8 91. PROTESTANTISM IN AUGSBURG. 5TT
testimony: “ He hated not only the popish abominations, but also all sectaries; he sincerely loved the pure word, and handled it with all diligence and faithfulness, as his writings abundantly show.” 4
The Dukes of Mecklenburg, Heinrich and Albrecht, applied to Luther in 1524 for “ evangelists,” and Luther sent them two Augustinian monks. Heinrich favored the Reformation, but very cautiously. The university of Rostock, founded 1419, became at a later period a school of strict Lutheran orthodoxy.
§ 97. Protestantism in Augsburg and South Germany.
Augsburg, first known twelve years before Christ as a Roman colony (Augusta Vindelicorum), and during the middle ages an imperial city (since 1276), the seat of a bishop, the chief emporium for the trade of Northern Europe with the Mediterranean and the East, and the home of princely merchants and bankers (the Fuggers and Welsers), figures prominently in the early history of the Reformation, and gave.the name to the standard confession of the Lutheran Church in 1530, and to the treaty of peace in 1555.2. Luther was there in 1518 at a conference with Cardinal Cajetan, and lodged with the Carmelite friar Frosch, who remained faithful to him. Peutinger, the bishop (Christoph von Stadium), and two canons (Adelmann) were friendly to reform, at least for atime. Urbanus Rhegius preached there from 1523 to 1530, and exerted great influence. He distributed, with Frosch, the communion with the cup at Christmas, 1524. Both . married in 1526.
But the Zwinglians, under the lead of Michael Keller,
i Rhegius, Opera latine edita, Norimb. 1561; Deutsche Biicher und Schriften, Nirnb. 1562, and again Frankf. 1577. Ddllinger, Die Reform. II. 58 sqq. Uhlhorn, Urbanus Rhegius, Elberfeld, 1862, and his sketch in Herzog”, XIII. 147-155.
2 Friedrich Roth, Augsburgs Reformationsgeschichte, 1517-1527. Miin-
hen, 1881.
578 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
gradually gained the upper hand among influential men. Zwingli took advantage of the situation in his famous letter to Alber, Nov. 16, 1524, in which he first fully developed his theory. Even Rhegius, who had written before against Carstadt and Zwingli, became a Zwinglian, though only for a short period.
The Anabaptist leaders, Hubmaier, Denck, Hetzer, Hut, likewise appeared in Augsburg, and gathered a congregation of eleven hundred members. They held a general synod in 1527. They baptized by immersion. Rbhegius stirred up the magistrate against them: the leaders were imprisoned, and some executed.!
The confusion and strife among the Protestants strengthened the Roman party. The people did not know what to believe, and the magistrate hesitated. The moral condition of the city, as described by Rhegius, Musculus, and other preachers, was deplorable, and worse than under the papal rule. During the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, the Emperor prohibited all Protestant preaching in public: the magistrate made no objection, and dismissed the preachers. But the Augsburg Confession left a permanent impression on the place.
The South-German cities of Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau were, like Augsburg, influenced by Zwingli as well as Luther, and united with Strassburg in the Tetrapolitan Confession, which Bucer and Capito prepared in great haste during the Diet of Augsburg as a document of union between the two wings of Protestantism. It failed to meet the approval of the Diet, and was, like Zwingli’s Confession, not even allowed to be read; but Bucer adhered to it to the end. | . :
The most important and permanent conquest which the
1 See the description of the congregation of the ‘‘ Apostolic Brethren,” as the Anabaptists called themselves, in Ludwig Keller, Hin Apostel der Wiedertdaufer (i.e., Hans Denck), Leipzig, 1882, ch. VI. 94-119.
§ 98. THE REFORMATION IN HESSE. 519
Reformation made in South Germany was that of the duchy (now kingdom) of Wiirttemberg under Duke Ulrich, through the labors of Brenz, Blaurer, and Schnepf, after 1534. The University of Tiibingen (founded 1477) became one of the most fruitful nurseries of Protestant theology, in all its phases, from the strictest orthodoxy to the most radical criticism.? |
ὃ 98. The Reformation in Hesse, and the Synod of Homberg. Philip of Hesse, and Lambert of Avignon.
I. LAMBERTUS AVENIONENSIS: Paradoxa que Fr. L. A. apud sanctam Hessorum Synodum Hombergi congregatam pro Ecclesiarum Reformatione 6 Dei Verbo disputanda et definienda proposuit, Erphordiz, 1527. (Reprinted in Sculteti Annales, p. 68; in Hardt, Hist. lit. Ref. V. 98; an extract in Henke’s N. Kirchengesch., I. 101 sqq.) N. L. RICHTER: Die Kirchenordnungen des 16ten Jahrh., Weimar, 1846, vol. I. 56-69 (the Homberg Constitution). C. A. CREDNER: Philipp des Grossmiithigen hessische Kirchenreformations-Ordnung. Aus schriftlichen Quellen herausgegeben, tibersetzt, und mit Riicksicht auf die Gegenwart bevorwortet, Giessen, 1852 (123 pp.)
II. F. W. HAssENCAMP: Hessische Kirchengesch. seit dem Zeitalter der Reformation, Marburg, 1852 and 1855. W.KoLBE: Die Einfiihrung der Reformation in Marburg, Marburg, 1871. H. L. J. ΗΕΡΡΕ: Kirchengesch. beider Hessen, Marburg, 1876. (He wrote several other works on the church history of Hesse and of the Reformation generally, in the interest of Melanchthonianism and of the Reformed Church.) E. L. HENKE: Neuere Kirchengesch. (ed. by Gass, Halle, 1874), I. 98-109. MEJER: Homberger Synode, in Herzog’, VI. 268 sqq. KOSTLIN: M. L., 11. 48 sqq.
III. Works on Philip of Hesse by RomMeEt (Philipp der Grossmiithige, Landgraf von Hessen, Giessen, 1830, 3 vols.), and WILLE (Philipp der Grossmtthige und die Restitution Herzog Ulrichs von Wirtemberg, Tubingen, 1882). MAx LENz: Zwingli und Landgraf Philip, in Brieger’s ‘* Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte,’’ 1879; and Briefwechsel Landgraf Philipps mit Bucer, Leipz. 1880, vol. 2d, 1887 (important for the political and ecclesiastical history of Germany between 1541 and 1547). The history of Philip is interwoven in RANKzE’s Geschichte (vols. I. to VI.), and in JANSSEN’s Geschichte (vol. III.). Against Janssen is directed G. BosseRT: Wiirttemberg und Janssen, Halle, 1884, 2 parts.
1 Romer, Kirchliche Geschichte Wiirttembergs, Stuttg. 1848. Keim, Schwibische Reformationsgeschichte. Tiibingen, 1855. Schneider, Wiirttemb. Reformationsgesch. Stuttgart, 1887.