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Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-Century Germany

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David Blackbourn used the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Marpingen in Nineteenth-Century Germany to illustrate the tensions and issues raised by modernity in the interplay between the establishment and locality.

The advent of apparitions in late nineteenth century was coterminous with the creation of the modern states and industrialization. Located along the French border and without a history of political continuity, 1870s Marpingen experienced both agricultural crises and political repression in a largely Catholic region. With the steady closing of communal woodland and losing a substantial number of men to working as `miner-peasant,' the region underwent a `social transformation that created anxieties and uncertainty.' `In the majority of the cases, the seers were children or women' due to their `dependent or outsider status, as much as sheer poverty' and susceptibility to `emotional vulnerability resulting from bereavement or fractured family circumstances.' Hence, `the drama of the apparition offered a veiled means of protest against real or imagined ill-treatment' and in `one message the Virgin in fact spoke directly to this material distress.'

The popular support of the apparitions revealed a camaraderie, shaped largely by the common experiences of political repression, economic distress and the intense hope to attain `a degree of emancipation from their daily life.' Of the three girls who saw the apparitions in Hartelwald, Margarentha Kunz was singled out as the leader and that state investigation revealed `a remarkably lacking in intensity or a sense of rapture. Drawing on half-remembered fragments from books or catechism classes, prompted by parents and other adults the girls talked conventionally about the beauty of the Blessed Virgin. The overriding impression is one of fragmented descriptions lacking any real center.' Blackbourn found that `that the visionaries' stories were shaped by others, as new suggestions were made, the seers incorporated them into their accounts.' `The community closed ranks, refused to accept the imposition of no-go areas, refused to cooperate with the legal investigation... refusal to accept the moral authority of gendarmes' - another reason for the support of the apparition was the increased commercial activities from pilgrims.

State power was limited both in its application and judicial recourse as Blackbourn noted the exceptional degree of force employed by the state against the Marpingen relative to other apparition sites (one reason was that the loyalty of the border population remained a source of anxiety). Application of the kulturkampf at the localities met with stiff opposition: `At the lowest level of the hierarchy, among local communal and village officials such as rural mayors, village Ortsvorsteher, teachers, tax collectors, magistrates, watchmen, etc, such men sided with the clergy and popular Catholic sentiment' and `withheld their co-operation as far as possible.' The collective amnesia exhibited during the trials was a testament to a countervailing solidarity among the repressed. Furthermore, the legal judgments against the state reflected the achievements of the liberals post 1850s. The concept of the Prussian-German Rechsstaat enforced a `genuine barriers to arbitrary , unpredictable and non-accountable administrative action.'

The liberals' anathema to Catholicism and support of kulturkampf marked a curious willingness to use repression for the sake of `peace, security, and the entire state order' and presaged their loss of influence in subsequent decades. The apparition was a `medieval excrescence' and `kulturkampf was materialist, technological, and scientific: the culture of the railway, the agricultural field station, the brave new world of Progress.' The liberals perceived modernity as a `battle of faith against reason and superstition against science,' a cold, calculating dogma that left no sympathy for the peasants' passive resistance to the state - a complete bouleversement given the liberals' own experience with repression.

By disrupting the Catholic Church's chain of command, one unintended consequence of the kulturkampf was allowing the local parish priest, Father Neureuter, to assume an unusually large degree of influence over the development of the apparitions, and his actions `lent legitimacy to the apparitions.' Although, the Catholic Church did not have the ability to launch a formal canonical enquiry, Kunz's confession and evidence of apparitions of the diabolical type invalidated its authenticity. Yet, fearful of running `counter to popular religious sentiment and have the appearance of a betrayal,' later church officials, like the Center Party of the 70s, adopted the policy of benign neglect. Blackbourn theorized that Bishop Korum deemed Kunz's confession as `unsuitable for public consumption.' As the region became prosperous during the second half of the twentieth century, the demand for the church to consecrate the chapel built in Hartelwald to commemorate the apparitions waned, marking `the passing of the village imagination.'

The narrative indicated that the debate on Marpingen in the parliament marked the sunset of kulturkampf as Bismarck was also in the process to broker new alliances. I would like to know to what extent did Marpingen influence Bismarck's views. Also, the book's conclusion recap the entire book summarizing the main themes, which helped a lot with understanding the salient issues.

This book was written by a professor, for a group of professors. Material on the Marpingen apparitions is hard to come by, and so I was grateful to find this. However the "scholarly" treatment makes it a difficult read. Framing the visions within the context of the geographical area and time is very enlightening, however the language and "perspective" reflect those found in textbooks. The author's own religious denomination is also seen to influence his opinions intensely, and therefore the whole work is a little "slanted". Overall, it's very good, if a little difficult to wade through.