General resources
The resources on this page are listed in the following order:
- General books and reference works (useful for most topics and seminars)
- Film and literature (non-historical perspectives on reformers)
- Materials in German (suitable for use in both non-assessed and assessed work)
- Primary sources (printed versions of original documents from the Reformation period)
- E-resources (online tutorials, bibliographies and collections of primary and secondary materials)
Essay titles and further reading / materials can be found under the respective seminar topics (accessible through the programme page). Alternatively, you may wish to use the university's aggregate TALIS ASPIRE READING LIST for this module (which allows direct access to the UL catalogue and the taking of notes) and / or consult the dedicated page on Library Resources for HistoryLink opens in a new window.
General books and reference works
D. Bagchi, 'Germany', in: A. Ryrie (ed.), Palgrave Advances in the European Reformations (2005)
Th. Brady, German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400-1650 (2009)
A. N. Burnett and E. Campi (eds), A Companion to the Swiss Reformation (2016)
E. Cameron, The European Reformation (1991) [for the general European context]
J. Dewald (ed.), Europe 1450-1789: Encyclopaedia of the Early Modern World (2004)
H. J. Cohn / P. Roberts / A. Gerritsen, K. Gould & P. Marshall, 'The Long Reformation: Lutheran / Reformed / Catholic', in: B. Kümin (ed.), The European World (3rd edn, 2017) [concise introductions to the main denominations]
C. S. Dixon (ed.), The German Reformation: Essential Readings (1999)
Scott Dixon, The Reformation in Germany (2002; ebook, 2009) [strongly recommended textbook]
" , Protestants: A History from Wittenberg to Philadelphia 1517-1740 (2009)
" , Contesting the Reformation (Oxford, 2012) [a helpful survey of scholarly debates on the Reformation]
" , 'Reformations', in: idem & B. Kümin (eds), Interpreting Early Modern Europe (2019), 121-49
S. Ehrenpreis; U. Lotz-Heumann, Reformation und konfessionelles Zeitalter (2002)
M. Greengrass, The Longman Companion to the European Reformation (1998)
H. J. Hillerbrand (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the ReformationLink opens in a new window, 4 vols (1996)
Grosser Historischer Weltatlas, ed. J. Engel, Teil II, Mittelalter (1970), 114-5; Teil III, Neuzeit (1962), pp.109-10, 116
M. Hughes, Early Modern Germany, 1477-1806 (1992)
H. Junghans, Martin Luther: Exploring His Life and Times 1483-1546 (1999) [multimedia CD]
C. Lindberg, The European Reformations (1996)
" , Reformation Theologians (2002)
R. D. Linder, The Reformation Era (2007)
P. Matheson (ed.), Reformation Christianity (2007)
New Cambridge Modern History, vol. XIV, Atlas, 118-26
S. Karant Nunn & U. Lotz Heumann (eds), The Cultural History of the Reformations: Theories and Applications, Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 164 (Wiesbaden, 2020) [with chapters on time, senses, spaces, sexuality etc]
S. Ozment, A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People (2005)
A. Pettegree (ed.), The Early Reformation in Europe (1992)
" (ed.), The Reformation WorldLink opens in a new window (2000) [recommended for general reference]
" , Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (2005)
R. Po-Chia Hsia (ed.), The German People and the Reformation (1988)
" , A Companion to the Reformation WorldLink opens in a new window (2003)
U. Rublack, Reformation Europe (2005)
U. Rublack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Protestant ReformationsLink opens in a new window (Oxford, 2016; pbk 2019), esp. essays by Kaufmann on Luther & Lutheranism and Head on Swiss Reformation plus coverage of numerous other regional / thematic aspects [Europe-wide survey work]
" (ed.), Protestant Empires: Globalizing the Reformations (Cambridge, 2020), esp. 'Introduction' and ch. 7 [seeks to integrate Protestantism into wider early modern developments and to compare it to other world religions]
L. Scales and J. Whaley (eds), 'Rewriting the History of the Holy Roman Empire' [Special Issue], German History 36 (3/2018), 331-414 (includes an editorial introduction: 331-48)
T. Scott, The Early Reformation in Germany: Between Secular Impact and Radical Vision (2013)
R. W. Scribner, The German Reformation (1986) [2nd edn, ed. C. Scott Dixon, 2000: reviewed in H-German]
" et al. (eds), The Reformation in National Context (1994)
Steen, Charlie R., ‘Reformation Culture 1520-59, in his A Cultural History of Early Modern Europe (London, 2019), ch. 2
J. Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, vol. I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia 1493-1648 (2012)
J. Osborne, Luther: A Play (1961)
Luther (DVD, 2003): Movie directed by Eric Till, with Joseph Fiennes etc; available in Short Loan
Zwingli (YouTube, 2019): Swiss movie directed by Stefan Haupt (currently in German/French only)
Materials in German
A) Primary Sources
Martin Luther, Luther-Bibel (1545 original and 1912 edn) [UL CD-ROM Network]
" , Gesammelte Werke, ed. K. Aland (2002 edn) [UL CD-ROM NetworkLink opens in a new window]
B) Secondary works
(+ = available from tutor)
+P. Blickle, Die Reformation im Reich (3rd edn, Stuttgart, 2000)
+S. Ehrenpreis and U. Lotz-Heumann, Reformation und konfessionelles Zeitalter, Kontroversen um die Geschichte (Darmstadt, 2002) [also held by the UL]
Rudolf Endres, ‘Die Reformation im fränkischen WendelsteinLink opens in a new window‘, in: Peter Blickle (ed.), Zugänge zur bäuerlichen Reformation (Zürich, 1987), 127-146
E. François, ‘Konfessioneller Pluralismus und deutsche Identität’, in: S. Ehrenpreis (ed.), Wege der Neuzeit (Berlin, 2007)
O. Mörke, Die Reformation: Voraussetzungen und Durchsetzung (München, 2005)
W. Rademacher-Braick, Frei und selbstbewusst. Reformatorische Theologie in Texten von Frauen (1523–1558) (St. Ingbert, 2017)
H. Schilling, Aufbruch und Krise: Deutschland 1517-1648 (Berlin, 1988)
+L. Schorn-Schütte, Die Reformation: Vorgeschichte, Verlauf, Wirkung (Munich, 1996)
H. Schmidt, ‘Sozialdisziplinierung? Ein Plädoyer für das Ende des Etatismus in der Konfessionalisierungsforschung’, Historische Zeitschrift CCLXV (1997), 639-682
H. Wunder, ‘Frauen in der Reformation: Rezeptions- und historiographiegeschichtliche Überlegungen’, Archive for Reformation History 92 (2001)
The specialized journal Archiv für ReformationsgeschichteLink opens in a new window / Archive for Reformation History, held by the UL, features articles in German as well as English and produces an annual Literaturbericht (survey of new scholarly work)
Further German works are also available.
Primary sources
NB: Many of the e-resources also feature primary evidence.
M. G. Baylor (ed.), The Radical Reformation (1991)
W. A. Coupe (ed.), German Political Satires, vols. 1-2 (1985)
C. Fraenkel-Goldschmidt (ed.), The Historical Writings of Joseph of Rosheim (2006)
M. Geisberg; W. L. Strauss (ed.), The German Single-Leaf Woodcut 1550-1600: a Pictorial Catalogue (4 vols, 1974-5)
P. Johnston; R. W. Scribner (eds), The Reformation in Germany and Switzerland (1993)
S. Karant-Nunn; M. Wiesner-Hanks (eds), Luther on Women: A Sourcebook (2003)
W. Klaassen (ed.), Anabaptism in Outline. Selected Primary Sources (1981)
C. Lindberg (ed.), European Reformations Sourcebook (1999)
U. Lotz-Heumann (ed.), A Sourcebook of Early Modern History: Life, Death, and Everything in Between (2019), esp. nos. 5-6, 14-25, 28, 34, 36, 38-62, 66-75
M. Luther, Works (American edn; 55 vols [incl. index]; 1958-86) [BR 330.E6]
" , Selections from his Writings, ed. J. Dillenberger (1961)
" , Three Treatises (1970)
P. A. MacKenzie (ed.), Caritas Pirckheimer: A Journal of the Reformation Years 1524-28 (2006)
E. A. McKee (ed.), Katharina Schütz Zell, vol. 2: The Writings (1999)
J. C. Olin (ed.), Christian Humanism and the Reformation (1987) [works by Erasmus]
E. Rummel and M. Kooistra (eds), Reformation Sources: The Letters of Wolfgang Capito and his Fellow Reformers in Alsace and Switzerland (Toronto, 2007)
U. Rummel (ed.), Five Reformation Satires(1993)
T. Scott; R. W. Scribner (eds.), The German Peasants' War: a History in Documents (1991)
G. Strauss (ed.), Manifestations of Discontent in Germany on the Eve of the Reformation (1971)
E. Vandiver et al. (eds), Luther's Lives: Two Contemporary Accounts of Martin Luther (Manchester, 2002)
M. Wiesner-Hanks (ed.), Convents confront the Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Nuns in Germany (1996)
Woodcut in a German book on the Ars moriendi ('Art of dying'; c. 1466) [from the Rosenwald Collection in the Library of Congress]