Erinnerungsstrategien in Zeiten des Wandels: Zur Bedeutung der Reformation als Generationserfahrung im Spiegel sächsischer Leichenpredigten für adlige Beamte

Abstract

This article pursues the question in what ways the Reformation and the new personal and family orientations associated with it were handled in biographical narratives of noble officials. Based on funeral sermons for noble officials who, between 1530 and 1570, stood in service to the Albertine Dukes of Saxony, the study can show that the Reformation did not become a generational interpretive pattern in the remembrance of the dead. Rather, the funeral sermons generally referenced the God-fearing lives and everyday piety of the deceased. Overall, a time horizon of collective remembrance was created which made possible narratives that minimized the Reformation.