Word Made Flesh: Lutheran Bodies, 1600 1720

From children's visions of angels to the cancerous belly of a king, this book shows how the body was at the centre of religious experience in seventeenth-century Lutheran culture.

List of contents

Chapter 1
All flesh is grass
Can bodies be Lutheran?
The materiality of the Word
Lutheran senses and emotions
Real bodies
Chapter 2
Bare feet: the body and the weather
Weather reports
Finding the way
The great chill
Battering storms
The Fall and God's fatty footprint
Sweetness of the earth
Being human
Chapter 3
Tending carnality: spiritual hygiene
The worldliness of the body
Relieving oneself of emotion
Digesting the sacrament
Making material bodies
Chapter 4
Blushing cheeks: prophecy and possession
First sensations
Wrestling with the devil
In bed and out of body
Knowledge, truth and the word
The blush of truth
Chapter 5
Aching bellies: the body politic
The King's illness
Putrid intestines and a healthy heart
The King and his people wasting away
The second coming of Charles
The King's belly and the law
Body politic
Chapter 6
Wide awake: bodies in dissent
Stiff necks and angry souls
The bounds of inward attention
A journey into the wilderness
Spiritual and conjugal unions
Attention and the separation of body and soul
Chapter 7
Down to earth

About the author

Karin Sennefelt is professor of History at Stockholm University.

Product details

• Authors: Karin Sennefelt
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 23.09.2025
• EAN: 9781032841632
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3284163-2
• No. of pages: 272
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; European History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Modern / 17th Century, RELIGION / Christianity / Lutheran, History of Medicine, History of Religion, Social and cultural history, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, History and Archaeology, HISTORY / Europe / Nordic Countries