Body Size and Reformation

Abstract This chapter explores the significance of body size in the Lutheran Reformation. Through a consideration of the bodily resurrection, apocalyptic beliefs, and the form of heavenly bodies, it demonstrates how discussions of body size, and particularly fatness, were embedded in fundamental debates about sin and salvation. Within these discussions, the significance of the belly comes to the fore. For Martin Luther in particular, the belly was a source of nuance which enabled understandings of fatness to be flexible. Reformers’ emphasis on moderation was similarly complex and permitted the incorporation of various body types due to a distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ body size. The chapter shows that the transformation of ideas about body size in the Lutheran Reformation held consequences which reached across confessional divides.