Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) by Wolfgang Günter

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) by Wolfgang Günter Louis J. Reith Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539). By Wolfgang Günter. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018. 605 pp. Wolfgang Günter, a professor of early modern European history at Freiburg University, deserves our gratitude for his labor of love, a monograph that traces the origins of the unified Augustinian Order in Europe in 1256, follows its century-long period of decline, and documents the birth of a German Reform Congregation centered in Saxony. Beginning with a small group of reform-minded German Augustinians, the Congregation (network of Augustinian friaries) began to reform their monasteries and restore monastic discipline even before the Council of Basel in 1432 gave formal papal approval for monastic reforms. Reformation historians will note that from 1506 the Congregation's most prominent member was Martin Luther, who left the Order in 1525 and subsequently married. The Congregation itself survived until the death of the fiercely Catholic Duke George of Ducal Saxony in 1539. His Lutheran successor then shuttered the monasteries and introduced the Lutheran Reformation that sounded the death knell for the Reform Congregation. The author visited 28 archives for manuscript evidence, and he includes a 97-page appendix containing 44 separate documents in German, French, and Latin. Through his careful archival research, we observe the friars struggle to enact monastic reforms through several layers of ecclesiastical superiors, church councils, and popes, not to forget frequent interventions by territorial princes. Unexpected gaps in the documentation reveal just how difficult it was for the author to undertake his research. An introductory chapter devoted [End Page 191] to primary sources speaks about a document called the "Nuremberg Anonymous" (covering the Congregation's history from 1458 to 1467) which Günter discovered in the Nuremberg city library. Unfortunately, there are gaps in the text, attributed to an anonymous nineteenth-century "parchment thief," a librarian who tore out entire sections of the fragile manuscript (22). Rooting out monastic vices proved to be a Herculean task. Contrary to popular belief, the most virulent vice that resisted reform was not sexuality but inability to keep the Augustinian vow of poverty. Brothers who possessed inheritances, fields, vineyards, sheep, cattle, or goats were using the profits for their own needs. Still others lived outside the monastery, served prelates or princes, or pursued academic careers at universities (with the encouragement of their superiors). Another popular belief argues that it was the Protestant Reformation that first enabled territorial princes (the Landesherren) to exercise authority over religious institutions. But Günter provides abundant evidence that princely authority over the monasteries had begun already in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and "a majority of the most powerful princes had already achieved this goal in the course of the fifteenth century, or else the Reformation would not have been possible" (81). A major portion of the book is devoted to the careers of two exceptional vicar-generals of the German Reform Congregation, Andreas Proles (1429–1503) and Johann von Staupitz (1460–1524). Proles was renowned as a reformer, but also as an authoritarian reformer who did not hesitate to involve the local prince in the reforming process. Staupitz, who was descended from an ancient Saxon family of Czech origin (ze Stupic), was Proles' polar opposite. When Elector Frederick the Wise opened his new university in 1502, he invited Staupitz and a dozen of his Tübingen University colleagues to anchor Wittenberg's nascent faculty. In 1503, Staupitz succeeded Proles as vicar-general of the German Reform Congregation. He promoted biblical studies and sent Augustinian friars from his Wittenberg monastery to study at the local university. One of these student friars was none other than Martin Luther, whom [End Page 192] Staupitz soon enlisted to accompany him on visitation trips to monasteries in need of reform. When Luther first published his 95 Theses, it was Staupitz who rose to defend him, followed by Elector Frederick the Wise. But Staupitz feared that Luther was going too far in his condemnation of papal abuses, and his own abiding loyalty to the papacy led him to break with Luther's...