Review Author(s): J. B. Owens Review by: J. B. Owens Source: The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring, 1981), pp. 116-117 Published by: Sixteenth Century Journal Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3003725 Accessed: 07-06-2016 16:25 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms
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116 The Sixteenth Century Journal
Murcia en la centuria del quinientos. Francisco Chac6n Jim~nez. Murcia, Spain: Universidad de Murcia, Academia Alfonso X el Sabio, 1979. 534 pp. 1,200 ptas. Chac6n's book is important and belongs in any library with collections devoted to
either early modern economic and social history or to Spain and the Mediterranean. He
adopted the so-called French model of urban history (and in particular Bennassar's classic Valladolid au siecle d'or [Paris, 1967]), and like others of this genre, the work's great strengths are demographic and economic analysis.
Concentrating on the reign of Philip II, the book portrays Murcia as a city whose
economic buoyancy survived well into the 17th century untouched by the general Castilian crisis of the 1590s, and Chac6n thus modifys our view of that period. As this prosperity was based on the export of raw silk, white mulberry trees covered almost half of the arable land around the city. Necessary water in this dry, southeastern region was provided by an elaborate irrigation system which, unlike the Valencian situation de-
scribed by Thomas F. Glick (Irrigation and Society in Medieval Valencia [Cambridge, Mass., 1970), was firmly controlled by the city council. Since so much of the available land was devoted to mulberry trees, the council also had to be concerned perpetually with importing food and with the high cost of living in Murcia. Chac6n has carefully
sifted the available evidence about capital investments, population, trade routes, prices, and production to show how this sophisticated Murcian economy worked in the 16th century.
Had the author concluded his book at this point, a reviewer might have made only minor criticisms. Yet despite signs of Murcia's economic health, Chac6n was dissatisfied with Murcia's leaders because they did not invest in the development of a silk textile industry which he felt would have been profitable given the city's large service sector (about 29% of the active population) as a potential market. Although his analysis of the subject is frequently unclear, Chac6n attributed the lack of industrial investment to values and "mental schemes" drawn from aristocratic ideals which prescribed other routes to honor and fortune besides those of production and commerce. Feeling that politics and culture are important for any genuine understanding of
Murcia's socio-economic problems in particular and Spain's history in general, Chac6n
proposed to treate his subject from a holistic perspective. "Total history, " interdisciplinary history of the sort described in the book's introduction may indeed be possible, but it surely requires the same careful attention to all aspects of human existence which in this volume the author lavished only on demographic and economic questions.
Despite the importance he gave to cultural perspectives as a general cause, like the scholars he used for models, Chac6n lacked a familiarity with the ways relationships between normative values and social action can be explored equal to his understanding of demography and economics. He even failed to go as far as his teachers, giving only 22% of his book to discussions of culture, social relations, and government while Bennassar
devoted 35% to these matters. And serious errors abound, like Chac6n's contention that jurados voted during city council business meetings and an inability to distinguish between special situations and normal council practice. For his example of how city government typically worked, he picked the most atypical period of 1556 to 1571 when Murcia had to deal with a serious plague, the Inquisition attacked the local oligarchy,
and the moriscos revolted in nearby Granada.
There is not space here to outline what Murcia's elite was really like, but suffice it to say that Chac6n's detailed and accurate discussion of economic affairs provides more than enough evidence to show that we are not confronted here by any "treason" of the
bourgeoisie. Rather than ignore production and commerce for hunting, military exercises, or idleness, the patricians carefully tended their investments. From a 20th cen-
tury regionalist viewpoint, Murcia's lack of a silk textile industry may look unfor-
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Book Reviews 117
tunate; from the perspective of 16th century Murcians with liquid capital, diverting investment into local industry would have looked like a foolish adventure compared with the returns on agricultural production. Agricultural rents increased almost tenfold from 1560 to 1590, skilled labor was chronically in short supply, and any attempt to enter textile production would have threatened the stability of Toledo's industry whose consumption of Murcian raw silk would still have had to cover the costs of imported food until Murcia could export enough of her own finished products. One suspects that the model life style which encouraged continued investment in agricultural production was not that of Castilian aristocrats but of the great Genoese capitalists in whose orbit Murcian businessmen operated.
J.B. Owens Idaho State University Die Taufe in den vorcanisianischen Katholischen Katechismen des 16. Jahrhunderts im deutschen Sprachgebiet. Winfried Glade. Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica Vol. XXVII. Nieuwkop: B. de Graaf, 1979. xxviii + 380 pp. n.p. In this volume the author has analyzed with considerable care the theology and practice of baptism as reflected in Catholic catechisms from Erasmus to the Council of Trent. He cites the works of eighteen authors among whom are the well-known Georg
Witzel, Judocus Clichtoveus, Gasparo Contarini, and Johann Fabri. Glade begins with a brief section on historical and systematic background to his investigation, and then introduces the authors and their works which form the basis of
the investigation. The main part of the book is the analysis of baptism in the catechisms.
Several points attracted the attention of this reviewer. First there is a surprisingly low level of polemic in these writings. This is surely partly because they were designed to build faith rather than to defend it. Glade also explains that relationships in general between Catholic and Protestant had not yet been thoroughly poisoned. A number of the catechisms analyzed reveal acquaintance with and use of Luther's writings. What is especially attractive about these works is their simplicity and direct-
ness and their avoidance of complicated philosophical arguments.
Second, it would be very interesting and informative to compare the theology of baptism found in these catechisms with contemporary writing on baptism by Anabaptist writers. While there were obvious and notable differences, a careful comparison would also reveal some remarkable similarities. Many of the quotations offered by Glade on Baptism as dying with Christ, living the new life, and growth in godliness could have been written by Anabaptists like Balthasar Hubmaier, Peter Rideman, Pilgram Marpeck, and Menno Simons. If Glade had been familiar with Roland Armour's A nabaptist Baptism and Christoph Windhorst's Tauferisches Taufverstandnis he would have noticed these substantive similarities. The organization of the material presents some difficulties, producing consider-
able repetition. Alternatively, the table of contents is so detailed that a subject index was not really necessary.
The book provides a good view into Roman Catholic theology in the pre-Trent
period and in the context of the developing schism. It helps to correct the stereotyped view that the Glaubensspaltung was completed at least by 1530. There is evidence here
that it was not so perceived even by Catholic leaders in Germany. The work also demonstrates the continuing influence of humanism in the Catholic tradition after it had parted ways with Protestantism.
Walter Klaassen Conrad Grebel College, Waterloo, Ontario
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