The Convent of Wesel
The Event that Never was and the Invention of Tradition

This book solves a centuries-old mystery from the Reformation that forces us to rethink how humans engage with the past.

Jesse Spohnholz (Author)

9781316643549, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 January 2020

297 pages, 13 b/w illus. 1 map
23 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.45 kg

'By examining a series of now-obscure divines, archivists, and historians from a critical perspective that helps us understand what they saw and how they influenced later interpreters, Spohnholz convincingly shows why we must consider not only the texts of evidence from the past but also their archival trajectories if we wish to understand their meaning and deploy them as evidence ourselves.' Randolph C. Head, American Historical Review

The Convent of Wesel was long believed to be a clandestine assembly of Protestant leaders in 1568 that helped establish foundations for Reformed churches in the Dutch Republic and northwest Germany. However, Jesse Spohnholz shows that that event did not happen, but was an idea created and perpetuated by historians and record keepers since the 1600s. Appropriately, this book offers not just a fascinating snapshot of Reformation history but a reflection on the nature of historical inquiry itself. The Convent of Wesel begins with a detailed microhistory that unravels the mystery and then traces knowledge about the document at the centre of the mystery over four and a half centuries, through historical writing, archiving and centenary commemorations. Spohnholz reveals how historians can inadvertently align themselves with protagonists in the debates they study and thus replicate errors that conceal the dynamic complexity of the past.

Introduction: the mystery of the Convent of Wesel
Part I. Solving the Mystery: 1. November 3, 1568: a moment of hope
2. The author
3. The signers
4. The impact
Part II. Creating the Mystery: 5. The historical emplotment of the national Synod of Wesel, 1618–1768
6. The Synod of Wesel in the age of romantic nationalism, 1815–1868
7. The mystery of the Convent of Wesel, 1868–2000
Conclusion: inheritances.

Subject Areas: Protestantism & Protestant Churches [HRCC9], Church history [HRCC2], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]