The Case against Johann Reuchlin: Religious and Social
Controversy in Sixteenth-Century Germany (review)
Carol Piper Heming
University of Toronto Quarterly, Volume 74, Number 1, Winter 2004/2005,
pp. 400-401 (Review)
Published by University of Toronto Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/utq.2005.0069
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/180576
Accessed 18 Jun 2017 04:55 GMT
400 letters in canada 2003
dissident ideas everywhere. Even so, the passion with which ideas were
communicated, often under dangerous circumstances, still comes through.
The authorities were right to be worried: drama disseminated ideas, made
people aware of hitherto unconsidered choices, engendered debate, and
did all this in the pleasant form of public entertainment. It is enough to
make a tyrant weep.
Waite’s book succeeds marvellously in explaining the forces shaping
this complex, turbulent period and in showing the influence of institutions
dedicated to art and moral education. The Word, in more ways than one,
proved immensely powerful. (ELSA STRIETMAN)
Erika Rummel. The Case against Johann Reuchlin:
Religious and Social Controversy in Sixteenth-Century Germany
University of Toronto Press 2002. xvi, 174. $50.00
In a 1998 review essay, Erika Rummel applauded the number of recent
‘works echoing the Renaissance humanist’s call Ad fontes!’ She concluded
that ‘by facilitating access to sources, the books provide a seedbed for
future research.’ Rummel’s modest volume on the Reuchlin affair is just
such a work.
Rummel describes the Reuchlin case as ‘an object lesson in cultural
diversity,’ one which ‘opens a window on the degree of dissent present in
sixteenth-century society.’ She builds her case by identifying the three ways
in which contemporaries of Reuchlin interpreted the affair, noting that
‘protagonists agreed on the facts but not on their meaning.’
First, she discusses the anti-Semitic overtones surrounding the debate
between ‘orthodox Christians’ and so-called ‘Judaizers.’ The focus of this
debate was the issue of Jewish books: should they all except for the Old
Testament be destroyed because they are dangerous and blasphemous;
or should they be preserved because ‘none of the writings of the Jews has
been rejected or condemned, either by secular or by ecclesiastical authorities’?
Next, Rummel looks at the humanist-scholastic debate over the
significance of the Jewish books as historical sources. As she points out,
Reuchlin’s own perception of the case was that it represented ‘the latest in
a long series of confrontations between humanists and theologians.’ Within
this context, some of the best-known polemical tracts concerning the affair
were produced, including Letters of Famous Men and Letters of Obscure Men
(translated excerpts of which are included in the document section of this
book).
Finally, Rummel notes that the participation of many humanists in the
debate helped develop what she terms a ‘third construct,’ in which
Reuchlin was linked to Luther, and in which the Reuchlin affair became,
university of toronto quarterly, volume 74, number 1, winter 2004/5
humanities 401
most significantly, a ‘pre-Reformation controversy.’ Rummel devotes
chapters to each of the three sixteenth-century interpretations of the affair;
she then examines the degree to which each of these interpretations may
have been spontaneous or consciously constructed. Her final chapter in the
first section of the book is a brief overview of the modern historiographical
take on Reuchlin.
The second and longer section of the book is a collection of relevant
documents that represent various sixteenth-century views of the event.
Rummel includes works by Johann Pfefferkorn, Johann Reuchlin, Willibald
Pirckheimer, Erasmus, Jacob Hoogstraten, Ulrich von Hutten, and Martin
Luther, among others. She provides useful headnotes for each document,
and, as she points out, ‘many of the texts ... have been translated into
English here for the first time.’ In addition, her annotations, while perhaps
elementary for the specialist, are numerous and detailed. Once again, her
desire to help ‘facilitate access to sources’ is apparent. Particularly
beneficial to upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students,
The Case against Johann Reuchlin provides a challenging historiographical
discussion as well as lucid translations of documents written by the various
players in the drama. In her preface, Rummel laments ‘the problem of
writing about discourse without participating in it.’ She expresses hope that
her book will ‘provide an antidote to the subjectivity inherent in any
mediating narrative by supplying the texts on which the narrative is based.’
She has done a commendable job of fulfilling this purpose. (CAROL PIPER
HEMING)
Henry Heller. Anti-Italianism in Sixteenth-Century France
University of Toronto Press. xii, 308. $60.00
Henry Heller explores French xenophobia towards Italians in the sixteenth
century in terms of intersecting economic and religious conflicts. Drawn to
the subject by present-day ethnic violence and xenophobia, Heller focuses
first on Lyon. With a largely Italian merchant elite, Lyon displayed a
pattern in which Italian economic and cultural dominance provoked
resistance that was enmeshed in contemporary religious conflicts. In 1562,
following rising economic strife and cultural resentment towards Italians,
Calvinists briefly took over Lyon and battled Catholics for the religious
sympathies of Italian elites, even as both sides condemned Italian trade
practices. Many of Lyon’s Italians had become Protestant, so resentment
over Italian economic dominance was readily associated with heresy. That
Italians were ‘richer, better educated, and more highly skilled than the
indigenous population’ provided the matrix for hostility.
Religious antagonism then pushed prejudice in several directions.
Resentment towards Italians at court enabled the Huguenots to blame them
university of toronto quarterly, volume 74, number 1, winter 2004/5