Luthers Tod. Ereignis und Wirkung ed. by Armin Kohnle

Abstract

Reviewed by: Luthers Tod. Ereignis und Wirkung ed. by Armin Kohnle Robert Kolb Luthers Tod. Ereignis und Wirkung. Edited By Armin Kohnle. Schriften der Stiftung Luthergedenkstätten in Sachsen-Anhalt 23 Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2019. 386 pp. The death of Martin Luther, on February 18, 1546, sent waves through the German empire and far beyond, not only in his own time but also in subsequent decades and centuries. Kohnle's introduction deftly leads readers through the volume's varied perspectives on topics relating to Luther's death and Luther's teaching on death. These studies make clear how profound both the positive and the negative impact of the Wittenberg reformer was and continued [End Page 242] to be. For nearly five hundred years details of his dying and the ways in which the memory of it has been conveyed command attention from both those who use his death to celebrate his reform and also those who continue, without documentation, to assert that he committed suicide or to report that the smell of sulfur, of Satan, filled the room as he died. As is the case with all such collections, the quality of these studies varies. It is not so surprising that the initial essay assessing the development of published counsel for the dying from medieval ars moriendi to reformational books for the dying omits key studies, such as Austra Reinis's Reforming the Art of Dying: The ars moriendi in the German Reformation (1519–1528) or Cornelia Niekus Moore's Patterned Lives: The Lutheran Funeral Biography in Early Modern Germany. Non-German scholarship simply lies beyond the horizon of some. However, the essay's omission of works from the school mobilized by Rudolf Lenz and Eva-Maria Dickhaut is puzzling. It leads to false conclusions, such as the assertion that Lutheran funeral sermons do not reveal active support from those at the bedside of the dying or that these sermons say nothing of the administration of absolution and the Lord's Supper for them (47). More typical of these essays is the second: Volker Leppin's assessment of Luther's engagement with death—his own and others'—and of his pastoral approach to the dying and the grieving highlights the confidence in the gift of eternal life that the reformer proclaimed, sometimes in the face of doubts raised by his own Anfechtungen. Heiner Luck's careful examination of Luther's testament, which violated Saxon civil law in its accord of guardianship of their children to Katherine von Bora, illuminates the radicality of Luther's desire to have his wife in charge of children and legacy. Sabine Kramer's analysis of the impact and implications of her husband's death on and for Katherine, and Christopher Spehr's survey of the fate of the children of Luther and his colleagues, provide enriching details and analysis regarding what his death meant for those closest to him, as does Christine Mundhenk's elucidation of Melanchthon's published reaction to his colleague's death. Michael Beyer opens up a parallel aspect of the Wittenberg Reformation with his insightful exposition of reports on the deaths of Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and Johannes Bugenhagen. [End Page 243] Luther's death quickly became a media event; Jochen Birkenmeier traces the composition, goal, and impact of the published reports describing how Luther died, based on eyewitness accounts by Justus Jonas and Michael Coelius, Melanchthon's funeral oration, and Bugenhagen's funeral sermon. Klaus Fitschen tracks the legend of Luther's suicide from a book published in 2012 via the more notorious and more detailed work of Paul Majunke (1890) to the claim first voiced by the Dominican Thomas Bozius in 1591. Not only Protestant Luther scholars, including Gustav Kawerau and Theodor Kolde, but also Roman Catholic critics of the Reformer, including Johannes Janssen and Nikolaus Paulus, effectively refuted Majunke's work. Stefan Rhein provides a detailed, insightful literary analysis of the poetic paeans that celebrated the Reformer's career and contributions in the wake of his death. The recent focus of cultural historians on material culture and memorial culture is reflected in several reports, among them, one on Luther's grave marker and its service to the house of...