The European Reformation

by Euan Cameron

This book is a survey and analysis of the European Reformation of the sixteenth century. During this period western Christianity underwent the most dramatic changes in its entire history. From Iceland to Transylvania, from the Baltic to the Pyrenees, the Reformation divided churches and
communities into 'Catholic' and 'Protestant', and created varying regional and national traditions. The new Protestant creed rejected traditional measures of piety--vows, penances, pardons, and masses--in favor of sermons and catechisms, and an everyday morality of diligence, neighborly charity,
and prayer. In the process, it involved many of Europe's people for the first time in a political movement inspired by an ideology and nourished by mass communication. Using the most recent research, Cameron provides a thematic and narrative synthesis of the events and ideas of the Reformation.
He examines its social and religious background, its teachers and their message, and explores its impact on contemporary society.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Church History, European History, School

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Euan Cameron was educated at Eton and Oxford, where he graduated BA in History in the First Class in 1979 and received the D.Phil. in 1982. From 1979 to 1985 he was a junior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. In 1985 he moved to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where he worked in the Department of History for 17 years, receiving promotions to Reader (1992) and full Professor (1997) and serving as Head of Department. He was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 1996/7. In 2002 he was appointed as the first Henry Luce III Professor of Reformation Church History at Union Theological Seminary in New York, with a concurrent appointment in the Department of Religion in Columbia University. From 2004 to 2010 he also served as Academic Vice-President in the seminary. During 2010/11, while on sabbatical leave, he held a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.

Reviews

[Rachel Zehr · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.)

[Joel Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thorough. Has some odd charts and some helpful maps.

[Daniel Schotman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the clearest, best structured and argued books I read about the Reformation in general.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Sam McLean · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Larry Wegman · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Alexander Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good overview of the Reformation. Cameron discusses both politics and theology as well as addressing major schools of thought among scholars.