Robert and Victoria Christman Sessions 1-4

Robert and Victoria Christman       
Luther College          
“The Reformation and the Common Folk (Germany and the Low Countries)”
How did the common people experience the Reformation? Scholars have answered this question in two very different ways. One group argues that from the start, the Reformation was popular movement, characterized by a groundswell of support from the masses. The other group sees the Reformation as a long, slow process, ultimately imposed on the laity by the political and ecclesiastical authorities over the course of the sixteenth century. Our series of lectures will address this seeming contradiction by evaluating popular responses to the Reformation from its origins up to the turn of the seventeenth century, with a focus on Germany and the Low Countries. Topics will include popular piety on the eve of the Reformation, early lay responses to the Reformation, the impact of the Peasant’s War on popular support for the Reformation, the intervention of the political authorities, and their efforts to control the beliefs and behaviors of their subjects.