Trento, un problema: la última convocación del Concilio (1552-1562), I: Estudio by Constancio Gutiérrez, S.J. (review)

552book reviews The book is a superior text for providing the political background of the Reformation in an upper division or graduate course. Miriam Usher Chrisman University ofMassachusetts, Amherst Trento, un problema: la última convocación del Concilio (1552-1562), I:Estudio . By Constancio Gutiérrez, SJ. [Corpus Tridentinum Hispanicum, V] (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas. 1995. Pp. xxxiv, 614.) With this book, Constancio Gutiérrez has brought the number of published volumes in a monumental series, the "Corpus Tridentinum Hispanicum," to five. He launched the series some forty-seven years ago with a study of Spanish participants at the Council ofTrent, and then followed with two that present a critical edition of sources from separate phases of the Council, 1549-1551, and 1552-1553- In the fourth installment, Gutiérrez provided a study of the second period of the Council, and in this one, he has presented analysis of the difficulties associated with the convocation of the third, final phase of the Tridentine assembly. A large number—perhaps as many as five or six—additional volumes are promised, including a critical edition of sources to complement the text under review. Like all the other volumes in the series, this one belongs in every research library with a serious collection on the history of Christianity. It is a work of impressive erudition, and based upon vast archival research in Spain,in Italy, and at the Vatican. The work beautifully illustrates the enormous political and religious complications behind Pius IV's intention to reconvene the Council that, upon his election, had already been suspended for more than seven years. In the battles that ensued between supporters and opponents ofthe convocation, power and authority were at stake on many different levels: the authority of existing decrees from previous sessions,the power ofsecular rulers—like those in Spain and France—to effect religious change in their nations, the authority of the pope in demanding continuation ofTrent rather than the creation of a new assembly, the power of the leaders of Spain and France to resist the policies of the pope and of each other, the authority of bishops over clerics—especially cathedral chapters—in their dioceses, and the power of existing exemptions from episcopal control. In the context of late-twentieth century developments in the historiography of this era in European history, careful analysis of both early-modern theoretical positions on authority and of the practical problems encountered in exercising them is of paramount importance. This volume— and the others in the series—will be crucial for evaluating the legitimacy ofparadigms like state building, confessionalization, and social disciplining that have such wide circulation in scholarly literature. For Gutiérrez,the story ofthe reconvocation ofthe final sessions begins with the conclusion of the first phase in 1547 and ends with a bull of convocation book reviews553 that, for all its careful wording, still raised determined opposition. The suspension designed to shut down dissident voices in 1547 left big issues unresolved, including one with a long history in Spain: the question ofthe power ofbishops undertaking corrective visitations. Even when such visits were justified through the decrees of the first phase of Trent, exemptions from episcopal authority— usually held by cathedral chapters—limited that power. Gutiérrez gives over the first three chapters in this book to this problem and to examples of chapter opposition, and then follows with analysis of the diplomacy between the Spanish clerics, the Emperor, and the papacy in 1554 designed to reduce this contention . These negotiations were paralyzed, as Gutiérrez relates in the following four chapters, by the death ofJulius III and by an interlude that included hopeful signs for the cathedral clerics (like the election of Marcellus H) but also included decisive abandonment of diplomacy in the bellicose, anticonciliar pontificate of Paul IV The stories Gutiérrez presents establish the precedents to the wider diplomatic operations followed to gain reconvocation in 1561, and these he relates in chapters 9 through 15. Pius IV quickly overcame the conciliar lethargy characteristic of the Pauline pontificate to capitalize on the opportunity afforded by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, but only with hard work and complex diplomacy. Gutiérrez traces it all, demonstrating...