Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T02:22:22.382Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

20 - Ritual in early modern Christianity

from Part V - Religion, Society, and Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Susan Karant-Nunn
Edited by
R. Po-chia Hsia
R. Po-chia Hsia
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Get access

Summary

All the observances of the temple have to be learned by the person, for the visible ceremonies or practices announce the invisible.

Throughout the history of Christianity, leaders of the faith have found in ecclesiastical ritual an indispensable means of inculcating correct doctrine upon the unlettered and theologically uninitiated masses. As the religion of small communities and face-to-face acquaintance gave way in the western Roman Empire to territorial conversion, increasingly bishops sought to unite those in their care within a framework of observances that reinforced pastoral teachings. Indeed, through long ages of clerical under-instruction for their duties, mastery of the rites of the church constituted the core of professional preparation for the priesthood. For nearly two millennia, Christian authorities have assigned paramount importance to the proper understanding and execution of central observances, such as baptism and the eucharist.

As attractive and useful as the invocation of a ritual’s antiquity is, however, scholars in many disciplines have noticed the marked changes introduced as a result of theological controversy, as well as of changed historical circumstances. The recitation of creeds, those summaries of belief, followed the bishops’ taking of positions that formally set them apart from their challengers. Peter Cramer has traced the evolution of baptism in the West during nearly a thousand years. Medievalists are aware that the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 elevated marriage to sacramental status, requiring the consent of both bride and groom. This same council played a significant part in compelling all Catholics to confess to their priests and receive Holy Communion a minimum of once a year.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Christianity , pp. 371 - 385
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Altenburg, Jörg Jarnut, and Steinhoff, Hans-Hugo (eds.), Feste und Feiern im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1991).Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Mira (comp.), Die Täufer und Zwingli: Eine Dokumentation (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1993).Google Scholar
Bell, Catherine, Ritual theory, ritual practice (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Bray, Gerald (ed.), Documents of the English Reformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Catterall, Douglas, ‘The rituals of Reformed discipline: managing honor and conflict in the Scottish Church of Rotterdam, 1643–1665’, Archive for Reformation History 94 (2003).Google Scholar
Chǎtellier, Louis, The Europe of the devout: the Catholic Reformation and the formation of a new society (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Châtellier, Louis, The Europe of the devout: the Catholic reformation and the formation of a new society. Trans. Birrell, Jean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Christian, William A. Jr, Local religion in sixteenth–century Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981; rpt. 1989).Google Scholar
Cramer, Peter, Baptism and change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200–c. 1150 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Deroo, André, Saint Charles Borromée: Cardinal réformateur, docteur de la pastorale, 1538–1584 (Paris: Editions Saint–Paul, 1963).Google Scholar
Ehrstein, Glenn, Theater, culture, and community in Reformation Berne, 1523–1555 (Leiden: Brill, 2002).Google Scholar
Garside, Charles, Zwingli and the arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar
Gonzalez, Justo L., The story of Christianity, vol. 1: The early church to the dawn of the Reformation (New York: Harper and Row, 1984).Google Scholar
Hooker, Richard, Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity. ed. Church, R. W. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905).Google Scholar
Houston, Robert A., ‘The Consistory of the Scots Church, Rotterdam: An Aspect of “Civic Calvinism”, c. 1600–1800,’ Archive for Reformation History 87 (1996).Google Scholar
Hughes, Philip, The church in crisis: a history of the general councils, 325–1870 (New York: Image Books, 1961).Google Scholar
Junghans, Helmar, ‘Luthers Gottesdienstreform – Konzept oder Verlegenheit?’ In Beyer, Michael and Wartenberg, Günther (eds.), Spätmittelalter, Luthers Reformation, Kirche in Sachsen: Arbeiten zur Kirchen– und Theologiegeschichte, 8 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2001).Google Scholar
Junghans, Helmar, Wittenberg als Lutherstadt (Berlin: Union Verlag, 1979).Google Scholar
Jungman, Joseph A., The mass of the Roman rite: its origin and development, 2 vols. Trans. Brunner, Francis A. (New York: Benziger, 1951, 1955).Google Scholar
Karant-Nunn, Susan C., The reformation of ritual: an interpretation of early modern Germany (London and New York: Routledge, 1997).Google Scholar
Karant-Nunn, Susan C., ‘“Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not”: The social location of baptism in early modern Germany’. In Bast, Robert J. and Andrew Gow, C. (eds.), Continuity and change: the harvest of late medieval and Reformation history (Leiden: Brill, 2000).Google Scholar
Karant-Nunn, Susan C., The reformation of ritual: an interpretation of early modern Germany (London: Routledge, 1997).Google Scholar
Lockyer, Roger, Tudor and Stuart Britain, 1471–1714 (London: Longmans, 1964).Google Scholar
Lotz-Heumann, Ute, ‘The concept of “confessionalisation”: a historiographical paradigm in dispute’, Memoria y Civilización 4 (2001).Google Scholar
Manschreck, Clyde, Melanchthon, the quiet Reformer (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1958).Google Scholar
Mentzer, Raymond A. Jr, ‘The Reformed churches of France and the visual arts’. In Finney, Paul Corby (ed.), Seeing beyond the word: visual arts and the Calvinist tradition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999).Google Scholar
Muir, Edward, Ritual in early modern Europe. New Approaches to European History, 11 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
Naphy, W. G., ‘Baptism, church riots and social unrest inCalvin’s Geneva’. Sixteenth Century Journal 26 (1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oettinger, Rebecca Wagner. Music as propaganda in the German Reformation. St Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001).Google Scholar
Old, Hughs Oliphant, The shaping of the Reformed baptismal rite in the sixteenth century (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1992).Google Scholar
O’Malley, John W., Trent and all that: renaming Catholicism in the early modern era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian tradition: a history of the development of doctrine, vol. I: The emergence of the Catholic tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).Google Scholar
Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian tradition: a history of the development of doctrine, vol. 3: The growth of medieval theology (600–1300) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).Google Scholar
Registers of the Consistory of Geneva in the time of Calvin, vol. 1: 1542–1544. Ed. Lambert, Thomas A. and Watt, Isabella M.. Trans. McDonald, M. Wallace (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2000).Google Scholar
Reinhard, Wolfgang (ed.), Bekenntnis und Geschichte: Die Confessio Augustana im historischen Zusammenhang. Schriften der Philosophischen Fakultäten der Universität Augsburg, 20 (Augsburg: Vögel, 1981).Google Scholar
Reinhard, Wolfgang ‘Gegenreformation als Modernisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfes–sionellen Zeitalters’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 68 (1977).Google Scholar
Reinhard, Wolfgang ‘Konfession and Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland’. In Reinhard, Wolfgand, Bekenntnis und Geschichte: Die Confessio Augustana im historischen Zusammenhang. Schriften der Philosophischen Fakultäten der Universität Augsburg, 20 (Augsburg: Vögel, 1981).Google Scholar
Scheible, Heinz, Melanchthon: Eine Biographie (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1997).Google Scholar
Scheible, Heinz, ‘The Reformation and the rise of the early modern state’. In Tracy, James D. (ed.), Luther and the modern state in Germany (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1986).Google Scholar
Schilling, Heinz, ‘Confessional Europe’. In Brady, Thomas A. Jr, Oberman, Heiko A., and Tracy, James D. (eds.), Handbook of European history 1400–1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, vol. I (Leiden: Brill, 1995).Google Scholar
Schilling, Heinz, ‘Konfession and Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland’. In Reinhard, Wolfgand, Bekenntnis und Geschichte: Die Confessio Augustana im historischen Zusammenhang. Schriften der Philosophischen Fakultäten der Universität Augsburg, 20 (Augsburg: Vögel, 1981).Google Scholar
Seebaß, Gottfried, Müntzers Erbe: Werk, Leben und Theologie des Hans Hut (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2002).Google Scholar
Smith, Jeffrey Chipps, Sensuous worship: Jesuits and the art of the early Catholic Reformation in Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Soergel, Philip M., Wondrous in his saints: propaganda for the Catholic Reformation in Reformation Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Spierling, Karen E., ‘Daring insolence toward God? The perpetuation of Catholic baptismal traditions in sixteenth–century Geneva’, Archive for Reformation History 93 (2002).Google Scholar
Stell, Christopher, ‘Puritan and nonconformist meeting houses in England’. In Finney, Paul Corby (ed.), Seeing beyond the word: visual arts and the Calvinist tradition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999).Google Scholar
Taylor, Larissa J. (ed.), Preachers and people in the Reformation and early modern period (Leiden: Brill, 2001).Google Scholar
The first and second Prayer Books of Edward VI (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1977; reprint of 1910 edition).
Veit, Patrice, Das Kirchenlied in der Reformation Martin Luthers (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1986).Google Scholar
von Greyerz, Kaspar, Religion und Kultur: Europa 1500–1800 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2000).Google Scholar
Wandel, Lee Palmer, ‘Envisioning God: image and liturgy in Reformation Zurich’. Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendebourg, Dorothea, ‘Luthers Reform der Messe – Bruch oder Kontinuität?’ In Moeller, Bernd (ed.), Die frühe Reformation in Deutschland als Umbruch. Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte, 199 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998).Google Scholar
Williams, George Huntston, The radical Reformation 3rd edn (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992).Google Scholar
Zwingli, Ulrich.Huldreich Zwingli’s sämtliche Werke. Ed. Emil Egli. Corpus Reformatorum, 88–101 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1905–).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×