In artistic and dramatic depictions of the 1521 Diet of Worms, just as in historical writing both popular and scholarly, the figure of Martin Luther draws all eyes to himself, gravely and boldly defying imperial and ecclesial pressure to recant his views. Indeed, were it not for Luther's stand, the Diet would probably occupy little place in historical memory, despite its status as the first Diet of Charles v's extraordinary emperorship. The present volume represents the fruits of an academic conference, hosted virtually by the Gesellschaft für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, commemorating the five-hundredth anniversary of the Diet. Yet only one chapter (by Armin Kohnle) is focused on Luther's speech, and this chapter has been previously published. The volume seeks, in the first of two parts, to set the Diet in its local and imperial contexts; contributions to the second part examine, in turn, the history of confessional interactions – the ‘Mit-, Neben- und Gegeneinanders der … christlichen Konfessionen’ (p. 147) – in Worms specifically, and corresponding impulses that flowed from Worms into wider contexts. A concluding reflection by Bettina Braun defends the importance of examining the Diet beyond Luther, arguing that a singular focus on Luther's appearance can seem to remove the Diet ‘from time and space, as it is stripped of its historical context and receives an almost supratemporal aura’ (p. 200; all translations are by this reviewer). The Diet of Worms is usually associated with a radical fissure in history – even though subsequent, less-remembered Diets were equally consequential in the course of Glaubensspaltung (see p. 199) – but on the basis primarily of the chapters in part i, Braun reaches the apt conclusion that ‘the 1521 Diet marked a caesura neither for the history of Worms as a city nor for the politics and constitution (Reichsverfassung) of the Empire … Perhaps Luther's appearance also radiates ever more brightly because of this’ (p. 206).

The individual studies in the volume are packed with carefully reconstructed historical detail; the level of detail is the strength of the volume. Scholars tilling the relevant fields – which in part i concern the politics and Kirchenregiment of imperial free cities, and the development of Reichsreform and the exercise of imperial authority in the sixteenth century – will find valuable information. However, the two parts of the volume are quite disparate, and while the contributions to part i form a solidly coherent whole, the contributions to part ii circle around a common orbit – the significance of the city of Worms in the history of confessional relations (see pp. 146, 197) – at far remove from one another, covering in turn the perception of Lutheran reformers formed by the Jesuits Peter Faber and Peter Canisius during their respective time in Worms for the 1540/41 and 1557 Reichsreligionsgespräche (Christoph Nebgen); the lived realities of multi-confessionalism in eighteenth-century Worms (Carolin Katzer); and finally, the ‘Wormser Memorandum’ of 1971, in which a group of lay Catholics directly petitioned Paul vi to clarify the Church's position on Luther and to appoint a commission to revisit Luther's excommunication (Martin Belz). Each of these chapters is rich, but this reviewer wished for a stronger organisational principle in part ii of the book.

In part i, the first two chapters look at the Diet from the perspective of Worms’s governing council (the Rat). Burkard Keilmann describes how the Rat took charge of religious affairs and assured the continuance of worship and sacramental services in the city after the canons’ self-imposed exile in 1499; Gerold Bönnen shows how the Rat utilised the city's position as host of the Diet to safeguard its status as a free imperial city and its long-sought independence vis-à-vis the Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz) and the bishop. The next two contributions, then, turn the lens to look at the council from the perspective of the Empire. Dietmar Heil shows that, although the emperor was new, the Diet was neither innovative nor especially successful in the pursuit of Reichsreform. Heil argues that the lack of progress was due, in large part, to the continuity of persons on all sides. Matthias Schnettger places the Diet in the perspective of ceremonial history, recognising with recent cultural history the ‘interlacement (Verflochtenheit) of the instrumental and the symbolic dimensions of political negotiations in pre-modern times’ (p. 87). Schnettger offers a rich analysis of the prevailing ‘Presence-Culture’ (p. 89) and of the significance of such matters as when and how attendees arrived at and departed from the Diet, where proceedings occurred – whether in the Reichstag itself or, like Luther's hearing, in the emperor's court – and who did, and did not, participate in tournaments. Whereas Heil downplays the significance of the Diet with respect to Reichsreform (‘The chief merit of this Diet was to have taken up and renewed for the future the basic approaches, developed in Maximilian's time, for the resolution of reform problems’; p. 85), Schnettger affords the Diet ‘high significance’ from the perspective of ceremonial history. Importantly, however, this significance had nothing to do with the debate about religion, and everything to do with the fact that the Diet was Charles v's first: ‘As such, [the Diet] had to balance, represent, and fortify the Reichsordnung anew’ (p. 111).

Part i concludes with Armin Kohnle's study of Luther's ‘Wormser Rede’, which at 11 pages is by far the shortest chapter in the volume. Kohnle rejects heroic memory of the event as well as the still-potent myth that Luther stood up for freedom of conscience in a modern sense. In its own time, Luther's speech was significant less because of its content than because of the decision subsequently put upon the princes by the emperor's mandate against Luther (p. 123). Here, Kohnle's study – though focused on Luther – fits with the other studies of part i that put the Diet of Worms in the context of longer-running church-political developments and of the ongoing series of Diets; Glaubenspaltung was the primary business not of this Diet, but of future Diets.

Kohnle's chapter forms a pivot point in the volume, which after examining the contexts, conduct and significance of the Diet largely apart from Luther focuses, in part ii, on Glaubenspaltung as the enduring significance of the event. Katzer shows how confessional relations had to be constantly renegotiated centuries after Luther's famous appearance. Katzer uses Raumsoziologie to analyse the Zusammenleben of confessional groups in terms of defining and defending space and of the overlapping of spaces. Space here means not only ‘real spaces like churches but also … socially constituted spaces, like the family or the congregation (Gemeinde)’ (p. 148). In confessionally-mixed marriages, both the magistrate and the clergy reached through the porous boundaries of the eighteenth-century home: the 1699 agreement between the Reformed community and the Lutheran magistrate stipulated that girls be baptised in the confession of their mother and boys in the confession of their father, but the agreement did not always hold as both clergy and magistrate remained convinced of the eternal necessity of a ‘right’ baptism.

Like Katzer's study, Nebgen's and Belz's point to vast, unexplored territory in the history of confessional relationships. Nebgen contends that both Faber and Canisius perceived the Reformation ‘as a pure pastoral problem’ rather than as a serious dogmatic division (p. 141; see also pp. 132–3). This is an important insight for understanding the Jesuit response to Protestantism in and beyond the Empire. Nebgen also registers a key difference between Faber's perception in 1540/41 and Canisius’ perception some fifteen years later: Faber ‘recognized some urgent problem-areas for the church in the Empire, but diagnosed insufficient spiritual depth on the part of the reformers and their theological program to find viable solutions for church renewal’. Conversely, Canisius did not try to analyse the ‘crisis situation and its origins’, but instead identified the reformers themselves ‘as the core problem that must be overcome’ (p. 145). Nebgen also analyses a 1617 letter from the Jesuit poet Friedrich Spee, then resident in Worms, recounting how his heart was wounded by a desire to be sent on overseas mission. Nebgen thus characterises Worms as ‘einen historischen Lern- und Erfahrungsort der Gesellschaft Jesu’ (p. 146).

Finally, Belz brings the volume into the present by offering some insights from ongoing research into the genesis and reception of the Worms Memorandum, which, although it did not elicit the desired action from the pope, represents, according to Belz, an important example of post-Vatican II lay initiative and ecumenical striving.

This volume contributes to the local history of Worms. In addition, part i will be useful for scholars who are working to understand the complexities of governance at multiple levels (emperor, the estates, free cities) within the Empire in the early sixteenth century, while the three contributions in part ii shed light on, and invite further inquiry into, how concrete historical individuals and communities perceived and responded to the confessional other over the many centuries that played out under the shadow of confessional division – the Glaubensspaltung that only began to open at Worms, and that entered into the mix of long-running, local and supra-local ecclesial and political processes.