This October marks 500 years since Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg – an event that would become known as the starting point of the Reformation. Marking this 500th anniversary, Lambeth Palace Library is running a variety of events, including talks, Open Days and an anniversary exhibition. We have also been collecting an array of the latest books written on the subject. Why not join us for these events, check out the exhibition, or read one of our new books as we mark this anniversary year?

Reformation events and exhibitions

Reformation 500th anniversary exhibition

Our anniversary exhibition showcases items from Lambeth Palace Library’s collections that feature in the Remembering the Reformation AHRC-funded project based at the Universities of Cambridge and York. The project investigates how the Reformations were remembered, forgotten, contested and re-invented. Our accompanying exhibition stars some of our greatest treasures, ranging from Godfrey’s dagger, to the beautifully illuminated 15th century Broughton Missal and a 16th century Bible believed to have been used and annotated by Martin Luther himself (shown right). You can view the exhibition at all of the events below, alongside a display on the Council on Foreign Relations, celebrating 50 years of ecumenical relations. Click on the image below for the full exhibition programme, and follow this link to view the Remembering the Reformation project’s digital exhibition, which features the Lambeth Palace Library treasures alongside others from Cambridge University Library and York Minster Library.

Lambeth Heritage Festival

Library Open Day with Reformation 500th anniversary exhibition

Monday 18 September, 12pm-3pm. At Lambeth Palace Library.

There’s still time to join us for the last of our Open Afternoons, which form part of our programme of events for this year’s Lambeth Heritage Festival. Visit the Great Hall, featuring our exhibition commemorating the Reformation’s 500th anniversary. There’s also a chance to see the display on the Council on Foreign Relations, celebrating 50 years of ecumenical relations. You can visit the Reading Room too and chat to staff about our collections and services.

There is no need to book. Entry is via the Library entrance on Lambeth Palace Rd. Contact archives@churchofengland.org or 020 7898 1400 with queries.

‘Remembering the Reformation’: launch of a major digital exhibition linked with the Arts and Humanities Research Project

Thursday 28 September, 6pm (admittance not before 5.30pm). In Lambeth Palace Library Great Hall.

This event celebrates the launch of the digital exhibition produced by the Remembering the Reformation project based at the Universities of Cambridge and York, which explores how the Reformation in Britain and Europe was remembered, forgotten, contested and reinvented. The digital exhibition is a collaborative enterprise incorporating some of the many treasures of the Cambridge University Library, York Minster Library and Lambeth Palace Library. The launch will include a display and demonstration of the exhibition website, and will be accompanied by short talks by the four members of the project team, Brian Cummings, Ceri Law, Bronwyn Wallace and Alexandra Walsham. Most of the Lambeth items that feature in the digital exhibition are on display as part of the accompanying Reformation exhibition in the Great Hall. This event will be followed by a drinks reception.

All are welcome, but those wishing to attend are asked to register with juliette.boyd@churchofengland.org not later than Friday 22 September.

‘Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet’: talk by Professor Lyndal Roper (University of Oxford)

Thursday 5 October, 5.30pm (admittance not before 5pm). In Lambeth Palace Library Great Hall.

This is a joint event with the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. The talk will be accompanied by an opportunity to see the Reformation exhibition and will be followed by a drinks reception.

All are welcome, but numbers will be limited and those wishing to attend are asked to register with juliette.boyd@churchofengland.org not later than Friday 29 September.

Blue Heron Concert in the Great Hall

Sunday 8 October, 3pm (admission not before 2.30pm). In Lambeth Palace Library Great Hall.

The acclaimed American vocal ensemble, Blue Heron, will perform pre-Reformation polyphonic music from the Peterhouse partbooks (copied c.1540 for use at Canterbury Cathedral). The performance will last about 1 hour and will be preceded by a short talk by Professor Nick Sandon, an expert on the partbooks.

This event will offer an opportunity to see the Library’s exhibition of material relating to Martin Luther and the Reformation.

Advance booking is essential. Tickets at £35 (£30 for Friends of Lambeth Palace Library) are available now through blueheroninlondon.bpt.me or telephone 0800 411 8881.

‘Reformation on the Record’: exploring the history of the Reformation from an archival perspective

Thursday 12 October, 6pm (admission not before 5.30pm). In Lambeth Palace Library Great Hall.

Dr Marianne Wilson (Early Modern Research Associate, The National Archives) will explore the vast collection of Reformation-related documents held at The National Archives, and will also discuss some of the treasures of Lambeth Palace Library, to elucidate the benefit of using archival sources to investigate the history of the English Reformation. This event will offer an opportunity to see the Library’s exhibition of material relating to Martin Luther and the Reformation.

All are welcome, but those wishing to attend should book a free ticket at http://www.mariannewilsonlecture.eventbrite.co.uk/, or email juliette.boyd@churchofengland.org not later than Friday 6 October.

‘A Very Short History of England’s Cathedrals’: talk by Professor Nicholas Orme (University of Exeter)

Thursday 9 November, 6pm (admittance not before 5.30pm). In Lambeth Palace Library Great Hall.

An expert on the history of medieval children and education, Nicholas Orme’s most recent book is on the history of England’s cathedrals. This event will offer an opportunity to see the Library’s exhibition of material relating to Martin Luther and the Reformation.

All are welcome, but those wishing to attend should book a free ticket at http://www.nicholasormelecture.eventbrite.co.uk/, or email juliette.boyd@churchofengland.org not later than Friday 3 November.

New books on the Reformation

Lambeth Palace Library has recently been purchasing a variety of new books offering the latest research on the Reformation. Here are some of the highlights below:

All things made new: writings on the Reformation, by Diarmaid MacCulloch (London: Allen Lane, 2016). More information available here.
Broken idols of the English Reformation, by Margaret Aston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). More information available here.
Calvin and the book: the evolution of the printed word in reformed Protestantism, edited by Karen E. Spierling (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015). More information available here.
The Catholic Luther: his early writings, edited by Philip D.W. Krey and Peter D.S. Krey (New York: Paulist Press, 2016). More information available here.
Cultural reformations: medieval and Renaissance in literary history, edited by Brian Cummings and James Simpson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). More information available here.
Emblem of faith untouched: a short life of Thomas Cranmer, by Leslie Williams (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016). More information available here.
Heretics and believers: a history of the English Reformation, by Peter Marshall (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017). More information and reviews available here.
Islam, the Turks and the making of the English Reformation: the history of the Ottoman Empire in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, by Christopher Toenjes (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Edition, 2016). More information available here.
John Calvin as sixteenth-century prophet, by Jon Balserak (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). More information available here.
The literary culture of the Reformation: grammar and grace, by Brian Cummings (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002). More information available here.
Luther’s Jews: a journey into anti-Semitism, by Thomas Kaufmann, translated by Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). More information available here.
Martin Luther: an ecumenical perspective, by Walter Kasper; translated by William Madges (New York: Paulist Press, 2016). More information available here.
Martin Luther: rebel in an age of upheaval, by Heinz Schilling; translated by Rona Johnston (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). More information available here.
Martin Luther: renegade and prophet, by Lyndal Roper (London: The Bodley Head, 2016). More information available here.
Martin Luther: visionary reformer, by Scott H. Hendrix (London: Yale University Press, 2015). More information available here.
Oaths and the English Reformation, by Johnathan Michael Gray (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). More information available here.
The Oxford handbook of the Protestant Reformations, edited by Ulinka Rublack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). More information available here.
Oxford history of Anglicanism, vol. 1: Reformation and identity, c.1520-1662, edited by Anthony Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). More information available here.
The Oxford illustrated history of the Reformation, edited by Peter Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). More information available here.
Reformation divided: Catholics, Protestants and the conversion of England, by Eamon Duffy (London: Bloomsbury, 2017). More information available here.
Reformation unbound: Protestant visions of reform in England, 1525-1590, by Karl Gunther (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). More information available here.
Reformation worlds: antecedents and legacies in the Anglican tradition, edited by Sean A. Otto and Thomas P. Power (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2016). More information available here.
Reformations: the Early Modern world, 1450-1650, by Carlos M.N. Eire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016). More information available here.
Remembering the Reformation: an inquiry into the meanings of Protestantism, by Thomas Albert Howard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). More information available here.
Remembering the Reformation: Martin Luther and Catholic theology, edited by Declan Marmion, Salvador Ryan, and Gesa E. Thiessen (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017). More information available here.
The rise of Thomas Cromwell: power and politics in the reign of Henry VIII, by Michael Everett (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015). More information available here.
Royal priesthood in the English Reformation, by Malcolm B. Yarnell III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). More information available here.
The whole church sings: congregational singing in Luther’s Wittenberg, by Robin A. Leaver (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017). More information available here.

Find out more about our Reformation resources…

In the upcoming weeks, our blog will be featuring posts from the Remembering the Reformation project, so keep an eye out for updates by following us here on the blog, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you would like to learn about other items from our collections that tell part of the Reformation story, you may also find our research guides a useful starting point. In particular:

Our royal source guides, including a guide to our holdings relating to Henry VIII. This introduces highlights such Henry VIII’s own copy of Thomas Abell’s Invicta veritas: an answere, that by no maner of lawe it may be lawfull for … Kinge Henry the Ayght to be divorsid, which features the King’s own irate annotations (including a note in Latin on the title page roughly meaning “Rubbish”).
Our source guides for researching Archbishops of Canterbury, including a guide to Archbishop Cranmer. Featured highlights include Cranmer’s Register containing papal bulls by which Cranmer was appointed to the see of Canterbury and the Archbishop’s protestation at his consecration in March 1533, after the oath of loyalty to the Pope, that this would not override the law of God and his loyalty to the King or hinder the reformation of the English Church.

Archive news

In other news, our archivists have catalogued additional papers relating to the 1968 Lambeth Conference under Archbishop Ramsey, the last Lambeth Conference organised from Lambeth Palace before administration passed to the Anglican Consultative Council. The Friends of the Library purchased a set of early 18th-century catalogues of parochial libraries in Middlesex. Other new accessions included further records of Lord Wharton’s Charity, which funded the purchase of Bibles and other books. New additions to the image database include a 14th-century breviary and another breviary of Abbotsbury Abbey, plus an annotated copy of Cicero published in 1466. Further blog posts include a glimpse of life at Lambeth Palace. New publications have appeared which relate to the Library’s holdings, including an article on the fate of Archbishop Sheldon’s books following his death in 1677.