Moderate Voices in the European Reformation (review)

Abstract

Early Modern Voices in the European Reformation. Edited by Luc Racaut and Alec Ryrie. [St.Andrew's Studies in Reformation History.] (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2005. Pp. xiv, 219. $94.95.) As the editors of this volume point out in their introduction, a book bearing this title might be expected to be rather brief. The Reformation is not normally thought of as a time of moderation. This volume presents a series of essays which attempt to illuminate some of the more obscure corners of the world of the Reformation in which people tried to avoid or reduce the intolerance and violence which erupted from religious schism. (This is, however, something quite different from our modern conception of religious liberty or toleration.) One of the difficulties here, of course, is the very definition of moderate, for it is very much a moving target. One must always ask, Moderate in relation to what? Moreover, as the editors rightly observe, there can be no single definition of moderation, for had many layers and many flavours (p. 4). It is the particular strength of this collection of ten essays that each contribution shines its light on a different corner and illuminates a dtfferent flavor of moderation. This moderation took a number of different forms. Diplomatically as explored by Alexandra Kess, the Du Bellay brothers steered the foreign policy of Francis I toward alliance with German Lutherans, both as a means of countering Charles V and also of keeping the flame of religious reform within France. Elizabeth Tingle's chapter on the Breton city of Nantes explores the reality of religious division in everyday life, concluding that to the city fathers, order and stability were more important than orthodoxy and conformity. Alain Tallon argues that the Gallican Church in France provided a moderate alternative model to papal absolutism, one that was never realized, however, as confessional boundaries hardened and as French clergy expressed their resentment of royal control. Indeed, this hardening of confessional boundaries is one theme that runs through a number of the essays. Kenneth Austin examines the little-known figure of Immanuel Tremellius, an Italian Jew who converted first to moderate or evangelical Catholicism in the 1530's, and then to an undoctrinaire or lukewarm Calvinism. It was not so much that Tremellius changed his views, but rather, a changing world induced him to find the religious space in which he could comfortably live and work. Likewise, in her examination of the Imperial Court under Maximilian II, Elaine Fulton explores the notion of aulic of a reformed Catholicism that would preserve Habsburg control over their territories from papal power-mongering, and that was based on the principles of moderation and compromise over non-essentials. An interesting parallel to the Gallican church examined by Alain Talion suggests itself here, although, unfortunately, it is not pursued. The French Catholic theologian Rene Benoist, in his efforts to bring religious literature (including a French Bible) to ordinary people, hearkened back to reforming trends in pre-Reformation Catholicism, but increasingly ran counter to the Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation. Any discussion of moderate voices in the Reformation must inevitably focus on the Church of England and its legendary via media. …