Scribner, Robert W. For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 368pp. Katherine Helge-
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In the book For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation, R. W. Scribner studies visual propaganda and its role in the dissemination of the evangelical movement during the first half-century of Reformation Germany. Scribner posits that although much has been written on the spread and use of visual propaganda in the Reformation, it has been the subject of no thorough systematic investigation. He writes that historians in the past have had a blind spot when it came to images and that more interest has been devoted to pamphlets in the assumption that their content reflects the views of those for whom they were intended. Scribner believes that the conjecture that people of any social class in that age gained their knowledge primarily through the printed word is false. Scribner’s hope is that, through a study of visual propaganda, we may gain a wider knowledge of how the Reformation appealed to common folk than is possible by concentrating on the printed word alone. Scribner’s research strategy throughout this book attempts to “penetrate the visual message of broadsheets by unraveling the language they spoke as a specifically hybrid (oral, print and visual) form of communication” (xv). Scribner’s research approach includes methods of iconography, iconology and semiology and focuses attention on the propagandist broadsheets and the slim pamphlets or chapbooks of Germany. His primary sources include images found in print rooms and fine art museums. Scribner divides his book into nine chapters. In chapter one, he begins his discourse by establishing the visual nature of Reformation Germany. He writes that few were truly able to read and that literacy was concentrated mostly in towns and in the southwest portion of the country. No more than 5% of the population could read, and most people would have had to have broadsheets read to them (3). In fact, some broadsheets and pamphlets actually instructed their readers to pass the message on to those who could not read (6). Scribner goes on to emphasize the visual nature of the culture by citing the increase in mystics and popular devotions such as the veneration of the Veronica cloth and the use of woodcut pictures of saints in prayer. One printed book would be sold to approximately 20,000 readers, but in just one day just as many woodcut tokens of images of saints for pilgrimages would be sold (4). Because of the visually oriented nature of the masses, the effectiveness of the visual message in propaganda needed to be as strong as the written word. The first point Scribner deals with is images of Luther. Scribner divides these images into three categories. The first category features Luther portrayed as a saint. Early images of Luther place him within the framework of divine history by using symbols or stories from the traditional church. As a saint, Luther’s break from the Church is legitimized as he is given authority from a source above and beyond the Church. These images also imply that those
