Liturgy, Politics, and Salvation: The Catholic League in Paris and the Nature of Catholic Reform, 1540-1630 [Hardcover]

Ann W. Ramsey (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1580460313 | ISBN-13: 978-1580460316 | Publication Date: January 2000

Liturgy, Politics, and Salvation analyzes the contest between the Catholic League and the sovereign authority of the French crown in the middle to late sixteenth century, as a clash between three very different existential positions on the proper relations between the sacred and the profane. This was a debate between Huguenots, Politiques, and the zealous Catholic Leaguers, which frequently led to open conflict, violence, and an undermining of the supremacy of the French state. This book provides a much-needed examination of the role of the Catholic League in the Counter-Reformation of France and how this influence can still be felt today in French politics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An important book, highly innovative in its methodology and research...It reaches important conclusions in its own right as well as pointing the way to further research on the Catholic League and Catholic reform. CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW(This book's) conclusions and sophisticated methodology make it important for all those interested in the religious changes of early modern France. AHRRamsey offers a wealth of information. Her mircoportraits of testators are fascinating. She hopes that her investigation will foster further research into the field that she has mined, and it surely will. 16C. JNLRamsey has opened a window on a fascinating world...which has hitherto been inaccessible to us. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY

Product Details

• Hardcover: 254 pages
• Publisher: University of Rochester Press (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580460313
• ISBN-13: 978-1580460316
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,908,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE ETHNIC HISTORY, March 13, 2007

By 

John M. Grondelski (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Polish Singers Alliance of America 1888-1998 : Choral Patriotism (Rochester Studies in Central Europe) (Hardcover)

my review from the POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL:
The struggle for Poland, during the 123 years between the Third Partition in 1795 and her recovery of independence in 1918, was fought not just with bullets but with song. Prussia, Russia and Austria did not just seek Poland's political extermination. They also strove to eliminate Polish identity by attacking her language and culture. Poles were not just to feel they were a subject people under the boot of a foreign empire; they were to stop feeling like Poles. Keeping Polish identity and culture alive, therefore, was in some ways even more important than such failed military uprisings as 1830 and 1861.

That's why Polish choral groups began springing up in 19th century occupied Poland, starting first with the Prussian Partition. That's why Prussian police kept such a close eye on choral rehearsals. That's why, in the Russian Partition, Czarist censors forbade the use of the word "Polish" to describe the music the choirs sang. Until 1905, choirs could only sing "folk" (ludowa) or "domestic" (domowa) music.

The Polish Singers Alliance of America (PSAA), established in Chicago in 1889, had a similar raison d'etre to its Polish counterparts. Founders Antoni and Konstanty Mallek were not rarefied aesthetes, though they had sophisticated tastes. The PSAA did not promote ars gratis artis, but existed to "'fire . . . young hearts, awaken . . . in them a love of God and Fatherland, and a love of people and brothers and sisters . . . " (p. 26).

The PSAA would keep Poles Polish through music. 19th century America also posed challenges for Poles. Assimilation was a powerful force, and Poles had come here voluntarily. 19th century immigrants often had only a rudimentary education, with limited contact with Polish "high" culture. The job of creating, on foreign soil, a Polish national consciousness among Galicians, Mazovians, and Pomeranian peasants would be no mean feat. It was a challenge to which the PSAA rose.

There were, of course, musical outlets in church choirs, but the PSAA represented something different. It sought to cultivate the Polish secular music tradition. Blejwas called the PSAA an "ideological organization" because, unlike the fraternals, it was never a money-making business but rather an institution driven by its ideal.

Through ten chapters, the author chronicles the PSAA's history from its origins through the late 1990s. (M.B. Biskupski's "Forward" seeks to provide information on the most recent developments in the institution). The PSAA's history mirrors the history of many Polonian institutions: internal schisms resulting in organizational breakup; prolonged incumbencies and "leaders" who did not know when to leave; chronic underfunding; and the viccissitudes of change within Polonia caused by assimilation, loss of Polish language ability, and demographic change.

Blejwas tells the story of division and reconciliation; adaptation in the second and subsequent generations; the impact of war; dilemmas of cultural cooperation with Communist Poland, a state nominally free but hardly free in the sense Polonia understood that word; and changes within Polonia that have left PSAA membership largely static for decades. Blejwas always situates the history of the PSAA against the backdrop of the history of American Polonia as well as of key events in Poland. The author shows the deft hand of a professional historian, always aware of proportion and perspective. His style is that of a writer one wants to read.

The actual narrative history of the PSAA runs 185 pages. The book is rounded out with 52 black and white illustrations and lots of supplementary information such as lists of national officers, member choirs (including children's choirs), honorary members, and songs used in winning repertoires at national convention competitions. There is a section of brief biographies of select PSAA figures as well as impressive notes and bibliography.

This was Blejwas' last book, completed just before his death in 2001. Happily, it has finally seen the light of day. Numerous sponsors apparently subvened this work, although it still totes a hefty pricetag. It fills the need for a contemporary history of one of Polonia's smaller, albeit important national organizations. The book shows what a loss American Polonia suffered with the passing of Stan Blejwas. Recommended.