1530 – 1540s

Events in the 1530s 8

• 1475 – 1532 Robert Fayrfax English Renaissance composer Robert Fayrfax was the leading English composer of the early Tudor period whose masses and motets were held in high regard at the court of Henry VII and Henry VIII.
• 1475 – 1536 Thomas More English philosopher and writer More wrote Utopia, describing an ideal society that influenced political philosophy for centuries.
• 1483 – 1530 Martin Luther German theologian and writer Luther translated the Bible into German and triggered the Protestant Reformation, transforming European religion and politics.
• 1506 – 1534 Elizabeth Barton The Holy Maid of Kent English Catholic nun and prophetess known as the Holy Maid of Kent. A servant girl from Aldington in Kent, she began experiencing visions and trances during a severe illness in 1525 and was declared miraculously cured at a local chapel. Archbishop Warham found her orthodox and she entered a Benedictine convent in Canterbury, where she became a celebrity visited by pilgrims from across England. She met Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII and corresponded with Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. When she began prophesying that Henry would die if he divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn, she became a threat to the Crown. She was publicly denounced, attainted by Parliament and hanged at Tyburn in 1534 at the age of 28 — the first woman whose head was displayed on London Bridge.
• 1531 – 1606 Guillaume Costeley French Renaissance composer Guillaume Costeley was organist to King Charles IX of France whose chansons and keyboard works show refined craftsmanship and occasional chromatic experimentation.
• 1533 – 1592 Michel de Montaigne French essayist Montaigne invented the essay as a literary form, exploring human thought, skepticism, and philosophy.
• 1535 – 1596 Giaches de Wert Franco-Flemish madrigal composer Giaches de Wert was a prolific madrigalist whose later works anticipated the expressiveness of the early Baroque. His influence on Monteverdi was profound.
• 1536 – 1604 Leonhard Lechner German Renaissance composer Leonhard Lechner was a German composer and pupil of Lassus whose German lieder and sacred works represent the high point of late German Renaissance polyphony.