THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
NUN: A word applied in modern English to the members of cloistered female religious orders. In late and medieval Latin the cognate form is found in both masculine and feminine forms (nonnus and nonna), explained by Forcellini as applied to elders in token of respect. In this sense the modern Italian retains the words nonno and nonna for " grandfather " and " grandmother." Jerome coordinates the terms casta et nonna, Arnobius sanctus et nonnus. The word nonnus in this sense was used in monastic phraseology, as in the Rule of St. Benedict, chap, lxiii., which forbids the monks to call each other simply by their names, requiring the prefix of frater from the elder to the younger and nonnus from the younger to the elder. This usage has long been obsolete, while the feminine form has passed into the vernacular of several modern languages in the sense given at the beginning of this article. See Monasticism. (A. Hauck.)
NUNCIO. See Legates and Nuncios, Papal.
NUREMBERG LEAGUE. See Frankfort Respite.
NUREMBERG, RELIGIOUS PEACE OF: A
temporary settlement of the difficulties between the Roman Catholic and Protestant states of the empire, agreed upon at Nuremberg in 1532. The dangerous position in which the Protestants had been left by the decisions of the Diet of Augsburg (Nov. 19, 1530) forced them to renew their efforts to form an alliance for mutual protection. The jurists succeeded in persuading Luther and the elector that if the emperor did not keep his oath to them they were justified in taking measures for self-defense; and soon after Christmas, 1530, the Schmalkald League came into existence (see Philip the Magnanimous). By the expiration of the time of grace allowed to the Protestants (Apr. 15, 1531) their position had notably improved; and the Turks were threatening to attack not merely Hungary but the Austrian crown-lands. Ferdinand advised his brother the emperor to come to some compromise with the Protestants so as to win their support against this danger. The league was attaining an unexpected degree of solidarity, and the Roman Catholic states were disquieted by rumors of warlike preparations on their part. Clement VII. himself was considering the possibility, if there were no other means of warding off the peril of the Turks on one side and of a general council on the other, of conceding to the Protestants the marriage of the clergy and communion in both kinds.
The first step toward agreement was taken when the emperor ordained (July 8, 1531), in a decree not immediately published, that the action of the Reichskammergericht in the cases before it growing out of the decision of the Diet of Augsburg should be suspended until the next diet. Further negotiations throughout the autumn of 1531 came to nothing. The Protestant leaders decided not to appear at the Diet of Regensburg (Apr., 1532) but to meet simultaneously at Schweinfurt and begin then a serious effort to reach an agreement. The negotiations progressed very slowly, the Leaguers |
clinging to the advantage they had gained, and Ferdinand so convinced of his ultimate success that his representatives scarcely ventured to communicate to him the proposals of the other side. When the diet met, the Roman Catholic states, turning a deaf ear to the Protestant demands, called for the execution of the Augsburg Recess and its maintenance until the assembling of a council. The emperor saw nothing to do but to act without them and make peace at all costs; and Luther on his side strongly urged the securing of essentials by the abandonment of opposition on such points as the dispute over the validity of Ferdinand's election. The sultan was now actually carrying his threats into execution, and some of the Protestant states were moved by patriotism and fear of the reproach that they were standing idly by to witness the destruction of Christendom into mobilizing for the emperor's support.
After tedious negotiations, an agreement was reached on July 23, and the Peace of Nuremberg was promulgated on Aug. 3. The emperor, in his own name, guaranteed to the Evangelicals the maintenance of the status quo until the meeting of a council, or, if this should not take place within a year, until the next diet. It was not an absolute guaranty of the quashing of the suits before the Reichskammergericht, but a private " assurance " on the part of the emperor, which was still further weakened by the requirement that a formal application should be made in each case. In a word, it was rather a truce than a peace; but it signified, after all, a considerable victory for the Evangelicals. The Augsburg Recess, on which the Roman party in the diet had so strongly insisted, was annulled; the legal status of the Protestant churches was assured at least for the time; and Luther was right in his contention that it secured quite sufficient advantages even for those who should in future become Protestants, although they were not expressly included in its operations. Under its protection, the Reformation made great progress in the next few years, and it remained a useful point of departure for later negotiations. (T. Kolde.)
Bibliography: F. von Bezold, Geschichte der deutschen Reformation, p. 641, Berlin, 1890; H. Baumgarten, Geschichte Karls V., iii. 638 sqq., Stuttgart, 1892; O. Winckelmann, Der schmalkaldische Bund 1530-32 und der Nurnberger Religionsfriede, Strasburg, 1892; J. Ficker, in ZKG, xii. 582 sqq.; J. Janssen, Hist, of the German People, v. 326 sqq., St. Louis, Mo., 1903; Cambridge Modern History, ii. 218, 221, 232, London and New York, 1904.
NYSTROEM, JOHAN ERIK: General Baptist; b. at Stockholm Sept. 8, 1842. He was graduated at the University of Upsala, 1866; was teacher of languages in the New Elementary School of Stockholm, 1867; in Greek and Hebrew in the Baptist Seminary there, 1867-72; secretary of the Swedish Evangelical Alliance, 1872-78; and missionary to the Jews at Beirut, Syria, 1878-81. In 1872 he traveled in aid of the Baptist building-fund, through Germany, England, and Scotland; and in 1885 was elected a member of the Swedish Parliament for three years. He is the translator of B. E. Nicholl's Help to the Reading of the Bible (1866); and of Merle d'Aubigne^s History of the Reformation in the Time