The Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, Vol. 1: 1507–1523.

Laila Abdalla is an associate professor of English at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, and former professor at McGill University.

Wolfgang Capito (1478–1541), an important figure of the Reformation, first matriculated from university in 1501. By 1515 he had a BA, an MA, and a licence and doctorate in theology. He served as a Dean of the Faculty of Arts and lectured in divinity at various universities. Thus Capito was an intellectual and spiritual man who was active in both academia and the Church during the turbulent nascent years of the Reformation. While the Catholic Church began to fracture, and humanism began to emphasize individualism, the new religion was attempting to determine a more coherent sense of self by resolving the contradictions resident within its doctrines and between its proponents. As a result, the Protestant institution was engaged in polemical debates within its own halls as well as outside of them. Capito, captivated by the emancipatory promises of Protestantism but also a profound Catholic, participated in these conversations. Even by 1523, a watershed year for the Reformation, Capito reveals conflicts over whether he considers himself Catholic or Protestant.

Erika Rummel’s text, the first of an intended three volumes, is an annotated collection of letters written by and to Capito between 1507 and 1523, i.e. during the important early period of the Reformation. Translator and editor Rummel offers all of Capito’s correspondence, though some she summarizes and others she condenses. Her footnotes provide context, explanation, and further reference information.

What Rummel discovers is that Capito was a moderate and conflicted Reformer, engaged in facing his own conscience, tempering the satire of such critics as Erasmus, and fending the hostility aimed at him personally and at Catholicism generally by such leading personages as Luther. Capito, as the excellent introduction reveals, was by nature acquiescent to authority yet battled this predisposition in order to define and uphold “true faith.” His critiques therefore eschew the sarcastic vehemence and self-righteous justification of someone like Luther. Rummel’s introduction serves to offer insights into Capito’s nature and concerns, and as such it forms an excellent focus point for a non-Reformation scholar or one unable to analyze the whole correspondence.