Food of the Spirit: Diet and the Reformation
In 1517 at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, food looked different than what it would be at the end. Looking at the historical value of food at the dawn of the Protestant
Reformation there was clear change, the diets of the people were removed from the control of the Church’s sacred calendar and placed within the context of a new narrative of Christian freedom. The Medieval world of food consumption was regulated and controlled. This was true not only during the Lenten season, or the 40 days before Easter, but also every Friday where meat was forbidden and throughout a host of other Saints Days and Feasts of the Church.
As Reformation fervor grew, so too did a reassessment of the role of food and its regulation in the lives of Christians. Indeed, the impetus behind the Reform of Zurich under Ulrich Zwingli began with the famous “Affair of the Sausages,” a 1522 protest in favor of eating meat during the Lenten fast. This project explores food’s connection to the more familiar themes of Reformation history and discourse, sola fide, sola scriptura, and the power of the institutional Church in the lives of everyday believers.
About this Item
Title “Calendarium Romanum magnum.”
Contributor Names
Stoeffler, Johann, 1452-1531.
Köbel, Jacob, -1533, printer.
Redgrave, G. R. (Gilbert Richard), 1844-1941, former owner.
Early Printing Collection (Library of Congress)
Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection (Library of Congress)
Pforzheimer Bruce Rogers Collection (Library of Congress)
Created / Published
[Oppenheym, Impressum per J. Köbel, 1518]
Subject Headings
– Calendar–Early works to 1800
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Desiderius Erasmus. The Essential Erasmus ed. John Patrick Dolan. New York: Meridian, 1993
Martin Luther. “On the Freedom of a Christian” in Three Treatises. 2nd Ed.Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1970.
Ulrich Zwingli. “Concerning Choice and Liberty Respecting Food” in Ulrich Zwingli Early Writings. Ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson. Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1987.
Secondary Sources
David Gentilcore. Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine and
Society, 1450-1800. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
Rachel Laudan. “Birth of the Modern Diet.” Scientific American 283, no. 2 (2000): 76–80.
Elaine Khosrova.Butter: a Rich History. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2017.
Keith D.Stanglin. The Reformation to the Modern Church: a Reader in Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.
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