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Although born on the Vigil of the Feast of Saint Martin of Tours and given that saint's name at baptism, Luther had very little truck with his name-saint, whether during his early career as monk and theologian or in his years as the vanguard of the Reformation. Indeed, it would seem he honored Saint George more than Saint Martin. The power of Martin's name and of the iconic image of his sharing his mantle with a beggar, however, would not be ignored by Luther's followers or by his opponents. This paper examines the intersection of the image of Saint Martin with the career of the great Reformer focusing on such events as the Leipzig Debate of 1519 and examples from the polemical literature, such as Thomas Murner's The Great Lutheran Fool. Moreover, in the development of anecdotal “Luther lore” after his death we find a general rapprochement of Luther commemorations with the traditional German celebration of a carnivalesque Martinmas. If Luther largely ignored his name-saint, present day Lutheranism embraces the Bishop of Tours, as evidenced by its numerous church dedications and images of Saint Martin's Charity.

One of the more curious European reactions to the traumatic Fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 is a carnival play (Fastnachtspiel) by the Nürnberg armorer and gunsmith Hans Rosenplüt. This earliest of the datable German carnival plays is something of an anomaly as the piece depends not upon the usual cast of boorish peasants, quack doctors, or inebriated celebrants of the pre-Lenten festival, but rather upon the arrival of the Turkish sultan himself, Mehmed II al Fatih, Mehmed the Conqueror.There is a clear temporal marker early on in Rosenplüt's text: “Der groβe Türk ist kumen her, / Der Kriechenlant gewunnen hat / Der ist hie mit seinem weisen rat” (288, lines 2–4) [The Great Turk has arrived here, he who conquered Greece; he's here with his wise counselors]. Likewise, in the Great Turk's central prophetic speech, a date is encrypted — “wenn eins und vier und funf und seβ” (294, n. 15). In 1456, three years after the Fall of Constantinople, the so-called “Duchy of Athens,” a remnant of the Fourth Crusade then ruled by a Florentine, was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire. Between 1458 and 1460 the Peloponnesian Peninsula (the “Despotate of Morea”) and adjoining Aegean islands (mostly Genovese colonies) were likewise incorporated. To the north and west, the rebellious vassal state of Serbia was crushed between 1454–1459, with Bosnia and Herzegovina falling in 1463 and 1467, respectively. The Nürnberg artisan Rosenplüt was thus making festival entertainment out of current and threatening developments to the not-so-distant southeast.

There are strong indications that the famous Paris student prank of 1451, known as the affair of the Pet au Deable (Devil’s Fart or Turd), coincided with and may have been more than partially inspired by the winter feast of St. Martin of Tours (11 November). The incident is well covered in the biographies of François Villon, who was about to receive his Master’s degree from the University of Paris at the time and who claimed, moreover, to have written a now lost Rommant du Pet au Deable. As he bequeaths to his “more than father” Guillaume de Villon in

Founded in 1977 as the publication organ for the Fifteenth-Century Symposia, Fifteenth-Century Studies has appeared annually since then. It offers essays on diverse aspects of the 15th century, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. The 15th century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that this period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition, and a passage to modern times. The current volume opens with the customary survey of research on 15th-century drama. Graham A. Runnalls and Jesse Hurlbut present their extensive bibliography of French miracle plays and mysteries, a work accumulated over 25 years. Continuing on the topic of late-medieval art, Edelgard DuBruck offers a study of gesture within the miniatures of the Passion Isabeau (1398). Barbara I. Gusick analyzes healing and social reorientation in Christ's transformation of Zacchaeus in the York Cycle; Mark Trowbridge investigates the Cleveland St. John the Baptist, attributed to Petrus Christus. Finally, this year's entry by Leonardas V. Gerulaitis provides Renaissance views on genius and madness. A book review section concludes the volume. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita of Modern Languages at Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan, and Barbara I. Gusick is professor emerita of English at Troy University-Dothan, Dothan, Alabama.

On the rather slim basis of the antiphon for Mark 16:1, a character known as Mercator or Institor entered the Latin liturgical drama as early as the 11th century. In the German-speaking area, Mercator acquired a complete household: a shrewish wife, often accompanied by her maid, as well as a brace of servants, first and foremost among them Rubinus or Rubein. Rubin is in fact the first in a long line of German clowns. There is ample evidence in the rubrics and implied stage directions to reconstruct much of the gestic repertoire and physical comedy of this most un-Paschal intruder into the Easter Play. The \"Innsbrucker Thüringisches Osterspiel\" of 1391, a manuscript of Thuringian provenance, is examined in detail. Its Mercator interlude is the longest and most coherent of the lot.