Wittenberg historiography: Philipp Melanchthon and the reformation of historical thought.

Abstract

During the sixteenth century, the scholars of Reformation Wittenberg forged a new interpretation of the past as a historical foundation for their efforts to reorder the European world. The Wittenberg historians were deeply indebted to earlier traditions of historical thought, but they were also innovators who created patterns of interpretation that have persisted to the present. The dissertation examines the development of this distinctly Wittenberg view of history by concentrating on Philipp Melanchthon (1497--1560) and his universal history, <italic>Carion's Chronicle</italic>, first published in 1532. With <italic>Carion's Chronicle</italic>, Melanchthon overturned centuries of historiography that had supported papal claims to political supremacy. In its place, he developed a new perspective that stressed the importance of the Imperial constitution for preserving peace in Europe, and he tacitly argued for the historical legitimacy of the Wittenberg Reformation. In doing so, Melanchthon intervened transformatively in the development of historical method by dismissing the Six Ages of St. Augustine, which had been used by scholars such as Werner Rolevinck in his <italic>Fasciculus Temporum</italic> and Hartmann Schedel in the <italic>Nuremberg Chronicle</italic>. Instead, Melanchthon turned to the Four Monarchies of the prophet Daniel, which he interpreted as culminating in the Holy Roman Empire rather than the Turks, and he argued that the Empire's political form (elective monarchy) had enabled it to survive centuries of hostile meddling by the French and papacy. Later political theorists, such as Jean Bodin and Hermann Conring, challenged Melanchthon's perspective, but his views nevertheless remained influential within German intellectual circles for centuries. The dissertation includes appendices with the first complete census of the extant editions of <italic>Carion's Chronicle</italic> and an analysis of the textual history. Melanchthon and later his son-in-law, Caspar Peucer, strenuously resisted historiographical practices, such as continuation and adaptation, that had been common in the Middle Ages and the early decades of printing. In this respect, their engagement with the <italic>Chronicle </italic> offers a unique window into sixteenth century views of authorship and intellectual property, as well as historiographical methods.