“The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.” I can still remember reading these lines, the twenty-eighth thesis of the Heidelberg Disputation. I don’t recall what prompted me to open Timothy Lull’s Luther anthology […]

Johannes Bugenhagen was one of the most influential colleagues of Martin Luther. He was born in Pomerania, attended the University of Greifswald for two years, and served as rector of the Latin school in Treptow and as lecturer at the Premonstratensian cloister of Belbug. He was also ordained in 1509. Impacted by humanism, he was […]

The first time I bought a copy for myself, I tucked it away at once, as if it were illegal, or a bit naughty. It didn’t look like much on the outside—a black cover, with a simple gold cross embossed on the front. I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do with it, […]

Indulge me. One of my Reformation heroes is a Swedish King, Johan III (1537-92; reigned 1568-92). Why? Because of his liturgical interests. He authored, with the help of his secretary Petrus Fecht (a student of Melancthon’s), a Liturgy that included offertory prayers and a full Eucharistic prayer, elements long considered not acceptable in a Lutheran […]

From the fourteenth century onwards, the Italian proponents of the movement we have come to call Renaissance Humanism boldly sought to uncover the textual, artistic, and material remains of antiquity: to renew the use of the Latin language by imitating the elegance of ancient Roman rhetoric; to explore the ancient sources of wisdom; and thereby […]

Please indulge me as I share my own odd Reformation-era enthusiasm: the Lollards. Originating in the work of priest and Oxford scholar John Wycliffe (d. 1384), Lollardy flourished as a movement for church and civil reform from the 1370s and the Peasants’ Revolt. After rebellions led or inspired by Lollards in 1414 and 1431 were […]