Teaching the Reformation: Ministers and Their Message in Basel, 1529–1629 (review)

Burnett's study of Basel's early modern clergy and their communication of the Reformation exhibits an affectionate attention to detail that would impress a passionate ornithologist. It is broad enough to be relevant to diverse scholars, but precise enough to depict reform as it occurred outside the long shadows of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. Burnett's thesis provides a corrective to Gerald Strauss's contention that the spiritual results of the Reformation were ephemeral. Instead, Burnett describes a gradual, complex, but substantial reform. Since orthodox doctrine was more important than internalized piety to Basel's pastors, Burnett argues that the clergy succeeded in their primary objective: to teach the Reformation. Her study can boast three significant contributions toward a scholarly understanding of this process of transmitting the Reformation.

First, Burnett characterizes the shifting emphasis from performance of ritual to teaching as a transformation of traditions rather than the devaluation or elimination of traditions, such as was characteristic of Zurich. Thus, she documents how clergy replaced the sacrament of extreme unction with consolation and education for the dying, how the role of godparents shifted from parental replacements at the baptismal rite to longterm partners in catechesis, and how church discipline served less to bolster political agendas and more to augment pastoral care. Through the adaptation rather than eradication of several medieval traditions (and despite charges of compromise) Basel's churches fostered a lasting transformation of the laity. "Despite his sacramental and liturgical duties," Burnett writes, "the Reformed pastor was always at heart a teacher, whose fundamental responsibility was to impress on his parishioners an intellectual understanding of scriptural truths and to show them how those truths should shape their conduct" (254).

Second, Burnett provides a helpful picture of a region sandwiched between opposing confessional lands, and describes Basel's early attempts to foster nonconfessional Protestantism and its eventual absorption into the Reformed Orthodox movement. She illustrates the story of this transition with several examples. For instance, since Basel's laity had a nostalgic love for Johannes Oecolampadius's catechism, subsequent university theologians could not replace it but could only provide a Reformed reinterpretation. Burnett describes frictions between university students from Lutheran Baden and Reformed Zurich. Despite these tensions, Burnett does not think Basel's intellectuals were caught in a tug-of-war between Lutheran and Reformed commitments or as undergoing periods of "Lutheranizing," as older scholars perceived in the tenure of Professor Simon Sulzer. Instead, Burnett describes periodic resistance to Reformed cooptation as attempts to return to Basel's indigenous nonconfessional Protestantism, which favored the mediating evangelical stance of Strasbourg's Martin Bucer.

Third, Burnett documents the increasing influence of the Peter Ramus's dialectical method upon education and homiletics in Basel during the late sixteenth century. Though rejected in many Lutheran territories, and rejected at the Genevan Academy, Ramism proved appealing in Basel because it could be taught to future ministers easily, and could be applied to exegetical, homiletic, and polemical tasks. Thus, even when not endorsed officially, Ramism was apparent in tracts and sermons of the period. Burnett shows how Ramism resulted in infatuation with dichotomies, and a concern with the practical application of doctrine and biblical texts, especially in the homilies of seventeenth-century preachers.

This study's only potential weakness is that the reader often must sort through Burnett's descriptive work to derive larger conclusions. Nonetheless, scholars will find this second-order task worth the effort. Burnett provides copious research into neglected documents. She augments her work with several tables and graphs that provide noteworthy longitudinal data regarding the evolution of the clergy, and an appendix that compares the commentary styles of three landmark intellectuals — Johannes Oecolampadius, Johann Jacob Grynaeus, and Amandus Polanus — in order to illustrate shifts in style and theological emphasis. By focusing attention on pedagogical and homiletic texts rather than on polemical pamphlets...