The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century

by Roland H. Bainton

Roland H. Bainton presents the strands of the Reformation in a single coherent account. He discusses the background for Luther's breach & its ramifications for 16th Century Europe, giving accounts of the Diet of Worms, the Holy Commonwealth of Geneva, Henry VIII's break with Rome & William the Silent's struggle for Dutch independence:
Introduction
Luther's Faith
Luther's Reform
Irreparable Breach
Reformed Church in German Switzerland
Church Withdrawn: Anabaptism
Reformed Church of Geneva: Calvinism
Free Spirits
Fight for Recognition of Luthern Faith
Fight for Recognition of Calvinist Faith
Comprehension & Middle Way of Anglican'm
Struggle for Religious Liberty
Reformation & the Political Sphere
Reformation & the Economic & Domestic Spheres
Bibliography
Index

Genres: History, Church History, Nonfiction, Religion, Theology, Christianity, Christian

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Roland Herbert Bainton, Ph.D. (Yale University; A.B., Whitman College), served forty-two years as Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School. A specialist in Reformation history, he continued writing well into his twenty years of retirement. His most popular book, Here I Stand, sold more than a million copies.

Ordained as a Congregationist minister, he never served as the pastor of a congregation.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written general survey of the Reformation in Europe suited for the college level novice in the area. I myself didn't read this book until I took the 'Medieval and Reformation Christianity' class with David Lotz at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. Although Norwegian, therefore ostensibly Lutheran by birth, I didn't know much beyond the general European history context for the rise of Luther and the other reformers of the period.

I recall being up in the Fort Washington neighborhood in Manhattan, sitting in a dentist's waiting room with this book as a companion. I'd gone with time to spare as it was a long, never before made, trip to this neighborhood on the north side of the island and now, being quite early, I had time to kill. Having a book as a companion was nothing new. It's always wise to bring a book along, especially is there's the real chance of having to wait for an appointment or for the friend-who's-always-late, so I was content enough--indeed, after about half and hour, it struck me that I was more than content: This book was really good. I was learning a lot, many loose ends were being tied up together and the thing was reading like a good novel.

[icaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tutto quello che è importante sapere per farsi una buona (anche se non aggiornatissima) idea della Riforma protestante (da allora ad oggi!) e tantissimi spunti per rifletterci sopra da soli con cognizione di causa. Il tutto in un libretto, [formato p.b.e. einaudiano] che supera appena le 200 pagine e, che, per finire, ha circa settanta anni di vita. Mitico

[Bruno Romano · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is superb storytelling and a good synthesis of most important intellectual matters on the Reformation. It’s an old book. It does have more storytelling than intellectual discussions, but reading a good entertaining narrative while facing some two or three lines of the most important intellectual background of it, is great stuff. It presupposes religion as driving force and impossible to organize in simple cause and effect analysis. Bye bye social sciences. No glimpse of Marxist, weberian, scientific or whatever reading.

The late medieval church is displayed as corrupt. The argument: It became secular, since it became a very strong political power, and the manifestation of ecclesial rule was the sacramental perspective on life. It was wordly, because it was a form of power. So it agonized for spiritual revival. This is very important: for Baiton the reformation is a religious revival. That is why he’s able to see all currents in a more impartial way, and he can be critical of them all: spiritual revivals are like that, they explode and go in many different ways.

On ubiquity and sacrament for Luther: “His position was that matter and spirit are not antithetical. The physical was created by God, is permeated by God, and it a fit vehicle for communication with the divine. God is omnipresent in all the material world, and Christ as God is also ubiquitous. But we do not perceive their presence because our eyes are holden. God is a hidden God who has chosen to make himself known at three points: in the flesh of Christ, in the world embedded in Scripture, and in the elements of the sacrament” (pg. 48). A latinized version is applied to Calvin. Where therefore the reformers gnostics or mystics? You tell me (and Eric Voegelin). Later on he points how Zwingli, Carlstadt and some puritans were more “gnostic” in that sense, by positing the material as obstacle to spiritual.

A similar example of intellectual debate by Baiton on baptism: “The question of adult versus infant baptism has very far-reaching consequences for the theory of the Church, because adult baptism goes with the view that the church is a gathering of all who have had an experience of regeneration, whereas infant baptism points to the church compromising the entire community […] Here is the problem of the sect and the Church, of the small, select, voluntary converticle over against the comprehensive institution conterminous with state and society” (50)

The chapter on Anabaptism is great as well, almost as Luther’s. He starts by pointing the main presupposition of Anabaptists view, which happily explains many later developments of Christian sects: the church view as persecuted, despised, small, selective and exclusive.

*

The last part of the book has a great discussion of Reformation and politics, and it helps whoever ends up in discussion it with smart Catholics.

You see, if you debate romanists the on evil consequences of reformation, an often used argument against it is: protestants dissolved Christendom and started the secular version of community: the modern nation. Just pick Jean Sibelius the Finnish composer when he came around, and wrote that beautiful Finlandia hymn to Finland as if that nation was the New Jerusalem, join it with every nationalistic war since, and so it is given and proved how the secularized State became the modern redemption for man, when the institutional church stopped being it. Something has to occupy the temporal sphere: if it’s not the church, it’s the state.

Not so fast. The state was growing before the reformation for matters of security, since Europe was opening up and dropping feudalism. The first Lutheran princes where on the side of the Empire, not of any german nation. Catholics assisted kings where they saw fit to resist the Empire, and also the other way around. Calvinist were sometimes loyal some times resistant, completely contingent and practical. The main principle was freedom to worship as they saw correct, which is a rather conservative principle, not a progressive one. There was no absolute view of society in either side, both catholics and protestants were fighting the battle for faith, and both contributed to it and resisted this process. Luther never affirmed total submission and many Lutheran churches opposed later totalitarianisms. To sum it: England was where there absolutism received most support from churchmen in XVI century, but on the XX it became the bulwark of democracy (236). How important was reformation political thinking after all?

*

This makes this book a starting point to study the Reformation from a protestant perspective. But not more.
J. Pelikan notes in his kind foreword that two big stuff are missing: a careful understanding of the Catholic Reformation (which would put Erasus in a better place than just a “Free Spirit” hovering around as a ghost), and how the reformers drew from the catholic tradition themselves. So there you have it: all recent “Reformation from a medieval perspective” sort of studies is completely absent (think of Heiko Oberman, Steven Ozment, David Steinmetz, and some Westminster California people). Notes on how the reformation developed it’s own tradition are also not present, so there is not even a brief word on scholasticism. This is why I gave it only 4 stars.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a clear writer. This is a dated, but very readable survey and it’s short. I appreciated the way he addressed the reformation’s connection to economics and nationalism and marriage. It’s an old school history, but if it’s your first go-round with the Reformation, this is the kind of book you need.

[Matthew VanAmerongen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Approachable and really readable, but lacking deep analysis and application.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Succint but complete narrative of the Reformation period. The only bad thing I can say is that language was archaic enough that I had to reread a sentence every now and then.

[sam tannehill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a quick, interesting, and educating read about the politics behind the Protestant Reformation. It is not extensive, though, and for someone who is looking for a deep dive, this book is not that. This is a quick survey for someone who wants the basic facts, and the preface starts out by making that disclaimer. For a real deep dive, I recommend Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church.

[Joel Zartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good popular history with no little heft. It is unusually concerned with Anabaptist and radical reformations, in a way that most historians are not. It reminds me that most are interested in studying the success stories. Bainton is also good at drawing general conclusions by standing back from the details and making careful observations.

[Josep Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than half a century after its conception, this is still a perfect introduction to the world of the Reformation. Succinct and clear, it leaves the reader with a strong desire to learn more-- but it is not too detailed and it leaves many things in the darkness of untouched material. Really good though!

[Becca]

I’m only DNFing this one because I was reading it for a class & now that my class is finished, I don’t feel motivated to pick it up at the moment. I did really enjoy what I had read of this book - it’s just very dense and requires a lot of concentration to read. I would like to read it fully sometime in the future though! (I’m still keeping it in my collection)

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The description on the back of the book says it is "designed specifically for the general educated reader." No, you really need to have a really good grasp of history and religious history in general, plus an extremely good vocabulary, for this book. That being said, it was interesting and did give an overall picture of the religious upheavals of Europe in the sixteenth century.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This makes a decent companion to Bainton's Here I Stand. He sometimes paints things in overly broad strokes but on the whole it's fair to the various Reformation bodies which arose from the events of the 16th century.

[Everett F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very well organized introductory survey of the Reformation and the origins of the Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Baptist denominations. Good for any survey course on church history. Would recommend for undergraduates or others wanting to learn more.

[Grant Dowling · Rating 3 out of 5]

A-lot of information crammed in a short book, the different perspectives of the many different types of Christians and the conflicts caused by these differences are the best parts of the book. Other than that it’s very slow, fell asleep many times trying to finish this.

[Jarrod · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much an overview. I wish I knew some of the key figures a bit better but it was a good introduction.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history of the Reformation in 16th century Europe and the various Protestant movements.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

An oldie but a goodie. This is still one of the better written intellectual overviews of the European Reformations.

[Aaron Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read, you probably know most of what he was saying already though.

[Stephen Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the events of the 16th century at the beginning of the Reformation and the upheaval in Europe.

[Grant Van Brimmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed. This history book primarily focused on the social, ecclesial, and political aspects of the Reformation. Theology is interspersed but not predominant.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent overview of the history and of the theological thought associated with each group that came out of the Reformation

[Giovanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si tratta di un'opera fondamentale per capire la riforma protestante. scritto con una grande semplicità che deriva da una altrettanto grande padronanza e conoscenza della materia, da uno dei più grandi storici religiosi protestanti. Analizza in modo del tutto esaustivo ogni aspetto della questione e permette di affrontare altre opere più generali con una ottima preparazione di base.
La riforma è stata un'evento cruciale che si colloca tra la fine del Medioevo e l'inizio del Rinascimento in cui confluiscono le esigenze spirituali della fine dell'età di mezzo e dai cui si propagano razionalismo e misticismo in epoca che vede fiorire il Rinascimento e l'Umanesimo,e contemporaneamente già incombere il braccio duro dell'Inquisizione e della Controriforma.
Nell'insieme tutte le correnti religiose del XVI secolo contribuirono,nel loro contrasto,alla formazione dell'idea della libertà religiosa e della democrazia moderna e infusero grande spinta al nascente spirito capitalistico.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I was thinking about reading a book about the Thirty Year's War, and the reviews of that book recommended reading something about the Reformation first. Well, I've read about the Reformation, but I'm going to hold off on the Thirty Years War.

This book did give a concise overview of the Reformation, and it is a really fascinating concept. It's amazing to think that nearly everyone in the Western world - those that weren't Jewish, that is - were Catholic before the Reformation, or at the very least the Catholic church played a major role in the daily lives of Western people.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scholarly discussion of the various strands of the Protestant Reformation.
The introduction and first three chapters are an outstanding exposition of Luther's faith and reforms and how reform became separation. The remaining chapters discuss the different flavor of reformed churches in Europe; the book bogs down here with too much detail for the casual reader. There are about 25 illustrations reproduced throughout the book for the period which are very interesting.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Reformation was a lot more complicated than the one-sided, one-dimensional view that we normally get. I understand why over 50 years later this is still one of the definitive works on the Reformation--it gives the closest thing to an accessible, impartial, 3D view of the 16th century that one could possibly hope to find.

[Dory Codington]

A really well written book and thoroughly enjoyable. Bainton covers the entire century from the Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Inquisition through to Baptists and Puritans. A must for anyone who wants to understand the enormous change this revolution brought to Europe, and why this would be nearly impossible to duplicate for the Islamic world today. (The last is NOT covered in the book,)

[Jeremy Hatfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a student of Reformation history, reading anything by Roland Bainton is a must. This book isn't as compelling a read as Here I Stand, but the scope is broader, touching on Zwingli, Calvin, the Anabaptists, and others.

[J. Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bainton was a professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale in the middle of the twentieth century. In related news, I may have found a new scholarly hero. His writing is quick, clear, and enjoyable. The work is interesting, sympathetic to all parties, and informative. I sincerely recommend it.

[Sharon Zink · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, short, yet in-depth look at the Reformation. Very informative and authoritative, if you are interested in the Reformation. Bainton has also written The Church of Our Fathers for children; and the definitive biography of Martin Luther, Here I Stand. All of them are very good.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loads of interesting history.