36 | Mass Media and Historical Change
Thieving Hordes of Peasants’ from 1525, and that some of his writings had a
rather matter-of-fact tone to them, such as ‘On the Freedom of a Christian’
from 1520 (Hamm 1996: 142). In taking up everyday experiences and cul-
minating in criticism, particularly of the Pope, it was primarily the pictorial
illustrations accompanying his texts that were characterised by polemic and
personalised antitheses (Scribner 1981: 243–46).
Moreover, Luther attached great value to a productive connection between
printed text and verbal communication. His translated and newly composed
lyrics and the way he directly addressed his readers underscore this. This ‘oral
writing’ (Lottes 1996: 256) can also be found in sermons that drew on Luther’s
writings. Luther’s ‘principle of Scripture’, which implied that faith could be
derived only from the Holy Bible (‘sola scriptura’), is in perfect agreement with
the new print media. Reformers’ attempts at persuasion were not restricted to
texts. They used visual material, such as images of Luther himself, of pious
peasants or caricatured opponents, as in the much quoted ‘Passional Christi
and Antichristi’ from 1521 (Scribner 1981: 148–89; Stöber 2000). In general,
the wide dissemination of the Lutherans must also be defined through visu-
alisation, even though polemic visualisations were mostly annotated (Beyer
1994: 184). Luther’s fondness for images underscores why Reformation media
were embellished with illustrations in Germany, while Calvinism in France
availed itself of music (Würgler 2009: 20). In this way, a diverse ‘reformatory
public’ emerged (Wohlfeil 1984) and communicated on an inter-medial level
transcending class. One should not underestimate the rise of Europe-wide
consequences of this literary preservation of Protestantism, which resulted in
the spread of printing into regions of Eastern Europe, where it had scarcely
taken root before (Kawecka-Gryczowa and Tazbur 1998: 413; cf. Gilmont
1998).
Media scholars such as Werner Faulstich, in particular, assigned the suc-
cessful outcome of the Reformation to the fact that different media techniques
were used compared to the Roman Catholic Church. While reformers took
advantage of the new print media, the Roman Catholic Church mainly used
the ‘old Mensch-media’ in the Counter Reformation, i.e. priests or preachers
(Faulstich 2006a: 145). In fact, the Roman Church hardly responded medi-
ally until the Diet of Augsburg of 1530, even though early popular prints also
mocked Luther visually as a confederate of the devil (Scribner 1981: 229–32).
According to Alexander Heintzel’s findings, representatives of the Roman
Church started their counter-propaganda, mainly initiated by the Jesuits,
only after the Council of Trent in 1563 (Heintzel 1998: 214). But not even
the famous Jesuit drama was able to achieve a comparably broad effect, as it,
too, concentrated on the use of ‘Mensch-media’. Of course, one may counter
that the spread of the Reformation was also precipitated by ‘Mensch-media’
such as priests, and that its continued use by the Roman Church means that