In 1553, when Symond Askew drew up his will in Castor, Northamptonshire, he became the first recorded inhabitant of the county to offer a commitment to the Protestant doctrine of faith in Christ as the sole source of his soul’s redemption. In doing so, he provided direct evidence of the influence of Martin Luther on the Midlands. Thirty-five years earlier, in October 1517, in the small German town of Wittenberg, an Augustinian friar and university professor began a disputation about indulgences that would end in schism in the western Church and the creation of a range of new denominations under the general label of Protestant or Reformed. Across the North Sea from Germany, England was quickly engaged in the Continental debates about salvation, authority and ecclesiology initiated by Luther and his followers and taken up by reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Bucer, John Calvin and many others. Across the middle of the sixteenth century, England’s rulers and people utilized, supported and rejected the new ideas and institutions thrown up by these religious disputes. No community was so remote that it was not impacted upon in some way by religious change. In this special edition of Midland History, some of the effects of the Reformation on the English Midlands are examined, across the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Most of the articles were presented at a conference held in September 2017 at De Montfort University, Leicester, to explore the impact of Luther on the East Midlands. They constitute the recent research of – mostly – early career researchers and PhD students and the content has been expanded to include material on the West Midlands counties as well as those in the East.

中文翻译：

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马丁路德与中部地区的宗教改革

1553 年，当 Symond Askew 在北安普敦郡的 Castor 起草遗嘱时，他成为该县第一个有记录的居民，他承诺接受新教教义，即相信基督是他灵魂救赎的唯一来源。通过这样做，他提供了马丁路德对中部地区影响的直接证据。35 年前，也就是 1517 年 10 月，在德国小镇维滕贝格，一位奥古斯丁修士和大学教授开始了一场关于赎罪的争论，该争论以西方教会的分裂和在一般统治下创建一系列新教派而告终。新教或改革宗的标签。与德国隔北海隔海相望，英国很快就卷入了关于拯救的大陆辩论，权威和教会学由路德及其追随者发起，并被 Huldrych Zwingli、Martin Bucer、John Calvin 和许多其他人等改革者采用。整个 16 世纪中叶，英格兰的统治者和人民利用、支持和拒绝这些宗教争端所引发的新思想和新制度。没有哪个社区如此偏远，以至于它不会受到宗教变革的某种影响。在这本《米德兰历史》特刊中，研究了宗教改革对英格兰中部地区的一些影响，跨越了 16 世纪和 17 世纪早期。大多数文章都在 2017 年 9 月在莱斯特德蒙福特大学举行的一次会议上发表，旨在探讨路德对东米德兰兹的影响。