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  • The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500–1648
  • Marc R. Forster
The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500–1648. By Bridget Heal. [Past and Present Publications.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. Pp. xvi, 338. $99.00. ISBN 978-0-521-87103-7.)

Bridget Heal’s study of the cult of the Virgin Mary reinforces the trend in early-modern religious history that has emphasized the diversity of religious practice across confessional lines. Heal traces the evolution of Marian theology and piety (sometimes calling it “Marianism”) through the Reformation, using a variety of sources, most particularly visual sources. This study examines pre-Reformation piety, Protestant practices, and changes within Catholic Marianism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Heal begins her study by tracing developments within Lutheran Germany. Here she contrasts continuities in Marian imagery and practices in the conservatively Lutheran city of Nuremberg with the more radical changes in the Zwinglian-influenced city of Augsburg. Heal points out that Lutherans rejected the traditional theology that emphasized the role of Mary as a divine intercessor, yet Luther was typically moderate in his condemnation of traditional Marian piety. Luther was particularly tolerant of images, stating that he was concerned about the attitude of the viewers of images, not the images themselves. Most Marian paintings and statues remained in the churches in Nuremberg, often because they had been donated by members of elite families. But, Heal argues, Protestant writers and preachers also worked to transform the image of Mary from that of a powerful intercessor to a model of faith, obedience, and humility.

The situation in Augsburg was quite different. Not only was the Protestant movement there strongly influenced by Zwinglian theology, including a strong element of iconoclasm, but the city was also confessionally divided through much of the period. Protestant churches in Augsburg were cleansed of Marian images, and by the 1530s Mary had almost completely disappeared from Protestant religious and public life. At the same time, after about 1550, Catholic ritual life was restored in Augsburg, and under Jesuit leadership Marian processions and feast days came to be markers of Catholic identity.

There was a diversity of Marian practices in Catholic Germany as well. The Catholic Church had a somewhat mixed attitude toward the cult of the Virgin. On the one hand, the Council of Trent and official theology affirmed all aspects of traditional Marian piety. On the other hand, Catholic theologians were critical of popular “abuses” and “superstitions,” most of which were local or regional, and sought universal liturgical reform. Other Catholic reformers, especially the Jesuits, believed that the cult of the Virgin had broad popular appeal and should be promoted, as they did with their Marian sodalities and promotion of pilgrimages and processions. [End Page 382]

Heal contrasts the “Counter-Reformation cult,” promoted by the Jesuits and strong in Bavaria and Austria, with the more traditional Marian piety found in Cologne. Here she follows the arguments of scholars such as Gerald Chaix and Rebekka von Mallinckrodt and shows how the traditional religious culture of Cologne survived, and even thrived, during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. For example, both the elites and popular classes continued to venerate Marian Gnadenbilder (holy images) from the Middle Ages. The Jesuits certainly promoted new religious forms in Cologne through their sodalities and their preaching, but these forms only supplemented traditional piety. The result was pluralism within Catholic practice, as there was within Protestant practice.

In the last chapter, Heal tackles the difficult question of Marian devotion and gender. Here again, she emphasizes the diversity of practices. Mary’s gender presented multiple meanings to early-modern people, particularly women—mother, powerful intercessor, symbol of domesticity, a “woman like no other.” Heal cautiously suggests that, at least in Germany, the Protestant reformulation of Mary tended to demystify her, perhaps for Catholics as well. In any case, she insists on the diversity of meanings within a gender analysis.

The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany provides a valuable overview of an important issue in religious history. The book is in one way difficult to categorize. On...

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