For forty years Damasus Trapp has been the foremost scholar of late medieval Augustinianism. His work has made a major contribution to our understanding of Augustine's influence on intellectual life of Europe from the 14th to the 16th century. In the present volume the heritage of Augustine in the later Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation is illustrated by contributions from leading scholars in the field, which range from academic disputation at Oxford in the early 14th century, to the world of John Calvin in the 16th century. It is the diversity of the Augustinian tradition that is documented here. The authors of the articles collected in this volume have investigated anew such well known sources as Gregory of Rimini's Sentences Commentary and Johannes von Staupitz's sermons. In addition, they have brought to light previously unknown works such as Antonius Rampegolus' Figurae Bibliorum and an anonymous Sermo de Antichristo. In this collection the richness of the Augustinian tradition in the later Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation appears, a broad via Augustini, which Damasus Trapp has done so much to illuminate. This Festschrift is a testimony to the continuous influence and inspiration of his contribution.

Examines facets of the relationship between Saint Augustine and the thinkers of the Italian Renaissance.

Saak re-interprets Martin Luther as an Augustinian Hermit, whose 95 Theses came as the culmination of the late medieval Reformation.

The term 'Augustinianism' has been used by scholars for over a century to refer to trends in medieval philosophy, theology, and politics, which had a major effect on the transformations of European culture and society from the Middle Ages to the onset of modernity. Yet in each of these three disciplines 'Augustinianism' means something different, and the lack of clarity only increases when the debates over the relationship between a late medieval Augustinianism and Martin Luther are considered as well. Based on historical, philological, and iconographic analysis, this study adopts a hermeneutical approach drawn from philosophical hermeneutics, religious studies, and literary and sociological theory to argue for a historical, as distinct from a philosophical or theological referent for the term 'Augustinianism'. The interpretation of Augustine and of a late medieval Augustinianism can only be based historically on the newly created image of Augustine discerned in the writings of the Augustinian Hermits in the early fourteenth century. Recognising the diverse dimensions of this created image is requisite to a historical understanding of Augustine's late medieval reception and impact. Understanding Augustine as a 'created' saint has implications for a wider understanding of Augustine's influence stretching on beyond the later Middle Ages up until the present day.

This work examines the social impact of Reformed protestantism through a study of the workings of the network of disciplinary courts created in Scotland during the second half of the sixteenth century.

Between Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 and his excommunication from the church in 1520, he issued twenty-five sermons and treatises on Christian piety, most of them in German. These pastoral writings extended his criticisms of the church beyond indulgences to the practices of confession, prayer, clerical celibacy, the sacraments, suffering, and death. These were the issues that mattered most to Luther because they affected the faith of believers and the health of society. Luther’s conflict with Rome forced him to address the issue of papal authority, but on his own time, he focused on encouraging lay Christians to embrace a simpler, self-sacrificing faith. In these pastoral writings, he criticized theologians and church officials for leading people astray with a reliance on religious works, and he began to lay the foundation for a reformed Christian piety.

The concept of God's two kingdoms was foundational to Luther and subsequent Lutheran theology. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, that concept has been understood primarily as a political concept. But is a political reading of the two kingdoms a perversion of Luther's teaching? Leading Reformation scholar William Wright contends that those who read Luther politically and see in Luther a compartmentalized approach to Christian life are misreading the Reformer. Wright reassesses the original breadth of Luther's theology of the two kingdoms and the cultural contexts from which it emerged. He argues that Luther's two-kingdom worldview was not a justification for living irresponsibly on planet earth.