The pursuit of holiness in late medieval and Renaissance religion;: Papers from the University of Michigan Conference

by Charles and Heiko A. Oberman Trinkaus

90 04 03791 8

Genres: History

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Katie]

This book is a collection of essays from a conference held in Ann Arbor, MI in 1972. As with most conference papers, things can get a bit esoteric if it veers too far outside of your specialty (I got totally lost about half way through Louise Cuyler's probably excellent paper on music theory leading up to the Council of Trent). But it also is a fun way to set up a book: there are 10-12 major papers, and most of them are followed by a short response by another scholar raising potential problems or further avenues for research. I can imagine that this would make the work feel overly academic to some, but I liked it - it gave a better sense of how doing history actually works and allowed for multiple perspectives to coexist (mostly peacefully) in a single volume.

I don't really understand why history as field is so obsessed with monographs (well, I do, but I don't understand why people don't try to change it more often). Works like this really show how beneficial it could be to have small teams of people working on different angles of the same question to get a more interesting and nuanced answer than would be possible when only a single person takes on the job.

Anyway, The Pursuit of Holiness explores issues of periodization and definition, focusing primarily on the 14th through 16th centuries. Particular areas of interest are the intersections between nominalism, mysticism, humanism, and Lutheranism (nominalism especially gets a bit of rehabilitation), the role of lay confraternities (especially among young people) and the intersections of humanism, antiquity, and Christianity. It's a really good volume, like listening to a long conversation taking place between very smart people.