Lichtgedanken 02

S C HW E R P U N K T 19 02 | LICHT GEDANKEN mately only partially used for looking after the poor,« says Mandry. As the ledgers prove, even before the Refor- mation, up to 3,000 needy people recei- ved free bread and money on some days in Weimar. The reasons for the high number of poor are diverse and hard to establish in detail. However, it is worth noting that attitudes towards the poor and poverty were changing. Whereas before the Reformation alms were seen as pleasing God, there was a gradual move towards something akin to a right of basic care. This was accom- panied by administration for the needy and an attempt to reduce the number of freely roaming beggars. »It was part of Luther’s basic world view that every- one should be able to feed themselves from the fruits of their own labour,« says Julia Mandry. Wishful thinking. Linked to this idea is the increasing stigmatization of the poor and beggars. What was the policy pursued towards the Church by Johann of Saxony (1468– 1532) like? Doreen von Oertzen-Becker has studied this question. She has iden- tified the impetus provided by Johann – later Johann the Constant – himself in the policy pursued towards the Church in the Electorate of Saxony. She notes in the process that Johann was for long unjustly in the shadow of his brother and co-regent Friedrich the Wise (1463 – 1525) in terms of public perception. She investigated how the sovereign main- tained contact with personalities of the Reformation and how they influenced him and shaped his thinking. She also analyzed how religiously motivated conflicts were successfully solved. »The Reformation was also a revolution of knowledge,« Schirmer notes. Thurin- gia and Central Germany were rightly to be viewed as »pioneering regions of scholarship,« he states. But the Refor- mation was by no means responsible for the boost in education according to Schirmer. Even in the decades befo- re 1517, the region of Central Germany had a high density of schools. In additi- on, the University of Erfurt blossomed Church in Thuringia. The hilltop Church of St. Mary’s in Schleiz (see also cover photo) dates back to the 12th century. After the launch of the Reformation, the first Protestant church service was held here on 8 June 1533. Jena historians are currently researching in minute detail how the »age of reforms« proceeded in concrete terms in Thuringia with the aid of numerous archives. The project »Thuringia in the Age of the Reformation« is receiving financial backing from the Free State of Thuringia, the Sparkassen Kulturstiftung Hessen–Thüringen and the Landesbank Hessen–Thüringen. Funding for the project that finishes at the end of 2017 is in excess of €560,000. around the year 1300. Later, when Er- furt was going through a crisis, the uni- versities of Leipzig and Jena flourished. »There was clearly a need for higher education,« says Andreas Dietmann who is studying Thuringia’s education system in the 15th and 16th centuries. He notes a wide variety of different schools in the towns at the end of the Middle Ages: Latin parish schools, town council schools, German schools for literacy and numeracy as well as small, private independent schools. The town schools offered an education programme for villagers. This flourish- ing system encountered difficulties in the early stages of the Reformation as a result of anti-clerical influences, and it then collapsed. »In the years that fol- lowed, Luther made the case for school education through appeals to towns and citizens,« says Dietmann. This gave rise to a new school system, sha- ped by the Reformation, which in turn flourished impressively. It was closely linked to the new confession and it was adopted by church constitutions of the 16th century as part of the growing sta- te Church. Andreas Dietmann assumes that the literacy rate in the region in the 1570s was at least 50 percent. Where did this obvious hunger for education come from? The high density of towns in Thuringia definitely played a part. The established professions in these towns demanded educated staff. Alex- ander Krünes also thinks it was the ex- tremely fragmented nature of the area that led to competition in culture and education that was sustained into the 19th century. The foundations laid at that time were to continue to have an impact for a long time to come. The fact that the ideas of the Enlightenment fell on particularly fertile ground in Thuringia, for exam- ple, can be interpreted as a direct con- sequence of this education offensive. Frequently it was the priests who acted as »popular educators« in imparting in-depth knowledge to the common men. Subjects such as horticulture and agriculture, medicine or cattle bree- ding were covered in print media (books, calendars, magazines). Later, the ordinary people experienced their own legal, morally religious, cultural and political enlightenment. »When the priests left the universities, they took with them an educational assignment, as it were, to the villages,« Alexander Krünes explains. From 1800, the charac- ter of Luther served as a role model for an enlightened citizen as the reformer had paved the way for the Enlighten- ment. The formula that applied ran as follows: no Enlightenment without Re- formation. The way in which Luther and the Reformation were received is also the subject of research. In his work, Martin Sladeczek refutes the theory of any special church-buil- ding style during the Reformation. Al- though various churches were conver- ted after 1530, this was primarily due to the increase in the population. Only later is specifically Protestant church- building established. Its characteris- tics include the removal of the side altars and an altered system of images and inscriptions. »The Catholic saints disappear, classical motifs are scaled back and Protestant personalities such as Luther, Melanchthon and the local priests are portrayed as the teachers of the true faith,« Sladeczek states. There is no way around Luther The results of the research will be pub- lished in a separate series of publicati- ons. The historians are also on the road in Thuringia, presenting their research to the public. And the exciting thing about it is that their presentations focus on subjects of local Reformation his- tory – coordinated to fit the particular location of the presentation. There is no way for the scientists to avoid the sub- ject of Martin Luther. But the reformer is not the sole focus. The history of the Reformation in its »core state« is simply too varied for that. F E AT U R E