Regulating the People: The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Spain by Allyson M. Poska (review)

BOOK REVIEWS129 Platonic Forms, indicate God's presence. Heerbrand's treatment of the book of nature as a text encouraged more questioning of ancient authorities. This suggests an openness to innovation in the mathematical sciences at Tübingen, rather than a simple Kuhnian revolutionary interpretation of the scientific change of that time. Dr. Methuen clarifies the thought of Michael Maestlin, a student ofApian and perhaps the teacher who most influenced Kepler. His tripartite method joined exact observations with hypotheses and mathematical proofs. These can lead, Maestlin asserted, to a greater admiration of God's glory. Of necessity, geometrical proofs are correct. The nova of 1572, which Maestlin placed above the sphere of the moon, contrary to Ptolemaic astronomy, and the comets of 1577-78 and 1 580 undercut the Aristotelian notion that the heavens are perfect and immutable. The search for more correct interpretations in the sciences, such as the Copernican system, demanded reliable and improved observations. Maestlin thought that there can be only one truth, and he sought to make his findings consistent with biblical authority. While Kepler is clearly an heir of Ptolemy, as J. V Field notes, Methuen adds that the teaching of most Lutheran professors at Tübingen did not deter but encouraged his research. He surpassed them in rejecting ancient authorities and, after reading Tycho Brahe, later gave greater weight to exact observation. Methuen's term "theological mathematics" to describe Kepler's work, however, seems a misnomer. His conception of the divine structure of the universe is religiously inspired, and he derives some methods from his Tübingen teachers, but the authority for his mathematics is independent of theology. Ronald Caunger The Catholic University ofAmerica Regulating the People: The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Spain. By Allyson M. Poska. [Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Peoples,Volume 5.] (Leiden: Brill. 1998. Pp. ix, 178. $82.50.) The diocese of Ourense, located in the ancient Celtic region of Galicia, does not figure in many guidebooks of Spam. Remote, poor, and landlocked, the area boasts few attractions. In the seventeenth century, ambitious ecclesiastics avoided the bishopric, for an assignment in Ourense was a ticket to nowhere. In Poska's study, Ourense's marginality for once becomes an asset, as the author's purpose is to evaluate the success of the Catholic Reformation in a peripheral area of Spain. To that end, the author has studied the parish record books from twenty-six localities and 187 testaments drawn randomly from all over the diocese . She concludes that on the whole, the Church's reform program made little difference in the region. In looking for the causes of the reformation's mediocre impact, Poska cites the region's location and cultural distinctiveness from the metropolis. Most Galicians lived in tiny parishes of seven to ninety 130BOOK REVIEWS households scattered across the hilly countryside, were illiterate, and were known (even today) for their distinctive folk culture. More than anything else, officials were defeated by the region's geography and demography. Poska presents her findings in six chapters. The first three chapters are based largely on the libros de visita which were maintained by each parish, supplemented by references to Ourense's synodal constitutions and modern studies by Spanish historians and anthropologists. Once every few years, the bishop's representative would conduct a whirlwind investigation of every aspect of the parish's administrative and religious life. Poska has organized the visitors' directives to cover the sacred geography of the diocese, reform of the clergy, and reform of popular religious customs. The remaining three chapters examine the customs surrounding the three life-cycle sacraments of baptism, marriage, and extreme unction. Here, parish record books and testaments are used for several studies of name-giving, seasonality of marriages and conceptions, and death rituals and pious bequests. Throughout, Poska discusses her findings in relation to findings from recent studies of the Catholic Reformation and local religious life in other Spanish dioceses and around Europe. It is not difficult to believe that the Catholic Reformation made little headway in this remote diocese. At the top, bishops came and went all too frequently, and at the bottom, parishes were too poor to attract a...