Moderate Voices in the European Reformation (review)

As the editors of this volume point out in their introduction, a book bearing this title might be expected to be rather brief. The Reformation is not normally thought of as a time of moderation. This volume presents a series of essays which attempt to illuminate some of the more obscure corners of the world of the Reformation in which people tried to avoid or reduce the intolerance and violence which erupted from religious schism. (This is, however, something quite different from our modern conception of religious liberty or toleration.) One of the difficulties here, of course, is the very definition of "moderate," for it is very much a moving target. One must always ask, "Moderate in relation to what?" Moreover, as the editors rightly observe, there can be no single definition of moderation, for "moderation had many layers and many flavours" (p. 4). It is the particular strength of this collection of ten essays that each contribution shines its light on a different corner and illuminates a different flavor of moderation.

This moderation took a number of different forms. Diplomatically, as explored by Alexandra Kess, the Du Bellay brothers steered the foreign policy of Francis I toward alliance with German Lutherans, both as a means of countering Charles V, and also of keeping the flame of religious reform within France. Elizabeth Tingle's chapter on the Breton city of Nantes explores the reality of religious division in everyday life, concluding that to the city fathers, order and stability were more important than orthodoxy and conformity. Alain Tallon argues that the Gallican Church in France provided a moderate alternative model to papal absolutism, one that was never realized, however, as confessional boundaries hardened and as French clergy expressed their resentment of royal control.

Indeed, this hardening of confessional boundaries is one theme that runs through a number of the essays. Kenneth Austin examines the little-known figure of Immanuel Tremellius, an Italian Jew who converted first to moderate or evangelical Catholicism in the 1530's, and then to an undoctrinaire or "lukewarm" Calvinism. It was not so much that Tremellius changed his views, but rather, a changing world induced him to find the religious space in which he could comfortably live and work. Likewise, in her examination of the Imperial Court under Maximilian II, Elaine Fulton explores the notion of "aulic Catholicism," of a reformed Catholicism that would preserve Habsburg control over their territories from papal power-mongering, and that was based on the principles of moderation and compromise over non-essentials. An interesting parallel to the Gallican church examined by Alain Tallon suggests itself here, although, unfortunately, it is not pursued. The French Catholic theologian René Benoist, in his efforts to bring religious literature (including a French Bible) to ordinary people, hearkened back to reforming trends in pre-Reformation Catholicism, but increasingly ran counter to the Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation.

Any discussion of moderate voices in the Reformation must inevitably focus on the Church of England and its legendary via media. Louise Campbell argues that the moderation of Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I's first Archbishop of Canterbury, was not seeking a middle position between Rome and Geneva, but rather strove for compromise among Protestants over adiaphora, "things indifferent," which were neither commanded nor forbidden by scripture. He and his supporters were animated by a concern for order and stability, and by a humanist ethos which valued persuasion over coercion. Ethan Shagan further illuminates some of the difficulties and dilemmas posed by this notion of adiaphora. In things indifferent, is the final arbiter the magistrate or the individual conscience? If the former, does not compulsion belie the Protestant message of Christian liberty? If the latter, where is the possibility of a comprehensive national church? There was a whole range of positions on this issue among both Puritans and "Anglicans." This fact brings us once again back to the reality that "moderation...