Martin Luther was a controversial figure during his lifetime, eliciting strong emotions in friends and enemies alike, and his outsized persona has left an indelible mark on the world today. Living I Was Your Plague explores how Luther carefully crafted his own image and how he has been portrayed in his own times and ours, painting a unique portrait of the man who set in motion a revolution that sundered Western Christendom.
Renowned Luther biographer Lyndal Roper examines how the painter Lucas Cranach produced images that made the reformer an instantly recognizable character whose biography became part of Lutheran devotional culture. She reveals what Luther’s dreams have to say about his relationships and discusses how his masculinity was on the line in his devastatingly crude and often funny polemical attacks. Roper shows how Luther’s hostility to the papacy was unshaken to the day he died, how his deep-rooted anti-Semitism infused his theology, and how his memorialization has given rise to a remarkable flood of kitsch, from 鈥淗ere I Stand鈥� socks to Playmobil Luther.
Lavishly illustrated, Living I Was Your Plague is a splendid work of cultural history that sheds new light on the complex and enduring legacy of Luther and his image.
"Roper鈥檚 book proves that a rigorously scholarly work can also be a pleasure to read."鈥擠an Hitchens, The Times
"Roper questions Luther鈥檚 character and legacy with the same anti-authoritarianismthat animated her subject, combining acuity with wit and levity, just as Luther did鈥� though with fewer obscenities."鈥擲uzannah Lipscomb, A Financial Times Best Book Of The Week
"Provocative and thought-provoking, Living I Was Your Plague is an important contribution to our understanding of the life and afterlife of one of history鈥檚 most complex figures, and a lively testament to the striking originality of Roper鈥檚 scholarship."鈥擜lexandra Walsham, Times Literary Supplement
"Through its thematic approach this collection says much that could not be said in the inevitably heroic format of the biography. It provides insights that will shape the reader鈥檚 experience of every future encounter with Luther. It integrates visual and material culture brilliantly throughout, arguing that from Cranach鈥檚 early portraits to Playmobil鈥檚 bestselling Luther figurine, images must be central to our interpretation of the Reformation. And it offers a critical reflection 鈥� wonderfully personal in places 鈥� on the experience of writing biography and living as a historian through a period of intense public interest. At a moment at which tensions over race and heritage have coalesced around public representations of historical men this collection provides a moral compass for those seeking to write the histories of heroes with dark sides."鈥擝ridget Heal, History Today
"After an outpouring of books about Luther at the time of the quicentenary, one could have been forgiven for thinking. . . that there wasn't much of interest left to be said. In her ambition to tackle together the life and the legend, and her avowed determination to appraise Luther in a thorougly Lutheran spirit of anti-authoritarianism, Lyndal Roper has triumphantly demonstrated the contrary."鈥擯eter Marshall, The Tablet
"[Living I Was Your Plague] may unsettle in ways that open diligent readers to new vision. The book accomplishes something that few of the books about Luther occasioned by the 2017 anniversary accomplished: it sees Luther with fresh eyes and shows us why we need to wrestle with his legacy."鈥擵incent Evener, Christian Century
"Roper questions Luther鈥檚 character and legacy with the same anti-authoritarianism that animated her subject, combining acuity with wit and levity, just as Luther did 鈥� though with fewer obscenities. But it is those obscenities that Roper, Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford, has in mind, as she grapples with how to understand an intellectual in the context of their whole self, conscious and unconscious, warts and all."鈥擲uzannah Lipscomb, Financial Times
"Intelligent and absorbing"鈥擲ean Sheehan, The Prisma
"Lively and engaging. Roper's scholarship is of the very highest caliber, and her writing is crisp and eloquent. Living I Was Your Plague is full of brilliant insights."鈥擩oel F. Harrington, author of Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within
"Lyndal Roper focuses on topics that have been neglected until now, from Luther's masculinity and dreams to his binary thinking and the role of images in Lutheranism. The work of an eminent and creative historian, Living I Was Your Plague demonstrates that Luther is anything but boring."鈥擳homas Kaufmann, University of G枚ttingen
"Another book on Luther? The analytic exuberance of this stunning, inspiring, and deeply engaging cultural history will inevitably both inform and delight the reader."鈥擧elmut Puff, author of Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400鈥�1600
"With trenchant analysis of words and images, Roper tackles disturbing aspects of Luther's legacy, from his vicious hatred of the pope and of Jews to his strutting, bullying masculinity. She skillfully interweaves these with explorations of the artists, followers, fans, and critics who have shaped his long shadow, from the mythmakers of his own day to the purveyors of Luther-themed socks and snow globes today."鈥擬erry E. Wiesner-Hanks, author of A Concise History of the World
"Roper's absorbing book takes us deep into Luther's psyche and across German history to engage with our own questions about overbearing leaders, religious strife, and cultures of masculinity. Her brilliance shines through on every page as she demonstrates the connections between Luther's emotional and intellectual preoccupations and our struggles with how to confront his legacy today. This is a book of breathtaking insight."鈥擴linka Rublack, author of The Astronomer and the Witch
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