The present paper explores the repression of Lutheran and evangelical theological writings and bibles in the Habsburg Low Countries during the 1520s, in the aftermath of the Edict of Worms. The way in which different jurisdictions dealt... more
The present paper explores the repression of Lutheran and evangelical theological writings and bibles in the Habsburg Low Countries during the 1520s, in the aftermath of the Edict of Worms. The way in which different jurisdictions dealt with a work entitled “Summa der Godliker Scrifturen” (“The Sum of the Holy Scripture”) provides material for a comparative analysis of techniques of repression. This paper also examines the rise of predecessors of the Index of Forbidden Books, and provides a facsimile of a previously unknown such list, the earliest yet identified, promulgated in the diocese of Vienna in 1528.
The first appendix identifies the mysterious “Ioannes Zel” censored in the 1529 Brussels proto-index as the Antwerp printer Jan van Ghelen.
A second appendix provides the first accurate and comprehensive bibliography of the editions of the “Summa der Godliker Scrifturen,” including recently recovered photographs of the title page and colophon of an edition of which the last known copy was destroyed during WWII.
The “Galileo case” is still open: John Paul II’s 1979 initiative to “recognize wrongs from whatever side they come” was carried out in an unsatisfactory manner. The task would have been easy had the Pontifical Study Commission created for... more
The “Galileo case” is still open: John Paul II’s 1979 initiative to “recognize wrongs from whatever side they come” was carried out in an unsatisfactory manner. The task would have been easy had the Pontifical Study Commission created for that purpose concentrated on the 1616 decree alone and declared it not in line with the hermeneutical guidelines of the Council of Trent, in agreement with Galileo and not with Saint Robert Bellarmine. This, however, seems to be against Church Decorum. A possible avenue to closing the “Galileo case” on the part of the Church of Rome could, thus, be to change its current defensive attitude and declare itself no longer what it was in 1616, since another such “case” is, hopefully, no longer conceivable.
Based on the records of Vatican archives — the Roman Inquisition, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and the Congregation of the Council, this article analyzes the policy of the Roman Catholic Church towards mixed marriages... more
Based on the records of Vatican archives — the Roman Inquisition, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and the Congregation of the Council, this article analyzes the policy of the Roman Catholic Church towards mixed marriages in multi-confessional European regions with special attention to Germany. Taking as an example the marriage alliance of Wolfgang Wilhelm of Neuburg and Katherina Charlotte of Zweibrücken I show how interweaving politics and religion influenced the dynamics of constructing and negotiating confessional boundaries as well as the actors’ strategies for shifting and overcoming these boundaries. Extending my analysis to the broader German context, I show how mixed marriages suffered from an underlying tension and created some significant problems because they contradicted customary law and did not obey the rule of patriarchy. Because the search for solutions allowed — and sometimes required — the involvement of the secular authorities to control and reduce the potential for conflict, mixed marriages played a crucial role in enforcing secularization.
