580 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
IY. Biographies of Lambert of Avignon by BAum (Strassb. 1840), HASSEN: CAMP (Elberfeld, 1860), Rur¥ret (Paris, 1873), and a sketch by WAGEN- MANN in Herzog’, VIII. 371 sqq. (1881). The writings of Lambert of Avignon, mostly Theses and Commentaries, are very scarce, and have never been collected. His letters (some of them begging letters to the Elector of Saxony and Spalatin) are published by HERMINJARD in Correspondance des Réformateurs, vol. I. 112, 114, 118, 123, 181, 138, 142, 144, 146, 328, 344, 347, 371; vol. II. 289. Luther refers to him in several letters to Spalatin (see below).
Hesse or Hessia, in Middle Germany, was Christianized by St. Boniface in the eighth century, and subject to the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Mainz. It numbered in the sixteenth century fifty convents, and more than a thousand monks and nuns.
Hesse became, next to Saxony, the chief theater of the Reformation in its early history ; and its chief patron among the princes, next to Elector John, was Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, surnamed the “ Magnanimous” (1504-1567). He figures prominently in the political history of Germany from 1525, when he aided in the suppression of the Peasants’ War, till 1547, when he was defeated by the Emperor in the Smalcaldian War, and kept a prisoner for five years (1547-1552). The last years of his life were quiet and conciliatory, but his moral force was broken by his misconduct and the failure of his political combinations.
His connection with the Reformation presents two different aspects, which make it difficult to decide whether it was more beneficial or more injurious. He made the acquaintance of Luther at the Diet of Worms (1521), and asked and received instruction from Melanchthon, whom he met at Heidelberg (1524). He declared in 1525, that he would rather lose body and life, land and people, than depart from the word of God, and urged the ministers to preach it in its purity. He openly embraced the Reformation in 1526, and remained faithful to it in his conviction and policy, though
1 Ranke, 11. 121.
§ 98. THE REFORMATION IN HESSE. 581
not in his moral conduct. He boldly and bravely defended it with a degree of theological knowledge which is rare among princes, and with a conciliatory liberality in regard to doctrinal controversies which was in advance of prevailing narrowness. He brought about the Marburg Colloquy with the noble aim of uniting the Protestant forces of Germany and Switzerland against the common foe (1529). By restoring Wiirttemberg to Duke Ulrich in the brilliant victory at Laufen, he opened the way for the introduction of the Reformation into that country (1534). But, on the other hand, he repeatedly endangered the Protestant cause by his rashness, and injured it and himself most seriously by his licentiousness, which culminated in the open scandal of bigamy (1540). He resembles in many respects Henry VIII. of England.
The Landgrave was the first prince who took advantage of the recess of the Diet of Speier, Aug. 27, 1526, and construed it into a legal permission for the introduction of the Reformation into his own territory. For this purpose he convened a synod in the little Hessian town of Homberg.2 It consisted
1 See pp. 308 and 481; Seckendorf’s Excursus on the bigamy, ITI. 277-281; Ranke, IV. 186 sqq.; Koéstlin, Bk. VIII., ch. I. (11. 5383 sqq.); and Janssen, III. 57, 489 sqq. This nasty subject lies beyond our period, but may be disposed of here in a few remarks. Philip was a man of powerful sensuality, and married very young a daughter of Duke George of Saxony. As she was unattractive, and gave him little satisfaction, he indulged freely and long before his bigamy in his carnal passions to the injury of his health; and for this reason his conscience would not allow him to partake of the holy communion more than once in fifteen years (from 1525 to 1540), as he confessed himself in a letter to Luther, April 5, 1540 (Lenz, Briefwechsel Philipp’s mit Bucer, I. 361, and Ranke, IV. 186, note). If Fraulein Margaretha von der Sale, who captivated his passions, had consented to become his mistress, he would not have fallen upon the extraordinary device of bigamy. The worst feature in this shameful affair is the weak connivance of the Reformers, which furnished the Romanists a keen weapon of attack. See Janssen. But Protestantism is no more responsible for the sins of Philip of Hesse, than Romanism is for the sins of Louis XIV.
2 In Kurhessen (which in 1866 was annexed to Prussia). Homberg must not be confounded with the better-known watering-place Homburg near Frankfort on the Main, |