Ritual in Early Modern Europe

New Approaches to European History #11

by Edward Muir

The first comprehensive study of rituals in early modern Europe, this book argues that between about 1400 and 1700 a revolution in ritual theory took place that utterly transformed concepts about time, the body, and the presence of spiritual forces in the world. In this work of synthesis Professor Muir draws on the extensive anthropology-inspired historical research that has been published during the past twenty years, and emphasizes the persistence of traditional Christian ritual practices even as educated elites attempted to privilege reason over passion, textual interpretation over ritual action, and personal moral rectitude over gaining access to supernatural powers. The themes discussed by Professor Muir are wide-ranging and include rites of passage, carnivalesque festivity, Protestant and Catholic Reformations, and the alleged anti-Christian rituals of Jews and witches.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Medieval, School

Paperback

First published September 28, 1997

Reviews

[Justin Bailey]

Edward Muir’s Ritual in Early Modern Europe describes the Reformation as a process of distanciation from the material world, relocating the locus of the sacred from the materially accessible to the inwardly apprehensible. With a shift in focus from real presence to represented presence, and from direct encounter to description (the exposition of truth), ritual became more a matter of cognitive apprehension than visceral experience. Reformers seeking clarity and certainty “replaced the mass with the sermon” (184) and tended to intellectualize faith. The core ritual question correspondingly shifted from “what emotions does it evoke?” to “what does it mean?” (158)

The strength of Muir’s argument is its clarity, and while Muir gravitates towards the sensational, lurid and macabre, his vignettes give a rich texture to his argument. I do wonder, however, whether these extreme stories give an accurate description of what late medieval life was actually like. Nevertheless, Muir avoids what Charles Taylor called “the subtraction story”: a relatively straight line from the numinous medieval world to the disenchanted world of modernity via the Protestant Reformation. Instead, he attempts to show how the Protestant relationship with ritual was not so much a matter of loss as of transformation.

[Victoria]

Re-read January 7, 2010: very textbook-y. I think it was at this point that I began to understand just how very right my peers were when they told me that at some point in my reading, I would begin to be able to tell what the book was going to say before I'd even read it. Admittedly, I'd already read it, but still.

Basically: early modern life organized around ritual; the Reformation reconfigured ritual life in Protestant areas and the Council of Trent placed ritual in Catholic areas more squarely under control of the church; and the Enlightenment changed everything. Obviously.

[Denise Kettering]

This book is very textbook like and serves as an early text focusing on the intersection of the Protestant Reformation and ritual. This book describes different understandings of religious ritual found in early modern society and different practices that were engaged in during that time period. This book reveals some theoretical underpinnings for ritual as well as focuses on the ways that rituals and rites developed and became reinterpreted in this time period. The book provides an overview of theoretical understandings or rituals as a formalized, collective, institutionalized in repetitive action. He discusses rites of passages, ritual calendar, rituals of the body and then changes in how ritual was approached by the Reformation.

[Autumn]

An excellently defended proposal - that the Reformation was not an argument about doctrine but an argument about the place, nature, and meaning of ritual. Thoroughly researched and easy to read, Muir makes his case while providing many intriguing questions for further study. Though I took issue with a few of his conclusions, I think Muir does a great job of defending his ideas and giving me plenty to think about as I continue my own research.

[Lucy]

The Baptism chapter is my favorite.

[StrangeBedfellows]

This is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. The history presented is good, but what really takes the cake are Muir's ideas on ritual, and how well his assertions fit into both history and modern life. In fact, I often applied this book to literary studies and criticism ... it earned me several high grades and a few awards.

[Autumn Chrunik]

I had to read this for school so I'm not gonna give it a rating. Although, most of it was pretty boring, some of it was pretty interesting too.

[Назар Костенко]

I will write about this