For Volume 6 of the series ‘Reformation Pamphlets’, a team of Germanists from Halle and Oxford have edited two short polemical texts from 1523 held in the Taylorian by Martin Luther, dealing with the question whether monks and nuns should leave their monastic houses: Deutung der greulichen Figur des Mönchkalbs (‘Interpretation of the Gruesome Figure of the Monk-calf’) and Ursach und Antwort, dass Jungfrauen Klöster göttlich verlassen mögen (‘Reason and Justification Why it Pleases God that Nuns May Leave Their Convents’).
The volume is available to buy as paperbook or download for free as Ebook of the publication by Florian Gieseler, Henrike Lähnemann, and Timothy Powell. Related digital editions:
- Katarina Ristic: Deutung der greulichen Figur des Mönchkalbs (Erfurt 1523)
- Karen Wenzel: Interpretatio Monachouituli Monstri Fribergae (Wittenberg 1545/1551/1562)
- Ksenia Dugæva: De deux monstres prodigieux (Geneva 1557)
- Elena Trowsdale: Of two Woonderful Popish Monsters (London 1579)
- Kira Kohlgrüber: Ursache und Antwort (Wittenberg 1523)
- Preparatory podcast by Henrike Lähnemann of ‘Ursache und Antwort’ and ‘Mönchkalb’
For the background on the monstrous birth pamphlet, see also the exhibition on late medieval and early modern monsters.