The Magdeburg Centuries is the most famous work of ecclesiastical historiography produced by early modern Protestantism. This open-ended survey of church history was composed between 1553 and 1574 at Magdeburg, Jena, and Wismar. Its eleven volumes appeared between 1559 and 1574 at Basel, and covered the period from the 1st to the 13th centuries. There is also a handwritten history of the Reformation. The original title Historia Ecclesiastica (“Ecclesiastical History”) w…