The Grand Sweep of Early Modern German History
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Thomas A. Brady Jr.. German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400-1650. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 477 pp. $27.99, paper, ISBN 978-0-521-71778-6. Reviewed by Marc R. Forster Published on H-German (February, 2010) Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher This book is a tour de force by one of the lead‐ years to open up the once insular felds of Refor‐ ing historians of early modern Germany. Thomas mation and early modern German history. A. Brady Jr. has written a history of the German In this book, Brady gives full rein to his love lands in a grand narrative style, tracing political, of narrative history. The book is full of lively anec‐ religious, and social developments over two and a dotes and brief biographies of important individ‐ half centuries. Brady's writing is gripping, his uals. The emperors, particularly Maximilian I and scholarship deeply erudite, and his arguments are Charles V, are star actors in this drama. Brady has strongly and persuasively presented. a particular affection for Maximilian: "He would One of the most distinguished scholars in this attempt to refashion the Imperial office from a field, Brady has written books on the ruling class feudal lordship into a modern--one might say 'Re‐ of Strasbourg, on Jacob Sturm, the political leader naissance' monarchy ... Maximilian aimed to re‐ of the Strasbourg reformation, and on Holy Ro‐ build German power in the image of the great em‐ man imperial politics in southern Germany. His perors of the past" (p. 108). Maximilian comes influence in the feld goes far beyond his publica‐ across on the one hand as a wise ruler, intent on tions, however. Brady mentored dozens of reorganizing the Austrian state along more effi‐ younger scholars in his years at the University of cient and effective lines. On the other hand, Brady Oregon and at Berkeley and he has been a major calls him "the ablest royal warlord of his genera‐ presence at conferences and Tagungen for tion" (p. 110), whose military ambitions created a decades. His connections among leading scholars never-ending need for money. "Although he un‐ in Germany, his broad intellectual interests, and derstood quite well the ancient Roman common‐ his support of younger scholars on both sides of place, 'money is the sinews of war' ... Maximilian the Atlantic has done much over the last thirty remained nonetheless perfectly heedless, even reckless, about how it was obtained in order to H-Net Reviews serve his quest for fame and glory" (p. 112). By the kneeling son, raised him into an embrace, and early 1500s, Maximilian had made himself the kissed him" (p. 229). This is history in a dramatic "true lord of the Empire" (p. 120), yet in the mode and Brady pulls it off with great aplomb. decade before his death in 1519 wars in Italy and The book is a pleasure to read. Hungary once again drove him to bankruptcy and German Histories is, however, more than a defeat. Brady argues that Maximilian was "the narrative history and indeed much more than a first Holy Roman emperor in 250 years who ruled survey of the feld. Rather, Brady presents an ex‐ as well as reigned," but at the same time, "every‐ tended argument about the nature of German po‐ thing about Maximilian bears the feel of the litical development and its relationship to the con‐ makeshift and ad hoc" (p. 128). In the end, the em‐ tentious religious history of Germany in this peri‐ peror was a man of his times and certainly not a od. He insists on a nuanced and generally positive proto-national or proto-absolutist ruler. Yet, he assessment of the political system of the Holy Ro‐ also created most of the institutions and practices man Empire, a consensus that has been develop‐ that came to characterize the Holy Roman Empire ing among German historians over the last twenty throughout the early modern period, a "state" that years or so. This book will perform a great service mixed "western" centralizing characteristics with for the feld if it can bring this new perspective to the "loosely integrated, elective politics of East modern German historians and scholars of other Central Europe" (p. 129). Brady's deep knowledge parts of Europe who are still wedded to the view of Maximilian's life and times leads him to admire of the empire as a failed state or as the structure the emperor's hard work and determination and, that prevented Germany from developing "prop‐ perhaps, to regret that Maximilian's state-building erly"; that is, in the way France and Britain did, project foundered on the shoals of military ex‐ into a nation-state. penses and religious conflict. Brady also aims to reorient the venerable For Brady, Charles V is a less sympathetic, but field of Reformation history. In no way a tradition‐ also a more tragic fgure: "Charles' reign opened al church historian (Kirchenhistoriker), Brady fo‐ in that bright sunlight [of the conquest of Mexico cuses here on the social and political history of and the piles of gold delivered to the docks at the religions of Germany. His frst interest is in the Antwerp]; it would end thirty-nine years later in a manner in which the political system of the em‐ grim mood of defeat, his grand personal empire pire adjusted to (and influenced) the religious de‐ in tatters, his Holy Roman Empire in a state of velopments set in motion by Martin Luther's precarious peace, his beloved Church wallowing movement. Brady places Luther in the tradition of in one of the deepest crises in its long history" (p. late medieval reform, but emphasizes that the 207). Brady thus presents Charles as a victim of printing press gave him an unprecedented influ‐ the divisions created by the Reformation, at least ence: "By the time Luther arrived in Worms, some in his role as German emperor. Victorious in war half a million copies of his writings were circulat‐ against the Protestants in 1547, the emperor could ing in the Empire, an explosion of print unfath‐ neither consolidate his rule nor impose Catholi‐ omable in its uniqueness and its power. This re‐ cism in the empire. By the mid-sixteenth century, ception and this reception alone--not the consis‐ the imperial estates were strong enough to sur‐ tency of Luther's words but the response to them-- vive military defeat and prevent any imperial burst the hardened logjam of reform and at last centralization. The age of princes had come. made possible reformations of the church in the Brady ends the story of Charles with a splendid German lands" (p. 156). Brady then traces the re‐ evocation of his abdication in Brussels in 1556: "Charles, tears fowing down his face, blessed his 2 H-Net Reviews ception of Luther's ideas in the cities, among peas‐ (1548) to accomplish the restoration of Catholi‐ ants, and by the princes. cism; and the 1555 Peace of Augsburg were all Brady's discussion of the early Reformation steps on this path. Brady argues that this peace--"a follows the path laid out in the last twenty years deal, like all peaces"--took some time to take hold, by scholars like Robert Scribner, Peter Blickle, but it did last for from more than ffty years (p. and Brady himself. The focus is on the appeal of 232). He also reminds us, once again, not to read the evangelical movement; its potential for creat‐ modern concepts into the past: "It is wishful ing dramatic religious, social, and political thinking to assume that the coexistence of plural change; and how it was ultimately domesticated religious communities in a single polity would in by the German princes: "the possibility of a deep time necessarily go beyond formal convivencia, to and lasting reform of religious life depended fun‐ mutual acceptance and tolerance. It is more near‐ damentally on the unprecedented claims to action ly nonsensical to assume that religion ipso facto and voice from social groups who in more settled generates violence" (p. 233). Brady uses the con‐ times possessed little or none" (p. 158). One chap‐ cept of convivencia, the word used to describe the ter analyzes the urban Reformation, a second the coexistence of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in "Revolution of the Common Man"; that is, the medieval Spain, regularly in the last part of the Peasants' War of 1525. Brady emphasizes the book to describe the uneasy coexistence of Chris‐ ways in which both these movements were quite tian confessions in Germany. traditional, in their attack on the Catholic Brady ends this section of the book with a dis‐ Church--embodied as "Rome"--and their view of a cussion of Maximilian II, one of the most enigmat‐ "more or less serious gulf between the Church's ic Holy Roman emperors. Even as he lay dying in operations and the mission Christ had laid upon 1573, no one could determine his personal reli‐ it" (p. 158). In the early 1520s, these communally gious convictions. Brady describes his bizarre fu‐ based movements threatened the established or‐ neral in Prague in some detail and then concludes der in Germany, yet princes, city councils, and ul‐ with typical flair: timately most Protestant leaders (including "Maximilian II was the last Imperial monarch Luther) repudiated and repressed more radical who had lived before Luther died. Born in 1526, ideas: "The German Protestant reformation thus when the frst Diet of Speyer fnessed the issue of stationed itself between the fact of Rome and the the religious schism ... [he was] nearly forty when possibility of a revolution" (p.