No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Luther and the Book: The Iconography of the Ninety-Five Theses
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses are not perhaps the book of the millennium, but they have some claim to being one of the books of the half-millennium. Few books in Church history can have had as much effect as this single-page broadsheet. Through this text, or so it is sometimes represented, Western Christianity was cut in two. The Ninety-Five Theses heralded the new age of print, with its capacity to transform culture in ways which have a strong resonance with our own ‘age of information’. The theses, it was said, were known throughout Germany in a fortnight and Europe in a month. With some justice, the theses have been described as the publishing event of the sixteenth century, and the first media sensation of the modern era.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004
References
1 Myconius, Friedrich, Historia reformationis (Leipzig, 1718), 23 Google Scholar, writing in the 1530s. Luther’s own account, written in 1541 in Wider Hans Worst, makes the same claim: D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 60 vols (Weimar, 1883–1997) [hereafter WA], 51:540.
2 Famous statements of this kind occur in Dickens, A.G., The German Nation and Martin Luther (1974), 102–15 Google Scholar, and Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols in 1, pbk edn (Cambridge, 1980), 306–13.
3 The first reference to the event is in Melanchthon’s preface to Omnia opera Martini Lutheri, 7 vols (Wittenberg, 1546), 2, sig. *ivr-v: ‘Et has publice Templo, quod Arci Witenbergensi contiguum est, affixit.’
4 Iserloh, Erwin, Luthers Thesenanschlag: Tatsache oder Legende? (Wiesbaden, 1962 Google Scholar), has spawned a large bibliography in response. For a summary, see Marius, Richard, Martin Luther (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 137–9 Google Scholar.
5 The context of the disputation is recounted by Ernest Schwiebert, ‘The Theses and Wittenberg’, in Meyer, C., ed., Luther for an Ecumenical Age (St Louis, MO, 1967), 120–43 Google Scholar.
6 Benzing, Josef, Lutherbibliographie: Verzeichnis der gedruckten Schriften Martin Luthers bis zu dessen Tod (Baden-Baden, 1966), nos 87-9 Google Scholar; the Resoluliones disputationum de indulgentiarutn virtute appeared in 1518 in Wittenberg and Leipzig (ibid., nos 205–8). Honselmann, Klemens, Urfassung and Drucke der Ablaßthesen Martin Luthers tmd ihre Veröffentlichung (Paderborn, 1966 Google Scholar), gives a full description of the early imprints.
7 A translation by Caspar Nützel was printed in Nuremberg, but does not survive. It is mentioned in letters between Luther and the Nuremberg humanist Christoph Scheurl in early 1518.
8 Göttlicher Schriftmessiger woldennckwürdiger Traum (Leipzig, 1617). The printer was Johann Gluck.
9 A survey of the Jubilee is given by Kastner, Ruth, Geistlicher Rauffhandel: illustrierte Flugblätter zum Reformationsjubilatim 1617 (Frankfurt, 1982 Google Scholar).
10 The posters are listed in full in Kastner, Illustrierte Flugblätter, 343–62; there is a catalogue raisonée of examples from the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel in Wolfgang Harms, ed., Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter des 16. and 17. Jahrhunderts, 4 vols (Munich, 1980–9), 2:202-33.
11 Göttlicher Schrifftmessiger woldenckwürdiger Traum (n.p., 1617), described and reproduced in Harms, Illustrierte Flugblätter, 2:222-3. Coupe, W.A., The German Illustrated Broadsheet in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols (Baden-Baden, 1966), 1:72 Google Scholar, perhaps influenced by the archaic style, accepts the date in the chronogram of 1568, which is, however, false.
12 See Volz, Hans, ‘Der Traum Kurfurst Friedrichs des Weisen vom 30./31. Oktober 1517. Eine bibliographisch-ikonographische Untersuchung’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 45 (1970), 174–211 Google Scholar.
13 Obvious scriptural parallels are Gen. 37, 40, 41, and Dan. 2.
14 ‘Somnium Frideriei sapientis Electoris Saxoniae’ (woodcut prose-text), col. 1.
15 Kastner, Illustrierte Flugblätter, 281–2.
16 Quoted in ibid., 284.
17 Ibid., 287; Harms, Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter, 2:222. A copy of Grahle was printed in Strasbourg in 1668 for the 150th anniversary; see Harms, Wolfgang, Illustrierte Flugblätter aus den Jahrhtinderten der Reformation and der Glaubenskämpfe (Coburg, 1983), 90–1 Google Scholar. A full bibliography of versions of the ‘Dream’ is given in Kastner, Illustrierte Flugblãtter, 353. The 19th-century iconography surrounding the theses, beginning in 1807 with Johann Hummel (1769-1852), is described in Kruse, Joachim, ed., Luthers Leben in lllustrationcn des 18. and 19. Jahrhmiderts (Coburg, 1980), 65 Google Scholar, 124, 160, 193.
18 Nevertheless, all of the protagonists in this scholarly ruse can be identified; Harms, Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter, 2:222.
19 WA 30/iii:387. The woodcut also makes a reference to another prophecy (concerning Frederick the Wise) alluded to by Luther in 1521 (WA 8:561).
20 Jutta Strehle gives a comprehensive survey of the motif in Luther mit dem Schwan (Wittenberg, 1996), 81-118. The swan was a common figure in commemorative medals produced in 1617: see Scribner, R.W., Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (1987), 343, 345 Google Scholar.
21 The Graille engraving proclaims this chronology in graphic form by containing three chronograms, 1416 [sic], 1517, 1617.
22 ‘Somnium Friderici sapicntis Electoris Saxoniae’, col. 2.
23 For instance, the examples in Harms, Detttsche illustrierte Flugblätter, 2:203 (Ulm, 1616), 211 (Nuremberg?, 1617), 217 (Amsterdam, date unknown), 219 (Nuremberg, 1617), 221 (place unknown, 1617), 225 (Leipzig, 1617), 227 (Stettin, 1617), 229 (Stettin, 1617), 233 (place unknown, 1618).
24 In Lucis evangelicete auspiciis divi Martini Lutheri (Leipzig, 1617). The design is signed ‘Johann Deperr’. There is a description and reproduction in Harms, Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter, 2:224-5. A cruder version, in reverse, of the same design occurs in a woodcut by Johan Bader (Stettin, 1617).
25 Emblema auff das Erste Evangelische Jubel Jahr (Stettin, 1617), described and reproduced in Harms, , Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter, 2:228–9 Google Scholar.