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Poets, Peasants, and Pamphlets: Who Wrote and Who Read Reformation Flugschriften?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

David Bagchi
David Bagchi*
Affiliation:
University of Hull
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Extract

In the early 1520s, there appeared from the press of Michael Buchführer in Erfurt a pamphlet entitled A Dialogue or Conversation between a Father and a Son concerning the Teachings of Martin Luther and Other Matters of the Christian Faith. It was an unremarkable publication, a typical Reformation Flugschrift in almost every respect: it was quarto size, sixteen pages long, unbound, with a woodcut illustration on the title page depicting the main events described in the pamphlet. The dialogue is between a student home from the university of Wittenberg and his peasant father: the son converts his father to Luther’s cause, and his mother consigns to the flames the family’s prized letter of indulgence. The pamphlet is anonymous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 42: Elite and Popular Religion , 2006 , pp. 189 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2006

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References

1 Ein Dialogus oder Gesprech zwischen einetn Vater und Sohn die Lehre Martini Luthers und sonst andere Sachen des christlichen Glaubens belangend (Erfurt: Michael Buchführer, n.d. [c.1523]). Microform reproduction in Hans-Joachim Köhler et al., Flugschriften desfrühen 16. Jahrhunderts (Zug: Interdokumentation A.G., 1978–88). Modern editions in Flugschriften aus den ersten Jahren der Reformation, ed. Clemen, Otto, 4 vols (Leipzig, 1907–11, repr. Nieuwkoop, 1967), 1:21–52 Google Scholar, and Die Reformation in zeitgenössischen Dialog, ed. Lenk, Werner (Berlin, 1968), 153–67 Google Scholar. English translation in Meyer, Carl S., ‘A Dialog or Conversation Between a Father and His Son About Martin Luther’s Doctrine (1523)’, in Meyer, Carl S., ed., Luther for an Ecumenical Age. Essays in Commemoration of the 450th Anniversary of the Reformation (St Louis, MI, 1967), 82–107.Google Scholar

2 Flugschriften, ed. Clemen, 1: 21.

3 Chrisman, Miriam Usher, Conflicting Visions of Reform. German Lay Propaganda Pamphlets, 1519–1530 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1996), 234.Google Scholar

4 Blochwitz, Gottfried, ‘Die antirömischen deutschen Flugschriften der frühen Reformationszeit (bis 1522) in ihrer religiös-sittlichen Eigenart’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 27 (1930), 145–254.Google Scholar

5 For a summary of this trend, with suggestions for further reading, see Scribner, R. W., ‘Ritual and Popular Religion in Catholic Germany at the Time of the Reformation’, in idem, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), 17.Google Scholar

6 Die Sturmtruppen der Reformation: Ausgewählte Flugschriften der Jahre, 1520–25, ed. Berger, Arnold E. (Leipzig, 1931)Google Scholar, and idem, Satirische Feldzüge wider der Reformation: Thomas Murner, Daniel von Soest (Leipzig, 1933).Google Scholar

7 See especially Balzer, Bernd, Bürgerliche Reformationspropaganda: Die Flugschriften des Hans Sachs in den Jahren 2523–25; (Stuttgart, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Schütte, J., ’schympf red’: Frühformen bürgerliche Agitation in Thomas Murners ‘Grossen Lutherischen Narren’ (1522), Germanistische Abhandlungen 41 (Stuttgart, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 For an overview, see Köhler, Hans-Joachim, ‘Die Flugschriften der frühen Neuzeit. Ein Überblick’, in Arnold, Werner, Dittrich, Wolfgang and Zeller, Bernhard, eds, Die Erforschung der Buch- und Bibliotheksgeschichte in Deutschland (Wiesbaden, 1987).Google Scholar

9 Köhler, Hans-Joachim, ‘Erste Schritte zu einem Meinungsprofil der frühen Reformationszeit’, in Press, Volker and Stievermann, Dieter, eds, Martin Luther. Problème seiner Zeit (Stuttgart, 1986), 244–81.Google Scholar

10 Note A. Centgraf’s timely Berlin dissertation of 1940, entitled ‘Martin Luther als Publizist. Geist und Form seiner Volksführung’. It is cited by Helia Tompert in ‘Die Flugschrift als Medium religiôser Publizistik. Aspekte der gegenwartigen Forschung’, in Josef Nolte, Hella Tompert, and Christoph Windhorst, eds, Kontinuität und Umbruch. Theologie und Frömmigheit in Flugschriften und Kleinliteratur an der Wende vom 15;. zum 16. Jahrhundert, Spätmittelalter und Frühe Neuzeit 2 (Stuttgart, 1978), 211–21, 218, as an example of a study influenced by Nazi ideology.

11 See, for example, Köhler, Hans-Joachim, ‘ “Der Bauer wird witzig”: Der Bauer in den Flugschriften der Reformationszeit’, in Blickle, Peter, ed., Zugänge zur Bauerlichen Reformation (Zurich, 1987), 196–8 Google Scholar; Chrisman, Conflicting Visions, 7; Matheson, Peter, The Rhetoric of the Reformation (Edinburgh, 1998), 84 Google Scholar. It should, however, be noted that Matheson also distances himself from this orthodoxy, referring to ‘an articulate and crusading minority, which may or may not be speaking for a wider constituency’ (ibid., 27–8, emphasis mine).

12 It should of course be acknowledged that terms such as ‘Bauer’ and ‘gemeine Mann’ had no fixed meaning. A peasant in Saxony might enjoy considerable independence, and even the opportunity to amass some wealth, while a peasant in south-western Germany might be in effect a serf. Equally, ‘gemeine Mann’ was an unspecific term for the lower classes in general. See Blickle, Peter, Gemeindereformation: Die Menschen des 16. Jahrhundert auf dem Weg zum Heil (Munich, 1983)Google Scholar, trans, by Dunlap, Thomas as Communal Reformation: the Quest for Salvation in Sixteenth-Century Germany (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1992)Google Scholar, and Lutz, Robert, Wer war der gemeine Mann? Der dritte Stand in der Krise des Spàtmittelalters (Munich, 1979)Google Scholar. In my view, the imprecision of these terms makes it even more difficult to assume that no such person could have written pamphlets.

13 Köhler, , ‘Überblick’, 338.Google Scholar

14 See Scribner, R. W., ‘Flugblatt und Analphabetentum. Wie kam der gemeine Mann zu reformatorischen Ideen?’, in Köhler, Hans-Joachim, ed., Flugschriften ais Massenmedium der Reformationszeit (Stuttgart, 1981), 65–76.Google Scholar

15 For sermon summaries, see Moeller, Bernd, ‘Was wurde in der Frühzeit der Reformation in den deutschen Stadten gepiedigt? ’,Archiv für Reformations geschichte 75 (1984), 176–93.Google Scholar

16 See Monika Rössing-Hager, ‘Wie stark findet der nichtlesekundige Rezipient Berücksichtigung in der Flugschriften?’, in H.-J. Köhler, ed., Flugschriften als Massenmedium, 77–137. See also Scribner, R. W., ‘Oral Culture and the Transmission of Reformation Ideas’, in Robinson-Hammerstein, Helga, ed., The Transmission of Ideas in the Lutheran Reformation (Blackrock, 1989), 83–104.Google Scholar

17 Kettenbach, Heinrich von, Ein Sermon zu der löblichen Statt Ulm zu seynem Valete, in Flugschriften, ed. Clemen, 2:107.Google Scholar

18 Scribner, R. W., For the Sake of Simple Folk. Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (2nd rev. edn, Oxford, 1994), xv Google Scholar. The concept of hybridization is borrowed from Marshall McLuhan.

19 Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, passim.

20 See Flood, John L., ‘Subversion in the Alps: Books and Readers in the Austrian Counter-Reformation’, The Library, 6th ser., 12 (1990), 185–211 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Flood’s findings are summarized in idem, ‘Le Livre dans le monde germanique à l’époque de la Réforme’, in Jean-François Gilmont, ed., La Réforme et le livre. l’Europe de l’imprimé (1517-v.1570) (Paris, 1990), 29–104, at 94–5.

21 Mark U. Edwards, Jr. has argued that the very large number of pamphlets produced in the early 1520s – some six million copies for a total population of only twelve million, or twenty copies for each literate person – suggests that we have seriously underestimated the extent of literacy in the Holy Roman Empire. See his Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1994), 39 Google Scholar. Köhler (‘Überblick’, 337) puts the estimate of the total number of pamphlets sold between 1518 and 1530 at ten million. To make the same point slightly differently, I would suggest that the readier availability of worthwhile reading material was itself an incentive to greater literacy: the pamphlets created a market, as well as catering for one.

22 For details, see Scott, Tom and Scribner, Bob, eds, The German Peasants’ War (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1991).Google Scholar

23 Köhler, , ‘ “Der Bauer wird witzig” ’, 11.Google Scholar

24 Chrisman, Conflicting Visions, 7.

25 Scribner, R. W., ‘Practice and Principle in the German Towns: Preachers and People’, in Brooks, Peter Newman, ed., Reformation Principle and Practice. Essays Presented to Arthur Geoffrey Dickens (London, 1980), 97–117 Google Scholar, at Table 4. One of Scribner’s preachers fits the pattern exactly. Bartholomeus Rieseberg was an agricultural labourer until, at the age of seventeen, he sought an education. Attaching himself to a succession of tutors and schools he eventually enrolled at the university of Wittenberg in 1518. He became a convinced Lutheran, and eventually returned to his own village as its pastor ( Scribner, , ‘Practice and Principle’, 106)Google Scholar.