Nails in the Wall: Catholic Nuns in Reformation Germany (review)

This scholarly work begins with an intriguing title leading to an intriguing account of resistance waged by nuns in three Strasbourg convents who fought for their religious survival during the Reformation period. While the means they used might sound rather familiar to twenty-first-century observers — such as, to name a few, the exploitation of elite connections, courage, intelligence, persistence, religious conviction, and, above all, solidarity — it must be remembered that it was sixteenth-century nuns who exhibited such methodological refinements to combat their enemy, the local Protestant city council. The nuns' resourcefulness is astounding and so is their resolve to withstand a seemingly much better equipped adversary.

Amy Leonard deserves a lot of credit for disclosing the nuns' actions and aspirations. Her cogent and scholarly rendition of their struggle is very impressive. Based on her painstaking research of the various archival records, by extrapolating points rarely touched by other historians — possibly for lack of relevant data — she is able to paint a clear picture of the unfolding scenarios in Strasbourg. Particularly impressive is her stress on the nuns' solidarity or group identity, the absence of which had been deplored for women of the premodern period. But, as she puts it, they "most definitely embraced the 'We'" (146). In fact, the author convincingly asserts that it was the nuns' communal solidarity that turned their resistance into a successful outcome.

The author's command of relevant Reformation historiography, setting the stage for the impending Strasbourg developments, is also quite remarkable. Her rather skeptical thought on the confessionalization thesis suggesting a more accommodating rather than antagonistic stance is well-argued. While the metaphor of walls introduced in the title might have been a bit more developed — not only because it is based on a quotation of Martin Luther's, but also considering the continued fascination with walls, physical and metaphorical — this thoroughly scholarly book deserves a wide readership. It might be especially appealing to those disenchanted with seemingly overpowering machinations of the present.