The Library
1780 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
701–800
3 works
c. 765–790
Old High German
Anonymous, probably at Freising
A Latin synonym dictionary with German equivalents written above the words, beginning at abrogans and running through some thirty-five hundred entries — made so that monks whose Latin was shaky could read the fathers.
c. 790; manuscript c. 814
Old High German
Wessobrunner Gebet
Anonymous
Nine alliterative lines and a prose prayer. Before there was earth or sky, before mountain or tree or sun or moon or sea, when there was nothing, there was one almighty God — and then a plain request for the strength to resist the devil.
c. 790–800
Old High German
Anonymous
Isidore's treatise on the faith against the Jews rendered into German by a translator who refuses to construe word for word, inventing German vocabulary for Latin theological terms and using a consistent spelling system of his own devising.
801–900
2 works
c. 863–871
Old High German
Evangelienbuch
Otfrid of Weissenburg · c. 800–c. 870
A harmony of the gospels in rhymed German verse, prefaced by a defence of writing sacred poetry in a language the author admits is unpolished.
c. 850–880
Old High German
Anonymous
A fragmentary alliterative poem on the fate of the soul at death and the end of the world in fire, with Elijah fighting Antichrist and the mountains burning.
1201–1300
1 work
c. 1250–1282
Middle Low German
Das fließende Licht der Gottheit
Mechthild of Magdeburg · c. 1207–c. 1282
Visions, dialogues, and love songs between the soul and God, moving between erotic longing, fierce criticism of corrupt clergy, and a tour of purgatory.
1301–1400
8 works
c. 1294–1302
Middle High German
Die rede der underscheidunge
Meister Eckhart · c. 1260–1328
Table talk for young friars on obedience, detachment, and why a person who has learned to find God in one place will find him everywhere, including in the stable.
c. 1308–1318
Middle High German
Meister Eckhart · c. 1260–1328
Written for a queen in grief: consolation not by softening loss but by arguing that whoever is wholly given over to God cannot be robbed of anything that matters.
c. 1300–1327
Middle High German
Meister Eckhart · c. 1260–1328
Sermons preached to nuns and laypeople on the birth of the Word in the soul, the ground where God and the soul are one, and the counsel to pray God to be rid of God.
c. 1328–1330
Middle High German
Henry Suso · c. 1295–1366
A dialogue between the Servant and Eternal Wisdom, moving from the sweetness of divine love to the passion, and including a hundred short meditations for daily use.
c. 1330–1361
Middle High German
Johannes Tauler · c. 1300–1361
Preaching on the ground of the soul, on suffering as the shortest road, and on the ordinary work of a cook or a farmhand as no less a vocation than choir.
c. 1350–1400
Middle High German
Theologia Deutsch
Anonymous
An anonymous treatise on how self-will is the whole of sin, and how the soul must let God act in it rather than claiming anything as its own.
c. 1352
Middle High German
Rulman Merswin · 1307–1382
A vision of nine rocks rising from a pool toward a mountain, with an unsparing survey of the corruption of every rank of the church on the way up.
c. 1362
Middle High German
Henry Suso · c. 1295–1366
A spiritual autobiography, partly shaped by a nun who took his confidences down without telling him, describing extreme self-mortification later renounced as misguided.
1401–1500
3 works
c. 1420–1424
German
Ulrich Richental · c. 1360–1437
A townsman's illustrated account of the council — who came, what they wore, what the town charged for lodging, and the burning of Hus described as he saw it.
1494
German
Das Narrenschiff
Sebastian Brant · 1457–1521
A hundred and twelve kinds of folly, each given a woodcut and a verse — the book collector who cannot read, the priest who cannot preach, the man who plans to repent later.
c. 1478–1510
German
Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg · 1445–1510
Cathedral preaching in Strasbourg full of homely images and blunt criticism of clergy, magistrates, and congregation alike — including a whole sermon cycle on the Ship of Fools.
1501–1600
10 works
August 1520
German
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
An attack on the three walls behind which Rome shelters, arguing that all baptised Christians are priests and that the laity may summon a council when the clergy will not.
1522
German
Andreas Karlstadt · c. 1486–1541
An argument that images in churches break the first commandment and must be taken down at once, whatever the weak may feel about it.
1523
German
Die Wittenbergisch Nachtigall
Hans Sachs · 1494–1576
A shoemaker's allegorical poem welcoming Luther as a nightingale whose song wakes the sheep that the lion and the wolves have been keeping in the dark.
1523–1524
German
Argula von Grumbach · c. 1490–c. 1564
A Bavarian noblewoman challenges the University of Ingolstadt to debate her in German or Latin after it forced a student to recant, citing scripture throughout.
July 1524
German
Thomas Müntzer · c. 1489–1525
A sermon on Daniel preached to the Saxon rulers, warning that if they will not clear the godless from among God's people the sword will be taken from them.
1524
German
Martin Luther, Paul Speratus, and others
The first evangelical hymnbook — eight hymns, four by Luther — followed within months by larger collections for congregational use.
March 1525
German
The peasants of Swabia
Twelve demands — to choose their own pastors, to end serfdom, to fish and hunt freely, to have tithes used locally — each supported by a scripture reference.
1526
German
Deutsche Messe
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
A vernacular order of service with hymns in place of the ordinary chants, and a preface hoping that a third form might one day gather those serious about being Christians.
c. 1527–1529
German
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
A paraphrase of Psalm 46 for congregational singing, with the devil as a real adversary and one little word able to fell him.
New Testament 1522; complete Bible 1534
German
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
The whole Bible from Hebrew and Greek into a German shaped, as its translator said, by listening to the mother in the house and the common man in the market.
1601–1700
3 works
1612
German
Jakob Böhme · 1575–1624
A shoemaker's account of a vision of the ground of all being, in which God contains a dark principle as well as a light one, and creation arises from their conflict.
1622–1624
German
Jakob Böhme · 1575–1624
The only book of his published in his lifetime: treatises on repentance, resignation, and the new birth, considerably plainer than his speculative works.
1657
German
Der Cherubinische Wandersmann
Angelus Silesius · 1624–1677
Sixteen hundred rhymed couplets of mystical paradox — the rose is without why, and God would perish if the poet ceased to be.
30 of 1780 works