When: Friday, 30 October 2026, 5-6:30pm
Where: Taylor Institution Library, Room 2
450 years ago, Hans Sachs (1494–1576), one of the most influential German authors intervening in the Reformation debate, died. In 1524, he had published four highly successful polemical dialogues in pamphlet form. The first of these, the debate between a canon and a cobbler, the alter-ego of Hans Sachs, was published in 2024 on the Taylor Editions website and as print-on-demand, including its contemporary Dutch and English translations. For this year’s Reformation pamphlet edition, the last of the four dialogues is published, the topical debate on greed: Ein Dialogus/ des inhalt/ ein argument der Roͤmischen[/ wider das Christlich heüflein[/ den Geytz/ auch ander offenlich laster &c. betreffend (A dialogue containing an argument of the Roman Catholics against the little Christian flock; concerning greed, also other public vices, etc.). The edition and translation are available here as part of the Taylor Editions and as eBook (here a version laid out as double-spreads).
In the debate, the characters ‘Romanus’ (a Catholic monk) and ‘Reichenburger’ (a merchant aptly named ‘rich citizen’) argue about all the topics which should be avoided at an Oxford dinner table: money, religion, and politics, while liberally quoting from the Bible, making use of Martin Luther’s then brand-new translation of the New Testament.
As with the previous Taylor Reformation Pamphlets, the launch will include a themed compline, a coffee morning presentation and a full relay reading of the original text with English subtitles. Watch the podcast of the “Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen” and read the introduction into Early Modern German on the website. Former readers have included the Mayor of Bonn, Oxford school children, emeritus professors, linguistics students, Dutch native speakers, members of the German Lutheran Church and many more. Watch / listen to a test reading to prepare for the launch with Henrike Lähnemann as Romanus and Timothy Powell as Junker Reichenburger
Coffee Morning Presentation at 10.30am
To celebrate the publication of ‘Hans Sachs: Dialogue on Greed‘, Henrike Lähnemann and Timothy Powell present 502 years of reading Reformation pamphlets in volumes of the Bodleian and of Tim’s collection of GDR editions of Hans Sachs, the Nuremberg cobbler turned celebrity author.
Three volumes shown from the Bodleian Collection:
- Tr.Luth. 34: A Sammelband with nine copies of different editions of the four 1524 dialogues by Hans Sachs as no. 53–61, showing different readers’ interventions.
- Tr.Luth. 36: A Sammelband featuring as no. 93 a diatribe against usury by the Reformation author Jacob Strauß, also from 1524 Das wucher zu nemen vnd gebē vnserm Christlichem glauben vnd brüderlicher lieb … entgegen yst, vnuberwintlich leer, vnnd geschrifft.
- Tr.Luth. 50: A Sammelband which contains as no. 19 a series of enigmatic woodcuts from 1527 with verses by Hans Sachs interpreting them as ‘prophecy about the fate of the papacy’ (Ein wunderliche weissagung von dem Bapstumb, wie es yhm bis an das ende der welt gehen sol, ynn figuren odder gemelde begriffen, gefunden zu Nurmberg. Ein vorred A. Osianders. Mit gutter verstendlicher auslegung, wilche H. Sachs yn deudsche reymen gefasset.)
Books presented by Timothy Powell:
- Flugschriften der Bauernkriegszeit, ed. by Adolf Laube/Hans Werner Seiffert (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1975).
- Ein wünderlicher Dialogus und newe Zeitung: Die Prosadialoge des Hans Sachs, ed. by Ingeborg Spriewald (Leipzig: Insel, 1976).
- Klaus Wedler, Hans Sachs (Leipzig: Reclam, 1976).
- Günter Vogler, Nürnberg 1524/25 (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1982).
- Buch der Reformation, ed. by Günter Vogler (Berlin: Union-Verlag, 1989): Taylorian Teaching Collection BR301.B83 BUC 1989
For more videos in the series, see http://tinyurl.com/coffeemorningsWeston
Schedule of the Presentation 5-6:30pm
5pm Tea and sound checks
5:15pm Introduction to the new edition and translation (Henrike Lähnemann)
5:30pm Relay Reading of the ‘Dialogue on Greed’
6:15pm Show-and-tell of editions of Hans Sachs’s works from the 16th and 20th centuries (Timothy Powell)
For further information on the Reformation Pamphlets, consult the Taylor Editions site.
Image from one of the three editions of the pamphlet in the Bodleian Library, Tr. Luth. 34 (53)
Ein Dialogus / des inhalt / ein argumēt | der Roͤmischen / wider das Christlich heüflein / den | Geytz / auch ander offenlich laster ꝛc. betreffend. [Nuremberg: Jobst Gutknecht,] 1524.
14 folios in 4to. Quire signatures: B, C, D, with C being a half-sheet
(Weller 1868: 18(a); KG, vol. 22: 9a; Pegg 1973: 3550; Köhler 1996: 3989; VD 16 S 211.)