The Age of Reform, 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe

Some histories of the reformation are simple polemics intended to defend the author's own Catholic, Protestant, or Secular religious views. Other histories are dry facts concerning events, people, and places without the context of the underlying cultural, philosophical, political, and religious forces that shaped those events. Dr. Ozment avoids both the passionate partisanship and dull fact reporting to give us the underlying sentiment of the people who made the history. The growth of national identities, the influence of humanist and scholastic schools of thought and philosophy, and the emerging state/church separation are all analyzed with detail to show their influence on the reformation. Few others have treated these topics with the detail and insight Prof. Ozment has provided. This and Durant's, The Story of Civilization: The Reformation : A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin : 1300-1564 (Story of Civilization) are the two books most recommended for understanding the reformation. Both provide an unmatched depth in the underlying causes that split the western church. Ozment's work is focussed on those causes a bit more than Durant's. Both together provide the best understanding available on the reformation. From the religious angle, Prof. Ozment gives particularly good coverage to the counciliar and clerical marriage forces that influenced the reformation. From the political angle, Prof. Ozment details the rise of centralized authorities and nationalist identity that becomes ever more distrustful of the papacy. From the philosophical angle, Dr. Ozment identifies the backlash against scholastic thought in the humanist movement and how the latter influenced the reformers. In addition, Dr. Ozment is careful to identify the differences between the underlying philosophical views of the movement of Luther's influence and those influenced by Calvin, Zwingli, and Knox. The connection with the easing of divorce laws gives us the context for understanding the reformation's affect on us today. So too the discussion of Calvinist-inspired resistance to tyranny in the movements influenced by John Knox. The continuity of egalitarian thought leading to today's understanding is also identified. The treatment of the counter-reformation is fair and gives insight into the probability that it was less a response to protestant reforms and more an indigenous movement within the church that finally had the strength to overcome the inertia of a naturally conservative institution. This is a brilliant and thorough work of the history of thought that shaped the western world. One of two (including Durant) that are a must.

It is quite amazing that of all the books that exist on the Protestant Reformation, very few chart the intellectual and theological history as being the primary moving force of the Protestant movement. It is still further disheartening that many books wish to treat the Reformation as if it were some sort of absolute novelty and break with the whole of the medieval Western European tradition. Steven Ozment's brilliant study - winner of the Phillip Schaff Award in 1980 - not only bucks the trend on both of these issues, but even traces relevant facets of cultural history - such as the printing press - as he puts the Protestant Reformation into both context and continuity with the medieval era. More than half the book is spent detailing the medieval world and various theories that would be of the utmost importance to the Reformers: salvation and certainty of knowledge, in particular. The picture that emerges is one in which the Reformation is, in many ways, the absolutely logical outcome of the major trends in believing and practicing the faith after St. Thomas Aquinas. The harmonious worldview that Aquinas sought to put forth in his synthesis of Aristotle and Catholic revelation is largely rejected after the 14th century (re: after the Black Death, in which nearly 40% of Europe's population died). It has become popular - and for good reason - to note that the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have a number of trends that are continuous with the Protestant Reformers, although they are rejected by Roman Catholicism. The conciliar movement is well documented by Ozment, as are the tensions between "mystical" and "scholastic" theology that were commonly spoken of at that time. Popular movements such as the Devotio Moderna, which sought to return the Western Church to her more simple foundations of the ancient Councils, Fathers and the Scriptures are also discussed. Medieval "heretics" such as Jan Huss and John Wycliffe are noted as having little influence, however, upon the Reformers - the one exception being Martin Luther, who seemed to be well conscious of his unintentional continuity with a number of the reforming movements of the 14th and 15th centuries. As Ozment progresses, he notes the major differences between the various Protestant Reformation movements (note the plural!). For example, whereas Luther's movement was started in a backwoods university with a debate concerning the nature of salvation, the Swiss started their Re-formation with a few rebellious priests defiantly eating sausages during Lent! Minor and radical reformers such as John Knox - whose influence would be felt in the later 16th and early 17th century in England - are also looked at; Knox is particularly interesting because his stance on civil matters is so different from that of Luther and Calvin. In short, Knox believed that if the state would not defend a particular form of the reformation - basically, Knox's version of the Reformation - then Christians could r

Ozment is a brilliantly clear writer, always engaging, never dry or confusing. I've always thought this work is an example of how a textbook ought to be written. Accessible for undergraduates (if a little too information-dense at times) but never oversimplifying the material (a problem with Lindberg's European Reformations). He even manages to tie the whole book together with a narrative structure that keeps you involved as the story unfolds. He was my teacher, so I guess I'm biased, but not TOO biased.

This is simply a fantastic presentation of the historical, theological, and philosophical background of the Reformation. This book apparently won the 1981 "Philip Schaff Prize of the American Society of Church History" award, and is certainly worthy of it. Ozment traces the course of scholasticism, mysticism, monasticism, the papacy, humanism, etc., all in a masterful way that shows how these diverse and complex movements culminated in the Reformation. The text is well documented, and, thankfully, uses footnotes rather than endnotes so one does not have to constantly turn to the end of the book to view the source of a citation. In my opinion this is one of the best works on intellectual and church history that I have ever read. Be warned, however, this book is not for the feint hearted. It is definitely a graduate level text, or for the serious student of the late Medieval and Reformation periods.

Ozment does a wonderful job of showing that the story of the Reformation does NOT begin with the posting of the 95 theses in 1517. Rather, the events of the 1500s were the culmination of a centuries-old search for truth. Ozment's account of the Reformation as something unfolding out of the Middle Ages is much more instructive than the standard view, which treats the Reformation as a starting point for this or that development. This book grounds Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Ignatius firmly in the tradition of medieval scholastic, mystic, and ecclesio-political thought, as well as Renaissance humanism. Additional chapters are devoted to clerical marriage and resistance to tyranny, two legacies of Protestantism that Ozment finds particularly compelling. To top it off, the author has obviously done his homework; every significant interpretation by previous scholars receives due note here. I think this should the FIRST book anyone reads on the Reformation.