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EUROPEAN REFORMATION 2E PAPER
Since its first appearance in 1991, The European Reformation has offered a clear, integrated, and coherent analysis and explanation of how Christianity in Western and Central Europe from Iceland to Hungary, from the Baltic to the Pyrenees splintered into separate Protestant and Catholic identities and movements.
Catholic Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages was not at all a uniformly 'decadent' or corrupt institution: it showed clear signs of cultural vigour and inventiveness. However, it was vulnerable to a particular kind of criticism, if ever its claims to mediate the grace of God to believers were challenged. Martin Luther proposed a radically new insight into how God forgives human sin. In this new theological vision, rituals did not 'purify' people; priests did not need to be set apart from the ordinary community; the church needed no longer to be an international body.
For a critical 'Reformation moment', this idea caught fire in the spiritual, political, and community life of much of Europe. Lay people seized hold of the instruments of spiritual authority, and transformed religion into something simpler, more local, more rooted in their own community. So were born the many cultures, liturgies, musical traditions and prayer lives of the countries of Protestant Europe.
This new edition embraces and responds to developments in scholarship over the past twenty years. Substantially re-written and updated, with both a thorough revision of the text and fully updated references and bibliography, it nevertheless preserves the distinctive features of the original, including its clearly thought-out integration of theological ideas and political cultures, helping to bridge the gap between theological and social history, and the use of helpful charts and tables that made the original so easy to use.
Catholic Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages was not at all a uniformly 'decadent' or corrupt institution: it showed clear signs of cultural vigour and inventiveness. However, it was vulnerable to a particular kind of criticism, if ever its claims to mediate the grace of God to believers were challenged. Martin Luther proposed a radically new insight into how God forgives human sin. In this new theological vision, rituals did not 'purify' people; priests did not need to be set apart from the ordinary community; the church needed no longer to be an international body.
For a critical 'Reformation moment', this idea caught fire in the spiritual, political, and community life of much of Europe. Lay people seized hold of the instruments of spiritual authority, and transformed religion into something simpler, more local, more rooted in their own community. So were born the many cultures, liturgies, musical traditions and prayer lives of the countries of Protestant Europe.
This new edition embraces and responds to developments in scholarship over the past twenty years. Substantially re-written and updated, with both a thorough revision of the text and fully updated references and bibliography, it nevertheless preserves the distinctive features of the original, including its clearly thought-out integration of theological ideas and political cultures, helping to bridge the gap between theological and social history, and the use of helpful charts and tables that made the original so easy to use.
637 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 14, 2024
If Reformation survey is a genre, it is very nearly my favourite genre. Euan Cameron's Reformation survey is then near the top of this list. Two of this book's features signaled its excellence to me. First, Cameron's very careful, very thorough handling of the complexity of this period created an impressively nuanced telling of the sixteenth century. One nuance it may not have considered carefully enough is laypeople's religious sensibilities and experiences of piety. Second, Cameron's grasp of the historiography appears strong. Granted, it's hard to make that assessment when I'm just at the beginning of learning the historiography myself.
His argument is striking. He characterizes the Reformation as a fertile, timely "coalition" buoyed by layperson "misunderstanding and confusion of ideas" and by the reformers' respect for "laypeople's ability to understand to judge true religion" (438). It's an interesting argument, and I'm curious to see interaction with it in the historiography.
His argument is striking. He characterizes the Reformation as a fertile, timely "coalition" buoyed by layperson "misunderstanding and confusion of ideas" and by the reformers' respect for "laypeople's ability to understand to judge true religion" (438). It's an interesting argument, and I'm curious to see interaction with it in the historiography.
May 10, 2018
His history narrative is better handled than his history of theology aspect, which misrepresents Lutheranism in several respects. (Had to read this as a text for my ULondon Reformation History course.)
October 31, 2017
Thorough. Has some odd charts and some helpful maps.
November 14, 2021
One of the clearest, best structured and argued books I read about the Reformation in general.
October 10, 2013
Cameron's book is a highly successful narrative account of the Reformation as a religious movement of dissent that, for the first time, offered a comprehensive alternative to the medieval Church.
A few points are worth expansion:
1. Cameron states that his topic is the Reformation, not Europe during the Reformation. The leaders and many of the popularizers of the Reformation were churchmen whose major complaints were religious and who couched their reform in spiritual and theological terms. Thus, Cameron taps cultural, political, and economic research for context and background, but his driving interest in intellectual history.
2. Cameron explains the success of "the" Reformation, in contrast to earlier reform efforts, lies in combining traditional attacks on the Church's weakness with a new, vigorous assault of its strength, its claim to administer salvation through its hierarchy and rituals.
3. Cameron's focus on Protestantism as an alternative to Catholicism leads him to emphasize the general unity of the Protestant message, despite its diverse forms and eventual institutional fracturing. This narrative of fracturing is distinct from that of some other Reformation scholars, who believe that the various reform movements were never particularly closely linked.
A few points are worth expansion:
1. Cameron states that his topic is the Reformation, not Europe during the Reformation. The leaders and many of the popularizers of the Reformation were churchmen whose major complaints were religious and who couched their reform in spiritual and theological terms. Thus, Cameron taps cultural, political, and economic research for context and background, but his driving interest in intellectual history.
2. Cameron explains the success of "the" Reformation, in contrast to earlier reform efforts, lies in combining traditional attacks on the Church's weakness with a new, vigorous assault of its strength, its claim to administer salvation through its hierarchy and rituals.
3. Cameron's focus on Protestantism as an alternative to Catholicism leads him to emphasize the general unity of the Protestant message, despite its diverse forms and eventual institutional fracturing. This narrative of fracturing is distinct from that of some other Reformation scholars, who believe that the various reform movements were never particularly closely linked.
February 21, 2015
I first came across this book when it was one of the textbooks for my MA level early modern history course. I love it, I love it to bits.
It is an excellent, complex discussion of the European Reformations- both Roman Catholic and 'Protestant'. Of course, I put the last in quotes because god knows few movements were more fractured than the Protestants. Honestly, a great book. If you're interested in the early-modern period, read this book.
It is an excellent, complex discussion of the European Reformations- both Roman Catholic and 'Protestant'. Of course, I put the last in quotes because god knows few movements were more fractured than the Protestants. Honestly, a great book. If you're interested in the early-modern period, read this book.
December 2, 2015
If this isn't a textbook, it should be. An historian's extremely thorough, interesting, but sometimes tedious, examination of the causes, processes, and results of the reformation, sparing neither Catholics nor Protestants.
January 12, 2016
This is a good overview of the Reformation. Cameron discusses both politics and theology as well as addressing major schools of thought among scholars.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews