The 'Long Reformation' in Nordic Historical Research
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
1 The ‘long reformation’ in Nordic historical research Report to be discussed at the 28th Congress of Nordic Historians, Joensuu 14-17 August 2014 2 Preface This report is written by members of a working group called Nordic Reformation History Working Group, that was established as a result of a round table session on the reformation at the Congress of Nordic Historians in Tromsø in Norway in August 2011. The purpose of the report is to form the basis of discussions at a session on “The ‘long reformation’ in Nordic historical research” at the Congress of Nordic Historians in Joensuu in Finland in August 2014. Because of its preliminary character the report must not be circulated or cited. After the congress in Joensuu the authors intend to rework and expand the report into an anthology, so that it can be published by an international press as a contribution from the Nordic Reformation History Working Group to the preparations for the celebration in 2017 of the 500 years jubilee of the beginning of the reformation. Per Ingesman Head of the Nordic Reformation History Working Group 3 Table of contents Per Ingesman: The ’long reformation’ in Nordic historical research – Introduction – p. 4 Otfried Czaika: Research on Reformation and Confessionalization – Outlines of the International Discourse on Early Modern History during the last decades – p. 45 Rasmus Dreyer and Carsten Selch Jensen: Report on Denmark – p. 62 Paavo Alaja and Raisa Maria Toivo: Report on Finland – p. 102 Hjalti Hugason: Report on Iceland – (1) Church History – p. 138 Árni Daníel Júlíuson: Report on Iceland – (2) History – p. 161 Tarald Rasmussen: Report on Norway – p. 189 Martin Berntson and Hanne Sanders: Report on Sweden – p. 205 4 Per Ingesman The ‘long reformation’ in Nordic historical research - Introduction Introduction We are approaching 2017 when the 500 years anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation will be celebrated all over the world. Scholarly preparations for the jubilee include conferences and exhibitions, books and articles. This report written by members of a ‘Nordic Reformation History Working Group’ established in 2011 must be seen in this connection, as part of a reformation commemoration initiated by Nordic historians and Church historians. To directly connect the results of Nordic scholarship to the international research development it opens with a paper by Otfried Czaika on the debates and discussions about reformation and confessionalization within the last generation of German historians and Church historians. After this follows national reports for each of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. These reports draw a picture of research in the history of the Reformation in the Nordic countries during the last generation. The intention is to pave the way for future studies of a comparative nature, that try to move away from the traditional national approaches, that have characterized the writing of Reformation history in all of the Nordic countries. A comparative approach is of value in itself, opening of for a deeper understanding of the Reformation as a process with both common Nordic features and special national variations in each country. But it is also important if research on the Reformation in the Nordic countries shall be able to make a contribution to ongoing international research on the history of the Reformation as a common European event. As a normal rule the Nordic countries do not take up a very large chapter in general histories of the European Reformation. Besides from a typical tendency in international historical research to concentrate on the history of large and important countries like England, France and Germany, this has to do with the fact that Reformation history traditionally has concentrated on the beginning and 5 the early phase of the Reformation. In this connection the history of the Reformation in the Nordic countries has been regarded mainly as an example of how, why and when Reformation ideas and movements spread from the ‘centre’ in the German Empire to more ‘marginal’ neighbouring countries such as those in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Important trends in international research on the history of the Reformation since the 1980s have, however, changed the precondition for regarding the Nordic countries as only marginal to the history of the European Reformation in general. Especially important here are the current tendencies to stress the Reformation as a process lasting for a long time period, and to concentrate on later stages of this process, on what it has been common to term the era of confessionalization or the confessional epoch. In this connection, the Nordic countries can no longer be regarded as only of marginal interest. The two realms of Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland were among the largest and most important countries within the Protestant camp of Early Modern Europe, and it is of great importance to bring them into the general historical debate on the topic of reformation and confessionalization. This can best be done by Nordic scholars themselves, but it requires that they approach the development in the Nordic countries as a whole and in a comparative way, that they formulate research problems and questions with continuous attention to their relevance for discussions in international scholarship – and that they present the results of their efforts in English or another language accessible for an international audience. 1 With this point of departure it can seem like a paradox, that this report on the ‘long reformation’ in Nordic historical research is subdivided in ‘national’ reports for each of the five Nordic countries. This is, however, a simple consequence of the fact that existing historical research in reformation and confessionalisation – as in most other historical periods and problems – since the nineteenth century has been dominated by a strong ‘national’ focus. This focus has determined fundamental facts about research, such as what frames and questions for research were applied, who undertook research, and in what language research results were presented. The five ‘national’ reports here do in no way intend to cement this traditional approach, but are thought of as a necessary instrument – or a kind of preliminary station on the way – to break away from it. 1 A short summary of the development of historical research on reformation and confessionalization in Scandinavia since 1945, written for an international audience, is Czaika 2009(a). 6 Historiographical studies – that is studies of the way in which earlier scholars pursued their academic research and presented its results in their historical writing – are a necessary part of all attempts to break new ground in studies of the past. They are especially important if particular research traditions or historical schools have had a dominating influence on research in a certain time period, topic or problem. It will then be relevant to make clear what this meant to the outcome of that research. Applied to research in the history of the Reformation, this would raise fundamental questions like: Did a strong national tradition of historical research tone down, or even ignore, important influence from abroad? Or: Was a historical school focusing on the state and the political development without understanding for the importance of church and religion in the past? The five reports presented here are national in their description of existing research, but they intend to open up for future research that will finish with the national framework and try to apply a comparative Nordic approach. This is the basic purpose of the individual reports, but the authors have been asked to address in their reports a series of common questions formulated in a way so that the report as a whole hopefully will fulfill also a number of more specific purposes. At least four such additional purposes could be mentioned. The first one is to break down borders between academic disciplines in reformation research in the Nordic countries. The quest for interdisciplinarity has become almost a commonplace in for instance applications for collective research projects, but when it comes to historical research in reformation and confessionalization, an interdisciplinary approach is absolutely necessary. This has especially to do with the fundamental fact that in the Nordic countries this research is pursued both by historians and by theologians specializing in Church history. The fact that the five national reports here are written by historians and Church historians in cooperation, testifies to the intention of trying to bridge, from the onset, the gap between these two academic disciplines. The second purpose is to cross dividing lines between historical periods. A traditional periodization, with roots back to Leopold von Ranke, has determined the Reformation period as starting with Luther’s Thesenanschlag in 1517 and going to the Augsburg religious peace of 1555. This periodization takes pivotal events in the German Empire as a point of departure, and is, alone for that reason, not quite appropriate for the situation in the Nordic countries. But it is also no longer 7 upheld as fitting in international research, that now tends to see the Reformation period as part of a larger period of reform that started somewhere in the Late Middle Ages and continued until at least 1650, but perhaps even to 1700 or 1750. An important consequence of this is to play down the importance of the long and very well established