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[...]even the least devout crowded into church and cathedral to partake of the mass on these occasions. Holy Mother Church had decreed that, just as one was in spiritual contact with deity or saint through an image, by a gaze of veneration, so it was sufficient for the communicant to make mere eye-contact with the host, either during the procession or the host's elevation in the mass. [...]simple Christians were programmed to believe something spiritual transpired through eye-contact with a holy object.10 This act, called "veneration," was understood by members of the printers' guilds who were, up to that time, faithful sons of Mother Church. Why did the Catholic proponents allow themselves to be at such a great disadvantage in addressing the common people? Because it was a fundamental principle of the Roman Church that questions pertaining to doctrine should not be addressed to, nor aired before, the laity.17 At best, it was thought that doing so would confuse them; at worst, it would embroil them in theological issues of which they had no knowledge. The papacy, having denuded its own estates in Italy of capital resources, was looking further abroad for resources for 'Peter's pence." Because the territories of England, Spain and France were more or less consolidated under strong monarchical governments, they were able to control, and frequently appoint, the prelates in their territorial dioceses.20 Since such power provoked loyalty to those monarchs, Pope Leo X was eyeing the fragmented, only occasionally confederated princedoms of the Germanic states as potential sources of greater income.
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On New Millennium's Eve 2000, the History Channel aired a special "countdown" of the one hundred people who had made the most significant contributions to the preceding millennium. Johannes Gutenberg was declared number one for his invention of the moveable-type printing press in 1455. Suddenly, written communication was widely available and relatively inexpensive to produce, compared to hand-copied manuscripts. This invention came into being at the very dawn of what Robert Bireley calls "the long sixteenth century," that he avers began in 1450 and lasted until 1700.1 It is very likely, in fact, that it was the innovation of the printing press itself that birthed that long century.
Call it the influence of Holy Mother Church, or call it the insecurities of life, but with all levels of society being accosted by plagues, wars, economic breakdown and peasant unrest, the atmosphere at the nexus of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was charged with religiosity. If one wrote a treatise-(even a scientific one, as Galileo learned, to his dismay)-or created a work of art, or composed a ballad, religious themes predominated.2
The entrepreneurs of the burgeoning new printing industry were poised to exploit this atmosphere of religiosity. Printers were in business to make money.3 That meant, in the simplest terms, exploiting whatever market there was for their product. The guilds understood that religion, and its reform, was the milieu to be exploited. This is not to say that they lacked religious integrity. There had been movements advocating reform within the church for centuries. These movements were reaching a crescendo with the dissatisfaction and insecurity of life in their world. As part of the newly-emerging middle class of artisans, the printers were ready to join the impetus to reform, sensing the need for changing societal structures that supported the economically-stifling status quo. Primary among these structures was the Catholic Church with its vested interests in preserving not only the faith, but also its own system of ecclesiastical control and monetary support.4
In aiding this movement for reform, the printers' guilds not only rode the wave, but created the crest that carried it forward to a successful denouement across the entire long century. Just as in the after-effects of a tidal wave, the religious landscape of western Europe was ineluctably altered by the end of that century, thanks in large part not only to the reformers, but to those printers who, according to Richard Marius, were not above creating the crises that kept the momentum going, once a certain Augustinian monk provided the initial impetus.5 Within less than half a century after its invention, printing presses were already operating in two hundred cities across Europe. By 1520 they had become what Mark Edwards calls the "nerve centers of the evangelical media campaign."6
Previous to the inception of moveable-type printing, treatises were published in the form of treasured manuscripts, meticulously copied by devoted monks in the scriptoria of monasteries, and by the industrious efforts of the Brethren of the Common Life.7 They were almost exclusively written in Latin, the lingua franca of the Holy Roman Empire. Valuable beyond price, they were harbored in the libraries of the princes and prelates, and in the monasteries in which they were produced. They were the possession and the purview of scholars. What the common people know of their contents was pre-digested and fed to them in sermons and catechetical requirements for confirmation.
One reason the invention of printing has been deemed as the greatest watershed of the recent millennia is because it actually changed, not only the landscape of Europe, but the complexion of communication itself. By the time printing had appeared on the scene, the endemic exigencies of life, and widespread ignorance of the devout made them vulnerable to a variety of expressions of religiosity that Holy Mother Church alternately abhorred and exploited, depending upon its own needs.8 The cost of wars, construction projects, expansion of the curia, and impoverishment of the papal estates in Italy, made the Church considerably more tolerant of those who promoted pilgrimages and pandered to the superstitious for whom veneration of shrines and relics promised some relief from the pains of purgatory, for both the quick and the dead. These had become the means of penance for a price. And at that particular time in history, the Church waited in the wings to prompt the "indulgence" promoters in the hawking of their wares.9 We need not recapitulate the excesses that prepared the ground for reformation, except for one particular element which has been largely overlooked.
Today we make jokes about the "C-E" Christians who attend worship twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. However, in the fifteen hundreds, the staffing of sees by simony had led to such a state of pluralism and absenteeism of the "curates of souls" in many local parishes, that one was assured of being a Catholic in good standing if one merely paid the tithe, confessed, and received communion three times a year: Christmas, Easter and Whitsunday. These holy feast days were the trivium on which the church year was balanced. Consequently, even the least devout crowded into church and cathedral to partake of the mass on these occasions.
Realistically, even though the Eucharist was at that time served only in one kind, it was simply impossible for every communicant to be served. Holy Mother Church had decreed that, just as one was in spiritual contact with deity or saint through an image, by a gaze of veneration, so it was sufficient for the communicant to make mere eye-contact with the host, either during the procession or the host's elevation in the mass. Thus, simple Christians were programmed to believe something spiritual transpired through eye-contact with a holy object.10 This act, called "veneration," was understood by members of the printers' guilds who were, up to that time, faithful sons of Mother Church.
Whereas by the early sixteenth century literacy in the cities approached thirty percent, it remained at a constant five percent in rural areas, giving an over-all literacy rate of about ten percent of the population. But people did not have to read to be able to understand the lessons, and be affected by the messages, of the printed imagery. It was for this reason, Charles Talbot has pointed out, that the printing of woodcut images on broadsheets had become so popular.11 For a few pfennigs a person who could not read could purchase a virtual textbook of devotion such as "The Image of Piety," as depicted in Figure 1.12
One could hold this in one's hand and venerate the image. One could study the mnemonic iconography in the border to meditate on the passion of the Lord. A parent could use it to recreate the story to instruct children beyond what they received as catechumens. Devotional imagery such as this permeated preGutenberg society, and grew in popularity with the new ability to add a few basic words and reproduce them cheaply.13
This type of material produced by the reformers intentionally targeted, not only the magistrates in their castles and burghers on the town councils, but the "simple folk," as Luther called them. This is what Edwards' analysis of the record of the printers indicates: Of six thousand editions published by the reformers alone between 1520 and 1526, if each printing consisted of an average of one thousand copies, well over six million individual works were disseminated among the populace during the years following Luther's initial presentation of his ninety-five theses. Between 1526 and 1530, five hundred more editions were produced.4 Ten thousand individual pamphlet titles produced by 1550 have been catalogued, and ninety percent of this material, unlike that locked in the libraries, was in the vernacular.15
Edward reports that Martin Luther and his supporters were responsible for 1,800 printings during the years between 1520-1525, one-third of which were Luther's own sermons. In the next five years, Lutherans alone were responsible for five hundred more printings. How prolific was this "media campaign" by the reformers? Of Edwards' sampling of nearly three thousand editions, Luther had authored 65%. The reformer closest to him in production was Andreas Karlstadt, with 51/2%. Following him, Ulrich Zwingli and Philip Melanchthon produced 3% each, and Martin Bucer issued a total of seven items.16
Catholic presses were not idle during these challenging years, but Protestant publications outnumbered theirs 5:1. Furthermore, whereas 85% of Protestant tracts were issued in the vernacular, 85% of those authored by Catholics were in Latin. Why did the Catholic proponents allow themselves to be at such a great disadvantage in addressing the common people? Because it was a fundamental principle of the Roman Church that questions pertaining to doctrine should not be addressed to, nor aired before, the laity.17 At best, it was thought that doing so would confuse them; at worst, it would embroil them in theological issues of which they had no knowledge. This stance of the Church, as we shall see, worked to the great advantage of the reformers, and Luther fully intended to capitalize on it in what became a sixteenth-century propaganda campaign.
Prior to 1520, Luther had already developed a reputation as an author of sermons and devotional literature.18 He was no ordinary Augustinian monk. He had earned his Doctorate in Theology at Erfurt University in 1512, and was one of those who filled the vacuum of absentee parish priests by regularly filling pulpits. Such was his reputation for scholarship that he was courted by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, to be Professor of Biblical Literature at his newly-established university at Wittenberg." This is not the place to retell Luther's struggle with the discrepancy between what he read in Holy Writ and the excesses he saw being committed by the Church. The result of such exploitation by the Church, however, was that the atmosphere in Electoral Saxony was quite conducive to an attitude of protestation, because of the vulnerability of German principalities to papal demands for monetary resources.
The papacy, having denuded its own estates in Italy of capital resources, was looking further abroad for resources for 'Peter's pence." Because the territories of England, Spain and France were more or less consolidated under strong monarchical governments, they were able to control, and frequently appoint, the prelates in their territorial dioceses.20 Since such power provoked loyalty to those monarchs, Pope Leo X was eyeing the fragmented, only occasionally confederated princedoms of the Germanic states as potential sources of greater income. Frederick of Saxony was not the only German prince aware of the prospect of such incursions, but he had a keen-edged weapon in his arsenal: the wit and verve and unabashed boldness of Dr. Martin Luther. Frederick was a pious man, but such piety, Dr. Luther reminded him, was meant by God to be exercised in conjunction with his authority as a Christian magistrate on behalf of the people, the territory, and even the church, entrusted to him by the Lord.21
By 1520, the threat of papal intrusion into Germany, and Luther's articulation of the God-given role of Christian princes, found expression in the publication of three treatises by which Luther crossed his Rubicon: On the Papacy at Rome, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, all published that year, marked him, not as a pious protester or debating scholar, which he intended his theses should represent, but as a declared reformer of the Roman Church.22 Having stated his position and taken his stand, he now had only two choices; capitulate or propagate. His choice of the latter has been preserved for us in his ensuing media campaign, which we shall explore briefly.
The word "propaganda" can contain almost any meaning with which one cares to fill it. We are not referring here to the type of literature promulgated by the Catholic Church in its 1622 Sacra Congregatio de Propaaganda Fide, that provided for the training and supervision of missionary activity.23 For our purposes, we will use Edwards' rather succinct definition: "persuasive literature that attempted to redefine a major institution in its social world."24 In the case under consideration, the institution was the western Christian Church and its beliefs. The goals of a media campaign, as stipulated by Scribner and Watt, are simply: "To win and spread allegiance to the evangelical message by transmitting the message in clear, assimilable form by breaking down old patterns of thoughts and values and creating powerful symbols of attachment to the new movement by integrating them into the new symbolic universe" of the target audience.25
Who comprised the "target audience" of the evangelical propaganda campaign? Not the already converted, or the firmly committed, but the dissatisfied, the questioning, the uncertain. And those who had no investment in the status quo, i.e., the artisans, ordinary citizens and peasantry-the common people of sixteenth-century society. The early sixteenth century knew many who were dissatisfied, questioning and uncertain, having little or no investment in the status quo, especially in light of the impending "fleecing" by the pope.26
The process by which the media campaign was carried out was carefully calculated and intentionally focused to exploit what Scribner calls "the rhetoric of the image" with its power of instruction. In the words of Luther, "above all for the sake of children and simple folk who are far more easily moved by pictures and images to recall divine history than through mere words or doctrines."27 A deliberate attempt was made to influence people's opinions and actions by providing access, not to what they believed, but to what the propagandist would have them believe, by exploiting their fears and anxieties.28 The early sixteenth century was rife with fears and anxieties! This exploitation was carried out by the creation of iconographic symbols, by reducing complex issues to simple terms vis-a-vis the use of stereotypes meaningful to the target audience, and then, by connecting those icons to identifiable commonplaces or themes.29
Every culture has its "commonplaces' which are readily identifiable to its citizens. In Luther's culture, for example, a three-tiered crown represented the papacy, whether it was shown on the head of a man or a beast. A simple hoe or flail represented the peasantry, a sword a knight, a flat-brimmed hat a cardinal, and a paper with ribbons attached meant an indulgence. The wood-cuts of devotional literature provided the simple folk with a broad repertoire of such easilyrecognizable icons, so even those who could not read words could read the implications of illustrations of body language, commonplace images, and icons.
The final step, then, was simply to direct the audience to a desired interpretation in terms of popular beliefs. Figures 2 and 3 demonstrate this. Figure 2 is a "portrait" of Luther, conveying not just his appearance as a man, but symbols which promote an image of the person.30 The tonsure plus the Bible in his hands meant, "this is the good kind of monk who preaches the word, and therefore is not a subject for anticlerical attitudes." The robe implies a scholar, the most highlyrespected group in society. The dove represents the Holy Spirit by whom his writings are understood to be inspired; and the nimbus of light around his head bespeaks a holy status reserved only for saints and biblical characters.31
In contrast, Figure 3 represents the Catholic response, attempting to use the same tactics.32 It presents Luther in a priest's cap to elicit anticlerical sentiment, and while showing him with one hand on the Bible, the other is firm-fly grasped by the claw of Satan, as a little demon whispers in his ear. One need not be literate to be able to comprehend the message. But for those who could read, the words "Luther and Lucifer, a harmonious relationship" remove all doubt as to the meaning.33
The Catholic response to Luther's challenge was largely reactive, and decidedly defensive, since it was against their principles, as stated above, to engage the conflict in terms of doctrinal issues. As the campaign progressed, it stooped to representations that were ugly to the point of being scatological. But illustrations were by no means the only avenue used by the protagonists. Much has already been learned about the "tract wars" that broke out in every arena of the Reformation. The invention of movable type made tracts appealing because they could be produced quickly and cheaply, and innovative printers actively promoted the exchange of these little flugschriften, or "flying letters. One tract could launch an attack that elicited a counter-attack or defense maneuver in a matter of days. The public was eager for this material, which sold initially for 8 pfennigs a copy. (8pf was equivalent to one-third of a journeyman's daily wages, or the price of a hen.) But, like all commodities, when supply and demand keep pace, the price went down until these "flying letter" tracts and broadsheet prints cost as little as one pfennig.34
As stated above, the Catholic Church was largely on the defensive in this foray into print. One Thomas Murner, however, became a major spokesman on behalf of the established church, responding, for example to Luther's letter To the Christian Nobility with his own counter-argument entitled: To the Most Mighty and Enlightened Nobility of the German Nation, That They Protect the Christian Faith Against the Destroyer of the Faith of Christ, Martin Luther, a Seducer of Simple Christians. To Luther, he addressed A Christian and Fraternal Admonition to the Highly Learned Doctor Martin Luther of the Augustinian Order at Wittenberg, that He Distance Himself From Several Statements He Made Concerning the New Testament of the Holy Mass and That He Join Himself Once Again With Common Christianity.35
Luther likewise had his supporters, also eager to jump into the fray. An anonymous tract entitled Defense and Christian Reply of an Honorable Lover Of Divine Truth and Holy Scripture to Several Alleged Contradictions, With an Indication Why Doctor Martin Luther's Teaching Should not be Rejected as Unchristian but Rather Accepted as Christian, calls Luther "a special, consoling, well-grounded advocate of the holy, evangelical, Christian teaching."36 Two of Luther's most vociferous defenders were Michael Stifle and Hartmuth von Cronberg. The latter authored A Pleasant Christian and Godly Reminder and Warning to the Imperial Majesty, Sent by One of His Imperial Majesty's Poor Knights and Obedient Servants; and Rejection of the Alleged Dishonor Attributed by Many to the pious and Christian Father, Doctor Martin Luther of the Augustinian Order, in that He Called Our Father the Pope a Vicar of the Devil and Antichrist, in which he stated that there had "undoubtedly not been a truer, more Christian teacher living in a thousand or more years than this Dr. Luther."37 Michael Stifles Concerning the Conformed-to-Christ and Properly Grounded Teaching of Doctor Martin Luther, an Extremely Beautiful and Artful Song Along with Its Exegesis, claimed that Luther was the angel of the apocalypse come to reveal the Antichrist.38
Tract wars were waged not only between individuals but also between cities. For example, between the Protestant city of Wittenberg and the Catholic town of Ingolstadt, "both sides used the imagery of the other to discredit them by transforming their images into symbols of heretical belief while displaying their own" so as to influence a favorable response of followers.39
Other regions of the Reformation fomented their own tract wars: for example, the famous exchange in the 1580's in England, known as the "Martin Marprelate" tracts, issued from Puritan pens against the authoritarianism of the English Church.40 However, one of the saddest examples of a tract dispute was that which took place within evangelical ranks, on the part of Andreas Karlstadt, originally a follower and supporter of Luther, who broke from his ranks over a different interpretation of the Lord's Supper as a memorial, rather than a real presence phenomenon. Banished from Saxony in 1524, in exile, he wrote his "Instructions" against old and new papists in Exegesis of These Words of Christ: This is my Body, Which Will be Given for You. This is My Blood, Which Will be Poured Out for You. Luke 22. Against the One-Fold [Simple] and Two-Fold [New] Papists Who Use Such Words for the Demolition of Christ's Cross, Karlstadt implies that Luther is a "new papist." The price of his acceptance back at Wittenberg was a printed retraction of these "Instructions."41
In spite of the spate of tracts produced, propaganda remained primarily the art of the image, and we will see how Luther's creation of an ingenious rhetorical device backfired, much to his chagrin, by fueling the peasants' uprisings of 1525. Based on the message of the images, the peasantry thought that they had found a true champion for their cause.12 It is well known that Luther specifically addressed his appeals for reform to the nobility, with the understanding that their responsibility as the lord's magistrates was to lead the Church within their territorial borders, both by example and by sword if necessary, to guard it and its people against the exploiting incursions of the Roman See. What is not as widely understood is that he also appealed to the citizenry in general for their support. In so doing, while not intentionally supporting a peasant revolt, he received a more positive response than he bargained for from the peasantry.43
For the sake of contrast, consider Jean Francois Millet's famous nineteenthcentury creation of the classic portrayal of European peasantry in his "Man With a Hoe." That painting of a hulking man, leaning dejectedly on a stunted farm imelement, staring blankly and hopelessly toward an endless horizon, demonstrates that iconography can effectively cross the thresholds of several centuries, as long as people can identify with the plight depicted. In the sixteenth century, Luther created his own "man with a hoe"-Karsthans, or "hoeing Hans"--characterized by Edwards as the "eponymous hoeing peasant." As we shall see, however, Hans was not the epitome of that passive hopelessness and helplessness we read in the face of Millet's representative peasant. Karsthans was illiterate, but articulate. He spoke for the "simple folk" mouthing the words Luther wanted them to hear.44
Karsthans, Luther's ideological common man, found his way into numerous illustrations as a positively active figure, representative of the "simple folk" who were part of Luther's targeted literate and illiterate audience. Figure 4, a 1521 rendition of "The Godly Mill"45 depicts Karsthans, recognizable in any setting by his farm implement. This peasant is seen hard at work producing the grain that goes into the mill. He is neither passive nor dejected. He is playing a key role (indicated by his placement in the picture) in the economy of God as acted out by the Reformation. He has a feather in his cap, and a weapon in his belt.
If we assume that prior to 1521, nearly all of European peasantry would have identified with Millet's depiction of their hopeless estate, we can readily understand the appeal of the contrast presented by Luther's Karsthans. Most of the illiterate who "read' this broadsheet, although they recognized the Lord, the evangelists, Erasmus, Luther and representatives of the Roman Church, identified with this figure of Karsthans more than any of the others in this rendition.
This idealized peasant shows up in many prints, always in a significant role or position, as in Figure 5: "Karsthans, the Husbandman, Doctor Luther, the Pope and the Cardinal."46 Positioning and body language are an important element of the iconography of a print. Notice Karsthans harvesting sheaves in a position which implies his defense, not of, but by Luther, who is aggressively attacking the pope with his weapon, the quill-pen. The pope evinces a defensive posture, behind whom a cardinal hawks indulgences.
Now compare the above depiction with Thomas Murner's reaction to Karsthans in Figure 6,47 and locate Karsthans, being exorcised from the anus of a fool in the guise of Luther. Consider which depiction the "simple folk" would be more receptive to: the Lutheran or the Catholic portrayal of Karsthans.
Times of insecurity and upheaval tend to promote apocalypticism in religious circles.48 Such was the case in the sixteenth century. Apocalyptic imagery conveyed both dire warnings and high hopes that change was in the wind-or, at least, in the sky One such commonplace occurrence often observed, was that of celestial phenomena portending cataclysmic events. Such an event is indicated by the comet to which a common man is pointing in the anonymous and rather crude "Illustration for a prognostic" (Fig. 7).49 One can observe the events "prognosticated" moving counter-clockwise, finding Karsthans actively defeating a knight, a burgher beating a monk, and a mercenary (drawn from the lowest ranks of society) attacking the pope. Such portrayals proved to be effective when the real Karsthans rose in rebellion in 1525.
This type of printing did not begin to exhaust the prospects Luther found for promoting his propaganda, however. Holy Scripture itself was not off-limits to his propagandizing imagery. One of the most effective mediums for presentation of his message was his own 1522 edition of the Holy Bible. Figure 8, from the first edition of Luther's New Testament leaves no doubt as to how the reformers regarded the pope.5" Later editions removed the triple crown indicating the papacy, but once a cognitive connection has been made, as in the case of modern political cartoons, the audience could be counted on to perpetuate it from within their own newly-furnished mental constructs.
This same 1522 edition combined papal and apocalyptic iconography, first as the "papal" whore of Babylon who rode the seven-headed beast, as seen in Figure 8. Then it also identified the papacy with the dragon of the Book of Revelation (Fig. 9).51
One can conclude from this examination of the media campaign, which created the wave that carried the Protestant Reformation to its successful denouement in a few short decades, that the reformers did use propaganda aimed at a specifically-defined and targeted audience. Both Catholics and Protestants saw the potential for the use of printing to affect beliefs. However, the latter made their printed material more accessible to the common people by their use of the woodcut imagery and vernacular messages, whereas the Catholics appealed primarily to scholars by their continued use of Latin. Only in response to the initial success of the reformers' use of iconography did Roman Catholic apologists begin to utilize the same techniques and shared icons in an attempt to counter the effect the Protestants were having on the general population. Hindsight demonstrates that this effort could be classified as "too little, too late' to stem the tide of Reformation promoted by Protestant propaganda.
Designation of the material produced as "propaganda" need not detract from the integrity of the reformers' message. Nor should that term be construed as advocating that "the end justifies the means"-a result-oriented maxim. It does suggest that, from a teleological, goal-oriented stance, they did design a process that served their goals. As neophytes in the propaganda business, the reformers did foresee the break-up of monolithic Christendom under the papacy. They intended to foster the break-up, and succeeded in a way that influenced both princes and peasants, literate and illiterate levels of society. The fact that there were unforeseeable results, such as the fiasco of the peasants' revolt, constituted an effect that cannot be justified, and became a learning experience of tragic proportions for its perpetrators. It not only cost the peasantry dearly, it lost the "simple folk" to the appeals of sects such as the Anabaptists, and the efforts of the subsequent Roman intra-church reform to win them back.
From our post-modern perspective in the twenty-first century it behooves us not to judge, but learn to discern the difference between propaganda as material skewed to serve an efficacious goal in terms of information that results in opened minds and broadened perspectives, and that which promotes destructive results, demeaning persons and damaging lives. Both the Protestant Reformation, and the Catholic Church's response embraced both. We can learn much more than doctrine from their experience.
1Robert Bireley, The Refashioning of Catholicism 1450-1700 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 8.
2Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety 1550-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 323.
3Mark Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 8.
4Stephen Ozment, Protestants: The Birth of a Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 57-59.
5Richard Marius, Martin Luther, the Christian Between God and Death (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999),14.
6Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 8.
7Kenneth Strand, "Brethren of the Common Life and Fifteenth Century Printing," in Dawn of Modern Civilization: Studies in Renaissance, Reformation and Other Topics, ed. Kenneth Strand (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ann Arbor Pub., 1962), 453.
8Bireley, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 16-19.
9Roland Bainton, Here I Stand. A Life of Martin Luther (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1950), 54-59.
10John Shinners, ed., Medieval Popular Religion (Orchard Park, N.Y.: Broadview Press, 1997), 89.
11Charles Talbot, "Prints and the Definitive Image," in Print and Culture in the Renaissance, eds. G. P. Tyson and S. S. Wagonheim (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1986),189-205. 12"An Image of Piety," the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Reproduced in Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 133.
13Shinners, Medieval Popular Religion, 21-28.
14Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 21. 15Ozment, Protestants, 46.
16Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 26-41.
17Jean Francois Gilmont, The Reformation and the Book (Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1990), 246 and Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 26.
18Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 42-43.
19Baiton, Here I Stand, 39-45.
20Ozment, Protestants, 54-56 and Bireley, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 9, 16.
21Bainton, Here I Stand, 162-65.
22Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 27.
23Kenneth Scott Latoureete, A History of Christianity (New York: Harper, 1953), 926. 24Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, xi. 25Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 325. 26R. W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Foolk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), xiii. 27D. M. Luther's Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (1883-1978). Published in Weimar from W. A., Vol. 10#2, p. 458. Quoted in Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 244. 28Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 8. 29Ibid., xvi-xix.
30""Luther as Monk, Doctor, Man of the Bible and Saint," Woodcut to Acta et Res Gestae, D. Martini Lutheri, in Comitijs Principii Vuormaciae (Strasbourg: Johann Schott, 1521). Reproduced in Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 84.
31Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 84.
32p. Sylvia's Title Page to "Luther and Lucifer in League" (1535), British Library, T 2205 (13). Reproduced in Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 232
33Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 232.
34Gilmont points out that the flugschriften were a transition from orality, since they were read aloud. The Reformation and the Book, 477.
35Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 59.
36bid., 36. 37Ibid., 87.
381bid., 88.
39Harry Oelke, "Confessional Bibliopropaganda of the Late Sixteenth Century: The NasFischart Controversy 1568-71," Archiv ftir Reformationsgeschichte 87 (1996): 200.
40A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (University Park, Pa..: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), 368-69.
41Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 143. 42Latourette, A History of Christiantity, 724-25. 43Robert N. Crossley, "Luther and the Peasants' War," in Strand, Dawn of Modern Civilization, 1129-41.
44For example, in one of Luther's tracts, Karsthans says "there never has been, and there may never be, a greater Antichrist than the pope at Rome, who completely perverts the gospel and positions himself against Christ in all things." Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 91.
45"The Godly Mill," printed by Christoph Frischauer, Zurich, 1521, Berlin Straatliche Museum. Reproduced in Gilmont, The Reformation and the Book, 246.
46"The Husbandman, Doctor Martin Luther, the Pope, the Cardinall." Woodcut from a ballad from the Pepys Collection: Pepys I, 16-17, App. B # 2 Short Title Catalog of Books Printed 1475-1640. # 140008.5. rev. by Katherine F. Pantzer, 2 vols. (1976-1986). Reproduced in Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 151.
47Illustration from "The Great Lutheran Fool" by Thomas Murner (J. Grenninger: Strassburg, 1552). British Library # 11517.C.33, fol. Riii. Reproduced in Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 236.
48Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of Christian History (Philadelphia: American Baptist Pub. Soc., 1903), 164.
49Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 126 and Bainton, Here I Stand, 210-11. A 1524 conjunction of planets and a later appearance of "sun-dogs" over Wittenberg were seen as confirmations that the world was in upheaval, socially and religiously. Ozment, Protestants, 201. "Illustration for a prognostic" by Edward Schoen, Original unable to be traced. Reproduced in Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 126.
50"The Whore of Babylon Wearing the papal Tiara" from the First Edition of Luther's New Testament (Wittenberg, 1522). Reproduced in Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 125.
51"The Dragon of Revelation Wearing the Papal Tiara" from the First Edition of Luther's New Testament (Wittenberg, September 1522). Reproduced in Edwards, Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther, 124.
Barbara Stone Griswold, graduate student, Baylor University
Copyright The Conference on Faith and History Summer 2002