Thomas Lodge’s English rendering of the complete works of Josephus was the most frequently reprinted translation of an ancient historian in early modern England. Entering over twenty editions by the end of the seventeenth century, the book was demonstrably a high-value product, aimed at a market of educated and aspiring members of the upper social orders. A focus on the materiality of the book...
Hearing Differences in Calvin’s Geneva
Read more
This article puts hearing disability at the center of research on early Calvinism in Geneva, arguing that it allows us to observe the process by which new patterns of sensory communication were fashioned after the Reformation. The paper proposes to approach the Reformation as an epistemological shift that brought about a new moral definition of bodily conduct and sense perception, which...
Henry VIII, János Szapolyai
Read more
This article examines Henry VIII’s response to the struggle between János Szapolyai and Ferdinand of Habsburg for the throne of Hungary in the decade following the Ottoman victory at the battle of Mohács in 1526. Hungary’s distinct geopolitical situation as the bulwark against Ottoman expansion into Christendom meant that this civil war was a conflict of international importance. The article...
Cranach Workshop and the Prophets of Baal
Read more
The single panel Elijah and the Prophets of Baal, finished in 1545 by the Cranach workshop led by Lucas Cranach the Younger, resonates unpleasantly with the anti-Semitism of the early Lutheran community. This article connects the panel’s allegory of community building, its installation in the first Lutherandesignated chapel in Torgau, and Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic sermon consecrating the...
Lord Have Mercy on Us
Read more
This article examines Lord Have Mercy broadsides, a genre of cheap weekly publications that appeared during the seventeenth-century plague outbreaks. These texts included historical data about previous epidemics, remedies, prayers, and mortality figures for parishes in London. Readers of the Lord Have Mercies served as amateur demographers by recording mortality statistics for their local ...