Between 1560 and 1587, the Swiss protestant minister Johann Jacob Wick compiled a 24-volume collection of material relating to divine signs, wonders and portents. Aided by several of Zurich'e(tm)s leading reformers - particularly Heinrich Bullinger - and drawing upon a Europe-wide network of correspondence his remarkable collection, known as the Wickiana, includes both manuscript sources and printed materials (499 pamphlets and 430 broad-sheets), and covers a diversity of extraordinary phenomena including comets, fires, aurorae borealis, 'e~monsters'e(tm), halos, murders, witchcraft and sun-signs. Whilst subsequent generations have tended to view the Wickiana primarily as a compendium of superstition or expression of popular culture, this book re-contexualises Wick'e(tm)s work, both within the wider confessional struggles of the later sixteenth century, and local political events. Dr Mauelsahgen argues that Wick'e(tm)s interest in wonders was entirely consistent with contemporary protestant elites and intellectuals of various confessionals, most of whom viewed unusual or apparently supernatural events as portents from God, relating directly to human events. Thus the Wickiana is concerned not only with the 'e~wondrous'e(tm) but also the everyday, seeking to find divine judgement upon political and religious events within post-reformation Europe. Divided into four parts, the book begins with a 'e~History of Signs and Wonders'e(tm). The next section then deals with the 'e~Reformed Politics of Wonders'e(tm), before moving on in part three to examine the 'e~Historiography'e(tm). The final section 'e~The Invention of Popular Belief'e(tm) explores the reception and historical legacy of the Wickiana.

The first scholarly investigation into the Wickiania for over thirty years, the book makes a strong case for its importance in better understanding the thought process and pressures that helped shape the Reformation.