CHAPTER 1
The Spread of the Reformation
FOR FURTHER READING
Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1978). Examines the ways in which religious
and other ideas were transmitted to and by common people, and the interplay between popular and elite
culture. Burke views the early modern period as a time that witnessed the suppression of popular
culture.
Carl Christensen, Art and the Reformation in Germany (1981). Explores both Protestant iconoclasm and
its use and support of art; in contrast to earlier studies, sees the Reformation as generally beneficial to
artistic production.
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979). A monumental study of the
impact of the printing press in all aspects of culture.
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (2nd ed. 2005). A shorter,
illustrated version of Eisenstein’s major work.
Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (1997).
Brilliant analysis of the ways in which basic Christian rituals—baptism, communion, marriage,
funerals—changed with the Reformation.
Joseph Leo Koerner, The Reformation of the Image (2008). Richly-illustrated study of the role of
religious imagery in the Reformation that shows how visual art was indispensible to a movement that
emphasized the role of words.
Peter Matheson, The Imaginative World of the Reformation (2001). Argues that the Reformation
brought a shift in the perception of reality, with new ideas about the entire visible and invisible world.
Peter Matheson, ed. Reformation Christianity (2006). Volume 5 of A People’s History of Christianity,
this includes essays on the religious life of ordinary men and women.
Andrew Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (2005). Examines the reasons that
people accepted the Reformation, and the different media of conversion through which the Reformation
message was communicated, including drama, sermons, song and the book.
Robert W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation
(1981). An extremely innovative analysis of the means by which the Lutheran message was spread to
the common people, with numerous woodcuts and engravings.
Gerald Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning: The Indoctrination of the Young in the German
Reformation (1978). A highly controversial study, which argues that the Reformation was ultimately
unsuccessful in its attempts to transmit religious knowledge and change popular behavior.