Within the large number of books published on behalf of the five hundredth anniversary of Luther's Reformation this volume certainly deserves attention. It contains thirty contributions to a conference held in June 2015 at the German Historical Institute in Rome in cooperation with Facoltà Valdese di Teologia. At over seven hundred pages and with a large variety of approaches and questions, it discusses the pivotal point of the Reformation critique half a millennium before: the question of indulgence practices in the sixteenth century. Prominent researchers from different disciplines and representatives of ecclesiastical institutions contribute to the general topic.
Andreas Rehberg's short introduction stresses the historiographical fact that the question of indulgences and the sacrament of penance also had its time almost one hundred years ago, and in recent years a rereading of sources and the major book of Nikolaus Paulus has provoked some new insights. Interestingly, ecclesiastical praxis is no longer the topic since the Roman Church has reformed a number of late medieval abuses and false interpretations. The year of mercy announced by Pope Francis in 2015/16, however, showed the ongoing vitality of these questions and provoked some repositioning by confessional theologians. For Rehberg and his coordinating partner from the Valdensian faculty, Lothar Vogel, this provided a good start to discuss all the questions connected to indulgence, penance, church, and ministry.
The collection of essays is divided into eight chapters and the above-mentioned introduction. The first chapter contains five articles describing indulgences in theological and historical context (actually, the German title uses the word “cultural studies”). Robert Swanson, Arnold Angenendt, and Philippe Cordez describe the sacrament of penance in its setting from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries, while the president of the commission for the unity of churches, Kurt Kardinal Koch, introduces the current theology and its explanation of indulgences. A remarkable essay by Roberto Rusconi sketches out the sermons held on behalf of indulgence campaigns in Italy. A second chapter contains four articles on the canonistic background and the action plans of the curia in Rome. Andreas Meyer and Ludwig Schmugge present a number of letters illustrating the curial understanding of indulgence. Thomas Izbicki and Diego Quaglioni look for related passages in the canon law and to a first debate of the Thesaurus Ecclesiae.
A third chapter, “The Agents of Indulgence Campaigns,” describes orders and individuals assigned to duty by the Roman curia. Karl Borchard, Andreas Rehberg, and Robert Shaffern describe different congregations and religious orders while Daniel Le Blévec gives attention to the Rhone Valley as an exemplary region. Finally, Arnold Esch and Peter Wiegand trace the prominent leaders of the campaigns within the empire, such as Angelo De’ Cialfi, Marinus de Gregeno, Raimund Peraudi, and Johann Tetzel. The fourth chapter continues to focus on specific regions, such as the diocese of Meißen (Enno Bünz), Bohemia (Jan Hrdina), and again Italy (Anna Exposito). These three articles parallel some results from the contributions from Le Blévec and Peter Wiegand without matching them completely.
The fifth chapter, with articles by Falk Eisermann, Hartmut Kühne, and Nine Miedema, focuses on the effects of indulgence media around 1500 and the invention of the printing press. These contributions make clear that the subject of indulgences neither fell from heaven nor was invented by Martin Luther. He is the center of the sixth chapter with five contributions: Pavel Soukup on Jan Hus, Berndt Hamm on particular coherences between late medieval and Reformation thinking, Volker Leppin on Luther's early theology of penance, Lothar Vogel on Luther's understanding of purgatory, and, finally, Wilhelm Ernst Winterhager on the indulgence campaigns between 1515 and 1519 in Central and Northern Europe—those that actually provoked Luther's initiative. While Leppin's presentation follows his earlier position on the specifics in Luther's understanding of penance relating to a particular tradition of late medieval theology, Hamm discusses a thesis later published in a longer book. This certainly will stimulate some interesting debates on the relation between late medieval and early modern reform theologies. The last two chapters can be treated together. Peter Walter and Elizabeth Tingle describe reactions to Luther's protest by Roman controversial theologians (Kontroverstheologen) and in France. Walter especially discusses the question of whether curial theologians produced a weak, unconvincing response to Luther's critique. He also summarizes a roundtable talk on “Luther 1517 and Its Consequences” with interesting insights into contemporary ecumenical dialogues and debates.
Most of the articles deserve a more detailed and intense discussion than this review can provide. The book is a major contribution to the flood of publications celebrating the five hundredth anniversary of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. The footnotes will give readers a detailed overview of contemporary research, contradicting the impression that Reformation research can be given up since there is nothing new to expect. On the contrary—there is much more to find.
