The “Luther Affair” and Clerical Reformation

Primers: 1) A Synopsis of Reformation Theologies; 2) The Reformation Doctrine of Justification 

Wittenberg

Image above: “The City of Wittenberg seen from the Elbe,” drawing from the travel album of Count Palatine Ottheinrich (1536), University Library Würzburg. Image source: Wikimedia Commons. Image right: Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Martin Luther (1520), engraving, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Graph: Penitential Cycle of Medieval Catholicism
Graph: The Scheme of Human Salvation in the Teaching of Leading Reformers


I. The Doctrine of Justification: Basic Precepts

II. Clerical Audiences of the ‘Luther Affair,’ 1517-1522
A. An International Scholarly Community
B. Varieties of Conversion Experience in the First Generation

Image: Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536)
Image: Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (1486-1541)

Image: Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531)
Image: Martin Bucer (1491-1551)
Image: Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)
Image: Johannes Brenz (1499-1570)
Image: Johannes Bugenhagen (1485-1558)
Image: Matthäus Zell (1477-1548)
Image: Caspar Hedio (1494-1552)

Map: The Holy Roman Empire, 1618
Map: Electorates and Imperial Cities

Map: Protestant Confessions, ca. 1600

III. Secular Audiences: The Popular Appeal
A. Early Alliances with Civic Authorities
B. A Flood of Reform Publishing
C. Resonance with Popular Religion?

Image: Nuremberg, ca. 1493
Chart: Total Book and Pamphlet Production, 1502-1530
Chart: Luther in Print: Printed Editions of Luther's Works, 1516-1546
Chart: Top Protestant Authors, 1518-1525

Image: Titlepage of Haug Marschalck, Ein Spiegel der Blinden (1523). The image makes its point by visual contrast between two readily identifiable groups of figures. In the foreground, a blinded bishop and doctor of theology, so identified by their mitre and doctor's cap, respectively, listen to a tonsured and blindfolded preacher identified as "Scotus," i.e., Duns Scotus, the great fourteenth-century Scholastic theologian. The futility of his doctrine is indicated by the mirror he holds up. It is covered so that neither churchman can recognize himself in it; but they are blindfolded anyway. To the right, by contrast, a simple peasant exults in a vision of Christ as lord surrounded by personifications of the gospels. The message is clear: turn away from human teachings, turn toward the true word of God in scripture. The mirror is also a wordplay on the late medieval literary genre of "Mirrors," advice books for conduct in everyday life. Source: Robert W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 47.

Spiegel

Bibliography for Week 3

Major Reformers of the “First Generation”:

Martin Luther (1483-1546), Wittenberg
Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (1480-1541), Wittenberg
Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), Wittenberg
Huldrych Zwingli (1483-1531), Zürich
Matthäus Zell von Kaisersberg (1477-1548), Strasbourg
Martin Bucer (1491-1551), Strasbourg
Johannes Oecolampadius (1482-1531), Basel

More Reformation Satires:

Text and Image: The Pope Holds a Council in Germany
Text and Image: A Fitting Reward for the Most Satanic Pope and his Cardinals
Text and Image: On the Source and Origin of Monks
Text and Image: A Satire on the Papal Arms
Text and Image: On the Old and the New God / Faith / and Teaching
Text and Image: The Difference Between the True Religion of Christ and the False Idolatrous Teaching of the Antichrist


Go to Week 4