Although a few of leading historians of the German Reformation such as Robert W. Scribner and Rainer Wohlfeil have played an important role in the so-called ‘iconic turn’ of the German historiography, the historical approaches on the broadsheets as the representative media of the visual image in the German Reformation have made lesser progress than those on the pamphlets composed of pure texts except the title page. To supply this relative gap in the historiography of the Reformation broadsheets this article attempts to inspect the origin of these media and their transformation into the instrument of propaganda. The broadsheets were derived from the religious woodcut which first appeared in the beginning of the fifteenth century and served for private meditation and devotion. The invention of typography around 1450 made it possible to incorporate the woodcut into process of typesetting, so that text and images in the broadsheet were able to materialize a technical and aesthetic unity. With the beginning of the Reformation the broadsheets became typical media of propaganda of the Protestants who searched for the effective means to attack the Pope and the Catholic clergy. Lucas Cranach the Elder, one of Luther's closest friends, began the image struggle against the Catholic church with his famous ‘Passional Christi und Antichristi’, in which he emphasized through thirteen contrasting pairs of woodcuts the antithetic lifestyles of the Christ and the Pope as Antichrist. An amount of the German texts in the Reformation broadsheets suggests that the main receivers of these media might be the literate who could read at least German. The semi-literate and the illiterate could, however, read the visual images of the broadsheets pinned to the wall in the public places such as inns and understand the message of the texts often using a rhyming pattern by having them read out by someone who could read. Through this ‘collective reception’ the broadsheets served as a meeting point of the illiterate,ld reaemi-literate and the literate. The widespread production and distribution of the broadsheets shows that the oduction and distridid rot pr hibit the widesprtaeav, but transformed its function: from the object of devotion to the instrument of propaganda.

Although a few of leading historians of the German Reformation such as Robert W. Scribner and Rainer Wohlfeil have played an important role in the so-called ‘iconic turn’ of the German historiography, the historical approaches on the broadsheets as the representative media of the visual image in the German Reformation have made lesser progress than those on the pamphlets composed of pure texts except the title page. To supply this relative gap in the historiography of the Reformation broadsheets this article attempts to inspect the origin of these media and their transformation into the instrument of propaganda. The broadsheets were derived from the religious woodcut which first appeared in the beginning of the fifteenth century and served for private meditation and devotion. The invention of typography around 1450 made it possible to incorporate the woodcut into process of typesetting, so that text and images in the broadsheet were able to materialize a technical and aesthetic unity. With the beginning of the Reformation the broadsheets became typical media of propaganda of the Protestants who searched for the effective means to attack the Pope and the Catholic clergy. Lucas Cranach the Elder, one of Luther's closest friends, began the image struggle against the Catholic church with his famous ‘Passional Christi und Antichristi’, in which he emphasized through thirteen contrasting pairs of woodcuts the antithetic lifestyles of the Christ and the Pope as Antichrist. An amount of the German texts in the Reformation broadsheets suggests that the main receivers of these media might be the literate who could read at least German. The semi-literate and the illiterate could, however, read the visual images of the broadsheets pinned to the wall in the public places such as inns and understand the message of the texts often using a rhyming pattern by having them read out by someone who could read. Through this ‘collective reception’ the broadsheets served as a meeting point of the illiterate,ld reaemi-literate and the literate. The widespread production and distribution of the broadsheets shows that the oduction and distridid rot pr hibit the widesprtaeav, but transformed its function: from the object of devotion to the instrument of propaganda.

German Reformation, Broadsheet, Visual Image, Woodcut, Media of Propaganda