Gute Ordnung: Ordnungsmodelle und Ordnungsvorstellungen in der Reformationzeit ed. by Irene Dingel and Armin Kohnle (review)

This volume features essays on the important early modern theme of “good order” ( Gute Ordnung). The book is one of several resulting from a conference series—“ Die Frühjahrstagungen zur Wittenberger Reformation” (number 10)—most of which have produced works on individual reformers like Nikolaus von Amsdorf, Johannes Bugenhagen, and Philipp Melanchthon. The editors and conference organizers gathered an array of scholars to investigate the growing interest in the political, social, and ecclesiastical ordinances/ Ordnungenof the sixteenth century.

The larger umbrella of “policy ordinances” is addressed in an overview chapter by Johannes Staudenmaier, who notes the organizational framework developed by Karl Härter and Michael Stolleis, part of a research project of the Max Plank Institute for Legal History. Several chapters address the primarily secular dimensions of these Ordnungen, ranging from larger territorial legislation ( Landes-ordnungen) to more specific concerns like the regulations of court life (Berger), water rights (Richter), or clothing and luxuries (Weller). Thomas Weller’s chapter on sumptuary legislation ( Kleiderordnungen) offers a particularly instructive example on how arguments for controlling community behavior shifted through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Focusing on the city of Leipzig, a “fashion center” of the late sixteenth century, his essay analyzes the numerous Leipzig Kleiderordnungento demonstrate how concerns about divine punishment eventually yielded to an interest in maintaining the social status quo in the early seventeenth century.

The authors are attentive to the confessional dimensions of these various ordinances, especially in the chapters that directly address the voluminous church ordinances ( Kirchenordnungen) along with visitation protocols, and related matters like school (Töpfer), university (Kohnle), consistory (Butt), marriage (Jürgens), poor relief (Peters) and burial ordinances (Kolb). Sabine Arend’s essay on Kirchenordnungenprovides a good sense for how these ordinances sought to promote their understanding of “good order” while curbing expressions of disorder, which was often associated with those of rival confessional traditions. Unfortunately, her ability to contrast ordinances from varied perspectives—Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic—is not replicated in several other studies. Most essays concentrate on the Lutheran ordinances, and there is a distinct Saxon flavor throughout the volume.

Nevertheless, all essays contain intriguing insights, with bibliography that is up-to-date and valuable. Stefan Michel offers a good assessment of the visitations in Ernestine Saxony, noting both the theological and legal aspects of Melanchthon’s influential Unterricht der Visitatoren. Heiko Jadatz’s chapter on the nearly simultaneous visitations in neighboring Albertine Saxony illustrates how visitations were also employed to bolster traditional Roman Catholic teaching and worship. Legal thinking and Ordnungensurrounding marriage-related matters has received particular attention following the work of John Witte, Law and Protestantism(2002) and the earlier work of Hartwig Dietrich, Das protestantische Eherecht in Deutschland(1970). Henning Jürgen’s contribution on marriage ordinances provides an exceptional overview of this research, with further insights into the thinking rooted in both the Kirchenordnungenand subsequent Eheordnungen. Paired with the article on consistories by Arne Butt, the volume distills a significant body of literature about marriage legislation into a reasonably compact form. Robert Kolb’s final chapter on burial orders is the lone English essay in the book. Kolb mines a host of Kirchenordnungento demonstrate how Luther’s theological insights regarding death and burial translated into both liturgical practice and the regulation of cemeteries.

Irene Dingel’s essay opens this volume and makes the argument that confessions, in their varied ecclesiastical expressions, served an “ordering” function that promoted wider societal concepts of “good order” or the “common good” ( gemeiner Nutz). As noted already in this review, attention to confessional dynamics emerged in each of the essays. Dingel’s comments also provide an apt conclusion to this collection. She explains how confessions, and the varied ordinances they influenced, informed the three arenas of early modern experience: politics ( politia), church ( ecclesia) and household ( oikonomia). In a nearly...