Masters of the Reformation
The Emergence of a New Intellectual Climate in Europe

A general survey of academic thought and its impact on a wider world from the later Middle Ages to the emergence of Luther and the city Reformation.

Heiko Augustinus Oberman (Author), Dennis Martin (Translated by)

9780521090766, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 November 2008

384 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.56 kg

Heiko A. Oberman's Masters of the Reformation - first published in German under the title Werden and Wertung der Reformation - is a general survey of academic thought and its impact on a wider world from the later Middle Ages to the emergence of Luther and the city Reformation. The book uses the early history of the University of Tubingen to illuminate late fifteenth-century theological developments and the first stirrings of the Reformation. Oberman shows from the beginning that the University of Tubingen was no ivory tower. Rather, it was a vantage point from which important trends were discerned and vital impulses disseminated. In a second section, he then describes the creation of a distinctive `Tübingen school', actively involved in the territorial policies of Württemberg and wrestling with the major ethical problems of the day. In the third section of the book, convincing links are established between the nominalist tradition and the intellectual context of the south German Reformation. Oberman emphasises the practical application of theology to social and ethical issues, and shows how this prepared the way for the Reformation as a spiritual and material liberation.

Part I. Intellectual Renewal: 1. The ivory tower: the university as observatory
2. The impact of humanism: fact and fancy
3. The scholastic rift: a parting of the ways
4. The devotio moderna: movement and mystery
5. Patterns of thought on the eve of upheaval
6. The Augustine renaissance in the later Middle Ages
Part II. The Grapes of Wrath: 7. A theology of turmoil: the ferment of ideas
8. The ethics of capitalism: the clash of interests
9. The power of witchcraft: devil and devotion
Part III. New Jerusalem within the old Walls: 10. Magistri and magistracy: the old and new masters
11. The great visitation: bishop and city
12. The onset of the Counter-Reformation
13. The Reformation: a German tragedy?

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]