This is a large and impressive collection of published papers from a December 2013 conference held in Louvain on the 450th anniversary of the closing of the Council of Trent. There are forty-four contributions here, primarily from authors based in Europe, although there are also five US-based authors, one based in South Africa and one in Israel. In some ways it is a collection that is quite traditional, with the first volume focusing on theological issues and conflicts within the Catholic Church and with Protestants. The second volume engages questions around the reception and implementation of the decrees and the ‘spirit’ of Trent, while the third looks at the artistic and cultural impact of the council and also includes five contributions about ‘Global Catholicism’.
The quality of the articles published here is high and many scholars will find the collection invaluable. There are articles in English, French and German, with the vast majority in English. The extensive bibliographies will make this an important starting place for scholars as well. The coverage of Catholic Europe is particularly impressive. The articles about the reception of the Tridentine decrees range from Italy and Spain, to France, Moravia and the Netherlands. If Eastern Europe and Catholic Germany are somewhat underrepresented, this is in some ways compensated for by the important articles about Catholicism outside Europe. The volume also reflects in interesting ways the evolution of the study of early modern Catholicism, as traditional concerns with theological, liturgical and institutional developments are complemented by more recent and broader studies of popular religion and cultural exchanges, as well as resistance to the reform from above and conflicts between the papacy and the monarchies.
John O'Malley and Günther Wassilowsky provide important introductory articles which emphasise the ‘myths’ of the Council of Trent. They both recognise and honour the foundational work done by Hubert Jedin in his History of the Council of Trent, published in the immediate post-war era, but also point out that many myths about the council have survived Jedin's careful scholarship. O'Malley, the preeminent historian of early modern Catholicism, points out that in general the council was not as decisive or as centralising as traditionally thought. He also lists a series of lesser (but durable) myths, such as the idea that the council forbade the printing and reading of the Bible in the vernacular, or that it denied the eucharistic cup to the laity (vol. i. 58). O'Malley further points to the unintended consequences of the council, another area that weakens the supposed central role of Trent in the development of Catholicism.
A series of articles about the theological decrees and the liturgical reforms of the council emphasise the slow reception of the decrees of the council and the ongoing tensions between local and national traditions and the centralising impulses of the council Fathers. A revised version of the Vulgate, for example, was only completed in 1592. Liturgical books, even those produced in Rome, did not always follow the prescriptions of the council. The Spanish state limited reforms of the cult of saints in Spain and refused to suppress local traditions, and the French crown refused to place the decrees of the council into French law. Trent did bring important changes and in many areas laid out a programme for centralisation, but in practice this programme was not always implemented, or it was implemented slowly.
Volume ii focuses on the reform decrees of Trent, and here too the emphasis is on the spotty reception of these decrees and their slow implementation. Some of these articles are somewhat old-fashioned, emphasising the role of bishops and Jesuits in reforming the traditional clergy from above. Others reflect a more nuanced approach. Nicole Lemaitre, for example, examines the long process of bringing a new model of a ‘good shepherd’ to the clergy, pointing out that this was a traditional ideal that pre-dated Trent. He also points to the way in which this development ‘clericalised’ the Church and reduced the role of the laity. José J. Garcia Hourcade traces the long process of bringing Tridentine ideas to the small towns and villages of Murcia in Spain, using visitation records. In all these cases, the implementation of the decrees was very contingent and proceeded with many interruptions and considerable opposition.
Volume iii presents seven articles on the influence of Trent on artists and musicians, and four on ‘global Catholicism’. Walter Melion examines Jerónimo Nadal's Adnotationes et meditations in Evangelia (1595), an influential Jesuit volume that combined text and engravings. Melion examines the revisions of the original images (which pre-dated this publication) in order to ‘gain a rare insight into the mechanics of scriptural image making sponsored by the Jesuits and other proponents of the reform of sacred art in the wake of Trent’ (p. 36). Several articles in this section examine Flemish and Netherlandish Catholic art and two focus on music.
It is perhaps a limitation of these volumes that there is only one article about Latin America, certainly an increasingly Catholic part of the world that was profoundly affected by Trent. Here this collection reflects the biases of the council itself, which was dominated by the concerns of Spanish and Italian bishops and religious orders based in the western Mediterranean. Two articles here focus on the Japanese mission of the Jesuits, one on Ethiopia, and one on Peru.
Several articles in this collection aim to put the Council of Trent into the wider context of the development of Catholicism over the last 450 years. In the epilogue to volume i, John O'Malley takes up the comparison of Trent and Vatican II. While the councils differed in many ways, O'Malley reminds us of many similar issues that faced the council Fathers, from their relationship to the papacy, to the aim of reconciliation with non-Catholics, to the desire for reform of the Curia. O'Malley's final point is both obvious and important: ‘certain patterns recur in history … they teach us the important lesson that reform of any institution, especially one with such a long, rich, and complex history as the Catholic Church is not a task easily accomplished’ (vol. i. 406).
Finally, Simon Ditchfield's article, ‘De-centering Trent: how “Tridentine” was the making of the first world religion?’, also engages the long-term place of the council in religious history. Ditchfield emphasises the central role of Catholic princes both in developments during the council and in the implementation of the Tridentine decrees afterwards. The Spanish monarchy, Ditchfield argues, was hardly ‘a secular arm of the Counter-Reformation’ (vol. iii. 191) and tensions and conflicts between the crown and the papacy were on-going. At the same time Ditchfield points to the strengthening of the papacy's spiritual leadership of the Church, which was reinforced by the role of Rome itself as a religious centre. Finally, Ditchfield argues that modern Catholicism developed around the tension between the authoritarian and papal focus of Trent and the pastoral renewal that crystallised around Carlo Borromeo and his Acta ecclesia mediollanensis: ‘The decrees and canons of the Council of Trent might be considered the “theory” of Tridentine Catholicism, then the Acta should perhaps be regarded as the practical “how to” manual for the conscientious prelate’ (vol. iii. 202–3).
Ditchfield's article summarises in useful ways this whole collection, which also balances that tension between the theoretical and theological reforms of the council and the practical implications of the decrees. In this way, as well as in the high quality of the research and writing presented here, this collection is not just useful, but also essential to our understanding of the development of Catholicism in the early modern period.
