Religion, Magic, and Science in Early Modern Europe and America by Allison P. Coudert (review)

As the title of her new book indicates, Allison P. Coudert has set herself an impressive challenge: an overview of religion, magic, and science not only in Europe but also in America, spanning the whole of the early modern period. As an eminent scholar who has been investigating this field for decades already, Coudert certainly seems qualified to tackle so large and demanding a project. As she relates in the acknowledgments, she took her first steps under the guidance of Frances Yates at the Warburg Institute. Her research has focused on the interactions of science, religion, and esotericism ever since, and in this book she sets out to show that "religion, magic, and science were all of a piece" (ix) during the early modern period. Published as part of the Praeger Series on the Early Modern World, the result is, regrettably, not satisfactory, even if we take the book as an introductory survey with only limited claims to originality. The passages dealing with the historiography of science, religion, and magic are certainly solid work, if a bit dated—especially with regard to the scientific revolution—and problematic in their use of "magic."

To begin with the most superficial problems, the book would have profited greatly from more careful proofing in the later stages of production. While it goes without saying that some typos always evade even the most searching eyes, there are worse blunders here: Latin phrases, the names of historical actors, and even the titles of their books are misspelled rather too often. Further, potential readers should be aware of the fact that Coudert relies heavily on examples from the Anglophone world. Though she pays some attention to German, French, and Italian material, Spain and Portugal get particularly short shrift. By focusing on the Catholic Inquisition in these contexts, Coudert perpetuates the dated and highly questionable association between Protestantism and progress. The northern and eastern European contexts are largely ignored. As is understandable in a survey where the emphasis lies on momentous changes in the history of ideas, historical personalities do not loom large; the only sustained analysis of an individual centers on the Flemish alchemist Jan Baptist van Helmont (chapter 9). Most detrimental, however, are the grave terminological problems that ultimately prevent this book from delivering on its promises.

As a chapter-by-chapter summary of Coudert's work would be somewhat tedious, my remarks shall focus on some of the general themes treated in this book. From the very beginning, it is clear that Coudert is concerned with situating religion, magic, and science in the context of the lived experience of early modern people. To this end, she paints a very vivid picture that contrasts the poor standards of hygiene and questionable medical treatments with the stunning achievements of artists and philosophers. The same thread is taken up again in chapters 4 and 5, which deal with witch hunts and the role accorded to Protestant women at home, respectively. In what is one of the strongest parts of the book, Coudert links these seemingly unrelated issues by showing how the early modern concern with purity was expressed differently at the level of the individual, the family, and society as a whole.

Coudert is also concerned with what she calls "miracles" (esp. in chapter 3). However, she does not differentiate between miracles as opposed to wonders, prodigies, and marvels. As has been well established in the classic study on this issue, "miracle" and "wonder" were anything but synonymous terms: the former referred to interventions of the divine in the temporal, whereas the latter designated ultimately natural phenomena that were somehow out of the ordinary, that is, preternatural—a term never once used by Coudert.¹ In the same vein, her use of "supernatural" needs to be qualified, for she uses the term without historicizing it in any way. If we consider that what was held to be "natural" or "supernatural" underwent great...