to die religious dimensions of Julius II's personality and career are scattered dirough the book and notably found in its final paragraphs, the pope is never seriously treated as a religious figure. Thus, for example, his efforts to promote a reform of reUgious orders, especiaUy ofthe Franciscan of which he was a member (?) and as cardinal functioned as its protector, are never explored. Nor is mention made of his setting up die missionary Church in America and reluctantly granting to die Spanish monarch patronage rights over it. But for someone primarily interested in the political career ofJulius II, Shaw's book provides a weU researched, carefuUy reconstructed account that incorporates new findings and interpretations. Nelson H. Minnich The Catholic University ofAmerica The Reformation in National Context. Edited by Bob Scribner, Roy Porter, and Mikulas Teich. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1994. Pp. x, 236. $54.95 hardcover; $17.95 paperback) This volume is part of a series that places various cultural movements, such as the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism into their national contexts. Scribner (Porter's and Teich's roles are not immediately evident) has assembled a steUar, aU-European group of experts , each of whom presents bodi a summary and an interpretation of the Reformation in the light of the latest, confession-surmounting, often socially oriented, and inevitably revisionist historiography—historiography in which many of diese audiors have diemselves played a significant part. As Scribner notes in his summing up (p. 215), die Reformation did have a "distinctive face" in each of its various settings. AU the contributions are of creditable quality. Scribner lists for Germany several features that created "a bundle of enabling preconditions" (p. 15), among them its developed urban life and its superfluity by 1520 of universityeducated men who were discontented with the humble positions available to them and die corrupt ecclesiastical system. In his Ust oftwelve characteristics of reform (pp. 15-25), he includes gender differences and communal im- BOOK REVIEWS99 pulses. In Switzerland (Kaspar von Greyerz) too die Reformation was chiefly an urban movement, often resisted in the countryside; from its inception it subjected its adherents to strict discipline and moral control, using matrimonial courts in the service of die latter. Mark Greengrass places the Huguenots in a heavily political milieu. He hints diat the French Reformation might have gained wider popular support had not its neo-Stoic leaders been deeply afraid of disorder. Writing of the Low Countries, Wiebe Bergsma contests die rapid Protestantization of Pieter Geyl and L. J. Rogier, according to which die state imposed reform on die populace. Calvinism spread slowly and with difficulty. Lacking a state church, many people refused to make a choice. Patrick Collinson gives us a historiographie capsule on the English Reformation. He reaffirms the "late Reformation," aided in its evolution by the words of Cranmer's traditional, yet Protestant liturgy. In Scotland (Julian Goodare) lairds in opposition to the francophile crown joined with Protestant cells in key towns, which "captured die regime from outside" (p. 99), using anti-French feeling to spread the faith and rigid parish discipline to consolidate it. Scandinavia (Ole Peter GreU) does not present a unified case. King Christian IH of Denmark had to overcome aristocratic resistance to reform. In Sweden, Gustav Vasa, religiously noncommittal but desiring full control of the church, was pitted against reformers Olaus Petri and Laurentius Andreae. In writing about Bohemia, Frantisek Kavka maintains die nationalist position diat the Reformation began there, not widi John Hus...