Reforming Reformation . Edited by Thomas F. Mayer. Catholic Christendom, 1300–1700. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2012. xiv + 251 pp. $119.95 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Reforming Reformation . Edited by Thomas F. Mayer . Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700. Burlington, Vt. : Ashgate , 2012. xiv + 251 pp. $119.95 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesThomas Mayer is certainly correct in stating that very few scholars of the English Reformation are aware of developments on the Continent that bore historically and that bear historiographically on the subjects of their research. At the same time, one of the marks setting world-wide Anglophone studies of the Reformation apart from those in continental Europe is the integration of colleagues of Catholic persuasion and of Catholic investigations into our wide-ranging historical discipline, including the sub-field of early modern religion. One could almost call this progress, a Whiggish concept that Mayer decries. All depends upon one's vantage point regarding the field. From at least one point of view, we do not fall behind.Still, it remains true, even among us English-speakers, that Catholic topics have a way to go to catch up in sheer number and variety to those of a Protestant emphasis. This collection as well as the series of which it is part are intended to promote a focus upon Catholicism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The present ten essays grew out of a conference held in 2010 that brought together scholars from several disciplines working on England, Germany, Spain, and Italy--alas, France is excluded. A pervasive theme is the relationship between centers and peripheries, and where and what centers may actually be. Historiographic positions may even be regarded as intellectual centers, the representatives of which have colored the arrangement of past events in our minds. Brad S. Gregory calmly, incontestably asserts that subscription to the principle of sola scriptura did not produce doctrinal agreement but quite extreme doctrinal variety. Only Lutherans' and Calvinists' alliances with secular power determined their "orthodoxy" and the "heresy" of other, including Anabaptist, groups. Peter Marshall explores the applicability of confessionalization theory to England and detects a partial success under Henry, Edward, and Mary; but under Elizabeth the possibility of quiet nonconformist commitment. Even Catholicism did not fare badly despite the queen's disapproval of any extreme. State confessionalization was "patchy and incomplete" (56). Ronald Thiemann engages Charles Taylor's assertion of growing secularism, declaring, "we need to avoid exaggerating the differences among the pre-secular, secular, and post-secular" (76). Thiemann draws on artists' renderings of Christ's human life--Giotto, Bellini, Mantegna, Grunewald, and Cranach--to demonstrate the persistent intertwining of these two allegedly opposite spheres.Part 2 shifts away from centers in modern theory to centers and peripheries located in the early modern past. Lu Ann Homza asserts a growing inductive reasoning among some inquisitors in their search for incriminating evidence. A main example is Alonso de Salazar Frias, who insisted on visiting the rural sites of witch accusations and questioning the people. …