The Primacy of the Postils by John M. Frymire

John M. Frymire. The Primacy of the Postils: Catholics, Protestants, and the Dissemination of Ideas in Early Modern Germany. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, vol. 147. Boston: Brill, 2010. xiv + 642 pp. $186/£150.

John M. Frymire’s, Primacy of the Postils, endeavors to retrieve overlooked documentary evidence in order to recover forgotten memories of the Reformation and counter-Reformation; this study seeks to overturn erroneous theories that resulted from favoring one kind of documentary evidence over another. Frymire studied Late Medieval and Reformation studies with Heiko Oberman and received his Ph.D. in 2001 from the University of Arizona. He is currently an Associate Professor of History at the University of Missouri. Though Primacy of the Postils is Frymire’s only published monograph to date, he is researching and writing two other forthcoming publications: Pestilence and Reformation and Catholic Preaching and the German Reformation.

Primacy of the Postils examines the publication and print of religious literature, called Postils, in Germany from 1520-1620. Postils are collections of sermons that follow the lectionary of the church; they are resources for clergy to use in sermon preparation or as homilies to be read during mass. This monograph is a comparative study of Lutheran and Catholic postils in Germany (with a chapter length excursus of Calvinist postils in Germany, chapter 4, pp. 225-251). The scope of time allows examination of both Lutheran and Catholic postil production beginning with Luther’s publications and covering pre-Tridentine, Tridentine, and Post-Tridentine eras in order to evaluate two common presuppositions regarding Catholic practice—first, that Catholic preaching was a counter-Reformation response to the German Reformation critique of Late Medieval Catholic preaching and use of Scripture practice, and, second, that the Catholic counter-Reformation was a post-Tridentine phenomenon. This study emphasizes “the perspectives of sixteenth-century Catholic preachers and their overlords,” and asserts that “postils were the key conduit for the dissemination of ideas in early modern Germany” (emphasis added, 3). Frymire’s thesis is best surmised by his contention that “postils were the key instance of mediation between authorities and their subjects, between learned and unlearned, between what for lack of better terms we call elite and popular cultures” (3).

This study begins by re-examining the state of Catholic preaching during the period leading up to the German Reformation. Frymire dispels misperceptions that Catholics did not preach nor use Scripture in vernacular language prior to the Reformation; rather, there had been a resurgence of Catholic laity expecting clergy to read Scripture and expound it; Frymire insists that when Luther critiqued the Catholic Church for not “preaching the gospel,” he was not saying that they did not preach nor read Scripture, but that they had misinterpreted its meaning and disseminated ideas antithetical to the gospel. Frymire clarifies that Luther did not invent postils. Rather, this genre predated Luther; Frymire supplies ample evidence that postil collections existed in the fifteenth century leading up to Luther’s publication of the Kirchenpostilles (Church Postils) and the Hauspostilles (House Postils), compiled by Steven Roth and later completed by Caspar Cruciger. Nonetheless, Luther’s postils were a powerful method for spreading his ideas throughout Germany and allowed him to control discourse and its interpretation. In response to publication of Luther’s postils, Catholics engaged in a postil publication war; they strove to outpace the spread of Luther’s ideas in an effort to retain the hearts and minds of Germans. They did so by demonstrating how Luther’s reproach of Catholicism was fallacious; rather, Catholic clergy preached both the Scriptures and a gospel that emphasized faith in God. Key Catholic postillators of this era include Johannes Eck, Friedrich Nausea, Antonius Broickwy, and the foreigner, Josse Clichtove—each were critical exponents of counter-Reformation postils. Altogether, from 1520-1535, Catholic printers produced over 25,000 copies of complete postil collections, with an additional 21,000 of postil reprints from the Church Fathers and Medieval Scholastics.

In 1535 Anton Corvin, another evangelical, joined Luther in publishing postils. His collection of postils was shorter than Luther’s, better suited for public reading (usually postils were printed in folio format with large single column typeface), and designed for impoverished—educationally and financially—rural pastors, whom needed assistance with sermon preparation; Corvin’s strategy became the “industry standard” for postil production. Corvin dedicated his first volume to Philipp of Hesse, which began a trend that most later postillators, whether Lutheran or Catholic, would follow; almost all postillators dedicated postils to local authorities, whether princes or bishops. Frymire contends that this trend is because of the nexus between “preaching and the maintenance of order” (79). Corvin’s concise postils were ideal for pulpit reading, continuing the pattern of pastors merely reading postils in pulpits; later evangelicals would lament this trend, especially Luther (91), and they would accuse postillators of being Postillenreiters (Postil-riders) and Postillenfressers (Postil-feeders). In addition to Corvin’s contribution, Melancthon produced an academic set of postils and Johann Spangenberg produced a very popular set of short postils in catechetical form built upon the trustworthy interpretations of Luther and Corvin. The addition of Veit Dietrich’s House Postils in 1544 followed by Caspar Huberinus’s in 1545 guaranteed that there was a solid supply of evangelical “authorized sermons” from which pastors might preach (93), but it would be the shorter more concise postils that would have greater “success on the market” (89).

These evangelical postil collections stimulated a Catholic response. Catholics, like Johannes Dietenberger and the aforementioned Friedrich Nausea, produced equally concise collections for pulpit reading and spreading propaganda. Others like George Witzel wrote postils to reconvert Lutherans to Catholicism, just as Witzel himself had done after eight years as a Lutheran preacher. During this stage of postil production shifts in power connected to military victories may be observed. When Leipzig fell so did the print production of Catholic postils, and, during the Augsburg Interim, a resurgence of Catholic printing existed, until the Prince’s War victory reset the balance of power that led to the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. After the Augsburg Interim the Diocese of Mainz emerged as a major center of Catholic postil publication. Johann Wild’s Winter Postils became a critical resource for Catholic Germany. Wild’s postils were answered by Lutheran production of Johannes Brenz’s postils, compiled by Johannes Pollicarius, and were in the spirit of Luther’s postils, for Brenz “had been with Luther early on;” these postils were meant to help Lutherans “persevere under the cross” (150, 151). By the Peace of Augsburg, Catholics had produced 132 thousand sets of postils since 1530, which according to Frymire, “explodes the common scholarly notion…that the Catholic response to the German Reformation in the pulpits amounted to a non-response” (154).

The last segment studied is the period from 1555-1620—covering the remaining four chapters and 300 pages of content—equally detailed but with very similar conclusions as chapters one and two. Chapter three considers Lutheran postil production. During this period, postils emphasized controlled discourse to maintain order and confessionalization. Critical events—like the Treaty of Passau (1552), emergence of Calvinism in the Palitinate (1559), and the Formula of Concord (1577)—inspired production of new postils to respond to these unique situations and educate Germans accordingly. This period stimulated reprinting of popular Lutheran postils. Lutherans not only produced pericopic postils but also epistolary postils in order to encourage virtue and “social discipline” (165). Postillators were selected because of their importance as preachers, professors, and “spokesmen of their princes” (172). As such, many reprints lasted the duration of that person’s life or service to his prince. Chapters five and six cover Catholic postil production. Catholic postils became more militant and many postillators were produced from the university training and teaching center of Ingolstadt, but as the seventeenth-century dawned, the preponderance of postil collections were introduced from foreigners outside Germany. Frymire spends much of chapter six exploring why Jesuit postil production was not as influential as one might expect, considering the huge influence of this burgeoning monastic order. What is most surprising is how postils became predominantly produced in Latin as a result of improved training of clergy.

The four appendices are extremely helpful resources that qualify and quantify Frymire’s research. Frymire gives readers an introduction into the breadth of study that has just had its surface scratched. His expectation is that serious scholars will be stimulated to delve deeper—looking at the social history of ideas within the postils—by leveraging his work as a significant aid. In fact, Frymire concludes by demonstrating how such postil archival work would have thickened the attenuated study of witch-hunts that emerged in recent decades; he alludes that he will be doing this kind of research as he finishes his other two forthcoming studies on pestilence and Catholic preaching in Germany.

Diligent readers, who stay with Frymire all the way through the course of his argument, will not be disappointed by the details within this text. Rather, longsuffering will be greatly rewarded with a confident understanding that Frymire sufficiently debunks longstanding misperceptions about the Catholic and Counter-reformation; he accurately conveys the circumstances of Catholic preaching leading up to and during the German Reformation. Readers will be immersed and well versed in the interior details of the German Reformation and the pressures that attempted to counter it. This excellent monograph has immeasurable value for Reformation scholars researching in the field. As serious lay readers and pastors enjoy this intriguing narrative, they will find presuppositions about Late Medieval and Reformation Catholicism overturned.