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Peoples' Religions in Reformation Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Thomas A. Brady Jr
Thomas A. Brady Jr
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Type
Review Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 173 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Genovese, Eugene, Roll, Jordan, roll: the world the slaves made (New York, 1972), p. 161.Google Scholar

2 Trexler, Richard C., ‘Reverence and profanity in the study of early modern religion’, in Religion and society in early modern Europe, 1500–1800, ed. von Greyerz, Kaspar (London, 1984), pp. 245–69Google Scholar, here at p. 249.

3 The chief reason, as the following quotes show, was the revival of militant resistance among sectors of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I have elsewhere argued that the student revolts at the end of the 1960s helped to bring religion forward as a subject of academic study. See Brady, Thomas A. Jr, ‘Rites of autonomy, rites of dependence: South German civic culture in the age of renaissance and reformation’, in Religious culture in the renaissance city, ed. Ozment, Steven, Sixteenth-Century Studies, vol. II (Kirksville, Mo., 1989), pp. 9–24Google Scholar, here at pp. 9–10.

4 Ladurie, Emanuel Le Roy, Carnival in Romans, trans. Feeney, Mary (New York, 1979), p. xivGoogle Scholar, and there, too, the following quote.

5 Trexler, , ‘Reverence and profanity,’ p. 251Google Scholar.

6 Cochrane, Eric W., ‘New light on post-Tridentine Italy: a note on recent Counter Reformation scholarship’, Catholic Historical Review, LVI (1970), 291–319Google Scholar, here at pp. 296–9. For a recent survey of this area, see Craig Harline, ‘Trends and problems in the history of the Catholic Reformation’, Archive for Reformation History, forthcoming (my thanks to him for letting me see this article in typescript).

7 This is Trexler's stance in his superb polemic, ‘Reverence and profanity’, with most of which I heartily agree.

8 Scribner, R. W., ‘Is there a social history of the Reformation?’ Social History, IV (1977), 483–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Scribner, R. W., For the sake of simple folk. Popular propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar.

10 ‘Preachers and people in the German towns’ (1980), pp. 123–44; ‘The Reformation as a social movement’ (1979), pp. 145–74; ‘Social control and the possibility of an urban Reformation’ (1978), pp. 175–84; ‘Civic unity and the Reformation in Erfurt’ (1975), pp. 185–216; and ‘Why was there no Reformation in Cologne?’ (1975), pp. 217–42.

11 ‘Oral culture and the diffusion of Reformation ideas’ (1984), pp. 49–70.

12 ‘Reformation, Carnival and the world turned upside-down’ (1978), pp. 71–103.

13 ‘Cosmic order and daily life: sacred and secular in pre-industrial German society’ (1984), pp. 1–16; ‘Ritual and popular belief in Catholic Germany at the time of the Reformation’ (1984), pp. 17–48; ‘Ritual and Reformation’, pp. 103–22.

14 Typical is Moeller, Bernd's ‘Frömmigkeit in Deutschland um 1500’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, LVI (1965), 5–30Google Scholar; trans. Irwin, Joyce as ‘Piety in Germany around 1500’, in The Reformation in medieval perspective, ed. Ozment, Steven E. (Chicago, 1971), pp. 50–75Google Scholar. I do not mean to suggest that this is still the state of affairs today. See, for example, van Dülmen, Richard, ‘Volksfrömmigkeit und konfessionelles Christentum im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in Volksreligiosität in der modernen Sozialgeschichte, ed. Schieder, Wolfgang, Geshichte und Gesellschaft, Sonderheft II (Göttingen, 1986), pp. 14–30Google Scholar.

15 ‘Demons, defecations and monsters: Luther's “depiction of the papacy” (1545)’ (1982), pp. 277–300 [here unexpurgated]; ‘Luther Myth, a popular historiography of the reformer’ (1986), pp. 301–22; ‘Incombustible Luther: the image of the reformer in early modern Germany’ (1986), pp. 323–54.

16 ‘Ritual and Reformation’, pp. 103–22.

17 This is a salutary antidote to the commonly held view that protestantism rapidly and thoroughly transformed popular religion. What actually happened, at least in some mixed regions, was that – completely in accord with Scribner's schema – catholic priests performed certain ‘superstitious’ fictions, such as exorcisms and charms, for both catholic and protestant parts of the population. See, for examples, Büchli, Arnold, Mythologische Landeskunde von Graubünden. Ein Bergvolk erzählt, 4 vols. (Disentis, 1989–-), I, 574–5Google Scholar, and 2, 399–400, which relate nineteenth-century exorcisms by Capuchin priests for protestants in the Graubünden.

18 On Blickle's writings, see Hsia, R. Po-chia, ‘The myth of the commune: recent historiography on city and Reformation in Germany’, Central European History, XX (1987), 203–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here at pp. 210–12; Thomas A. Brady, Jr., ‘From sacral community to the common man: reflections on German Reformation studies’, ibid. pp. 229–45, here at PP. 242–4.

19 Blickle posited this unity of urban and rural communalism already in Deutsche Untertanen. Ein Widerspruch (Munich, 1981)Google Scholar; and developed it in ‘Communalism, parliamentarism, republicanism’, trans. Brady, Thomas A. Jr, Parliaments, estates and representation, VI (1986), 1–13Google Scholar.

20 One of his chief targets – and Scribner's – is therefore Bernd Moeller, who is currently the chief defender of this connexion. Moeller announced his version of this doctrine in ‘Stadt und Buch. Bemerkungen zur Struktur der reformatorischen Bewegung in Deutschland’, in The urban classes, the nobility and the Reformation. Studies on the social history of Reformation in England and Germany, edited by Mommsen, W. J. and Scribner, R. W., Publications of the German Historical Institute London (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 25–39Google Scholar. See Scribner's critique, ‘How many could read? Comments on Bernd Moeller's “Stadt und Buch”’, ibid. pp. 44–5; and especially his fundamental study, ‘Oral culture and the diffusion of Reformation ideas’, in the volume under review, pp. 49–69.

21 See, however, the critique by Scott, Tom, Freiburg and the Breisgau: town-country relations in the age of Reformation and Peasants' war (Oxford, 1986), pp. 229–35Google Scholar.

22 See Blickle's historiographical account in his introduction to Blickle, Peter, ed., Zugänge zur bäuerlichen Reformation, Bauer und Reformation, I (Zürich, 1987), 11–18Google Scholar.

23 Schilling, Heinz, ‘Die deutsche Gemeindereformation. Ein oberdeutsch-zwinglianisches Ereignis vor der “reformatorischen Wende” des Jahres 1525?’ Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, XIV (1987), 325–32Google Scholar, which is an extended review of Blickle's work.

24 See, above all, Conrad, Franziska, Reformation in der bäuerlichen Gesellschaft. Zur Rezeption reformatorischer Theologie im Elsass (Wiesbaden, 1984)Google Scholar; and Blickle, Peter (ed.), Zugänge zur bäuerlichen Reformation, Bauer und Reformation, I (Zurich, 1987)Google Scholar. Blickle, summarizes the findings in ‘Communal Reformation and peasant piety: the peasant Reformation and its late medieval origins’, trans. Luebke, David, Central European History, XX (1987), 216–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See especially Fuhrmann, Rosi, ‘Die Kirche im Dorf. Kommunale Initiativen zur Organisation von Seelsorge vor der Reformation’, in Zugänge zur bäuerlichen Reformation, pp. 147–86Google Scholar.

26 Such as Peter Bierbrauer, ‘Die Reformation in den Schaffhauser Gemeinden Hallau und Thayngen’, ibid. pp. 21–54; Hans von Rütte, ‘Bäuerliche Reformation am Beispiel der Pfarrei Marbach im sanktgallischen Rheintal’, ibid. pp. 55–84; and Peter Kamber, ‘Die Reformation auf der Zürcher Landschaft am Beispiel des Dorfes Marthalen. Fallstudie zur Struktur bäuerlicher Reformation’, ibid. pp. 85–126. In the same volume is an instructive study by Endres, Rudolf, ‘Die Reformation im fränkischen Wendelstein’, pp. 127–46Google Scholar.

27 See Hsia, ‘The myth of the commune’, and Brady, ‘From sacral community’, for comparisons and contrasts.

28 See the superbly polemic piece by Wirtz, Jean, ‘Against the acculturation thesis’, in Religion and society in early modern Europe, pp. 66–78Google Scholar.

29 Introduction to Zugänge zur bäuerlichen Reformation, p. 19; and there, too, the following quote.

30 Blickle, Peter, ‘Thesen zum Thema “Der Bauernkrieg” als Revolution des “gemeinen Mannes”,’ in Revolte und Revolution in Europa, ed. Blickle, Peter, Beiheft 4 der Historischen Zeitschrift (Munich, 1975), pp. 127–31Google Scholar; an English version is in ‘The “peasant war” as the revolution of the common man’, in The German Peasant War 1525: new viewpoints, ed. Scribner, Bob and Benecke, Gerhard (London, 1979), pp. 19–22Google Scholar.

31 The latter catch-phrase comes from Hermann Heimpel and should not be taken too literally; or so I have argued in Ruling class, regime, and Reformation at Strasbourg, 1520–1555, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 22 (Leiden, 1978), 219–21Google Scholar. See now Wirtz, , ‘Against the acculturation thesis’, pp. 72–6Google Scholar.