RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Salzburg
to the dragonade, many of whom feigned submission, though secretly maintaining Lutheran views. A considerable number went into exile and poverty, some 600 going from Radstadt and its vicinity to Austria and Moravia. Of 2,500 in the valleys and on the mountains of Gastein only about 300 promised to live and die in the Roman Catholic Church. The archbishop, however, was deceived by appearances. Public gatherings indeed ceased, but many of those who ostensibly professed the old faith secretly read Lutheran works which they had concealed. The children were instructed in Lutheran doctrines, and Protestantism spread under cover. This was especially the case under the mild Archbishop Paris Hadrian (1619-53), and after the peace of Westphalia Protestants sentenced to exile from Roman Catholic countries were allowed three years in which to dispose of their property. Nevertheless, these prerogatives were disregarded by Archbishop Maximilian Gandolf (1668-87). In 1683 Jesuits discovered a congregation of secret Lutherans, ostensibly professing Roman Catholicism, in the Tefferegg Valley on the southern boundary of the archdiocese. Attempts at conversion by Capuchin monks and judicial endeavors to suppress Lutheranism led only to a more stubborn adherence to their beliefs under the guidance of the miner Joseph Schaitberger (q.v.). The archbishop sought to prove that these Protestants did not come under the protection of the peace of Westphalia in that they were a sect adhering neither to the Augsburg nor the Reformed confession, but their representatives, when summoned to Hallein and Salzburg, boldly declared themselves Lutherans. After being imprisoned and made the objects of vain attempts at conversion by Capuchins, they were released, the archbishop requiring them to submit a written statement of their belief. Sterner measures followed without success, and the archbishop finally issued a mandate in the middle of the winter of 1685 banishing the Protestants from the country, and confiscating their property and children, some 600 in number. The exiles in bands of fifty or sixty sought refuge in Ulm, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Frankfort, and elsewhere, the total number of those banished being over 1,000. This act of the archbishop horrified all Protestant Germany, but neither the intervention of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg nor the protests of the Evangelical estates in Regensburg were of avail. Under Archbishop Franz Anton (1709-27) the Salzburg Protestants fared better, and during this period Evangelical doctrines were strengthened in the region by reading Protestant books and the letters of Schaitberger, as well as by the religious meetings which were tolerated.
Under his successor, Leopold Anton (1727-44), however, affairs resumed their wonted course. Feigned conversions were extorted; Increased their Bibles and books of edification Pressure were burned; they were charged with I727~3i. being dangerous inciters to riot; they were imprisoned, deprived of work, fined, dragonaded, and compelled to emigrate leaving property and children behind. Yet all this only increased the determination of the Salzburg Protes-
tants. In Jan., 1730, the peasants Hans Lerchner and Veit Breme appealed to the Evangelical estates in Regensburg and sought for influence to be brought to bear that the exiles might be allowed to regain their wives and children. All was in vain, even the charge that the archbishop had violated the peace of Westphalia. In the following year the Protestants sent a deputation from Radstadt, Wagrein, Werffen, St. Johann, and Gastein to Regensburg with new complaints, and with the demand that either Evangelical preachers be given them and that they be permitted to worship in their own way, or that they be allowed to sell their property and emigrate with their wives and children. Again their demands were fruitless. Meanwhile the archbishop, seeking to determine how far Protestantism had spread, ordered that the complaints be tried before a committee. All Protestants were now summoned to appear before the commissioners sent out from Salzburg, whereupon they declared that they were willing to be the faithful subjects of the archbishop in all things temporal, but that in religion they desired freedom of conscience. The commissioners thereupon required within three days a list of all those who professed Lutheranism, the total, to the amazement of all, being over 20,000. The archbishop accordingly saw himself obliged to put forth his utmost endeavors, while the Protestants became still more firm in their resistance. On Aug. 5, 1731, about 300 representative Lutherans took a solemn oath in the town of Swarzach, and it was quickly resolved to send a committee to the emperor at Vienna. The envoys, having no passports, however, were arrested as rebels and brought back to Salzburg. Since no relief could be expected from either the archbishop or the emperor, the Lutheran envoys sought the intervention of their princes. Frederick William I. of Prussia accordingly threatened reprisals on his Roman Catholic subjects, but the threat was an empty one, and rigorous measures against the Salzburg Protestants were renewed. The Evangelicals again appealed to the emperor, who declared he had warned the archbishop to obey the laws of the empire. On Oct. 31, 1731, the archbishop issued an order requiring all non-householders over twelve years of age to emigrate within eight days as being disobedient and leagued to destroy the Roman Catholic faith. All others were to follow them into exile within one to three months. The plan of thus financially ruining the well-to-do and forcibly converting their dependents failed with but few exceptions.
Meanwhile two Protestant delegates, Peter Heldensteiner and Nikolaus Forstreuter, had implored the aid of the king at Berlin in Nov., 1731. In February of the following year he issued a patent welcoming the exiles from Salzburg, re- Emigration questing the archbishop to allow them to Prussia, to depart freely, and urging all princes through whose lands they should go to aid them. He himself promised each person a considerable sum daily for expenses, and at the same time threatened severe reprisals for any injury done them, being followed in the latter respect by Denmark, Sweden, and Holland. The exiles now
Sam Samaria