This image borrows from the devotional imagery common to the late-medieval period. In particular, it is a play on the Host Mill theme which related in visual form the complex doctrine of transubstantiation. In the traditional Host Mill, Christ is seen in the hopper of a grain mill while communion wafers emerge on the tray; or Christ is shown pouring wheat, representing the Word of God, from which a pious Christian receives the milled flour. This is the version found on a twelfth-century capital in the Basilica of Vézelay in Burgundy (below).

The image to the right adapts these ideas and images to the agenda of reform. In it, evangelical artists have placed Christ before the hopper emptying a sack of grain (the Word of God, as symbolised by Paul and the Evangelicals). The resulting flour is the Word of God, scooped up by the humanist reformer Erasmus of Rotterdam -- depicted here as an ally of nascent reform movement. It is then kneaded by Luther into books and distributed (perhaps by Zwingli). The books are offered to Catholic clergy, but they refuse them, while a creature in flight cries ‘ban, ban’ and thus makes reference to the ban that had been placed on Luther. At the centre of the image and dominating the scene is the peasant Karsthans defending the spread of the Gospel with his flail.

Image source: Peter Blickle, Gemeindereformation: Die Menschen des 16. Jahrhunderts auf dem Weg zum Heil (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1987), after 128.

Image above: The theme of the Holy Mill also appears on this twelfth-century capital in the Basilica of Vézelay in Burgundy. Photo (c) David M. Luebke, 2004.