ABSTRACT
Writers of history in the sixteenth century faced a peculiar complex of problems. The new development of Renaissance scholarship had taught them to value accuracy and textual integrity, principles that were also applied to the writing of history. In the age of the Reformation, history could not but be a polemical tool. A central debate of the Reformation was for possession of the past, not least because a leading argument of the Protestants’ opponents was that they had no past. To counter the accusations of innovation it was crucial that the Protestants could place themselves within history. Sleidan’s official account of the Reformation would therefore be met with immediate interest by Catholics and Protestants alike.
