Die Reformation.

by Luise Schorn-Schütte

Unusual book

Genres: History

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Luise Schorn-Schütte, German Historian who specialises in Early Modern Europe. She currently teaches at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt/Main.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

This is a subtle book and for some the near absence of the retelling of the traditional stories, the hammer blows on the Wittenberg Cathedral doors, Luther before Charles V at the Diet of Worms,Hier stehe ich und kann nicht anders which strikes me as exactly the kind of thing that one would liked to have said if one found oneself in that position, but was more likely to occur to you long after the eventand so on, will be noticeable. However Schorn-Schütte's first point is that every age discovers or reforms its own Reformation and later then repeats that idea "Max Weber hatte sie schon in den zwanziger Jahren unseres Jahrhunderts mit dem Satz beschrieben, dass der Historiker aus dem Chaos der Geschichte stets das aussuchen muesse, was ihm aus dem Blickwinkel seiner Zeit als kulturbedeutsam erscheine." (p91). In a way then we can see the historian as having a double task, both offering up a culturally meaningful reading of an event and explaining why previous generations found different readings meaning to them.

Although she nods at notion of the Reformations rather than a Reformation, hers is distinctively German as one might find just for a German language publication, but that does in turn increase the gravitational pull back down towards Herr Dr Martin Luther. Zwingli does his best to pull against this, but really can't resist with his bare few pages.
This does mean that she doesn't turn to the peculiarities of the spread of the early spread of the Reformation in contrast to its more wide ranging Calvinist phase.

I have been mildly ill over the past couple of days and perhaps is the lingering influence of that provides me with image of Schorn-Schütte with her book giving the reader a beautiful multi-faceted toy to play with, one can roll it in the palm of the hand and see curious sparkles and contradictory or maybe complimentary pictures emerging - the Reformation as a religious crisis, or as the high point of late medieval religiosity or bearing that beautiful business of indulgences in mind, later medieval religious culture for example. The Refomation as stage upon which great actors trod and declaimed their famous lines, and as growing as on a trellis on the peculiar structure of the Holy Roman Empire. The differences of the reformers, Luther educated in the tradition of Ockham while Zwingli was trained in the via antiqua of St.Thomas Acquinas, tending towards division particularly over the vexed question of communion as memorial and as real presence respectively each probably in support citing exactly the same biblical passages, while the political needs of the secular powers tended to unity, even across confessional borders. Equally the reformation requires dialectic thinking, to speak of the structure of the Reich as a trellis is a static metaphor while in truth the Reformation itself changed that structure and was being changed by it, in particular leading to a change in the elites controlling the cities but also in breaking up and rearranging the regional alliances and unbalancing the pre-existing imbalances of power between Emperor, larger territorial rulers, cities, Imperial knights and so on.

Naturally I feel obliged and unwilling to deny the obligation to share the tale of Philip of Hesse who asked for Luther's help in resolving his marital difficulties, this Luther did by recourse to the Old Testament which provides no end of precedent for polygamy, from this will can conclude that Henry VIII or more accurately his succession of unfortunate wives in England suffered from a lack of similarly imaginative theological thinkers. Since politically Philip ended up defeated by the more conventionally marital Charles V, one can only conclude that God withheld his blessing because Philip had too few wives.

The other split that perhaps Schorn-Schütte could have made more of was the popular/princely one in its Anabaptist manifestation, though she does acknowledge the continual dialectic between authority and freedom in religious thinking that the Reformation unleashed.

As these short books go I find it a notably elegant introduction with the proviso that many a reader may prefer something more colourful - more sackbuts less Frescobaldi's chromatic fantasies.

And contrary to the promise of the front cover there is sad lack of the pre-Reformation history resulting in a tragic absence of Jan Hus.

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Der recht lange Schlussteil über die spätere Deutung der Reformation hätte für meinen Geschmack kürzer sein können. Den dadurch gewonnenen Platz hätte die Autorin besser dafür genutzt, ein paar Fachbegriffe schon im Fließtext zu erklären und nicht erst hinten ohne Kontext im Glossar (welches ich leider erst nach dem Lesen fand…).
Das Buch setzt, anders als viele andere Bücher aus der Beck Wissen Reihe, schon ein solides Grundwissen im Mittelalter voraus.

[Daniel N. Scherrer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich kann den anderen Rezensenten nur beipflichten. Die Expertise der Autorin ist sicherlich unbestritten und die Reformation nicht nur ereignisgeschichtlich zu betrachten, sondern eben auch als Mentalitätswandel von dem verschiedene soziale Gruppen (Stichwort: Ritter) betroffen waren, ist sicher interessant. Auch das oft gescholtene Rezeptionskapitel des Buches habe ich mit Freude gelesen.

Das eigentliche Problem des Buches ist seine Fokussetzung. Diese Reihe ist für Einführungen in verschiedene Themengebiete vorgesehen. Und wenn zur Einführung in die Reformation Zwingli auf wenigen Seiten abgehandelt wird und Calvin kaum vorkommt, stellt sich die Frage, ob hier klar kommuniziert wurde, wofür dieses Buch gedacht gewesen sei.
Schliesslich müsste man auch theologische Konflikte eingehender erklären, um zu verstehen, warum das Ereignis der Reformation so einschneidend war.

Als Einführungswerk eignet sich dieses Buch nicht.

[Jana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kein Anfängerwerk für Laien! Das Werk ist definitiv an Historiker*innen gerichtet und wird Leuten, die "nur mal eben" ihr Wissen über die Reformation auffrischen wollen wohl kaum besonders viel Freude bereiten. Es ist doch recht komplex, was man von so einem kleinen Büchlein nicht unbedingt erwartet.

[Alexander Weigand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dieses dünne Buch bietet auf kompakter Art und Weise für geschichtsinteressierte Leserinnen und Leser einen kurzen, aber historisch nahezu einwandfreien Einblick in die Entstehung, der Wirkung und Folgen der Reformation.

[Mari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and difficult to read😬✝️🪧

[Max Meissauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solides Buch zur Einführung. Mir persönlich jedoch zu dünn.

[Anna-Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book for one of my final exams and I'm glad I did. It gives a pretty tight overview over the topic and was exacly what I needed!