#newcollege

On 14, 15 and 16 February 2017, the Cunningham Lectures at New College, Edinburgh will mark the 500th Luther anniversary, with lectures by Professor Kaufmann covering Europe, Reformation and Luther.

New College Library holds outstanding Reformation collections that support the theme of the first lecture, Book, Print and Reformation. This includes examples of Luther’s pamphlets like the one below, from the early part of his career at the University of Wittenberg.

Each pamphlet, printed using the newly developed printing press technology, was cheaply produced and easily distributed, allowing the ideas they contained to spread quickly.

New College Library also holds some of Luther’s best known works, such as De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae (1520), which attacks the Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation, as well as the Papacy.

New College Library also holds Contra Henricum Regem (1522), Luther’s response to Henry VIII of England’s Assertio septem sacramentorum (or Defence of the Seven Sacraments) (1521).

The 1543 edition of Luther’s Larger Catechism below was printed before Luther’s death in 1546. Aimed at aiding clergymen to teach their congregations and parents their children, it is an illustration of how Luther’s publications had moved over time from protest pamphlets against the established Church to the foundations of a new denomination. Although the binding is probably a later addition, the white vellum wrapper and brass clasp show this to have been an high value item.The smaller size of the book makes it practical for personal reading and family use. The spine has a gold embossed stamp for ‘New College’.

One of Luther’s major works was his translation of the Bible, first the New Testament in 1522 and the Old Testament in 1534. New College holds an 1565 edition of Luther’s complete Bible.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity, New College Library, Edinburgh

I feel peace education is about teaching children to discover that they have the power to change things they see are wrong and developing the imagination to find alternative responses to conflict. This is not an objective for a course called ‘Peace’ on the timetable. It must permeate all our teaching. For we cannot teach one thing and act another. If we teach children to feel their own power we must be ready for them to criticise the school itself. In order to survive we must begin to teach them to challenge authority, our own included.

Janet Gilbraith, 1986, from Quaker Faith and Practice 23.85 (BYM).