Roland Herbert Bainton (March 30, 1894 – February 13, 1984) was a British-born American Protestant church historian.
Life
Bainton was born in
Ilkeston
Ilkeston is a town in the Borough of Erewash, Derbyshire, England, on the River Erewash, from which the borough takes its name, with a population at the 2011 census of 38,640. Its major industries, coal mining, iron working and lace making/texti ...
,
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, England, and came to the United States in 1902. He received an
AB degree from
Whitman College
Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Whitman was the first college in the Pacific ...
, and
BD and
PhD. degrees from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
. He also received a number of honorary degrees including a
DD from
Meadville Theological Seminary and from
Oberlin College, ''Dr. Theologiae'' from the
University of Marburg
The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...
, Germany, and
LittD from
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a private liberal arts college in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1832, the campus is adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield. Gettysburg College has about 2,600 students, with roughly equal numbers of men and women. ...
. A specialist in
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
history, Bainton was for 42 years
Titus Street
Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.
Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a milit ...
Professor of ecclesiastical history at
Yale Divinity School
Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...
, and he continued his writing well into his 20 years of retirement.
Bainton's father was a pacifist, and he himself married a Quaker. Graduating from seminary just as
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
began, he affiliated with the
Society of Friends' unit of the
American Red Cross. Although he was ordained as a
Congregationist minister, he never served as the pastor of a congregation.
Bainton wore his scholarship lightly and had a lively, readable style. His most popular books were ''Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther'' (1950), which sold more than a million copies, and ''The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century'' (1952), both of which were widely used as textbooks. In all, he was the author of more than 30 books on
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
. Many of Bainton's books are illustrated with examples taken from his collection of
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
drawings,
woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...
s, and
engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...
s. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1954.
A
collection of essays in honor of Roland Bainton was published in 1962.
Works
''Here I Stand''
Bainton published ''
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther'' in
1950
Events January
* January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed.
* January 5 – Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 crashes in a snowstorm. All 19 ...
. As of 2019, it is still in print.
Kenneth Scott Latourette
Kenneth Scott Latourette (August 6, 1884 – December 26, 1968) was an American historian of China, Japan, and world Christianity. , in the chapter notes for "Luther and the Rise and Spread of Lutheranism" in his ''History of Christianity'', lauds Bainton's biography of Luther as "A superb combination of accurate scholarship based upon a thorough knowledge of the sources and secondary works with insight, vivid, readable literary style, and reproductions of contemporary illustrations. It also contains so valuable a bibliography as to render needless an extended one in this chapter."
In his chapter on Luther's writings in ''Invitation to the Classics'',
Mark A. Noll
Mark Allan Noll (born 1946) is an American historian specializing in the history of Christianity in the United States. He holds the position of Research Professor of History at Regent College, having previously been Francis A. McAnaney Professor o ...
singles out Bainton's biography: "Of the many superlative treatments, a half-century old study by Roland Bainton, ''Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther'', has justly won a reputation as a classic work on a classic subject."
Bainton was severely critical of
Erik Erickson's psychoanalytic biography of Luther,
Young Man Luther
''Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History'' is a 1958 book by the psychologist Erik Erikson. It was one of the first psychobiographies of a famous historical figure. Erikson found in Martin Luther a good model of his discovery of ...
.
''The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century''
This volume went to press in
1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...
. Its value, also, is acknowledged by
Latourette in the chapter notes on "Luther and the Rise and Spread of Lutheranism" (see note on ''Here I Stand''), thus, "An admirable popular brief summary by an outstanding specialist".
[
]
Other works
(Non-exhaustive)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* , in two volumes
*
*
*
References
Notes
Books by Roland Bainton
*
*
*
External links
New York Times obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bainton, Roland
1894 births
1984 deaths
20th-century American historians
American male non-fiction writers
American Protestants
Christian scholars
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
People from Ilkeston
Presidents of the American Society of Church History
Reformation historians
Whitman College alumni
Yale Divinity School alumni
Yale University faculty
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy
20th-century American male writers