Contemporary Authors

• A Reformation Life: The European Reformation through the Eyes of Philipp of Hesse - 2015 Praeger, Santa Barbara, CA
• (Editor) T&T Clark Companion to Reformation Theology - 2012 Bloomsbury T&T Clark, New York, NY
• Luther: A Guide for the Perplexed - 2011 Bloomsbury T&T Clark, New York, NY
• The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and Justifications for Slavery - 2009 Routledge, New York, NY
• (Editor) Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research - 2008 Truman State University Press, Kirksville, MO
• (Editor) Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on the Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg on his Sixty-fifth Birthday - 2002 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO
• Tyranny and Resistance: The Magdeburg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition - 2001 Concordia Publishing, St. Louis, MO

• Baylor - http://www.baylor.edu/religion/index.php?id=933200

  David Whitford, Ph.D.

  Professor
  David_Whitford@baylor.edu
  Tidwell 303
  (254) 710-4223
  Professor

  Education:

  Ph.D., Boston University
  M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary
  Biography:

  A native New Englander, David joined the faculty at Baylor in 2013 after teaching in Ohio and South Carolina. He is married to Laurel and they have one daughter. He is an avid sports fan and has developed a passion for sports photography.

  Academic Interests and Research:

  His research and writing focuses on the social, cultural, and political impact of the European Reformations of the sixteenth century. In 2009, he authored a book on the ways in which the Bible was used to support the Transatlantic slave trade, The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and Justifications for Slavery. He continues to be interested in the ways in which the Bible was used and interpreted in the Early Modern Era. In 2015, he authored an introduction to the Reformation aimed at a more general audience, A Reformation Life.

  Professional Activities and Awards:

  Editor, Sixteenth Century Journal, 2011-present.

  Associate Editor, Sixteenth Century Journal, 2003 – 2011.

  Chair, Society for Reformation Research 500th Anniversary Committee.

  Council Member, Calvin Studies Society.

  Editorial Board, REFO500 Book Series, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

  Lilly Scholars Grant, 2007.

  Literature Prize, Sixteenth Century Society, 2005.

  Bush Research Fellowship, 2002.

  Sixteenth Century Society, Meyer Prize Committee, 2007 – present.

  Books:

  Editor, Martin Luther. Cambridge in Context Series. Forthcoming 2017.

  A Reformation Life: Philipp of Hesse and the Reformation. 2015.

  Editor, T&T Clark Companion to Reformation Theology. 2012.

  Martin Luther: A Guide for the Perplexed. 2011.

  The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and Justifications for Slavery. 2009.

  Editor, Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research. 2007.

  Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on the Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg on his Sixty-fifth Birthday. 2002.

  Tyranny and Resistance: The Magdeburg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition. 2001.

  Selected Articles:

  “Religious Violence and Martyrdom,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Martin Luther. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Forthcoming 2017.

  “Does the Reformation Still Matter,” Expository Times 126 (Sept 2015): 573-577.

  “Yielding to the Prejudices of his Times: Erasmus and Comma Johanneum.” Church History and Religious Culture, 95/1 (2015): 19 – 40.

  “The Landgrave’s Great Matter: Luther on Bigamy and the Landgrave of Hesse,” in Mixed Matches: Transgressive Unions in Early Modern Germany. Edited by Mary Lindemann and David Luebke. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014: 1 – 33.

  “‘Forgetting him selfe after a most filthie and shamefull sorte’: Martin Luther and John Calvin on Genesis 9,” in Calvin and Luther: The Continuing Relationship. Edited by R. Ward Holder. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013: 36 – 48.

  "A Calvinist Heritage to the ‘Curse of Ham': Assessing the Accuracy of a Claim about Racial Subordination." Church History and Religious Culture, 90/1 (2010): 25 – 45.

  "Robbing Paul to Pay Peter: Paul and Political Thought in the Reformation," in Paul in the Reformation Era. Edited by R. Ward Holder. Leiden: Brill, 2009: 573 – 606.

  "The Papal Antichrist: Martin Luther and the Underappreciated Influence of Lorenzo Valla," Renaissance Quarterly, 61/1 (2008): 26 – 52.

  "Mistaking the Question for the Answer: Anachronism, Kenosis, and John Milton," Milton Quarterly, 41/3 (2007): 149 – 164.

  "From Speyer to Magdeburg: The Development and Maturation of a Hybrid Theory of Resistance." Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 96 (2005): 57 – 80.

  "Cura Religionis or Two Kingdoms: The Late Luther on Religion and the State." Church History, 73/1 (2004): 41 – 62.

  Courses taught at Baylor:

  REL 1350 The Christian Heritage

  REL 3330 Church History

  REL 4337 The European Reformation

  REL The History of Protestantism

  REL 5332 Medieval Christianity

  REL 5333 The Reformation: Martin Luther and Lutheranism

  REL 5333 The Reformation: John Calvin and Calvinism

  REL 5349 The Radical Reformation

• Bloomsbury Publishing - http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/david-m-whitford

  David M Whitford
  David Whitford is professor in the Dept. of Religion at Baylor University, USA. He is the author of Tyranny and Resistance: The Lutheran Tradition and the Magdeburg Confession (2001); Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research, (ed., 2007) as well as numerous articles on Reformation Europe. He is the associate editor of The Sixteenth Century Journal.

  Writes: Theology Reference, Historical Theology

  Author of : T&T Clark Companion to Reformation Theology, Luther: A Guide for the Perplexed

  Editor(s) of: T&T Clark Companion to Reformation Theology
  - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/david-m-whitford#sthash.T3iev83u.dpuf

readily accessible
Highly recommended
Whitford, David M.: A Reformation life: the European Reformation through the eyes of Philipp of Hesse
P.G. Wallace
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1230.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
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Whitford, David M. A Reformation life: the European Reformation through the eyes of Philipp of Hesse. Praeger, 2015. 170p bibl index afp ISBN 9781440802539 cloth, $58.00; ISBN 9781440802546 ebook, contact publisher for price

(cc) 53-3688

BR350

CIP

Whitford (Reformation studies, Baylor Univ.) has written a readily accessible introduction to the German Reformation up to the 1560s by following the life of an early supporter of Martin Luther, Landgrave Philipp of Hesse, whom Whitford describes as "the Reformation's Forrest Gump." The 17-year old Philipp attended the Diet of Worms (1521), where Luther defied Emperor Charles V and sealed his break with Roman Catholicism. In 1525, Philipp led an army against rebellious peasants. In 1529, he signed the letter of protest that earned Protestants their name. The following year, he met with Luther and Huldrych Zwingli at Marburg but failed to reconcile them, signed the Confession of Augsburg, and helped assemble the Schmalkaldic League, a defensive alliance of Protestant cities and principalities to defend the new faith. In 1540, Philipp's bigamous second marriage undermined the reformers who sanctioned it, disrupted the league, and nearly destroyed the Lutheran cause. Yet Philipp survived military defeat and imprisonment and lived to see Lutheranism secured by the Peace of Augsburg. Whitford enriches his biography with backstories of reformers and politicians with whom Philipp collaborated and corresponded, including Henry VIII. Images and endnotes. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. All levels/ libraries.--P. G. Wallace, Hartwick College

Luther: A Guide for the Perplexed
Interpretation. 66.4 (Oct. 2012): p490.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0020964312451726
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by David M. Whitford

Continuum, New York, 2011. 192 pp. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-567-03279-9.

This book examines a number of key moments in Martin Luther's life and fundamental theological positions that remain perplexing to most students, providing insight into the reformer's biographical context, his theological foundations, and his political theory.

Quoted in Sidelights: Displaying much erudition, the author has exhaustively revealed new details from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries about the emergence and diffusion of the Curse. His painstaking examination of how Ham supplants Canaan as its target during the sixteenth century (pp. 77-104) is his most significant contribution.

The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era. The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery
Benjamin Braude
The Catholic Historical Review. 97.3 (July 2011): p587.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 The Catholic University of America Press
http://cuapress.cua.edu/journals.htm
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The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era. The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery. By David M. Whitford. [St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2009. Pp. xviii, 217. $119-95. ISBN 978-0-754-66625-7.)

Among the followers of the Abrahamic religions, the Curse of Ham has arguably been the most widespread justification for condemning dark-skinned peoples to slavery. Its purported proof-text is Genesis 9:18-27, the story of the responses of the sons of Noah to their father's nakedness. Whatever Ham did--mockery, voyeurism, rape, castration?--and Shem and Japheth did not, it provoked a paternal curse, targeting Ham's son Canaan with enslavement. On this as well as almost everything else, the twists of the text as well as its subsequent interpretations are endlessly confusing. Over recent decades, exactly when, where, how, and among whom these disturbing verses became the Curse have provoked studies by numerous scholars, notably David Aaron, John Bergsma, David Goldenberg, Scott Hahn, Steven Haynes, Ephraim Isaac, Sylvester Johnson, Abraham Melamed, Thomas Peterson, Jonathan Shorsch, and the present reviewer. To a degree, David Whitford engages this growing research.

Displaying much erudition, the author has exhaustively revealed new details from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries about the emergence and diffusion of the Curse. His painstaking examination of how Ham supplants Canaan as its target during the sixteenth century (pp. 77-104) is his most significant contribution. Unfortunately, he fails to explore the relationship of the medieval Latin manuscript confusion of Ham, Canaan, and Cain (which he acknowledges, p. 35n57) to this later transformation. By adding persuasive new details (pp. 105-22), his argument about the motive instigating the sixteenth-century George Best to introduce the blackened Ham to England reinforces the emerging consensus that it arose from the advocacy of expansion, not racism. Whitford attempts to sort out the degree of influence of two eighteenth-century divines in firmly establishing the Curse. He argues that Thomas Newton, the Anglican bishop of Bristol, played a greater role than the learned Benedictine Augustin Calmet (pp. 141-69). Since the earlier Calmet did play a part in the later Newton's argument--albeit in misleading fashion, as revealed by Whitford--the question is still unresolved, but Whitford does present evidence that Newton was favored by Anglophones.

The book's discussion of the ancient and medieval background to the development of the Curse is less secure. It seems to treat Genesis 9:25 as if that were Israelite Scripture's only engagement with slavery. Repeatedly it claims that Genesis 9 and 10 as well as medieval texts consign Ham to Africa (e.g., PP- 39, 59, 60. 67, 77, 101). Continents do not exist in ancient Near Eastern literature and elsewhere did not even begin to acquire their current conception, identity, and significance until the late Renaissance. Biblical Hebrew is often mangled (e.g., pp. 5,99n72,146).The book mischaracterizes as Renaissance innovations claims--notably by the influential forger Annius of Viterbo--that had long-established Jewish and Christian precedent. However, whatever the origin, Annius's hypersexualization of Ham did contribute to the nature of the Curse, as Whitford correctly argues (pp. 54-62). Whitford persuasively demonstrates the might of Ham in early-and mid-sixteenth-century royal genealogies (pp. 66-76), but he fails to explain satisfactorily how he moved so quickly from kingship to a slaveship. Nor does he acknowledge that the myth of Ham's majesty had been widespread in ancient and medieval thinking. The Bible and its exegetes made much of the empire-builders, Egypt and Nimrod, son and grandson of Ham. From the mid-fourteenth century onward, the well-known--and similarly fraudulent--Travels of Sir John Mandeinlle called Ham "the sovereign of all the world" (1)

Unfortunately, diligent scholarship alone cannot eliminate the Curse. Martin Marty once wrote "... you overcome story with story. You break the spell of myth with another myth." (2) Whitford now adds his insights to the others who have exposed the fraud, distortion, ignorance, and self-interest that created the Curse, but no one has yet created a myth to counter it.

Boston College

BENJAMIN BRAUDE

Braude, Benjamin

Quoted in Sidelights: The special contribution of this book is its attention to biblical scholarship. In a brilliant fourth chapter, Whitford approaches early modem Bible scholars with refreshing breadth and sophistication, examining not only a wide variety of commentaries but also paratextual apparatuses and lexicography, all of which contributed to the pre-scientific science favored by at least some nineteenth-century racists.

The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery
Christopher Ocker
Church History. 80.2 (June 2011): p405.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0009640711000278
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 American Society of Church History
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The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery. By David M. Whitford. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009. xiv + 217 pp. $99.95 cloth.

In the book of Genesis (9:20-28), Noah, apparently shamed by his son Ham, laid a curse on Ham's son Canaan, condemning Canaan to servitude. Why, then, do we call it the curse of Ham? The story seems to explain the origins of inferior and superior tribes or nations. At some point in history, the curse came to be identified primarily or exclusively with Ham, Canaan's father, and the unfortunate progeny became Hamites. At least some of Ham's descendents could be, and periodically were, identified with Africa, yet they were sometimes identified with Asia and Europe, too. Historians of American racism, not to mention a good many racists, know this story as a biblical justification for slavery. How it came to imply the enslavement of black Africans in the New World, while characterizing Africans as Hamites and Hamites as hypersexual, is the burden of this book.

Whitford joins a number of recent historians who have shown that the history of the interpretation of the curse of Ham is, in a word, complicated. Paul Freedman, for example, notes its medieval role in conceptualizing peasant servitude in Europe. Benjamin Braude has pointed to a "movement from medieval polyphony to modem monophony" in the story's interpretation, naming the years 1589-1625 as the time when a broad range of alternative medieval ethnic geographies yielded to the familiar racialized concept of African Hamite enslavement ("The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical Identities in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods," The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 1 [January 1997]: 107, 138). Even so, Braude remains impressed by the malleability of this symbol for otherness. It must not be construed, as it has so often been, as "a kind of racism avant la lettre" (142). In fact, the late George Frederickson, the comparative historian of racism, concluded that "the curse [of Ham]" may not have been "securely linked to the polemical defense of slavery until it became an alternative rationale for southerners who resisted scientific racism on fundamentalist religious grounds" (Racism: A Short History [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002], 176n55 and 135-36). Lest we assume the universality of this racist symbol among Christians or Protestants, Frederickson reminds us that a concept of Hamites played little role in South Africa, where a particular model of Christian national culture was used to justify apartheid. In short, a racist could get along without the story of Noah's curse. The impression we get is of an ongoing early modern to modern flux, within which racist ideas begin to congeal around the figure of Ham, among other things.

Whitford adds further detail to the early modern portion of this intricate tableau. He is, throughout this book, mindful of the diversity of medieval exegetical traditions and mindful that some later Bible readers (for example, the missionary, Morgan Godwyn, at the end of the seventeenth century, and the Jacobite Henry St. John Bolingbrook a generation later) rejected Noah's curse as a justification for slavery. His main purpose, however, is to find when and how Noah's curse was applied to Ham rather than Canaan, and to track the reception of three different traditions about Hamites--that their skin is dark, that their men are macrophallic and hypersexual, and that they are idolatrous and sinful. Ironically, none of this, neither the curse of Ham nor the idea of Hamite hypersexuality and enslavement, is explicit in the Bible. Yet many American Protestants in earlier generations, both in the old denominations and in new sects, have taken the Hamite curse as literally and historically true.

Of these, the oldest idea is Hamite servitude. Patristic writers use the story of Noah's curse to explain slavery, and medieval writers use it to explain serfdom, but neither early Christian nor medieval writers consistently or exclusively place Ham's, or Canaan's, descendants in Africa. Whitford describes the transfer of the curse from Canaan to Ham as a gradually emerging tendency among sixteenth-century Bible scholars. He traces the idea of sexual promiscuity to Johannes Annius of Viterbo, historiographer of the notorious Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI). In his forgery of the lost books of Berossus's ancient history of Babylonia, Annius describes Ham as sexually promiscuous and a magician. Leo Africanus reinforced the association of Ham's sons with hypersexuality. Biblical commentaries by authors as influential and as diverse as Martin Luther and the Flemish Jesuit Cornelius a Lapide further confirm and propagate this image of Hamites. The idea that darkness of skin is evidence of God's curse on Africans is traced to the humanist Guillaume Postel and mediated through George Best, Richard Hakluyt, Samuel Bochart, and eventually Edward Leigh's influential Critica sacra (1641). Whitford corrects Winthrop Jordan's claim that the Talmud and Midrash are the origins of this connection between black skin color and the curse of Hamites. Thomas Newton propagates the idea of Hamite enslavement to later American slaveholders.

Taken as a whole, Whitford confirms the general impression of racist ideas congealing within an ongoing flux. By the time we reach Thomas Newton, defender of prophecy in the mid-eighteenth century, it is clear that an abundance of biblical scholarship could be taken to support Newton's arguments, even if Newton, as Whitford believes, not just recklessly but dishonestly fashioned his arguments. In the end, Whitford suggests, the idea of Hamite enslavement does not evolve out of biblical interpretation but arises as an "emergent motif" out of residual elements of exegetical tradition. The reader will notice that others, such as Braude and even Winthrop Jordan, pointed to several of Whitford's key players, for example, Leo Africanus and Richard Hakluyt. The special contribution of this book is its attention to biblical scholarship. In a brilliant fourth chapter, Whitford approaches early modem Bible scholars with refreshing breadth and sophistication, examining not only a wide variety of commentaries but also paratextual apparatuses and lexicography, all of which contributed to the pre-scientific science favored by at least some nineteenth-century racists.

doi: 10.1017/S0009640711000278

Christopher Ocker

Graduate Theological Union and San Francisco Theological Seminary

Ocker, Christopher

Luther; a guide for the perplexed
Reference & Research Book News. 26.3 (June 2011):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Ringgold, Inc.
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Luther; a guide for the perplexed.

Whitford, David M.

T&T Clark

2011

177 pages

$24.95

Paperback

Guides for the purplexed

BR325

Martin Luther was one of the most influential theologians in Christian history. His over 100 works have shaped not only a vast portion of Christian doctrine but have also heavily influenced social and political movements for hundreds of years. In spite of all this, Luther's theology is often misunderstood and presents confusion for many. This book by Whitford (history of Christianity, United Theological Seminary, Ohio) offers an easy to understand explanation of Luther's theological contributions as well as his life and how it relates to his work. This fresh approach to Luther is well suited for both the beginning and seasoned theology student.

([c]2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)

Quoted in Sidelights: ably traces
very interesting and finely researched book
Whitford, David M.: The curse of Ham in the early modern era: the Bible and the justifications for slavery
R. Fritze
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 48.1 (Sept. 2010): p110.
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2009-14779 CIP

Whitford, David M. The curse of Ham in the early modern era: the Bible and the justifications for slavery. Ashgate, 2009. 217p bibl index ISBN 9780754666257, $99.95

Genesis 9: 20-27 tells the story of Noah's curse laid on Canaan, the son of Ham. This story, commonly but inaccurately known as the Curse of Ham, is one of the socially and politically most important passages in the Bible. It was used to justify the transatlantic slave trade and other exploitations of Africans. The Curse of Ham used in this manner was an inaccurate and perverse exegesis. Whitford (United Theological Seminary) ably traces the history of how that exegesis came into common usage during the 16th-18th centuries. A perfect storm of accretions to the story had to occur. Against the biblical text, the curse had to be applied to Ham and all his children, part of the curse had to be a blackening of the skin, Ham had to be especially associated with debauchery, and Canaan had to be written out of the story. Whitford identifies two central perpetrators: Annius of Viterbo and Thomas Newton, both dishonest scholars. This very interesting and finely researched book connects and sometimes corrects David M. Goldenberg's Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (CH, Jun'04, 41-5850) and Stephen R. Haynes's Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (CH, Jan'03, 40-2736). Summing Up: Recommended. ** Upper-division undergraduates and above.--R. Fritze, Athens State University

Fritze, R.

The curse of Ham in the early modern era; the Bible and the justifications for slavery
Reference & Research Book News. 25.1 (Feb. 2010):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2010 Ringgold, Inc.
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9780754666257

The curse of Ham in the early modern era; the Bible and the justifications for slavery.

Whitford, David M.

Ashgate Publishing Co.

2009

217 pages

$99.95

Hardcover

St. Andrews studies in Reformation history

HT915

Whitford (United Theological Seminary, US) investigates how passages from Genesis came to be used to blame Africans for the slavery that Europeans were subjecting them to, and how and why there are still people today who believe the myth. His topics include the Bible and slavery, the sons of Noah and the estates of man, early modern exegesis of Genesis Nine, popularizing the curse of Ham, and the self-interpreting Bible.

([c]2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Quoted in Sidelights: presents an engaging collection of scholarly essays surveying the breadth of past and current Reformation historiography.
the overwhelming strengths of this invaluable collection of essays and bibliographies mean it should find an accessible location on the shelf of every serious student and scholar of Reformation and early modern history.
would have been worthy of consideration
Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research
William VanDoodewaard
Church History. 77.3 (Sept. 2008): p719.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2008 American Society of Church History
http://www.churchhistory.org/church-history-journal/
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doi: 10.1017/S0009640708001236

Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research. Edited by David M. Whitford. Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies 79. Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2008. xii + 459 pp. $52.00 cloth.

This latest edition of a guide to Reformation research, following fifteen years after the last of its kind, presents an engaging collection of scholarly essays surveying the breadth of past and current Reformation historiography. Editor David Whitford assembled this comprehensive work under three topics, confessional trends, regional trends, and social and cultural trends, providing general categorization for the increasing diversity of approaches to Reformation history. Each of the eighteen essays answers three questions: "what is the present state of research in the field, especially the trendsetting new studies that are challenging (or perhaps trying to reassert) traditional views? What are the key issues scholars in the field are struggling with and trying to resolve? And what are the fundamental works in the field and where are the strategic collections or centers of research?" (x). The quality of the answers commends the book as an indispensable resource for both the new and the veteran scholar of Reformation history.

The first section on confessional trends includes essays on Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic, Radical, and Jewish historical research, and includes an essay examining the historiographical approach of confessionalization. Each of the essays presents a wealth of helpful insight along with a substantial bibliography. Amy Nelson Burnett's essay, "Contributors to the Reformed Tradition," ably surveys the present state of research in the field, but appears nonplussed by the firm critique and comprehensive positive scholarship on the development of Reformed Orthodoxy presented by Richard Muller and others. While she terms it a "redefinition" of Protestant Scholasticism (41), a longer view of historiography might view it as a reassertion of a traditional view prevailing prior to a twentieth-century neo-orthodox "redefinition." R. Emmet McLaughlin's "Radicals" provides a wealth of material on this diverse strand of Reformation history, along with sharp criticism of Andrea Strtibind's evaluation of revisionist studies of Anabaptism; the latter appears hasty in its negation of her effort toward a working theological paradigm, failing to adequately interact with the epistemological and hermeneutical issues underlying positivist, revisionist, and other methodologies. Ute Lotz-Heumann provides a fascinating survey of the debates over confessionalization approaches, adeptly surveying the current field. Also germane to his discussion would have been an assessment or notice of recent and ongoing work on the history and context of Reformation and post-Reformation confessions, such as the effort currently under way by the Westminster Assembly Project, based in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.

The second set of essays examines the development and trends in historical research on the regions of Central Europe, 1500-1700, France, Italy, England, Netherlands, Spain, and the Swiss. Howard Hoston's essay "Central Europe, 1550-1700" chronicles seminal developments and opportunities in Polish, Czech, Hungarian, and other areas of Central European Reformation studies. He accurately notes that "the field described here is not only far larger geographically and chronologically than the older unit of Reformation Germany; it also embraces a far more diverse set of themes and traditions" (169). Hoston provides a wealth of helpful research tools and resource information for this hitherto largely neglected field. Peter Marshall's thorough chapter on England accurately notes the present trend in English Reformation studies toward what has been termed a "Catholic revisionism" with its disparagement of the Reformation movement as "an immensely destructive force" (252). Marshall notes some of the difficult questions unanswered by this approach, along with alternate views; scholars of opposing conviction may find this a fertile field for critical engagement. The conversation itself exemplifies the underlying reality of competing truth claims in Reformation historiography along with the worldview shift in Britain as a society increasingly distanced from its Protestant tradition. The following chapters on the Netherlands, Spain, and the Swiss continue with capable assessments of their respective fields, including leading debates, new developments, and opportunities. Somewhat surprisingly, the regional essays include no discussion of Scotland or Scandinavia; both would have been worthy of consideration in this volume.

The third grouping, social and cultural trends, covers popular religion, witchcraft, gender history, art history, and books and printing. Kathryn A. Edwards's essay gives a useful survey of popular religion, though she focuses primarily on continuities of Roman Catholic and popular medieval aspects of societal life and custom into the Reformation and early modern period. She could also have mentioned opportunities for scholarship in the development of popular Reformed, Lutheran, and Radical piety, such as the various movements to establish conventicles, family worship, catechizing, and the growing popular transition from image to print dominance in Protestant societies, with the attendant remarkable growth in popular literacy. Merry Wiesner-Hanks's essay, "Society and the Sexes Revisited," surveys historiography on women, noting the dominant, though not exclusive, influence of Foucault's work. Her essay reflects much of the field, with its general weakness of failing to venture beyond the bounds of the somewhat tired modernist historiography of women struggling against repression. One looks eagerly for alternate approaches with greater empathy to women in context as early modern and Reformation individuals, rather than only via paradigms of feminist and deconstructionist theory. Larry Silver's brief but helpful, well-annotated article on art history and Andrew Pettegree's fine essay on books and printing round out this excellent volume. Its few weaknesses and limitations included, the overwhelming strengths of this invaluable collection of essays and bibliographies mean it should find an accessible location on the shelf of every serious student and scholar of Reformation and early modern history.

William VanDoodewaard

Huntington University

VanDoodewaard, William

Reformation and early modern Europe; a guide to research
Reference & Research Book News. 23.2 (May 2008):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2008 Ringgold, Inc.
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Reformation and early modern Europe; a guide to research.

Ed. by David M. Whitford.

Truman State University Press

2008

456 pages

$52.00

Hardcover

Sixteenth century essays & studies; v.79.

BR305

Designed for use by non-specialist professionals as well as undergraduate and graduate students, this collection gives solid historiographic summaries along with up-to-date resources in religious studies, European regional studies, and social and cultural studies. Contributors cover the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, early modern Catholicism, religious radicals, Jewish history and thought and issues confessionalization, then describe regional trends in central Europe, France, Italy, England, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland along with social and cultural trends in popular religion, witchcraft, the sexes, art history, and books and printing. Each entry includes a clear assessment of writings about relevant events and people involved, including advice on fundamental secondary works, and a large number of print and electronic resources.

([c]20082005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)

Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg
Larissa Juliet Taylor
Church History. 74.1 (Mar. 2005): p164.
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Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg. By David M. Whitford. St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 2004. 270 pp. $34.99 cloth.

In this festschrift, David Whitford has assembled an impressive and broad-ranging collection of essays by scholars whose life and work has been touched and changed by one of the leading Reformation historians of the past forty years, Carter Lindberg. The articles are grouped into three sections covering the search for integrity between the message of the Gospel and the life of the church; the development of the Reformation in the second half of the sixteenth century; and an examination of the impact of the Reformation in today's world.

The contributions range from social history (Katie Luther, the reform of marriage) to political history (just war theory, right to resist tyranny, evangelical states) to pastoral theology (use of images, preaching, ecclesiology, and identity). All exemplify a fundamental aspect of Carter Lindberg's life and teaching: that what people believe influences how they act, then and now. With coverage from the early Reformation to today, the essays highlight how the concept of reform not only changes the basic institutions of society, but is in turn changed by them. Caritas et Reformatio provides a wealth of provocative and original insights by leading scholars who carry on the work begun by Professor Lindberg.

Larissa Juliet Taylor

Colby College

Taylor, Larissa Juliet

Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg
R. Emmet McLaughlin
Renaissance Quarterly. 57.1 (Spring 2004): p258.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2004 The Renaissance Society of America
http://www.rsa.org/RQ.HTM
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David M. Whitford, ed. Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg.

St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002. 270 pp. append. $34.99.ISBN: 0-7586-0038-0.

This volume's sixteen essays begin with short pieces on Romanesque depictions of usury (Priscilla Baumann) and Katie Luther (Kirsi Stjerna). Gregory Miller takes up Luther's conception of a just war, particularly with regard to the Turks. Lacking a definition of what Miller means by "crusade" it is not clear what Luther rejected about it. The Turks were denied the status of legitimate lordship, defense of Germany was the defense of Christendom, and the real opponents were the powers of darkness. That the crusade had been transformed into "nationalistic" war, no matter how "defensive," is somehow not reassuring.

Four essays concern the legitimacy of state intervention in religion. Gottfried Seebass shows that Catholics, Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Radicals opposed the state's seizure of the cura religionis whenever they were excluded from power. All used the same arguments as John Locke's more successful venture. Religious freedom was thus thinkable by all groups, but rejected by the eventual winners. John Witte, Jr. examines Johannes Eisenmann's discussion of the Reformation's legal implementation as well as his early contract theory of the state. Eisenmann's application of Paul (Rom 12:4-8) to the Christian Commonwealth is particularly striking. I would question, however, if Eisenmann's reiteration of vocation constituted a right to privacy rather than a "Platonic" insistence that individuals stick to their own calling and not interfere with other professions. David Whitford describes the Magdeburg Confession's (1550) exegetical maneuvering to make Romans 13 into a duty to resist. Avoiding both Erasmus's New Testament and Luther's translation, the authors even interpolated a phrase for which there was no textual basis. I would note that the resulting interpretation bears a striking resemblance to that of Thomas Muntzer. Another aspect of the Magdeburg Confession, the obedience to lower magistrates, Oliver Olson argues, marginalized Matthias Flacius and the Lutherans in the Dutch Revolt leaving the field to the more radical Calvinists.

Scott Hendrix's article on the reform of marriage in Geneva is the first of three that examine the impact of reform upon individuals and the internal life of the Church. Hendrix argues that marriage played a crucial role in the "re-Christianization" of Europe. Hendrix contrasts Luther and Calvin on a number of points. I would only question the claim that Calvin's view was more "spiritual" than Luther's since "spiritual" is a notoriously slippery term that begs defining. Robert Kolb examines Martin Chemnitz's postils concerning the role of good works and the Law in the life of the believer. Caught between his commitment to sola fide and simul iustus et peccator on the one hand, and his claim, on the other, that God had saved the elect to do the works for which God had prepared them, Chemnitz made a good case for the Third Use of the Law, but left confused the individual's motivation to fulfill that Law. Jeannine Olson provides a useful overview of the Calvinist deaconate, its various forms, and its ultimate fate.

Holiness provides the rubric for another three pieces. Marygrace Peters offers a brief survey of preaching in the Catholic Reform. Peter Vogt takes up the holiness of the Church in the Lutheran tradition. The application of simul iustus and peccator to the Church as a whole distinguishes it from the contemporary heirs of Reformation Catholicism, Anabaptism and Spiritualism. Although the title of Bill Leonard's article on contemporary Baptist identity includes "an almost Reformation people," he describes Baptists as "clearly ... Protestant Christians." If true, it is a measure of the evolution of Protestantism, since none of the Magisterial Reformers would have agreed. Both Oswald Bayer on theology of lament and Dennis Bielfeldt on Luther's theological nova lingua are more purely theological in character, although Bielfeldt gives a profound treatment of the incommensurability of theological language with that of philosophy in late medieval Scholasticism and Luther's theology. The volume ends with James Kittelson's critique of the disuse and misuse of church history in the ecumenism of contemporary Evangelical Catholic Lutheran theologians.

R. EMMET MCLAUGHLIN

Villanova University

McLaughlin, R. Emmet
Quoted in Sidelights: An excellent addition to world history shelves, especially recommended for college libraries.
Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research
Internet Bookwatch. (May 2008):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2008 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
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Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research

David M. Whitford, editor

Truman State University Press

100 East Normal Street, Kirksville, MO 63501-4221

9781931112727, $52.00 http://tsup.truman.edu 1-800-916-6802

Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research is an anthology of eighteen scholarly essays by learned authors discussing confessional, regional, social, and cultural trends in early modern Europe, especially 1500-1700 C.E. Each essayist draws upon extensive research and his or her expertise in the field; topics include art history; religious traditions ranging from Lutheran to Reformed to early modern Catholicism; regional paradigm shifts in France, Italy, England, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands; and much more. "It should be recognized that cultural history does not always (or even usually) follow the lead or intentions of the cultural leaders or intellectuals. Important events often run directly counter to intent and expectation. Witchcraft historians have spent a lot of energy examining those figures who openly and explicitly opposed witchcraft trials ... It has, however, turned out to be difficult to find any direct influence of the skeptic upon actual witchcraft trials." An excellent addition to world history shelves, especially recommended for college libraries.

Wallace, P.G. "Whitford, David M.: A Reformation life: the European Reformation through the eyes of Philipp of Hesse." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1230. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661819&it=r&asid=86577326c5c907eb93255ca99485b283. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. "Luther: A Guide for the Perplexed." Interpretation, vol. 66, no. 4, 2012, p. 490. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA305562507&it=r&asid=9a7788cbce73e7550f5575cd7a46e1c9. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. Braude, Benjamin. "The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era. The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery." The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 97, no. 3, 2011, p. 587+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA262387328&it=r&asid=5b4d1cfcb8f3a432ed02ecb6a2733e86. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. Ocker, Christopher. "The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery." Church History, vol. 80, no. 2, 2011, p. 405+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA258240166&it=r&asid=d132b947458e62db646db6029ec506c6. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. "Luther; a guide for the perplexed." Reference & Research Book News, June 2011. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA257996087&it=r&asid=95bee4d060bab0e0bfff162bd630b35f. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. Fritze, R. "Whitford, David M.: The curse of Ham in the early modern era: the Bible and the justifications for slavery." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Sept. 2010, p. 110. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA249057552&it=r&asid=a4162ef70e63b4d91b3ae7b5022d22d8. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. "The curse of Ham in the early modern era; the Bible and the justifications for slavery." Reference & Research Book News, Feb. 2010. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA224419468&it=r&asid=305a186e5cf1ad586534448d76104882. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. VanDoodewaard, William. "Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research." Church History, vol. 77, no. 3, 2008, p. 719+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA186224722&it=r&asid=0a3842c7230f818deab1d065ee565a8e. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. "Reformation and early modern Europe; a guide to research." Reference & Research Book News, May 2008. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA178635324&it=r&asid=2fae85776fc8adf5400a414bc84261cc. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. Taylor, Larissa Juliet. "Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg." Church History, vol. 74, no. 1, 2005, p. 164. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA130970841&it=r&asid=9cadf530d59af66fdb28af1da11a6757. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. McLaughlin, R. Emmet. "Caritas et Reformatio: Essays on Church and Society in Honor of Carter Lindberg." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 1, 2004, p. 258+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA115270540&it=r&asid=4d7b563b334b5fbe05460681c522096d. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017. "Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research." Internet Bookwatch, May 2008. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA178796626&it=r&asid=655c2c82954dc6615adac1774e56f078. Accessed 12 Mar. 2017.

• Exploring Church History
  https://exploringchurchhistory.com/philipp-hesse-reformation-review-david-whitfords-reformation-life/
  Word count: 624

  Quoted in Sidelights:
  provides a fuller understanding of the Reformation by examining the life of someone who was instrumental to the political and social aspects of the Reformation.
  also corrects the misunderstanding that such matters are in the background of the Reformation
  a fluent telling of an underdeveloped storyline
  Philipp of Hesse and the Reformation: A Review of David M. Whitford’s A Reformation Life
  MARCH 7, 2016 / HOON LEE / 0 COMMENTS
  There is no shortage of works addressing the Reformation. Roland H. Bainton’s Here I Stand remains a must read, in addition to other standards such as Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation, David C. Steinmetz’s Reformers in the Wing, and Michael Reeves’ The Unquenchable Flame. The field is crowded, yet scholars continue to find insightful approaches to Reformation studies (check out Andrew Pettegree’s Brand Luther and my review). David M. Whitford’s latest work on Philipp of Hesse is no exception.

  Whitford’s A Reformation Life: The European Reformation through the Eyes of Philipp of Hesse (Praeger, 2015; source: publisher) begins with a conclusion. As Whitford states, wherever he looked he ended up running into Philipp of Hesse. The landgrave of Hesse had his hand in all matters of the Reformation. It was clear that all roads led to Philipp, but the how and why remained unanswered. A Reformation Life explores these routes.

  A Reformation Life’s intended audience is generalists rather than specialists. Also, the work does not intend to replace more conventional tellings of the Reformation that center around Martin Luther. In this sense, readers will not find revolutionary insight into the Reformation, but that was never the intent.

  Instead, A Reformation Life realigns the unfavorable balance of historical significance versus contemporary acknowledgment in the case of Philipp of Hesse. In doing so, it is natural that politics during the Reformation is a strength of Whitford’s study. Chapter two is particularly strong and probably a reading I would assign for a class on the Reformation.

  However, the strengths of A Reformation Life does not stop there. In chapter three, Whitford traces Philipp’s actions alongside events such the Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses and the Diet of Worms. In doing so, Whitford argues that Philipp is not merely in the background as a political leader, but a major component to the historical and theological development of the Reformation. The second half of the work illustrates Philipp’s involvement in the Reformation beyond Germany, in his interactions with Ulrich Zwingli, Henry VIII, and John Calvin.

  It is important to note Whitford’s balanced description of Philipp. The landgrave of Hesse may have been instrumental in many aspects of the Reformation, but he also had his faults. For instance, Philipp was not immune to use the Reformation for personal causes. Philipp sought to divorce Catherine of Saxony and marry Margarete von der Saale. To do so, he garnered the support of Martin Bucer, eventually of Luther, and weakened the Schmalkaldic League.

  When understanding A Reformation Life as a supplement rather than a replacement to Luther-centric works, its merits shine. A Reformation Life provides a fuller understanding of the Reformation by examining the life of someone who was instrumental to the political and social aspects of the Reformation. A Reformation Life also corrects the misunderstanding that such matters are in the background of the Reformation by demonstrating how they intertwine with the theological development of the Reformation. You can piecemeal some of the material through other writings, but you would lose out on Whitford’s well-developed narrative. A Reformation Life offers its readers a fluent telling of an underdeveloped storyline to the Reformation.

• 
  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Philip-landgrave-of-Hesse
  Word count: 2161

  Philip
  LANDGRAVE OF HESSE
  WRITTEN BY: Walter Heinemeyer
  LAST UPDATED: 7-20-1998 See Article History
  Alternative Titles: Philip of Hesse, Philip the Magnanimous, Philipp der Grossmütige
  Philip
  LANDGRAVE OF HESSE
  Philip
  ALSO KNOWN AS
  Philip the Magnanimous
  Philip of Hesse
  Philipp der Grossmütige
  BORN
  November 13, 1504
  Marburg, Germany
  DIED
  March 31, 1567
  Kassel, Germany
  VIEW BIOGRAPHIES RELATED TO
  CATEGORIES
  Protestantism
  government
  church and state
  DATES
  November 13
  March 31

  RELATED BIOGRAPHIES
  Louis IV
  Henry II
  Thomas Müntzer
  Henry III
  Otto I
  John Frederick
  Frederick I
  Henry V
  Henry IV
  Frederick II
  Philip, byname Philip The Magnanimous, German Philipp Der Grossmütige (born Nov. 13, 1504, Marburg, Hesse [Germany]—died March 31, 1567, Kassel), landgrave (Landgraf) of Hesse (1509–67), one of the great figures of German Protestantism, who championed the independence of German princes against the Holy Roman emperor Charles V.
  Early Years.

  Philip was the son of Landgrave William II, a cultivated, austere man and an experienced soldier. He died when Philip was barely five years old. Philip’s mother, Duchess Anna of Mecklenburg, was a passionate, energetic, and ambitious woman; her relations with her son, however, were cool and were impaired by her second marriage in 1519 and by Philip’s conversion to the doctrines of Martin Luther. As a victim of political forces he spent a gloomy youth, attaching himself increasingly to his older sister Elizabeth, later duchess of Saxony; throughout his life no one was closer to him than she.

  In March 1518 the emperor Maximilian I declared Philip to be of age. While assuming the government in name, he retained his parents’ capable counselors, mostly lawyers by training, who imbued the young man with his parents’ single-minded devotion to the welfare of the state. Philip eventually developed into a self-reliant politician. From his youth, he characteristically thought in terms of the territorial state, an attitude that was to determine his future relations with the Habsburg emperors. He ruled his territory in the spirit of an early enlightened despotism.

  The landgraviate of Hesse had suffered greatly during his mother’s regency, but Philip succeeded in bringing order to the confused administration of the state and, through skillful management of alliances, in freeing Hesse from its isolation in foreign affairs. In 1523 Philip, fighting alongside the powerful electors of the Palatinate and of Trier, defeated the rebellious imperial knight Franz von Sickingen. This victory also crushed the remaining opposition of the Hessian nobility and undoubtedly strengthened the young man’s self-confidence.

  Two years later, in fact, he scored his first personal triumph when he suppressed the peasant revolt in the neighbouring imperial abbeys of Fulda and Hersfeld. He then advanced into Thuringia and, allied with the elector of Saxony and the dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Saxony, defeated Thomas Müntzer, a popular preacher from Mühlhausen/Thüringen, at a battle near Frankenhausen in May 1525. By this victory Philip saved the central German principalities from destruction.
  Conversion To Protestantism.

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  During these years, while the first storm of the Reformation was sweeping through Germany, Luther’s teachings gained a firm hold in many Hessian localities and at the landgrave’s court. It was not until the summer of 1524, however, after making a detailed study of the Bible, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the history of the church, that Philip himself joined Luther. At the same time, orthodox Roman Catholic princes of southern Germany were uniting to make common cause against the ecclesiastical innovations. After the defeat of the peasants this alliance was aimed to bring down the middle and northern German princes as well, in order “to eradicate the damned Lutheran sect, the source of this revolt.”

  Philip was deeply convinced that the religious question was at the same time a political one, and he was the first to recognize that freedom for the new faith would be secured only if Protestant sovereigns and towns united for defense. In May 1526 he won over the elector John of Saxony for a defensive alliance, which other northern and eastern German princes then joined. Henceforward, he strove to unite the Protestant estates into a powerful alliance, which would render them unassailable and thus allow them to build their state churches.

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  Only when the decree of August 1526 of the imperial Diet of Speyer seemed to provide a legal basis for it and when a Hessian “synod” (part church council, part provincial diet) at Homberg had publicly discussed the religious question did Philip carry through the Reformation in his state. The Homberg deliberations led to the Reformatio ecclesiarum Hassiae, unique for its democratic-presbyterian church constitution and the ecclesiastical discipline of the congregations. On Luther’s advice this reform, conceived by the former Franciscan Franz Lambert, was not carried out; instead Hesse became Protestant on the model provided by the electorate of Saxony.

  Philip, however, continued to favour the teachings of the southern German and Swiss reformers and consequently resolved to mediate between the Lutherans and the Zwinglians, adherents of the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli. Within one year, 1527, Philip secularized all the monasteries. The new state-church organization was now methodically built up. In order to ensure a new generation of clergy and officials, the landgrave took the educational system in hand and founded the first Protestant university in 1527 at Marburg. On former monastic and church estates, he set up four hospitals for the insane, the first “psychiatric” hospitals known to medical history. Church and school were subordinated to the “common good.”

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  There arose the Protestant authoritarian state, which considered itself a taskmaster responsible for the religious and moral life of its subjects and dictated their beliefs. Like all his fellow princes, Philip was intolerant, but, in contrast to most, he respected the individual’s freedom of conscience by permitting dissenters to emigrate. He soon showed this attitude in his dealings with the Anabaptists: his purpose was not to punish them as the imperial laws dictated but to convert them by clemency and instruction in doctrine; in this work Martin Bucer, the reformer from Strasbourg, was his helper. They introduced into Hesse in 1539 the rite of confirmation, which became a model for Protestant churches.
  Leadership Of The Protestant States.

  His agile and fertile mind, infectious energy, and fearlessness rapidly made Philip the leader of the Protestant estates. He continued to strive for a great Protestant alliance, for he clearly recognized that the situation of the Protestants would deteriorate if the Roman Catholic emperor Charles V were to triumph in the struggle for European predominance. The way to change and reform began in 1529, when the second imperial Diet of Speyer repealed the first imperial Diet’s decree of 1526. A group of princes and towns led by Philip protested (hence Protestants) against the repeal on the epoch-making grounds that in questions of faith each imperial estate would have to justify itself before God alone.

  Moreover, the landgrave saw with growing apprehension that doctrinal differences between Protestants endangered the development of an all-embracing Protestant defensive alliance. His attempt at the Colloquy of Marburg, in October 1529, to bring about a theological settlement in personal discussion with the reformers, headed by Luther and Zwingli, essentially failed over the question of the Eucharist. Thus, the ambitious plans he shared with Zwingli for a European alliance against the Roman Catholic house of Habsburg remained only a dream.

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  Despite everything, Philip managed in 1531 to unite 6 princes and 10 towns in the Schmalkaldic League, which was to serve as a defensive alliance. Although it had serious organizational shortcomings, the league gradually became the centre of Protestant politics. At the same time, it became a rallying point for the enemies of the house of Habsburg as well as for those Roman Catholic princes who were fearful for their independence. The league, of which the landgrave was the driving spirit, became, moreover, a factor in European politics. Philip reached the peak of his career in 1534, when he executed a campaign to restore Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, who had been driven from his state by the Habsburgs. As a result of his success, Württemberg was opened up to the Reformation, and Austria’s power in southern Germany was broken.
  Decline.

  It was Philip’s tragedy that he destroyed his own leading position a few years later by his extremely provocative marital transactions. In addition to his marriage to the duchess Christina of Saxony in 1523, he contracted a second marriage with Margarete von der Saale, a maid of honour of his sister Elizabeth. As a bigamist he fell under the judgment of the Holy Roman emperor, with whom he now tried to come to terms, but, while Philip and the Schmalkaldic League remained inactive and the other Protestant princes indulged in petty disputes, the emperor Charles V prepared to settle the religious problem once and for all by force of arms. In the summer of 1546 he attacked. The league’s unwieldy organization, long deplored by Philip, now took its toll. Mistakes of leadership, lack of finance, and ultimately the attack by the Protestant duke Maurice of Saxony on the territory of his cousin the elector John Frederick of Saxony hastened the collapse.

  After the capture of the Elector, Philip submitted himself to the mercy of the Emperor in June 1547. Deceived by Charles, he, too, was led away a prisoner. His long imprisonment in the Netherlands deeply affected his mental powers of resistance. In order to gain his freedom, he accepted the so-called Augsburg Interim, by which the Emperor attempted to restore the unity of the Catholic faith without interference from the princes. Philip, however, failed in his attempt to gain his freedom, for the Hessian population resisted conversion to Catholicism. Only after his son-in-law, Maurice of Saxony, and Philip’s eldest son, William, in alliance with other German princes and Henry II of France, unexpectedly rose against the Emperor in March 1552 were he and John Frederick released.

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  Aged and ailing, but also wiser, the Landgrave returned to his homeland. After the victory over the Emperor, the adherents of the Confession of Augsburg—the official Lutheran doctrine—succeeded in gaining a position of legal equality with the Catholics in the empire, in accordance with the Peace of Augsburg of 1555. In this respect Philip, who was far ahead of his time, expressed genuine tolerance for all Christian denominations. He continued to pursue his old plans for a Protestant union and strove on behalf of his embattled co-religionists in France and the Netherlands, but in his later years he cautiously remained in the background of the political stage. He devoted all his strength to the rebuilding of his state, which had been ravaged by war and by its occupation by foreign troops. By the time of his death in 1567, his contemporaries were already referring to the warm-hearted and generous sovereign as the Magnanimous.

  Walter Heinemeyer

Word Count