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BOOK REVIEWS631 nicipal charity that had operated within Holland's densely populated and fiercely independent towns since the later Middle Ages. The patricians who ran these towns saw themselves as both Christian magistrates and guarantors of public order, obliged to promote the welfare of all their indigent citizens, not just the Reformed ones. The confrontation between these two competing visions of the Christian community yielded a variety of outcomes in these six towns in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Parker's comparative approach nicely captures the variety and complexity of the Dutch urban world in the early modern era. He surveys the governmental, parochial, and charitable landscapes of Holland's six major cities in the later Middle Ages and then analyzes the different results of the introduction of the Reformed diaconate into each town. These results could range from a diaconate subsumed into municipal charity (as was the case in Leiden) to a diaconate largely free of magisterial meddling (Dordrecht). Conflicts concerning poor relief were part of a larger pattern of complicated church-state relations in Holland following the formal turn to Protestantism in 1572. This lucidly written and persuasively argued study will be essential reading for students of early modern social, religious, and political history. Christine Kooi Louisiana State University Kurie und Politik. Stand und Perspektiven der Nuntiaturberichtsforschung. Edited by Alexander Koller. [Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, Band 87.] (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 1998. Pp. xii, 532. DM 152.00.) This valuable volume grew out of a colloquium sponsored by the German Historical Institute in Rome from October 9 to 12, 1996, to evaluate and chart the course for the continuing publication of papal nunciature reports and to find ways for their wider use by scholars. It suggests new directions for use of the reports in light of changing historical interests and financial constraints, and it provides an overview of research into early modern papal foreign policy and diplomacy including efforts at church reform. As Wolfgang Reinhard emphasizes in his contribution, the history of papal diplomacy must be seen from a truly European perspective and its study to be a common European venture. The composition of the volume, with twenty-two contributions from scholars of seven nations, as well as the now established co-operation among historical institutes shows that this approach has taken hold. A highlight of the volume is the bibliography compiled by Alexander Koller and Peter Schmidt of 1 131 items published since 1890, 206 of them documentary collections nearly all of which are nunciature reports. The various institutes continue to publish the nunciature reports. The newly founded Polish Historical Institute in Rome has published ten volumes in the 1990's, with one 632BOOK REVIEWS in preparation, and the revived Czech Historical Institute in Rome is preparing its first volume. The exceptions are Spain and Portugal, for which very few volumes have ever been published. Besides Europeanization Reinhard enumerates a number of new approaches to the study of the nunciature reports that take it beyond the publication of documents. Among his many suggestions are their evaluation from the perspective of bureaucratic history, prosopographical studies of the nuncios and their staffs, anthropological and semantic analyses of the reports, and studies of the papal role in Catholic confessionalization. After noting an upswing of interest in diplomatic history that bodes well for the future of the nunciature reports , Schmidt analyzes the publications in the bibliography from a number of formal perspectives. He writes, for example, that 28.7% deal with the second half of the sixteenth century, 21% with the period from 1600 to 1650 including the ThirtyYears'War, and only 9-1% with the first half of the sixteenth century or the Reformation. An important moment in the Europeanization of the study of papal diplomacy was the publication of Instructiones pontificum Romanorum. Die Hauptinstruktionen Clemens'VlII.für die Nuntien und Legaten an den europ äischen Fürstenhöfen 1592-1605, edited by Klaus Jaitner (2 vols.; Tübingen , 1984). Up until this time the publication of nunciature reports was usually undertaken with the purpose of gathering information about the country where the nuncio resided. The publication of the principal instructions of a...

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