The Evangelical Publicists

In the course of his dissertation on Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Alejandro Zorzin identified the leading eighteen Evangelicals publishing pamphlets in German during the early years of the Reformation movement (1518 to 1525).^[14] In the order of vernacular publications through 1525, both first editions and reprints, Zorzin's statistics, reproduced in table 5, are quite revealing.^[15]

The first thing to note from table 5 is the preponderance of clergy. Of the eighteen leading publicists only four were laity: Philipp Melanchthon (who nevertheless taught theology at Wittenberg), Hans Sachs, Ulrich von Hutten, and Hartmuth von Cronberg. Sachs was a shoemaker and Meistersänger , and Hutten and Cronberg, disaffected

nobles. In general the authors of the flood of pamphlets were also members of the learned elite. Even most of the pamphlets that purported to be by a "poor unlearned god-fearing layman" were in fact by learned authors, frequently clerics.^[16] This pretense is itself revealing because it indicates how, for a few crucial years, the elite not only attempted to reach a broad audience but found it advantageous to pretend that they were speaking for the very audience they were trying to reach.

As Zorzin's statistics show, Martin Luther dramatically outpublished the other Evangelicals in the vernacular during this crucial period. The period 1518 to 1525 saw over eleven times as many printings of Luther's vernacular works as of the next nearest "competitor," Karlstadt. Even the combined production of the other seventeen authors (807 editions) is exceeded by Luther almost two to one. Although I strongly suspect that Luther was outnumbered by the combined total of all Evangelical pamphlets published during this period,^[17] there can be no doubt that his was still the dominant voice. This dominance justifies, I believe, a closer statistical look at the printing and reprinting of Luther's works.^[18]

The most massive printing and reprinting of Luther's works came in the pioneering years of the Reformation movement. Half of the life-time printings appeared by 1525 and three-quarters by 1530. This is not to minimize the astonishing productivity of the last fifteen years, but only to put it in perspective. Over eighteen hundred printings of works by Luther had flowed from the empire's presses by the end of 1525. More than an additional five hundred printings had appeared by the end of the decade. Eighty-five percent of these publications were in German. It is also worth noting that two of every five printings through 1525 and one in three through 1530 were sermons, not polemics or theological treatises. The market was seeking out edifying accessible publications. As figure 1 and tables 1 to 4 show, the period of maximum printing and reprinting was the half decade 1520 to 1525. This fact is also reflected in the ratio of reprints to first editions. The ratio was remarkably strong through 1525, with an average of almost six reprints for every first edition. It declined fairly dramatically after 1525, suggesting a waning interest in Luther's works among the buying public. The period 1526 to 1546 averaged only a bit over three reprints for every first edition.^[19]

The period of maximum reprints coincided with the period of maximum geographic appeal, measured by where works were reprinted.^[20]

In the pioneering years of the Reformation movement (1516 through 1525) over a third of the printings occurred in southern cities, especially Augsburg, Strasbourg, and Basel (see tables 3 and 4). After 1525 Luther became increasingly a regional author, writing largely for central and northern Germany. The printings in southern cities dropped to between a half and a third of what they had been during the heyday of the Reformation movement. The period from 1526 to 1535 also witnessed the fiercest controversy over the Lord's Supper, when the religious leaders of Strasbourg, Augsburg, and Basel were locked in an often vitriolic quarrel with Luther over the proper understanding of Christ's presence in the Supper. Basel, an early and enthusiastic center for the printing of Luther's works, did not join the Wittenberg Concord in 1536 that ended the quarrel between Luther and the south German cities of Strasbourg, Augsburg, and several others. In fact, Basel ended up sheltering Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Luther's first opponent in the quarrel over the Lord's Supper, until his death in 1541. It is not surprising, then, that after 1525 Basel effectively ceased to publish Luther, especially in German.

But the period after 1525 lies largely outside the ambit of this study. For the crucial early years of the Reformation movement, Luther clearly and decisively dominated the presses of all the German-speaking lands. Since a successful media campaigned normally requires a fairly consistent message, Luther's dominance within the Evangelical publishing effort may have helped provide this essential coherence. In addition, the other publicists saw themselves in substantial agreement with Luther, and often loudly announced their support for his position. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, they were partly mistaken about this, but their intent is still significant. They thought that they were all saying much the same thing and attempted as best they could to reinforce each other's message. The divergence only became apparent in late 1524, when splits in the Evangelical ranks were opened by the press to public view, delighting Catholics and distressing Evangelicals throughout the German-speaking lands. It was after this split became apparent to all that reprints of Luther significantly declined and became increasingly restricted to northern and central cities of the empire (see figure 1 and tables 1 through 4).