RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wolfgang Wolsey
was also desired that there should be a school in every village of considerable size and a Latin school in every four cities; while in Hornbach an institution for higher instruction was opened Jan. 16, 1559, under the care of Immanuel Tremellius (q.v.), and in the principality of Neuburg on the Danube, devised to Wolfgang by the Elector Otto Henry, a similar institution was opened at Lauingen in 1561.
In 1559 Wolfgang interposed in favor of the Protestants at Treves, and in 1561 he pleaded, with other Protestant princes, at the Diet of Naumburg, for his French coreligionists before Charles IX. At the same time he soon manifested increasing antipathy to Calvinism, and to prevent it from entering his domains he directed the rigid Lutheran Johann Marbach (q.v.) to make a new visitation in 1564, whiletin the year following he appointed Tilemann Hesshusen (q.v.) his chaplain. At the Diet of Augsburg he even sought, though without success, to induce the
Protestant princes to refuse to recog-
Assistance nize the Elector Frederick III.; and
to the with the restlessness that characterized
Huguenots. him at this time, he entered into nego-
tiations with the adventurer Wilhelm of Grumbach and made a military treaty with Philip II. of Spain. The year 1568 saw a new change of position, doubtless caused in part by the deeds of Alva in the Netherlands, for Wolfgang now canceled his Spanish alliance and entered into close relations with the Elector Frederick. The duke had never forgotten that peril to the foreign Reformed meant danger to German Protestants, and as early as 1563 he had raised troops to assist the French Huguenots, nor did he disband them until after the news of the peace of Amboise. When, therefore, Condé and Coligny again sought help for the French Protestants from the Protestant princes of Germany, Wolfgang bound himself, on Sept. 18, 1568, to assist them at his own expense. With a small force of 8,440 infantry and 8,750 cavalry he set forth, though the French king had already sent against him, under the duke of Aumale, a force at least equal to his own. On Feb. 20, 1569, he broke camp from Bergzabern, crossed the Saéne on Mar. 28, and continued his march despite the news of the Huguenot defeat near Jarnac (March 13) and the death of Condé. On Apr. 23 he crossed from Burgundy into France, and on June 9 gained a battle on the Vienne. Here only a three-days’ march separated him from the Huguenot forces, and Coligny was already advancing, with a few cavalry, to meet him. On June 11 the two forces met at Nessun, but illness and exertion had completely exhausted Wolfgang, and a few hours later he died. His body was temporarily interred at Angouléme, whence it was taken, two years later, by sea via La Rochelle and Liibeck to Germany, where it was finally buried in the church at Meisenheim Sept. 23, 1571.
The assistance rendered by Wolfgang of Zweibriicken materially strengthened the position of the French Protestants, and without it they would scarcely have gained the terms secured them by the treaty of St. Germain (Aug. 1, 1570), so that it was with good reason that the Huguenot leaders wrote
Liturgical and Edu-
cational Measures.
his sons, June 8, 1571, that, next to God, they owed to Wolfgang their lives, estates, honor, and religious freedom. The family laws of the pres-
Character ent house of Wittelsbach, which traces
and its lineage to Wolfgang, are strongly
Influence. influenced by his famous will of Aug.
18, 1568; and the sincerity of his character, the purity of his family life, the insight and rectitude evinced in the government of his little territory, and his extraordinary prowess insure him a place of honorable memory among all Protestants.
Jutius Nay. BisuiocrapHy: K. Menzel, Wolfgang von Zwetbriicken,
Munich, 1893 (the earlier literature is fully given); J. Ney,
Pfalzgraf Wolfgang, Leipsic, 1912.
WOLLEB, vdl’/léb, JOHANNES: Reformed dogmatician; b. at Basel Nov. 30, 1586; d. there Nov. 24, 1629. He studied philosophy and theology at Basel, was ordained at the age of twenty, in 1607 became diaconus in Basel and in 1611 preacher at St. Elisabeth’s. In 1618 he became the successor of Johann Jakob Grynzeus as preacher at the cathedral and in the same year professor of Old-Testament theology. Besides dissertations and theses, he published only one theological work, his Compendium theologie Christiane (Basel, 1626), which by its masterly brevity, conciseness, clear arrangement, and perspicuity caused a considerable sensation. In Basel as well as at several other Reformed universities it was made the basis of lectures on dogmatics and ethics. It appeared in several editions, and Alexander Ross translated it into English (A bridgement of Christian Divinitie, London, 1650). After his death, in 1657, there appeared in print a number of Trost und Lethenreden. The theological importance assigned to Wolleb by Ebrard in his Christliche Dogmatik, has been questioned by Gass in his Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik (i. 396 sqq., Berlin, 1854). The latter emphasizes the “purity and sharpness of dogmatic thinking,” but denies that there could be ascribed to Wolleb any epoch-making importance, and in this judgment he is supported by Hagenbach and Alexander Schweizer. (W. Haporn.) BrsuiocrapHy: H. J. Leu, Allgemeines helvetisches .. .
Lexicon, xix. 552 sqq., 20 vols., Zurich, 1747-65
WOLLIN, BISHOPRIC OF. See Kammin, Bisx- OPRIC OF.