Wegscheiden der Reformation: Alternatives Denken vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert. byGunter VoglerReview by: Jeffrey P. JaynesThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 251-254Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2541596 .

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Book Reviews 251

misinterpretation of the word "heiress"means that many theories regarding the change in

marriage habits about the beginning of the eighteenth century are insupportable, based as

they are on flawed (i.e. misinterpreted) data.

Spring also demonstrates the fallibility of the theory that women enjoyed more favorable settlements in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than in the medieval era. All mar-

riage settlements granted women property, but most women would have enjoyed greater property rights had no settlement existed; settlements generally restricted women's common law rights regarding land inheritance. Those historians who happily cite Lady Anne Clifford's

"generous" portion as a fine example of the rising generosity of settlements for aristocratic women in the seventeenth century fail to realize that Lady Anne Clifford should have (and would have) succeeded to the entire estate under common law arrangements. Indeed, Lady Anne is proof of the decline in female inheritance.

There can be few doubts that this book will have widespread appeal. Not only the legal historian, but historians of women and the family will find this book interesting and

thought-provoking. Nevertheless, while Spring's stated aim is to make a difficult subject clear to ordinary historians, the nonlegal historian may sometimes find the legal terminology and concepts a little hard going. Spring does warn that the lay reader will find the book dif- ficult at times, but her statement that such readers would do well to skip chapter 5 (regarding the strict settlement) because it might prove too difficult for them is unfortunate, and it high- lights a significant problem in her work. Admittedly, Spring's subject is a complex one and one that necessarily needs to be defined in primarily legal terminology, but I wonder if

Spring could have made it easier for the general reader if she had provided a glossary of legal terms.

If subject matter of internal chapters is sometimes a little obtuse, then the overall structure of the book is well laid out. In the first three chapters Spring examines the heiress-at-law, the

widow, and the younger child in regard to changing patterns of land inheritance from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In the last four chapters Spring considers patterns and

implications (especially as regards theories of family history and relationships between family members), and delves into some technical detail regarding the strict settlement (the avoidable

chapter 5). Spring includes useful appendices providing abstracts of several different types of settle-

ments. Overall, this book is a useful addition to the current understanding of the pattern of women's inheritance in English history. Despite the occasional legalistic complexity, Spring's analysis and conclusions deserve thoughtful consideration.

Sara Warneke............................. La Trobe University, Bendigo, Australia

Wegscheiden der Reformation: Alternatives Denken vom 16. bis zum 18.

Jahrhundert. GiinterVogler, ed. Weimar:Verlag Hermann B6hlaus, 1994. 553

pp. n.p.

The events that enveloped Eastern Europe in 1989 overshadowed many of the Thomas Miintzer commemorations and complicated the publication of this volume. In May 1989, several Central European and North American scholars met in Bautzen near the German- Polish border to discuss various alternative dimensions of the Reformation. Fortunately, the persistence of the editor, early support from the bygone East German Fachekommission Friihe Neuzeit der Historischer-Gesellschaft, and the dedication of the publisher have pro- duced this remarkable collection of twenty-two essays.

Overall, Wegscheiden der Reformation should appeal to those who prefer to speak of"refor-

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252 Sixteenth Century Journal XXVI / 1 (1995)

mations" as opposed to a Reformation. Editor GiinterVogler, whose essay introduces the book, makes precisely this point when he argues against a "monolithic" understanding of the Reformation and opts to represent the "conflicting conglomeration of interests and ideas."

Vogler has imported the notion of"crossroads" and "junctures" from the work of the Hun-

garian historian Ewa Anscel in an attempt to reexamine divergent patterns of reform. His

hope, along with that of the contributors, is that this collection will stimulate further re- search in these areas.

Many of the movements and individuals that appear are familiar to students of George Huntston Williams' Radical Reformation, but for the authors of the present work, his under-

standings would be conceptually and chronologically incomplete. With varying degrees of success the contributors have mined the past three decades of early modern historical re- search with attention to sociocultural as well as religious-political dynamics. Moreover, their

analysis of reformation themes extends the discussion by tracing various alternatives through the mid-eighteenth century.

Geographical diversity also distinguishes this collection, with essays devoted to Eastern Europe, Russia, the Netherlands, and even colonial North America. Nevertheless, certain limitations inevitably surface. The German regions of the Empire dominate the discussion, and developments in other areas appear as extensions of matters established in Germany. Al- ternative reformations in southern Europe, France, and England are entirely ignored.

Even the larger chronological scheme is somewhat misleading; well over half of the volume focuses on the sixteenth century, and nearly a third of the essays are dedicated to the 1520s. Perhaps the most influential essay is Hans-Jurgen Goertz's analysis of the agitated in-

ception of this epoch. Goertz seeks to identify the "Logik" of the era, and makes his case against those who opt for the "rediscovery of the Gospel," traditional Marxist historiography, and even Peter Blickle's Gemeindereformation. In their place Goertz argues that "anticlerical- ism" united the diffused hopes for reformation, a position developed more extensively in his Pfaffenhafl undgrofl Geschrei (1987). Certainly Goertz has advanced a timely interpretation, if the recent Obermann-Dykema volume,Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1993) is any indication. He concludes his analysis by indicating that the volatile initial decade of reformed movements (a Bewegungsreichtum) yielded to subsequent pressures for

"discipline and order." Several other authors likewise concentrate on the pivotal early years of the reformation.

Siegfried Brauer uses a rhetorical approach to compare the hostile exchanges between Luther and Miintzer and depicts them as something akin to complementary personalities, es-

pecially in their inflated self-perceptions. Hans Hillerbrand contrasts the highly politicized covenant notion of Miintzer with the more theologically informed understanding of the

early Anabaptists. Anabaptist origins in Switzerland and in the Tyrol are discussed by James Stayer and

Werner Packull. Stayer dispenses with the Bender school's attempt to isolate Swiss anabap- tism from radical Saxon influences by reexamining the Zurich connections of Karlstadt and Miintzer. Packull probes the popularity of anabaptism in the Tyrol, noting the predominantly local (Gemeinde) flavor of this movement. Janusz Tazbir details the close association, yet dis-

parate class connections, between Hutterite Anabaptists and antitrinitarian nobles in Poland. Gunther Miihlpfordt attends to the spiritualist contributions in his essay on Kaspar Schwenk- feld's "middle way." He observes that although Schwenkfeld shared the birth year and even to some degree the infamy of Miintzer (they received top billing in seventeenth-century cat- alogues of heretics!) his slow and progressive approach to reform contrasted sharply with the intensive appeals of Miintzer. For Siegfried LooB, Schwenkfeld, along with Juan Vives, Se-

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Book Reviews 253

bastian Franck, and especially Karlstadt were not merely utopians, but creative social critics whose alternative visions of society provided a "reservoir of ideas for the bourgeios age."

Conflicting points of view are represented on occasion, although not as often as one

might hope. EikeWolgast surveys the thinking of various early German reformers and move- ments on the question of opposition to authorities and concludes that legitimate resistance remained limited almost exclusively to those acting in official capacities. Adolf Laube counters that the shift from resistance as civic right to responsibility (Widerstandspflict) did occur in the empire and as early as the 1520s. Laube appeals to German translations ofWesel Gansfort's De Dignitate et Potestate Ecclesiastica (partially reproduced in an appendix) to sup- port this transition. Heinz Schilling inserts Lutheran perspectives into this discussion of alter- natives by identifying why non-Lutheran movements failed so uniformly in northern Ger-

many.Volker Press gives similar attention to the.Reformed church, especially in the

Palatinate, Hesse, and Brandenburg, as it struggled with its alternative legal status until 1648. The ability of these two scholars to incorporate these more traditional constituencies helps restrain the tendency in this volume to ignore the larger religious context in which the var- ious alternatives developed.

Particularly disparate points of view are also evident in articles by Siegfried Wollgast and Martin Brecht. Wollgast catalogues the world views of numerous "left wing" philosopher- theologians, ranging from Franck to August Francke (1550-1720), which he then uses to

identify five strains of pietism. Brecht concurs with the interest in pietism, but insists that

Wollgast offers an interpretation too influenced by post-Enlightenment thought. Brecht pays special attention to Johann Arndt, an individual he feels Wollgast completely misrepresents, and one that Brecht sees as pivotal in transmitting sixteenth century spiritualist thought to the mainstream of seventeenth-century Lutheran pietism.

In addition to the article by Tazbir, issues outside the empire are considered in a number of essays. Lodwijk Blok discusses religious pluralism in the Netherlands, a region with a "public church" (rather than a state church), existing in the midst of dissident protestants

(Lutherans, Mennonites, and Arminians), secretly tolerated Catholics, and various dispos- sessed religious outsiders (Quakers, Jews, Brownists). The career of the Czech reformer turned world citizen, Jan Amos Comenius, is admirably narrated by Jan Kumpera. Two German scholars, Michael Schippan and Peter Hoffman describe alternative aspects of the reformation in Russia. Schippan notes the contributions of both religious outsiders (e.g. Ra- dischev Hutterites and Herrnhutter in Riga) and indigenous reformers (especially the hu- manist Feodosi Kosogo and antitrinitarian DmitriTveritinov), while Hoffman focuses on the Nikonite movement as an alternative within the Russian orthodox church. Petra Schellen-

berger traces the evolution of Polish Socianism, particularly their contributions to theories on tolerance, yet asserts a wider influence on Enlightenment thought than is demonstrated.

A final cluster of articles looks to the early eighteenth century, with special attention to the Enlightenment and Pietism. Christine Hartwig presents Gottfried Arnold's efforts to re- habilitate the received understanding of Miintzer (Arnold's Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzer-

historie, 1688), proposing that Arnold's more sympathetic view was heavily influenced by Miintzer's early correspondence with Hans Zeiss. Hanelore Lehman highlights the influen- tial role of Halle pietists in Frederick William's Potsdam, especially Johann Schubert, and dis- cusses the tensions created by radical pietists who were less inclined to support the Prussian

king's brand of civil pietism. One of the few studies rooted in archival materials is Irena Modrow's analysis of how Count Zinzendorf's Herrnhut struggled with religious separatism and the communal demands of Christian service. Renate Wilson explores pietist influence across the Atlantic in Georgia's Ebenezer community-a German "City on the Hill" that

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254 Sixteenth Century Journal XXVI / 1 (1995)

succeeded briefly in replicating the Halle Waisenhaus. Her work, along with that of A. G. Roeber, promises intriguing new vistas in the study of colonial German-American immigra- tion.

Like too many conference compilations, this is a book without a conclusion. One longs for some evidence of the Schlussdiskussion that must have occurred, at least in informal set- tings. An index of persons is a helpful addition to this volume; howeve, the Personenregister seems rather out of place in a work that has so frequently undermined the contributions of individual reformers (see especially the comments of Goertz). Nevertheless, these essays should prove to be a resource for further and fruitful consideration of the Reformation in all of its variant forms.

Jeffrey P. Jaynes ....................... Methodist Theological School of Ohio

Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800): Essays in Honor of Natalie Zemon Davis. Ed. Barbara B. Diefendorf and Carla Hesse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. x + 280 pp. $49.50

As part of her remarkably innovative historical work, Natalie Zemon Davis has worked her way through new understandings of popular religion into a complex and illuminating view of religious cultures.While she insists that popular religion refers to religion as practiced and experienced and not merely as defined and prescribed, her view of religious cultures at the same time stresses their manifestations as contextual, comparative, and relational. Her cri- teria for understanding religious cultures include convictions that ritualistic behavior depre- ciatingly defined really did promote group identity, that simple people can reflect profoundly on doctrinal issues, and that Catholic-Protestant reform programs related in complex and cross-purposeful ways to actual experiences.

A 1990 Boston University symposium, "Dialogues with the Past" honored the Toronto, Berkeley, and Princeton teacher and scholar. Most of the essays on that occasion are pre- sented in this volume as a kind of model for a well-integrated Festschrift. Each of the twelve essays independently moves in Natalie's "same direction," carrying on dialogues and debates with the past, giving subjects their own voice, dialoguing with other historians, focusing on religious choice, studying the social dynamics of families, neighborhoods, and corporate bodies, interpreting the significance of writing among illiterates, adjudicating gender issues, and illuminating lively cultural and political messages embedded in nonverbal rituals and symbols. Natalie's Festschrift provides a marvelously rich feast for the alert and open-minded reader.

Debates with other historians are here muted, with only a passing reference to her de- pendence on newer English Marxist historians like E. P.Thompson, who stressed that cul- tural practices constitute rather than reflect socioeconomic experience. Similarly, Davis's view is summarized as departing from earlier generations of social historians (Marxist, mod- ernist, andAnnaliste alike) in viewing cultural life as the infrastructure rather than the super- structure of a given social order. It may be a relief to ordinary historians that such abstruse concerns are usually absent from the lively essays in this volume on quite concrete themes, surprisingly extending all the way from the meaning of early sixteenth-century prayer books for lay persons to an explanation of why youthful nineteenth-century peasant rioters in the French Ariege mountains dressed as women.Three sections of four essays each identify "spir- itual identities,""social identities," and "cultural identities."

Predictably, the spiritual identity section is the mildest.Virginia Reinburg examines printed books of hours from northern France and Flanders in both Catholic and Protestant

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