Networking Europe and New Communities of Interpretation (1400–1600) ed. by Margriet Hoogvliet, Manuel F. Fernández Chaves, and Rafael M. Pérez García (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Networking Europe and New Communities of Interpretation (1400–1600) ed. by Margriet Hoogvliet, Manuel F. Fernández Chaves, and Rafael M. Pérez García
• Ines Jahudka

Hoogvliet, Margriet, Manuel F. Fernández Chaves, and Rafael M. Pérez García, eds, Networking Europe and New Communities of Interpretation (1400–1600) ( New Communities of Interpretation, 4), Turnhout, Brepols, 2023; hardcover; pp. 247; 6 b/w illustrations; RRP €75.00; ISBN 9782503606217.

Networking Europe aims to reconstruct how religious reform was transported throughout diaspora communities across Europe and the role that these informal communications had in the metamorphosis of spiritual belief throughout the medieval and early modern eras. Interestingly, the editors' goal was deliberately shifted away from intellectual or social elites, or formal religious institutions. Rather, attention is drawn to the layperson's communities of interest throughout Europe, where information was spread not so much by institutional or political [End Page 321] affiliation as by cultural, social, or commercial ties. The work also consciously moves away from existing ideological forms to describe the continuous challenges and transformations of medieval Christianity. Networking Europe 'reconstruct[s] European networks of knowledge exchange, exploring how religious ideas and strategies of transformation "travelled''' (p. 11).

Woven throughout the work is the theme of interconnectivity: the influences on the material and spiritual relationship of lay communities and new environments, new practices, and even new geographies. The volume is divided into three sections: 'European Connections' focuses on influences on lay communities, such as in Rafael M. Pérez García's contribution, which examines the influence of Northern European Christian mystical literature on sixteenth-century Spanish spiritual literature. 'Exiles, Diasporas, and Migrants' considers the relationship between diaspora communities, material or economic identities, and spiritual connectivity. Manuel F. Fernández Chaves's work centres on the establishment of Flemish institutions in Seville, whereas Ignacio García Pinilla's examines the impact of Protestantism on Spanish merchants residing in the Low Countries. Finally, 'Mobility and Merchants' investigates more material forms of interconnectivity. The relationship between book merchants, printers, and the Spanish Inquisition is addressed by Natalia Maillard Álvarez. Maillard's study moves beyond Europe to the New World, examining the Inquisition's reach into the Mexican bookselling market. Margriet Hoogvliet closes the volume with an investigation of the tangible objects of travel: itineraries, maps, and other guides to merchant and pilgrimage routes. Described by Hoogvliet as 'the tangible materialisation of connections between people over long distances' (p. 217), this chapter examines the relationship between trade, spiritual practice, and the spread of religious knowledge.

The volume does move beyond Western Europe: Miroslawa Hanusiewicz-Lavallee examines how earlier Latin martyrologies by Foxe or Crespin influenced Polish Protestant martyrologies, and how these works 'became a tool of regaining the ecclesiastical past […] and for erasing the troublesome stigma of "novelty''' (p. 58). Similarly, Marcin Polkowski's contribution discusses the social interconnectivity of lay communities in Delft, and how lay religious affiliation overlaid and intertwined with other forms of social connectivity such as craft guilds. While it is a fascinating insight into Delft printers as a vehicle for religious knowledge, I feel that the discussion of illustrations for illiterate members of the community might have been strengthened by the inclusion of some of the images in question. Finally, Vladimir Abramovic's contribution discusses life for Ragusan merchants in the Ottoman Empire. This is the only work in the volume to move beyond Christian Europe.

Networking Europe's focus on lay communities as a vehicle of change is a refreshing take on the religious and spiritual metamorphosis in the medieval and early modern eras. Unfortunately, I feel that the volume's stated goals fall slightly short in two respects. The emphasis on the male members of the lay [End Page 322] communities in question leaves the twenty-first-century reader wondering how women in these communities communicated with other female members, how these communities may have differed from those of their husbands, and how this manifested in practice. A more conscious decision to include the material productions of women would have strengthened the sense of community that the book was attempting to establish. As to the former implied criticism, despite the editors' expressed desire...