APRIL 2004

VOL. 12, NO.1

INS IDE

Springtime in Berlin 3

Town and Gown Lecture:James D. Tracy onChristendom vs.Islamdom 5

Guest scholar:Theodore Evergates 6

Guest scholar:Maureen Miller 7

THE UNIVERSI1Y OF

ARiZONA,~,

DIVISION FOR LATE MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION STUDIES

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

"People ask me why I take an interest in this little division for medieval and Reformation studies, and I saythat we have an obligation to keep the story of our civilization alive."

-The Honorable Stanley G. Feldman, Chair, Advisory Board

The view throughthe round window *

in to talk about conceptualizing thevast amount of data she uncoveredin the Antwerp archives aboutinquisition trials. A fourth studentreturned this semester from France,where he researched the pamphletwars during the Wars of Religion,supported by a Division fellowship.

Two newer students come withdifferent issues. Both are enrolled inthe Division seminar on churchfinance in the Middle Ages, taughtby Professor Alan Bernstein. Fearfulat the beginning of the course thatthey would not find enoughresources to research their topic orthat their Latin would not be goodenough, they are now eager to tellme their discoveries.

Throughout their studies ourstudents alternate between teachingfor the History Department anddepending on Division fellowships.For them, teaching is income, ajoy,and necessary experience for the jobmarket. Dissertation writing isfundamental and requires financialsupport. Your donations are thefoundation for our great success inproducing brilliant dissertations!books that launch these youngpeople on their careers. They followin the footsteps of Heiko Obermanbecause you make their journeyspossible. Won't you please continueto provide this money for the futureof the Division and the superlativescholarship it inculcates into thenext generation?

• In case you have not been our visitor, the main office of the Division affords its only view through a round window.

mJ..". his y~~, ~ Act~g Director, I..... am sttting m Heiko Oberman's

. office, surrounded by his. . ..:- books, and marveling that he

wrote and read so much in hisfull and energetic life. Each daywhile Susan Karant-Nunn has beenin Germany on her well-deservedGuggenheim Fellowship, a trickleof graduate students comes in todiscuss their new insights and thecomplexities oftheir studies.

This academic year several ofthem have been supported byDivision fellowships, thanks to yourgenerosity. The results have beenvery satisfying. One returned lastfall from his research year inGermany on a Fulbright Fellowshipand began turning in a dissertationchapter every six weeks. He and hisfamily are now moving to Knoxville,where he will be teaching at theUniversity of Tennessee and waitingto hear from a publisher about hisdissertation/book. We have had longchats about this work, a brilliantnarrative and analysis of disputesover the nature of the eucharist inAugsburg. Another student, who hasbeen teaching Susan's courses, flewthis morning for a job interview inOhio. His dissertation on disputesabout the nature of original sin inLuther's home town will soon beconsidered for publication. Hisbride, also a Division student and aFulbright fellow, returned from herresearch in The Netherlands andBelgium in December. She comes

2

:ne:saRT DJ\.RV~T TUCSON, ARIZONA

Minority Voices Within England:Anabaptists, Puritans, Quakers, and Methodists

Susan C. Karant-Nunn, University of Arizona professor of early modernhistory, together with three doctoral students of the Division for Late...Medieval and Reformation Studies will address the history of various

religious minorites in England

Sundays in August at St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church4440 North Campbell Avenue, Murphey Gallery, 10: 15am

For more information, please call (520) 621-1284Free and open to the public

Please see our website for complete details: w3.arizona.edu/-dlmrs

TUCSON, ARIZONA

Notes from Berlin

The rites of springh, forsythia! In myfive years in theSonoran Desert, Ihad almost forgottenabout forsythia! On

my train trip from Berlin toFrankfurt to return to Tucson forthe 2004 Town and Gown Lecture,I saw those sprays signaling thereturn of the sun. Yet, how good awinter coat feels!

I imagine myself a medievalscholar, wandering from universityto university. No matter that I am awoman or that the University ofMunich, Humboldt University, andthe Free University of Berlin didnot exist in the Middle Ages. Still, Ihave that peripatetic sensation,moving from one great library toanother. Sitting in reading roomswith their ancient and newer books,I am reminded of the riches of theHeiko A. Oberman Collection backhome in Tucson.

I am ending my Guggenheimyear with a five-month stay inBerlin. We rent a tiny apartmentnear Friedrichstrasse, my point ofentry into the German DemocraticRepublic between 1969 and 1988.The low building through whichtransients in both directions had topass is still called "the palace oftears"; but the grim-faced borderguards and their straining Alsatianpolice dogs have disappeared. TheFriedrichstrasse station itself istransformed into a small shoppingcenter, clogged on weekends withpeople who need groceries.

Even after reunification, this cityhas a mixed aura of satisfiedopulence and ethnically variedpoverty. There is more of theformer in the western half andmore of the latter in the east. Eventhough the Wessis (West Germans)swarmed eastward beginning with

the opening of the BerlinWall in 1989 andobliterated the humiliatingreminders of division, tothis day the predominantbrowns and grays, thepersistent decrepitude ofthe eastern city remind thetraveler that she hascrossed a boundary. Thegrit is somehow attractive,feeding the myth dear tonostalgic citizens: that lifein the Communist half ofthe city was morecooperative, more cohesivethan it was or perhaps evercould be in the CapitalistWest. An eastern officeworker tells me that sheonly travels into westernBerlin if she has a specific reason.She lives in the east, works in theeast, shops in the east. By law hersalary remains considerably lowerthan those of her western Berlincounterparts.

Potsdamer Platz is intended tobring people together. The Wallused to run straight through it, anda memorial track has been drawnin the concrete. The subway stationhas opened again. Just a few yearsago, dozens of cranes strained theirlong necks lifting loads of steelbeams and other building materials.Now what might have been awelcoming environment is a mazeof skyscrapers, underpinned, atleast, with shops like Starbucks.The youth who pack the Americancoffee house will not know thehistory of this quarter-its earliervibrant centrality, its destruction inwar, its mined and guardedbarrenness, its enthusiastic revival.It is a hopeful sign indeed thatthese young people can afford thelattes, the mochas. Berlin, the new

Same location, 1999

national capital, awakens, attracts,expands.

And I ... I read and read andread. I spend my weekdays in thereading rooms of the Prussian StateLibrary or in the office kindlyallocated to me as a visitingprofessor at the Free University.Under pressure of administrativetasks, I had begun to think ofresearch as an indulgence. Now Iam reminded of the life of themind and why I was drawn to myprofession in the fITStplace. Thoseof you who I am privileged to meetface-to-face will detect in the fallthat I have spent a most fulfillingyear among books and ideas.

I trust that you will also sense mythankfulness toward those of youwho have continued to give to ourcommon enterprise, theendowment of the Oberman Chair,so that the Oberman ResearchCollection may be acquired in itsentirety by the UA Libraries.Research has by no meansdistracted me from thiscommitment!

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3

TUCSON, ARIZONA

At the feet of visiting scholars

James D. Tracy, University of Minnesotaby Victoria Christman, doctoral student

.....otijj;;:;;iijjj;;;P:;;;'rhenscholars come to visitthe Division for LateMedieval and ReformationStudies, we put them towork. As a long-time friend

and supporter of the Division,this came as no surprise toProfessor James Tracy. With theTown and Gown lecture loominglarge on his Wednesday eveninghorizon, he spent Tuesdaymeeting individually withDivision students before joiningus in our seminar that evening.

Being well acquainted with theDivision seminar system,Professor Tracy was,unbeknownst to us, intent onputting us to work too. Inpreparation for seminar, he hadrequested that we read his book,Europe's Reformations, 1450-1650, upon which our discussionwould be based. This wassomething of a surprising choice.As a textbook for teachingReformation history, this is not abook filled with historiographicalargumentation with which wecould take issue. Nevertheless,we came prepared with questionsand comments on ProfessorTracy's work. When heintroduced the book, his realintention was revealed. Theeditors recently asked him toproduce a second edition of thework, and he was hoping that theseminar would present him withsuggestions for changes andimprovements. And so we wentto work.

Europe's Reformations is amasterful book, taking as itsfocus the Protestant Reformationas it affected Europe on threedistinct levels: doctrine, politics,and society. Because it isarranged as a textbook for use in

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the classroom, our discussionquickly brought us to a broaderconsideration of the field ofReformation history as a wholeand an examination of how bestto convey that information in ourown classes. How is one toincorporate theological detailsinto the history of theReformation without losing sightof the bigger story? How are weto communicate the contours of afive hundred year old culture tothe students of today? And howdoes the story of this enormouschange in Reformation Europeadd to and compare with ourunderstanding of events in thewider world at that time?Professor Tracy was able to drawupon almost thirty years ofclassroom experience in responseto questions from those of uswho are only now beginning.

If these broad questions werenot enough, Professor Bernstein,in whose seminar we convenethis year, asked Professor Tracythe personal, but expansivequestion of how he maintains hisinterest in this field while dealingwith the varied demands ofteaching, publishing, andresearching inherent in thiscareer. In response, ProfessorTracy traced for us the odysseyof his academic career. Inlooking back on his academicjourney, he now realizes theimportance of contingencies inthe forging of his work. Heexplained his dissertationresearch, which changedtrajectories dramatically mid-course, but which eventually ledhim to fruitful pastures. He toldhow, in his second dedicatedresearch year, he set off forMunich, Brussels and Paris,

following the call of aphilosophically-based study.While pleasure-reading duringone of these journeys, anothertopic sparked his interest and ledhim in a new direction. Onanother occasion, he foundhimself driven by an intensedesire to disprove a widely-heldtheory that he just knew waswrong. At other points in hiscareer, whole books were borneof archival research whoseprimary focus lay in a completelydifferent area, or of conferencepapers that simply continued togrow. By remaining consciouslyflexible in his outlook andwilling to shift from one themeto another, Professor Tracy hasmanaged to keep his professionaldrive and academic interest alive.Professor Tracy's adaptableresearch agenda has yieldedmuch fruit. From Germany to theLow Countries, to France andnow beyond, he has published ontopics ranging from the financialrevolution of the Low Countries,to the humanism of Erasmus, tothe warring policies of Charles V.Today, his lens is trained beyondChristendom of the sixteenthcentury in an attempt to fit thestory he has uncovered so farinto a broader geographic andreligious context-a theme uponwhich he elaborated at the annualTown and Gown Lecture thefollowing evening. *

TUCSON, ARIZONA

TOWN & GOWN LECTURE 2004Christendom vs. Islamdomby Joel Van Amberg, doctoral student

ames D. Tracy,Union PacificProfessor of EarlyModem History atthe University ofMinnesota,

captivated a capacity audience onMarch 24 with his talk,"Christendom vs. Islamdom: TheBackground War of the EarlyModem Era, c. 1500-1700," arichly detailed discussion of themilitary, mercantile, and culturalconflicts that characterizedrelations between Christian andMuslim states during this period.Professor Tracy was intent onemphasizing the history of conflictbetween Christians and Muslimsprecisely because, in the light ofrecent events, people have soughtto emphasize historical patterns ofharmony and cooperation. However,he argues that this approach canlead one to the conclusion thatpeaceful co-existence has been thenorm and that achieving it issimply a matter of good will.

Tracy maintained that in order tounderstand the Muslim world's fearof domination by the West, it isimportant to grasp western anxietyabout the possibility of Muslimdomination during the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries. The OttomanTurkish Empire possessed militaryand economic power vastlysuperior to that of the Christianstates of Europe and exploited thispower imbalance by expandingwestward, reaching the gates ofVienna for the first time in 1529.

The Ottoman Turks and theChristian states engaged in multipleforms of conflict during this era.More common than full-scalewarfare was low-level borderraiding which the larger faith

cornmunities generally cheered onbecause such constant harassmenttied down armies and hinderedthem from launching large-scaleattacks. The call to holy warcontinued to playa role in thediscourse of Muslim and Christiancommunities about their infidelopponents. Fiery preachers couldinspire the faithful to view politicaland economic conflicts in starkreligious terms. Even during thelast siege of Vienna in 1683,Muslims and Christians wereencouraged to view it as part of thespiritual battle against unbelievers.

Finally, Christians and Muslimswaged a long-running propagandabattle over the right to claimcultural superiority. The Ottomansultans established a court "liturgyof majesty," which employed vastretinues of attendants and displaysof splendor, to convey the positionthat the sultan was the king ofkings and that his court was thecenter of the civilized world. TheChristians, for their part, claimed torepresent the Graeco-Romantradition of universal, objective lawand consensual government. Theyclaimed that the Ottoman Turkishcivilization, while perhapswealthier, was based on tyrannyand arbitrariness and was destined,therefore, to inevitable decline.

Tracy is careful to point out thatfor both Muslims and Christians,wars with the "infidels" were ofsecondary concern when comparedto conflicts with enemies of thesame faith. The Ottoman Turk'sprincipal concern lay with thePersians. The French were evenwilling to negotiate alliances withthe Turks against their fellowChristians, the Hapsburgs, whosecontrol over vast parts of Europe

Professor James D. Tracy

threatened them more than didMuslim advances.

By the early 1700's the age ofTurkish expansion in the west hadreached an end. Tracy argues thatTurkish decline did not result fromany institutional or culturalinferiority vis-a-vis the west.Rather a series of contingenthistorical events, especially theinterruption of Ottoman tradenetworks by the Dutch, English,and Portuguese led to a slowdecrease in power.

Tracy's picture of conflict wasnot intended to be a self-fulfillingprophecy. Rather he undertook tosketch more clearly the historicalcontours of Christian-Muslimrelations as a pre-condition forfinding a way forward. As thecontent of the lecture makes clear,Tracy is not pollyannish aboutsolving the current tensionsbetween the West and the Muslimworld. He expressed hope,however, that a level of peacefulco-existence might eventually beestablished based on hard-wonmutual respect. *

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6

TUCSON, ARIZONA

At the feet of visiting scholars

Theodore Evergates, McDaniel College"Marie of Champagne andHenry the Liberal:Constructing a Principalityand Princely Court in Twelfth-Century France"

by Ben Kulas, master's student

emergence of a culture of the bookand a community of Latin learning.Henry sponsored this bycommissioning the copying ofbooks, especially on history and theChurch Fathers, and by foundingover two hundred prebends. Justlike today's graduate students,clerics of the Middle Ages requiredfinancial support. A prebendfunctioned much like a teaching orresearch assistantship--a canonreceived money and food in returnfor the fulfillment of a particularduty, such as regularly holdingmass at a specific altar. Wealthymen and women of the medievalsocial and political elite wouldendow prebends at churches notunlike modem benefactorsendowing scholarships.

Marie, too, contributed toChampagne's cultural flowering.Whereas Henry had no vernacularliterature in his collection, Mariewas a fan of popular authors of theday, such as Chretien de Troyes,author of many Arthurianromances. As a ruler Marie insuredstability by assuming leadershipduring Henry's absences,continuing the collegial practicesand policies that had proven sosuccessful for him. She ruled afterHenry's death for sixteen years.

Under the rule of Henry and thenMarie, the cohesive county ofChampagne grew out of fourindependent counties. ProfessorEvergates demonstrated how thevigorous support of culturecontributed so influentially to thesuccess of their rule.

Seminar Visit

by Julie Kang, doctoral student

,

.. rofessor Evergates:- immediately broke the ice

. . ,'- by stating that whereas his

Under the rule

fil n November 17, Professorol.JJenr'f and Theodore Evergates,1 1/J1l 1 professor of medieval andthen ff/arie, the '=;=='

early modem European history atcoheJiue count'! 01 McDaniel College, Maryland,//1 delivered a public lecture onLhampa'Jne frew research he is currently conducting,

t il il the focus of which is the rule andou Of fourcontributions of Marie and Henry,

independent Countess and Count ofChampagne. Their combined ruleof the County of Champagnestretched from 1152 to 1198, whenthe widow Marie died at the age of53. The couple did not share rule,but rather governed successively.

Henry's father had been at oddswith King Louis VII of France, buthad been considered a good,collegial ruler of his four counties,Meaux, Troyes, Bar-sur-Aube andVitry. Henry, on the other hand,was a good friend of the king, andalso of the great Cistercian,Bernard ofClairvaux. UnderHenry's reign the four counties ofhis father were consolidated, asHenry moved the family seat fromMeaux to Troyes, and Champagneenjoyed a cultural flowering.

With Henry's shift to Troyes, hebegan construction there of thegothic palace chapel, St. Etienne.Though merely a chapel, thebuilding was cathedral-sized, andbased on the Cathedral of St.Etienne of Sens. The canons ofTroyes, that is, the community ofpriests, worked for Count Henry,and accounted for much of theregion's cultural blossoming.Under Henry and Marie,Champagne witnessed the

Professor Theodore Evergates

individual meetings with usstudents were reminiscent ofconfessionals, a visit to the seminarseemed to be the Inquisition.Professor Alan E. Bernstein, who isleading the seminar this year, beganwith his version of the questionasked of all guest scholars, "Whatmakes you tick as an historian?"

Professor Evergates went back tochildhood stories of a father whochallenged him to be curious andinsightful. He recalled a ritual thathe and his father enjoyed togetherat the breakfast table. His fatherwould read aloud about currentevents and, as a boy, ProfessorEvergates would comment withanalytical zeal. In addition, hecredits a scientific background andeventual doctoral experience inhistory for making him thehistorian he is today.

In a more dramatic fashion, hesaid he believed a single documenthad changed his life. As he readiedhimself for a dissertation topic atJohns Hopkins University, hisadvisor recommended starting withan interesting document andproceeding from there. In theuniversity library stacks, he found aChampagne document that led himto delve deeper into the Frencharchives. He has been studying thecountry ever since. *

TUCSON, ARIZONA

At the feet of visiting scholars

Maureen Miller, University of California, Berkeley"Why the Bishop Needed aBride: Wealth, Weakness, andRitual in Medieval Florence"

Seminar Visit

by Robert Christman,doctoral student

by Tom de Mayo, doctoral student,.===.History Department (il n March 9, Professor

.======. z-. Miller of the University oftn-. n her guest lecture, Maureen California, Berkeley, met. Miller, associate professor of with the students of the Division's

. '. medieval history at the seminar, led tills year by ProfessorUniversity of California, Alan E. Bernstein. The properBerkeley, discussed a curious adjective to describe Professormedieval Florentine ritual. On ills Miller is vivacious, an attribute thatfirst entry into his city, the newly cannot be assigned to everyinvested Bishop of Florence medievalist or, for that matter,would stop at the convent of San professor of history regardless ofPiero Maggiore. There he would field. In a lively fasillon and with apartake of a meal before ritually great sense of humor she described"marrying" its abbess and staying her research.overnight. (Chastely, one would Professor Bernstein began byassume, as this was only a faux asking how she had maintained themarriage.) An exchange of gifts interest and drive that initiallywould follow, including a inspired her to attend graduatepresentation to the bishop of the school. "Do what you wantbed in which he had slept at the regardless of what is fashionable,"convent. was her advice. Her own curiosity,

Professor Miller examined the she admitted, led her to examinesocial significance of this topics as wildly divergent as papaluniquely Florentine ritual. rhetoric and period clothing. SheBecause the convent housed the approached these subjects in orderdaughters of the richest and most to answer only those questions thatpowerful Florentine families, she appealed to her and then moved onspeculated that the marriage to something new. There are twosymbolically assimilated the kinds of historians, she suggested:(often foreign) bishop into the those who ask new questions toruling elite of the city. The start new conversations and thosebishops participated in these who seek to have the last word.ceremonies only reluctantly, She placed herself firmly in theperhaps because of their unusual former category.sexual associations, but also Professor Miller describedperhaps because they were a specifically her reasons forcover for negotiations on issues of examining the history ofgreater substance. Performance Christianity. In her experience,indicated the customary status of when most historians wrote abouteveryone involved, not only the groups and movements withinfamilies represented by the Christianity they described them inconvent, but also the bishop, and monolithic and rigid terms. Herthe families who traditionally own religious experiences,served him. subsequently confmned by her

research, suggested that thereexisted a great deal of variability,

Professor Maureen Miller

creativity, and much more diversity.She has made it a goal to capturetills multiplicity.

Persistence was another theme ofthe evening, especially with regardto research trips to Europe.Professor Miller recounted some ofher trials while attempting to studyvarious bishops' palaces in Italy.Local Italian priests could notcomprehend why an Americanwoman needed access to a bishop'sresidence. The very request raisedall sorts of red flags. But doggeddetermination along with a goodknowledge of the local languageeventually paid off; in one instance,not only did she gain access to aparticular palace, but the localpriest brought out original floorplans and architectural drawings forher to examine.

During the course of the eveningwe learned much about medievalbishops' palaces and the rationaleof their layout and ornamentation.But perhaps even more importantlywe were treated to the paradigm ofan intrepid, curious, persistent anddeeply engaged scholar. *

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THE UNIVER.<;ITYOf

ARIZONA,~

TUCSON, ARIZONA

UA Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies

Alumni PlacementRobert J. Bast (1993)

University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleDepartment of History

Curtis V. Bostick (1993)Southern Utah UniversityDepartment of History

Michael Bruening (2002)Concordia University, IrvineDepartment of History

Peter Dykema (1998)Arkansas Tech UniversityDepartment of Social Sciences

and Philosophy

John Frymire (2001)University of Missouri, ColumbiaDepartment of History

Andrew C. Gow (1993)University of Alberta, EdmontonDepartment of History

Brad S. Gregory(MA 1989; Ph.D. Princeton, 1996)University of Notre DameDepartment of History

Sigrun Haude (1993)University of CincinnatiDepartment of History

Nicole Kuropka (MA 1997)Vicar, Evangelical Church

of the Rhineland

Marjory E. Lange(1993, English major, History minor)Western Oregon UniversityDepartment of English

Scott M. Manetsch (1997)Trinity Evangelical Divinity SchoolDepartment of Church History

Michael Milway (1997)Wellesley CollegeDepartment of History

Jonathan Reid (2001)East Carolina UniversityDepartment of History

Eric Leland Saak (1993)Indiana University,

Purdue University, IndianapolisDepartment of History

J. Jeffery Tyler (1995)Hope College, MichiganDepartment of Religion

Joel Van Amberg (2004)University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleLecturer, Department of History

Please visit us on the internet: w3.arizona.edu/-dlmrs

Division for Late Medievaland Reformation Studies

Douglass 3 I5PO Box 210028Tucson, AZ 85721-0028

NON-PROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDTUCSON, ARIZONA

PERMIT NO. 190