Lee Palmer Wandel Review of Carlos Eire the Reformations
BOOK REVIEWS703 Voracious Idols andViolentHands:Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg , andBasel. By Lee PalmerWandel. (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xii, 205. $39.95.) Practise actions speak louder than words, or at least as loudly as words? Are symbols and rituals a key to understanding the Reformation? This is what Lee Wandel attempts to evidence Ui this imaginative study of the ritual revolution effected by Protestants Ui 3 primal cities.Viewing iconoclasm from below,from the perspective of the Image breakers, Wandel adds texture to an already weU-known history. By analyzing the way in which iconoclasts "spoke" through thetf destructive acts,Wandel brings us closer to understanding the poUtical and social dimensions of lay participation Ui the Reformation during the turbulent 1520's. Wandel is correct in arguing that previous studies of iconoclasm chiliad these cities have focused attending on the ideology of the eUtes—by and large ecclesiastic—and have neglected the "pregnant" that the destruction of sacred objects may have had for the laity. Wandel's judicious use of sources has enabled her to make a twofold contribution to our understanding of iconoclastic acts: (1) she has shifted the focus of the narrative to include new voices as principal characters (though this is not evenly achieved in each ofthe iii chapters);(2) she has reconfigured the analytical framework of iconoclastic study, placing a greater emphasis on specific, locaUzed socio-poUtical contexts. This shift in focus is the book'due south greatest forcefulness. Another strong point Ui Voracious Idols is the way Ln whichWandel attempts to come to terms with the hermeneutics of "idolatry" on both the theological and the socioeconomic levels. Wandel brings u.s.a. much closer to understanding why iconoclasts assigned then radicaUy unlike a value on reUgious artwork, and why they could no longer meet it equally sacred. The key seems to be non only a change in epistemology brought nearly by a renewed interest Ui scriptural purity , just also a heightened awareness of the social dimensions of Christian faith and piety, and a new understanding of dice meaning of Christian charity. This is sound scholarship, based on fresh archival research and wide reading thousand secondary scholarship. It is elegantly written, weU argued, and richly documented . All the same, as Wandel herself admits, these 3 example studies offer only a partial answer to the question of why iconoclasts acted as they did. Why did the images have to get? Why was civilization redefined so quickly and radicaUy in these and other places? Even more puzzling, why did iconoclasm succeed in some places and not in others? Throughout,Wandel'due south insights enhance possibly as many questions as are answered.Would it be possible to contend,for instance,that iconoclasm depended on a certain level of socio-economical development: that in order for the images to exist viewed as "voracious" (as devourers of funds that could otherwise exist used to help the needy), at that place would outset have to exist some kind of market system in which the material price of the image could somehow be perceived as having a useful fabric ??f?ße? Or, would information technology be possible to fence that at some bones level, dtfferent localities and social groups developed thetf ain sense of the sacred? Why, for instance, did the staff of life-bakers and 704BOOK REVIEWS smiths in Basel back up the old piety whUe other guilds caUed for its aboUtion? Questions such equally these await further exploration. As she did in her previous report, Always Amid Us: Images of the Poor in Zwingli's Zurich (Cambridge, 1990), Lee Wandel has one time anew focused on the role symbols play in the cosmos and transformation of civilization. More than spectficaUy , she has over again called attention to the centrality of symbol and ritual in the unfolding of the Reformation. Sixteenth-century Protestants and CathoUcs knew that iconoclasm was non simply a byproduct of the Reformation, or a violent spasm, but its very essence. With this book, Lee Wandel has brought us one stride closer to recovering this once-lost perspective. Carlos Thousand. N. Eire University ofVirginia William Tyndale:A Biography. By David DanieU. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1994. Pp. ten, 429. $30.00.) When David DanieU's biography appeared as part of the WUUam Tyndale...
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