Cranach: Luther Predigt

Events & Temporalities

This strand of the project, led by Dr Bronwyn Wallace, concerns time. Our research analyses key dates and episodes that became central to emerging accounts of the Reformation, and how these were commemorated, remembered, contested and reinvented in later decades and centuries.

Our principal objects of attention are the iconic national and international events around which memories of the Reformation crystallised, which include: Luther’s protest against indulgences; Henry VIII’s break with Rome; the dissolution of the monasteries; the burning of the Protestant martyrs under Mary I; the publication of the bible in the vernacular and the Book of Common Prayer; the accession of Elizabeth I; the iconoclastic purges of churches during the 1530s and 1640s. We are also considering the emergence of anniversaries and calendars of celebration, as well as the ecclesiastical histories, chronicles, journals, diaries and almanacs which adopted a temporal framework for recounting events. The phenomenon of mapping contemporary events onto biblical counterparts, the manner in which the relationship between past and present was conceptualized, and the degree to which the Reformation assisted in the emergence of a new linear conception of history itself will be key themes for investigation.