Böcker av Volker Leppin

An award-winning historian reconstructs the life of Francis of Assisi and his medieval world, uncovering the man behind the myths

Leppin explores the four "solas" of the Reformation -- Christ, grace, faith, and scripture -- as both anchored in the culture of late-medieval devotion and representing new, firmly demarcated formulae. Leppin helps readers understand that in the journey toward new theological understandings, continuity and discontinuity were inextricably linked.

John Frederick the Magnanimous promoted the Reformation. In the Smalcald War, he was the leader of the Evangelicals. Captured by the emperor after the battle at Muhlberg, he was kept prisoner for five year. Even during his imprisonment he was working for the establishment of a new Lutheran university in Jena. These essays were delivered in connection with the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Frederick in 2003.