Documents on the Papal Plenary Indulgences 1300-1517 Preached in the Regnum Teutonicum

Book excerpt: Catholics and Protestants have disputed the validity and legitimacy of papal plenary indulgences for 500 years without a unitary corpus of the relevant texts documenting the indulgence campaigns which so exercised Luther and his contemporaries. This volume prints for the first time in a modern edition the full text of all available papal bulls and brevia between 1300 and 1517 which granted plenary indulgences (i.e. those which cancelled all previously accrued temporal punishment due to sin), the instructions to the commissioners on how to preach (and defend) the indulgences and conduct the campaigns, and finally the extensions of indulgence campaigns. The Regnum Teutonicum provides the geographical framework, since it includes all the areas where the Reformation initially broke out.