Christopher Ocker
Biographic Data
| ID | 443811 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Ocker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Ocker |
| SIGNATURE | OCKER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Graduate Theological Union |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1736-835X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Social History, Religious History, and the Case for Theology
This forum contribution voices its appreciation for the journal's original inspiration as a platform for the social history of religions. It suggests that theology, rather than standing opposite to JBR's project, should be a part of it, under specific terms and conditions
Material Christianity: Western Religion and the Agency of Things
Christianity and the Material, Medieval to Modern
Resacralizing the Media of Grace
Luther, Conflict, and Christendom: Reformation Europe and Christianity in the West
Martin Luther - monk, priest, intellectual, or revolutionary - has been a controversial figure since the sixteenth century. Most studies of Luther stress his personality, his ideas, and his ambitions as a church reformer. In this book, Christopher Ocker brings a new perspective to this topic, arguing that the different ways people thought about Luther mattered far more than who he really was. Providing an accessible, highly contextual, and non-pa…
After the Peasants’ War: Barbara (Schweikart) von Fuchstein Fights for Her Property
Historians are only beginning to appreciate fully the political and social impact of the aftermath of the German Peasants’ War. The case of Barbara (Schweikart) von Fuchstein, widow of Sebastian von Fuchstein, a Kaufbeuren lawyer suspected of Anabaptism and exiled at the end of the war, sheds light on the role of middle-rank nobility in the process of post-war reordering. Her eventual success in a conflict with her violent cousin, Ulrich Schweike…
Pilgrim and Preacher: The Audiences and Observant Spirituality of Friar Felix Fabri (1437/8–1502)
Felix Fabri was a Dominican convent lecturer and preacher of the Swabian city of Ulm who made two pilgrimages to Jerusalem at the end of the fifteenth century (1480, 1483–4). He wrote four distinct works based, in part, on his experiences. A Gereimtes Pilgerbüchlein was composed after his first trip. A detailed, first-hand travel account in Latin called the Evagatorium , a larger vernacular work on the Holy Land called the Pilgerbuch and a devoti…
The German Reformation and Medieval Thought and Culture
This essay asks the question, is it useful to approach the Reformation as a phase in a linear chronology, a movement away from the Middle Ages? On the example of Matthias Flacius Illyricus and the formation of Lutheran identity in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, I argue that Protestants had a vested interest in the continuity of their beliefs with medieval thought and culture. The familiar idea of a medieval‐Reformation rupture is lar…
Enduring Loss in Early Modern Germany: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives
Cross-disciplinary perspectives on responses to material and spiritual loss in early modern Germany trace how individuals and communities registered, coped with, and made sense of deprivation through a spectrum of activities, often turning loss into gain and acquiring agency.
The Birth of an Empire of Two Churches: Church Property, Theologians, and the League of Schmalkalden
Did the creation of Protestant churches in Germany during Luther's generation follow someone's intentions? Heiko Oberman, appealing to a medieval Luther, portrays the reformer as herald of a dawning apocalypse, a monk at war with the devil, who expected God to judge the world and rescue Christians with no help from human institutions, abilities, and processes. This Luther could not have intended the creation of a new church. Dorothea Wendebourg a…
Chapter Nine. Between The Old Faith And The New: Spiritual Loss In Reformation Germany
Fifteenth-century Europe was marked by a religious angst, which one can see in the writings of the famously disaffected: Pierre d'Ailly, Jean Gerson, Matthew of Cracow, Bernardino of Siena, Vincent Ferrer, John of Capistrano, Christine de Pizan, Girolamo Savonarola, and so on. The anxieties of fifteenth-century reformers included the conviction, the feeling of religious failure and the loss of a primitive ideal. In the Reformation, the new preach…
Enduring loss in early modern Germany: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives
Politics and Reformations: Communities, Polities, Nations, and Empires: Essays in Honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr.
These twenty-six essays, presented by students, colleagues, and friends to Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Peder Sather Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, examine urban, rural, national, and imperial histories in Early Modern Europe and abroad, and politics in Reformation Switzerland, Burgundy, Germany, and the Netherlands. Contributors include: C. Nathan Bartlett, Heidi Eberhard Bate, Ingrid Bátori, Katherine Brun, …
Politics and reformations: Communities, polities, nations, and empires : essays in honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr.
Politics and Reformations: Histories and Reformations: Essays in Honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr.
These twenty-three essays, presented by students, colleagues, and friends to Thomas A. Brady, Jr., the Sather Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, explore the historiographies of the Reformation from the fifteenth century to the present and study the social and cultural history of religion from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, especially in Germany but also in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and colonial …
Church Robbers and Reformers in Germany, 1525-1547: Confiscation and Religious Purpose in the Holy Roman Empire
This is a study of the religious controversy that broke out with Martin Luther, from the vantage of church property. The controversy eventually produced a Holy Roman Empire of two churches. This is not an economic history. Rather, the book shows how acceptance of confiscation was won, and how theological advice was essential to the success of what is sometimes called a crucial if early stage of confessional state-building. It reviews the characte…
Consuetudo Consuetudine Vincitur: Die Hausordnungen der Brüder vom gemeinsamen Leben im Bildungs- und Sozialisationsprogramm der Devotio moderna
Ouvrages miscellanées et théories de la connaissance à la Renaissance: Actes des journées d'études organisées par l'École nationale des chartes (Paris, 5 et 6 avril 2002)
Rotuli Parisienses: Supplications to the Pope from the University of Paris. Vol. 1, 1316-1349
Rotuli Parisienses: Supplications to the Pope from the University of Paris. Vol. 2, 1352-1378
Medieval Exegesis and the Origin of Hermeneutics
Dilthey, in his famous essay, 'Die Enstehung der Hermeneutik', first published in 1900, taught us that Matthias Flacius Illyricus, the mid sixteenth-century Lutheran theologian, was the author of the first significant treatise on hermeneutics. Conceding a classic Protestant opinion once articulated by Flacius, he consigned medieval interpretation to what must have seemed a justified oblivion: he simply ignored the period between Origen and John C…
Kompilation oder Konstruktion? Die Juden in den Paulus-kommentaren des 9. Jahrhunderts
Ritual Murder and the Subjectivity of Christ: A Choice in Medieval Christianity
This is a study of the emotional context of certain medieval anti-Jewish legends. It examines how the stories redefined the composition of society, the relation of this to popular devotion, and the paradox between a religious intention and its effect. After a brief survey of the phenomenon, I suggest that recent views of the psychological sources of the legends do not adequately account for the religious experience that they promote, nor do these…
Johannes Pauli (1450-1520) on the Church and Clergy
A History of the University in Europe. Volume 1: Universities in the Middle Ages . Hilde De Ridder-Symoens
Augustine, Episcopal Interests, and the Papacy in Late Roman Africa
The bishops of Roman Africa vacillated in their relations with the papacy in the three decades preceding the Vandal invasion and, more specifically, during the papacies of Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, and Coelestine. Theyseemed grossly inconsistent, first praising papal authority, then curbing its ability to influence African jurisdiction. In synodal letters of 416 associated with the Pelagian controversy, the bishops exalted Roman authority, eve…
Unius Arbitrio Mundum Regi Necesse Est: Lactantius' Concern for the Preservation of Roman Society
Unius Arbitrio Mundum Regi Necesse Est
Augustine, Episcopal Interests, and the Papacy in Late Roman Africa
The bishops of Roman Africa vacillated in their relations with the papacy in the three decades preceding the Vandal invasion and, more specifically, during the papacies of Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, and Coelestine. Theyseemed grossly inconsistent, first praising papal authority, then curbing its ability to influence African jurisdiction. In synodal letters of 416 associated with the Pelagian controversy, the bishops exalted Roman authority, eve…
Johannes Klenkok: A Friar's Life, c. 1310-1374
A History of the University in Europe. Volume 1: Universities in the Middle Ages . Hilde De Ridder-Symoens
Johannes Pauli (1450-1520) on the Church and Clergy
Ritual Murder and the Subjectivity of Christ: A Choice in Medieval Christianity
This is a study of the emotional context of certain medieval anti-Jewish legends. It examines how the stories redefined the composition of society, the relation of this to popular devotion, and the paradox between a religious intention and its effect. After a brief survey of the phenomenon, I suggest that recent views of the psychological sources of the legends do not adequately account for the religious experience that they promote, nor do these…
Medieval Exegesis and the Origin of Hermeneutics
Dilthey, in his famous essay, 'Die Enstehung der Hermeneutik', first published in 1900, taught us that Matthias Flacius Illyricus, the mid sixteenth-century Lutheran theologian, was the author of the first significant treatise on hermeneutics. Conceding a classic Protestant opinion once articulated by Flacius, he consigned medieval interpretation to what must have seemed a justified oblivion: he simply ignored the period between Origen and John C…
Kompilation oder Konstruktion? Die Juden in den Paulus-kommentaren des 9. Jahrhunderts
Consuetudo Consuetudine Vincitur: Die Hausordnungen der Brüder vom gemeinsamen Leben im Bildungs- und Sozialisationsprogramm der Devotio moderna
Ouvrages miscellanées et théories de la connaissance à la Renaissance: Actes des journées d'études organisées par l'École nationale des chartes (Paris, 5 et 6 avril 2002)
Rotuli Parisienses: Supplications to the Pope from the University of Paris. Vol. 1, 1316-1349
Rotuli Parisienses: Supplications to the Pope from the University of Paris. Vol. 2, 1352-1378
Church Robbers and Reformers in Germany, 1525-1547: Confiscation and Religious Purpose in the Holy Roman Empire
This is a study of the religious controversy that broke out with Martin Luther, from the vantage of church property. The controversy eventually produced a Holy Roman Empire of two churches. This is not an economic history. Rather, the book shows how acceptance of confiscation was won, and how theological advice was essential to the success of what is sometimes called a crucial if early stage of confessional state-building. It reviews the characte…
Politics and Reformations: Communities, Polities, Nations, and Empires: Essays in Honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr.
These twenty-six essays, presented by students, colleagues, and friends to Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Peder Sather Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, examine urban, rural, national, and imperial histories in Early Modern Europe and abroad, and politics in Reformation Switzerland, Burgundy, Germany, and the Netherlands. Contributors include: C. Nathan Bartlett, Heidi Eberhard Bate, Ingrid Bátori, Katherine Brun, …
Politics and reformations: Communities, polities, nations, and empires : essays in honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr.
Politics and Reformations: Histories and Reformations: Essays in Honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr.
These twenty-three essays, presented by students, colleagues, and friends to Thomas A. Brady, Jr., the Sather Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, explore the historiographies of the Reformation from the fifteenth century to the present and study the social and cultural history of religion from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, especially in Germany but also in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and colonial …
Enduring Loss in Early Modern Germany: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives
Cross-disciplinary perspectives on responses to material and spiritual loss in early modern Germany trace how individuals and communities registered, coped with, and made sense of deprivation through a spectrum of activities, often turning loss into gain and acquiring agency.
The Birth of an Empire of Two Churches: Church Property, Theologians, and the League of Schmalkalden
Did the creation of Protestant churches in Germany during Luther's generation follow someone's intentions? Heiko Oberman, appealing to a medieval Luther, portrays the reformer as herald of a dawning apocalypse, a monk at war with the devil, who expected God to judge the world and rescue Christians with no help from human institutions, abilities, and processes. This Luther could not have intended the creation of a new church. Dorothea Wendebourg a…
Chapter Nine. Between The Old Faith And The New: Spiritual Loss In Reformation Germany
Fifteenth-century Europe was marked by a religious angst, which one can see in the writings of the famously disaffected: Pierre d'Ailly, Jean Gerson, Matthew of Cracow, Bernardino of Siena, Vincent Ferrer, John of Capistrano, Christine de Pizan, Girolamo Savonarola, and so on. The anxieties of fifteenth-century reformers included the conviction, the feeling of religious failure and the loss of a primitive ideal. In the Reformation, the new preach…
Enduring loss in early modern Germany: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives
The German Reformation and Medieval Thought and Culture
This essay asks the question, is it useful to approach the Reformation as a phase in a linear chronology, a movement away from the Middle Ages? On the example of Matthias Flacius Illyricus and the formation of Lutheran identity in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, I argue that Protestants had a vested interest in the continuity of their beliefs with medieval thought and culture. The familiar idea of a medieval‐Reformation rupture is lar…
Pilgrim and Preacher: The Audiences and Observant Spirituality of Friar Felix Fabri (1437/8–1502)
Felix Fabri was a Dominican convent lecturer and preacher of the Swabian city of Ulm who made two pilgrimages to Jerusalem at the end of the fifteenth century (1480, 1483–4). He wrote four distinct works based, in part, on his experiences. A Gereimtes Pilgerbüchlein was composed after his first trip. A detailed, first-hand travel account in Latin called the Evagatorium , a larger vernacular work on the Holy Land called the Pilgerbuch and a devoti…
Luther, Conflict, and Christendom: Reformation Europe and Christianity in the West
Martin Luther - monk, priest, intellectual, or revolutionary - has been a controversial figure since the sixteenth century. Most studies of Luther stress his personality, his ideas, and his ambitions as a church reformer. In this book, Christopher Ocker brings a new perspective to this topic, arguing that the different ways people thought about Luther mattered far more than who he really was. Providing an accessible, highly contextual, and non-pa…
After the Peasants’ War: Barbara (Schweikart) von Fuchstein Fights for Her Property
Historians are only beginning to appreciate fully the political and social impact of the aftermath of the German Peasants’ War. The case of Barbara (Schweikart) von Fuchstein, widow of Sebastian von Fuchstein, a Kaufbeuren lawyer suspected of Anabaptism and exiled at the end of the war, sheds light on the role of middle-rank nobility in the process of post-war reordering. Her eventual success in a conflict with her violent cousin, Ulrich Schweike…
Philosophy (20 works) · History (15 works) · Art (14 works) · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity (14 works) · Political science (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Theology (9 works) · Politics (7 works) · Religious studies (7 works)