Heiko Augustinus Oberman, a personal recollection

by Susan C. Karant-Nunn, American Cusanus Society Newsletter 18, no. 1, June 2001


   Like Einhard in relation to Charlemagne, I knew Heiko only after his hair (and mine) had turned white.  Although I met him at a conference at the German Historical Institute in London in 1978, when my locks were still merely grey, I did not encounter him again until 1990.  In the meantime, he had turned out another eleven books not counting translations—and I a mere three.  He was the world-renowned master of late medieval and Reformation theology and I an archival seeker of social and cultural patterns.  I did not dream that ever our professional paths should seriously cross, nor, sure did he.
   Owing to his continual reassessment of his own work within the context of evolving Reformation and early modern historiography—in itself an uncommon virtue—Heiko determined in 1997 that the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies at The University of Arizona, of which he was the founder, needed the balance of a colleague who approached the Reformation from a perspective that he was aware of but did not always share.  By this time, and indeed, as he thought, some years before, he had taken up the quest for the "social history of ideas."  Heiko was not a humble man and considered himself perfectly capable of conveying to students late medieval thinkers' interaction with their earthly milieu.  Yet, to do so was not his first interest.  In addition, he was a paramount academic strategist: as he grew older and considered the Division's profile and future, he thought well of having a colleague with a different speciality join him.  He persuaded the dean and the Department of History of this.
   With some apprehension, I joined the Division and the History Department in January 1999.  To work closely with a brilliant, self-confident person is not always easy, and I was uncertain of the outcome.  Our cooperation turned out to be fully an exchange.  Heiko enjoined me to express my opinions in all our consultations.  He was invariably solicitous of my views, listening carefully.  Often after hearing me, he modified the position or the approach that he had intended to take.  And I, who had had occasion to see him tower forcefully over others, gained an awareness of the gentler, more flexible persona of the man.
   Heiko demanded concerted effort from his students.  Among much else, they had to develop real expertise in Latin.  In return, he dedicated many hours every week to conferring with each individual, often outside on a blue bench, where he could smoke.  He regularly held early-morning translation sessions in his office.  The volume of paper that flowed across his desk, from his pen as well merely under his gaze, was legendary: he said that he read "obliquely."  Doctoral students quickly received their papers back with interlinear spaces and margins densely annotated.  Heiko said that the true scholar did not take vacations.  I encouraged our students to pay him no mind but to get away from time to time.
   Every summer, Heiko held one of his famous Ekeby seminars at his family home in Holten, The Netherlands.  Every student engaged in dissertation research in Europe gathered there for two or three memorable days of intense scrutiny.  Still there was time for soccer.  If Toetie Oberman was not present, Heiko himself did the cooking—which, by general agreement, left something to be desired.
   Heiko Oberman was more than an energetic, creative thinker.  His original expressions, influenced by his native Dutch, dug the furrows of the English language deeply, turning up unsuspected turf.  His personal charisma attracted friends and riveted audiences wherever he went.  Surely his devotion to his students enabled him, just four days before his death, to preside at a dissertation defense.  Only after that could he give up his spirit, without regret, gladly.

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