Berndt Hamm. Lazarus Spengler (1479-1534): Der NÖ¼rnberger Ratsschreiber im Spannungsfeld von Humanismus und Reformation, Politik und Glaube. bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. xii + 472 pp. EUR 89.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-16-148249-6.
Reviewed by Ronald K. Rittgers (Yale University Divinity School)
Published on H-German (July, 2005)
The Reformation and Burgher Religion
Berndt Hamm, Professor of Modern Church History at the theological faculty of the University of Erlangen, is one of the most important and original scholars of late medieval and early modern German Christianity. His work has long been praised by German-speaking scholars and is gaining increasing recognition among English-speaking historians. Brill has recently published a collection of Hamm's essays under the title The Reformation of Faith in the Context of Late Medieval Theology and Piety (2004). This volume, edited by Robert J. Bast, attests to Hamm's significance for Reformation scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic. Hamm's work encompasses an impressive range of subjects, everything from the finer points of late medieval and Reformation soteriology to the guiding assumptions of early modern burgher mentalities. His overall intellectual project has been to understand the lines of continuity and discontinuity between late medieval and early modern religious life. His work has been characterized by an exceptional degree of sophistication, creativity, and fair-mindedness. As few others, Hamm has been able to discern the complex nature of the transition from late medieval to early modern Christianity.
Hamm has contributed two significant interpretive constructs to the scholarly discourse on late medieval and early modern religious life: Frömmigskeitstheologie and normative Zentrierung. Bast has defined the former as Hamm's "designation for a genre of late medieval writing and praxis, much of it derived from and directed toward pastoral care, which was especially concerned with the pursuit of an authentic Christian life as defined by the values and institutions of the day."[1] The term indicates Hamm's interest in the intersection between theology and lived experience and grows out of his work on figures like Jean Gerson, Johannes Paltz, and Johannes von Staupitz. Normative Zentrierung refers to the attempt of civic and religious leaders to discover a universal norm or spiritual principle that would shape all spheres of existence in the res publica, beginning with the conscience of the individual and working out to the life of the whole community. It was hoped that the discovery and establishment of this norm would have a civilizing--that is to say, Christianizing--effect on human society that would ensure unity and peace (p. 176). Hamm first came to the idea of normative Zentrierung while studying the works of Nuremberg's influential Ratsschreiber, Lazarus Spengler (p. viii).
Lazarus Spengler was a lay leader of the Reformation in Nuremberg whom Luther credited with planting the evangelical movement in the prominent imperial city. According to the Tischreden, Luther once asserted, "Doktor Lazarus Spengler allein hat das Evangelium in Nürnberg eingeführt and er allein hat erreicht, da� es dort bis heute Bestand hat" (quoted, p. 204). Spengler, who was city council secretary in Nuremberg from 1507 to his death in 1534, became enamored of Luther's teaching as early as the late 1510s while participating in an elite circle of humanists that had access to the reformer's work. The council secretary authored the first lay evangelical pamphlet, the popular Schutzrede für Luthers Lehre (1519), which contributed to his being named on the papal bull excommunicating Luther. (Spengler's name was later struck from the bull, though he continued to publish pro-Luther pamphlets and hymns.) Using his position of influence in the imperial city to great effect, Spengler played a defining role in the spread and eventual institutionalization of the Reformation both in Nuremberg and in other southern German cities. In addition to being chief secretary to the patrician council that governed Nuremberg, Spengler also served as a diplomat to numerous imperial and regional diets at which he represented the city's political and religious interests. A passionate reader of evangelical theology, Spengler nevertheless possessed no formal theological training, having studied law for a time at the University of Leipzig. He was a humanist turned evangelical who possessed an unwavering commitment to the Reformation along with the means, both personal and political, of promoting it. He was arguably one of the most important lay figures in the German Reformation.
Hamm began his study of Spengler in the late 1970s and has been publishing essays on him to the present day. Lazarus Spengler is a collection of these essays; it is not a biography (p. vii). All but one of the ten chapters have appeared previously (see pp. 444-445). There is an older and still very useful German biography of Spengler: Hans von Schubert, Lazarus Spengler und die Reformation in Nürnberg, edited by Hajo Holborn, Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte 17 (Leipzig, 1934). Hamm does not seek to update or complete this work (Schubert only traced Spengler's life to 1524). Rather, the Erlangen church historian offers this collection of essays as an accompaniment to the critical edition of Spengler's writings that he and a small team of scholars are currently preparing. Out of a planned four volumes, two have appeared.[2] Hamm rightly observes that until the critical edition is completed, it would be premature for him or anyone else to attempt a full biography of Spengler. The only English biography of Spengler, Harold J. Grimm's Lazarus Spengler: A Lay Leader of the Reformation (1978), was written without the benefit of Hamm's critical edition, and while it may still serve as a helpful introduction, it must be considered out-of-date.
The essays in Hamm's volume cover a variety of topics: Spengler's humanism; his relationship with Albrecht Dürer (the only new essay in the collection); his stance on Spiritualism and anticlericalism; his relationship with Luther; his role in the formation of early evangelical confessions of faith; and his attempt to construct the religious, political, legal, and social life of Nuremberg around Reformation Christianity. The final essay, chapter 10, treats in detail Hamm's notion of Normative Zentrierung. It is not possible here to summarize each of the ten chapters in full. A dominant theme that runs through the essays, however, illustrates very well the importance and originality of Hamm's work: the tension (Spannung) between Spengler's commitment to traditional burgher religion and his even deeper commitment to the evangelical creed that challenged its very foundation. As Hamm puts it, "[Spengler] pflegt die bürgerliche Religion und überschreitet sie zugleich" (p. 202).
Prior to his conversion to the evangelical faith, Spengler had been a strong proponent of burgher religion. He believed that religion should serve as the foundation and integrating principle of a Christian commune and the way it did so was by harnessing the divine for the Gemeine Nutzen. As burghers employed their native reason and free will to please and placate the divine, they believed God would bestow material and spiritual blessing on their city. Hamm notes how this do-ut-des mentality represents a very interesting convergence between the defining values of Nuremberg's political, economic, religious, and intellectual life. The humanist emphasis on Bescheidenheit (baptized stoicism) fit well with the calculating cast of mind present in mercantilism and much late medieval piety, all of which was directed toward securing the common good of the sacred commune (pp. 50-51). Spengler's encounter first with Staupitz and then with Luther caused him to reject the quid pro quo mentality inherent in burgher religion and instead embrace the evangelical belief in the completely unconditional nature of divine favor (p. 199).[3] Augustine replaced Jerome as Spengler's "patron saint." Hamm is careful to note that there was already a strong trend in late medieval piety toward emphasizing God's mercy over God's wrath, but he still insists that Luther offered something new in his doctrine of justification by faith. Spengler certainly had not found sufficient consolation for his conscience in late medieval piety, nor had he found an adequate foundation for the Christian commune. Late medieval religion left him anxious and in need of greater spiritual assurance, both for himself and his larger community.
After his conversion in the late 1510s, Spengler looked to the evangelical faith to meet the needs previously met by burgher religion. He thought he had found in the Reformation the universal norm or spiritual principle that would finally allow the dream of an authentically Christian commune to become a reality. (Hamm emphasizes that Spengler consistently followed Zwingli rather than Luther in his political thought; pp. 197, 245.) The Word, owing to its clarity, simplicity, and divine origin would act as the central focus of this new society, and faith alone, as the proper use of the Word, would free human beings to love and serve their neighbors (p. 180). But a problem arose with this evangelical norm: in addition to leaving burghers "naked" before God with nothing to offer but faith, itself a gift (p. 310), the new creed could not actually promise prosperity to those who adopted it; in fact, Spengler thought evangelical communities should expect just the opposite--adversity (p. 196). Hamm observes that this emphasis on living under the cross (that is, persecution) marked a clear departure from the concern of traditional burgher religion to secure divine favor for the commune (p. 199). Spengler thought the Reformation would ultimately bring God's blessing to Nuremberg, but serving the Gemeine Nutzen was no longer the secretary's driving concern--being faithful to the Word was, come what may (p. 200).
In this volume, Hamm provides scholars with a stimulating tour of his work on Spengler's tension-filled relationship with burgher religion and evangelical faith. Hamm also provides a tantalizing foretaste of the full biography we hope he will write in the future.
Notes
[1]. Berndt Hamm, The Reformation of Faith in the Context of Late Medieval Theology and Piety. ed. Robert J. Bast (Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. xv.
[2]. Berndt Hamm and Wolfgang Huber, eds. Lazarus Spengler Schriften, Band 1 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995); Berndt Hamm, Wolfgang Huber, and Gudrun Litz, eds. Lazarus Spengler Schriften, Band 2 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999).
[3]. Hamm, Reformation of Faith, p. 283.
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Citation:
Ronald K. Rittgers. Review of Hamm, Berndt, Lazarus Spengler (1479-1534): Der NÖ¼rnberger Ratsschreiber im Spannungsfeld von Humanismus und Reformation, Politik und Glaube.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
July, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10783
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