Reformation
centenary broadsheet
Leipzig, Germany, AD 1617
This broadsheet depicts the early Reformation of the
Christian Church as a prophetic dream of Friedrich III, often known as
Frederick the Wise, the canny Elector of Saxony.
Elector Frederick was a political protector of Martin
Luther, who in 1517 began what was to become known as the Reformation, creating
the Protestant form of Christianity in Europe.
This broadsheet is, in our terms, a strip cartoon
showing a sequence of events within the ‘elector’s dream’, with each element in
it a scene depicting a different stage in Luther’s progress.
In one corner, Luther receives true insight in the form
of a shower of words pouring down from God the Father, and Christ, onto the
open page of a bible. In another he offers his work to the Elector Frederick.
Luther is also shown writing on a church door with an
enormously long pen, which is a reference to the moment traditionally thought
of as the beginning of the Reformation. On 31 October 1517, Luther publicly
posted his 95 Theses in the town of Wittenberg.
The pen stretches across half of the picture to
emphasise the importance ot the written word to Protestants, as opposed to
images which were popular in the Catholicism of the time. The end of the pen
passes through the ears of a lion and knocks off the tiara, or crown, of the
pope of the time, Leo X, hence the lion. This is a clear reference to Luther’s
criticism of the authority of the Pope as head of the Catholic Church in Rome.
in 1617 German Protestants seized on the idea of
commemorating a centenary of Luther’s actions at Wittenberg as a means of
attracting support for their hero in the light of increasing hostilities
between Catholics and Protestants. Opposing armies were ultimately to clash in
1620 at the Battle of White Mountain near Prague, a decisive victory for the
Catholic Imperial forces that resulted in the outbreak of the Thirty Years War.
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