This festschrift, dedicated to Hans-Jürgen Görtz, accomplishes a goal which many other publications of this type do not achieve, that is, to combine a number of articles which focus on more or less the same topic. The well-known social and economic historian Hans-Jürgen Görtz who teaches at the University of Hamburg, Germany, has spent much of his life as a scholar studying the revolutionary and Anabaptist Thomas Müntzer who attempted to set up a utopian society in Muenster in the Northwest of Germany between 1534 and 1535. Although Müntzer failed, his Anabaptist community has since then, especially under the influence of nineteenth-century Marxist philosophers, become a model case for many other revolutionaries. The honoree of this volume, Görtz, published his Göttingen dissertation on Muentzer in 1967, and in 1989 a biographical essay or monograph by Görtz appeared in print which quickly became a standard textbook on this historical figure. In many other publications Görtz made a name for himself as an expert on Anabaptism, anticlericalism, and religious reformist movements of the early modern age.
The title of this festschrift translates as: Outsiders in the Age between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. The contributors make a concerted effort to address this issue from various angles. The volume is divided into three major parts, the first one focusing on true outsiders in fifteenth through sixteenth-century Germany, the second one focusing on individual social groups in their position as minorities, and the third one on controversial historical interpretations of sixteenth-century theologians and politicians.
Bob Scribner (21-46) provides an excellent historical survey of how late-medieval society determined who was an outsider and who belonged to established society. In particular he examines legal, societal, religious, clerical, and economic aspects and concludes that medieval society was faced with a surprisingly large number of outsiders of various kinds. Nevertheless, despite considerable suspicion of and intolerance against outsiders, many of them successfully forged their way back into society or managed to establish a "modus vivendi." Scribner uses, however, a fairly wide net to cover every possible type of outsider, and so also includes students, musicians, pilgrims, and journeymen in his study. It seems questionable at first to accept even the dead as outsiders, but Scribner here refers to those who had committed suicide or had died as heretics, hence were not allowed to be buried in holy ground.
Norbert Fischer (81-97) explores the topography of death with respect to cemeteries in late-medieval and early-modern cities. Both because of health reasons and shortage of space in the old church yards in the center of the cities, cemeteries were increasingly relocated outside of the city walls. The church vehemently opposed this move because they feared the loss of their political and financial influence, but the explosion of the population made this transfer necessary. Interestingly, the new cemeteries turned into aesthetically pleasing sites or parks strategically planned and transformed into a "Gesamtkunstwerk."
Tom Scott (47-63) and Peter Blickle (65-80) study important documents which were written as contributions to the debate concerning the Reformation. Scott discusses Mathias Wurm von Geudertheim's Oberrheinische Revolutionaer in which the author projected a utopian concept of a radically reformed German Empire based on the model developed in the region of Alsace. Blickle analyzes the process of how the Protestant Reformation was accepted by individual South German cities. He focuses on Memmingen and Kaufbeuren where intensive and public religious debates in 1525 decided the acceptance of the new religion.
The following articles move clearly beyond the Middle Ages and here will not be treated as detailed as normally would be required for the purpose of a review. Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (101-110) examines the civic riot in Worms in 1614 and 1615 which was directed against the Jewish population. This riot was finally crushed by the authorities, and in 1616 the Jews were allowed to return. Marion Kobelt-Groch (111-126) deals with sixteenth-century Anabaptists and their curious and unexpected attempt to win converts to their belief through preaching in inns. Although inns represented sinful locations for them, as we can tell from many critical sermons, the inn provided a fruitful anticlerical atmosphere where the Anabaptists could reach out to the ordinary people and convince them to abandon the traditional church.
Marc Lienhard (127-134) discusses the question whether Martin Luther was tolerant in his thinking or not. A comparison between his early and his later writings indicates that Luther considerably changed his attitude in time and increasingly developed an intolerant mentality. Michael Driedger (135-149) examines a trial against the Hamburg merchant and Mennonite Hans Plus (1661-1663) who was charged, along with the city of Hamburg, of being secretly an Anabaptist. The significance of this case rests on the fact that the political, economic, and religious role of the city of Hamburg became an issue for the Imperial court.
The next section focuses on anabaptism in sixteenth-century Germany. Ralf Kloetzer (153-169) investigates the political and theological expectations which the Anabaptists under the leadership of Thomas Münzer harbored during the latter's reign in Muenster. Werner O. Packull (171-185) discusses the life and work of the Hutterer Peter Riedemann who established close contacts between Moravia and Hesse during the 1530s and 1540s. Heinold Fast (187-217) provides a biographical account of the Augsburg Anabaptist Joerg Propst Rotenfelder, also known as Maler, highlighting his so-called Kunstbuch from 1561 in which he copied 42 letters and other documents, creating a remarkable mirror of the intellectual network among the many Anabaptist groups in Germany.
The last section of articles covers primarily political and philosophical questions pertaining to Emperor Charles V who is here considered as a founder of the modern-day European union (Rainer Wohlfeil, 221-242), Ernst Bloch's philosophical interpretation of the Anabaptist Thomas Münzer (Guenter Vogler, 243-267), and to Martin Luther's relationship with the Anabaptists (James M. Stayer, 269-288).
The volume concludes with a select bibliography of Hans-Jürgen Görtz' writings and with an index for all articles. As an introduction to this volume, the editors publish an interview with the honoree who elucidates his intellectual career, his research interests, and historical concepts.