When protestantism originated, that is the religious protesters; the heretics, the Waldensians, and other radical anabaptist sects who had been hunted and killed by the Catholic Church Inquisition.
They used these pictures and coins to depict the Pope as the devil. Just a little sectarian blasphemy I thought I would share with you. In light of the Popes recent comments on Medival philosophy of the same time period. And since he was in charge of the modern day Inquisition they seemed appropriate.
Just say the devil made me do it.
For an excellent overview of the popular anarchist revolutionary spirit of the Reformation see Murray Bookchins the Third Revolution.
Waldensian Coins of the two headed pope turn him upside down and he is the Devil
Title / Description: Devil & Monk-Bagpipe
Location / Provenance: Germany
Date: 1525
Object Type: image - woodcut
Commentary: Negative images of monasticism abounded in the Middle Ages, but most aimed to lampoon and criticize corrupt monks and monasteries that were not living up to their vows, or abused their privileges. Erasmus, too, poked fun at monasticism as shallow and overly-focused on external piety. The Protestant Reformation went much further, launching a full-scale assault on monasticism as inherently corrupt and unnecessary. This image combines the older medieval tradition with the new Protestant message: monasticism must be abolished because monks are the tools of the devil. Here, a demon plays a bagpipe that nobody could fail to identify as a monk's head. Part of the message could be missed now, centuries later, for in the sixteenth century the bagpipe was commonly recognized as an instrument that signified lust. Protestant propaganda against monasticism seized on the idea that vows were seldom observed by monks and nuns--especially the vow of celibacy, and numerous accounts were published that described in detail how the cloisters were dens of iniquity. It became commonplace to reveal, for instance, that the remains of buried infants and fetuses could be found in great numbers inside cloisters. Many graphic accounts of what "really" went on in monasteries and convents, written by former monks and nuns, became a popular genre of Protestant propaganda literature. [Woodcut by Erhart Schon]
Source: Eire, Carlos M. N. , Private slide collection.
Title / Description: Catholic clergy in Hell
Location / Provenance: Germany
Date: 1540's
Object Type: image - woodcut
Commentary: This woodcut by Matthias Gerung focuses on one of the simplest and most appealing messages of the Reformation: the corruption of the Catholic church, and especially the corruption of its clerics. Divine wrath consumes the corrupt Catholic clergy as they are swallowed whole into the mouth of Hell.
Author of Commentary:Carlos Eire
Source: Eire, Carlos M. N. , Private slide collection.
Also See:
Antinominalist Anarchism
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