Reformation of Feeling

In The Reformation of Feeling, Susan Karant-Nunn looks beyond and beneath the formal doctrinal and moral demands of the Reformation in Germany to examine the emotional tenor of the programs that the emerging creeds-revised Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism/Reformed theology-developed for their members. As revealed by the surviving sermons from this period, preaching clergy of each faith both explicitly and implicitly provided their listeners withdistinct models of a mood to be cultivated. To encourage their parishioners to make an emotional investment in their faith, all three drew upon rhetorical elements that were already present in late medieval Catholicism and elevated them into confessional touchstones.Looking at archival materials containing direct references to feeling, Karant-Nunn focuses on treatments of death and sermons on the Passion. She amplifies these sources with considerations of the decorative, liturgical, musical, and disciplinary changes that ecclesiastical leaders introduced during the period from the late fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Within individual sermons, Karant-Nunn also examines topical elements-including Jews at the crucifixion, the Virgin Mary'svoluminous weeping below the Cross, and struggles against competing denominations-that were intended to arouse particular kinds of sentiment. Finally, she discusses surviving testimony from the laity in order to assess at least some Christians' reception of these lessons on proper devotional feeling.This book is exceptional in its presentation of a cultural rather than theological or behavioral study of the broader movement to remake Christianity. As Karant-Nunn conclusively demonstrates, in the eyes of the Reformation's formative personalities strict adherence to doctrine and upright demeanor did not constitute an adequate piety. The truly devout had to engage their hearts in their faith.

After having devoured this engrossing and magisterial study, one truly must wonder why Susan Karant-Nunn is the first to take up the topic of the emotional cultures that emerged from the various Reform movements. Meticulously researched and superbly synthesized, The Reformation of Feeling is a landmark study in Reformation Studies - stepping stone to a cultural history of the Reformation., A valiant, even daring, expedition into the spiritual world underneath the theological debates, colloquies, political schemes, wars, and treaties that in the past have filled the pages of most histories of the German reformation., The Reformation of Feeling emphasizes the relative radicalism of the sixteenth-century Reformed Protestant tradition... This valuable book raises questions about which disciplines and types of sources to privilege when trying to write the history of emotions five centuries ago.

Susan C. Karant-Nunn is Regents' Professor of History and Director of the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies at the University of Arizona.