The Formation of Clerical and Confessional Identities in Early Modern Europe (review)

As the editors state in their introduction, this book does not aspire to present a single thesis: rather, the "volume's strength lies in the specific theses of the individual contributions," each of which "pleads for nuance and restraint in approach to the topic" (1). Collectively, therefore, the twenty-four essays could be seen as an exercise in revisionism. And their strength lies in demonstrating the myriad strands of early modern reform, so diverse, so contested, so shifting that no confessional map of Europe could ever accurately represent them. The book is rich in tales of religious pluralism and coexistence. David Fors Freeman tells the story of how Lutherans in the German city of Wesel successfully petitioned the magistrates to allow public worship, while Sven Tode introduces us to Jacob Fabritius, a dedicated Calvinist preacher commanding large and well-educated audiences in the Lutheran city of Danzig. And there are excellent case-studies on the slow pace and unevenness of the processes of reform. Basing her study largely on material evidence, Margo Todd draws attention to the survival of the cult of Saint John the Baptist in the Scottish burgh of Perth, long after John Knox thundered against "monuments to idolatry" and the kirk attempted to kill off the veneration of saints, saints' days, images, altars, and chapels. Leendert Groenendijk reports on the failure of efforts by the Dutch Reformed Church to banish papist schoolteachers and to impose its own ethos on primary education: in many Dutch towns, Catholic (and sometimes Mennonite) teachers continued to enjoy the support of the civic authorities and the communities for which they worked. Wietse de Boer presents to us the memoirs of Girolamo Magni, a parish priest from near Pistoia in Tuscany, born in 1531, whose account of his life up to 1595 (comprising hundreds of folios) makes mention neither of the Council of Trent nor of the pastoral visitation that took place in his parish in 1570, though — according to de Boer — this apparent indifference did not prevent Magni from passing the latter "with a decent grade" (377).

As Todd puts it, "communal identity is not constructed overnight, nor is it reconstructed in a flash" (381). But if Todd's message might serve as a motto for the book as a whole, her methods are not typical of the twenty-four contributors. Where she engages with material culture and with non-clerical, non-doctrinal manifestations of religion — for example, the appearance of the Agnus Dei, emblematic of Saint John, on a silver ball commissioned in the 1610s as the prize in a handball match: Scotland's oldest surviving sporting trophy! — the bulk of the volume is focused on intellectual, philological, educational, and institutional developments. This tendency is reflected in its tripartite division: part 1 focuses on education and theological training, part 2 is concerned with the interpretation of scripture and confessional preaching, and part 3 turns to the more general theme of the construction of clerical and communal identities. There are some very erudite essays on Calvin's commentaries on the Book of Joshua and the Gospel of Saint John, on contrasting confessional approaches to Psalms 8 and 16, on competing clerical efforts to secure lay support in the Flacian controversy over Original Sin, on the curricula of various Protestant academies, and on the sermons and strategies of preachers in diverse confessional environments. Each essay lays down another small piece of the jigsaw and brings home to us just how complex was the field of religious ideas in the century-and-a-half following Wittenberg. But what these pieces largely fail to do is to give us any sense of the reception of ideas. Of course, it is often difficult to reconstruct reactions to sermons, lectures, and biblical commentaries, although admirable studies of reception do exist. But what this reviewer finds disheartening is the apparent complacency with...