Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Editorial Conventions
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- List of Early Editions
- Martin Luther’s Letter to Henry VIII
- Henry VIII’s Response to Martin Luther
- Marginalia from the Early Latin Editions
- Prologue and Epigraph to Pynson’s Edition
- Henry VIII’s Preface to the English Translation
- The Archbishop of Mainz’s Letter to Henry VIII
- Hieronymus Emser’s Preface to his German Translation
- Martin Luther’s Response to Emser’s Edition: Martin Luther's Response to the Title of the Insulting Text of the King of England
- Hieronymus Emser’s Confession
- Peter Quentell’s Preface to his First Cologne Edition
- Leonard Cox’s Preface to the Cracow Edition: To the Illustrious and Magnificent Lord Palatine Christopher à Szydłowiecki, Captain of Cracow, Supreme Chancellor of the Kingdom of Poland, etc, greetings from the Englishman Leonard Cox.
- Stanislaus Hosius’s Epigraph to the Cracow Edition
- Johannes Eck’s Preface to the Ingolstadt Edition
- Duke George of Saxony’s Letter to Henry VIII
- Ortwin Gratius’s Preface to the Second Cologne Edition
- Johannes Cochlaeus’s Admonition to the Reader: A notice to the reader about each epistle, by Johannes Cochlaeus
- Johannes Cochlaeus’s Brief Discussion of Luther’s Response: A Brief Discussion of Luther’s Response to the Royal Letter, addressed by Johannes Cochlaeus to that Noble and Valiant Man, Sir Hermann Rinck of Cologne, King’s Counsellor and Knight of the Golden Spur, etc.
- Ortwin Gratius’s Preface to the Variant Cologne Edition
- Johannes Cochlaeus’s Preface to the Variant Cologne Edition
- Clement VII’s Preface to the Roman Edition
- Commendatory Verses in the Roman Edition
- Johannes Fabri’s Preface to his Answer to Luther’s Response: translated by Richard Rex and Christoph Pretzer
- Juan Luis Vives’s Letter to Henry VIII: To His Royal Majesty.
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Names, Places, and Topics
- Index of Biblical Texts and References
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Editorial Conventions
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- List of Early Editions
- Martin Luther’s Letter to Henry VIII
- Henry VIII’s Response to Martin Luther
- Marginalia from the Early Latin Editions
- Prologue and Epigraph to Pynson’s Edition
- Henry VIII’s Preface to the English Translation
- The Archbishop of Mainz’s Letter to Henry VIII
- Hieronymus Emser’s Preface to his German Translation
- Martin Luther’s Response to Emser’s Edition: Martin Luther's Response to the Title of the Insulting Text of the King of England
- Hieronymus Emser’s Confession
- Peter Quentell’s Preface to his First Cologne Edition
- Leonard Cox’s Preface to the Cracow Edition: To the Illustrious and Magnificent Lord Palatine Christopher à Szydłowiecki, Captain of Cracow, Supreme Chancellor of the Kingdom of Poland, etc, greetings from the Englishman Leonard Cox.
- Stanislaus Hosius’s Epigraph to the Cracow Edition
- Johannes Eck’s Preface to the Ingolstadt Edition
- Duke George of Saxony’s Letter to Henry VIII
- Ortwin Gratius’s Preface to the Second Cologne Edition
- Johannes Cochlaeus’s Admonition to the Reader: A notice to the reader about each epistle, by Johannes Cochlaeus
- Johannes Cochlaeus’s Brief Discussion of Luther’s Response: A Brief Discussion of Luther’s Response to the Royal Letter, addressed by Johannes Cochlaeus to that Noble and Valiant Man, Sir Hermann Rinck of Cologne, King’s Counsellor and Knight of the Golden Spur, etc.
- Ortwin Gratius’s Preface to the Variant Cologne Edition
- Johannes Cochlaeus’s Preface to the Variant Cologne Edition
- Clement VII’s Preface to the Roman Edition
- Commendatory Verses in the Roman Edition
- Johannes Fabri’s Preface to his Answer to Luther’s Response: translated by Richard Rex and Christoph Pretzer
- Juan Luis Vives’s Letter to Henry VIII: To His Royal Majesty.
- Select Bibliography
- Index of Names, Places, and Topics
- Index of Biblical Texts and References
Summary
This book presents an edition and translation of two letters written to each other by Martin Luther and Henry VIII in the middle of the 1520s, and published by Henry at the close of 1526. Alongside these it adds a group of further texts related to that brief exchange. Henry's second public encounter with Luther is not as widely known today as his first, in which he wrote the Assertion of the Seven Sacraments, the book which earned him the papal accolade ‘Defender of the Faith’ in 1521. But this later effort, in effect a second book against Luther, was also a sensation in its day. The correspondence became public property when Henry ordered the two letters to be printed, in December 1526. For the next few months, the texts were reprinted across Europe, and some of the leading Catholic polemicists of the time made capital out of this royal intervention.
The episode came at a delicate moment for what we now call ‘the Reformation’, when its future was in the balance. On the one hand, the ‘Recess of Speyer’, a measure enacted by the Reichstag that met at the imperial city of Speyer in summer 1526, had given vital political breathing space to the Reformation cause by suspending the implementation of the Edict of Worms, which had officially condemned Luther and his doctrines in 1521. Yet the movement was in other respects losing some of its momentum as Luther faced a series of setbacks. The first of these was the decision of Europe's most famous intellectual, Desiderius Erasmus, to make a public break with Luther in 1524, by protesting against Luther's categorical denial of human free will. Then came the catastrophe of the Peasants’ War in Germany, an uprising involving hundreds of thousands of people. Agrarian discontent and the hope of liberation from serfdom were the driving forces of this rebellion, and it gained impetus from Luther's heady rhetoric of ‘Christian liberty’. Although hardly a Lutheran rebellion, aspects of the movement were certainly inflected by Lutheran or ‘evangelical’ ideas.
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- Information
- Henry VIII and Martin LutherThe Second Controversy, 1525–1527, pp. ix - xiiiPublisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021