Reformation and Counter-Reformation Period in Northern Europe

REFLECTION PAPER
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Reflection Paper
The article "The Southern Indian "Devil in Calicut" in Early Modern Northern Europe: Images, Texts and Objects in Motion" by Jennifer Spinks explores the popularization of the Hindu idol, and so-called demon referred to as the "devil in Calicut" as it relates to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation period in northern Europe. Her article argues that European visitors misappropriated the visual and material culture of Hinduism in Southern India to reflect the devil during a time of significant religious changes in Europe. As a consequence of the great importance attached to the heresy of non-Europeans, the distinctive idol in Calicut assumed an idiosyncratic presence in northern European print culture as an embodiment of the town and its people. On the whole, Spinks writes the article as an expert on the subject and employs a descriptive text structure to organize and present her arguments. She also maintains an objective attitude toward the subject. She appears to have written the text with the primary purpose of giving an account of the devil imagery in northern Europe that typified the town of Calicut.
The author narrates how the Portuguese first arrived in Calicut expecting to find Christians in the region, only to find doubtful images of Hindu gods. Their misinterpretation of the local religious customs of Southern India resulted in new narratives of the monstrous and demonic framed within the context of religion. The devil imagery of Calicut provided rich material for the divisive sixteenth-century reformations, particularly among the Protestants who relied on the graphic power of the devil of Calicut to vilify their opponents (the Pope and Christian Catholic) as heretics. Descriptions and images of the frightening devil in Calicut helped give the Christian devil a newly invigorated presence. They also predated the start of the Reformation and were therefore attracted to Protestants in the increasingly sermonized world of late sixteenth-century Europe. European prejudices and expectations continued to shape representation and reinventions of the devil in print, which would then be used for a specific objective in northern European contexts. This tendency by Europeans to misinterpret Indian local deities and draw upon their own cultures continued even after the Dutch settled in Southern India.
I found Spink's argument convincing in that she not only provides a descriptive account of the origins of the devil imagery but also how it found application in northern European. She attaches visual evidence of how imaginin...