The Stout Doctor - Martin Luthers Body - Roper.pdf

Martin Luther’s Body: The “Stout Doctor” and His Biographers LYNDAL ROPER Many people have helped me in writing this article. I should like to thank the audiences who heard various versions of the paper on which it is based; the anonymous readers for the AHR ; the Lutherhalle Wittenberg; Gadi Algazi, Charlotte Appel, Michael Drolet, Constance Furey, Laura Gowing, Bridget Heal, Jan Lambertz, Simone Laqua, Alison Light, Peter Macardle, Hans Medick, Daniel Pick, Ulinka Rublack, Hans-Jochen Seidel, Alex Shepard, Patricia Simons, Philip Soergel, Jenny Spinks, Andreas Stahl, Jutta Strehle, Willibald Steinmetz, Barbara Taylor, Claudia Ullbrich, Alex Walsham, Petra Wittig, Brigitte Wonneberg, and Charles Zika; and especially Ruth Harris, Thomas Kaufmann, and Nicholas Stargardt. 1 The statue itself is by Johann Schadow. See Fritz Bellmann, Marie-Luise Harksen, and Roland Werner, eds., Die Denkmale der Lutherstadt Wittenberg (Weimar, 1979), 47– 48, 178–179. 2 A string of double portraits of Luther and Melanchthon were commissioned, especially in 1532– 1533; they were intended to create the impression of a unified front. See Harald Marx and Ingrid Mo ¨ ssinger, Cranach: Mit einem Bestandskatalog der Gema ¨lde in den Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Cologne, 2005), 474 – 479. 3 There are a great number of Luther portraits, but no complete catalogue of Cranach’s works exists, including a complete list of these portraits. Some representative examples include those of 1528 (Schlossmuseum Weimar), 1532 (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden), 1540 (Lutherhalle G 70), 1541 (Lutherhalle G 72), and 1543 (private collection); many of these are halves of double portraits either with Melanchthon or with Katharina von Bora. On the latter portraits, see Lyndal Roper, “Venus in 351 Downloaded from http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/ at CBS Library on January 28, 2015 PERHAPS THE MOST DISCONCERTING monument to the Reformation is the double statue of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon in the city market at Wittenberg. There they stand, their feet locked onto grandiose Schinkel pedestals, and can do no other, as they gaze grimly out from under their neo-Gothic baldachins. Melanchthon was an afterthought: Luther’s statue was unveiled in 1821, and Melanchthon’s followed a generation later in 1865, the monumental design of the first dictating the form for the second.1 The two Reformation heroes tower over the meat stands and vegetable stalls like two caged giants. But the effect of their being seen side by side like this, even with the nineteenth-century attempts to minimize the difference, is disastrous: the stout Luther confronts the cadaverous Melanchthon. In the contemporary double portraits by Heinrich Aldegrever and the Cranach workshop, it is even worse: Luther and Melanchthon are twinned like Laurel and Hardy.2 This dilemma takes us to the heart of the representational problem: Luther was stoutly built. Saints and pious clerics tend, on the whole, to come in Melanchthonian shape, their thinness underlining their indifference to the temptations of the flesh. In the history of Western Christianity, Aquinas aside, there were few spiritual figures who were corpulent. From Lucas Cranach the Elder’s painting of the bulky Luther of 1529 to the jowly, double-chinned head of Luther that looks out at us from the iconic woodcut of Lucas Cranach the Younger of 1546, Luther was large.3 After 352 Lyndal Roper around 1530, so essential was his size to his image that even when we see only his bust, his broad shoulders and fleshy face make him instantly recognizable. The last decades have seen a deluge of work on the body, as historians have sought to extend the agenda of gender history to ask how even the experience of embodiment itself might be constructed through culture. Much of this work has focused on images in literature and art. But a different approach to representations of Luther’s body can yield interesting insights. Recent historical writing, influenced by the work of Joan Scott and of Judith Butler, among others, has been powerfully influenced by the idea that the body is constructed through verbal and visual discourses.4 Even those historians who have drawn on psychoanalytic writing have often tended to concentrate more on analyzing discourses than on exploring subjectivity.5 Bodies, however, are not only cultural constructions but physical realities. The question explored here is not only why Luther was depicted as stout, an undertaking that draws on the techniques of discourse analysis so finely developed by new historicist scholars, but also how his physicality—his bulk, his digestion, his anality—was linked to his character, his views of the devil, and the emerging identity of Lutheranism. Some readers may think this philosophically naı¨ve: images of Luther are one thing, the reality quite another. But Luther certainly left those around him in no doubt Wittenberg: Cranach, Luther, and Sensuality,” in Marjorie Plummer and Robin Barnes, eds., Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany: Essays in Honor of H.C. Erik Midelfort (Farnham, 2009), 81–98. 4 See Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York, 1983); Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990); Butler, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988); and see also the articles by Joan Scott et al. in the AHR Forum “Revisiting ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,’ ” American Historical Review 113, no. 5 (December 2008): 1344 –1430. 5 See, for example, Carla Mazzio, ed., Historicism, Psychoanalysis, and Early Modern Culture (London, 2000). AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/ at CBS Library on January 28, 2015 FIGURE 1: Heinrich Aldegrever, Melanchthon and Luther, 1540, engraving. Reproduced by permission of the Lutherhalle Wittenberg. Martin Luther’s Body 353 about the materiality of his body. When, for instance, he wrote to his friend Georg Spalatin during his stay at the Wartburg, by turns asking him for laxatives and entrusting him with his manuscripts, or when, in some of his very last letters to his wife, he described his inability to be sexually aroused by the sight of prostitutes and blamed Jews for his illness, we see an individual with none of our modern prudishness about physical processes.6 This was a man whose body was fundamental to his personality. The material and the cultural should therefore be considered in tandem in regard to Luther, because the apparent visual “problem” of his big, earthy body conveyed perfectly the physicality that was central both to his character and to the symbolic world of early Lutheranism. But why was it that these representations became so iconic? The same powerful presence was conveyed in the emerging biographies of the reformer—in particular, in that Protestant classic of embodied devotion, Luther’s Table Talk, the book that 6 D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar, 1883–) [hereafter cited as WA], Briefwechsel [hereafter cited as WA Br], esp. among his letters to Spalatin, 2: 354 –355, lines 22–28, June 10, 1521; 364 –365, lines 4 –9, July 15, 1521; 368–369, lines 24 –34, July 31, 1521; 377–379, lines 17–21, August 6, 1521; 387–390, lines 27–35, September 9, 1521; 394 –396, lines 5–8, October 7, 1521; letters to Katharina von Bora, WA Br 11: 275–277, lines 4 –15, February 1, 1546; and see also 286–288, lines 13–38, February 7, 1546. For a brilliant discussion of Luther’s masculinity, see Susan Karant-Nunn, “ ‘Fast wa¨re mir ein weibliches Gemu ¨ t verblieben’: Martin Luthers Ma¨nnlichkeit,” in Hans Medick and Peter Schmidt, eds., Luther zwischen den Kulturen (Go ¨ ttingen, 2004), 49–65. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/ at CBS Library on January 28, 2015 FIGURE 2: Lucas Cranach the Younger, Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), 1558. Reproduced by permission of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. populist Luther to life for those who had never met the man. Our Cartesian inheritance. and he had an intuitive understanding of the link between creativity and bodily processes. Any account of the reformer that wants to do justice to the importance of his body—or to the role of the devil in his thought—must come to terms with his excremental rhetoric. there were a wide variety of likenesses of the reformer. http://dbs. In brilliant discussions of this imagery. This is a feature that historians often try to excuse rather than explore. 1989). were fascinated by it. omnipresent in Lutheran visual culture long after his death. Understanding his physicality. is a superb exception. A counterexample to the general rule of depicting him as thin is an etching by Daniel Hopfer of 1523 or later. which is based on the Cranach profile portrait. a subject that lies beyond the scope of this essay. but rushed to apply twentieth-century taboos and to pathologize a feature of his character that was not at odds with much of sixteenth-century culture. Conn. including his conceptions of good and evil. hollow-cheeked Luther in front of a niche. His psychobiographers. was central to the character of Lutheran devotional culture.hab. For Luther. which he regularly deployed against those he considered emissaries of Satan. and Cranach himself portrayed a gaunt. . It makes it hard for us even to get the joke. accommodating far older ways of understanding the sa7 Heiko Oberman’s biography Luther: Man between God and the Devil.8 Several artists even employed doves and halos to cast the young Luther in the familiar mold of the divinely inspired saint.354 Lyndal Roper THE STOUT LUTHER WHO CIRCULATED in images from the 1530s was a new creation.de/luther/index.7 But this is just part of Luther’s generally creative attitude to the body and to the appetites. 8 See Katalog der Wolfenbu ¨ tteler Luther-Drucke 1513 bis 1546. 107–109. for some representative examples of the wide array of early representations of Luther. Eileen WalliserSchwarzbart (New Haven. for even psychoanalytically influenced character studies tend to stress the mental at the expense of the physical.oxfordjournals.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. in text and image. with its separation of mind and body.htm. on the other hand. there was no neat division between body and spirit—and this is worth taking seriously. drawing on saint-like iconography. however. is closely allied both to materiality and to humor. trans. before Cranach the Elder’s famous portraits of the intense monk attained their later dominance. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. Luther’s body. partly because of the illnesses he suffered throughout his life. In the early years of the Reformation. Luther’s antisemitism also needs to be considered in relation to his anal rhetoric. 2015 did so much to bring the four-square. makes it difficult for us to comprehend the ease with which Luther could see the spiritual in the somatic.. or how his body should have conveyed Lutheran identity so powerfully for a whole church. Luther drew on digestive metaphors to convey some of his deepest insights. treating Luther’s anal rhetoric seriously and setting out its medieval roots. some of them completely unrecognizable today. see esp. It also left the reader in no doubt about the importance of the devil for him. and just about all of them showed him as thin. especially in relation to the reformer’s quasi-miraculous powers. the late Bob Scribner argued that this was yet another example of the ways in which the Reformation retained elements of Catholic belief. Hopfer gives Luther slightly sagging jowls. can also help us to appreciate primary themes of his theology differently. Luther’s view of Satan. and in their frequent visual juxtapositions. showing his characteristic double chin. But its significance is evident in the images themselves: in the sheer outpouring of woodcuts. Scribner.. single-leaf printed woodcut portraits of the reformer for sale. developed their portraits of Luther at various ages. powerful rulers. The workshop rapidly achieved dominance in how the reformer was represented.oxfordjournals. However. In 1546. and Scribner. Luther had begun to fill out. or monk. paintings of Luther and Katharina von Bora as the ideal married couple. And these were images to be used in churches. these images of Luther date only from the early 1520s. for instance.. For the Sake of Simple Folk. Luther pictures were produced for every occasion and every purse: Luther as doctor. Cranachs Luther. Luther zwischen den Kulturen. See also Mark U. and . 326. 323–354. and Cranach the Elder’s friendship with Luther brought a key dynamism to the Reformation. a model for a church with married clergy. widely disseminated woodcut images ensured that people knew. WA. By the 1530s. Cranachs Luther: Entwu ¨ rfe fu ¨ r ein Image (Frankfurt. they also engaged in the burgeoning process of creating his biography. nor might they have been consciously aware of its implications. Jr. strong mouth. so that he no longer possessed the ascetic looks of his earlier years. and in printed books—in short. Edwards. he argued. Scribner. so will ich mich alsdann in Sarg legen.9 In their use of visual codes. Tischreden [hereafter cited as WA TR] 6: 302. Warnke. for the first time. 1984). Propaganda. and etchings. Hans Baldung Grien and Hieronymus Hopfer both produced images of Luther with a halo and even with the dove of the Holy Spirit. 10 Luther’s figure changed around 1530.” in Medick and Schmidt. Scribner. what Charles V looked like.Martin Luther’s Body 355 9 R. in their loving attention to the detail of his face and body. Visitors to Coburg Castle during the 1530 Imperial Diet at Augsburg reported that he was fat. 32–33. fleshy face. miracle-worker. or contrasting him with the thin Melanchthon. both in a flood of portraits and in the new print media. piercing deep-set eyes. designed to proclaim evangelical unity between the two very different reformers. and Martin Warnke. 2015 cred.” ibid. Of varying quality. 14 –36. or the Luther double portraits with Melanchthon. which dominated Lutheran imagery throughout the sixteenth century. The kidney stones from which he suffered also made his body bloated. father and son. producing a new kind of imagery for a religious figure who represented a different approach to the flesh. he famously referred to himself as the “stout doctor”: “Wenn ich wieder heim gen Wittenberg komm. whose theology forthrightly attacked monasticism. 301–322. This was a man who had a wife and children. in the home. a very different. As the Cranachs. and Martin Luther (Berkeley. and holy man. in all the key contexts of popular Lutheran devotion. The change in how Luther was represented was not something that his friends or the artists would have put into words. Cranach generally confined himself to employing a background niche. W. and it created a local business out of manufacturing the icon of Luther.10 From then on.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. No. so that. “Incombustible Luther: The Image of the Reformer in Early Modern Germany. The Cranach workshop was located in Wittenberg. images of Luther broke decisively with earlier saintly models. Calif.” in Scribner. und den Maden einen feisten Doctor zu essen geben”. 1981).. 1994). Lutherans fell back on traditional representations of Luther as saint. 1987). portraying Luther next to other stout. “Luther as Media Virtuoso and Media Persona. oil paintings. more standardized iconography emerged. a change that was reflected in the Cranach portraits with their realistic style. 11 See Mark U. Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London. For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (Cambridge. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. 102–118. prophet. lines 12–14. 14 –36. Oberman.11 By 1530 there were poster-style. Printing. The print revolution made it possible to generate mass images of famous individuals. As visitors to the 1530 Diet of Augsburg noted. Luther. 6975. Edwards. “Luther Myth: A Popular Historiography of the Reformer. 4 vols. 1: 391. The German Single-Leaf Woodcut. From Max Geisberg and Walter L. Martin Luther. 1530. Strauss.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. 1974).oxfordjournals. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 . (New York. 1500–1550. There is a matching woodcut of Katharina von Bora. printed by Wolfgang Resch.356 Lyndal Roper Downloaded from http://ahr. 2015 FIGURE 3: Hans Brosamer. 364 x 284 mm. Reproduced by permission of Directmedia Publishing Berlin. 899–931. after mid-1547.. 1500–1550. precious Bible: when he died. 14 The Baptism of Christ in the Presence of Frederick the Wise and Martin Luther. 4 vols. especially bareheaded.14 Other images literally aligned the two. But for contemporary viewers. reproduced in Geisberg and Strauss.” in Volker Leppin. 1520–1620 (Grand Rapids. 2: 619. Nuremberg. in bust portraits. expressive hands meet across the massive chest to hold the tiny. developed by Cranach. See. 79–81. Princes and Propaganda: Electoral Saxon Art of the Reformation (Kirksville. 15 Carl Christensen persuasively identifies this Saxon elector as John the Constant. becomes the key representation. 1992). 102–110.” in Vaclav Bok and Frank Shaw. Friedrich der Weise. 327–357. 402 x 258 mm. while in Cranach the Younger’s image of True and False Religion. of Daniel. and on the resemblance between Luther and the Elector. Mich. Drawing on representations of prophets. See also Robert Kolb. She argues that the image of Luther as prophet. 1540. Teacher. images that the modern viewer may find it hard to comprehend: the large body sits almost comically on the delicate feet. which features small roundel portraits of Luther. 1: 393. their heads and shoulders cram the visual space.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. on these images and many other examples. 13 See Ingrid Kasten. 16 These are now kept in the Marktkirche at Halle and were made on the orders of Justus Jonas AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.12 The Cranachs’ now-standard representation of Luther fused two different iconographic modes into a powerful and novel synthesis.) This style of depicting Luther found its epitome in Cranach the Younger’s fulllength woodcuts from 1546 (the year of Luther’s death) and 1548. 75–101.13 And they frequently represented Luther and the Saxon electors together: the baptism of Christ is shown taking place with Luther and the Saxon elector on either side. Martin Luther. a bulky Luther preaches from the pulpit as a similarly solid John Frederick in the foreground turns his head toward the viewer. all the more poignantly because he was no longer with them. Luther and Elector John the Constant kneel on either side of the cross like two giant counterweights. Cranach the Elder’s images of the rulers of the Saxon house show them as massive.. this monumentalism probably evoked Luther’s powerful presence. and even of Hercules. Carl Christensen. while the small. The images of Luther used the same means to present an individual who possessed unassailable religious authority. whose impressive solidity underlines their secular power. Princes and Propaganda. the Elector John Frederick.. Magister et amicus: Festschrift fu ¨ r Kurt Ga ¨rtner zum 65. see also the title page of Luther’s Vom Reich Christi: Der CX Psalm (Wittenberg. and for an early example.Martin Luther’s Body 357 12 Hans Brosamer. 1539). In a woodcut design that regularly appeared in his collected works. Meister M S. (New York. Strauss. The German Single-Leaf Woodcut.15 (See Figure 4. Its Principal Features. The large-size woodcut by Hans Brosamer. 2015 squat neck. “Demut und Bekenntnis—Cranachs Bildnisse von Kurfu ¨ rst Johann Friedrich I von Sachsen. 3: 1283. 48– 49. and Sabine Wefers. 1548 and shows Frederick the Wise and Luther praying on each side. The German Single-Leaf Woodcut.” dates from the period after John Frederick’s defeat at Mu ¨ hlberg. ibid.16 The folds of the talar that he wears . ca. was updated ten years later to portray the reformer as he aged. 2: 615. Martin Luther as Prophet. reproduced in Geisberg and Strauss. Jahrhundert. see Edgar Bierende. His garb marks him out as doctor and cleric. carrying the cross of martyrdom. and Melanchthon across the top border. Max Geisberg and Walter L. a follower of the Cranachs. and Hero: Images of the Reformer..oxfordjournals. the Cranachs and their followers created a religious figure whose body was physically imposing. 1974). casts were taken of his hands and face. it dates from ca. printed by Hans Guldenmund. bestriding their realms. see Christensen. bull-headed figures. Mo. Johann Friedrich I: Der lutherische Kurfu ¨ rst (Gu ¨ tersloh. Herzog von Sachsen und Martin Luther in Anbetung des Kreuzes. 2003). They stand erect with their feet apart. The broadsheet “The Difference between the True Religion of Christ and the False Idolatrous Teaching of Antichrist. Georg Schmidt. eds. 2006). “ ‘Was ist Luther? Ist doch die lere nitt meyn’: Die Anfa ¨nge des Luther-Mythos im 16. Geburtstag (Vienna. 1999). The German Single-Leaf Woodcut. 1992). Martin Luther und Halle: Kabinettausstellung der Marienbibliothek und der Franckeschen Stiftungen zu Halle im Luthergedenkjahr 1996 (Halle. the shoulders set powerfully back. The head. The first volume of the Latin Works of 1545 also uses the same iconography. see Ulinka Rublack and Sachiko Kusukawa. What was by now the familiar Luther was then used in print literature as well. September 11. 2015 FIGURE 4: An earlier version of this image in which Christ’s loincloth touches the two figures first appeared in the 1546 edition of Luther’s New Testament. the variant reproduced here appears in several other volumes of the collected works.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford. the neck bull-like. forthcoming). 2008). 3. tilts slightly forward as the eyes gaze into the middle distance. and was also used in several volumes of Luther’s collected German works. Princes and Propaganda: Electoral Saxon Art of the Reformation (Kirksville. a stripe of red undergarment is clearly visible. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. 48–50. Colors are also important to these images of Luther: below his collar. Mo. who also did a brush drawing of Luther’s face on his deathbed. Andreas Stahl of the Landesdenkmalamt. From Carl Christensen. with its trademark wayward curl. 1996). the Catby the painter Lukas Furtenagel of Halle.358 Lyndal Roper create strong downward lines that reinforce the sense of authority. “Grapho-Relics: German Lutheranism and Materializations of the Word” (paper presented at Relics and Remains: A Past and Present Conference. His stance is erect. his hymns. chap. yet the bearing is not that of a man of the sword. Rublack argues that he in fact wore red stockings. I am grateful to Dr. authenticating the image and underlining the partnership between workshop and reformer. Halle.. rooting him firmly to the ground. Cranach the Younger’s monogram and the date are clearly visible in both woodcuts. Reproduced by permission of Directmedia Publishing Berlin. . On the particular significance of the hands and head as representing the individual. published by Hans Lufft. but the image differs slightly. especially in popular devotional works: Luther’s collected works. See Franckesche Stiftung Halle.oxfordjournals. see Ulinka Rublack. 32–34. org/ at CBS Library on January 28. Reproduced by permission of the Kupferstichkabinett. Martin Luther. Facing Left. Full Length.Martin Luther’s Body 359 Downloaded from http://ahr. 1546). 2015 FIGURE 5: Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 . Christian Roedinger. Vienna.oxfordjournals. 342 x 209 mm (Magdeburg. Full Length. Facing Right. Reproduced by permission of the Lutherhalle Wittenberg.360 Lyndal Roper Downloaded from http://ahr. 2015 FIGURE 6: Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger.oxfordjournals. Martin Luther.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 . 144 x 97 mm. . The German Single-Leaf Woodcut. and the House Postils (designed for family devotions) were frequently prefaced with a woodcut portrait.) Instead. and the image on the Wittenberg Stadtkirche Altar of Luther as Junker Jo ¨ rg distributing communion—but the latter two show the later Luther as well. it recognized the contribution that his pro-Reformation policies had made to the Reformation. Berlin. Reich Exhibition. 1483–1983 (Oxford. which Luther presented to Vogler when he visited in Wittenberg. 1530. Luthers Bild und Lutherbilder: Ein Rundgang durch die Wirkungsgeschichte (Wittenberg. I am grateful to the curator. By the 1560s. often with the Bible at his side.17 (See Figure 7. Geisberg and Strauss.oxfordjournals. and Ansgar Reiss. for her help. which depicts Luther and Katharina von Bora. Volkmar Joestel. is of normal size. of Luther as monk.) There is comparatively little variation in these later images. ed. Junker Jo ¨ rg. Johann Hasenberg’s 1528 Ad Luderanorum.. a broadsheet resembling a cartoon. In the illustration to Cochlaeus’s hostile Seven-Headed Luther of 1529. Heiliges Ro ¨misches Reich deutscher Nation 962 bis 1806 (Dresden. ed. the mature. which all show the reformer without tonsure and in clerical garb. virtually disappeared in print. the extraordinary triptych painting now in Weimar. “Preface. “Grapho-Relics. 1528). Jutta Strehle. see Rublack and Kusukawa. 60–61.20 More than with any other reformer. 2003). famosum Libelum. to be revived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. pious Lutherans could even assemble a giant portrait out of a woodcut series produced by Cranach the Younger to decorate their own homes. eds. for instance. adding a personal dedication in his own hand. The Anatomy of Martin Luther (which shows his followers dissecting him). yet though they make much AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. Luther’s image was familiar to a wide public. the monk’s body from which the seven heads sprout is not particularly fat. This authentication in word and picture was what made the gift valuable. 2015 echism. while Luther’s cadaver in a fanatically anti-Lutheran woodcut of 1568. now digitized in VD 16). which is too large for it. while the copy of the 1570 Urban Gaubisch Eisleben edition of the Tischreden at the Marienbibliothek Halle (C IV. Jutta Go ¨ tzmann. recens Wittenbergae editum. 162–163. Similarly. for images of Luther through the centuries.. 1: 158–160. On autograph collections. see Peter Norman Brooks. 21 On Cochlaeus. vi–viii. which is reminiscent of the Cranach workshop’s triptych of the Saxon electors. So successful were the Lutherans in making his monumentality part of the positive image of Lutheranism that there are almost no examples of anti-Lutheran visual polemic that exploit what one might expect would be an easy target—Lutherans themselves regularly satirized the broad girths of the pope and his bishops. Luthers Schatzkammer: Kostbarkeiten im Lutherhaus Wittenberg (Do ¨ ssel.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. creating a remarkably consistent image of the reformer.18 And they became part of the penumbra of print culture: depictions of Luther were tooled into leather book bindings and used to decorate the autograph books that Wittenberg students loved to collect. does not show a fat Luther.21 The Catholic ex-Lutheran .) has an image of Luther tooled onto the front with Melanchthon on the back. Jutta Strehle speculates that it may have been designed as a wall display triptych of giant reformers.19 Luther himself made use of this vogue for images of the reformer. Seven-Headed Luther: Essays in Commemoration of a Quincentenary. 2006). stout Luther crowded out all other representations. and neither does his Ludus ludentum Lutherum ludens (Leipzig. 2008). This gift. It could be argued that these are early works of Luther before he filled out. 8 fols.Martin Luther’s Body 361 17 There were similar formats for Hus and Melanchthon with a slightly less capacious body (the heads could be interchanged). 2006. and mature man. See Hans Ottomeyer.” 20 It is on display at the Historisches Museum in the Zeughaus.” in Brooks. or even as Junker Jo ¨ rg. but Melanchthon’s thin head sits oddly atop the body. 18 See the excellent Volkmar Joestel and Jutta Strehle. 19 Some of these leather bindings are exhibited in the Lutherhalle Wittenberg. Peter und Paul. 1983). Stadtkirche St. he presented the Ansbach chancellor Georg Vogler with a copy of the German Bible prefaced with a lifelike painting by the Cranach workshop of himself against a blue background. (There are some marvelous exceptions that prove the rule: an image from 1598 of Luther as Junker Jo ¨ rg that makes his torso so wide that his legs scarcely meet. and the exhibition in the Lutherhalle Wittenberg. Responsio (Leipzig. for by that time Vogler had left his post. My thorough search of the Lutherhalle Wittenberg archive collection of printed images of the reformer suggests that the pictures of the young Luther as monk. was not a political calculation. Conn. 1589). 105–129 and figs. but they rarely showed him as fat. 3: 1016. in an image that owes much to depictions of the Judensau. The German Single-Leaf Woodcut. 397. More surprisingly. Interestingly. including the manuscript Jesuit play from Dillingen. too. Des ehrwu ¨ rdigen Herrn Doctoris Martini Lutheri gottseligen Triumpf und Verantwortung wider die gottlosen Schma ¨hschrift der neuen Mu ¨ nch der Jesuiter . see Jennifer Spinks. Alicia Mayer. conveyed a surprisingly strong sense of their hero’s body. Biographies of various kinds began to be written soon after his death. the 1589 woodcut illustration for Abraham Nagel’s Schu ¨ ttlung deß vermeinten Christenbaums (Ingolstadt. derives from stories of a monstrous birth from Halle. His life story became equally heroic. appearing at the same time as these biographies and images of Luther.” in Medick and Schmidt. including the heretic as a pig. between 1620 and 1630. Johann Nas and the Monogrammist L with a cross. 2004). 2015 LUTHER’S IMAGE AS A monumental figure. The Barefooted Friars Tearing Apart the Dead St. Jahrhundert. as Spinks points out. republished in 1577. was firmly established. Luther zwischen den Kulturen. Francis. appeared ca. images played a crucial part: many versions of the classic were prefaced by a woodcut bust portrait of the nowfamiliar broad-shouldered reformer and an illustration of him at the table with the . Monstrous Births and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Germany (London.” in Medick and Schmidt. There were many editions. 2009).oxfordjournals.1 and 5. and they.. But the work that probably did the most to shape the picture of the reformer’s personality. 1317. Geisberg and Strauss. Luther zwischen den Kulturen. 119–140. See Geisberg and Strauss. and by 1568 there was a Lutheran riposte. it shows Luther as thin. who wrote the verses for The Anatomy. including one from 1582. The image was based. 22 On Ecclesia militans. Indeed. then. See Geisberg and Strauss. The illustrations of his work are packed with images of Luther.. and probably Alexander and Samuel Weissenhorn. . The Reformation of the Image (New Haven. Here. The failure to make capital out of Luther’s bulk is even more striking because works from the same period. Another woodcut satire from this period attributed to the Weissenhorns is Martin Luther and the Poor Peasant . 1568. of the reformer’s sensuality. was the celebrated Table Talk or Tischreden. Curiositas. Sihe wie das ellend Lutherthumb (1568?). On The Anatomy of Martin Luther. on the 1567 woodcut illustrating Luther’s Tischreden. but they do not make much of his size. for two versions of it. for a reproduction. See on the original image Joseph Leo Koerner. . 19. copper etching. The German Single-Leaf Woodcut. he is not depicted as especially fat. Ecclesia militans is responding to Lutherus triumphans of 1568.” An exception here is a much later image from the 1620s in the wake of the Battle of the White Mountain. deliberately anachronistic in style.362 Lyndal Roper Johann Nas. 5. too. Luthers Bild und Lutherbilder. “ ‘The Heresiarch That Burns in Hell’: The Image of Luther in New Spain. and also. they do not present him as corpulent. so successful had Lutheran propaganda been in presenting Luther’s presence as physically powerful that Catholics found it hard to wrench its meaning back to suggest corruption or lassitude. which reproduces the seven-headed Luther with Katharina von Bora as the trunk of the tree of heresy. See Burschel. . 3: 1186–1187. and for the Stimmer woodcut. another riposte with verses by Johann Fischart and an image by Tobias Stimmer. artists. “Das Monster.22 Propagandists poked fun at Luther for being too given to German beer or abused him for being licentious. make much of the Lutheran pastor called Biberius. knew only too well how to use the excremental and monstrous themes that Lutheran anti-Catholic propaganda had exploited.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. ibid. The German Single-Leaf Woodcut. 1569: Luther trots along obediently behind a large Katharina-sow. evoking the famous woodcut title pages of popular pamphlets around the time of the Peasants’ War. 3: 1316. 3: 1184 –1185. does not represent Luther as fat even though by then the iconography of the stout reformer was well-established.” Even in New Spain. See Burschel. reproduced in Peter Burschel. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. “Das Monster. 42. where Luther was depicted as run over by the triumphant cart of the Catholic Church or as drowning in the sea. printed at Wittenberg. who with his wife offers communion wine from a beer jug. “Das Monster: Katholische Luther-Imagination im 16. see Johann Nas.2. as Koerner shows. too. which has Luther so fat that he needs a wheelbarrow to cart his giant paunch: Nun muss es ja gewandert sein. a proLuther broadsheet that shows a monumental Luther and is also illustrated with a roundel portrait of the broad-faced reformer. see Joestel and Strehle. Lucas Cranach d. 2015 FIGURE 7: Martin Luther. ca. 1560.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 . The size of the total image is 1395 cm x 775 cm.oxfordjournals. woodcut in 11 parts. J.Martin Luther’s Body 363 Downloaded from http://ahr. workshop. Reproduced by permission of the Lutherhalle Wittenberg. .org/ at CBS Library on January 28. Ludwig Rabus. . Ludwig Rabus’s 1556 History of the Life and Death . ed. Anno 1498. 1546). 1996).25 As part of a wave of historical writing in the aftermath of the . one that would dignify the Lutheran Church with a past stretching back to the early church. The image in Epitaphivm des Ehrwirdigen Herrn vnd Vaters Martini Luthers . facsimile ed. a vision of grounded. 1573). yet neither side could monopolize his biography.24 Rabus wanted to construct a new version of church history. so it also powerfully evoked his battles with Satan. “Vom Christlichen abschied aus diesem to ¨dlichen leben des Ehrwirdigen Herrn D. and doing theology.oxfordjournals. Historien/ Von des Ehrwirdigen in Gott Seligen thewren Manns Gottes/ Doctoris Martini Luthers (1566. vnd jtzt verdeudscht (Wittenberg. See also the roundel image in Martin Luther. zu Florentz verbrant (Wittenberg. Mart. Martin Luthers (Stuttgart. Luther jnn Latinischer sprach ausgelegt. Durch D. . . as the title page notes. 1557). 1546).364 Lyndal Roper 23 See. a companion roundel of Melanchthon prefaced his Oratio. martyrs. an aspect of his personality that has often been misunderstood because it has not been placed in its wider literary and cultural context. 24 The connection that biographers made between Savanarola and Luther would merit a study of its own.. 1546) is smaller and cruder but also uses the roundel device to show an older Luther. For both sides. Luther’s character has always been intensely important to Lutheranism. (Wittenberg. . which lost its cohesion when Luther died and his charisma no longer held the movement together. when the new church most needed to be united. 25 The same impulse is evident in artworks. the Life of Savanarola immediately precedes that of Luther (Rabus kept adding to the collection of biographies in subsequent editions). the first full-length biography was produced. . and AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. and many of the publications about or by Luther in 1546 were prefaced with his picture.. . It is a compilation of biographical materials that attempts to place Luther within a long line of Christian saints. Martini Lutheri”: Drei zeitgeno ¨ssische Texte zum Tode D. for example. 1556). the movement split bitterly between “Philippists” loyal to Melanchthon and Gnesio-Lutherans who were opposed to what they saw as a betrayal of Luther’s message. So eager was Mathesius to divine a connection between Savanarola and Luther that he opens his first sermon by announcing— wrongly—that Luther was born in the year Savanarola was burned. 2015 Wittenberg circle and his children in the room. . Nuremberg.” For a similar image. 1546). including even a life of Hus and of Savanarola. See also Evangelisches Predigerseminar Wittenberg. Zwo Scho ¨ne vnd Tro ¨stliche predigt . Selnecker corrects the mistake but makes the connection with Savanarola on the very first page of his biography. Psalm. Vom Christlichen abschied . four-square spirituality that could not have been further from the anorexic saints of medieval Catholicism. drinking. Der vierdte Theyl (Strasbourg. des Mans Gottes: Der XC. the fine roundel image of Luther prefacing the description of his death in Justus Jonas and Michael Coelius. .23 Just a decade later. fol. Johannes Mathesius. see Johann Spangenberg. Cyriakus Spangenberg also wrote a Life of Savanarola: Historia: Vom Leben Lere vnd Tode/ Hieronymi Sauanarole. conversing. of “Dr Martin Luther”—his title of “doctor” is respectfully used throughout—forms the centerpiece of Rabus’s monumental multi-volume history of the martyrs of the Christian Church. (Nuremberg. the choir stalls in the Church of the Holy Brethren in Braunschweig for a cycle of forty-six full-length portraits of apostles. In the wake of defeat in the Schmalkaldic War. Luther’s legacy was part of the battleground. In the 1557 edition of Rabus’s Historien. Historien: Der Heyligen Außerwo ¨lten Gottes Zeu ¨ gen/ Bekennern vnd Martyrern . for example. And just as it made the reader aware of the reformer’s appetites and earthiness. also from 1546. The Table Talk presents Luther eating. these sermons were given “hart vor seinem seligen Abschied von diesem Jamertal. . too. See. (Wittenberg. Funeral sermons and orations by Johannes Bugenhagen and Melanchthon were all published by the Wittenberg printer Georg Rhau. repr. The historiographical focus on Luther as hero has its origins in the nature of the Wittenberg Reformation. Das Gebet Mose. The process of writing Luther’s biography began early: even his death was a public matter. 1r. with an account by eyewitnesses of his illness and deathbed soon rushed to print. org/ at CBS Library on January 28. Luther’s works. I can do nothing else. The Reformation of the Image. Reformatoren im Mansfelder Land. Crude woodcuts illustrate the key encounters of the early years: Augsburg. and freely admitted the difficulties of his bullish character. Disciples and Foes (Aldershot. We see Luther preaching. and where Melanchthon was careful to excuse Luther’s excessive polemics. Weimar. Leipzig. Martin Treu. showing his coffin. he carefully reproduced the sources—letters. and a final woodcut illustrates his funeral. two of Worms. followed by pictures of the reformers. on these various projects of memorialization. eds. Georg Spalatin. Spalatiniana. and there is even one of Worms with a cartoon-style scrawl where Luther says. and on Spangenberg and history. Here the crude visuals. Koerner. Life Writing in Reformation Europe: Lives of Reformers by Friends. “Here I stand. 2008). too: Spalatin carefully collected papers for such a work. 1546–1580. the business of the Gospel would have been suppressed right at the beginning.”28 Scattered throughout the book is a woodcut bust portrait of Luther. two of soldiers. “Cyriakus Spangenberg als Geschichtsschreiber. 388. the burning of the papal bull. see Susan Boettcher. 27 Rabus. one of the burning of the papal bull. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.” ibid. 2006). he also edited his source: where Melanchthon described Luther as a scholar well read in the church fathers and the classics. in a woodcut that borrows from the now-standard iconography. reports of those close to Luther—from which he had compiled his account. the emperor at Worms.Martin Luther’s Body 365 confessors. 2nd ed. 2015 Reformation. one of Leipzig.”27 Thereafter he is a resolute fighter for the truth. Rabus’s biography emphasizes. see also her forthcoming The Memory of Martin Luther. our hero shows humility and is prepared to compromise. one of Luther preaching. one of Augsburg. Rabus—or his publisher—also knew the value of the image. “Cyriakus Spangenberg als Chronist: Die Authentizita¨t des Sterbehauses von Martin Luther. fol. But it pleased the Almighty for things to turn out otherwise. but it does not appear to have enjoyed a long afterlife: there are no surviving editions after 1571/1572. culminating in the Diet at Worms when he refused to recant.” in Rhein and Wartenberg. the Pope’s servants and emissaries had accepted. xvi (r): “Welches so es die Widerpart/ des Babsts Diener vnd Gesandten hetten angenommen/ were der handel des Euangeliums also bald im anfang vndertruckt worden/ Aber es hat dem Allmetchtigen anderst gefallen. Reformatoren im Mansfelder Land: Erasmus Sarcerius und Cyriakus Spangenberg (Leipzig. the series was probably completed in the 1590s. and the printer recycles the “encounter” woodcuts for the later meetings at Marburg and Schmalkalden. There are eleven small woodcuts: one of Luther’s bust. 1989). 1484 –1545: Ein Leben in der Zeit des Humanismus und der Reformation (1956. 155–170. Martin Luther in Wittenberg: Ein biographischer Rundgang (Wittenberg. VD 16 R 44). in the famous words he may never actually have uttered. and Rabus selected source extracts to construct a biography that is a series of confrontations in which Luther stands firm. Rabus’s Luther appeals to the Word of God alone. see Andreas Stahl. and one of Luther’s funeral. Amen. The work appeared in eight parts. and Siegfried Bra¨uer’s “Cyriakus Spangenberg als mansfeldisch-sa¨chsischer Reformationshistoriker.oxfordjournals. as it says on the title page. “which if the opposition. Historien (1557 ed.. See Irmgard Ho ¨ ss.. his “manifold struggles and fights. and copies of printings in 1556 (VD 16 R 41) and 1557 (apparently there were two: VD 16 R 44 and VD 16 ZV 12904) survive. 2006). and see Staatsarchiv Weimar. one of Luther and Aleander. reproduces the colored woodcuts in the Lutherhalle copy. .” 28 Rabus. lovingly hand-colored in the example held at the Lutherhalle in Wittenberg. God help me... Part of the intellectual context came from Johann Sleidan’s ambitious history of the Reformation. and only a fraction of the chronicles the indefatigable Spangenberg wrote were published. 26 See Irena Backus. 171–190. On the contemporary understanding of history. 191–216. Historien. Others were at work.” in Stefan Rhein and Gu ¨ nther Wartenberg.” Luther has to learn the importance of stubbornness: at Augsburg with the papal legate Cajetan in 1518.26 Although he plagiarized Melanchthon’s funeral oration and biographical sketch of Luther in his account of the reformer’s early life and for the dramatic events at Worms. Mathesius himself had a deep interest in metallurgy. by contrast. apparently only in Nuremberg). he refers frequently AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. with twelve editions. describing his digestive problems and his depression. 1572. 30 Mathesius.oxfordjournals. as devotional works for oral delivery: both started life as a series of sermons. Ferry. Mathesius’s posthumously published biography of Luther was reprinted at least twelve times in the sixteenth century (in 1566. 1592. including how he 29 On sermons by Mathesius and Spangenberg. he became pastor in the mining region of Joachimstal and wrote a series of sermons based on the imagery of mining. Historien. which appeared in 1566 and 1589 respectively. 1576. cxxxi. 1557). 1570. 1590. 1578). see Patrick T.”30 Although we hear quite a lot about Luther’s body. 1580. where he also transcribed some of Luther’s Table Talk. and the profits that the parents of one of his pupils made through mining speculation paid for him to return as a student to Wittenberg in 1540.” Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 1143–1166. Reproduced by permission of the Lutherhalle Wittenberg. fol. “Confessionalization and Popular Preaching: Sermons against Synergism in Reformation Saxony. telling how Luther’s bowels opened in the night “so that he began to be freed with joy from his complaint and load which he had carried with death-pains for almost eleven days. Bergpostilla: Oder Sarepta (Nuremberg. he even details an episode of constipation. ornamented throughout with simple bust woodcuts of the reformer. 1568.366 Lyndal Roper provide a basic narrative of what the pious Lutheran needs to know about the reformer’s life. 1573. . The biographies of Luther by Johannes Mathesius and Cyriakus Spangenberg. hand-colored copy from the Lutherhalle Wittenberg. 2015 FIGURE 8: Ludwig Rabus. In the biography. and 1600. 1588. His year-by-year chronological account of his hero’s life (each sermon covers one or two years) also makes much of Luther’s physical and mental ailments. Spangenberg’s appeared year by year from the 1560s until they were finally collected in a single volume. fol.org/ at CBS Library on January 28.29 Mathesius’s biography was the more apparently successful. Historien: Der Heyligen Außerwo ¨lten Gottes Zeu ¨ gen (Strasbourg. 1583. were conceived. lxxix v. “Baugeschichtliche Erkenntnisse zu Luthers Elternhaus in Mansfeld und seiner Bewohner. presenting him as rather closer to labor than his smelter-master (effectively mine owner) father actually was. Tischreden. . This collection of Luther’s dinnertime conversations. I shall cite from the facsimile edition. .33 The success of Aurifaber’s collection (published at Eisleben. “Bibliographie der Tischredenausgaben. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.” WA 59: 747–760. we need to return to the original text. . and placing it in its contemporary intellectual context in the publishing world of the later sixteenth century. Faksimile. 2007). fol.” in Rosemarie Knape. observations on men’s and women’s bodies— reproducing the rhythms of his speech. there is little about his children or his wife. Mathesius and Johann Sleidan provided material for a handy briefer biography. Martin Luther und Eisleben (Leizpig.32 It has been a monumental work of nineteenth.31 At the same time that these biographies were creating the narrative of Luther’s life. He also explores the allegorical meanings of mining in his biography of Luther.Martin Luther’s Body 367 to Luther’s childhood as a son of a “Bergmann. compare.oxfordjournals. 1576).” reporting what he himself had seen and heard of Luther. I have used the version that prefaces the 1577 edition of Luther’s Tischreden. describing God as the “Oberste Bergherr” and the Christians as “Dingehewer”. See Kolb. He also repeatedly used the authorial “I. and see Johannes Schilling.” fol. include great detail on the subject. his story also cast Luther’s life as a constant struggle against the devil and made much of the prophecies surrounding him. edit. For important new findings.. and his marriage is not mentioned in the chronicle of the year 1525. where Luther spent his childhood.. recorded by his students. Spangenberg had a similar interest in mining. translated as Historica oratio: Vom Leben vnd Wandel des . 31 Nikolaus Selnecker. Adler (Leipzig. 353–390. I shall deal elsewhere with the history and iconography of the image of the reformer at the table in the Frankfurt editions of 1567 and 1568. 1561). and catalogue Luther’s Tischreden. and Andreas Stahl. 33 For ease of reference. 2015 lost weight as he neared death. and his massive chronicles of Mansfeld. . . P. Cyriakus Spangenberg. the Table Talk appeared. originally came from Melanchthon’s circle. “Die Familie Luder und das Bergwerks. considering it as a book in its own right. he also uses mining as a metaphor (195 v). (Leipzig. Martin Luther as Prophet. dealt with an unconventional mix of topics—doctrine. Historica Narratio et Oratio . 11–31. edited by Johannes Aurifaber.und Hu ¨ ttenwesen in der Grafschaft Mansfeld und im Herzogtum Braunschweig-Wolfenbu ¨ ttel. mit einem Nachwort von J. Herrn . . ed. 1566]. 3 r. and relating this to his prophetic role: “Gott wolte auß Japhets vnd Thubals nachkommen vnd Deutschen Saraptanern vnnd Berleuten/ sein Kirche am ende der Welt reformieren. 32 Helmut Junghans. Martin Luther seligen/ fu ¨ rnemlich Deudschland erzeigt/ vnd von der Schendlichen groben vndanckbarkeit/ fu ¨ r solche grosse gaben (Jena. small wonder that Lutherans were at first divided about the wisdom of publishing it at all. where Luther was born and died) can be measured by the speed with which he lost control over his bestseller: there was a pirated Frankfurt edition the very next year.org/ at CBS Library on January 28.and twentiethcentury scholarship to collate. see Michael Fessner. Theander Lutherus (Oberursel. Martin Luthers Werke: Sonderedition der kritischen Weimarer Ausgabe. politics.-Druck der Originalausgabe 1566. and the Table Talk soon became part of the large . Mart. 1589). Begleitheft zu den Tischreden (Weimar. Aurifaber: Tischreden oder Colloquia Doct. 2000). 70–74. Luthers. 1575). often coarse but always striking.” as he puts it. trans. Nikolaus Selnecker. Spangenberg began the project with Warhafftiger Bericht von den wolthaten/ die Gott durch D.” in D. stripping back the accretions to come as close as possible to the reformer’s words. “Die Tischreden Martin Luthers. Heuslerus (Leipzig. Yet if we want to understand where Aurifaber’s collection of 1566 fits into the tradition of Lutheran biography. The importance of mining to Luther’s identity has not been fully appreciated hitherto. although its author. 354v. Martini Lutheri. 26.” ibid. It was a daring venture. which merits an article in its own right. 1968) [hereafter cited as Luther. See VD 16. the elegant large-size folio with red ink for emphasis and classy capitals. Collected first together by Dr.35 This enabled the book to function as a devotional text that gave the reader access to Luther’s theology in easily digestible chunks. If ever any book exemplified Andrew Pettegree’s idea that books can be brand names. with eighty rather than forty-three headings. 37 Nikolaus Selnecker. on his own. . Dris. and the Royal Library in Copenhagen.” 27. the British Library in London. among others. The binding of the British library copy of the 1577 edition has an image of the stout Luther on the cover tooled into the leather. but it appeared in one edition only.37 The version by Stangewald was the one that went on to dominate later Luther reception. “Bibliographie der Tischredenausgaben”. before degenerating into a series of much shorter sections. A. It too has an engraved illustration. arranged into forty-three chapters. Schilling. (London. 38 See VD 16. or. and see Kolb. 156–159. “Die Tischreden Martin Luthers”. In Luther’s theology we get the kingdom of this world . I have consulted copies of the Tischreden in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.oxfordjournals. the Lutherhalle Wittenberg. the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. 1652). a structure that Aurifaber adopted from the original unpublished collection of conversations noted by various students in a mixture of German and Latin. . it is the Tischreden.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. together with a vivid large frontispiece bust portrait. published in 1652. It loosely follows Aurifaber’s original. republished in 1659 and 1791. Sigmund Feyerabend. 153. “Bibliographie der Tischredenausgaben”. Aurifaber .39 Aurifaber’s volume begins with passages on the Word. the leading Frankfurt publisher. Lauterbach.34 What is immediately striking about the work—and has irritated later scholarly editors—is the grouping of the Table Talk not by date but by theme. “Die Tischreden Martin Luthers”. as a brief chapter on angels gives way to a hefty chunk of texts on the devil. Martin Luther as Prophet. Kolb. . 2015 publishing scene there. Colloquia oder Christliche nu ¨ tzliche Tischreden . VD 17. part of the Lutheran “package. objects that one owns not to read but to proclaim one’s confessional identity. The first English version is the translation by Captain Henry Bell. It was succeeded by a Leipzig edition that included Selnecker’s biography of Luther. 152–154. and Junghans. Kolb. Schilling. as compared to only five of the revised Stangewald/Selnecker version. 36 Andrew Pettegree.36 Designed to be dipped into rather than read at a single sitting.” in Martin Luther. monks. and afterwards disposed into certain common places by J.Lyndal Roper 368 Junghans. A Latin version of the Table Talk was published in 1571. “Historica Oratio. fols. 39 There are fifteen extant sixteenth-century editions of Aurifaber. . in two volumes. with neither table nor companions. Martin Luther as Prophet. and enthusiasts of every stripe. . lasting through the eighteenth century. On the importance of the Loci communes method in systematizing Luther’s thought for later readers (and expressly used in the Tischreden. translated by the pastor Heinrich Peter Rebenstock. 1577). the Marienbibliothek Halle. and the world. marriage. 34 35 AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. (Leipzig. c (iv) r–g (vi) v. co-published by. followed by a series of chapters that lay out the central themes of Luther’s theology. But section 23 brings a change of direction. “Die Tischreden Martin Luthers. see Kolb. derived from Melanchthon. it also made Luther’s person an inseparable part of his theology. followed by a litany of chapters on enemies of various kinds: the pope. . Junghans. This structure preserves a characteristic trait of Luther’s personality: his tendency to polarize. Dr. with chapters on the Christian life. Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge. The tone then shifts again. Martin Luther as Prophet. as the title page of the two-volume version of 1567 indicates). featuring a bulky Luther. 2005). Martin Luther’s Divine Discourses at his table.” And it could be bought in various formats: the fat quarto version.38 But the original Aurifaber selection under eighty heads was undoubtedly the most current sixteenth-century version in the crucial half-century after Luther’s death. &c . Martini Lutheri Colloquia Mensalia. 195–224. 152–154. There were competitors: a revised selection was made in 1571 by Andreas Stangewald in Frankfurt and printed by Thomas Rebart’s heirs. Martin Luther as Prophet. and what was its legacy? To answer this question.. in which the section comes at the end of volume 1. even the Trousers Devil. (Frankfurt. . the Gorging Devil. 44 See Ria Stambaugh. Theatrum de veneficis (Frankfurt. Malleus maleficarum (Frankfurt. Edited by Abraham Saur.40 Why should Aurifaber have given it such prominence. In 1586. Jakob Sprenger [sic]. the Adultery Devil. 2015 and the Kingdom of God. 1576). Jaren lateinisch von VLRICO MOLITORIS . Das ander/ Von Hexen vnd Vnholden/ anfenglich vor CXIIII. 5 vols. including the hoary Malleus of 1486. . Zwey Gesprech: Das erste/ Von Za ¨uberern/ welche man Lateinisch/ Sortilegos oder Sortiarios. another Frankfurt printer. . and allying himself with one of them while denigrating the other. Bodini Andegavensis De magorvm daemonomania . 1580). Conrad Lautenbach (Frankfurt.43 Evidently there was something of a publishing vogue in these Protestant circles for books dealing with witchcraft and the devil. and including a chapter specifically on the devil. which mocks the fashion for wide Turkish-style trousers. Theatrum diabolorum (Frankfurt. 1586). 1590). works and faith. Basse happened to have a sideline in reprinting classics of demonology. we need to consider its relation to the Frankfurt publishing scene more closely. 41 Sigmund Feyerabend. the Drunkenness Devil. By organizing the Tischreden thematically. 1970–1980). so that the volume—intended to be leafed through rather than read at a sitting—easily opens there. Aurifaber highlighted the importance of Satan in Luther’s theology. he again mined the same rich seam by publishing yet another volume in the handsome folio format of the Tischreden: a collection of books of demonology. and he also republished Bodin’s famous treatise on witchcraft in Latin in 1590: Jean Bodin. ed. in which the message about sin was sugared with a coating of humor.44 But less familiar is the very direct . And this is exactly what happened. and he followed it up in 1580 with a selection of old witchcraft treatises in Latin. the collection is loosely Lutheran and includes many texts that are daringly skeptical about the reality of witchcraft. . bringing together a series of moralizing tracts caricaturing different sins. Nor was Feyerabend the only Frankfurt publisher to turn a penny by publishing the Table Talk: Nicholas Basse. In most editions.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. He also created a section that could readily be exploited by those who were interested in the devil. The well-thumbed copy of the 1570 Urban Gaubisch Eisleben edition at the Marienbibliothek Halle evidently had an owner who did exactly this. nennet .41 Each has its own peculiar devil: there is the House Devil.. which includes dramatic extracts from several trials (a selling point advertised on the cover). this was a back number reprinted to cash in on the vogue for books on witchcraft. trans. together with Saur’s own impassioned plea for fairer trials of witches. 42 Lambert Daneau. 1569). which stresses the importance of illusion in witchcraft. for the sections on the devil are among the most heavily underlined. the key chapter on the devil comes around the middle. and see Lyndal AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. It has long been known that the Devil Books were a predominantly Lutheran form of moralizing. and so on. in 1576 he had produced a German version of Lambert Daneau’s treatise on witchcraft. also produced editions of it in both German and Latin. 43 Abraham Saur.oxfordjournals.Martin Luther’s Body 369 40 The exception is the two-volume edition. In 1575 and 1586. ed. together with the much older fifteenth-century skeptical treatise by Ulrich Molitor. . and he published Johann Go ¨ delmann’s slightly skeptical witchcraft treatise in 1592. . Feyerabend also printed a similar large-size handsome collected edition of Devil Books. (Berlin. law and gospel. In the same year he published his 1569 edition of the Table Talk. . Io. A great deal of his intellectual energy is devoted to identifying two terms. Teufelbu ¨ cher in Auswahl. he published Johannes Weyer’s skeptical De praestigiis daemonum in German translation.42 Hardly a current authority. such as an extract from Johann Weyer’s De praestigiis daemonum. huge antlers grow on his head so that he cannot fit it back through the window. “Drinking. Tischreden. too. who has to be told by simple folk what happened at his own baptism. and see WA TR 2: 97. Although the ostensible moral is the power of faith. part of the attraction of the Tischreden lay in its entertainment value.. The doctor promptly seizes the goat by the horns and the body disappears. fol. So impressed is a bystander with the doctor’s feat that he tries to do the same. So. his arms outstretched in the shape of a cross. At last one of the monks bids the devil be gone in the name of God. where various adventures ensue. there is the story of the monk and the cardinal who stay overnight in a haunted inn. As if to take him at his word.” in Roper. Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft. line 25. for example. WA TR 6: 208. 45 Luther. 1425. and Religion in Early Modern Europe (London. No.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. Wonderfully anti-authoritarian as the joke is. for pre-Reformation baptisms included powerful exorcisms. Even stranger is the story of the Emperor Friedrich. he maintains that he will no longer fear Satan. Embarrassed by his claws. A doctor of medicine sees a child baptized and is very taken with the power of the declaration of faith. No. tricks and illusions that seem to be there for their own sake. it hardly makes one frightened of either the devil or the magician. formulas that Luther did not at first relinquish. 1566.46 Indeed. only to find that the diabolic goat. Sexuality. It performs something of a sleight of hand. and it owes a good deal to tales about Claus the Fool. 289 v. he magically causes a tumult outside. But a typical Luther story always has at least one twist. Luther told it in 1532. The two go off to sleep. So far. he would never have feared the devil. 1566. leaving him with the trophy of horns in his hands. 308 r.45 Other stories hardly seem to have a clear message at all: there is the fiddler who is found dead. saying that if only someone had said those words for him. and each mistaking him for the other. Tischreden. The marginalia seek to impose some kind of message on this shapeless AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. Whoring and Gorging: Brutish Indiscipline and the Formation of Protestant Identity. fol. too strong for him. they fall to fighting. one can almost read the original moral underneath: a demonstration of the power of exorcism. so they leap to the conclusion that they have managed to get him under their power by the force of their verbal commands. breaks his neck. the poor man can hardly bear to eat. and pack him off to the kitchen to work. 296 r. Offering to conjure something for the emperor in return. thus fortified. Driving home the idea that faith can protect against any devil. and the greedy brother polishes off half . so good: here we have a story that stresses the power of faith and gently mocks the learned doctor. the Luther of the Table Talk tells a funny story. 47 Luther. 2015 way in which Luther’s own sayings on the devil fitted into this printed literature of entertainment. who invites a magician to dinner. then conjures ox hooves and claws onto the hands of his hapless guest. the devil soon appears on the wall in the form of a goat. The bystanders reassure him that these are exactly the words that were used at his own baptism.47 We even meet a peasant who offers to let a monk eat his fill of a cartload of hay.oxfordjournals. the fiddler leads a sequence of tall tales about the devil. This story is hardly meant literally. fol. and they return to the monastery. 145–170. 1994). As soon as the emperor sticks his head out the window to investigate. Indeed. 6815.370 Lyndal Roper Roper. Only faith can master the devil. 46 Ibid. but the demon pulls the hair around their tonsures. especially in the sections that dealt with the devil. The moral? Each devil is stronger than the last. adding a bell on top to make him easily recognizable. No sooner have the monks arrived back than they find the devil waiting for them. They put the devil into a monk’s cowl. after confessing that he had signed himself to the devil for five years. lines 19–34. und Hexenwesen.” But what stays in the mind is the vision of the poor devil wearing the foolish bell on his head. “Teufelsdreck: Eschatology and Scatology in the ‘Old’ Luther. 307. Johann Fausten had Feyerabend’s collection of demonology. where the townsman Faust performs the incredible eating feat..48 Such stories had huge appeal. while the Devil Books and the general moralization of sin are considered part of the broader obsession with the devil in latesixteenth-century German culture. as does Robert Kolb.51 But the implied distinction that Oberman makes here between “medieval witch- . For a discussion of the illustrated broadsheet by Cranach the Younger. 1520–1570 (Munich. Faust is the ultimate trickster. and also the Tischreden at hand when he compiled the story of the Lutheran doctor of theology who sells his soul to the devil. Jo ¨ rg Haustein. 107–115. 50 Heiko Oberman. So essential was this to his theology in Oberman’s view that his invigorating biography makes us understand Luther as someone for whom the devil was a real presence. “Introduction. 146–147. fol. 2006). forthcoming). On the sources for the Faustbuch. Martin Luther: Confessor of the Faith (Oxford. 652. Martin Luthers Stellung zum Zauber. but he knew about the case. Luther . Das Zeitalter der Reformation. Indeed. the monk and the Jew rolled into one. going on to point out that Luther in a sense intensified the medieval belief in the devil by greatly increasing the scope of his activity in the world. 653.” in Roper. (London. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfa ¨ngen bis zur Gegenwart. The witchcraft case of 1540 in Wittenberg can be adduced to suggest Lutheran credulity. 2006). Next we meet the angry debtor who grabs the leg of the Jew to whom he owes money—only to have the leg come off in his hand. Four individuals were burned as witches. pt. 2nd ed. 103–105. Ibid. 1995). Luther himself was not present in Wittenberg at the time. Faust also conjures antlers onto the head of a luckless knight. Oberman argues that Luther’s preoccupation with the imminence of the Last Days and the End of the World was not the product of his later years as he became old and embittered. The Witch in the Western Imagination (Charlottesville. Thomas Kaufmann. and we find them again in none other than the Faust book of 1587. Volker Leppin’s biography. We know that the writer of the Historia von D. 48 Ibid. fol. This is “medieval witchcraft”—and he explicitly uses the term “medieval” here. This view of Luther has colored much of the subsequent historiography of witchcraft. 1596.Martin Luther’s Body 371 narrative: “Devil in a monk’s cowl” and “No-one should tease the Devil. with Protestantism’s emphasis on Satan being commonly viewed as a precondition of the witch-hunt in Protestant areas. For Heiko Oberman. 2015 the load. vol.und Hexenwesen (Stuttgart.49 Recent biographers have taken the role of the devil in Luther’s theology very seriously. Oberman. See also. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe.” Sixteenth Century Journal 19 (1988): 435– 450. 141–144. see Haustein. Martin Luther (Munich. and 1597 (originally published by Spiess in Frankfurt): VD 16 F 651. 1990). Martin Luther (Darmstadt. Martin Luthers Stellung zum Zauber. On the Wittenberg case. for a more measured assessment that stresses the importance of apocalypticism in Luther. and that he was printing the Faustbuch of 1587 in 1593. 2009). see also. on these connections.oxfordjournals. see also Hans Rupprich. the key to Luther’s personality was that he felt himself caught between God and the devil. see Lyndal Roper. Levack.. this comes in the brief section on Zauberei.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. who printed works of demonology. but can be found right at the outset of his career.50 Oberman contrasts Luther’s conception of life as a struggle between God and the devil with his mother’s belief that her next-door neighbor was a witch. relates the importance of the devil to apocalypticism.. 298 r. 193–197. 1973) ( ⫽ Helmut de Boor and Richard Newald. 51 Representative here is Brian P. 4. eds. 2). 49 It is interesting that Nicholas Basse. while the angry debtor of Luther’s story is replaced with a proverbially dishonest horse-seller. also printed the Latin version of the Tischreden in 1571 together with Hieronymus Feyerabend (VD 16 L 6768). the Devil Books. flies through the air with them on diabolic goats. Feyerabend had already published Weyer in a stand-alone volume. and Aurifaber may have felt the same. By contrast.54 Although the passages in the Tischreden dealing with the devil emphasize his power. ed. and the world. esp.org/ at CBS Library on January 28.55 In fact. Martin Luthers Stellung zum Zauber. 120. For demonologists such as Jean Bodin and Nicolas Re´my. for it is Luther who tells the story about his mother’s belief. and though Luther certainly believed that there were witches. Luther.und Hexenwesen. each one funnier than the last. the devil is everywhere. Cyril Edwards. reverses the chronology of the witch-hunt. and overemphasizes the role that the devil plays in Luther’s life and theology. 53 Several of the best “devil” stories are actually in the appendix: that flies are like the devil (615 v). was able to disperse the fog of witches’ sabbath and sorcery and show the adversary for what he really was: violent toward God. while Saur’s compendium of demonological writings includes many works that are ambivalent or even skeptical about the reality of witchcraft. 102–103 for Hannah Luther. The publishing flurry about the devil in Frankfurt is far from a simple testimony to Lutheran credulity in witchcraft.” See also. edited by Abraham Saur. he misses its humor. Indeed. 2982b. 2015 craft” and the reformer’s “battle against the Devil” through faith does not quite hold water. Many of these were taken out of the appendix and moved to the section on the devil in later editions. it is striking that the Luther of the Tischreden actually has very little to say about witches: barely three pages are devoted to sorcery.53 Moreover. and he seduces witches into diabolic intercourse. see the 1568 Eisleben edition printed by Simon Hu ¨ ter (Halle Ulr. As Oberman points out. “Witchcraft and the Western Imagination. Luther’s devil is fundamentally unlike that of the witch-hunters who came after him. unlike any theologian before or after him.” for it was the second generation of the Reformation that saw by far the largest European witch-hunts. his view of them cannot be equated with that of the witch-hunters who followed a generation later. for he puts it into a very brief section on sorcery (Zauberei ). The mental world of the demonologists is overshadowed by demons and terrifying conspiracies of witches hell-bent on destroying mankind. 54 Basse’s collection.14) or the Frankfurt edition of 1569. they form part of what was a fundamentally ambiguous set of writings about witchcraft and Satan. for poor Luther’s mother has to pretend to be polite to her neighbor the witch in case she might harm her children. and 104 –105. see Lyndal Roper. man. “The Elf. Mapping the Threshold: Essays in Liminal Analysis (Madrid. the Witch and the Devil: Lexical and Conceptual Shape-Shifting in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. includes Johann Weyer’s skeptical tract. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 16 (2006): 117–141. the student who swears to give his soul for a glass of wine (616). on this passage. No. Luther’s remarks about the devil in the published Tischreden are hard to . transforming it into something more profound. and even these contain almost nothing about witches. 2004).. The original conversation comes from 1533. Oberman is right that Luther’s devil is different. and the maid and the devil who sits by the stove (619).” in Nancy Bredendick.oxfordjournals. for the Devil Books depend for their effect on our ability to imagine a host of different devils. 55 See Haustein. 105: “Consequently he. belief in witches was hardly distinctively “medieval.52 It is not so much evidence about her superstition as a story with a slightly funny edge about social appearances. it is hard to know what to make of this story.372 Lyndal Roper 52 Oberman. the texts about the devil printed in Frankfurt in the second half of the sixteenth century by Feyerabend and Basse do not really amount to conventional demonology. On demonology and the literature of entertainment. WA TR 3: 131–132. for a nuanced and sophisticated discussion of Luther’s attitudes toward witchcraft. and lures them to Sabbaths where they feast on infant flesh. but when he presents Luther as the theologian who intensified medieval belief in the devil. the soldier and the innkeeper (616 r–v). org/ at CBS Library on January 28.” imbuing his suffering with religious meaning. No. 1521. 64 –82. His character was. threw them around the room. Satan!’ The Devil in Luther’s Table Talk. Luther says he believes that his own illnesses “nicht allwege natu ¨ rlich seien. his “chest” is his disobedience to his parents. and also 80. the strongest proof. on Luther’s attitude toward angels and apocalypticism. Whereas demonologists seem overwhelmed and anxious about the power of the witches. sinning against the Fourth Commandment. and his speech seemed born. Interestingly. and WA Br 4: 222. Several of the stories are autobiographical. “Luther and the Angels.Martin Luther’s Body 373 56 This dimension was further strengthened by the inclusion in the Selnecker editions of a Life of Luther by Selnecker from 1577 on. Yet he never seeks to seduce. Franzel. more usually. 204 –206. line 2.” in Marc Forster and Benjamin Kaplan. almost. The section begins with an allegorical description of Satan’s appearance based on the Ten Commandments: the devil’s “head” is his contempt for God. “Let Thy will be done. 57 See Carlos M. 1521. 1527. but God gives us medicines to combat them as well as faith to resist. Indeed. whether sermons. N. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. July 10. especially since the teacher’s character was one with his teachings. 2015 categorize. 59 WA Br 2: 354 –355. referring to Luther’s time in the Wartburg or his periods of depression while he was a monk. lines 1–5). and Thomas D. No.. and on the illness of 1527. and trans. or treatises—his letters are littered with references to Satan. September 9. although the temptations were certainly diabolic. so that as even the Ancients said. An interesting exception is WA TR 3: 131. James L. 1527. Luther’s encounters featured ringing in the ears and fits of sobbing. nor does he have the telltale cloven hooves or pointed tail. see WA Br 4: 221–222. Eire. his “ears” signify his refusal to listen to the preachers. and so on. he prayed constantly. See also.58 They were somatic disturbances rather than literal diabolic assaults.” Elizabeth Vandiver. But it is not the same as the diabolic gymnastics that fifteenth-century saints reported. Piety and Family in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honour of Steven Ozment (Aldershot. Here Luther says little about the devil himself. If this is a physical devil. “Gott aber errettet seine Auserwa¨hlten von solchem Uebel”. 2005). Ralph Keen. and that struggle certainly had physical dimensions. Luther wryly referred to his constipation as his “relic of the cross. Angels in the Early Modern World (Cambridge. for an excellent discussion of how Luther’s circulatory problems were linked with his spiritual temptations. sinning against the First Commandment. lines 13–14. lines 27–28. 1990) ( ⫽ Martin Luther 2). 387–390. eds. “O. Luther’s view is that illnesses may come from Satan.” but also exclaiming. whose assaults can overwhelm. June 10. lines 8–12. He is not so much an external agent. line 27–132. as he did with accused witches. see- . still less illnesses caused by witchcraft. polemics. Luther to Nikoluas Hausmann. eds. where the devil lifted them in the air. whom he saw as agents of the devil (WA TR 3: 81. we never get a clear picture of what he looked like. “ ‘Bite This.. line 31. Melanchthon’s own brief reflections on Luther’s biography also testify to the importance of his personality: “These beginnings of the greatest things gave him great authority. but in his heart. under No. he is hardly in conventional human guise. (Indeed. saying. Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation. so to speak. 2922a for Luther’s own version. see WA TR 3: 381– 390.” in Peter Marshall and Alexandra Walsham. 2002). Rather. 2006). not on his lips. As they proceeded. trans. This admiration of his life produced great changes in the minds of his audience. July 13.)59 Luther’s devil causes melancholy and illness because he likes to attack Christians in general. as he is a spiritual presence. and who is engaged in a gigantic conspiracy to overturn Christendom. 70–96. 58 See Martin Brecht. during his stay at the Wartburg. Luther’s Lives: Two Contemporary Accounts of Martin Luther (Manchester. sondern dass Junker Satan seinen Muthwillen an mir u ¨ bet durch Za¨uberei”—but he goes on to say.56 The devil appears in virtually everything Luther wrote.” thus linking the diabolic attacks with his divine duty to attack the Anabaptists. 2982b. Philip M. Soergel. wie werden die schwermer ein jammer anfahen nach meinem tod! Ich hett noch de baptismo wollen schreiben. and for the extremely full account by Bugenhagen. and left them black and blue with bruises. 18.. when in answer to whether Christians can be harmed by Zauberei.oxfordjournals.57 This is not to say that he is not real: Luther describes battling with temptations in 1527. 2922b. Schaaf (Minneapolis. eds. Yet Luther’s devil is hard to pin down. Luther to Spalatin. 1521–32. org/ at CBS Library on January 28. esp. just as the devil prefers to alight on the most virtuous—an image that cuts the devil down to size and makes him manageable. but it is significantly different from the original.” But the new version weighs in with a set of stark opening passages about the devil’s tyrannical might. he does not eradicate the reformer’s anal humor altogether. Selnecker and Stangewald moved the allegorical passages on the devil’s appearance to the middle. devil. Jr. “These battles continue in individual lives”: that is. an image that was much more in tune with the new witch-hunting of the later sixteenth century. Martin Luther. 2000). 1–12. including Selnecker. . see Mark U. where they are less conspicuous. And though Oberman is surely right that the discourse about the Last Days can be found in Luther from early on. they are not just about the course of human history but about individual spiritual life. Calif. 168. and that it functions as a structuring framework for his thought. fol. Luther is here showing contempt for the devil by insulting him. 1531– 46 (Ithaca. 61 Luther. But Luther 60 For a different view. 86 v. Tischreden. See also Kolb.60 What happened to the Tischreden later. when the somewhat baggy eighty headings of Aurifaber’s original were reorganized by Stangewald in 1571 (and following him.61 Luther. 124 –137. 1566. rather than realistic. 1983). 615 v. we will have misunderstood him. not metaphorical. is proof. . 30–59 on Luther. or miss his ability to link animality and Satan without condemning the body. Selnecker in 1577) into a shapelier forty-three sections? Aurifaber had begun the section on the devil with allegorical.374 Lyndal Roper WHENEVER LUTHER TALKS about the devil. . see Irena Backus. Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse (Oxford. N. We read how Luther compared Satan to the fly who chooses the cleanest white paper to wipe his bottom on.Y. not even the divinely instituted office of judge. of course. while equating his doings with filth. it seems to be more of a metaphorical framework than a literal belief. 62 Luther. On apocalyptic themes in later Lutherans. Luther on the whole seems cheerily assured of victory over the devil. and Robin Barnes. 1577). Although Aurifaber systematically tones down the cruder of Luther’s original expressions. he generally thought that its date was not known. 2015 ing them as engaged in a conspiracy against which nothing.oxfordjournals. placing a paragraph about the imminence of the Last Days very prominently at the beginning. the edition also moves the sections on the devil forward to chap. Colloquia .62 Spiritually. The effect of these and other editorial reorganizations is to create a more tightly argued section that leans rather more toward a vision of Luther and Lutheranism as dominated by the struggle with a real. 1988). (Leipzig. under its own banner headline—Aurifaber had merely tagged this onto one of Luther’s sayings much later in the section. esp. This is the version of Luther that was ultimately to prove longer-lasting.. it is also comic. offers material for many different Luthers— this was why both Philippists and Lutheran loyalists could claim to be his heirs. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.. Edwards. But if we obliterate the role of humor in his conception of the devil. Luther’s Last Battles: Politics and Polemics. fol. Although Luther’s struggle with the devil is cosmic. and so it becomes an integral part of the personality transmitted through the Tischreden. who shrewdly points out that in Luther’s particular variety of apocalypticism. which shows that although Luther did occasionally play with dating the forthcoming Apocalypse. descriptions of Satan: “A Godless person is a Counterfeit or Image of the Devil” and “The Image of the Devil Derived from the Ten Commandments. 9. the anal is not far off.. Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford. Luther refers to the “ass-fart pope”. WA 51: 471.. producing several more volumes during his life. many of them in Frankfurt. he regularly reaches for bodily metaphors. “We too were formerly stuck in the behind of this hellish whore. for example. 187 (Wider Hans Wurst). Plagued by the devil. “I’ve puked and pissed. we know from the other variant recordings of Luther’s Table Talk that Aurifaber substitutes the milder “puked” for “crapped. including references to .” 65 For a different view. fol. Louis. under the papacy.. then make a jelly of it and eat it like the vulgar sows and asses you are!”67 Yet he could also write that before the Fall. the church. “Die Tischreden Martin Luthers. Kaspar Scheidt’s translation of Grobian appeared in 1551 and adds new material.” 32. “Cloaca diabolorum. Das Zeitalter der Reformation. Sometimes he links the devil with excrement. ir groben Esen und Sewe. und machete davon euch ein galreden und fresset. 55 vols. In his published writings.Martin Luther’s Body 375 Ibid. 2015 also uses the excremental as a weapon to attack the devil: when scripture and prayer fail.” 63 64 AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. 41 ( ⫽ Church and Ministry III ): 206 (Wider Hans Wurst). and indulgences into one satisfying comic whole. had made an appearance as “St. throughout Against the Roman Papacy an Institution of the Devil. he does include them. Grimm. commanding him to grab it as a staff and go on a pilgrimage to Rome “to your idol the Pope and get an Indulgence from him. writing how. and in other polemics. H. farting body. Ibid. she serves him with a gigantic fart. “daran wische dein Maul.” or referring to Rome as the latrine “where all the Devils shit. Published first in Latin. who reminds him of his sins to make him doubt Christ’s love. pilgrimages. et al. while Wendelin Hellebach translated Dedekind’s third version of the Grobian stories. the Luther of Aurifaber’s Tischreden combats this melancholy by saying to the devil. 41: Church and Ministry III. and from a range of presses. He remained preoccupied with the subject. see Junghans. Rupprich. 280 v.”64 Admittedly.oxfordjournals. Hilton Oswald. while his inclusion of more than two hundred passages from Wider den Meuchler zu Dresden in the Tischreden actually intensified this aspect of Luther’s rhetoric. 67 Luther’s Works (St. But while it might be true that Aurifaber tones down the anal references. fol. Lundeen. but the idea reached its fullest flowering in the work of the Lutheran pastor Friedrich Dedekind (1524 –1598). J. too. Luther’s use of anality is morally ambiguous.63 This idea is taken a step further in the punch line of the story of the woman who is plagued by a poltergeist at night: lifting the bedclothes. ed.” and in his sermons and in lectures on Genesis.” WA 47: 411. it went into many editions and soon had a German translation as well as a female counterpart in the form of Grobiana. it would also have contributed to shaping the way in which Luther was read. the oaf who does the opposite of what manners dictate. lines 11–13: “so thut in die Bruch und henget sie an den Hals. this new church of the pope. the best way to be rid of the devil is to fart at him. line 10. he christened Caspar Schwenckfeld “Stenckfeld. Luther’s Works.” The passage descends into a string of insults that lump the pope.. WA 51: 499b. record that among my sins. Da alle Teuffel hin scheißen. 66 Dedekind’s sources included Erasmus and Brant. H.” So also. for this was part of contemporary literary fashion. 216–219. would have been very familiar with the notion of the gross. 304: “geschmissen und gepinckelt”. and it came from the same Lutheran milieu. 1958–1986).. Editions appeared throughout the second half of the sixteenth century.65 His audience. 290 v–r. “there was no stench in excrement. Grobian” in Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff of 1493. fol.” but he has hardly deleted the reference to bodily functions. hang it round your neck. Grobian.org/ at CBS Library on January 28.” or apostrophizing his opponents: “so make in your pants. which was printed in Frankfurt in 1572.66 This literature was being printed and sold at the same time as the Tischreden.” and telling him to “wipe that on your fat mouth. Helmut Lehmann. 3491). 70 71 AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. see R. Defecation and Monsters. 24: Sermons on the Gospel of St. the spiritual and the somatic are always intertwined: so. Martin Luthers Stellung zum Zauberund Hexenwesen.” in Scribner. in his lectures on John’s gospel. see D. 1971).68 Indeed. Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. however. you can identify a witch because she will be forced to defecate. the transitional object. healthy body which can cleanse itself so well. No. like the infant. In Luther’s work. for discussion of the work and images. 469. rather like the psychoanalytic view of the child’s use of feces in omnipotent fantasies. part of the penumbra of such folk beliefs as the idea that if you light a witch-smoke. because your belly purges itself well— . may stand for feces. where German mercenaries famously fart at the pope. if you are not so mad and foolish as to find fault with the body for what comes out of it but praise it— because it is a fine. 9. Freud here was thinking in Darwinian terms. as we have seen. so important to play. line 10. John: Chapters 14 –16. and that Luther.” “when the argument that the Christian is without the law and above the law doesn’t help. W.”70 This attitude has its visual counterpart in “The Papal Belvedere” of 1545. No. and the humor of regression that anality represents is also linked to play. far from breaking the spell of the devil. So. WA 45: 648. WA TR 1: 204 –205. 54: Table Talk. lines 5–8. On the importance of play. Such an interpretation. tunc desiit Sathan” (WA TR 3: 356. excrement is a powerful weapon to be used against the devil. for example. he says that he will climb into his coffin and “give the worms a stout doctor to eat”. 206. he lost weight. Winnicott. Abbildung des Papsttums.Lyndal Roper 376 68 69 Luther’s Works. Luther’s Works. scheys ins putter fas. as part of his exegesis. For him. 78. No. lines 30–31. he spoke in 1533 of how.oxfordjournals. . imagines that he can use his own bodily products to do anything. 2015 defecation.73 Yet the anal stage is also profoundly important to psychic health. 469 (1533). and early on. esp. he even goes so far as to draw a parallel with excretion so as to explain how something so vile as heresy can arise from scripture: “But if you can be satisfied with your body and properly distinguish between it and what comes out of it. Lectures on Genesis. verho ¨ net den Teuffel. Scribner. cited in Haustein. 1: 110. Luther thinks through his body. “Demons. Here the published Table Talk reflects a persistent theme in Luther’s conversation: so. . when he experienced melancholy. Luther’s Works. or that one should put gargoyles on churches to ward off demons. would miss the powerful streak of debunking that is always central to Luther’s creativity. 1545.72 One of our own difficult intellectual inheritances is the populist version of Freudianism that considers the anal stage as one we pass through on our way to a more developed “genital” stage of development. 277–300. because you can blow your nose well. why can you not make the same distinction here?”69 At other times. when at night he meets the devil who “wants to dispute with me. writing of his impending death. and to humor. I instantly chase him away with a fart. Luther’s references to defecation would themselves be a magical ritual. lines 32–35. 73 I am indebted to Ruth Harris for this point. in Cranach and Luther’s Depiction of the Papacy. the excremental can also be closely related to play.71 It could be argued that this is classic magical thinking. 72 Luther also approvingly reported Bugenhagen’s countermeasure against the devil who was interfering with the butter: “da fur der Pommer zu. . W. 137. WA 42: 84. as if we evolve to a higher plane only when we leave the anal stage behind. WA 54: 346–373 for text only and on editions. Playing and Reality (London. see WA TR 4: 81–90 for Bugenhagen’s report of Luther’s illness. and forty-one when he married. and on this passage. Martin Luther. vol. lines 10–15. Erikson.Martin Luther’s Body 377 74 “wenn ich wieder heim gen Wittenberg komm. vol. 3 vols. 2 vols. see Ulinka Rublack. 4787. Luther. he was careful to drink and make sure he had company. 1483–1521. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. WA TR 4: 505–509. 1958). see Roper.” 88. WA Br 5: 518–520. Luther’s relationship with his parents. What is remarkable is how old Luther was when his career as a reformer began: he was thirty-three when he posted the 95 Theses.78 After all. perhaps goes too far when he refuses to permit any speculation about. esp.. joke. (Copenhagen. concluding that he suffered from manic-depressive psychosis with predominant depressive phases. ed. This is the authoritative modern biography. thirty-seven when he was excommunicated by the pope. When he himself suffered spiritual temptations and fainting fits in 1527. see. German Studies at the Millennium (Durham. Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (New York. in his authoritative biography of the 1980s. for example. Reformation Europe (Cambridge. This extraordinary work was published in two volumes. 1999). Martin Luther. Charakter und Psychose. which included a Jungian study of Luther. 2005). Preserved Smith. see Kaufmann. of course.75 Although Freud has virtually nothing to say about Luther—Protestantism was simply not part of the mental furniture of fin-de-sie`cle Vienna—others soon applied his ideas. line 1.g. which did not take place in his youth. 2015 an experience that led him later to advise people to eat. Erik Erikson applied his paradigm of adolescent development to Luther. 75 This began very early. No. and even. lines 23–24.” held to be a prophecy of his impending death. Martin Luther . “The Well-Tempered Reformer: Heinrich Martin Thu ¨ mmig’s ‘Psychoanalysis’ of Martin Luther (1717) and Its Contexts. Luther advised him to drink. 64 –94. and sin. Macardle.77 Erikson’s work has rightly come in for attack. drink. 77 Erik H. See also on melancholy Oberman. think about girls” so as to spite the devil. 122: he advises those experiencing attacks of the devil to eat. for an original approach to Luther. has also offered plenty of material for those who want to psychoanalyze him or who regard him as psychically disturbed. Erich Fromm published The Fear of Freedom. 1532–1546. drink. line 26–50. 3: Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church. 6–8.oxfordjournals. and seek company. The psychiatrist and hospital consultant Paul Reiter attempted a diagnosis of Luther. developed a sub-Freudian-tinged reading of Luther’s character.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. No.. 1. July 1530. e. In a letter to Hieronymus Weller. It is not surprising that psychobiographers should have been drawn to him. trans. 1: His Road to Reformation. James L.” in Neil Thomas. although Martin Brecht. sowie die Bedeutung dieser Faktoren fu ¨ r seine Entwicklung und Lehre: Eine historisch-psychiatrische Studie.. 1985–1993). WA TR 6: 302. 507. as a mixture of sanguine and choleric temperaments. 78 Martin Brecht. we have better materials for Luther’s psychic life than is the . the first appearing in Copenhagen in 1937 and the second under Nazi occupation (the name Levin having been dropped from the publisher’s imprint) in 1941. Martin Luthers Umwelt. lines 43–64. 2: Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation. N. see. see WA TR 1: 49. No. In the same year that Reiter’s second volume appeared.C. 6975 (it is included in Aurifaber’s Tischreden). vol. 1937–1941). for instance. see Leppin. who was suffering from attacks of the devil. as Peter Macardle has shown. fols.. For an excellent and psychologically astute short recent study. so will ich mich alsdann in Sarg legen.74 Luther’s anal rhetoric. “if it helps. clxxviii–clxxxvi. On thinking about girls. even in the early eighteenth century there was a biography that diagnosed Luther positively using the humoral system. “Venus in Wittenberg. Historien. and for a persuasive new interpretation. On melancholy. Schaaf (Minneapolis. writing on the eve of World War I. Rabus. The psychobiography of the 1950s has deservedly gotten bad press. Luther’s attitude was sufficiently well known for Rabus to pay unconscious tribute to it by including Luther’s counsel to a sick person suffering from melancholy in his biography. und den Maden einen feisten Doctor zu essen geben. for its interpretive frame of the youthful “identity crisis” that he took from his work with disturbed teenagers distorts Luther’s major crises. 76 Paul Reiter. 309–313.76 The most famous psychoanalytically influenced biography appeared in 1958: eight years after his classic Childhood and Society. to prove that the now famous Father of Psychoanalysis himself represents one of the most enduring characteristics of the German spirit. Martin Luther. Brown. As he puts it. lines 3–8. lines 4 –5. Luther never regards excrement as purely negative or as diabolic in origin. Perhaps the most brilliant dissection of anality in Luther was provided by Norman O. his work is marred by his intense love-hate relationship with Teutonic culture. repr.oxfordjournals. 1996. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. 377–379. a positive substance that can help to banish the devil.” But shrewd as Febvre often is about the nature of Luther’s spirituality. July 15. writing in 1959. Couldn’t one just as easily construct a Lutheran Freud. excrement is also something good. 82 Thus Luther passes from informing Spalatin that he had received everything. and is essentially a French reckoning with German culture. Luther unabashedly described his relief when his bowels moved. which is to be conquered by being replaced where it came from. 81 Ibid. no grandson of a peasant could. “To his most learned and fondest friend”: Reading Luther’s Letters. 228–229. In yet another letter. Brown. he rebukes Spalatin and others for having failed to get his manuscripts in order for the printer and then complains about his bowel movements—his inability to publish paralleling his inability to defecate. playing the two off against each other to arrive at an anatomy of “the German spirit. As part of God’s creation. but his essentializing of Germans is anachronistic. manuscripts and writing projects. Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History (1959. original French ed. “the Devil is virtually recognized as a displaced materialization of Luther’s own anality. which embodied itself in Luther so powerfully?”79 Febvre’s sensitive analysis of Luther’s inner life effectively does just this.. on the friendship between Luther and Spalatin.. 2015 case for almost any other figure of the sixteenth century. August 6. to telling him that he had emptied his bowels. He mocks would-be psychoanalytically inclined biographers who use it to provide a comforting demonstration of the Freudian theory of libido and repression: “A Freudian Luther: we can imagine in advance what he will look like.“ forthcoming in German History. lines 24 –30. for it fails to take account of the ubiquity of such language in . see Lyndal Roper. 1519. 1928).”80 Brown’s incisive interpretation does exactly what Febvre had teasingly demanded thirty-five years earlier: it Lutheranizes Freud. constipation pills and manuscripts alike. (Indeed. and the Table Talk. and Brown goes on to claim that his aversion to “filthy lucre” made Luther hostile to capitalism. typical of the preoccupations of French intellectuals with German “barbarism” in the wake of World War I. one wouldn’t be curious to make its closer acquaintance. ed.)82 Brown’s view of Luther’s fondness for anal rhetoric as a character trait in need of diagnosis is in any case deeply anachronistic. and afterword by Peter Scho ¨ ttler (Frankfurt.378 Lyndal Roper 79 Lucien Febvre. and if an unshockable Luther-researcher were actually to produce such a depiction. The temptations which that material offered to biographers are evident even in Lucien Febvre’s extraordinary biography of Luther. 225–226. during the period when he was in hiding at the Wartburg. which he also depended on Spalatin to publish in Wittenberg. trans. 1521.81 Ingenious though this interpretation is. Although we have only autobiographical fragments. July 31. Middletown.. seamlessly moving on to discuss those other forms of creativity. 368–369.. we have acres of writing. which was published a decade after the First World War. however. This is what drives the work forward. WA Br 2: 364. volumes of letters. that is. or from discussing his digestion to the topic of the manuscript of the Postillen.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. 1521. Paris. 46. 80 Norman O. 1985). arguing that Luther prefigured psychoanalytic understandings of the role of sublimated anality in the structure of civilization. 209. not a pathological obsession. see Melanie Klein. 1921–1945 (1975. The Psycho-Analysis of Children. and since psychoanalysis is about the relationship between the mental and the physical.. including the elector. ed. a marked tendency to split the world into good and evil. psychoanalytic insights might enable us to understand Luther’s personality better as a whole. 2008). that would be less than half the story. unable to graduate to the genital. which will be the subject of a forthcoming essay. Alix Strachey (1975. 2015 sixteenth-century German culture.. for a different view. 1946–63 (1975. so that he could carry others. the devil.. Klein. Luther. represent a cruder. Martin Luther.85 Indeed. everything we know testifies to his happy and productive married life. Brecht. Love. 1989). and see the recent archaeological exhibition at Halle on the monastery and Luther’s rooms. London. and he was typically careful in the heady early days of the evangelical movement in Wittenberg to wait before introducing radical reform. repr. repr. but in the cloaca tower of the monastery. See. trans. and he even has to invent a toilet-training crisis so as to provide a developmental explanation of Luther’s character. authoritarianism. Leppin. who devised it to argue that Luther was possessed by the devil) or the encounter with God in the privy. and the inner and outer worlds—after all. as we now know. 55. 85 On splitting. Oberman. 154 –155. Fundsache Luther: Archaeologen auf den Spuren des Reformators (Stuttgart. London. such as the fit in the choir (an invention taken from Luther’s Catholic opponent Cochlaeus.. and to grasp the way in which his personal charisma was linked to his physical presence. London. Envy and Gratitude and Other Works. Neither is it hidden or repressed anality—he is remarkably unbuttoned about sex. 1988).oxfordjournals. and on his part. From here it is but a short step to inventing further traumas. for a brilliant commentary on Luther’s statement in the preface to his Latin Works that his Turmerlebnis took place in the cloaca. for Luther is one of those rare writers who could express his deepest emotions and theological convictions through the medium of the body. Luther’s pleasure in anal rhetoric is not a character defect. letting Nikolaus von Amsdorf. and Harald Meller. and passionate hatreds. he was a far cannier politician than he is often credited as being.84 There is no evidence whatsoever that he remained stalled in the anal phase. for instance. 1988).org/ at CBS Library on January 28. with him. and excrement. more vig- . Erikson diagnoses Luther’s anal defiance of the devil as part of a pathology. and Franzel. Martin Luther. And tempting as it might be to pen a character sketch that linked his anality with his moral absolutism. In his case. Guilt and Reparation and Other Works. Luther’s language deliberately links his recognition of salvation with the privy. We need to be wary of absorbing a psychological model that views anality automatically as an index of disturbance. however. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. 108–110. excrement is the first thing we produce into the world outside our bodies—it should be well placed to help us interpret one of the greatest exponents of that interrelationship. Passionate idealizations—of Luther by his friends. 84 I am not able to deal here with Luther’s attitude toward sexuality. This is surely worth doing. the devil’s haunt.Martin Luther’s Body 379 83 Vandiver. however. Keen. all matters about which European culture subsequently developed strong taboos. but this is a rhetorical strategy. which. Luther’s Lives. friend and foe is balanced by his equally strong impulse toward integration and his ability to work with others. Klein.83 Used differently. And though he could be a grand hater (especially to those he believed betrayed the Lutheran message). See. too—certainly played their role in the dynamic of the early Reformation. took place not in the cloaca. he characteristically balanced different temperaments and positions within his circle of friends. 1: 122. repr. 2: 204 –211.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. esp. the bread appears to be bread. his depression. This I believe. it was a theological truth surpassing reason. but its essence is transformed into the body of Christ. and old-style Catholicism with rotund Carnival. Robert Kolb. 89 See Oberman. Martin Luther. 86 See. 81. so often held to encapsulate the confessional struggle of the sixteenth century.” Luther is able to joke about both the devil and excrement. The word says that this same body is in the Supper. Tellingly.91 Even if it could be applied to Calvinism. and he integrates his anality into his theology rather than just projecting it onto others. and drinking. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. 91 See. Luther argued.” in Luther’s Works. for God created mathematics and everything. The word says that the body of Christ ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God. for far from the devil being “a displaced materialization of Luther’s own anality. when Zwingli and Luther debated the issue. Why should I discuss whether it is outside of a place or in a place? This is a mathematical argument. one might suggest. In the battle between Carnival and Lent. “Rhapsodie colloquii ad Marburgum. and his anti-monastic writings.”90 Even if human rationality cannot comprehend how it is that Christ can be present in the bread and the wine. redoubtable. It is surely not too farfetched to connect this insistence on the materiality of the Eucharist and the reality of Christ’s presence to Luther’s generally positive attitude toward the physical. profoundly linked to his intransigence on the issue of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. we might reverse Brown’s dictum. and I believe this. The word of God is above it. 90 This formulation comes from one of the at least seven accounts of the Colloquy. Protestantism is usually equated with the cadaverous figure of Lent.”89 Luther’s position is well conveyed in the words attributed to him at Marburg: “The word says that Christ has a body. Peter Burke. for Zwinglians. Luther. It was central to his rejection of monasticism and its abhorrence of sexuality. 61–64. however advantageous to the movement that might have been. 149–153. 87 Brecht is particularly insightful on the connection between Luther’s illnesses. Zwingli adduced John 6:63: “The flesh profiteth nothing. 237. 111–113. the anonymous “Rhapsodies on the Marburg Colloquy. He commands us to have faith in this matter. lines 22–28. 1978). 140.oxfordjournals. and often mucky physicality. 88 See the excellent discussion in Kaufmann. and Edward Muir. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London. for Luther. for example. on the friendship with Amsdorf. the bread was at once a material thing and the body of Christ. his circulatory problems. for central to the visual and literary culture of Lutheranism was .380 Lyndal Roper orous Lutheran position as against Melanchthon’s humanist theology. 1978). Nikolaus von Amsdorf (1483–1565): Popular Polemics in the Preservation of Luther’s Legacy (Nieuwkoop. while remaining friends with both. such a contrast could not be more misleading about Lutheranism. 207–243. eating.87 It was also.” WA 30 III: 157. the bread remains bread. See Brecht. This I also believe.88 His insistence on the physical materiality of the Eucharist divided him from both Catholics and Zwinglians: for Catholics. Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge. but it symbolizes the body of Christ. 2015 LUTHER’S PHYSICALITY WAS integrally connected to some of his deepest theological insights. making it impossible for him to compromise with Ulrich Zwingli at Marburg and to find common cause against the Catholics. 38 ( ⫽ Word and Sacrament IV ).86 He offered a religious worldview that did not separate soul and body but incorporated a robust. Martin Luther. Indeed. it remained true. 1997). with his belly distended by food and drink. sexuality. Bugenhagen chose to recall how. 1546). “Drinking. Unable to meet in this life. in a way that Melanchthon. “Vom Christlichen abschied. Lutheranism could espouse an attitude to the body that sought not to transcend physicality but to embrace it. It is no accident that the development of the figure of the oafish Grobian should have come out of a Lutheran milieu. and fleshly pleasures to Luther’s spirituality. could not take: writing his own commentary on Luther’s funeral and the publications surrounding his death. Cochlaeus is in many respects a better-founded and more informative biography than the celebratory Lutheran texts. Cochlaeus also comments. Keen. in all its aspects. It also conveyed power: the Saxon electors who protected him were political heavyweights whose physical . Whoring and Gorging. almost parental.”93 Deeply anti-monastic (to Cochlaeus’s abiding disgust). “now they could carry out the plan in eternal life.” The vision of Luther and his brotherin-law eating and chatting in heaven prefigures the idea of the Table Talk (whose publication had then not even been thought of) and allows Bugenhagen to express the centrality of eating. 347–348. facsimile ed. that every evening after a supper lavishly prepared and abundantly partaken of. From very early on. Luther’s physicality. Johann Fischart. unable to realize how ill he was. . and later the progress of his final illness and death. he mocks his followers’ reverent attitude to Luther at prayer: “What kind of sanctity or sort of miracle is there in this. in his expansive body. or that it was a Protestant author. love of good German beer. 94 Roper. forever the sallow academic. On Cochlaeus. when Luther’s brother-in-law was on his deathbed. Life Writing in Reformation Europe . Martini Luthers .94 What did Luther’s solidity represent? There is something comforting. jokes. his appetites. and digestion. as she points out. could never emulate. see Backus.” 93 Vandiver. . illnesses.” (Wittenberg. after he had taken his supper in public with others—a supper where they had eaten plentifully and which had been cheerfully lengthened with jokes—on that same night he died”. “where we’ll have a good bite to eat together and I’ll talk with you about lots of jolly things.” The death scene of Luther’s hallucinating brother-in-law. were part of his image. he looked out of the window of his dwelling and prayed for a little while. talking.” commenting on how Luther “lolled in his place” at dinner. however. 2015 the corpulent body of the reformer himself.” fol. and Franzel.” AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. he termed him a “father. he laughed and talked of how he would make a return visit to Luther one evening. for its ostensible point is that Luther thought this was a good death. from which meal most of the holy Fathers and monks have always abstained. is a long digression that sits oddly in Bugenhagen’s sermon. “Eine Christliche Predigt/ vber der leich vnd begrebnis/ des Ehrwirdigen D. C i (v): “Ich wil widder zu euch kommen/ auff den abend ein mal/ da wo ¨ llen wir zusamen gute Collation halten/ vnd ich wil denne von vielen fro ¨ lichen sachen mit euch reden/ Zwar jzt mo ¨ gen sie beide solchs ausricheten im ewigen leben/ da sie beide hin gerheiset sind. and “Not only in dinners.oxfordjournals.. indeed. But there was a deeper reason why Bugenhagen was driven to tell the story. So far did this extend that at his funeral sermon for Luther (which immediately went into print).92 And it was precisely this which Luther’s obsessive opponent. except on Sundays and feast days. but even in lunches.” Luther’s fleshiness enabled him to be a popular but also human hero. Luther’s Lives. “On the 17th day of February.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. who translated Rabelais into a swollen epic twice the length of the original. ibid. Cochlaeus. 346.Martin Luther’s Body 381 92 Johannes Bugenhagen. when Melanchthon came to sum up the man’s character in his funeral speech. 99 Hanne Kolind Poulsen. a jarring feature that does not suit our modern aesthetic of integrated works of art. Die Marktkirche Unser Lieben Frauen zu Halle (Halle. portrait of Luther. see John Dillenberger. Nikolaikirche Ju ¨ terbog. or. See in particular on this cycle Margit Kern. 2005). and it offers a superb example of the new Lutheran aesthetic.98 In such images. “Between Convention. a painted stone relief bust of the mature reformer based on the familiar printed woodcuts forms the centerpiece of the magnificent decorative balcony in mannerist style that spans the entire church.. Pirna. Lorenz replaces the spires of Wittenberg. St. dressed incongruously in sixteenth-century clothing. full-length portraits of Luther and Melanchthon from the seventeenth century. Tugend versus Gnade: Protestantische Bildprogramme in Nu ¨ rnberg. representing the local reformer Justus Jonas.382 Lyndal Roper size reflected their power.. graces the painted roof. 2002). Regensburg und Ulm (Berlin. 389. Italian ed. Indeed. Luther. orig. 2003). 2015 HOW ARTISTS AND WRITERS chose to show Luther mattered. by a follower of Cranach. Todesjahres Lucas Cranachs des a ¨lteren (Leipzig.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. 1999).oxfordjournals. as St. see Koerner. For other examples of this kind of art.. who says that its images are “such as one sees in earlier altarpieces featuring episodes of a saint’s life” but goes on to point out that the doggerel beneath that refers to key dates and events in Luther’s life is more suited to a school than a church. glass roundels.” in Andreas Tacke. Georg Mansfeld. as the image of a saint might. Lutheran churches across Saxony and beyond were equipped with portraits of Luther: in Weimar. Luther faces a smaller medallion with Jonah and the whale. I am indebted to Dr. Cranach school. these images deploy Luther’s likeness as a badge of confessional allegiance. his feet planted firmly on the ground. 98 See Christensen. 1998): I am grateful to Jan Lambertz for this reference. is imported into biblical scenes or used to express key doctrinal truths. “iconic. below Christ on the cross. I would argue.”99 And they formed part of an ocean of objects outside as well as inside churches—medals. a triptych (one of the few to hark back to images of the young Luther) shows him as monk. See Sabine Kramer and Karsten Eisenmenger. because the image of the reformer was central to how the Reformation was propagated and how Lutheran identities were created. . 102–110. and an altarpiece by Cranach the Elder in the same church displays a massive Luther. 2004). AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. Images and Relics: Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth-Century Europe (New York. for the Nuremberg woodcut of a similar theme. Sebald and St. was probably inserted later. because these are educational images rather than images that convey sanctity. 2005. drinking vessels. easily recognizable outline disrupts the painting. Marienbibliothek Halle. depicted as an evangelist alongside Melanchthon. and as mature reformer. The entire church was rebuilt on a Lutheran program in the 1540s. Luther’s figure. eds. Die Stadtkirche St Marien zu Pirna (Pirna. eds. in Halle.. 205–216. midsixteenth century. as Junker Jo ¨ rg. 97 See Klaus Kaden et al. the town’s skyline with the towers of St. The Body of Il Duce: Mussolini’s Corpse and the Fortunes of Italy (New York. next to whom he now stands. Luther’s portly. 96 See. This was why the Cranach workshop’s representation of the monumental Luther was such a stroke of genius and proved so enduring. this is more accurate. to borrow the word Hanne Poulsen uses to describe Cranach’s portraits of Luther.97 With self-conscious anachronism.95 95 See also Sergio Luzzato. They are. Princes and Propaganda. The Reformation of the Image. full-length portrait of Luther. for example. (His friend Cranach. 1553/2003: Wittenberger Tagungsbeitra ¨ge anla ¨sslich des 450.)96 In the city church of Pirna. 1540. ed. who showed me this church. Lucas Cranach. Likeness and Iconicity: Cranach’s Portraits and Luther’s Thoughts on Images. Andreas Stahl of the Landesdenkmalamt. John is baptized by Jesus against the backdrop of modern Wittenberg. For a description of the triptych. Instead of eliciting pious prayer from the believer. T4230 (Ein Stu ¨ ck von Dr Luthers Rock). weighty reformer as a human being with human appetites. you should cut your head . For the Sake of Simple Folk. Joestel and Strehle. “Luther Myth”. No.103 And though they drew on older iconographic traditions. anality. fol. Fundamental to that personal charisma was his physical presence. not a saint with a divine spark. “Incombustible Luther”.’ ” ibid..Martin Luther’s Body 383 100 See. 104 On these forms of representation. Historien. 346– 366. Lyndal Roper (Leiden. The Reformation of the Image. 14 –36. Luther put on a little weight after the Heidelberg disputation. nor as transmogrified into the spiritual role he exercises. 323–345. 194 v. No. and filth come out of it. and there were collections of Luther’s “prophecies. and see Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg. “ ‘Was ist Luther?’ ” The prophet motif was probably the most successful of these. they did not reduce Luther to prophet.105 Luther’s charisma held the church together. but his tendency to stoutness developed later. ed. all emblazoned with the image of Luther—which made up the cultural furniture of Lutheranism. for a painting of Luther and Melanchthon on glass. 2001). x.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. the “Wittenbergian Church. 101 See R.)102 It also overlooks the real visual revolution that Lutheranism accomplished as it redrew the relation between flesh and spirit. and sexuality: who else could have written “If you want to reject your body because snot. Luthers Bild und Lutherbilder . instantly recognizable Dr. and Scribner.” sometimes appended to editions of the Tischreden. Popular Magic. 1994). or mythical figure. Scribner. Luther’s personality overshadowed what was to become the Lutheran Church. pus. For the art historian Joseph Koerner. when the illustrators of Rabus’s biography came to depict the young Luther before Cajetan. (Gotha. Luthers Schatzkammer . but as himself. these images of the mature Luther document the “routinization of charisma” that took place during the years of struggle between Philippists and Gnesio-Lutherans over Luther’s legacy. 326. for early medals. for examples. Luther. They had been circulating since the 1530s and were central to how Lutheranism represented itself from the start. 105 Mathesius. see Scribner. Luther. but they were not simply products of the posthumous confessional wars. (Tellingly. and even to cults of the saints. On one side of the portal on the underside there is a relief bust of Luther. Inv. 388 . for a collection of Luther medals. see Kunstsammlung of the Wartburg. in 1557. in particular “Magic and the Formation of Protestant Popular Culture in Germany. even though he was thin at the time. 2015 tooled leather bindings. pt. 102 Rabus.” of which Mathesius described himself a “citizen. they showed him as stout.” and Kasten. the Luther rose. Oberman. and the ‘Disenchantment of the World. and to an iconography of the young Luther that did not survive beyond the 1520s. his rock-solid fleshiness reassured and comforted. on the other. Catholic varieties of religiosity. One of the most interesting of the many depictions of Luther is that commissioned by Katharina von Bora as the Lutherportal in his house.100 It has been argued that Lutheranism owed far more than it cared to admit to older. 92. and “The Reformation. the broad. Historien. Knape.” in Scribner. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr.” the earthly institution to which he owed his deepest allegiance. Inv.oxfordjournals. Gb 206 (Lutherglas mit Futteral ). The images from the 1530s onward showed the mature. Martin Luther und Eisleben. doctor. to magic. Luther was at ease with his own stoutness. Religion and Culture in Germany (1400–1800). Gotteswort und Menschenbild: Werke von Cranach und seinen Zeitgenossen. Scribner. Joestel. “Luther Myth. See also Scribner. 103 Koerner. and his relationships—his friendships and his enmities—undergirded the movement and gave it emotional dynamism. fol. From the beginning. 2: 29–30. To a remarkable degree. 2 pts.101 But this is to attribute far too much significance to just one among what was a wide and diverse array of early images.104 For he appears not as an archetype. and see Allmuth Schuttwolf. W. Mathesius also employs the model of Luther as a prophet throughout. John: Chapters 14 –16 (1538). lines 21–22. as a new visual devotional style was rapidly created. and her The Witch in the Western Imagination is forthcoming from the University of Virginia Press.107 For all that Luther could retain from his monastic formation the conviction that sex was sinful. he nonetheless had a remarkably frank attitude toward it.oxfordjournals.Lyndal Roper 384 106 Luther’s Works. then with Rabus. first with Melanchthon. while his stoutness was part of the image of the reformer after the 1530s. 2015 off”?106 This side of his personality is evident in the stream of remarks his students carefully recorded. His physicality accorded with the central emphases of his theology. 188 v. and was authentically conveyed in the published Table Talk. and to flesh itself. 206. One of the things that set Luther apart from many other Christian thinkers is his remarkably positive attitude toward the body. And they formed part of the devotional culture into which the Tischreden fitted so seamlessly— the literary and print culture that also produced Grobian and Faust.org/ at CBS Library on January 28. and 214 to end. Lyndal Roper is Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College. the process of writing his biography began. 24: Sermons on the Gospel of St. . AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW APRIL 2010 Downloaded from http://ahr. After Luther’s death. 2004). Historien. She is currently writing a biography of Luther. Selnecker. Mathesius. just as all human actions are. the visual culture that prefaced Luther’s works (including the Tischreden) with images of the “stout doctor. each with its own picture of the great reformer. These biographies also conveyed Luther’s strong physicality and recounted his many illnesses. and others.” and the fabric of Lutheran churches. attributing religious meaning to them as trials and martyrdoms. 107 See. WA 45: 648. in all its aspects. Mathesius. for example. Spangenberg. University of Oxford. She is the author of Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (Yale University Press.