Power, Gender, and Ritual in Europe and the Americas: Essays in Memory of Richard C. Trexler (review)

What began as a collection of conference papers written in tribute to Richard C. Trexler on the occasion of his retirement became a memorial volume due to his death a short time thereafter. Trexler’s path-breaking and prolific work covered religious history (albeit from a secular point of view), urban history, historical anthropology, as well as studies of gender and sexuality in Renaissance Europe and the New World. His masterpiece, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), was grounded in extensive research into the city’s abundant fifteenth-century archives. What made it enormously influential, however, was Trexler’s application of anthropological insights to historical studies. Rejecting the traditional assumption that political ideas and religious dogma precede and determine action, Trexler instead examined public ritualized behavior as political process to see how Florentines constituted their urban identity. Edward Muir, who introduces this volume, summarizes the import of Public Life as showing that Florentines “could better be understood by what they did in their formal behaviours than by what they wrote about their lives, city, politics and God” (p. 20). Trexler ingeniously demonstrated how analysis of rituals—especially processions and ceremonies—could reveal hidden dimensions of cultural meaning. The implications for religious history are profound. By defining religion primarily as a system of reverential, often ritualized, actions rather than as a set of beliefs or even a community of believers, Trexler worked from the assumption that behavior preceded faith or understanding of dogma. He therefore advocated that scholars of religion focus on how people actually enacted their faith as opposed to what they professed to believe. Public Life revitalized—indeed, revolutionized—Renaissance studies and inspired a generation of younger scholars to extend and apply his methods not only temporally but also geographically, to other cities in Europe as well as New Spain.

The seventeen essays collected in this volume are organized around four major themes reflective of his wide-ranging interests: late-medieval and Renaissance Italy, early-modern political and religious rituals, gender and collective representations in the New World, and nationalism and historiography in the modern world. Especially noteworthy in the first two sections are those essays that deal directly with Catholicism. Lyn A. Blanchfield’s essay on public weeping in late-medieval Florence tells us that traditionally public and collective displays of tears during Lenten sermons were common. Weeping, especially on Good Friday, was actively encouraged and expected, as it was considered a sign of the congregation’s true contrition and intense emotional preparation for Easter. During the Savonarolan period (1496–98), ritualized weeping took on special significance. When in 1498 Savonarola was excommunicated and censured, a great many women defied patriarchal authorities and rallied to his side, weeping publicly to demonstrate their support, and then later wept for the executed friar as a form of memorialization. Blanchfield effectively shows how such ritualized public displays of emotion were freighted with political meaning and held potentially subversive implications for gender roles.

Continuing with the theme of religious reform is Konrad Eisenbichler’s examination of a religious play performed by a Florentine confraternity of young men. Analyzing this dramatization provides a privileged insight into Florentine attitudes toward young men, the sinful temptations they were likely to encounter, and the moral lessons their elders wished them to imbibe. In 1494 Savonarola’s supporters managed to install men in the municipal government who believed that youth groups of adolescent males should be organized into four confraternities that would become powerful forces in purging the city of its sins and promoting a more austere and religious life. The youth groups set out to “cleanse” the streets by finding examples of immodesty or vanity in women’s clothing...