RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Old Catholics Olearius
declared an outlaw, but he steadfastly refused to renounce his convictions. His hiding-place, however, was finally discovered and he was taken by the lord of Powis, at Welshpool, across the Welsh border, after a desperate encounter in which Oldcastle was seriously wounded. Carried to London, he was summarily condemned as an outlaw, traitor, and heretic, Dec. 14, 1417. On the same day he was drawn on a hurdle from the Tower to St. Giles' field, hanged, and burnt hanging. Shakespeare seems to have elaborated the character into his Falstaff, the boon companion of the wild prince. On the whole, Oldcastle bears the record of a brave, upright, noble-hearted, though obstinate knight. See Lollards, § 7.
Bibliography: The official record of the trial by Archbishop Arundel is in the Fasciculi zizaniorum, ed. W. W. Shirley, in Rolls Series, No. 5, 1858; this forms the basis of J. Bale's Brefe Chronycle concernye the Examinacyon and Death of . Syr John Oldecastell, ed. H. Christmas for the Parker Society, London, 1849, and of Foxe's account in his Acts and Monuments. More recent lives are based on this material. Consult: W. Gilpin, Life of Wycliffe, {and) John Oldcastle, in Select Biography, vol. ii., London, 1821; T. Gaspey, Life and Times of the Good Lord Cobham, 2 vols., ib. 1843; A. M. Brown, The Leader of the Lollards, his Times and Trials, ib. 1848; C. E. Maurice, Lives of English Popular Leaders, vol. ii., ib. 1875; J. Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation in England, i. 69-97, ib. 1908; Schaff, Christian Church, v. 1, pp. 354- 355; DNB, xlii. 86-93. Much of the literature under Wyclif, John, is pertinent, particularly the work of G. Lechler.
OLDENBURG: Grand-duchy consisting, for ecclesiastical purposes, of the duchy of Oldenburg and the principalities of Liibeck and Birkenfeld; situated in the northwestern part of the German Empire, bordering on the North Sea; area, 2,479 square miles; population, 544,713 (1905). Liibeck was the seat of a bishopric, founded in 946 and ceasing in 1523. The Evangelical Lutheran Church prevails in the duchy of Oldenburg, there being only one Reformed congregation. The Reformation arrived with the appointment by Count Johann XVI., in 1573, of Hermann Hamelmann as superintendent, who introduced the Lutheran organization. During the Danish epoch (1667-73) Oldenburg remained Lutheran, and with the reign of the Holstein-Gottorp house came a rationalism, the influence of which is traceable in the hymn-book of 1791. There followed in 1849 a new church constitution more liberal in confession and separating Church from State. It assigned the most important functions of government to the congregations and a synod; so that upon an appeal by the conservatives to the general council in 1852 the result was that the house of deputies of Oldenburg granted a new constitution which went into effect in 1853. This rests upon the basis of the Scriptures and the Augsburg Confession and makes the grand-duke the ruling head of the Church subject to the limits prescribed by the constitution. In the principality of Liibeck the Lutheran Church likewise prevails under the control of the civil government, the first ecclesiastic of Eutin being titled church counselor of the government. In Birkenfeld the twelve Lutheran and the two Reformed congregations accepted the plan of union toward the end of the fourth decade of the last century and in 1875 the
Evangelical body secured a synodical constitution. The total number of professing Evangelicals in the duchy of Oldenburg and the principality of Liibeck, in 1905, was 442,400 and of Roman Catholics 98,518, while belonging to other Christian faiths are 1,547, and of Jews 2,029. (A. von Broecker.) Bibliography: N. J. E. Nielsen, Zur Statistik der oldenburgischen evang.-luth. Kirche, Oldenburg, 1881; W. Hayen, Oldenburgisches Kirchenrecht, ib. 1888; L. Schanenburg, Hundert Jahre Oldenburgischer Kirchengeschichte, 1573-1667, 4 vols., ib. 1894-1903; E. Illigens, Geschichte der lubeckischen Kirche 1630-1896, Paderborn, 1896; G. Sello, Alt-Oldenburg, Oldenburg, 1903; J. Schneider, Kirchliches Jahrbuch (an annual).
OLEARIUS, o"le-a'ri-us: The name of a family of German theologians and preachers.
1. Johannes Olearius I.: The founder of the family; b. at Wesel (32 m. n.w. of Diisseldorf) Sept. 17, 1546; d. at Halle Jan. 26, 1623. He attended the gymnasium at Diisseldorf; studied at Marburg and Jena; went to Konigsberg in 1573 as rector of the gymnasium; was proposed for a chair in Hebrew at Konigsberg but went to Helmstedt where he obtained a professorship in 1578. In 1581 he accepted a call as chief pastor of the Church of Our Lady and superintendent at Halle, where, for more than four decades, he labored worthily. He took charge of Hebrew instruction at the municipal Latin school, and delivered lectures to candidates for the spiritual office. An earnest representative of pure Lutheranism, he subscribed the Halle clergy's declaration provided in 1579 by Martin Chemnitz on the basis of the Formula of Concord. In 1594, he prepared a preface to the " Protocol or Acts of the Colloquy at Hertzberg." As commissary he took part in the general visitation of the archdiocese of Magdeburg in 1583.
2. Gottfried Olearius: Son of the preceding; b. at Halle Jan. 1, 1605; d. at the same place Feb. 20, 1685. He studied at Jena in 1622 and afterward at Wittenberg, where he received the master's degree in 1625, and was appointed assistant in the philosophical faculty in 1629. In 1630, he became pastor at St. Ulrich's Church, Halle. Occupying himself with homiletics he published the following: Idea dispositionum Biblicarum (1581), a fivevolume work containing outlines of sermons for every chapter of the Bible; Annotationes Biblicce theoreticopracticm (Halle, 1677); and Aphorismi homiletici (Leipsic, 1658). Especially devoted to astronomy and botany he left a collection of specimens that was materially increased by his son and grandson.
3. Johannes Olearius II.: Brother of Gottfried; b. at Halle Sept. 17, 1611; d. at Weissenfels (11 m. s. of Merseburg) Apr. 14, 1684. He entered the University of Wittenberg in 1629, obtained the master's degree in 1632, and became assistant in the philosophical faculty in 1637. After being superintendent at Querfurt six years, he was called as court preacher and father confessor to Halle in 1643. Subsequently, he became chief court preacher and in 1664 general superintendent of the Weissenfels district. Though devoted to Lutheranism, he showed an intelligent appreciation of Pietism and was in active communication with Spener. He was a strong advocate of the school system, from the
Oleariue Olevianus