Priestly Resistance to the Early Reformation in Germany

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History http://journals.cambridge.org/ECH Additional services for The Journal of Ecclesiastical History: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Priestly resistance to the early Reformation in Germany. By Jourden Travis Moger. (Religious Cultures in the Early Modern World, 15.) Pp. xii +205. London–Brookeld, Vermont: Pickering & Chatto, 2014. £60 (\$99). 978 1 84393 454 2 Tom Scott The Journal of Ecclesiastical History / Volume 66 / Issue 01 / January 2015, pp 191 - 192 DOI: 10.1017/S0022046914001778, Published online: 09 January 2015 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022046914001778 How to cite this article: Tom Scott (2015). The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 66, pp 191-192 doi:10.1017/S0022046914001778 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/ECH, IP address: 169.230.243.252 on 16 Apr 2015 REVIEWS  representatives (studied in their private and public personae by Christel KöhleHezinger and Susanne Schuster) to the present, generations of women have wrestled with the multiple challenges of being spouses, mothers, pastoral assistants, community leaders and – especially from the watershed s, viewed very critically by Doris Riemann – independent wage-earners at the same time. In the course of the volume, the style shifts from scholarly investigations – illuminating, for example, the pastors’ role in memorial culture (Stefan Dornheim) and political resistance (Luise Schorn-Schütte) – towards more essayistic writing, with several contributors (Andrea Hauser, Axel Noack and the Saxon bishop Jochen Bohl) reflecting on new phenomena like multiconfessional frameworks, ministers’ husbands (Pfarrmänner), clerical households formed of same-sex couples and the ‘depopulation’ of vast swathes of rural Germany, especially in areas of the former GDR. No wonder that current job profiles, according to Klaus Raschzok, require radically different life skills. For an even fuller picture, readers may wish to consult the exhibition catalogue (whose aim to reveal an ‘inner picture’ is sketched here by Bodo-Michael Baumunk) and its companion collection Leben nach Luther (Berlin ; featuring comparative glances into Catholic contexts and the Church of England). In spite of some repetitions and the absence of concluding remarks, Das evangelische Pfarrhaus provides a valuable overview of long-term trends and the rather uncertain future of this venerable institution. UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK BEAT KÜMIN Priestly resistance to the early Reformation in Germany. By Jourden Travis Moger. (Religious Cultures in the Early Modern World, .) Pp. xii + . London–Brookfield, VT: Pickering & Chatto, . £ ($).      JEH () ; doi:./S Although in recent years there have been several studies which have examined the failure or delay of Reforming endeavour in German cities, this work, refreshingly modest in length and accessibly written, fills a two-fold gap. It presents the slow and contested introduction of evangelical doctrines in Frankfurt-am-Main, a city on which there is little literature in English; but it does so from an unusual perspective, namely that of a Catholic collegiate priest, Wolfgang Königstein, who recorded, with mounting alarm, the spread of Reforming doctrines among the citizenry at large, flanked by the council’s efforts to put a brake on the movement on account of the constitutional and commercial privileges which the city derived from the emperor. What Moger is able to show is that the final acceptance of Reform in , cemented by the city’s joining the Schmalkaldic League three years later, wrought very few changes in the social and political fabric of the city. Rather, the fundamental shift was cultural and mental: the practices and rituals of Catholicism were sloughed off (with notably little physical violence, but with symbolic acts of iconoclasm) and replaced by a simplified liturgy and order of worship, visible above all in the recasting of baptism and holy communion, and the disappearance of processions. Königstein recorded these changes accurately (if despairingly); his only blind spot was the presence of a sizeable contingent of  JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Reformed Protestants in the city, led by Dionysius Melander, whom he lumps together as ‘Lutherans’, even though Luther himself was moved to compose his Letter to those at Frankfurt am Main in late  in order to counteract the acceptance of doctrines of Zwinglian or Bucerian provenance in the city. Königstein survived; he was not expelled, but chose to remain in a city from which he must have felt increasingly estranged; after  Frankfurt became a community which officially tolerated a Catholic minority. His account (whether one calls it a diary or a chronicle) gives a running commentary on the gradual changes in ritual and belief, which Moger sensitively sets in context: he emphasises that, while we may never know why men and women chose to embrace or reject Protestantism, we can learn a great deal from what they did. Indeed, Moger’s book may prove particularly useful beyond its immediate status as a case study, inasmuch as he gives careful explanations of, for instance, the structure and purpose of collegiate churches, or the practice and symbolism of Catholic baptism, matters with which students today are often unfamiliar. UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS TOM SCOTT Philip Melanchthon. Theologian in classroom, confession and controversy. By Irene Dingel, Robert Kolb, Nicole Kuropka and Timothy J. Wengert. (Refo Academic Studies, .) Pp. . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, . E..      JEH () ; doi:./S This fine collection brings together four papers given at a conference in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, in May  and eight articles published elsewhere (several of which appear here for the first time in English). Divided into three sections, the essays consider Melanchthon ‘in classroom’, as a teacher and exegete; ‘in confession’, as a definer and mediator of confessional norms; and ‘in controversy’, in questions of free will and the Lord’s supper. The volume opens with Nicole Kuropka’s consideration of Melanchthon’s appeal to Aristotle: the attempt to exclude Aristotle from the teaching syllabus in the early years of the Reformation, and his ‘rediscovery’ in the mid-s. Robert Kolb assesses the pastoral dimension of Melanchthon’s teaching, concluding that he was always concerned to identify practical applications. Timothy Wengert catalogues the wide extent of Melanchthon’s exegetical works, opening up a rich field for future research. Considering ‘confession’, Wengert considers Melanchthon’s contribution to the  Diet of Augsburg, focusing on his encounter with Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio. Kolb suggests that Melanchthon’s Responsiones to the Bavarian visitation questions of  may be read as presenting a useful summary of his mature doctrinal position. Irene Dingel explores Melanchthon’s attempts to use the Confessio Augustana as a basis for theological consensus with the kings of France and of England in the mid-s, presents his attempts to unify Protestantism after Luther’s death in the ‘Frankfurt Recess’ in /, and assesses his role in the establishment of confessional norms (a process which after his death would lead to the drafting of the Formula Concordiae, although she does not say so). Finally, some of Melanchthon’s contributions to the key controversies of his day are considered. Wengert takes issue with two recent readings of