Reformation Polemics – History of the Book

Hans Sachs in Oxford 2: English Reformation Dialogues

By Jacob Ridley When the nine-year-old Edward VI came to the throne of England in January 1547, the floodgates of English Protestant print opened. His father Henry VIII had declared an independent Church of England in 1534, rejecting the authority of the Pope, but Henry remained theologically conservative and enforced heresy laws against the more …

Whose hand? Unearthing an Unknown Manuscript in the Bodleian

The discovery of an unknown Bodleian manuscript of Hieronymus Emser’s defence against Huldrych Zwingli’s 1524 tract opposing the Catholic Mass, which celebrates its quincentenary this year, raises many questions: Who penned or commissioned it, for whom, why, and where did it come from?