 JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

The task of writing a complete history of Reformation music is insurmountable.

In addition to the sheer amount of information that has to be covered, the schol-
arly landscape of Reformation studies is replete with political and religious biases
that have influenced even the most experienced scholars. As a practising Catholic
and scholar of Catholic music, Bertoglio is clearly more comfortable discussing
Roman Catholic topics, but her writing is not demonstrably biased against
Protestant views and practices. The breadth of Reforming music is impressive.
Whether it is Lutheran hymns, Calvinist metrical Psalms or post-Trent Catholic
practice, Bertoglio has successfully woven the latest research with the magisterial
scholarship on each topic. That being the case, greater care could have been
taken in organising the study to consolidate some of the discussions and to avoid
repetition. Moreover, Bertoglio’s apologetic tone, frequently admitting that her
discussions are only summaries of much more complicated realities, also borders
on undermining the credibility of the good scholarship that she has undertaken
in writing Reforming music. Nevertheless, Reforming music is a valuable resource for
students, researchers and enthusiasts looking to learn more about the
Reformation and its impact on music.
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW TIMOTHY DUGUID

From Zwingli to Amyraut. Exploring the growth of European reformed traditions. Edited by
Jon Balserak and Jim West. (Reformed Historical Theology, .) Pp.  incl.
 ill. and  tables. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, . €.   
 ;  
JEH () ; doi:./S
Analysis of the emergence of Reformed religion (Reformed Protestantism,
Calvinism, Zwinglianism or Anglicanism) remains a challenge for early modern
historians. Terminological problems are but symptoms of underlying difficulties
in interpreting the nascent character of Reformed Churches across the
Continent. Historiography continues to debate the degree of cohesion both
within and between Reformed Churches as well as the extent of change over
time as Reformed religion adapted to diverse confessional, political and social con-
texts. As the editors suggest, essays in this volume wisely do not attempt to resolve
all these wider debates but rather explore some aspects of the growth of Reformed
‘traditions’. Zwingli and Calvin are certainly discussed, but the volume focuses on a
range of other influential theologians and leading clergy of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries including Heinrich Bullinger, Theodore Beza, Peter
Martyr Vermigli, Giovanni Diodati, Moïse Amyraut and Pierre Allix. The key
themes and ideas of Reformed traditions that emerge across the ten essays are
hardly a surprise – the authority of the Bible, the sacraments and salvation the-
ology. However, some fresh insight is provided on familiar topics. An excellent
essay by Emidio Campi explores the efforts of Giovanni Diodati to translate the
Bible into Italian. The Diodati family, alongside the Calandrinis, Burlamacchis
and Turrettinis, were prominent clans from Lucca who played a significant role
over generations in the Genevan Church. From  Giovanni Diodati taught
Hebrew at the Genevan Academy and worked tirelessly on his translation of the
Bible, publishing editions at his own expense in  and . Diodati hoped
 REVIEWS 
that his work would support existing Italian-speaking Reformed congregations and
inspire mission efforts to the Venetian Republic in particular. Diodati visited
Venice in  and distributed copies of his Bible but left discouraged by the
results. Jon Balserak’s essay draws attention to the question of authority to interpret
the Bible correctly. Balserak argues that the notion of prophetic interpretation was
developed by reformers including the Florentine exile, Peter Martyr Vermigli.
Vermigli argued that new prophetic voices, modelled on their Old Testament pre-
decessors, had been given a divine calling to challenge practices of idolatry and
campaign for the renewal of church life.
The importance of exiles in the Reformed world is further taken up by Hywel
Clifford in his study on Pierre (or Peter) Allix. Another notable Hebraist, Allix
was from  minister of the church of the Parisian Reformed community at
Charenton. Driven into exile in London in , Allix made a distinctive contribu-
tion to English debates over the doctrine of the Trinity. Turning to the original text
of the Old Testament, Allix set out arguments against the views of anti-Trinitarians.
This essay is one of several that explores how Reformed religion was influenced by
polemic debates. Pierrick Hildebrand discusses the extent to which Zwingli devel-
oped his ideas about covenants as a means of defending the practice of infant
baptism against Anabaptist rivals. Stefan Lindholm discusses how ongoing
Reformed debates with Lutherans shaped the evolving articulation of Reformed
orthodoxy about the nature of Christ and about Christ’s presence in communion.
Internal divisions also shaped Reformed traditions. Alan C. Clifford reviews the dis-
ruptive career of Moïse Amyraut, a professor at the Saumur academy from .
Amyraut’s views about predestination raised persistent suspicions of an Arminian
infection in the French Church, although Amyraut was acquitted of departing
from orthodoxy by the national synod held at Alençon in .
Pastoral as well as polemical concerns were crucial in the development of
Reformed traditions. A fascinating article by Rebecca A. Giselbrecht considers
how Heinrich Bullinger attempted to influence emerging Reformed Churches
in the Empire. Calvin’s role in encouraging reform through correspondence
with royal and aristocratic women has received a good deal of attention.
Giselbrecht here explores how Bullinger likewise engaged with Anna Alexandria
of Rappoltstein. Anna Alexandria was determined to influence the religious pol-
icies implemented by her ruling son Egenolf. She wrote a personal confession of
faith affirming her Reformed convictions about the spiritual presence of Christ
in communion. Anna Alexandria wrote to Bullinger of her frustration with the
fractious arguments between clergy in ‘her little church’. She provided finance
for two promising local students to spend time in Zurich. Anna Alexandria also
sought advice from Bullinger’s colleague in Zurich, Rudolf Gwalther, after a min-
ister refused to give communion to all but five people at a Christmas service in
. She quoted the minister as saying that ‘I’m not giving it to you, because
you did not come before; you did not purify yourself.’ Anna Alexandria reported
that people left the church with tears in their eyes and that ‘I listened to four of the
preacher’s sermons, and they made me cry because they brought up things that
were already put aside by the grace of God’ (p. ). This excellent essay about
the territory of Rappoltstein provides the reader with insight into one pattern of
how Reformed religious traditions developed, highlighting the importance of
 JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
relations between clergy and lay authorities, the challenges of defining and defend-
ing orthodoxy, and the problems faced by ministers as they attempted to lead con-
gregations and to retain popular support for Reformed beliefs and practices.
TRINITY COLLEGE, GRAEME MURDOCK
DUBLIN

Radicalism and dissent in the world of Protestant reform. Edited by Bridget Heal and
Anorthe Kremers. Pp.  incl.  colour figs. Göttingen–Bristol, CT:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, . €.     
JEH () ; doi:./SX
This excellent and thought-provoking volume takes aim at the most basic organis-
ing principle in the historiography of the Protestant Reformation: the distinction
between ‘radical’ and ‘magisterial’ reformations. As co-editor Bridget Heal
explains in her introduction, ‘If there is one key, unifying theme to this volume,
it is that the division between the radical and the magisterial, the marginal and
the mainstream, the wild and the housetrained is artificial and unsustainable’
(p. ). The volume’s fifteen essays – the bulk of which focus on German,
English and Dutch reformers – address this theme in a variety of ways.
Several stress the difficulty of defining Luther and other ‘magisterial’ reformers
as somehow non-radical. Thomas Kaufmann discusses the radicalism of the reform
programme in Luther’s famous  tract To the Christian nobility, which empow-
ered all baptised Christians to undertake reform, asking ‘Was it less radical when
Luther propagated these ideas than when the peasants or the community of
Orlamünde practised them?’ (p. ). Luther would vehemently oppose the pea-
sants’ attempted reformation in the mid-s, of course, but Gerd Schwerhoff
notes that radical rhetoric – invective and ‘hate speech’ – was a persistent
feature of Luther’s career as a reformer, playing a central role in his attack on
Rome and remaining part of his repertoire as he defended his theology and
attacked the Schwärmer. As a result, ‘radicalism and conservatism consequently
stood in an ambivalent and unclear relationship: in one case his “invectivity”
served to renew radicalism, in another it protected the existing order from
further changes’ (p. ). Turning to England, Ethan Shagan’s essay on ‘radical
charity’ outlines the sweeping economic transformation that leading figures in
the Protestant establishment of Edward VI’s reign envisioned as an inherent
element of reform. This economic radicalism ‘was not a critique of the
Protestant Reformation in England, but rather was that Reformation for at least
a brief moment’ (pp. –). While Shagan argues that these radical economic
ideas have gone unnoticed because they were unlike the Anabaptist or proto-
Marxist ideas that historians equate with ‘radicalism’, Susan Royal finds radical atti-
tudes about oaths and obligatory tithes among early English Protestants that were
uncomfortably close to well-known Anabaptist ideas. These similarities, Royal
argues, may well help to explain the extraordinary volume of distancing anti-
Anabaptist polemic in a kingdom where there were very few actual Anabaptists.
Other essays approach the radical/magisterial divide from the other direction.
Alec Ryrie considers radical views of Scripture and the Holy Spirit during the