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Document Details :

Title: Der Medinger 'Nonnenkrieg' aus der Perspektive der Klosterreform
Subtitle: Geistliche Selbstbehauptung 1479-1554
Author(s): LÄHNEMANN, Henrike
Journal: Ons Geestelijk Erf
Volume: 87    Issue: 1-2   Date: 2016   
Pages: 91-116
DOI: 10.2143/OGE.87.1.3200541

Abstract :
The article discusses how the monastic reform movement of the 15th century influenced the reception of the Lutheran Reformation in the Cistercian Abbey of Medingen. The argument is that the resistance of the Abbey for thirty years to the introduction of the Reformation, as proposed by the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, arose out of the desire on the one hand to maintain spiritual and economic independence, and on the other to interpret the meaning of the Reformation. At the same time, the article demonstrates how Protestant historiography since the 18th century has portrayed the nuns’ actions as misguided and ill-informed, a value judgement which persisted into the 20th century, as evidenced by the tendentious popular play the 'Nuns’ War', staged in Medingen in 1938. In opposition to this, the article proposes a new interpretation of the events as a struggle for spiritual agency in what may be considered a specific Northern German interpretation of ‘reformatio’.

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