Das Zeitalter der Ambiguität. Vom Umgang mit Werten und Normen in der Frühen Neuzeit By Hillard von Thiessen. Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2021. Pp. 447. Cloth €60.00. ISBN: 978-3412521202.

Abstract

Whatwas “modern” about earlymodern Europe? The term is relatively new, dating from themidtwentieth century, before which these centuries were simply included under the heading “modern history.” The neologism implies a dividing line somewhere between the mid-eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century and was often simply abbreviated as “1789.” Some viewed the early modern period as a transitional era. Others agreed with Winfried Schulze’s view, articulated in 1983, that it was a “pattern book of modernity,” an age in which Europeans experimented with solutions to problems, thrown up largely by the Reformation, in ways which prefigured the pluralistic society that emerged in modern Europe. Increasingly, however, and partly reflecting wider growing anxieties about modernity and progress in the West, scholars have questioned these assumptions. Some point to continuities between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, even across the Reformation and all the confessional and secular changes associated with it. Others emphasise the differentness of early modern society and culture, the distinctively unmodern character of its culture, thought, and practice. Hillard von Thiessen believes that the debate has become rather sterile. He favours the new approaches of cultural historians but suggests that their suspicion of master narratives prevents them from using their research to see the bigger picture. His new book suggests an approach which takes account of all recent “turns” and offers an overall view of the period. It is, he emphasises, not a new comprehensive account of early modern European history but a possible way of approaching that history which captures its distinctive character. Instead of starting with the realm of political and military decision-making or with the overarching structures which conditioned the lives of individuals, von Thiessen wants to view history from the perspective of those individuals themselves. Their lives were hedged about with norms (rules) and values (ideals). How did they deal with them and how did their perceptions and reactions contribute to the process of historical change? Variations of social status, gender, age, or profession, among other factors, ensured a huge variety of responses and modes of behaviour, some conformist, others antagonistic. Norms often conflicted with values. This generated uncertainty, which individuals had to negotiate. According to von Thiessen, the willingness and ability of individuals to engage with the contradictions of their time, the ability to live with and accept ambiguity, is the true characteristic of early modern society. This bold thesis is elaborated in two stages, starting with an outline of the development of three kinds of norms in Western society after the fifteenth century. Firstly, the various late medieval church reform movements aimed to establish norms of belief and Christian behaviour. The Reformation resulted in the failure to reform the universal church. Instead, the aspiration to create such norms fuelled the development of discrete confessions, each of which ultimately sought to impose its own version of Christian discipline on its members. At the same time,