Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education, 1560-1620 by Karin Maag

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

BOOK REVIEWS333 who appeared before the Consistory, regardless of the specific accusation, was asked to demonstrate a sufficient knowledge of correct Christian doctrine, always in the vernacular. The priorities of the new institution had emerged clearly by the end of 1542. During November and December (pp. 134-159), sixty-four people appeared before it. Only six of them were involved in matrimonial issues, whUe forty (twothirds of them women) were examined about doctrine and/or church attendance.The remainder were admonished about such things as quarrelling (six), blasphemy, gambling, or immoral songs (six), fornication (three), superstitious charms (two), or disobedience to parents. Vestiges of Köhler's agenda remained, but Zeeden's had triumphed. Further volumes wiU trace the Consistory's subsequent evolution from a doctrinal tribunal to a morals tribunal . Wiujam Monter Northwestern University Seminary or University? The Genevan Academy and Reformed Higher Education , 1560-1620. By Karin Maag. [St Andrews Studies in Reformation History] (Brookfield, Vermont: Scolar Press, Ashgate PubUshing Co. 1995. Pp. x, 210.) Back in 1900, Charles Borgeaud pubUshed a monumental history of Geneva's Academy of Calvin, in a meticulously detaUed and sumptuously produced foUo volume, the first of several in a general history ofwhat was to become the University of Geneva. In this useful new book, Karin Maag has retold a part of Borgeaud's story, but sets it in a much larger context. Her book begins with three sharply defined chronological chapters, recounting the history of the GenevaAcademy, with special attention to its scholapublica for advanced tramUig on a professional level,from 1559 to 1572, from 1572 to 1586, and from 1586 to 1620. Much of this represents gleaning from Borgeaud's work, updated where necessary by use of the considerable volume of scholarly work on sixteenth-century Geneva in this century, checked Ui a number of places by consultation of unpubUshed manuscripts in the Geneva University Library and State Archives. Maag then presents four geographical chapters, connecting the GenevaAcademy to Reformed communities in France, Zurich, Heidelberg, and Leiden.The chapter on France details the continuing importance of Geneva to the Reformed Churches in France as the most important single source of education for their pastors.The other chapters compare the Geneva Academy to the Lectorium in Zurich and to the universities in Heidelberg and Leiden.The Zurich Lectorium was exclusively for the training of local pastors, and Zurich thus felt obUged to send many of its best students elsewhere to complete their educa- 334book reviews tion.The universities of Heidelberg and Leiden were autonomous institutions that granted degrees and that devoted as much energy to training lawyers, bureaucrats , and physicians, as to training ministers for Reformed (Calvinist) churches.There were significant exchanges of students and a few exchanges of professors among the four institutions. Geneva made occasional attempts to expand its Academy into a fuU university , notably by adding advanced instruction on law. But this instruction was frequendy interrupted; the Academy never granted degrees, and it never gained independence from the local Company of Pastors and the city government. Its most important function remained the training of Reformed pastors, particularly for France but also for other parts of Europe, supplying them with not only necessary academic training but also with a degree of practical experience, aU in a tightly disciplined and thoroughly orthodox setting. Maag has drawn upon correspondence among ecclesiastical authorities and by students to provide some striking detaUs about individuals working in these institutions. I found particularly fresh and interesting information gathered from unpublished letters returned to Zurich from students whom that city had sent elsewhere. Altogether this book makes an important contribution to our knowledge of higher education Ui Europe during the period of confessionalization . Robert M. Kingdon University ofWisconsin-Madison A City in Conflict: Troyes during the French Wars ofReligion. By Penny Roberts . (Manchester: Manchester University Press. Distributed by St. Martin's Press, NewYork. 1996. Pp. xi, 228. $79.95.) Penny Roberts has, in a series of articles pubUshed over the past half-dozen years, estabUshed herself as a leading authority on the Reformation and confessional strife at Troyes in the eastern French province of Champagne. She now weaves the rich materials into a major interpretative study. Her...