A Bishop's Tale: Mathias Hovius Among His Flock in Seventeenth-Century Flanders

Rating:
Summary: A Portal Through Time
Review: As a layman who likes to study history, I enthusiastically give this book a rating of five stars. Many history books give broad descriptions and interpretations of trends and events. Others attempt to popularize or modernize history by interpreting old events from the perspective of the late 20th century. "The Bishop's Tale" does none of this. Instead, it virtually transports the reader back to Flanders in the late 1500s and early 1600s, treating him to a small but rich slice of history in a small but fascinating corner of Europe. The authors -- who were fortunate enough to have found one volume of an extensive journal kept by the Archbishop of Mechelen during this period -- provide us with a series of wonderfully detailed pictures of religious life in what was then known as the Spanish Netherlands. Each chapter forms a separate window through time that provides the reader with a close-up view of the goings-on surrounding a specific issue, event, or person. The common thread running through all sixteen chapters is the archbishop and his efforts to build a stable Catholic community in a turbulent time and place. The authors don't try to overly interpret events or force them to fit into some sort of grand theoretical framework, as do many academic historians. Instead, it seems that Craig Harline and Eddy Put want to directly expose the reader to history in a way that enables him to develop a good "feel" for what it must have been like to be Catholic and Flemish around 1600. I found myself wanting to read the book slowly, so that I could savor every page.

Rating:
Summary: A Portal Through Time
Review: As a layman who likes to study history, I enthusiastically give this book a rating of five stars. Many history books give broad descriptions and interpretations of trends and events. Others attempt to popularize or modernize history by interpreting old events from the perspective of the late 20th century. "The Bishop's Tale" does none of this. Instead, it virtually transports the reader back to Flanders in the late 1500s and early 1600s, treating him to a small but rich slice of history in a small but fascinating corner of Europe. The authors -- who were fortunate enough to have found one volume of an extensive journal kept by the Archbishop of Mechelen during this period -- provide us with a series of wonderfully detailed pictures of religious life in what was then known as the Spanish Netherlands. Each chapter forms a separate window through time that provides the reader with a close-up view of the goings-on surrounding a specific issue, event, or person. The common thread running through all sixteen chapters is the archbishop and his efforts to build a stable Catholic community in a turbulent time and place. The authors don't try to overly interpret events or force them to fit into some sort of grand theoretical framework, as do many academic historians. Instead, it seems that Craig Harline and Eddy Put want to directly expose the reader to history in a way that enables him to develop a good "feel" for what it must have been like to be Catholic and Flemish around 1600. I found myself wanting to read the book slowly, so that I could savor every page.

Rating:
Summary: Not entirely satisfying
Review: In the reviews I've read, this book has received nothing but praise. In many ways, this is an excellent work of academic research. The authors show sensitivity and a deep understanding of the institutional framework within which archbishop Hovius could operate. Most emphasis is put on the human and local particularities controlling the relations between an archbishop and the man and women manning the diverse strata of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The preponderance on the human side of archbishop's dealings with the people surrounding him lead to excellent small stories which are impressively placed in the wider context of the political and religious strife of early 17th century Europe. Moreover, the book is very well written. It was an easy read.

Yet, despite all the book's cleverness, I grew increasingly uncomfortable while reading. Harline and Put have written a book on religious life in late 16th/early 17th century Europe. Still, I have not read much about religion. In fact, in this book, religion comes out as a very mechanical thing. We read about cardinals, nuncios, priests, rituals, processions, pilgrimages etc. But we do not get a glimpse of what it could have meant to *be* a Christian in this particular time in history. We do not read how Hovius (could have) *lived* his religion. We get no sense at all of a religious feeling which - unlike today - must have been overly present everywhere. Instead, the narrative is littered with much misplaced irony on the nature of christianity or even religion. Harline and Put consider the Catholic Church as nothing more than a big bureaucracy. Hovius, travelling around his bishopric, is portrayed as the 16/17th century version of a district area manager of Coca Cola, trying to reach his production quota for next year, and fighting to protect his market share against competitors. The book is a product of the 21st century. It might easily be used as a leadership guideline, to be read by management consultants and managers.