Communicating Lutheranism : church building in an age of orthodoxy, 1555-1618

Abstract

Martin Luther’s preaching and books transformed the small town of Wittenberg into the home of the Protestant Reformation. Yet, Wittenberg’s dependence on Luther has prompted scholarship to question the town’s world-historical significance after his death. This thesis discusses the role of Wittenberg’s print trade in shaping the Protestant church between 1555 and 1618. It describes a changing book market and identifies the factors contributing to its commercial success and the city’s ongoing religious influence. We focus on the careers of printers, publishers and booksellers who helped embed the teachings of the Reformation by working with university theologians and political leaders to publish Lutheran books. The results were remarkable. Wittenberg became the leading German publishing city, nearly doubling its annual output of new editions compared to the Reformation period. Discoveries from research in German archives and libraries shed new light on Wittenberg’s printing history and the contribution of different occupational groups within the book trades. This study examines the role of printing and printers in the confessional battles between German universities. Wittenberg’s books, especially academic dissertations, became the spearhead for establishing Lutheran orthodoxy in the early seventeenth century. The book’s preface was used polemically, leaving the contents of the book to express the tenets of faith. Each chapter introduces significant figures in the development of Wittenberg’s book trades: Samuel Selfisch, Hans Lufft, Christoph Walther, Johann Krafft, Conrad Ruhel and Johann Gormann. The outcome of this study is that the essential role of Wittenberg’s print trade in building the church is recognised for a crucial era of Wittenberg’s Reformation history that, to this point, has been relatively neglected. The book industry played an important part in ensuring that Wittenberg retained its position as the intellectual home of Lutheranism after the death of its talismanic leader.