Voracious Idols and Violent Hands

This text examines iconoclasm, the mode by which hundreds of ordinary people entered into the Reformation, by studying iconclastic acts in three major towns of the period. It seeks to recover the agency of ordinary people in the Reformation and to discern their theology through their actions. It illuminates the meaning of images for ordinary people in the 16th century and suggests ways of interpreting the meaning of the actions of those who did not have access to printed forms of communication. The analysis views Reformation as a dialogue in which different people spoke through different forms, according to their education, their social and political standing, each bringing his or her vision of true Christianity to that dialogue, and articulating that vision in the cultural form he or she found most accessible: theologians in the forms of sermons and treatises, magistrates in the form of laws and their enforcement; and ordinary people in acts of iconoclasm.