Reichstag und Reformation: Kaiserliche und ständische Religionspolitik von den Anfängen derCausa Lutheri bis zum Nürnberger Religionsfrieden by Armin KohnleReview by: Stephan LauxThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), pp. 246-248Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20476886 .

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246 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXV/1 (2004)

et la Mediterran&e: Histoires mythiques et images cartographiques." Here she shows how Lisbon, or the Iberian Peninsula in general, was depicted as the head of Europe, culminating in an engraving which shows New Amsterdam (NewYork City) with the general topography of Lisbon. In "L'art portugais et la Mediterran&e," Lucilia Verdelho da Costa explains that Portuguese artists of this era began to turn from the Italian artistic style and to develop their own traditions, which are evident in the architecture of both Portugal and Brazil. In Lisbon, however, the Mediterranean style continued to prevail.

The subject turns to religion in Jose Pedro Paiva's "La reforme catholique au Portugal: Les visites pastorales des &veques." Paiva examines the continuing authority of the church in sixteenth-century Portugal and the practice of pastoral visitations by bishops that was insti tuted by the Council ofTrent. He studies in detail the formula for these yearly visits and how they strengthened the church's power over Portuguese society.

Michele Janin-Thivos looks at the decline of Portuguese commercial ties in the Medi terranean in "Les &changes du Portugal en Mediterranee au XVIIIe siecle vus de Marseille."

While trade with the East flourished and Portugal seemed to have little commerce to con duct in the Mediterranean,Janin-Thivos has examined documents that show how there was meaningful trade between Lisbon and Marseilles, which served as a port link to the eastern Mediterranean.

Politics is the subject of the next two essays. In "La dimension europ&enne de la pensee politique au Portugal (1706-77),"Tiago dos Reis Miranda explains the conflict between reli gion and political policy as it affected the future of Portuguese India.While some believed that the monarchy had an ethical obligation to the colony, the king gradually looked more toward the ideas of other European countries and their view of the benefits derived from the possession of colonies. Robert Rowland explores the subject of family and population in "Regimes demographiques et systemes familiaux au Portugal: Entre la Mediterranee et l'Occident." After reviewing the work done in this field, Rowland concludes that limiting this kind of study to the concept of a Mediterranean culture leaves little hope of progress.

The last essay of this volume is Fran,ois Guichard's "En relisant Orlando Ribeiro: Et si la Mediterranee n'etait plus tout 'a fait ce qu'elle a ete?" Guichard examines the work of geographer Ribeiro and his concept of Portugal's place in the world between the Mediter ranean and the Atlantic. Guichard finds that while Ribeiro's "masterpiece" is still very useful for the historical perspective that it provides, modern Portugal has changed in ways that make application of these ideas to the present situation no longer compelling. Ribeiro's methods, however, can serve as a model for further research.

This is a varied, useful, and handsome collection of essays, whose only shortcoming is its failure to identify the contributing scholars by more than their names.

Reichstag und Reformation: Kaiserliche und standische Religionspolitik von den Anfangen der Causa Lutheri bis zum Nurnberger Religionsfirieden. Armin Kohnle. Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte 72. Heidelberg: Giitersloher, 2001. 484 pp. ?49.95. ISBN 3-579-01757-8.

REVIEWED BY: Stephan Laux, Heinrich-Heine-Universitat, Dusseldorf

Traditionally, German historiography has shown a strong (if not exclusive) interest in political and constitutional history, and there is hardly a historical period that has drawn as much scholarly attention in this field as the Reformation. Significant recent contributions

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Book Reviews 247

by German historians to the study of imperial politics during the Reformation include Christine Roll's book on the second imperial governing council (Reichsregiment) (1996), Thomas Brockmann's on the pubhcity of the Council ofTrent (1998), and Gabriele Haug

Moritz's on the Schmalcaldic League (2002).Armin Kohnle's book also makes a contribution to this field of inquiry.

Naturally, the intention of this Heidelberg Habilitationsschrift (publication for tenure), which was written under the guidance of the renowned Reformation historian Eike Wol gast, is to provide more than just facts on the imperial diets (Reichsabschiede), which have rather been neglected in research on the Reformation period. Kohnle argues that "Reichstag und Reformation"-does the title only accidentally echo Bernd Moeller's "Reichsstadt und Reformation"?-were closely interrelated after emperor Charles V had confronted the imperial estates (Reichsstande) at the Diet ofWorms with the "heretic" Luther and his anti papal critique. The Edict ofWorms was the crucial element of all subsequent imperial diets until 1532, when Charles found himself forced to renounce its execution. Kohnle is prima rily interested in the question of whether the recesses of the imperial diets represented gen uine compromises or whether, in accordance with Martin Heckel's theory of "legal dissimulation" (dissimulierende Formelkompromisse), they were merely provisional attempts to pacify the divergent parties. After all, as Kohnle points out, the 1521 edict constituted man datory law (12, 101), whereas the Reichsabschiede were statutory law, which at least in theory required the consensus of the estates. In his attempt to demonstrate the constitutional signif icance of the Reichsabschiede, Kohnle analyzes their emergence, both in relation to the impe rial diets and to the constitutional reality behind the princes' diplomatic behavior as it

manifested itself in the individual territories. The limits that Kohnle necessarily has to put to his enterprise are of a methodological

rather than of a geographical nature. Because, chronologically, the Diet of Worms of 1521 and the Diet of Regensburg of 1532 frame a coherent period of time, he has to deal with eight Imperial Diets (Worms, 1521; Nuremberg II, 1522/23; Nuremberg III, 1524; Augs burg I, 1525/26; Speyer I, 1526; Speyer II, 1529;Augsburg II, 1530, and Regensburg, 1532). Paying special attention to a group of important secular principalities (the Palatinate, both Saxonies, Brandenburg, Baden, Bavaria, Brandenburg-Ansbach, Mecklenburg) as well as ecclesiastical territories (Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Augsburg, Bamberg, Salzburg, Speyer, Strassburg, and Wiirzburg), and leaving aside only a few inactive or petty territories, Kohnle claims to embrace all relevant agents.Yet he largely leaves out the religious dimension, explicitly focusing on politics and law alone: on die durch die Entscheidungen der Reichstage auf geworfenen politischen und rechtlichen Probleme (12).

With regard to the early developments until 1523, Kohnle suggests that a considerable number of rulers who turned out to refuse the implementation of the edict did not do so out of principle or because they were inclined toward the evangelhcal movement (which then was in its early stages). Instead, they were often guided by lack of interest or comprehension, or were simply defiant toward the emperor's coercive act. Among the worldly princes, only Duke George of (Albertine) Saxony and, to a lesser degree, elector Joachim I actively urged the administrating Reichsregiment of Nuremberg to promote the Edict of Worms. But even

George hesitated to publish either the edict or the first Regimentsmandat of 1522, believing that his own laws were quite sufficient to fight heresy. Inadvertently, George thus showed the

Reichsstdnde the way. Largely regardless of their religious standing, they tended to appeal to the authority of territorial rather than imperial law. The important Regimentsmandat of 6 March 1523, retrospectively strengthened law in the territories, now entirely leaving it to

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248 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXV/1 (2004)

the princes to ensure that all preaching was conducted in accordance with holy scripture. This stipulation led to diametrically opposed interpretations. On the one hand, a group of rulers (Albertine Saxony, Bavaria, Wiirzburg, etc.) now saw themselves fully authorized in their efforts to suppress evangelical tendencies as demanded by the Edict ofWorms. On the other hand, Luther and his followers now saw themselves authorized to spread the gospel.

Other leaders, for example in Brandenburg and Brunswick, who saw themselves belea guered by growing evangelical movements in their own lands, pursued their own methods, apparently paying little attention to imperial religious politics. Even at this early stage, one has to conclude, the estates had undermined imperial law to an extent in which any attempt to reconcile or unify religious policies in the territories and cities was prone to fail.The sit uation was aggravated when the Reichsabschied und Reichsmandat of Nuremberg in 1524 con firmed the Edict ofWorms and deferred the reconciliation of incompatible elements (220) through imperial law to a future council. The Reichsabschied of Speyer in 1526 reconfirmed the principle of princely responsibility on religious questions (Verantwortungsklausel, 270).

Consequently, in some territories it was perceived as a legal basis for the promotion of the Reformation. The enactment of the Verantwortungsklausel by the Imperial Diet Speyer II touched the very core of evangelical territorial church policy (but Kohnle would have done better to reflect the problem of secularized church property in this context). On April 19, 1529, the supporters of Luther launched an act of"protestation"-and in doing so wrote a piece of world history. One year later, the "Protestants" presented the Confessio Augustana. The Nurnberger Anstand-signed by the electors of Mainz and Palatinate on one side and most of the members of the Schmalcaldic League on the other-implicitly granted the adherents of the Confessio Augustana the right to exist. But as a concession made by the emperor for merely economical grounds, it was unsuitable to restore religious and political unity.

To consider imperial and territorial politics together, as Kohnle has done, seems appro priate, but the immense scope of his project, which has prompted the use of innumerable printed sources (but rarely of archival materials) renders his accounts in some of the territo ries rather superficial. Furthermore, Kohnle's study lacks in intellectual originality, as it does not position itself within historiographical traditions and offers neither methodological reflections nor a substantial critical account of extant sources.What it does offer is scrupulous documentation and subtle differentiation of crucial processes in German reformation history. Particularly his evidence for the ways in which the 1521 Edict furthered the polarization of religious policies is convincing and innovative. In the last analysis, both Kohnle's leading question (concerning the character of the Reichsabschiede) and his conclusion are rather weak. After all, the Edict of Worms and the circumstances under which it came into existence themselves may give the answer to his leading question: as long as the emperor or his party followed the edict to the letter, any compromise made at the Diets could not be based on

anything but "dissimulation."

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