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

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.

Jesse Spohnholz is Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Roots of Contemporary Issues Program at Washington State University. He also holds a research post at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. His books include The Tactics of Toleration: A Refugee Community in the Age of Religious Wars (2011) and (co-edited), Archaeologies of Confession: Writing Histories of Religion in Germany, 1517–2017 (forthcoming) and Exile and Religious Identity, 1500–1800 (2014). He has been awarded the Gerald Strauss Book Prize, the Fritz Stern Prize in German History and the Harold J. Grimm Prize in Reformation Studies.