Recent Reformation scholarship has deepened our grasp of the influence of medieval Scholasticism on Luther and his Wittenberg colleagues, particularly through Heiko Oberman's research, and of monastic-mystical strains of medieval piety that shaped their thinking, especially through Bernd Hamm's work. Robert Christman places Luther and his associates squarely in the context of the reform efforts and ecclesiastical-political maneuvering of one monastic order in the German-speaking lands, led by Johannes von Staupitz and his fellow friars in the Lower German province of the German Reformed Congregation of the Augustinian Observants. Christman also argues for attention to “historical events as shapers of opinion and stimulators of change,” alongside the recent focus on the Reformation as Sprachereignis and the sociopolitical processes of “confessionalization” (223). In analyzing the background and impact of the burning of the first two martyrs executed for adherence to Luther's views, Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen, Christman demonstrates how the Netherlandish Augustinians influenced and were influenced by their extensive contacts with the University of Wittenberg and the circle constructed there by Staupitz as he pursued his own plans for reform. The book unfolds how the executions became a matter of European-wide concern, a propaganda tool put to public use by both those sympathetic to Luther and those who praised the executions as God's righteous judgment on heresy. This single event enriched Luther's thinking and furthered development of the pursuit of heresy by Emperor Charles V and Pope Adrian VI and his successors.

Ten focused examinations illuminate how Vos and van den Esschen represented the fruits of Staupitz's reform initiatives that gained momentum and impetus from the cloisters he had founded or furthered in Lower German lands. Christman explains how representatives of these cloisters, especially Antwerp, had been educated in Wittenberg, and how Luther and his associates found new insights in the concern for reform in late medieval Lower Germany and in the sacrifice of the two martyrs. Christman further makes clear how their earlier experiences in Lower Germany shaped Charles's and Adrian's promotion of and reactions to the burnings as part of larger policy decisions. The interchange of ideas and concerns between these cloisters in the Low Countries and Wittenberg reveals how significant the influence of other people and places were on the Wittenberg theological team, as well as how their influence impacted and directed others. For example, the Antwerp friars proclaimed Luther's understanding of justification by faith, and many found it attractive. But the wrath of the Leuven professor Adrian Floriszoon, later Pope Adrian VI, was initially directed, in the early 1510s, at the Antwerp Augustinians for reasons of order in the church; soteriology was at best a secondary concern. His energies were dedicated to reform of church and morals, not of doctrine. Therefore, Luther believed that his maneuvering to execute Vos and van den Esschen proved that Adrian's call for reform was hypocritical; the two understood the need for reform in radically different ways.

In a brilliant, text-sensitive analysis of Luther's ballad celebrating God's victory through his gift of martyrdom to the two “young boys,” as he calls them, Christman shows that beyond the traditional observations of the use of the story of the martryrdom and its musical genre, “The New Song” reveals Luther's skillful employment of Psalms 96 and 98 to proclaim God's triumph over Satan through their deaths, reflecting his theologia crucis. An illuminating chapter examines how critique of medieval Marian piety particularly irritated ecclesiastical officials and how, in contrast to Luther, the opponents loyal to the old faith believed that Mary's mercy toward the church and/or anger at evangelical demotion of her brought about the deaths.

Christman's study serves as a model for broadly focused explorations of the background and impact of individual events of the Reformation. His carefully honed examinations of the individual aspects of this event, its background and impact, offer fresh insights and syntheses of vital aspects of the culture that surface through it. This book serves both those new to the study of the Reformation and seasoned scholars.