Arts & Humanities

The recent spate of evictions of Roma communities across Europe reflect a historical discrimination against those considered as illegitimate outsiders. At a time when walls are going up across the world, the issue of who belongs and who is denied access to certain spaces is evermore prescient, and in need of critical attention.

In Luther’s times, music expressed the religious experience of enclosed nuns and Anabaptist martyrs, of Calvinist pious wives and Lutheran schoolgirls, of powerful female rulers and tired peasant mothers. Though few of their songs have reached our ears, they make a fascinating narrative worth exploring.