Magdeburg Centuries

1559-74. A major Protestant reinterpretation of the history of the Christian Church to 1308, originally in thirteen volumes as Centuriae Magdeburgenses. It was written by Matthias Flacius,* in collaboration with six other Lutherans. The work is highly polemical, severely antipapal, and based on selected sources. But it did make some contribution to the development of historical criticism. It also provoked an equally polemical response, the Annales ecclesiastici (1588-1607) by Cesare Baronius,* based on sources in the Vatican Library.