The relics in the fire of the Protestant Reformation

This article by Marianne Carbonnier-Burkard examines the Protestant Reformation's contestation of relics in the sixteenth century, combining historical analysis with a study of theological arguments. The author first traces the medieval background — the omnipresence of relics, earlier criticisms by Erasmus, the Lollards and the Hussites — before describing the three successive waves of iconoclasm in the Germanic Empire, England and France. She then analyses the justificatory discourses of Luther, Karlstadt, Viret and Calvin, which combine scriptural condemnation of idolatry, anticlerical social critique and the valorisation of the living Word over dead bodies. The article's main contribution lies in its interpretation of anti-relic iconoclasm as a symptom of three profound cultural transformations: a lay uprising against the clergy, the triumph of humanist inner piety over materialised devotion, and a "revolution of death" establishing a new separation between the world of the living and that of the dead.