UA News

James M. Estes will discuss "Luther, Canon Law, and the Wittenberg Jurists."

Luther's attitude toward canon law was ambiguous: On the one hand, he hated it as the embodiment in law of papal tyranny and called for its extirpation; on the other hand, he found in it much that could be used polemically to denounce the papal church for violating its own law, and he liked to cite it in support of evangelical reforms.

Late in his career, when members of the law faculty at Wittenberg tried to uphold the validity of certain provisions of canon law regarding marriage, Luther denounced them from the pulpit with remarkable vehemence and, in so doing, addressed fundamental questions about the rights of conscience and authority in the church.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the department of history and the Group for Early Modern Studies. It's also supported by the Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture, the religious studies program, and the UA Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Committee.