Der Katechismus — eine Textart an der Schnittstelle von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit

There are not so many occasions providing insight into the emergence and consolidation of a text species, with all its societal and linguistic contexts. One of these relatively few instances is at stake in the present article, Luther’s »Kleiner Katechismus« (Small Catechism). After a short review of traditional, personalizing 19th century views on the Reformation (§ 2.), the treatment of the text species »catechism« in theological and historical literature on the Reformation is evaluated (§ 3.1.). Recent research on late medieval text species enables us to reconstruct the sociography of a basic transformation of communicative needs which the population, esp. lay people, experienced in the pre-Reformation and Reformation period (§ 3.2.). The Reformation is a fundamental revolution with regard to religious theory and practice, with regard to the religious knowledge system and to the personnel involved. This transformation, however, encountered serious problems concerning the accessibility of written language for large parts of the population (§ 3.3.). The text species »catechism« is interpreted as a bundle of solutions for this constellation of problems (§ 4.). Reformation means a principle-based redistribution of religious knowledge (§ 4.1., 4.2.). The medieval knowledge system is rearranged, with relatively few basic concepts right in its centre, such as Scripture as immediate primary source of religious knowledge, and the possibility of, and need for, immediate contact with the Divine (»knowledge centralization« § 4.3.). In order to disseminate the new religion among the population as a whole, new media had to be developed (§ 4.4.). The text species »catechism« is one of the main answers to this task. It provides a combination or oral and literary features to an extent which enables the »conciliation« of principalized literarity with the possibilities and scope of memory-based orality (§ 5.).