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3. Encountering the Counter-Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Mary Laven
Mary Laven*
Affiliation:
Jesus College, University of Cambridge
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Abstract

While the Reformation has, from the very beginning, been seen as a drama which drew its cast from every sphere of society, the Counter-Reformation was until recently considered the project of elites. Even those who sought to write the social history of the Catholic reform movement allocated to “the people” the role of resisting the course of change rather than contributing to the transformation of early modern Catholicism. Swimming against this tide, a succession of local case studies, focusing in particular on rituals and objects, has demonstrated the manifold ways in which men and women of all social backgrounds participated in the reinvention of Roman Catholicism. This paper considers new emphases in the social and cultural history of the Counter-Reformation, and asks whether there remains a place for thinking about the age of reform in terms of discipline and confessionalization.

Type
Recent Trends in the Study of Christianity in Sixteenth-Century Europe
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , Fall 2006 , pp. 706 - 720
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2006

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References

18 The starting point for any discussion of Counter-Reformation art remains Mâle. For discussion of negative reactions to Counter-Reformation art, see Webster, 8–13. For a recent consideration of the characteristics of Counter-Reformation art, see Bailey, 1999.

19 The best account of the development of Counter-Reformation historiography is O’Malley, 2000.

20 Evennett, 23–42.

21 Janelle, 177.

22 Croce, 409–26.

23 Ibid., 411–12.

24 Ibid., 415–16.

25 Ibid., 1036–54.

26 O’Malley, 2000, 34–35.

27 On the genesis and development of the confessionalization thesis, see ibid., 108–17.

28 Christian, 8.

29 Harline, 250–51, 253–54.

30 Gentilcore, 68–69.

31 Ibid., 97–99.

32 Johnson, 184.

33 Ibid., 192.

34 Ibid., 202. Johnson’s claim is amply borne out by Soergel, whose study focuses on the pilgrimages — events that were at once promoted from above and from below — that animated the Counter-Reformation landscape of Bavaria, but which drew so heavily on medieval tradition.

35 This chronological lengthening of the Counter-Reformation is characteristic of the work of Gentilcore and Johnson, as well as of Forster. See also Beales, 27, who claims that “It was in the middle years of the eighteenth century that the Counter-Reformation reached its apogee.”

36 Forster, 2001, 77.

37 Forster, 1992, 1–9; Forster, 2001, 12–15.

38 By focusing in this article on the role of ordinary people in shaping Counter-Reformation Catholicism, I do not mean to play down the repressive policies of those authorities, secular and religious, who were dedicated to imposing reform. In particular, the activities of the Inquisitions contributed essentially to the form of Catholicism after Trent. For an uncompromisingly negative account of Inquisition-led confessionalization in the Italian peninsula, see Prosperi.

39 de Boer, ix.

40 Ibid., 3.

41 Ibid., 237–45.

42 Ibid., 238.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., 240.

45 Ibid., 241.

46 Ibid., 242.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid., 243.

49 Strasser, 2004, 104.

50 Ibid., 7.

51 Ibid., 7–10.

52 This trend is not limited to early modernists, and is exemplified in the influential work of Caroline Walker Bynum on late medieval piety, or the revealing study of Lourdes by Ruth Harris.

53 Other studies that have shed light on the material culture of Counter-Reformation Catholicism include Calvi; Strasser, 1999; Hills.

54 Ditchfield, 387.

55 O’Malley, 2000, 5.

56 On the importance of adopting a comparative perspective, see Davis, 335. Such an approach has particular significance for those addressing the Counter-Reformation on a global scale: see, for example, Bailey, 2001; Greer and Bilinkoff.