Peter Matheson – författare

Peter Matheson has written the first study in English of the Reformation as a literary phenomenon. This book traces the first emergence of a ''public opinion'' in European history. Using insights from social history, religion and literature, Professor Matheson explores the connection between the ''communal Reformation'' and the outpouring of pamphlets in the early 1520''s. These pamphlets helped create a dynamic and subversive network of communication where language and structure were of equal importance. He also examines the relative strengths of polemical and dialogical approaches in winning adherents, the motivations of the authors, and the expectations of audiences.

Peter Matheson has written the first study in English of the Reformation as a literary phenomenon. This book traces the first emergence of a 'public opinion' in European history. Using insights from social history, religion and literature, Professor Matheson explores the connection between the 'communal Reformation' and the outpouring of pamphlets in the early 1520's. These pamphlets helped create a dynamic and subversive network of communication where language and structure were of equal importance. He also examines the relative strengths of polemical and dialogical approaches in winning adherents, the motivations of the authors, and the expectations of audiences.

In 1523, in one of the most daring and remarkable events in the history of the Reformation, a woman challenged the Catholic establishment to a public debate. The issue was the persecution of a young Lutheran student in Ingolstadt.Argula von Grumbach's writings on this and many other topics were widely circulated: her first publication alone went through sixteen editions. She addressed the Catholic theologians of Ingolstadt, the Dukes of Bavaria and the Councils of Ingolstadt and Regensburg. She also met with and conducted an extensive correspondence with Luther, Osiander and many of the leading reformers.Professor Peter Matheson here provides translations of all her published works together with introductions. He gives a full biographical account of von Grumbach, analyses her use of Scripture and discusses her role as a woman of the Reformation.The rediscovery of Protestanism's first female theologian and author affords a wealth of new insight into the history of the Reformation; the role of women in Church, state and society; and a woman's use of Scripture, which in many ways anticipates the flowering of feminist theology today.

What was it like to fall in love in Hitler's Germany? As the war tore them apart, how did young couples keep love vibrant, care for their children, and relate to the war? The earthy letters of Ernst and Lilo Sommer depict in unforgettable poignancy the collision of their personal dreams with the political and military realities of the Third Reich. Seventy years later their daughter, Heinke, reflects on this tragedy.

At a time when women were expected to stick to their household duties, according to Peter Matheson, Argula von Grumbach burst through every barrier. Matheson offers here a biography of the Reformation''s first woman writer. Argula von Grumbach''s first pamphlet in 1523 was reprinted all over Germany. Thousands of copies of her eight pamphlets appeared. Through her writing, von Grumbach defied her Bavarian princes (and her husband), denounced censorship, argued for an educated church and society, and developed her own understanding of faith and Scripture. She even intervened in the Imperial Diets at Nuremberg and Augsburg.Drawing for the first time on her correspondence, the author shows how von Grumbach paid dearly for her outspokenness but remained undaunted. Though some saw her as a she-devil and others as a harbinger of a new age, Matheson shows von Grumbach as a woman engaged in the life of the villages where she lived, as one motivated by the dreams she had for her children.In a time of sweeping change and risking everything for the light and truth she was given, Argula von Grumbach showed what the vision and determination of one person could achieve.

The aim of this book is to demonstrate that the sixteenth-century "e;ecumenical movement,"e; and in particular, the colloquy between Catholics and Protestants at Regensburg in 1541, was by no means an idle "e;dream of an understanding,"e; doomed from the start. Contarini's campaign for reconciliation mirrors the richness and elusiveness of pre-Tridentine Catholicism. It was the clash of cultures and politics as much as purely theological considerations that led to the failure of the Regensburg colloquy. Contarini was not without sympathy for Lutheran theology until faced by the full implications of a Protestant church and a Protestant culture. He then retreated, first to a confessional Catholicism, then to an intolerant Curialism.

Lilo und Ernst lernen sich 1935 während des Landjahrs kennen und verlieben sich ineinander. Sie schmieden Zukunftspläne, ziehen zusammen und heiraten schließlich. Beide sind vom Nationalsozialismus und seinen Werten überzeugt. Dann bricht der Krieg aus und Ernst wird eingezogen. Sie schreiben sich Briefe, die in einer unvergleichlichen Intensität den Zusammenprall ihrer persönlichen Träume mit den politischen und militärischen Realitäten des Dritten Reiches zeigen. Siebzig Jahre später entziffert ihre Tochter Heinke die in Sütterlin geschriebenen Briefe und stellt die Fragen der nachgeborenen Generation: Was wussten ihre Eltern? Warum glaubten sie an Hitler? Das Buch ist keine Anklage gegen die Eltern. Vielmehr ist es eine schmerzhafte Auseinandersetzung und eine historische Analyse der eigenen Familiengeschichte im Dritten Reich.

Argula von Grumbach, née von Stauff, was Europe''s first woman reformer. Like other members of her aristocratic family she was drawn at an early stage into the evangelical movement. Her outrage at the persecution of a young student by the Ingolstadt theologians led her to challenge them to a disputation. The pamphlet embodying this unprecedented intervention went into 16 editions and was followed by seven other pamphlets. She was personally known to Luther, and actively engaged in the Reichstag of Augsburg (1530). She created a network of supporters and founded Lutheran congregations in Franconia. This, the first scholarly biography of this theologically and socially fascinating woman, is based on previously unknown sources.

Lilo und Ernst lernen sich 1935 während des Landjahrs kennen und verlieben sich ineinander. Sie schmieden Zukunftspläne, ziehen zusammen und heiraten schließlich. Beide sind vom Nationalsozialismus und seinen Werten überzeugt. Dann bricht der Krieg aus und Ernst wird eingezogen. Sie schreiben sich Briefe, die in einer unvergleichlichen Intensität den Zusammenprall ihrer persönlichen Träume mit den politischen und militärischen Realitäten des Dritten Reiches zeigen. Siebzig Jahre später entziffert ihre Tochter Heinke die in Sütterlin geschriebenen Briefe und stellt die Fragen der nachgeborenen Generation: Was wussten ihre Eltern? Warum glaubten sie an Hitler? Das Buch ist keine Anklage gegen die Eltern. Vielmehr ist es eine schmerzhafte Auseinandersetzung und eine historische Analyse der eigenen Familiengeschichte im Dritten Reich.