Steven Edgar Ozment (February 21, 1939 – December 12, 2019) was an American
historian of early modern and modern
Germany, the European family, and the
Protestant Reformation. From 1990 to 2015, he was the McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at
Harvard University, and
Professor Emeritus until his death on December 12, 2019.
A son of Lowell Ozment and Shirley (Edgar) Ozment, he was born in
McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Camden,
Arkansas. He attended the
University of Arkansas on a football scholarship, and transferred to
Hendrix College after two years, and graduated with a BA in 1960.[1] He obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Drew Theological School in 1964, and a PhD at Harvard University in 1967.[2] His dissertation, written under the supervision of Dutch intellectual historian
Heiko Oberman, concerned the thought of
Johannes Tauler,
Jean Gerson and
Martin Luther.[3]
Ozment authored ten books. His Age of Reform, 1250–1550 (1980), based on his lecture notes for two survey courses at Yale,[4] won the Schaff History Prize (1981) and was nominated for the 1981
National Book Award. Five of his books were selections of the
History Book Club and several have been translated into
European and
Asian languages.
The cover
[1] of Ozment's A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People depicts medieval
Nuremberg as shown in the
Nuremberg Chronicle (here in grayscale)
A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People came out in 2005. Ozment's study of the world of German artist
Lucas Cranach the Elder was published by
Yale University Press in June, 2013, under the title, The Serpent and the Lamb: Cranach, Luther, and the Making of the Reformation.
Ozment was married first to Elinor Pryor of Little Rock, with whom he had 3 of his children. He later married Andrea Foster of Norwich, NY and had 2 more children. They lived together in Newbury, MA, where Steven spent the majority of his academic life. He spent the last years of his life married to Susanna Schweizer.
Major works
Homo spiritualis: a comparative study of the anthropology of
Johannes Tauler,
Jean Gerson and
Martin Luther (1509–16) in the context of their theological thought. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969.
ed., Jean Gerson: selections from A Deo exivit, Contra curiositatem studentium and De mystica theologia speculative.
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969.
ed., The Reformation in
Medieval Perspective. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1971.
The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of
Protestantism to Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975; 1977.
co-author, The Western Heritage. New York, NY: MacMillan, 1979; 1983; 1986; 1990; 1994; 1997; 2000; 2003.
The Age of Reform, 1250–1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980; 1981. (Reprinted with a new Forward in 2020.)
ed., Reformation Europe: A Guide to Research. St. Louis, MO: Center for Reformation Research, 1982.
co-author, The Heritage of World Civilizations. New York, NY: MacMillan, 1986; 1989; 1993; 1996; 1999; 2001; 2004.
Magdalena and Balthasar: An Intimate Portrait of Life in 16th Century Europe Revealed in the Letters of a Nuremberg Husband and Wife. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1986; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989.
ed., Religion and Culture in the
Renaissance and Reformation. Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1989.
ed. & trans., Three
Behaim Boys: Growing Up in Early Modern Germany. A Chronicle of Their Lives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990.
Protestants: The Birth Of a Revolution. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1993; 1994; London: HarperCollins, 1993.
The
Bürgermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth-Century German Town. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1996; New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1997.
Flesh and Spirit: A Study of Private Life in Early Modern Germany. New York, NY: Viking/Penguin, 1999; 2001.
^“Homo spiritualis: A Comparative Study of the Anthropology of Johannes Tauler, Jean Gerson and Martin Luther (1513–1516) in the Context of Their Theological Thought.” PhD dissertation—Harvard University, 1967. Proquest no. 302224060.