Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion defines the ‘Marquard ethos’, the influential underlying spirit and direction of his works, more precisely. It is argued that Marquard presented imitable models which offered radical alternatives to the normative forms of his age, in an attempt to change the established patterns of devotional practice amongst the laity (understood very broadly) away from a limiting fixation on external, sensory, and bodily dimensions, and towards a profound consideration of the interior life. His focus on interiority brought him similarly into sharp opposition to many of the principal ways by which central tenets of the Christian faith were customarily propagated and taught. The new paths which Marquard cut in the theology upon which his novel approaches to those tenets were based mark the beginning of a new trajectory in German intellectual culture; a trajectory which would ultimately culminate in the Reformation.