Explaining Violence: Reformation, Conflict, and Narrative in Stralsund (1525)

Abstract

This article examines the events surrounding the outbreak of iconoclastic violence in the Baltic port town of Stralsund on 10 April 1525 and situates them within broader debates on Reformation typologies and identity formation. Rather than interpreting these events as a delayed or derivative reception of a Wittenberg-directed Reforma-tion, it argues that they reveal a contested and processual form of reform unfolding on the peripheries of the emerging Reformation movement. Drawing on records from a legal case before the Imperial Chamber Court (1526 –1531), the study reconstructs how religious meaning and collective identity were articulated through practices, conflicts, and interpretative strategies – most notably in the context of iconoclastic violence – prior to the stabilisation of Lutheran confessional doctrine. By confronting Catholic accusations with testimonies from urban actors, the article demonstrates that early Lutheran identity in Stralsund was shaped less by doctrinal coherence than by social conflict, anti-clericalism, and contested authority. At the same time, it shows that both Catholic and evangelical actors operated within a shared field of social and political dynamics, often deploying similar rhetorical and interpretative frameworks. The case of Stralsund thus challenges prevailing assumptions about the orderly and conservative character of the northern Reformation and calls for a reassessment of how the Reformation in the Baltic region is conceptualised before 1530.