Sacred Souvenirs and Divine Curios—Lutherans, Pilgrimage, Saints and the Holy Land in the Seventeenth Century.

This article explores the surprisingly positive attitude towards pilgrimage and saints that developed within mainstream Lutheran faith during the Seventeenth Century. To acknowledge this strand in the theology of the 1600s in some ways runs contrary to what is often stated about the period, the heyday of Lutheran Orthodoxy, and to a certain extent incompatible with what is generally perceived as 'Lutheran'. I aim to show the 1600s as a period with a great curiosity towards the development of new devotional practice, and a time when the search for devotional tools which could help the individual to come closer to Christ led theologians to explore texts and ideas that at least superficially could be seen as belonging to the Catholic side of the confessional divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]