Konrad Braun (ca. 1495-1563): ein katholischer Jurist, Politiker, Kontroverstheologe und Kirchenreformer im konfessionellen Zeitalter by Maria Barbara Rössner (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 265 sense a new one which had somehow overtaken a preoccupation with social justice and ill-gotten wealth in the popular mind (cf. pp. 203-205). Augustine Thompson has written of the Great Devotion of 1233: "The preaching of the Alleluia was itself, above all, the preaching of peace." The mendicant peacemaking activity of 1233—preaching, the sponsoring of formal acts of pacification , and legislation—was clearly of a different character from what happened in 1 399; it is a comparison that might with advantage be pursued further and integrated into a fuller picture of the endless, hopeless quest for peace in the Italian city and ofits religious dimension. The Virgin, who played a prominent part in 1 399, was a peacemaker of long standing; the statutes of Siena ca. 1300 specifically permitted notaries to redact not only wills but peace agreements on the Feast of the Assumption, although the making of other types of contract was forbidden. It is a virtue in any book that it suggests further projects. For this, and for much else, Bornstein is to be congratulated. Diana M. Webb University ofLondon King's College Early Modern European Konrad Braun (ca. 1495—1563): ein katholischerJurist, Politiker, Kontroverstheologe und Kirchenreformer im konfessionellen Zeitalter. By Maria Barbara Rössner. [Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, Band 130.] (Münster: AschendorffVerlagsbuchhandlung. 1991. Pp. xxxix, 435. DM 98,—.) Konrad Braun, author of influential treatises on heresy law and sedition, was also active in imperial church politics and the conservative side of the Catholic Reform. He is now almost completely unknown, partly because his major works are too long and partly because in his active life he worked behind the scenes. Any study of Braun's work is thus a contribution to our knowledge. Maria Rössner's book, originally a dissertation directed by Konrad Repgen, gives much more than an ordinary biography: it makes a substantial contribution to our knowledge of German Catholicism in the mid-sixteenth century. Rössner's study is organized into biographical categories which are defined broadly enough to allow room for some analysis of Braun's thought. She has made thorough use of manuscript sources, as well as of early printed works, and presents Braun's career with a degree of detail not usually found in biographies. For example, her reconstruction of the inventory of Braun's library provides a valuable glimpse of the intellectual world of a German cleric. 266 BOOK REVIEWS Likewise, her presentation ofBraun's services for court, church, and university helps us both to appreciate his work and to understand those complex institutions more deeply. Braun's importance unfolds in the fascinating discussions of his work at imperial commissions and Diets, but Rössner is not pleading the case of neglected importance. Rather, she presents a figure whose versatility made him useful in die highest circles. Such a thesis courts the danger that any unifying definition of his work will be lost in the multiplicity of activities. The unity here rests on the fact that Braun's assignments were in die service of the Church. Whether that is a sufficient unifying principle for a biography is a reader's decision. Usefulness without a strong sense ofpurpose tends to make an historical figure more passive than active and thus to undermine a claim to our interest. Braun the theologian complements Braun the diplomat and jurist. This is a new side of Braun, for most of his dogmatic works, like his copious Catechism , remain in manuscript. The reporting of Braun's unpublished work shows Rössner's usual care, but one questions the necessity of the detail, for Braun was not an original thinker, nor an influential one outside of ecclesiology . He was a voice of die inherited tradition, and the unity of his thought is the coherence of the tradition. Moreover, the theologian and the diplomat remain unconnected. The subtitle of the book announces its major weakness, for we do not see die four roles blending into one career. Braun's activities as controversialist and reformer turn out to be minor alongside his juristic work. This book would have been more unified had it identified Braun as a canon jurist and ecclesiastical...