A History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation

Mandell Creighton's five-volume study of the papacy during the Reformation was first published between 1882 and 1894. Lytton Strachey paid an indirect compliment to Creighton's work by remarking that 'the biscuit is certainly dry; but at any rate there are no weevils'. Creighton (1843–1901) was an academic and an ordained Anglican. Having studied at Oxford and spent time in the parish of Embleton in Northumberland, he was appointed the first Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge, became Bishop of Peterborough and ended his career as Bishop of London. In Volume 5 (1894) Creighton focuses on the beginnings of humanism and the different strands of the Reformation movement in Germany. He discusses Luther's leading role in the movement, and the reaction of the papacy to him. The volume closes with the sack of Rome by Charles V's troops and Clement VII's flight to Orvieto in 1527.