The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context 9789048550876

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The Dynamics of the Early Reformationin their Reformed Augustinian Context

The Dynamics of the Early Reformationin their Reformed Augustinian Context

Robert J. Christman

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Image of two Augustinian monks being burned. Taken from the pamphlet Dye histori, so zwen Augustiner Ordens gemartert seyn tzü Bruxel in Probant, von wegen des Eua[n]gelj. Dye Artickel darumb sie verbrent seyn mit yrer außlegung vnd verklerung (Erfurt: Stürmer, 1523). This work is Martin Reckenhofer’s translation of the anonymous pamphlet Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, ob Evangelij doctrinam exustis Bruxellae, die trigesima Iunij. Anno domini M.D.XXIII (n.p.: n.p). Ghent University Library BHSL.RES.1007/2 Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 862 1 e-isbn 978 90 4855 087 6 doi 10.5117/9789463728621 nur 704 © R.J. Christman / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

To the memory of Anna Christman Horvath (1968–2017)



Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 9 1. Introduction: The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany

11

2. The German Reformed Congregation and its Province of Lower Germany

21

3. The Antwerp Cloister

47

4. The Authorities Respond: Pope and Emperor Seize the Initiative

75

5. Wittenberg’s Influence on the Events in Lower Germany

91

6. Reformation Ideas in the Low Countries

109

7. ‘Summer is at the door’: The Impact of the Executions on Martin Luther

135

8. The Impact of the Executions in the Low Countries

155

9. The Impact of the Executions in the German-Speaking Lands of the Holy Roman Empire

171

10. The Marian Dimension

195

11. The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germanyand the Dynamics of the Early Reformation

215

Bibliography 233 About the Author

251

Index 253

Acknowledgments Any project of this length and scope requires a variety of forms of support – among them financial, intellectual, and not least, emotional. I benefited tremendously in each of these areas, a true embarrassment of riches, and I am acutely aware of this fact and deeply grateful for all of it. Multiple institutions and organizations have helped to f inance this project, including the Fulbright Scholarship Program, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and Luther College through a variety of means. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the college’s Marilyn Roverud Endowed Fellowship in Lutheran Studies. And it should be mentioned that Dean Kevin Kraus was especially supportive, keeping me informed of funding opportunities and demonstrating flexibility in my teaching schedule that enabled time for research. On the German side of things, Hans-Peter Grosshans of the Institute for Ecumenical Theology at the University of Muenster must be singled out. He has been expansively generous, providing a true home for me during my extended research stays, writing letters of invitation for various granting agencies, and generally being accommodating to both me and my family. Suffice it to say that without his support this project would never have been completed and I hope that one day I will be able in some small way to repay what has thus far been a one-sided friendship. Albrecht Beutel, likewise of the University of Muenster, has offered this project his assistance, both intellectually and as a co-sponsor to my Humboldt application, and I would like to thank him sincerely. And Frau Christopherson, also at the Institute, has been truly professional and untiring in assisting on the administrative side of things. For her efforts I am grateful. In the Low Countries, Guido Marnef not only read and commented on substantial portions of the text, but has been a constant promoter of the project, offering his intellectual expertise and professional connections, all of which have been essential for its completion. Many others on both sides of the Atlantic have read portions or all of drafts. Eric Saak gave invaluable advice and encouragement, as did Marjorie (Beth) Plummer. Marcus Wriedt provided sound guidance and support. Thomas Kaufmann discussed the project in its early stages and offered helpful advice along the way. And not least, I offer my gratitude to the readers to whom Amsterdam University Press sent the manuscript. Not only did they improve the contents of the text, but their sharp eyes and excellent linguistic abilities saved me from countless embarrassing gaffes. I offer my thanks to the Press’s excellent

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editorial staff in this regard as well and to my brother-in-law Eric Cox, who gave up his Christmas break to carefully copy edit the page proofs. My family provided the emotional support necessary to keep plugging away, even when things were not going very well. Not only did my wife Victoria offer unceasing encouragement, but also her excellent professional insights into the history of the Low Countries during this period. One critique that this book makes is that Reformation historiography has generally divided the past along current national boundaries, in this case the border between the Low Countries and the German speaking world. And in the Christman household until now, the same historiographical borders have been carefully demarcated, with Victoria taking the Low Countries and me focusing on Germany. But with this project, Victoria has demonstrated herself to be more than generous in allowing me to invade her territory and it is no exaggeration that without her assistance, I would not have dared to do so. My children, Sophia, Elsa, and Lawrence, provided their support in multiple ways: their blithe disinterest in the contents of the book offered welcomed relief to my obsessions; their incredible willingness and ability to simply meld into a foreign culture during our long research stays in Germany buoyed my spirits; and their mere existence continues to provide a goal for my efforts to be a worthy role model. Finally, I dedicate this book to the memory of my late sister, Anna Christman Horvath (1968–2017). She was there from the beginning and throughout her earthly existence offered untold support and encouragement for this and for all of my endeavours. And it must be said that her approach to her own struggles offered a fine example of how to live and how to die. She was truly an inspiration.

1.

Introduction: The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany Abstract The burnings of the Reformed Augustinian friars Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen in Brussels on 1 July 1523 were the first executions of the Protestant Reformation. This chapter challenges the notion that they were peripheral to the key events of the early Reformation. Personal connections and frequent interactions existed between the Reformed Augustinians in the Low Countries (=Lower Germany) and those in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther was a member; the individuals responsible for the executions were intimates of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and Popes Leo X and Adrian VI. An awareness of these connections raises questions about the importance of this event in the early Reformation and about how that movement functioned in its earliest stages. Keywords: Martin Luther, Hendrik Vos (Voes), Johann van den Esschen, Emperor Charles V, Pope Adrian VI, Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians, martyrdom

On 1 July 1523, in front of a crowd of spectators, Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen, were burned alive on the Grand Plaza of Brussels for adhering to “Lutheran” beliefs. The executions of these two young friars from the Augustinian cloister in Antwerp were the first of the Protestant Reformation, and the event was publicized throughout Europe, particularly in the German-speaking lands. Well-known in scholarly circles, historians have investigated the executions from a variety of angles and perspectives;1 1 With regard to their local significance see, for example, Duke, ‘The Netherlands’; Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation; and Clemen, ‘Die Ersten Märtyrer’. Kalkoff has done a tremendous amount of spade work on the situation of the Antwerp Augustinians, particularly in Chapter Six. But because his focus is really on the Counter-Reformation in the context of the Low Countries, and because aspects of the story are scattered throughout his text, his work

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch01

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despite this, very little is known about origins of the event and the details of its development, and a comprehensive understanding of its overall implications for the early Reformation therefore still eludes us. Most modern scholars seem to have the following vague impressions about the case: first, that the executions were an isolated incident without any noteworthy prehistory; second, that little concrete connection existed between what was happening in Antwerp and Brussels and what was happening in Wittenberg and in the early Reformation more broadly;2 and third, that the event’s impact, particularly within the empire, was limited to what we might call its potential for propaganda. For these reasons, the case is virtually ignored in general histories of the Reformation.3 In fact, the execution of these men is merely the most well-known event in a cohesive narrative, a storyline that revolves around not only the episode in Brussels but also the seven cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany. Located in cities across modern Germany (Cologne), Belgium (Antwerp, Ghent, and Enghien), and the Netherlands (Haarlem, Enkhuizen, and Dordrecht), these houses comprised one district or province of a broader association within the late medieval Augustinian Eremite Order, known as the Congregation of ‘German’ or ‘Saxon’ Reformed Augustinians, whose members were often referred to as the ‘Observants’ or occasionally the fails to provide a cohesive view of the role played by the Antwerp Augustinians in the early Reformation more broadly. In light of Martin Luther’s response to the deaths, see Akerboom and Gielis, ‘“A New Song”’; Oettinger, Music as Propaganda, pp. 61–69; Kolb, ‘God’s Gift of Martrydom’; Casey, ‘“Start Spreading the News”’; and Rössler, ‘Ein neues Lied wir heben’. For the content of the pamphlets composed about the executions, their influence on notions of martyrdom, and the creation of martyr literature of the period, see Gregory, Salvation at Stake; Moeller, ‘Inquisition und Martyrium’; and Hebenstreit-Wilfert, ‘Märtyrerflugschiften der Reformationszeit’. For the theological issues separating Luther (and by association, the Antwerp Augustinians) from the theologians responsible for prosecuting these friars, see Gielis, ‘Augustijnergeloof en Predikherengeloof’. 2 The one exception to this view is Vercruysse, ‘Was Haben die Sachsen’. 3 Some recent surveys of the Reformation omit any reference to it. None afford it more than a paragraph or, in a few cases, a page. Allusions to Antwerp in the early Reformation are equally scarce. For example, the following monographs make no mention of the executions: Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion; Rublack, Reformation Europe; Wallace, The Long European Reformation; and Tracy, Europe’s Reformations 1450–1650. Short references may be found in Hillerbrand, The Division of Christianity, p. 376; Lindberg, The European Reformations, pp. 283–284; MacCulloch, Reformation. Europe’s House Divided, pp. 134–135; and Cameron, The European Reformation, p. 357. Even works specifically devoted to the early Reformation make little or no reference to the executions or to Antwerp in this period. For example, no mention is made in the following texts: Scott, The Early Reformation; Kaufmann, Der Anfang der Reformation; Moeller and Buckwalter, eds., Die frühe Reformation in Deutschland; and Chadwick, The Early Reformation on the Continent.

Introduction: The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany

13

‘Vicarines’. 4 These seven cloisters represented less than one-third of the group’s total houses, which numbered just over two dozen. Most were located in the German heartlands of Saxony and Thuringia, among them the Erfurt house, where Martin Luther joined the Augustinian Order in 1505, and the Wittenberg cloister, where he lived most of his life. The remainder lay scattered throughout the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire. At the height of its expansion, the membership of the modestly-sized German Reformed Congregation could not have numbered above about 500 friars, of whom less than 125 resided in the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany.5 Moreover, as a corporate entity within the German Reformed Congregation, the Province of Lower Germany existed for eight brief years, from 1514–1522. For all these reasons, it should come as no surprise that, although general studies of the Observant movement in Germany and of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians have been undertaken, the Province of Lower Germany as its own entity has thus far eluded scholarly attention.6 Simply stated, this little group of cloisters on the geographical periphery of the Congregation’s heartlands played a disproportionately large role in the early Reformation. Structural ties and friendships bound the Congregation’s cloisters directly to Wittenberg, and it did not take long for them to become conduits for Luther’s ideas. Two factors, however, make these seven houses exceptional. First, four of the seven houses of the Province of Lower Germany were added to the Congregation in the decade immediately preceding the executions of Vos and van den Esschen. In other words, Lower Germany was a growth area for the Congregation, which had recently developed strategies to expand into that region. And second, these houses were located by and large in the patrimonial lands of the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, a committed opponent of the Reformation.7 4 Local studies on some of the individual cloisters have proved indispensable for this monograph. For the Antwerp cloister see Vercruysse, ‘De Antwerpse augustijnen’; Clemen, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner-Kloster’; for the Cologne cloister see Rotscheidt-Mörs, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner’; and for the Enkhuizen cloister see Voets, ‘Hebben de Augustijnen van Enkhuizen’. 5 For the year 1500 Michael Wernicke estimates c. 2,000 friars in the Empire’s 112 cloisters of Augustinian Eremites, for an average of just under eighteen brothers per house. If that number is multiplied by the 27 cloisters of the Reformed Augustinians, the total comes to 482 members. Wernicke, ‘Die Augustiner Eremiten’, p. 52. 6 Indispensable for this study has been Wolfgang Günter’s overview of the history of the German Reformed Congregation, Reform und Reformation, which is a considerable expansion and improvement on Theodor Kolde’s, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation; also helpful is the seven volume monument by Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten. 7 The exception among the seven cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany was the Reformed Augustinian cloister in Cologne. However, the economic welfare of that city was so closely tied

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What is more, particularly during the Pontificate of Adrian VI (1522–1523), a native of the Low Countries and erstwhile tutor to Charles, the papacy worked closely with the imperial authorities to stamp out heretical Lutheran ideas. The combined forces of the emperor and his administration and the papacy and its supporters were thus able to exert considerable direct pressure on these seven cloisters, something that would be impossible in many of the Reformed Augustinian cloisters elsewhere in the empire. As a result, the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany quickly became a fiercely contested battleground during the early Reformation. On the one side, the emperor, in conjunction with the pope, realized the danger the Observants posed and executed a strategy to silence them. On the other side, the leadership of the Reformation in Wittenberg attempted to promote its ideas and further its cause through these cloisters. Between 1519 and 1523, this struggle was the first engagement in which the Reformation left the world of literary debates and, in the case of the Antwerp cloister, became a bloody confrontation. Only when seen from this broader perspective can the deaths of the two Antwerp Augustinians be understood for what they really were: namely, the culmination of one of the sharpest and most important engagements of the early Reformation, one that signalled to all involved the positions each side would take and the lengths to which they would go, sometimes in direct contradiction to the declarations they articulated publicly. In Lower Germany, actions spoke louder than words. Thus, far from being the inconsequential demise of two essentially unknown friars, to be exploited for polemical purposes, the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen were the fallout from a deliberate proxy battle pitting pope and emperor against Luther and his Augustinian comrades in Wittenberg. Within this broader narrative, this study addresses five key questions. The first is: what role did these seven cloisters play in the dissemination of Reformation ideas and doctrines, and how did that role come about? The downfall of the two Antwerp Augustinians certainly indicates that this cloister was involved in the diffusion of such ideas. But although the Antwerp cloister’s ties to Wittenberg and Luther have been acknowledged, the depth and significance of these connections has generally been underestimated. And although it is well known that, from its foundation in 1513 to Antwerp and other cities in the Low Countries that the emperor was able to exert significant, if indirect, authority over it. But despite this fact, the Cologne Augustinian cloister remained a stronghold of Lutheran ideas for a decade after most support for the Reformation had been eradicated from the cloisters located directly in Charles V’s patrimonial lands. See Scribner, ‘Why was there no Reformation in Cologne’, pp. 218–225.

Introduction: The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany

15

until its destruction in 1523, key leaders within the Antwerp cloister spent considerable time in Wittenberg and developed friendships with Luther, little work has been done on the other cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany at this crucial moment, and historians seem to have assumed that the connections between Wittenberg and Antwerp were a historical anomaly. The first aim of the study is therefore to determine the degree to which the other cloisters of the Congregation’s Province of Lower Germany were connected to the Wittenberg Reformation. Clearly such connections existed, for it did not take long for the most powerful authorities in Europe, Popes Leo X and Adrian VI and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, to recognize these cloisters as threats. The second question this study seeks to answer is therefore, how did these authorities respond? Again, the Antwerp cloister serves as the most highprofile illustration. Having witnessed widespread support for Luther at the Diet of Worms (1521), the newly crowned emperor returned to the Low Countries, determined to confront the burgeoning Lutheran heresy there. Meanwhile, the papal nuncio, Jerome Aleander, who had been charged with publishing the bull threatening Luther and his followers with excommunication (Exsurge Domine 15 June 1520), and who had authored the Edict of Worms (25 May 1521), made common cause with Charles. By the time their campaign against the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany was over, the Antwerp cloister had been razed to the ground and the Province’s remaining houses had been administratively severed from their ties to the German Reformed Congregation. As a result of these and other steps taken by pope and emperor against the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, this group must be seen as one of the earliest targets of anti-Reformation forces, and the actions against it considered foundational to the dynamics of the early Reformation. The second objective of this study is to elucidate this campaign against the Augustinians. The forces opposing the Reformation were not alone in attempting to influence what was happening among the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany. Martin Luther and much of the hierarchy of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians were actively involved in these events, and it is here that this study breaks the most new ground. As will become clear, Luther and his Augustinian colleagues adopted the strategic methods developed by the Congregation in the 1510s (and earlier) to expand its influence in Lower Germany, which they now deployed in the service of the Reformation. In short, they used the knowledge and skills they had acquired as members of the Congregation – not to mention the assets of

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that group – to further the cause of the Reformation in concrete ways.8 Unlike the rather public moves of the pope and emperor, the influence of Luther and his colleagues was more subtle, but of its existence there can be no doubt. The third question addressed in this investigation concerns the origins, parameters, and nature of this understudied aspect of the Augustinian context of the early Reformation. In a sense, then, these seven cloisters were pawns in a larger struggle. But to see the conflict only in these terms disregards the autonomy and agency of the friars in the Province of Lower Germany. Thus the fourth question this examination will ask is whether they were merely mouthpieces for Wittenberg’s Reformation ideas, or whether the milieu of Lower Germany shaped their ideas about reform in particular ways? If so, were their ideas in harmony with Luther’s? The evidence indicates that some of the Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany were, in fact, more radical than Luther and many of his fellow Saxon Augustinians. Reform thus emanated not only from Wittenberg but, in the Low Countries, took on a local character, and it seems that such regional variations did at times influence the speed and content of what was happening in Wittenberg. This study will document such phenomena. Having developed a deeper understanding of the significance of these events, this examination will turn to the question of how this conflict over the cloisters of Lower Germany impacted the early Reformation. Again, the high-profile executions of Vos and van den Esschen provide one means to address this question, and in fact considerable scholarly attention has been paid to it. The pro-Reformation pamphlets and eyewitness accounts of their burnings have been analysed for their content, number of editions, and geographical distribution, thereby providing some insight into the ways in which the executions were framed and presented to the public.9 Moreover, the reactions of specific individuals, such as Martin Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam have also been examined.10 But in the former case, we learn only what people heard or read about the events, not whether or 8 Recently, Andrew Pettegree has demonstrated conclusively that in the early years of the Reformation, Martin Luther created new genres of literature and employed the media of print in new and unique ways and with great intentionality in the service of the Reformation cause. This investigation complements Pettegree’s discoveries by demonstrating that Luther and his colleagues likewise employed the resources at their disposal as longstanding members and leaders within the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians in the service of the Reformation. Pettegree, Brand Luther. 9 See note 1. 10 See note 1.

Introduction: The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany

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how they actually influenced belief and behaviour. And in the latter case, the impact of the executions on these intellectual elites takes on a different complexion when considered in light of the broader events of the conflict. This study will offer a deeper understanding of the variety of ways and the degree to which these events shaped the early Reformation. By integrating the story of the German Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany into the broader history of the early Reformation, this book transcends modern national boundaries that have artificially influenced our thinking about the past. In doing so, it helps restore one key component, a true watershed event, to the history of that movement. It further shows how, in this Augustinian context, the early Reformation was not a struggle between groups and individuals unknown to one another, but rather a battle between acquaintances and associates. Perhaps most importantly, however, it demonstrates that even in the earliest phases of the Reformation each side developed and employed strategies to promote its cause in concrete ways. Finally, it illustrates how, within this context at least, the Reformation grew naturally out of late medieval Augustinian efforts at reform – not with regard to the content of that reform, but with regard to its personnel and its strategies for diffusion.11 These discoveries bring us closer to the experience of the early Reformation while at the same time enabling us to acquire deeper insight into the dynamics and workings of that broad movement in its earliest phase. The final question this study will address is what this deeper understanding of these events reveals about the broader dynamics of the early Reformation. By “dynamics of the early Reformation” I mean how the Reformation functioned as both an elite and popular mass movement, an issue that includes such questions as: Who was disseminating Reformation ideas and how was such information transmitted? If we think in terms of the Reformation movement as having a centre and a periphery, how did the events in Lower Germany impact Luther’s thinking and that of his colleagues in Wittenberg? Were those individuals who were “on the periphery”, in this case the Augustinians of Lower Germany, pushing and shaping Luther’s thought, or were they merely mouthpieces for his ideas – and in light of the answer to this question, is it even legitimate to think in terms of a centre 11 As such, this study complements Eric Saak’s recent monograph, Luther and the Reformation. Saak specifically undertakes an investigation of Luther’s intellectual, theological, and personal development within the context of the Augustinian Order. This study addresses the development of the early Reformation, particularly with regards to its administration and diffusion, within the context of the Augustinian Order.

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and a periphery, or does some other model need to replace it? What does this case reveal about Martin Luther as a strategic leader of a movement? In short, this study will demonstrate that the experiences of the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, properly understood, open a new window into the workings of the early Reformation.

Works Cited Akerboom, Dick and Marcel Gielis, ‘“A New Song Shall Begin Here…”: The Martyrdom of Luther’s Followers among Antwerp’s Augustinians on July 1, 1523 and Luther’s Response’, in More than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity in the History of Christianity, ed. by Johan Leemans (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 243–270. Cameron, Euan, The European Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Casey, Paul F. ‘“Start Spreading the News” Martin Luther’s First Published Song’, in Renaissance and Reformation Studies: In Laudem Caroli for Charles G. Nauert, ed. by James V. Mehl, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, vol. 49 (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1998), pp. 75–94. Chadwick, Owen, The Early Reformation on the Continent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Clemen, Otto, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner–Kloster bei Beginn der Reformation (1513–1515)’, Monatshefte der Comenius-Gesellschaft 10 (1901), 306–313. ———, ‘Die Erster Märtyrer des evangelischen Glaubens’, Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte 1 (1900), 40–52. Duke, Alistair, ‘The Netherlands’ in The Early Reformation in Europe ed. by Andrew Pettegree (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 142–165. Gielis, Marcel, ‘Augustijnergeloof en Predikherengeloof: Het conflict tussen de reformatorische verkondiging van de Antwerpse augustijnen en de scholastieke leer van de Leuvense theologen (ca. 1520)’, Luther-Bulletin: Tijdschift voor interconfessioneel Lutheronderzoek 6 (1997), 46–57. Gregory, Brad S., Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Günther, Wolfgang, Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018). Hebenstreit-Wilfert, Hildegard, ‘Märtyrerflugschriften der Reformationszeit’, in Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit: Beiträge zum Tübinger Symposion 1980, ed. by Hans-Joachim Köhler (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1981), pp. 397–446.

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Hillerbrand, Hans, The Division of Christianity: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century (Louisville, KY: Westmister John Knox Press, 2007). Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904). Kaufmann, Thomas, Der Anfang der Reformation, Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation vol. 67 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012). Kolb, Robert, ‘God’s Gift of Martyrdom: The Early Reformation Understanding of Dying for the Faith’, Church History 64 (1995), 399–441. Kolde, Theodor, Die deutsche Augustiner-Kongregation und Johann von Staupitz (Gotha: F.A. Perthes, 1879). Kunzelmann, Adalbero, OSA, Geschichte der deutschen Augustinereremiten, 7 vols. (Würzburg: Augustinus Verlag, 1969–1976). Lindberg, Carter, The European Reformations, 2nd ed. (Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, [1996] 2010). MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Reformation. Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700 (London: Allen Lane, 2003). Moeller, Bernd and Stephen E. Buckwalter, eds., Die frühe Reformation in Deutschland als Umbruch (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998). Moeller, Bernd, ‘Inquisition und Martyrium in Flugschriften der frühen Reformation in Deutschland’, in Ketzerverfolgung im 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert, ed. by S. Seidel Menchi (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), pp. 21–48. Oettinger, Rebecca, Music as Propoganda in the German Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001). Pettegree, Andrew, Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation (New York: Penguin Press, 2015). ———, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Rössler, Martin, ‘Ein neues Lied wir heben an: Ein Protestsong Martin Luthers’, in Reformation und Praktische Theologie: Festschrift für Werner Jetter zum siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. by Hans Müller and Dietrich Rössler (Göttingen: Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), pp. 216–232. Rotscheidt-Mörs, Wilhelm, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner und die Wittenberger Reformation’, Monatshefte für Rheinische Kirchengeschichte 17 (1911), 33–58. Rublack, Ulinka, Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Saak, Erik, Luther and the Reformation of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Scott, Tom, The Early Reformation in Germany: Between Secular Impact and Radical Vision (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013).

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Scribner, Robert, ‘Why was there no Reformation in Cologne’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 49 (1976), 217–241. Tracy, James D., Europe’s Reformations 1450–1650 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). Vercruysse, Jos E., ‘De Antwerpse augustijnen en de lutherse Reformatie, 1513–1523’, Traiecta 16 (2007), 193–216. ———, ‘Was haben die Sachsen und die Flamen gemeinsam…?’, in Wittenberg als Bildungszentrum 1502–2002, ed. by Peter Freybe (Lutherstadt-Wittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 2002), pp. 9–32. Voets, B., ‘Hebben de Augustijnen van Enkhuizen invloed gehad op de Hervorming?’, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 39 (1952), 219–227. Wallace, Peter G., The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict, and the Search for Conformity, 1350–1750 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Wernicke, Michael (OSA), ‘Die Augustiner-Eremiten’, in Orden und Klöster im Zeitalter von Reformation und katholischer Reform 1500–1700’, Katholisches Leben und Kirchenreform im Zeitalter des Glaubensspaltung vol. 66, ed. by F. Jürgensmeier and R.E. Schwerdtfeger (Münster, Aschendorf, 2006), 2: pp. 52–76.

2.

The German Reformed Congregation and its Province of Lower Germany Abstract To fully appreciate the events leading to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, it is critical to understand the establishment, structure, and growth of the German Reformed Congregation of Augustinians (Observants) in the Holy Roman Empire during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In particular, close analysis of the Congregation’s expansion into Lower Germany in the 1510s, a result of encouragement by its leader, Johann von Staupitz, reveals a clear set of tactics at work. An awareness of this strategy establishes the foundation for one argument of this monograph: that having learned how the objectives of the Observant movement could be promoted and disseminated, Martin Luther and his colleagues repurposed these methods in the service of the Reformation. Key Words: Augustinian Order, Johann von Staupitz, Observant Movement, German Reformed Congregation, Hendrik van Zutphen (Heinrich von Zütphen), Johann van Mechelen

In order to understand the role played by the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany in the early Reformation, a brief overview of the history of the Augustinian Order, the origins of its German Reformed Congregation, and the Congregation’s administrative structure is necessary. Particularly relevant in this regard is an examination of the Congregation’s expansion into Lower Germany in the decade prior to the Reformation and specifically the tactics employed to increase its influence there, for it was these very strategies that would be appropriated and redeployed by Martin Luther and his colleagues to promote the Reformation via the Congregation’s administrative structures and educational procedures. Before the Congregation could become an instrument to disseminate Reformation ideas, however, its members first had to encounter and be convinced by those ideas. Therefore

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch02

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this chapter also addresses the basic content of Luther’s message at this early stage and the various means by which it spread through the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians.

A Brief History of the Augustinian Order and the Origins of the German Reformed Congregation The Order of Hermits of St. Augustine (Ordo Eremitarum Sancti Augustini; OESA) originated in Northern Italy in the mid-thirteenth century when a group of established hermitages adopted a structure similar to that of other mendicant orders, a decision confirmed by Pope Alexander IV in 1256. In that same year, one of the order’s members, Guido von Stagia, was sent north into the German-speaking lands with a copy of the papal bull, where he found a group of monasteries already bound together in an informal association and convinced them to become Augustinian Eremites. It was not long before the order comprised sixty houses, growing to eighty within the Holy Roman Empire alone by 1299.1 In that year, to facilitate its self-governance, the order’s Province of Germany (Provincia Alemaniae), as it was known, was divided into four parts: the Provinces of Cologne, Rhenish-Swabia, Bavaria, and Saxony. Each territory had its own Provincial, a leader who fell under the direct authority of the Prior General of the entire Augustinian Order. The Order’s rapid growth soon dissipated, however, leading some in it to conclude that the decline was due to lax adherence to the Augustinian rule. One historian has described the situation as follows: In the second half of the fourteenth century laxity in discipline permeated the Order. It demonstrated itself through the inadequate performance of personal poverty and [commitment to] the community of goods and in the prevalence of dispensations from canonical hours and the common table. This laxity was connected to the immeasurable loss of life during the plague years 1348–51 […]and to the lengthy split within the church and the Order during the Schism (1378–1414).2 1 Wernicke, ‘Die Augustiner Eremiten’, pp. 53–54. 2 ‘In der zweiten Hälfte des 14. Jh. trat bei den Augustinern weithin ein Erschlaffen der Ordenszucht zutage. Es zeigte sich in der mangelhaften Durchführung der persönlichen Armut und der Gütergemeinschaft und im Überhandnehmen der Dispense vom Chorgebet und gemeinsamen Tisch. Dieses Erschlaffen war mitbedingt durch die ungeheueren personellen Verluste in den Pestjahren 1348–51 [. . .] und durch die langdauernde Spaltung von Kirche und Orden während des Schismas (1378–1414).’ Zumkeller, ‘Augustiner-Eremiten’, p. 732.

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In consequence, the early fifteenth century saw the beginnings of a reform movement within the Order, part of a broader effort taking place among the mendicant and monastic orders and within the church more widely.3 In the context of monasticism, this reform movement was an effort to return to the strict observance of the rules and constitutions of their respective orders, essentially a conservative movement that looked back to a “golden age”.4 But more than that, ‘Observance’, as it was called, was an effort to realize ‘the essence of monasticism in all its facets to full effect.’5 Over time, this ideal of observance became a coherent movement that ultimately engendered modif ications in the various orders’ administrative structures. As one historian has noted, ‘there was a gradual and at first scarcely perceptible shift to the point at which strict observance as an ideal became an Observant movement, which in turn aspired to varying degrees of independence within the different orders, in some cases becoming almost an order within an order’.6 Within the Augustinian Order, it was the cloister at Lecceto in Tuscany where the Observant movement first took root; by 1400, a handful of houses had joined together to create the Congregation of Lecceto. In Germany, calls for closer observance to the Rule of St. Augustine throughout the second half of the fourteenth century led individual cloisters, such as Waldheim in Saxony (1404), to commit themselves to reform, but it was not until 1419 that a broader reform campaign within the Order began in the empire.7 By 1432, Gregory of Rimini, the Order’s Prior General and a supporter of Observance, had confirmed the Nuremberg prior, Heinrich Zolter, as Vicar for all Observant cloisters in the Order’s Province of Saxony – the first indication that an effort was underway to centralize and organize this movement in the German Augustinian cloisters.8 In 1433, Zolter was made prior of the Observant friary in Magdeburg, and at the same time was given the task of reforming the house in Nuremberg. Eventually he was 3 Katherine Walsh suggests, ‘Common to a number of religious orders of every genre in the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries was an Observant Movement of some form.’ Walsh, ‘Papacy and Local Reform: A)’, p. 35. 4 For a general introduction to the Observant movement as well as a helpful historiographical overview see Mixon, ‘Religious Life and Observant Reform’. 5 ‘[. . .] das Wesentliche des Mönchtums in allen seinen Teilen zur Wirkung.’ Weinbrenner, Klosterreform im 15. Jahrhundert, p. 48. This is also a key point made by Günther, namely that the reform movement among the Observants was not merely the return to a strict adherence to a set of rules, but the recapturing of a sense of unity and spiritual like-mindedness. Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 266–270. 6 Walsh, ‘Papacy and Local Reform: A)’, p. 36. 7 Zschoch, Klosterreform und monastische Spiritualität, p. 23. 8 Zschoch, Klosterreform und monastische Spiritualität, p. 33.

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able to procure a series of papal privileges that to some degree loosened the affiliations of these Observant houses to the administrative structures of Germany’s four provinces, but did not erase these connections entirely. To the Provincials of the German provinces, the easing of such ties was an act of provocation, an infringement of their authority, and they appealed to a series of the Order’s Priors General to eliminate any move towards autonomy among the Observants, believing rightly that such independence would shatter the unity of the order.9 But in 1459, Andreas Proles, a powerful personality and resolute champion of the Observance, convinced the Order’s newly elected Prior General, Alexander Oliva, to allow the reformed cloisters to hold their own chapter meeting every three years, a key step in emancipating them from the authority of the Provincials. This move would have established a clearly delineated and closely connected cohort of reformed houses within the Order (including Magdeburg, Himmelpforten, Waldheim, Dresden, and Königsberg in Franken), and although this concession was quickly rescinded, the seed of the idea now existed. In 1461, and again in 1473, Proles was elected Vicar General of these reformed houses, giving the Observant friaries their own leader and thereby edging them closer to autonomy. Proles worked hard to extend Observance within the Province of Saxony and beyond, winning new cloisters in the Order’s Provinces of Rhenish-Swabia and Bavaria. Often the reform of these friaries was initiated by the temporal authorities, with particular support in Saxony from Duke Wilhelm II, a major patron of the Observant movement.10 By Pentecost in 1497, those German Augustinian Eremite houses that had accepted the Observant movement had procured enough papal privileges – and therefore autonomy – to take part as full members in the General Chapter meeting of the entire Augustinian Order. Because its origins lay largely in the Saxon Province and many of its houses were located there, this group came to be known as the ‘German’ or ‘Saxon’ Reformed Congregation. In that same year, the Congregation achieved Proles’s goal when it held its own chapter meeting for the first time, the acts of which were then approved by the Prior General of the Order.11 The 9 Wernicke, ‘Die Augustiner Eremiten’, pp. 54–55. 10 For connections to Duke Wilhelm, and for a helpful overview of Proles’s efforts in general, see Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, p. 106. Günther, too, stresses the necessity and centrality of the support and backing of local temporal authorities for the successful reform of a cloister. See Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 30 and p. 77. 11 Chapter meetings generally occurred on a three-year rotation and were held at one of the Congregation’s cloisters. In attendance were the priors of the various houses, magisters, brothers with baccalaureate degrees, lectors, and others in its hierarchy. Members elected the Vicar

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German Reformed Congregation of Observant Augustinians had become its own entity and was recognized as such within the broader Augustinian community. When Proles became Vicar General of the Congregation, five Observant cloisters made up its roster. After three decades of intensive labour, now there were twenty-seven and the group had its own administrative structure.12 Still, the overall number of German Reformed Augustinians was not very large. In 1500, the year closest to the events of the early Reformation for which we have statistics, the total number of Augustinian Eremite houses in the Holy Roman Empire was 112, containing about 2,000 friars for an average of just under eighteen brothers per house.13 Of course there was great variation in the size of the houses, but if we use these numbers as a rough estimate, by 1500, when the Congregation had twenty-seven cloisters, the total number of German Augustinian Observants would have been around 480, and even in c. 1519 when the Congregation reached the height of its expansion, it probably never comprised more than about 500 members.14 In 1503, Proles’s successor, Johann von Staupitz, was elected Vicar General of the German Reformed Congregation. Staupitz quickly set about establishing a new constitution for the group and attempting to expand its influence. His chief strategy, a rather bold one, came to fruition in 1507 when he succeeded in having himself named as Provincial of the German Augustinian Province of Saxony, in addition to his position as Vicar General, thereby uniting the leadership of that Province with the leadership of the German Reformed Congregation. Staupitz believed that by doing this he might expand the reform movement to all of the Province’s cloisters.15 General, District Vicars from 1497 on, the visitors assigned to accompany the Vicar General, and assigned teachers to the Congregation’s various schools, decided which brothers should study and where, promulgated new rules, and addressed disciplinary issues. Also discussed were current theological and doctrinal issues (a chapter meeting usually included an academic disputation), as well as the administrative business of the Congregation. See Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 266–267. 12 Weinbrenner, Klosterreform im 15. Jahrhundert, p. 59. 13 Wernicke, ‘Die Augustiner-Eremiten’, p. 49. 14 Even this number may be high, as Günther suggests that the Augustinian Order deemed the preferred number of brothers living in a given house to be twelve. Reform und Reformation, p. 244. 15 That the objective of this union was ultimately to win more cloisters for the Observants is revealed in the cardinal legate’s bull confirming the union. There the legate clearly states that the hope is to silence the voices of dissent within the Observant Movement by winning more cloisters to their cause. Zumkeller, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’, p. 42. However, both Schneider and Günther have pointed out that the plan for union was not entirely a product of Staupitz’s efforts. The Provincial for Saxony-Thuringia, the Prior General of the Augustinian Order, and the Pope

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But the move set off a f ierce struggle between the Observants and the Conventuals, as Augustinians who were not part of the Observant movement were called. It also split the Observants themselves, many of whom thought that this strategy would dilute and therefore endanger the reform movement within the order.16 By 1511, opposition to this union was so strong that Staupitz abandoned his plan and laid down his role as Provincial of the Saxon Province. In May of 1512, at a chapter meeting in Cologne, he was confirmed by his Observant brethren as the Vicar General of the German Reformed Congregation. Outwardly at least, concord had been restored within the Congregation.17 It might be worthwhile to pause for a moment and examine the Observant movement more broadly, particularly as it relates to the argument being made here. As noted, it was based upon reform in its truest sense – an effort to return the Order to its spiritual foundations, to the rules and statutes prescribed for this way of life. Generally this did not involve new spiritual content, but rather stricter adherence to the Order’s Rule, and the curtailment of dispensations and exemptions from it. Even Staupitz’s Constitutiones of 1503, a new articulation of the regulations and practices of the Congregation, included little innovation, for as one historian has recently suggested, they ‘followed by and large the content of the Regensburg Constitutions [1290], while incorporating the Additions and clarifying specific points. [Just] as the original Constitutions of the Order, Staupitz’s new version consisted of fifty-one chapters, beginning with the celebration of matins’.18 In other words, Staupitz’s new document was by and large an elaboration, rather than an alteration, of the traditional documents governing the Order. None of this is to say, however, that the Observant movement lacked a spiritual dimension: closer observance of the rule was not meant to be merely a practice in dutiful obedience, but a true change in mentality to the pristine fervour of the Order’s founders.19 It was an effort to reinvigorate and re-enliven the original monastic ideal. Complicating matters was the relationship between Observants and Conventuals in the Order. In many cases, Conventual priors carried out all were party to these efforts. Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 286–356; and Schneider, ‘Martin Luthers Reise nach Rom’, pp. 38–45. 16 Zumkeller, ‘Martin Luther und sein Orden’, p. 265. 17 Eric Saak has demonstrated that the conflict left lasting scars within the Congregation, particularly with regard to Luther himself. See Saak, Luther and the Reformation, pp. 203–213. 18 Saak, Luther and the Reformation, p. 70. 19 For a helpful discussion of the Observant ideal see Weinbrenner, Klosterreform im 15. Jahrhundert, especially pp. 24–49.

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their own reform programmes, returning to stricter adherence to the Rule in their own cloisters, but without joining the Observants and their Congregation.20 And often there were communications and positive interactions between the Conventuals and Observants.21 Although there did appear to be a distinct Observant “mentality”, essential differences between the two groups should not be overstated. Often tensions came down to issues of administration and influence. As the German Reformed Congregation amassed privileges, increased its independence from the Provincials, and broadened its geographic scope, it came to be seen as a challenge to the institutional structures of the Order’s Provinces. Any effort at expansion by the Congregation, therefore, required some political manoeuvring and strategic thinking to overcome significant opposition.

Strategies to Expand Observant Influence in Lower Germany Although Staupitz’s efforts at unifying the Conventual Province of Saxony with the Observant German Reformed Congregation failed, there were other ways to win cloisters to the Observant movement and the Vicar General soon undertook new efforts in this regard. By the early sixteenth century, the German Reformed Congregation had divided itself administratively into two Provinces, the Province of Saxony-Thuringia and the Province of Upper Germany, each with its own leader, who took the title of District Vicar and reported directly to the Vicar General.22 During Staupitz’s time as Vicar General (1503–1520), six houses were added to the Congregation: one in Eisleben, Martin Luther’s birthplace, located in the Province of Saxony-Thuringia; one in Rappoltsweiler (modern day Ribeauvillé, Alsace), situated in the Province of Upper Germany; and four in Lower Germany. Tensions between the Observants and the Provincial of the Rhine-Swabian Province led to Rappoltsweiler’s addition to the Congregation. There the prior and brothers were reportedly living lascivious lives, prompting local 20 Weinbrenner, Klosterreform im 15. Jahrhundert, pp. 86–98. 21 The fact that many Conventual Augustinians attended the University of Wittenberg, a bastion of the Observants, indicates that we should not see the relationship between the two groups as necessarily antithetical. Moreover there are many examples of excellent rapport between individuals of each group. For example, see the friendship between the Observant Hendrik van Zutphen and Conventual Prior of the Osnabrück cloister and Provincial of the Province of Saxony-Thuringia, Gerhard Hecker. Jung, ‘Gerhard Hecker und die Anfänge’. 22 The terms Provincial Vicar and Regional Vicar were often used for this position as well. See Wilhelm Winterhager, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars’.

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authorities to appeal to the emperor, who commanded the Provincial to reform the cloister. When he failed to do so, the issue was brought to the newly elected pope, Leo X.23 While in Rome in early 1513, in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg and to attend the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517), Staupitz had the opportunity to consult both the pope and the Augustinian Order’s Prior General, Aegidius de Viterbo, about various issues facing the Congregation. As a result of these conversations, in 1514 Pope Leo attached the house at Rappoltsweiler to the German Reformed Congregation.24 The addition of the Eisleben house, founded in 1515, follows a clearer rationale. The count of the Territory of Mansfeld (in which Eisleben lay), Albrecht IV, was in the process of expanding one of the city’s quarters, the Neustadt. His decision to do so was not uncontroversial, so the establishment of a monastic house there was one way in which to validate the new quarter’s creation and ensure its continued existence. What is more, the counts of Mansfeld were firmly in the orbit of nearby Ducal and Electoral Saxony, the heartland of the German Reformed Congregation and its patrons. Count Albrecht especially had close ties to Elector Frederick the Wise, who demonstrated his support for the German Reformed Augustinians by founding a Reformed Augustinian cloister and university simultaneously in Wittenberg in 1502, and calling on Johann von Staupitz, soon to become Vicar General of the Congregation, to play a major role in the establishment of both.25 One historian has speculated that Luther himself, a native of Eisleben, may even have suggested to his sovereign that he establish a Reformed Augustinian cloister there, the dedication of which Luther would eventually attend along with Staupitz.26 There were thus ample reasons to found the house in Eisleben Neustadt as a member of the German Reformed Congregation.27 More unexpected, however, is the Congregation’s expansion in Lower Germany. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Congregation had a handful of member cloisters there – friaries in Haarlem, Enkhuizen, and Enghien. But beginning in 1509 the Congregation added more houses, 23 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 339. 24 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 5, p. 470. 25 In fact, the friendship between Frederick the Wise and Staupitz probably went back to the time the two men spent together as students at the University of Leipzig. Zumkeller, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’, p. 32. 26 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 347. 27 For historical connections between Count Albrecht and Ernestine Saxony see Christman, Doctrinal Controversy and Lay Religiosity, pp. 25–34. For a more complete description of the circumstances surrounding the foundation of the Eisleben house see Winterhager, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars’, pp. 734–738.

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including Cologne (1509), Antwerp (1513), Ghent (sometime around 1515), and Dordrecht (1516). Details of the means by which these various friaries were convinced to join are discussed below, but this rapid expansion into Lower Germany suggests that Staupitz had that region in his sights.28 Opportunities for further growth in the Congregation’s heartland of Saxony-Thuringia appear to have diminished, and in Upper Germany, the Congregation was in the process of contracting: Staupitz was forced to watch as the Congregation’s cloisters in Tübingen, Eßlingen, Weil der Stadt, Alzey, and Heidelberg returned to the authority of the Provincial of Rhenish-Swabia.29 But Lower Germany offered a new field of endeavour, and during this period Staupitz worked hard to win houses there to the Observant Augustinians’ cause and confirm their commitment to reform.30 It is surely no accident that he chose the newly-added Cologne house as the site for the Congregation’s 1512 chapter meeting, and in 1511, 1514, and 1516 made extended visits to the Congregation’s houses in Lower Germany.31 As a result of its rapid growth in this region, in 1514 the Congregation established a new province, the Province of Lower Germany, and chose a new District Vicar to administer it, bringing the number of the Congregation’s Provinces and District Vicars to three.32 Thus for the Reformed Augustinian Congregation, Lower Germany was the new frontier. Nor is it surprising that such rapid expansion in Lower Germany met with signif icant opposition. This came from a variety of quarters, but 28 Both Günther and Kolde emphasize the allure that expansion into the Netherlands had on Staupitz, particularly after some of his other initiatives failed. Günther suggests that it was an ideal location because there had not yet been any reform initiatives there, and the self-confident citizens of its flourishing cities desired pious and committed monastics. Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 342. Kolde merely states that from 1512 on, ‘Staupitz beschränkte sich darauf, in der rheinisch-schwäbisch und der kölnischen Provinz neue Convente zu erwerben.’ Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, p. 242. 29 Zumkeller, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’, p. 44. For an excellent explanation of this event, see Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 320–324 and pp. 335–341. 30 Günther attributes the Congregation’s success in Lower Germany to a combination of the following: the longstanding efforts by the cloisters of the Cologne Province to evade reform, which had produced a sort of log-jam that now broke; the increasing number of highly qualified friars from the Low Countries, who had studied in Wittenberg and now returned home; and the support of Charles and his regent, Margaret of Austria, for the Congregation. Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 345. While I certainly concur with these explanations, as I will outline in the following pages, I also see an intentional and strategic effort made by Staupitz and the hierarchy of the German Reformed Congregation to expand their influence in Lower Germany. 31 Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, p. 230 and pp. 268–269. 32 These were the Districts of Saxony-Thuringia, Upper Germany, and Lower Germany. Winterhager, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars’, p. 728.

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within the Augustinian Order itself, things became most heated within the Cologne Province, the Conventual province that overlay most closely the German Reformed Congregation’s new Province of Lower Germany. There a fierce struggle was already underway between the Observants and the Conventuals. Reform was deemed necessary by all, but the Conventuals were attempting to push through their own brand before the Observants had a chance to win more cloisters to the German Reformed Congregation. On 23 August 1518, for example, the new Prior General of the Augustinian Order, Gabriel de Venezia, urged reform on the Provincial of the Cologne Province as the only means to escape the control of the Observants.33 On 21 December 1521, Venezia again wrote to the Cologne Provincial announcing that he was willing, with help of papal authority, to support the Province against the expanding power of the Observants (who, as he put it, regularly seized cloisters for themselves) and to try to retrieve those cloisters that had been lost to the Observants.34 Staupitz’s success in extending Observant reform in the face of such resistance raises the question of just how he was able to win these houses to the Congregation’s cause, a question all the more relevant when it becomes clear that the tactics he developed would later be seamlessly adopted by his successors in the service of the Reformation.35 One strategy he employed was to persuade an individual cloister’s patrons of the benefits of Observance. Once they were convinced, Staupitz himself or some other committed Observant was sent to carry out the reform. A second tactic, often used in conjunction with the first, was to place friends and protégés in yet to be reformed Augustinian houses, with the hope that they would enlist their fellow friars (and ultimately the house’s patrons) in Observant reform. Of course once “reformed” there was always the possibility that the brothers in a particular house would lapse into their former ways. As a result, it was necessary to carry out repeated visitations in order to ensure adherence to reform, and to seed newly reformed friaries with priors and brothers committed to the Observant cause. This necessity led to a third strategy, namely to send young recruits from recently reformed houses to Wittenberg 33 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 7, p. 15. 34 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 7, p. 15. By this point, the papacy may well have been responding to the Observants’ close connections to Reformation impulses. 35 It is worth noting that while much excellent work has been done on the reform efforts of late medieval Augustinianism and on Staupitz’s theological influence on Martin Luther, little attention has been paid to the Vicar General’s concrete endeavours to expand Augustinian Observantism and how they may have impacted Luther. One exception is Posset, The Front-Runner.

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(which had been designated by Staupitz as the preferred location of study for promising young brothers), before returning them to their original cloisters to support the Observant cause there.36 He also sent young Wittenberg recruits to other houses to study, particularly to Cologne, the Congregation’s only cloister outside of Wittenberg and Erfurt with its own studium generale, a preparatory school for the Congregation’s young friars who had been selected to attend university.37 A fourth strategy was simply to found new cloisters as Observant houses, as was the case with the house in Eisleben. A brief survey of how the cloisters that would come to comprise the Province of Lower Germany entered the Congregation, particularly those that joined while Staupitz was Vicar General, demonstrates these tactics in action. The recruitment of the houses in Enghien, Haarlem, and Enhuizen, already members of the Congregation before Staupitz’s time, illustrates the first beginnings of a German Reformed Augustinian strategy for expansion. In all three cases, these cloisters were relatively new members when Staupitz rose to the position of Vicar General. The house at Enghien (Edingen), founded in the mid-thirteenth century, was among the earliest Augustinian Eremite houses. Not much is known about the early years of its existence, in large part because in 1474 a fire destroyed all of its original founding documents. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, however, it became a renowned pilgrimage site honouring St. Nicholas of Tolentino, complete with a lay brotherhood dedicated to the saint, established in 1490 in response to the entreaties of the townsfolk.38 Even so, the cloister never appears to have been particularly large. Precisely when it joined the Reformed Congregation and under what circumstances remains a mystery. But in 1521, the Vicar General of the German Reformed Congregation and his assistant carried out a visitation there, so by that time the friary was clearly part of that Congregation.39 Since its addition is not mentioned at any point in the early sixteenth century, it stands to reason that it must have happened before 36 Posset, The Front-Runner, p. 71. In fact, Staupitz made every effort to encourage young Augustinians to study in Wittenberg, recruiting thirteen of them in time for the University’s first semester (Winter 1502/1503). And in the twenty-year period from its founding until 1522, around 160 Augustinians studied at the University of Wittenberg. Schneider, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’ Amtsverszicht’, p. 187. 37 Because all friars were expected to know some theology, each house had its own studium locale. But selected cloisters also had a studium generale for those brothers designated to proceed to advanced studies, usually in university cities and closely associated with their respective universities. 38 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 4, p. 122. 39 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 7, p. 401; Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, p. 365.

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Staupitz became Vicar General. Of all the houses of the Reformed Province of Lower Germany, however, it appears to have had the least connection to the Protestant Reformation. Perhaps its position as a place of pilgrimage, its close association with a saint, and the support among the populace for these pious practices helped insulate it from Reformation impulses. Likewise, it is unclear precisely when the Enkhuizen house joined the Congregation, but it must have occurred at the very end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century, shortly after the founding of the cloister, which was initiated by three members of a patrician family and confirmed on 16 January 1498 by Pope Alexander VI.40 Perhaps it was under the auspices of Johann van Mechelen, who was prior there for some years before matriculating at the University of Wittenberg in 1507 and receiving his diploma as Doctor of Theology in 1511. When van Mechelen joined the order is unknown, but by 1500 he was already lector of the house in Dordrecht, and even before his time in Wittenberg it appears that van Mechelen was a proponent of Observant reform.41 By 1512, upon van Mechelen’s return from Wittenberg to his post as prior, the cloister was firmly in the orbit of the Observants. It was also at that point that van Mechelen truly began to labour in the service of the Observant cause, a cause for which he would become the Congregation’s greatest champion in the Low Countries. To this end, van Mechelen immediately sent a young recruit to his alma mater, the first of two young friars from Enkhuizen who would study in Wittenberg during the 1510s. 42 A close friend and supporter of Staupitz – who in 1514 named him prior of the new house in Antwerp43 – van Mechelen would also play a role in bringing Observant reform to the house in Dordrecht. Although van Mechelen would eventually break with Luther and the Reformation, he was by far the highest profile and most broadly engaged supporter of the Observant reform in Lower Germany, and he represents the earliest instance of a friar from Lower Germany matriculating in Wittenberg before returning to his homeland to advance the cause of the Observants there. 40 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 238; Clemen, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner-Kloster’, p. 306; and Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, p. 147. Kunzelmann says regarding the work of Proles: ‘At the beginning of the sixteenth century there were already two cloisters in the Low Countries that considered themselves to be part of the Saxon Congregation, those in Haarlem and Enkhuizen.’ ‘Auch in den Niederlanden gab es am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts zwei Klöster, die sich zur sächsischen Kongregation bekannten, das zu Haarlem und das zu Enkhuizen.’ Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 5, p. 432. 41 Duinen, Een augustijnenklooster van aanzien, p. 126. 42 Bünger and Gottfried, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, p. 446. 43 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 4, p. 181.

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As noted, one way to expand the number of houses and the influence of the German Reformed Congregation was to establish new cloisters as Observant houses, an attractive prospect given the difficulties in reforming an existing house. 44 The foundation of the house in Haarlem is one such case, although the history of its origins survives in two slightly different versions. One variation suggests that in 1490, led by members of the Guild of St. James, the citizenry of Haarlem decided to establish a house of Augustine Eremites. 45 Their initial impulse was to request that some friars from the Dordrecht house be sent to seed the new cloister, since Haarlem lay within Dordrecht’s district. Negotiations were begun, but when the Haarlem city fathers discovered that the Dordrecht cloister had not yet been reformed, they broke off the talks, turning instead to Saxony and asking the Observants there for help in their endeavour. This move angered the Dordrecht friars, who were unenthusiastic about the presence of an Observant cloister in their backyard, creating a dispute between Dordrecht and Haarlem that would drag on for years. Johann van Mechelen represented the Congregation’s interests. In 1492 the Cologne Provincial sided with the Haarlem city fathers, and Dordrecht was forced to concede part of its district to the new Observant house. 46 In 1493, the cloister was first inhabited, purportedly by a group of Reformed Augustinians from Saxony – seven priests and two lay brothers – who were given a warm welcome to the city and proceeded to settle in the new house.47 The second version of the founding story suggests that, on the contrary, the first monks did indeed come from the Dordrecht house, arriving on 20 October 1489, and that the German Reformed Congregation acquired the Haarlem house and first sent the above-mentioned Observant friars there in 1493. 48 In any case, the house was populated at least in part by Saxon Observants, and Haarlem sent one student to study in Wittenberg in 1507. 49 The histories of these three houses indicate that, even before Staupitz became Vicar General of the German Reformed Congregation, the ties to and influence of Saxony played a role in the expansion of the Congregation. Under Staupitz, who held a professorship at the University of Wittenberg, these efforts would continue and multiply, for the Vicar General was a man with great ambitions for the Congregation and significant experience in 44 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 252. 45 Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 237–238. 46 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 4, p. 147. 47 Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, pp. 147–148. 48 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 4, pp. 177–178. 49 Bünger and Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, p. 446.

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ecclesiastical affairs and temporal administration. Whether it was securing funding for the new University, negotiating advantageous agreements with princes, prelates, and city councils, procuring a wife for the Elector Frederick the Wise, or ‘displaying irregularity and disobedience’ by annexing various houses to the German Reformed Congregation despite being explicitly prohibited from doing so, the Vicar General knew how to operate.50 Thus when the Cologne city council, in their capacity as patrons and protectors of the Augustinian cloister there, wrote to Staupitz on 27 January 1509 asking for his help to reform it, he did not hesitate. He travelled personally to Cologne, where he installed as prior Johannes Huysden, a close friend and a supporter of Observance, a move that would successfully bring the cloister under the auspices of the German Reformed Congregation.51 Against the wishes of the Prior General of the Augustinian Order, who twice commanded the Provincial of the Cologne Province to eject all Observant friars from the cloister, and to replace the prior and other officials there, Staupitz simply annexed the cloister to the Congregation.52 Soon thereafter, the Wittenberg cloister began sending students to Cologne’s studium generale, with four attending in 1516.53 In return, the Cologne house sent students to the University of Wittenberg, at least one of whom, Heinrich Himmel, would return home five years later to play a key role in disseminating Reformation ideas there.54 The exchange of individuals and ideas had begun.55 The situation in Dordrecht followed a similar pattern. The Congregation’s initial activities there are obscure, but of their efforts to bring the house under their control there can be no doubt, since in 1514 the Prior General of the Augustinian Order was already finding it necessary to order the 50 For a sample of the scope and nature of Staupitz’s manoeuvring, see Posset, The FrontRunner, esp. pp. 102–129, here at p. 126. Günther assesses Staupitz’s political, ecclesiastical, and administrative abilities more negatively, pointing out the repeated failure of his plans, which he puts down to an inability to think strategically over long periods of time. Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 286. However, he also admits that over his lifetime, Staupitz was able to achieve experience as an administrator and visitor, become a capable diplomat, and have considerable success as a negotiator. Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 343. My point is not so much to assess Staupitz’s success or failure, but merely to point out that he was deeply involved in political and administrative efforts to expand the Congregation’s influence. 51 Rotscheidt-Mörs, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner’, p. 33. 52 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 343; and Posset, The Front-Runner, p. 106. 53 Rotscheidt-Mörs, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner’, p. 37. 54 See chapter 8. 55 Kalkoff seems to go a step further, claiming that Staupitz sent ‘zealous brothers’ (strebsamen Brüdern) from all over Germany to the Congregation’s newly added cloister in Cologne. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 2, p. 53.

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Congregation’s leadership to desist from bothering the brothers there.56 The accompanying threat of excommunication seems to have had little impact, for the following year the University of Wittenberg-trained Augustinian and Dutchman, Hendrik van Zutphen, was sent by the Congregation to the as yet unreformed Dordrecht house. Having matriculated at Wittenberg in 1508 where he had been a student of Staupitz, and then having spent time as sub-prior in the newly-reformed house in Cologne, van Zutphen was in a good position to represent the Observants’ interests in Dordrecht. Shortly after his arrival there, the Dordrecht city council, in their capacity as the house’s patrons, wrote to Staupitz asking him to reform the cloister. As a result, in October of 1516 the Dordrecht house joined the German Reformed Congregation, a move undoubtedly attributable in large part to the work of van Zutphen, whom Staupitz now named the house’s prior.57 There were, however, other reforming influences on this friary. Theodor Kolde has suggested that the desire for reform must also be attributed to the zeal of Johann van Mechelen. It was van Mechelen, claims Kolde, who was able to persuade the Dordrecht city council that the house be reformed.58 However, whether van Mechelen from outside or van Zutphen from inside (or a combination of the two) should be given credit is of secondary importance.59 The point is that, regardless of which man convinced the city council that the Dordrecht cloister should be reformed, the same dynamics were at work. Natives of the Low Countries who had studied in Wittenberg were sent back to their homeland to represent the interests and expand the influence of the Observant movement there. In turn, shortly after joining the German Reformed Congregation, the cloister in Dordrecht began sending students to Wittenberg – one in 1518, another in 1520 – thereby strengthening ties between the two houses. As with the Cologne cloister, however, Dordrecht’s decision to join the Congregation was met with resistance by the Conventuals. Even as early as 1514, when initial efforts were made to win the cloister to the Observance, the Prior General of the Augustinian Order threatened 56 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 344. 57 Hoop-Scheffer, Geschichte der Reformation, p. 71. 58 Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, pp. 275–276. 59 Günther puts the reform of the Dordrecht cloister down to a request from the young Hapsburg prince Charles, who was not yet emperor, but already a duke of Burgundy and King of Spain. In his correspondence register from August 1516, the Prior General of the Augustinian Order indicates that Charles expressed a desire that the cloister be given over to the ‘reform prior’, by which Staupitz is meant. Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 344–345. The king’s request certainly was a key factor in the Dordrecht cloister’s joining the Congregation, but I believe it is a mistake to dismiss van Zutphen’s and van Mechelen’s manoeuvring in the process.

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the Observants with excommunication ‘should they continue to harass the Augustinians in Dordrecht’.60 Ultimately, however, the Observants triumphed. The precise means by which the remaining houses of the Congregation’s Province of Lower Germany became reformed is not always this clear, but they likely followed paths similar to Cologne and Dordrecht. In the case of Ghent, Pope Leo X was involved directly. In letters dated 28 September 1514 sent to the Provincial of the Cologne Province and the Vicar General of the German Reformed Congregation (i.e., Staupitz) respectively, Leo related that he had heard evil tidings regarding the moral failings of the friars in Ghent. The Order’s rule was not being carefully followed there, and this had led to strife with the citizenry. Fifteen years earlier, the pope claimed, the Cologne Provincial had already attempted to reform that house, but the brothers there would not allow it. They had simply expelled the Provincial from their house. Under threat of punishment, the pope now demanded a strict reform, warning that if they failed, he would involve the temporal authorities. He commanded that those brothers who refused to accept reform be ordered to leave the house, and Observants brought in to take their places.61 The Prior General of the Augustinian Order also weighed in, backing up the pope’s demands. In a letter dated 8 October 1514, he commanded the Vicar General and the Cologne Provincial to reform the cloister in accordance with the will of the pope. Having been assigned the task, and despite the fact that the pope had explicitly stated that he did not want this action used as a pretext to remove the Ghent house from the oversight of the Cologne Provincial, Staupitz was able to incorporate it into the German Reformed Congregation by simply annexing it.62 Precisely when this happened is unclear, but it must have been before 1520, since in that year the Congregation sent one of its own to be prior in Ghent and four brothers from Ghent went to study in Wittenberg.63 60 ‘[F]alls sie die Augustiner in Dordrecht weiterhin belästigen’. Zumkeller, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’, p. 45. 61 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 7, p. 137. In 1493 the Prior General of the Order had indeed attempted to reform the Ghent cloister. On 17 August, 1493, he had written to the Cologne Provincial warning him that at the request of the city fathers, he had until the next Easter to reform the cloister or he promised them he would give the task to the Vicar General of the Saxon Province. Apparently the requested reform never took place. Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 5, p. 429. 62 Posset, The Front-Runner, p. 126. Günther suggests that the city fathers had probably already asked that the cloister be put under the jurisdiction of the Congregation, and that request gave Staupitz the necessary pretext to annex it. Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 344. 63 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 7, p. 138.

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The establishment of the Antwerp house once again demonstrates Johann van Mechelen’s role as chief representative of the Observants’ interests in Lower Germany, not to mention the Congregation’s concerted efforts to expand into the Low Countries. Sources suggest that as prior of Enkhuizen van Mechelen forged a plan to found a sister-house in Antwerp, convincing two wealthy citizens there to sell the Congregation a plot of land.64 Brother George Stephanus was sent from Enkhuizen to Antwerp as the leader of a small group of Observant Augustinians, who began to lay the groundwork. Because it is so central to the larger story, the founding of the Antwerp house will be addressed more fully in the next chapter, but for now suffice it to say that its origins were not without controversy, for this little group of Augustinians soon ran into conflict with the powerful local canons of the Church of Our Lady. Eventually, this disagreement was resolved and in 1514 Staupitz installed van Mechelen as prior of the newly established Antwerp house, at the same time naming him District Vicar of the Congregation’s new Province of Lower Germany.65 Among the seven brothers who accompanied van Mechelen to Antwerp was Johann van den Esschen. His presence on the list of the house’s original members is the first surviving reference to the friar who, less than a decade later, would be burned at the stake.66 Between 1516 and 1520, van Mechelen and his successor would send six students from the Antwerp cloister to study in Wittenberg.67 By c. 1516, the German Reformed Congregation had established itself in the Low Countries, carving out the reasonably coherent Province of Lower Germany with its own District Vicar and with seven member houses. The strategies they used to win established friaries to the Reformed Congregation and to create new houses were not unique to the territories of Lower Germany, but can be seen, for example, in the Eisleben friary as well. They relied heavily on the placement of enthusiastic and energetic individuals in key positions, and on the recruitment of young friars to pursue studies in Wittenberg before returning to their home cloisters in Lower Germany to represent the Observant cause. This constant rotation of individuals from one Reformed Congregation house to another deserves to be underscored, for the deck, it seems, was reshuffled with some regularity. It is especially clear from the Congregation’s assignment of priorships that the individuals who held them were continually 64 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 346. 65 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 5, pp. 505–506. 66 Clemen, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner-Kloster’, p. 306. 67 Vercruysse, ‘Was haben die Sachsen’, p. 13.

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being redeployed, often every three years as a result of decisions made at the Congregation’s chapter meetings. A few individuals who will be introduced more fully in later chapters provide examples of this phenomenon. Melchior Miritsch was named prior in Wittenberg in 1509, Cologne in 1512, Dresden in 1519, Ghent in 1520, and Magdeburg in 1522. Wenceslaus Linck would be prior in Wittenberg from 1511 to 1515, preacher in Nuremberg from 1517 to 1520, and finally Vicar General of the Congregation from 1520 to 1523. Johann van Mechelen was named prior in Enkhuizen in 1507, Antwerp in 1514, and Dordrecht in 1520. Hendrik van Zutphen would become sub-prior in Cologne in 1514, prior in Dordrecht in 1516, and prior in Antwerp in 1522. And Jacob Probst was almost certainly prior in Wittenberg from 1515 to 1518, before becoming prior in Antwerp from 1518 to 1521.68 One scholar has suggested that Staupitz moved individuals to various positions within the Congregation like ‘pawns on a chess board’.69 No direct evidence for why particular individuals were installed in specific positions exists, but it is not difficult to see a clear rationale at work in many cases. Van Mechelen, a man who had studied under Staupitz, possessed considerable experience as prior in Enkhuizen, and as a native of the Low Countries seems the obvious choice to be the first prior of the house in Antwerp. His successor, Jacob Probst, also came from the Low Countries, had studied in Wittenberg and been prior of the house there for three years before being sent back to the Low Countries to lead the Antwerp cloister. Such assignments display a clear logic, and it does not take much imagination to deduce that certain individuals were probably prepared intentionally for specific positions. In fact, Staupitz’s habit of grooming promising individuals for key positions is well-known, not least in the case of Martin Luther himself, who at the insistence of the Vicar General began the intensive study of the Bible, attended university, became a Doctor of Theology, and finally took over Staupitz’s own position as Professor of Theology at the University of Wittenberg.70 And even if the rationale for such placements is not always clear, two aspects of Staupitz’s system are: first, these appointments were 68 Bünger and Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, esp. pp. 460–499. 69 Saak, Luther and the Reformation, p. 207. Here Saak is talking in particular about Staupitz’s placement of individuals who had opposed his plan to become both Provincial of the Saxon Province and Vicar General of the German Reformed Congregation simultaneously. 70 Heiko Oberman has argued that such ‘person politics’, the strategic placement of specific individuals into positions of power and influence for the purpose of a larger cause, was the method used by Staupitz in 1512 when he had Wenceslaus Link named prior of the friary in Wittenberg, and Martin Luther named as sub-prior and Regent of the studium generale. Oberman, Martin Luther, p. 154.

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made by either the Vicar General alone or in conjunction with the advice of representatives of various houses attending the Congregation’s chapter meetings. In other words, priors were not necessarily elected by members of a given cloister; rather they were appointed. And second, the movement of these men from one post to another was an intentional aspect of the Congregation’s structure and administration.71 But simply carrying out the reform of a friary at the level of its leader did not necessarily ensure that it remained reformed or that it retained close connections to the Congregation. Lasting change required that all friars in the house were committed to the Observant cause. It comes as no surprise that in some of the newly reformed houses in Lower Germany divisions remained between brothers who supported the Observants and those more inclined towards the Conventuals. As a result, the hierarchy of the Reformed Augustinians also “seeded” new cloisters with at least a few staunch Observant brothers, as demonstrated in the foundation of the Haarlem house and alluded to in the pope’s threat to remove all Conventuals and replace them with Observants in the Ghent house. The point is that by c. 1520, the hierarchy of the German Reformed Congregation had developed a variety of strategies by which to expand its influence to new cloisters and to promote Observance within them. But most important for the current discussion is the fact that all of these strategies could be repurposed by proponents of the Reformation to promote Luther’s teachings within the Congregation. However, the question arises as to when the Congregation’s efforts to encourage Observant Augustinianism were transformed into support for the Reformation, and whether it was even clear to those involved when reform of the order became the Reformation of the Church.72

The Dissemination of Luther’s Ideas within the Congregation Before addressing the dissemination of Luther’s ideas within the Congregation, it is important to emphasize that the argument here is not that the content of 71 According to the Augustinian Order’s Regensburg Constitution, a cloister in need of a new prior proposed three candidates, and at the Provincial chapter meeting, one was chosen. The appointed prior then remained at his post until the next chapter meeting either removed him, or placed him as prior in another cloister. Günther, Reform and Reformation, p. 29. I am suggesting that within the German Reformed Congregation, however, Staupitz played a leading role in the placement of priors. 72 Much outstanding work has been done on this topic, most recently by Eric Saak. See his Highway to Heaven and Luther and the Reformation.

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the reform advocated by the promoters of Observance is causally connected or even necessarily related to the content of Luther’s Reformation. In fact, as Eric Saak has recently pointed out, in his first course of lectures on the Psalms (Dictata super Psalterium, 1513–1515), Luther had already ‘launched out against the monastic observant movement, which included the observant branch of his own order […] Luther claimed that such “do not truly understand that they are justified in Christ alone, not in their own works.”’73 What is more, continues Saak, regarding Luther’s time as District Vicar, ‘the term ‘reformation’ is not found in his letters. He never exhorted a single monastery to reformation. He never exhorted a single monastery as such to live more in accordance with the Rule and Constitutiones [of the Order and Congregation respectively]. There is no religionization attempt seen in Luther’s letters. There is no evidence he attempted to apply Giles of Viterbo’s reformation to his district’.74 So the point here is not that the content of Observance and Luther’s Reformation are directly linked. Rather it is that the expanding network of Observant houses, though they were indeed a seedbed for Luther’s ideas, more importantly provided an audience, administrative structure, and networking assets that could be applied to the dissemination of his ideas. As a conduit for Luther’s ideas, the Congregation was ideally organized and the variety of positions he held within it optimized his opportunities to circulate his views. Luther’s roles within the Congregation and his education in its ways will be discussed more fully in Chapter Four, but for now it is enough to highlight a few aspects. The frequent rotation of personnel throughout the Congregation’s cloisters – but more importantly, to and from Wittenberg – ensured that personal contacts could be an important means of spreading ideas. From its foundation in 1502 up to 1522, around 160 Augustinians studied at the University of Wittenberg.75 In his role as Professor of the Bible, from 1512 onwards, Luther would have encountered many of the best and brightest young minds that the Order and Congregation had to offer. In fact, by 1517 Luther would write to his friend Johannes Lang, ‘By the work of God, our theology and St. Augustine continue to prosper and reign in our university’,76 a reference to the curricular reforms beginning to take place at the University of Wittenberg. These reforms favoured a more humanistic study of languages and the Bible over Aristotle 73 Luther, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke (=WA), 3:155, quoted in Saak, Luther and the Reformation, p. 121. 74 Saak, Luther and the Reformation, p. 213. 75 Schneider, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’ Amtsverszicht’, p. 187. 76 ‘Theologia nostra et S. Augustinus prospere procedunt et regnant in nostra universitate Deo operante.’ Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr), 1.99.

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and scholastic theology, changes that institutionalized instruction in the disciplines upon which Luther’s positions were built.77 But Luther would also have connected with many of these students in his position as head of the Wittenberg’s cloister’s studium generale, a position he held from 1512 onwards; this was one of three such schools within the Congregation preparing gifted young Reformed Augustinians for entrance to university. In short, Luther’s academic career brought him into direct contact with many of the Congregation’s most gifted friars and future “influencers”. Moreover, he also held the title of District Vicar for the Congregation’s Province of Saxony-Thuringia from 1515 to 1518, a position that put him in charge of eleven cloisters and required him to perform visitations to each of them, further expanding his potential to influence their members with his views. Finally, it seems probable that his writings would have found an especially wide circulation within the membership of his own group.

The Heidelberg Chapter Meeting (1518) In his monograph Luther and the Reformation of the Later Middle Ages, Eric Saak argues that Luther’s Reformation breakthrough, his discovery of salvation by faith alone through grace, occurred squarely within the context of late medieval Augustinianism and essentially remained within the bounds of orthodoxy, even if various groups within the church opposed it immediately. It was only in February of 1520, when Luther came to the conclusion that the papacy was illegitimate and the Roman Church the administration of the Antichrist, that the real break with Rome occurred.78 Although Saak’s distinction raises some questions, if we take it as generally accurate, then an important means by which Luther spread the soteriological components of his thought would have been at the Congregation’s chapter meeting in Heidelberg in 1518. There Staupitz had decided to allow Luther to present his views in a disputation that took place in late April as part of the chapter meeting. For the disputation, Luther composed forty theses that have been described as a comprehensive attack on scholastic theology, and therefore a significant departure from the line of argumentation he had been making in the ninety-five theses and many of his other early writings.79 In the Heidelberg Theses, Luther addressed such issues as the 77 See Kruse, Universitätstheologie und Kirchenreform, esp. pp. 139–152. 78 Saak, Luther and the Reformation, pp. 345–347. 79 Brecht, Martin Luther, p. 225.

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works of God and of man, arguing that those of man, no matter how good they appeared, were probably sins: for, he claimed, everything that does not proceed from grace and faith is a curse to God. He further outlined a new anthropology in which the notion of postlapsarian free will was nothing more than an empty expression. In what has become his most famous formulation from these theses, he also set in opposition ‘theologians of glory’ and ‘theologians of the cross’, essentially arguing that two very different approaches to theology existed. The scholastic theologians – theologians of glory – mistakenly focused on works and accomplishments; true theologians – theologians of the cross – understood that only through trials and testing did individual Christians achieve faith and hope. And finally, Luther described his understanding of how salvation was achieved: no one was made righteous through works, but righteousness came to all who placed their faith in Christ.80 Because the theses were never published, the Heidelberg Disputation did not have the same broad public impact of some of Luther’s other works, and for that reason scholars have paid less attention to them. However, for the audience members, many of them key representatives of the Congregation’s cloisters, the disputation appears to have made a powerful impression. As a result, many of the ranking members of the German Reformed Augustinians were won over by Luther’s soteriological views,81 and so were a good number of the guests, among them the future reformers Martin Bucer, Theobald Billicanus, Johannes Brenz, and perhaps also Erhard Schnepf.82

Luther’s Break with Rome If the events in the Low Countries are any indication, for the authorities who opposed Luther a more important aspect of his message than his soteriology was his view of ecclesiastical authority, as will become apparent in later 80 For a more comprehensive examination of Luther’s Heidelberg Theses, see Brecht, Martin Luther, pp. 225–229. 81 Others have suggested, however, that widespread support for Luther came only after the publication of his key treatises of 1520. See, for example, Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 366–367. 82 Bünger and Wentz write that in the wake of the Disputation, ‘the spiritual leadership of the German Augustinian Hermits was shifted to the Reformer’, ‘war die geistige Führung der deutschen Augustinereremiten inzwischen an den Reformator übergegangen.’ Bünger and Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, p. 449. For a list of noteworthy individuals within the German Reformed Congregation who did not follow Luther’s lead, see Posset, The Front-Runner, p. 20.

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chapters. Of course, issues of ecclesiology and papal power were already embedded in his criticism of indulgences in 1517, but it was not until February of 1520 that he came to the realization, as one historian suggested, that ‘[the entire papal Church was the structure of the Church of the Antichrist. That which had been seen [by Luther] as the very mouthpiece of Christ, to whom Christ had given his power, was a diabolical lie’.83 Although little evidence exists that Luther’s rejection of the Roman Church and its authority was disseminated through the Congregation in ways that differ from the rest of his “discoveries”, by March of the following year he would write to an unidentified brother: They are working to get me to recant many articles, but my recantation will be this: previously I said that the pope is the Vicar of Christ, now I recant and say: the pope is the adversary of Christ and the apostle of the devil. That most heinous and sacrilegious impiety by which they openly damn Christ has compelled me to this.84

From this point on, the rift between those fellow friars who would support the Reformation and those who would remain loyal to the Observant Augustinian cause would only widen, the division manifesting most clearly in the highly pressurized world of early Reformation Lower Germany.85 Unsurprisingly, the question of authority would also become the chief bone of contention between an increasingly vocal group of Reformed Augustinians who followed Luther and the broader spectrum of forces opposing religious dissent in Lower Germany. Nevertheless, for those intent on promoting Luther’s ideas, a wealth of strategies and methods pioneered by Staupitz and his predecessors were now available to be repurposed; an administrative and educational structure stood at the ready. It should come as no surprise that they would eventually be utilized.

83 Saak, Luther and the Reformation, p. 344. Saak argues that this realization was, for Luther, his real Reformation breakthrough, and that up until that point his ideas could be understood as congruent with the teachings of the church, particularly his soteriology: ‘Luther made his great discovery as a catholic, as a Roman catholic, theologian.’ p. 101. But his conviction that ‘The Holy Mother Church of Rome had now been revealed as the Church of the Antichrist’, elicited from him a ‘new departure, a new urgency, and a new intensification.’ p. 345. 84 WABr 2: 293. Quoted from Saak, Luther, p. 247. 85 For more on the nature of this rift and the reasons for it, see Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 381–420.

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Works Cited Brecht, Martin, Martin Luther. Sein Weg zur Reformation: 1483–1521 (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1986). Bünger, Fritz and Gottfried Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, in Das Bistum Brandenburg, Part II, Germania Sacra, ed. by Gustav Abb and Gottfried Wentz, 2 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1929–1941), 1.3: 440–499. Christman, Robert J., Doctrinal Controversy and Lay Religiosity in Late Reformation Germany: The Case of Mansfeld (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Clemen, Otto, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner-Kloster bei Beginn der Reformation (1513–1515)’, Monatshefte der Comenius-Gesellschaft 10 (1901), 306–313. Duinen, Herman van, Een augustijnenklooster van aanzien: conventus sancti augustini dordracencis 1275–1572 (Dordrecht: Historische Vereniging Oud-Dordrecht, 2010). Günther, Wolfgang, Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018). Hoop-Scheffer, J. G. de, Geschichte der Reformation in den Niederlanden von ihrem Beginn bis zum Jahre 1531. Deutsche Originalausgabe, ed. by P. Gerlach (Leipzig: G. Hirzel, 1886). Jung, Martin H., ‘Gerhard Hecker und die Anfänge der Reformation in Osnabrück’, in Miteinander leben? Reformation und Konfession im Fürstbistum Osnabrück 1500 bis 1700, Kulturregion Osnabrück vol. 31 (Münster: Waxman, 2017). Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904). Kolde, Theodor, Die deutsche Augustiner-Kongregation und Johann von Staupitz (Gotha: F.A. Perthes, 1879). Kruse, Jens-Martin, Universitätstheologie und Kirchenreform: die Anfänge der Reformation in Wittenberg 1516–1522 (Mainz: von Zabern, 2002). Kunzelmann, Adalbero, OSA, Geschichte der deutschen Augustinereremiten, 7 vols. (Würzburg: Augustinus Verlag, 1969–1976). Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke (=WA), vols. 1–73 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel (=WABr), vols. 1–18 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–1985). Mixon, James D., ‘Religious Life and Observant Reform in the Fifteenth Century’, History Compass 11 (2013), 201–214. Oberman, Heiko A., Martin Luther, Mensch zwischen Gott und Teufel (Berlin: Severin und Siedler: 1982). Posset, Franz, The Front-Runner of the Catholic Reformation: The Life and Works of Johann von Staupitz (Ashgate: Aldershot and Burlington, 2003).

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Rotscheidt-Mörs, Wilhelm, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner und die Wittenberger Reformation’, Monatshefte für Rheinische Kirchengeschichte 17 (1911), 33–58. Saak, Erik, Highway to Heaven: The Augustinian Platform between Reform and Reformation, 1292–1524 (Leiden: Brill, 2002). ———, Luther and the Reformation of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Schneider, Hans, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’ Amtsverszicht und Ordenswechsel’, Augustiniana 66 (2016), 185–231. ———, ‘Martin Luthers Reise nach Rom – neu datiert und neu gedeutet’, in Studien zur Wissenschafts- und zur Religionsgeschichte, vol. 10.2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), pp. 1–158. Vercruysse, Jos E., ‘Was haben die Sachsen und die Flamen gemeinsam…?’, in Wittenberg als Bildungszentrum 1502–2002, ed. by Peter Freybe (LutherstadtWittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 2002), pp. 9–32. Walsh, Katherine, ‘Papacy and Local Reform: A) The Beginning of the Augustinian Observance in Tuscany’, Römische historische Mitteilungen 21 (1979), 35–57. Weinbrenner, Ralph, Klosterreform im 15. Jahrhundert zwischen Ideal und Praxis: Der Augustinereremit Andreas Proles (1429–1503) und die privilegierte Observanz, Spätmittelalter und Reformation vol. 7 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996). Wernicke, Michael (OSA), ‘Die Augustiner-Eremiten’, in Orden und Klöster im Zeitalter von Reformation und katholischer Reform 1500–1700’, 3 vols., Katholisches Leben und Kirchenreform im Zeitalter des Glaubensspaltung vol. 66, ed. by F.Jürgensmeier and R.E. Schwerdtfeger (Münster, Aschendorf, 2006), 2: 49–76. Winterhager, Wilhelm, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars in der Reformkongregation der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten’, in Vita Religiosa im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Kaspar Elm zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Franz Felten and Nikolas Jaspert (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999), pp. 707–738. Zumkeller, Adolar, ‘Augustiner-Eremiten’, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, 36 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979), 4: 728–739. ———, ‘Johannes von Staupitz und die klösterliche Reformbewegung’, Analecta Augustiana 52 (1989), 31–49. ———, ‘Martin Luther und sein Orden’ Analecta Augustiana 25 (1962), 254–290. Zschoch, Helmut, Klosterreform und monastische Spiritualität im 15. Jahrhundert. Conrad von Zenn OESA (†1460) und sein Liber de vita monastica, Beiträge zur Historischen Theologie (Tübingen: J.C.B Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1988).

3.

The Antwerp Cloister Abstract Being central to the events leading to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, the history of the Reformed Augustinian cloister in Antwerp receives its own chapter. From its controversial founding in 1513 as part of Staupitz’s push to expand the Congregation’s influence into Lower Germany, a development that elicited the ire of local ecclesiastics and their legal representative Adrian Floriszoon (future Pope Adrian VI), to its destruction in early 1524 at the command of Emperor Charles V, this chapter traces the brief and troubled history of Lower Germany’s flagship cloister. It also introduces key actors connected to the cloister’s early history before it became a leading ‘hearth’ of Reformation ideas in the Low Countries. Key Words: Antwerp Augustinians, Jerome Aleander, Margaret of Austria, Jacob Probst, Hendrik van Zutphen, Inquisition

At the epicentre of the approaching struggle over the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany stood the Congregation’s Antwerp cloister. More than any other of the Province’s seven houses, the actions of the Antwerp Augustinians demonstrate the Congregation’s expansionist strategy under Staupitz, the means used to confirm Observance in the new house, and how the methods to spread Observant Reform were repurposed in the service of the Reformation. Given this arc, it is not surprising that the forces opposed to Reformation ideas would focus their sights most closely on the Antwerp cloister. Because of its pivotal role in this narrative, it is necessary to show as precisely as possible what happened in and to that cloister in the years and months leading up of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, in order to deconstruct and analyse these events and then examine their impact in later chapters.

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch03

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The Antwerp cloister from its founding to the installation of Jacob Probst as Prior Of the six houses to join the German Reformed Congregation during Staupitz’s tenure as Vicar General, the Antwerp cloister represents the most audacious example of the group’s expansionist tendencies. For while there is some evidence that the Congregation’s intervention in the Cologne, Dordrecht, and Ghent cloisters came as the result of requests from the patrons of those houses (generally the city councils) – even if the Augustinians themselves had encouraged such requests, as seems to have been the case in Dordrecht – the impulse to establish the Antwerp house came solely from within the Congregation. In this regard, Antwerp was unique among the Congregation’s cloisters. As the story has been traditionally told, in 1513, Johann van Mechelen, at that time prior of the Reformed Augustinian house in Enkhuizen, of his own accord simply forged and then executed a plan to establish a new house in the thriving metropolis of Antwerp, one of Europe’s largest cities. But this little narrative seems naive. To my knowledge, never before had the Congregation simply decided to colonize a new city or town without the express request of powerful local patrons, as had been the case with the newly established Eisleben cloister. And there can be little doubt that in this daring plan, van Mechelen was acting in compliance with the wishes, or at very least the knowledge of his Vicar General, Staupitz, since in 1511, Staupitz had visited Holland and Brabant and must have acquired a clear picture of the situation there. Early the next year, he met van Mechelen in Salzburg as the latter travelled home from Rome, where he had been on the Congregation’s business. From there the two men journeyed together to the Congregation’s chapter meeting in Cologne, which took place in May of 1512. Upon his return from Cologne to Enkhuizen, van Mechelen began the process of establishing the cloister in Antwerp.1 It is difficult to imagine that the plans for expansion were not forged either in private conversations with Staupitz, or more likely at the chapter meeting in Cologne. Van Mechelen quickly found two merchants, Joost Hoens and Marcus Mussche, who had bought up large amounts of land in the area that would eventually become the St. Andreas Quarter and who were willing to sell the Augustinians a plot with a house on it, half a kilometre from the city centre and Antwerp’s main church, the Church of Our Lady. Little is known about these two men other than the fact that Mussche, a wealthy merchant, had 1

Bünger and Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, p. 473.

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a son-in-law from Leipzig – Wolf Reitweiser, also a merchant – to whom Mussche would sell a number of buildings in Antwerp. Reitweiser was just one of many German traders in the city, a fact that raises the possibility that the establishment of this cloister had a certain German/Saxon dimension to it from the beginning.2 With many German merchants operating in the city of Antwerp, this would certainly have been possible, but there is not enough evidence to confirm it. Be that as it may, Hoen and Mussche were essentially land speculators or developers.3 Having procured the land, van Mechelen sent a small group of Augustinians from Enkhuizen to Antwerp under the leadership of friar George Stephanus. The group quickly built a chapel dedicated to the Trinity, which by 1513 was complete enough to host church services. It is particularly noteworthy that, unlike the Congregation’s other cloisters, when it was founded the new Antwerp enterprise had neither noble support nor the patronage of the city council. What is more, the chapel was established without the permission of the powerful canons of the Church of Our Lady who, to a large degree, dictated the religious life and ecclesiastical politics of the city. It is inconceivable that van Mechelen, not to mention Hoens and Mussche, were not aware of their influence and did not foresee that this new project would cause tensions, raising as it did the possibility of a reduction in the canons’ income through loss of attendees, penitents, and donations to the Augustinians. 4 The Augustinians’ strategy in founding the Antwerp house was thus to beg for forgiveness, rather than to ask for permission. And indeed it did not take long for the canons to contact their legal representative, Adrian Floriszoon, Professor of Theology at the nearby University of Leuven, Dean of St. Peter’s in that city, and recently elected dean of the chapter of the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp.5 Most pertinent to the fate of the Augustinians, however, was the fact that Floriszoon would later become Pope Adrian VI (1522–1523), under whose pontificate Vos 2 Harreld, High Germans in the Low Countries, p. 91. 3 Prims, ‘Het vette Vlaminkje’, p. 68. It is important to note that Mussche and Hoen were in no way patrons who had invited the Reformed Augustinians to Antwerp, but rather land speculators who saw a simple business opportunity. 4 Clemen, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner-Kloster’, p. 307. 5 In 1513, Floriszoon was elected dean of the chapter of Our Lady in Antwerp. But because the pope had already offered the position to Jacob de Banisiis, secretary of Emperor Maximillian, shortly after negotiations over the Augustinian cloister in Antwerp were completed Floriszoon relinquished his claims to that position. Gielis and Gielis, ‘Adrian of Utrecht’, p. 13; Akerboom and Gielis suggest simply that Adrian’s position as protector (dean) of the Antwerp chapter was disputed. ‘“A New Song Shall Begin Here”’, p. 245.

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and van den Esschen would meet their demise. Floriszoon responded to the aggressive tactics of the Augustinians with equal belligerence. On 20 August 1513, he sent Stephanus a letter demanding that he close the chapel, destroy it, and hand over any profits already earned by the friars. When Stephanus made no move to comply, the command was repeated on 12 September, this time with the threat of a citation before the papal court in Mechelen, and ultimately excommunication. Such intimidation appears to have rattled Stephanus, for on 3 October 1513 he sent the money along with a letter asking forgiveness and explaining that he had only hesitated to respond because he had not been given permission to comply by his superior, Johann van Mechelen.6 Van Mechelen now arrived in Antwerp, immediately demonstrating that he was not deterred by this turn of events. Together with Hoens and Mussche, he bypassed the Antwerp city council and, taking the case directly to the Council of Brabant, the territorial government of Charles V, began a formal judicial process against the canons of the Church of Our Lady. The conclusion of this proceeding on 23 February 1514 was that the Council of Brabant gave permission to the Augustinians to build a cloister on the property they had received and to retain their chapel. Of course, this outcome displeased the canons, and they continued to assert their case in the Council of Brabant, requesting that the Augustinians cease their activities for fourteen days so that the Antwerp city council could offer an opinion on the issue. But the Augustinians refused, moving forward with their plans and holding church services, thereby further embittering the canons. In the meantime, the Augustinians found an ally in the city council, which sent messengers to the Council of Brabant indicating support for the Augustinians in their efforts to establish a cloister. The Council of Brabant now sent two negotiators to Antwerp, one of whom, Frans van der Hulst, would preside less than a decade later over the Inquisition that burned Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen. Thus van der Hulst was familiar with the Augustinians of Antwerp from their very beginnings. From April to July the negotiations continued, with multiple meetings in which representatives of the various groups (the Augustinians, the canons of the Church of Our Lady, the Antwerp city council, and the Council of Brabant) met in the canons’ quarters. The city council assured the canons that if they would drop their case against the Augustinians, the council would find ways to remunerate them. The canons argued that the presence 6 Visschers, Geschiedenis van St. Andries Kerk, vol. 1, p. 2. Visschers offers the fullest account of the establishment of the cloister that I have found.

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of this new cloister would have a negative impact not only on them but on the common welfare of the city, and on other churches and cloisters. Eventually, all sides were convinced to follow the latest ruling of the Council of Brabant, which finally came on 20 July 1514: the Augustinians, it stated, were allowed to proceed with their plans. At this point it was clear that, with the support of the Council of Brabant and the Antwerp city council, Floriszoon and the canons could do nothing to stop the establishment of the cloister.7 On 22 July 1514, representatives from the Augustinians and the canons met in the house of the Chancellor of Brabant, where they concluded an agreement. That same day, Floriszoon along with two solicitors went to the Church of Our Lady to obtain the consent of the full chapter of canons, before proceeding to the Augustinians’ house to acquire that community’s approval. 8 Thus eight years later, when Vos and van den Esschen were executed, the Observant Augustinians of Antwerp were not some abstraction for Pope Adrian VI, then far away in Rome. He had been to their quarters and met them face to face. In 1514, Staupitz named Johann van Mechelen the cloister’s first prior and simultaneously installed him as the German Reformed Congregation’s first District Vicar of the newly established Province of Lower Germany.9 With van Mechelen ensconced and with the support of various authorities, the cloister quickly bloomed. Staupitz, too, continued to support the new house, visiting the Low Countries in 1514 and 1516, spending an especially long time at the Antwerp cloister, which had quickly expanded to include about twenty friars.10

Connections to Wittenberg From the beginning, Staupitz and van Mechelen fostered close ties between the new cloister and Wittenberg. As previously noted, van Mechelen and his successor sent young recruits from Antwerp to their alma mater: two in 1516, three in 1517, and another in 1520.11 But what made the connection even stronger was that, in addition to the fact that the cloister’s f irst prior had studied in Wittenberg, Antwerp’s next two priors, Jacob Probst 7 Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 53. 8 Gielis and Gielis, ‘Adrian of Utrecht (1459–1523)’, p. 18. Much of the summary of these negotiations comes from Visschers, Geschiedenis van St. Andries Kerk, vol. 1, pp. 1–7. 9 Vercruysse, ‘Was haben die Sachsen’, p. 12. 10 Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 54. 11 Vercruysse, ‘Was haben die Sachsen’, p. 13.

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and Hendrik van Zutphen, were also graduates of that University. And while van Mechelen would eventually break with Luther, Probst and van Zutphen who were contemporaries of the Reformer, would become his close personal friends and lifelong supporters. Probst (c. 1495–1562), who hailed from Ypres, began his career as an Augustinian in the Haarlem cloister. He came to Wittenberg in 1505 and in 1509 received his Master of Arts (magister artium) degree. Staying on in Saxony, he was prior in Wittenberg from 1515 to 1518, where he would have been on hand to experience the beginnings of the indulgence controversy.12 He succeeded van Mechelen as prior of the Antwerp cloister in 1518, a post he would hold until 1522. During this period, Erasmus of Rotterdam described him in a letter to Luther as follows: There is a man in Antwerp, prior of the monastery, a genuine Christian, who is most devoted to you and was once your pupil, or so he says. He is almost the only one who preaches Christ; the others, as a rule, preach the inventions of men or their own profit.13

Even Probst’s critic, the papal nuncio Jerome Aleander, connected him closely to the Reformer, referring to him as ‘the man who preaches only Luther’s doctrines’. 14 The Antwerp prior’s connections to Wittenberg were strengthened when Probst returned to his alma mater from May to September 1521. Hidden away in the Wartburg at the time, Luther wrote to Melanchthon asking him to extend his greetings to a number of individuals, but not ‘the fat little Flemish guy’ because, indicated Luther, he preferred to write to Probst directly.15 This offhand comment suggests a close and congenial relationship between the two men. Hendrik van Zutphen, the other key representative of the exchange between the Antwerp Augustinians and Wittenberg, likely hailed from the Dutch town of Zutphen and probably joined the Reformed Augustinians in 12 The prior during that period is referred to in the sources only by his first name, Jacob. Of the three Jacobs who were members of the cloister during this period only Probst had the appropriate education to hold the position of prior. Bünger and Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, p. 468. 13 ‘Est Antuerpiae Prior eius monasterii, vir pure Christianus, qui te unice deamat, tuus olim discipulus, ut predicat. Is omnium pene solus Christum praedicat: caeteri fere aut hominum fabulas aut suum quaestum praedicant’. Erasmus to Martin Luther, 30 May 1519, in Erasmus, Opus epistolarum, vol. 3, p. 607. 14 ‘[E]l qual sempre predicava la dottrina di Luther’. Aleander to Giulio de Medici, 2 September 1521, in Aleandro, Aleander und Luther, pp. 262–263. 15 ‘[D]as fette Flemmichen’. Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr) 2:349.

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their Enkhuizen cloister.16 He matriculated in Wittenberg in 1508, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1509 and his Master of Arts in February of 1511. Thereafter he remained in Wittenberg until 1515, perhaps as a lector in the cloister’s studium generale. If he did indeed work as a lector during this period then while honing his skills as a pedagogue he would have worked closely with Luther, the studium’s regent or director from 1512 onwards.17 In 1515, van Zutphen, whose abilities and whose zeal must have been apparent to his superiors, was sent back to Lower Germany to be sub-prior in the Cologne cloister, recently added to the Congregation (1509) and the site of another studium generale. It seems likely that his orders were to assist in confirming Observance among the friars there. After a short stay in Cologne, van Zutphen was sent on to Dordrecht, where he took part in the Observant reform of that cloister, and in 1516 became its prior. As prior, van Zutphen began sending students to Wittenberg, one in 1518 and another in 1520, thereby strengthening ties between the two houses and bolstering the reform agenda. In 1520, van Zutphen relinquished his position in Dordrecht and returned to Wittenberg to continue his education, but also, it seems, to seek advice on how to proceed in the face of opposition in the Low Countries. Beyond basic details, evidence is scarce regarding van Zutphen’s second stay in Wittenberg. He studied with Luther, earning his Bachelor of the Bible degree (baccalaureus biblicus) on 14 January 1521, and 16 Duinen, Hendrik van Zutphen, p. 9. Van Duinen speculates that because the Dordrecht cloister had not yet become reformed and joined the German Congregation, the most likely location of van Zutphen’s entry into the Observant Augustinians was Enkhuizen. 17 There is some debate as to whether Luther knew van Zutphen during his initial stay in Wittenberg. Van Duinen thinks it improbable. Referring to a 1516 letter in which Luther wrote of the Dordrecht cloister, ‘The prior there is the lector Hendrik van Zutphen, who, as they say, once studied with us’ (‘Prior est ibidem Lector Henricus, noster olim [ut illi dicunt] constudens’. WABr 1:73), van Duinen suggests that the phrase ‘as they say’ indicates that in 1516, Luther did not know van Zutphen. Duinen, Hendrik van Zutphen, p. 31. But there is also evidence to suggest that the two men were at least acquainted during this period. In 1525, Johannes Lang, who came to Wittenberg in 1511, mentions living and studying there ‘day and night’ with van Zutphen for three or four years (=1511–1514 or 1515). See letter of Johannes Lang to Casper Schalb in Lang, Historia wie S. Heinrich von Zutphan, p. 2. If van Zutphen was indeed in Wittenberg during this period, it is difficult to imagine that he did not cross paths with Luther, particularly in light of the fact that members of the Augustinian Order were required to live in the cloister and take meals together. And in the letter referring to the Dordrecht house, Luther designated van Zutphen as a lector, a position that he would have attained while in Wittenberg. If he not only attained that position, but also taught in that capacity in Wittenberg, he would have worked directly under the auspices of the studium generale’s director, Luther himself. Finally, as will be noted below, in 1519, in his capacity as prior in Dordrecht, van Zutphen wrote directly to Luther to complain about the situation in the Low Countries, and passing on the news to Staupitz, Luther referred to van Zutphen in familiar terms, suggesting that the two men were already acquainted.

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his Bachelor of the Sentences (baccalaureus Sententiarum) under Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt on 11 October 1521. But we know little more than this about his activities, which ended in June of 1522 when he returned to the Low Countries and assumed Probst’s mantel as prior of the Antwerp house. In any event, by the time he left Wittenberg in early summer of 1522 he had strengthened his ties to Luther and deepened his understanding of the Wittenberg Theology.18 These connections between Antwerp and Wittenberg naturally raise the question as to whether Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen were among those with personal ties to Saxony. Although the two friars do not appear in the matriculation records of the University of Wittenberg, some evidence exists to suggest a connection to Luther, albeit a rather oblique one.19 One contemporary source claims that Vos and van den Esschen spent time in the newly founded German Reformed Augustinian cloister of St. Anne’s (1515) in Eisleben in the territory of Mansfeld. Although the men do not appear on the list of friars at the cloister’s founding, nor on a second list of brothers composed in 1521, Cyriakus Spangenberg – a Lutheran theologian, pastor, and historian whose father Johannes had been Mansfeld’s first superintendent (1546–1550), and who himself lived and worked in the territory for twenty-two years (1550–1572) – nevertheless claimed that the two men did reside at St. Anne’s for a time. As members of the newly founded Antwerp cloister (1514), perhaps they were deemed to have the special knowledge, skills, or ardour required to establish a new house; as has been demonstrated, the Observant Augustinians were in the habit of seeding new and newly reformed houses with zealous, committed, and capable brothers.20 If Vos and van den Esschen were indeed sent to Eisleben for a time, Luther would likely have met them when he visited that cloister in 1515 and 1516 as part of his duties as District Vicar of the Congregation’s Province of Saxony-Thuringia, a position he held

18 During this period, for example, Luther, who was sequestered in the Wartburg, sent his greetings to van Zutphen via Melanchthon, a deed that suggests a close friendship had developed between the two men. WABr 2:349. However opinions vary as to which of his “teachers” influenced van Zutphen’s theology the most, Luther, Karlstadt, or even Erasmus. See Duinen, Hendrik van Zutphen, pp. 21–26. 19 This is the thesis of Julius Boehmer. See Boehmer, ‘Die Beschaffenheit der Quellenschriften’, pp. 112–133. 20 It might be noted that this method was not limited to the German Reformed Augustinians. From the earliest days of the Observant movement within the Augustinian order there is evidence that newly installed priors were already allowed to bring a few ‘exemplary friars’ and ‘socii’ with them to their new houses in an effort to ensure their authority. Walsh, ‘Papacy and Local Reform: B)’, pp. 111, 127.

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from 1515 to 1518.21 Or perhaps he would have crossed paths with them when he stayed in St. Anne’s for a few days upon his return from Heidelberg in 1518. Also relevant to this question is Luther’s initial response to the news of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, which comes in a letter dated 22 or 23 July 1523, sent to his close friend George Spalatin (1484–1545), court chaplain and secretary to the Elector Frederick the Wise. In it, the Reformer indicated that two Augustinian friars had been burned, then stated specifically that one of them had been named Johannes Nesse (=Johann van den Esschen) and that he was not yet thirty years of age.22 Of course, it is possible that Luther was merely repeating whatever details he had heard. But his reference to van den Esschen suggests a certain familiarity, for he includes a name and an age. Had both Vos and van den Esschen been unfamiliar to him, it seems unlikely that he would have offered Spalatin (to whom both were undoubtedly unknown) such information, rather than merely noting that two friars had been burned. Spangenberg’s claim has the further ring of truth in that he hints that Vos and van den Esschen had a particular connection to Probst, for he writes that they left Eisleben in order to live under Probst’s leadership in Antwerp, a post he assumed in 1518.23 As natives of the Low Countries, such a connection to a fellow Lowlander would be entirely conceivable. If it actually occurred, was Vos and van den Esschen’s time in Eisleben another case of young friars being sent to a particular house for a time before returning to their home cloister, a practice with a long history within the Congregation? It is certainly plausible. If so, then, like Adrian Floriszoon, when Martin Luther thought about the Antwerp Augustinians, he could put faces to names.

Critics of the Lower German Augustinians A key aspect of the exchange between Antwerp and Wittenberg was, of course, the transfer of information. From his close personal connections with Probst and van Zutphen there is no doubt that Luther and his colleagues in Wittenberg had extensive and direct knowledge of the situation in the Low Countries.24 A key component of this knowledge was a clear understanding 21 Wilhelm Winterhager suggests that as District Vicar, Luther was heavily involved with establishment and integration of the Eisleben cloister into the Congregation. Winterhager, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars’, p. 737. 22 WABr 3:115. 23 Spangenberg, Mansfeldische Chronica, in Mansfelder Blätter 31–32 (1918), p. 341. 24 In addition to face-to-face meetings, it is clear that extensive networks of correspondence existed, as can be seen in the letters of Martin Luther, Johann von Staupitz, Wenceslaus Link,

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of the forces critical of the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, for while Observant students were journeying back and forth between the Low Countries and Wittenberg, both Luther and his fellow friars in Antwerp were collecting opponents, among them high-ranking representatives of the pope and emperor. Upon his return to the Low Countries from the Diet of Worms in the spring of 1521, the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had established a state-run inquisition in Brabant, installing a Leuven jurist and member of the Council of Brabant, Frans van der Hulst, as its head: the same van der Hulst who had assisted with the negotiations between the Antwerp Augustinians and the canons of the Church of Our Lady.25 Having witnessed widespread support for Luther among the German princes and laity in Worms, Charles was eager to confront this heresy in his ancestral homelands – so eager that he took this unprecedented step, for under normal circumstances, heresy trials were the domain of the Episcopal authorities. In this case, however, the danger was so acute that Charles decided to establish his own inquisition. What is more, whereas other popes might have balked at this intrusion on church authority, Charles seems to have realized that he could count on the support of his former tutor, Adrian Floriszoon, who indeed gave his imprimatur to the enterprise upon his accession to the papal throne in 1522.26 But as a layman, van der Hulst was required to enlist the help Johannes Lang, and George Spalatin, who are constantly passing on the latest news to one another. And Luther would occasionally receive letters directly from Probst. See for example Luther’s reference to such missives in a letter of the Reformer to Spalatin dated 1 September 1520, WABr 2:180–181. 25 In the Low Countries there were a variety of levels upon which the repression of religious dissent could take place (episcopal, papal, etc.), all of which have been referred to at some point or another as “inquisitions”. Following the lead of Gert Gielis and Violet Soen, I will use the term only to refer to this particular body, which Gielis and Soen define as ‘a novel sort of inquisitor-general’, which ‘began to function in the Habsburg Netherlands from 1522–3 onwards. As a rule, these were appointed by the ruler of the Low Countries and subsequently confirmed by the pope through an official mandate and instruction’. Gielis and Soen, ‘The Inquisitorial Office’, p. 51. 26 Much correspondence between Charles and Adrian has survived and it is characterized by expressions of mutual affection. For example, on 3 July 1522, Charles wrote to Adrian, ‘It is impossible to render sufficient gratitude on behalf of my brother and myself for the paternal love that your holiness has bestowed upon us, and the grief that your heart endures on account of this affair. We offer you our lives, as faithful sons of the church of your said holiness’ (‘Lamour paternelle que votre sainctete porte a mon frere et a moy, et la payne que avez de prandre noz affaires tant a cueur, ne vous en scauroye render assez de grace de sa part et de la myenne, vous offrant noz personnes, comme de bons filz de leglise et de votredite sainctete’). Lanz, ed. Correspondenz des Kaisers Karl V., p. 59.

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of various ecclesiastics, which he did from the ranks of those theologians who had already been working to stem the tide of Reformation ideas in the Low Countries. These included the emperor’s father confessor, friar Jean Glapion; the papal nuncio, Jerome Aleander, recently returned from Worms; the Leuven Professors of theology, Nicholas of Egmond and Jacob Latomus; and the well-known Dominican inquisitor, Jacob Hochstraten of Cologne.27 These men, along with their assistants, comprised the short-lived first phase of the imperial inquisition in the Low Countries.28 By the end of 1521, Luther and his colleagues in Wittenberg had already interacted with many of the members of this coalition. Luther had stood before the emperor in April of 1521 and had been officially declared an outlaw of the empire. At Worms, he had also encountered Aleander, who had done his utmost to persuade the emperor to forbid Luther from coming to the Diet, and then to force him to recant once he arrived. And it was Aleander who drafted the Edict of Worms and ultimately convinced the emperor to sign it. As to Glapion and Egmond, Luther had referred to the former as the emperor’s ‘devil’, and the latter as ‘most arrogant and most Franciscan’, demonstrating that he had already formed clear opinions of these men.29 The Dominican Inquisitor Hochstraten, well-known for his opposition to Johannes Reuchlin, had denounced Luther’s last thesis of the Leipzig Disputation, to which Luther responded in a treatise of 1519.30 As to Latomus, he was a member of the faculty of theology at Leuven that had condemned Luther on 7 November 1519. Since the faculty had not included an explanation of the articles it had denounced, but had merely listed them, Latomus took it upon himself to lecture on the issue in 1520, then to write a treatise in 1521 explaining the reasons why those propositions had been 27 Jacob Hochstraten (d. 1527), Dominican and inquisitor from 1510 for the archbishoprics of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz, bore the chief responsibility for the prosecution of Johannes Reuchlin, against whom he had proceeded with great vigour. The case of Reuchlin, a convinced humanist and Hebraist, had captivated the intellectual world of Europe. Reuchlin advocated for the study of Hebrew and Jewish thought as a means to better understand the Bible. Many of his opponents believed that only by seizing and destroying their books would the Jews of Europe ever convert to Christianity. In 1516, the matter was ultimately decided in favour of Reuchlin, but not before Hochstraten and the faculty of theology at Cologne had done everything in their power to convict him. 28 By September of 1523, due to procedural errors in the case of Cornelis Hoen, van der Hulst’s powers were already officially limited. In early 1524, Charles V removed him entirely from office for the abuse of power. ‘The experiment with a ‘secular’ inquisition and a layman as inquisitor was’, as historians have noted, ‘not to be repeated’. Gielis and Gielis, ‘Adrian of Utrecht’, p. 20. 29 ‘[D]iablo[us]’ and ‘superbissim[us] et minoritissim[us] monach[us]’. Luther to Lang, 26 June 1522, WABr 2:565. 30 Luther, Abteilung Werke (=WA) 2:384–387.

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selected for censure.31 Luther’s response appeared in September 1521 and was addressed to both the theology faculty in general and Latomus specifically.32 All this is to say that, far from being unfamiliar with the critics of the Antwerp Augustinians, Luther and the hierarchy of the German Reformed Congregation were well acquainted with them.33 What is more, Luther and his colleagues had observed their critics’ work in the Low Countries in the years and months prior to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen. By 1520, in response to book burnings carried out by Aleander in Cologne and Antwerp, Luther had burned the papal Bull, declaring that since they had burned his books, he was now burning theirs. Since the promulgation of the Edict of Worms in May of 1521, Aleander had expanded his efforts in the Low Countries, publishing the Edict there while overseeing a dozen or so book burnings in major cities – three in Antwerp alone.34 Furthermore, by candidly labelling him a heretic, these inquisitors had been able to pressure Erasmus into leaving the Low Countries in autumn of 1521, never to return.35 Having condemned Luther’s works and intimidated Erasmus, the inquisitors now turned their attention to the Antwerp Augustinians. In December 1521, van der Hulst invited their prior Probst to a “friendly conversation” in Brussels, only to arrest him upon his arrival. Interrogated repeatedly for eight weeks, and under constant threat of the stake, on 9 February 1522 he recanted in front of an overflowing crowd at St. Gudula’s church in Brussels, concluding with the statement: And I damn all errors and heresies, especially the Lutheran ones. And I embrace the Catholic faith as held and preached by the Holy Roman 31 Latomus, Articulorum doctrinae fratris M. Lutheri. For more on the nature of the theological disagreement between Luther and the theologians of Cologne see Gielis, ‘Augustijnergeloof en Predikherengeloof’. 32 The condemnation by the theology faculties of Leuven and Cologne along with Luther’s response may be found in WA 6:170–195. Luther’s response to Latomus, entitled Rationis Latomianae confutatio, 1521, may be found in WA 8:36–128. 33 Undoubtedly so were many of the reform-minded individuals throughout Europe. In April of 1518, Wilhelm Nesen sent Ulrich Zwingli a long and scathing description of the ‘Magistri Nostri’, the key Leuven theologians. See Zwingli, Zwinglis Briefwechsel, in Corpus Reformatorum vol. 94, pp. 378–401; Erasmus’s letters from this period are also filled with derogatory remarks about many of these men, especially Egmond. In fact, writes one modern commentator, there is hardly a letter of Erasmus from the period in which he does not complain about that ‘fanatical monk’. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 75. 34 Visser, Luther’s Geschriften in de Nederlanden, pp. 13–15. 35 See Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, esp. Chapter 5, ‘Die Verdrängung des Erasmus aus den Niederlanden’, vol. 2, pp. 35–56.

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Church. And I promise to submit myself in faith to all things that it teaches. And I now declare, just as I have promised and declared, to adhere [to it] and to cast Luther with all his dogmas far away from me.36

Probst’s recantation was quickly published in Antwerp, Cologne, Leipzig, and Strasburg.37 Freed, but prohibited from returning to Antwerp, he was sent to the Augustinian cloister in his hometown of Ypres, a house not associated with the German Reformed Congregation. In Wittenberg, news of the recantation was met with sorrow, but also with clear recognition of the dangers facing those members of the Reformed Augustinians in Antwerp and Lower Germany who had embraced Luther’s teachings. Writing to his fellow friar and good friend, Johannes Lang, Luther prophesied accurately, ‘This is no longer a joke or a game, but it will now become serious, and it will exact life and blood’.38 Not long after arriving in Ypres, Probst began to preach “Lutheran” ideas again, and in May of 1522 was summoned a second time by the Inquisition. For a while, Luther thought that his prognostication had come true, that Probst, along with two others, had been burned.39 But in fact Probst escaped with the help of friends, and made his way to Wittenberg, arriving in August 1522. Despite his recantation, Luther remained friends with Probst, and there can be no doubt that the two men discussed the situation in Antwerp fully during the twenty months Probst spent in Wittenberg. While there, Probst also published an extensive description of his interactions with the Inquisition and an apology for his failure to remain steadfast, a document that clarified to everyone the situation in the Low Countries. 40 Although some 700 km distant, the state of affairs in Lower Germany was well known in Wittenberg.

36 ‘Et damno omnem errorem et haeresim, potissimum Lutherianam, et amplector f idem catholicam, quam tenet et predicat sancta Romana ecclesia, et ei me in fide et omnibus que docet, submitto et eidem promitto et jam juro, sicut jam promisi et juravi, adherere et Lutherum cum suo dogmate procul a me abjicere’. Anathematizatio et revocatio in Corpus documentorum (=CD), vol. 4, p. 94. 37 Rudloff, Bonae Literae et Lutherus, p. 27. 38 ‘Res iam non amplius iocus aut ludus, sed serium erit, et vitam exiget et sanguinem’. Martin Luther to Johannes Lang, 12 April 1522, WABr 2:494. 39 ‘Jacob, the prior in Antwerp, has been taken captive and it is presumed that he will now be burned along with two others’ (‘Iacobus, Prior Antverpiensis, denuo captus est, et praesumitur iam exustus esse, et alii duo cum eo’). Luther to Johann von Staupitz, 27 June 1522, WABr 2:567. 40 Probst, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi in Rudloff, Bonae Literae et Lutherus, pp. 42–59.

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The Authorities’ Efforts against the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany Fearing that Probst had spread Lutheran heresy to his fellow Augustinians in the Low Countries and to the laity in Antwerp, in the spring of 1522 Charles’s inquisitors began a broader campaign against anyone who had articulated religious dissent. It was at this point that Cornelius Grapheus, the humanist city secretary of Antwerp, was forced to recant publicly in the city square in Brussels. A year earlier, Grapheus had published the work of the fifteenth-century theologian Johannes Pupper von Goch, along with his own introduction – a work deemed heretical by the Inquisition, which arrested him in February of 1522. 41 Likewise at this time, the high prof ile prosecution of Cornelius Hoen, the Dutch humanist, lawyer, and lay theologian who advocated for a symbolic interpretation of the Eucharist, also began. 42 Other judicial processes and recantations soon followed. But chief among the targets of this campaign were the Reformed Augustinians throughout the Low Countries, particularly those in Antwerp, whom the inquisitors had clearly marked as a fountain of Lutheran ideas there – or as the historian Paul Kalkoff has put it, the ‘chief source of the proliferation of Lutheran teachings in the Low Countries’.43 In fact, the move against Probst was merely the opening salvo. For at the time of Probst’s second arrest, the spring of 1522, the inquisitors also apprehended and questioned Melchior Miritsch, the Reformed Augustinian prior in Ghent.44 Unlike Probst, Miritsch was able to convince the inquisitors that he posed no threat to the church and was released. But Luther was not happy. Regarding the news of Probst’s recantation and Miritsch’s ‘failure’, Luther asserted, ‘Satan rages powerfully

41 Spruyt, ‘Humanisme, Evangelisme en Reformatie’, p. 33. 42 See Spruyt, Cornelius Henrici Hoen. 43 ‘[D]er Hauptherd der Verbreitung lutherischen Lehren in den Niederlanden’. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 52. Even Cornelius Grapheus, the humanist-minded city secretary, indicated in a letter to the chancellor of Brabant that the Antwerp Augustinians were ‘the originators of these troubles’ (‘d’oorspronck dezer beroerten’). Pont, Geschiedenis van het Lutheranisme, p. 23, n. 2. 44 Records of Miritsch’s interaction with the authorities are lost. Everything we know of this event comes second-hand from the accounts in Luther’s letters. See WABr 2: 493, 495, 496, 559. Kalkoff however notes that theologians Coronel and Quintana, both in the service of the inquisitor van der Hulst, were active in Ghent and Bruges from 8–24 May 1522. He speculates that their work at this time included interviews with Augustinians suspected of supporting Luther’s views. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 2, p. 20, n. 49.

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everywhere, but especially in the Low Countries, where power is given to the sophists to rule over us’. 45 But while Probst and Miritsch were being interviewed in early 1522, the Augustinian cloister in Wittenberg was in a state of upheaval, a situation that would have some bearing on events in Antwerp. In Wittenberg, some of the friars had left the cloister without permission; others refused to obey their superiors. With Luther in the Wartburg, a radical group led by the Wittenberg Augustinian Gabriel Zwilling, and closely linked to the university professor Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, clamoured for the abolition of the mass and other changes. As a result, the Vicar General of the Congregation, Wenceslaus Linck (who had succeeded Johann von Staupitz in 1520), called a chapter meeting for early January 1522 in Wittenberg and, when that failed to quell the disorder, a second chapter meeting for early June in the Saxon town of Grimma. At Grimma, the central issue was how to retain Christian liberty in the cloisters of the German Reformed Congregation while avoiding anarchy, but undoubtedly the events in the Low Countries were also discussed, for Miritsch, who had left his post in Ghent only weeks earlier, was in attendance. Also in attendance was van Zutphen, a native of the Low Countries and former prior in Dordrecht, to whom I will return to shortly. But absent were any representatives from the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany, for the emperor had strictly forbidden them from attending.46 The combination of Miritsch’s and van Zutphen’s presence, the fact that Miritsch’s interaction with the Inquisition was only a few weeks in the past, and the conspicuous absence of representatives of the Low Countries due to the emperor’s raging against them (as Luther put it), makes it very unlikely that the situation in the Low Countries was not thoroughly reviewed. 47 Meanwhile, as this rump group of German Reformed Augustinians was meeting in Grimma, the emperor was expanding his campaign against 45 ‘Satanas enim ubique irascitur fortiter nimis, praesertim in inferioribus partibus terrae, ubi sophistis datum est regnum super nos’. Luther to Johannes Lang, 11 June 1522, WABr 2:559. Nor was this the first time Luther had connected the activity of the devil with the events in the Low Countries. One month earlier, upon hearing the news of Probst’s recantation and Miritsch’s actions to avoid arrest, Luther had written: ‘Satan attacks us with all his highest powers’ (‘Satan summis et omnibus viribus nos petit’). Luther to Johannes Lang, Wittenberg 12 April 1522, WABr 2:495. 46 Little is known about the circumstances surrounding the emperor’s order, only that in a letter of 5 June 1522, Luther wrote to Spalatin, ‘The emperor rages and forbids our brothers to come to the chapter meeting’ (‘Et sevit Cesar prohibuitque, ne nostri fratres ad Capitulum Vicarii venerent’). WABr 2:555. 47 WABr 2:555.

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their brothers in the Low Countries. Not only did Charles forbid them to attend the Grimma Chapter, but through his queen regent, Margaret of Austria (he himself had left the Low Countries for Spain in May of 1522), he took concrete steps to drive a wedge between the Reformed Augustinians of Saxony and those in Lower Germany. At the command of the queen regent, representatives of the Congregation’s cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany met on 27 July 1522 in Dordrecht for the express purpose of electing a counter Vicar General to serve as leader of their seven cloisters. Dordrecht was the logical choice for this meeting because this cloister, where van Mechelen was prior, was a stronghold of Observance – but an Observance that rejected the Reformation. The election of its own Vicar General was a move designed to remove the houses of the Province of Lower Germany from the oversight of Linck, the German Vicar General whom the authorities in the Low Countries deemed tainted by heresy.48 Under pressure from the emperor, representatives from Ghent, Enghien, Dordrecht, and Haarlem elected van Mechelen as their Vicar General. Representatives of Antwerp, Enkhuizen, and Cologne abstained from voting. In a letter dated 22 August 1522, the Ghent magistrate, patron to the cloister there, appealed to the emperor’s queen regent to urge the pope to confirm this decision, 49 a request granted a few months later by Adrian VI.50 Thus the emperor, with the support of the papacy, was successful in breaking the institutional ties between Wittenberg and the Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany.

The Fate of the Antwerp Cloister There is also compelling evidence that in July of 1522, as part of Charles’s campaign against the German Reformed Augustinians, the inquisitors questioned each member of the Antwerp cloister, and all but three recanted publicly – a scenario that I find plausible. Because much confusion surrounds this episode, which most contemporary historians have conflated with the events surrounding the ultimate demise of the cloister in late October of 1522, 48 We know of these events from a letter of the Ghent magistrate to Margaret dated 8 August 1522, in which the magistrate reports the decisions of the Augustinians’ chapter meeting in Dordrecht. The letter makes clear how broadly and manifestly the seven Reformed Augustinian cloisters of ‘Lower Germany’ – not to mention the German Vicar General of Reformed Augustinians, Wenceslaus Link – were considered to be purveyors of the “Lutheran” heresy. CD, 4: doc. 91. 49 CD, 4: doc. 91. 50 Ennen, Geschichte der Stadt Köln, vol. 4, p. 184. The pope’s letter is dated 23 November 1522.

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it requires extended discussion. The main source that addresses the issue head on is unfortunately rather unreliable. Writing in the late eighteenth century, but relying on chronicles from the sixteenth, Jean Diercxsens provides the following account: The Count of Hochstraten, Jerome van der Noot, the Chancellor of Brabant, and the Audientiario, van Springens, [all representatives of the emperor’s Council of Brabant] arrived at the Augustinian cloister at 6:00 AM where, in the presences of the magistrate [representatives of the Antwerp city council], they declared that the Emperor was convinced that the cloister had been tainted by a heresy infecting everyone. Since this was the case, the Body of the Lord [=consecrated host] should not be permitted to remain in this den of thieves. As a result, all those who erred were condemned, placed in carts, and taken to Vilvoorde. But they were quickly dismissed under the condition that they publicly retract certain articles of Lutheran doctrine from the platform in the Antwerp Basilica. All, I say, were dismissed with the exception of Hendrik and Johann s’Hertogenbosch. […] This occurred in the month of July. These two, Hendrik [Vos] and Johann [van den Esschen], having refused to accept the conditions and recant, were led to Brussels and put in prison where they were further examined and judged. The remaining [friars], having been dismissed, returned to Antwerp and all renounced the Lutheran heresy and publicly recanted the errors with which they had been infected from the platform in the Church of Our Lady. This renunciation certainly was done in the presence of the inquisitors and commissioners who are always present in such cases so that [the recantations] could be proven later. When all the brothers had professed sound doctrine, the Body of the Lord was not removed from [the Augustinians’ Church] until having relapsed into error, all were driven from the city, as described below. In the meantime, divine services were held in this monastery as before. The inquisitors and commissioner, however, did not only investigate the Augustinians, but they summoned and examined many suspect citizens.51

51 ‘Venerunt quoque Comes Hoogstratanus cum Hieronimo van der Noot Cancellario Brabantiae & Audientiario van Springens in Conventum Augustinianorum mane hora sexta: ubi coram Magistratu dixerunt, mentem Caesaris esse, ut eo loco cogerentur exesse haeretica labe infecti omnes; neque permittendum esse, ut Corpus domini diutius requiesceret in spelunca latronum. Ergo, quo ibi errant convicti, impositi curribus Vilvordiam deducti sunt; dimissi tamen cito sub conditione, ut ex doxali Antverpiensis Basilicae publice retractaret quosdam

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The question is, did this event occur? If so, is this a description of an episode that happened sometime in the spring or summer of 1522 or is it a description of the cloister’s ultimate fate, which we know occurred in late October of 1522? Although Diercxsens’s account cannot be broadly corroborated with outside sources, there is good reason to believe that it is accurate. The level of detail (the precise time of the day it occurred, who was present, and what was said) makes it seem credible. What is more, the threat that should the heresy continue, the Eucharistic host would be removed from the Augustinians’ church did eventually come to pass in the events of late October, suggesting that such a threat was absolutely plausible. And finally, there are too many details that do not add up to conclude that this was merely a misplaced description of what would happen a few months later when the cloister was ultimately dissolved. For example, after that event the friars never returned to hold services again. If Diercxsens is talking about the actions surrounding this later dissolution, why would he stress the fact that they did return to hold services? Additionally, Margaret’s severe reaction in October, arresting all of the brothers and destroying the cloister, makes more sense if the friars had relapsed (a point made by Diercxsens) than if she was arresting them for the first time. And finally, Diercxsens himself Lutheranae doctrinae Articulos. Dimissi, inquam, omnes exceptis duobus Henrico & Joanne Sylvae-ducensibus […] id factum refert mense Julio. ‘Duo isti Henricus & Joannes, quia cum coeteris revocationis conditionem acceptare nolebant, ducti Bruxellas carceri inclusi sunt, ulterius examinandi & judicandi. ‘Reliqui autem dimissi Antverpiam redierunt, & omnes publice in Ecclesia B Mariae ex odeo renuntiarunt haeresi Lutheranae, & errores, quibus infecti fuerant, revocarunt. Renuntiatio haec indubie facta est praesentibus Inquisitoribus & Commissariis, qui in simili casu hoc tempore praesentes fuisse feruntur, ut infra dicetur. ‘Cumque jam omnes Fratres sanam doctrinam prof iterentur, Corpus Domini inde ablatum non fuit, donec in errorem relapsi omnes urbe pulsi sunt, ut infra dicetur. Et interim in suo monasterio officia divina peregerunt ut ante. Inquisitores autem & Commissarii non tantum Augustinianos, sed & plures suspectos cives ad se vocarunt & examinarunt’. Diercxsens, Antverpia Christo Nascens et crescens, vol. 3, pp. 364–365. The first half of Diercxsen’s account, he indicates, comes from Papebrocius Annales Antverpienses, the Chronicle of Van Cauckerken ad an. 1521 (an unpublished manuscript), and Bertrijn, Chronijck der Stadt Antwerpen. Of these texts, only the Chronicle of Antwerp is extant and it tells a similar story. The relevant section of Papebrocius is lost, as is Van Cauckerken. But while Diercxsens places these events in July of 1522, Bertrijn indicates that they took place in June. However, Diercxsens follows Bertrijn in relating that some of the Augustinian friars were led away to Vilvoorde, but soon returned and recanted in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp. He also notes that two friars, Hendrik and Johann of s’Hertogenbosch, refused to recant and were taken away to Brussels. See Bertrijn, Chronijck der Stadt Antwerpen, p. 73. The problem with these descriptions is that we cannot check Diercxsen’s account against the Paperbrocius and Van Caukerken. And these two chronicles, along with Bertrijn’s, are notoriously inaccurate, particularly with regard to dates.

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is careful to distinguish these events from what would happen later when ‘all were driven from the city’. Moreover, Luther’s allusions to the persecutions occurring in Lower Germany throughout the spring and summer of 1522 also seem to corroborate the events as described, although his first statements about such occurrences come in April and May, which would place these events even before Diercxsens dates in July. In early April of 1522, Luther indicated that ‘many others’ (multi alii) in the Low Countries were being forced to subscribe to the recantation of Probst, suggesting that the authorities had already begun a widespread and systematic effort to eliminate heresy.52 Outside sources substantiate Luther’s views. As noted, in March Cornelis Hoen had received a summons to Brussels and in late April, Cornelis Grapheus was forced to recant in the Grote Markt in Brussels and also in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp. In May and June Luther again referred to the many recantations taking place and to the emperor’s anger, as well as the various other ways in which the faithful were being persecuted.53 By the end of June 1522, he was under the impression that Probst, along with two others, had been burned.54 It is tempting to assume that the two others referred to by Luther here were none other than Vos and van den Esschen, who Diercxsens indicated had already been incarcerated in July. But there is no evidence to corroborate this theory. Confusing matters even further is George Spalatin’s diary entry from a year later about the executions of Vos and van den Esschen. As a result of information from his own contacts in Antwerp, Spalatin claimed that van den Esschen was the successor to Jacob Probst because Lambert Thorn was already incarcerated.55 Thorn, as will be seen presently, was a senior member of the Antwerp Augustinians, a close adherent of Probst and Luther, and a logical successor to Probst. But Spalatin suggests that, like Vos and van den Esschen, he was already in prison by the summer of 1522, further evidence that a raid on the Augustinian cloister had taken place at that time. Perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence is an invoice from September of 1522 for the cost of the transport of Augustinians from Antwerp to Vilvoorde, the location of an imperial prison.56 While there is always a chance that it has been misdated and actually refers to events of October 1522, there also exist further invoices from this later date. Finally, 52 WABr 2:495. 53 WABr 2:523; WABr 2:555. 54 WABr 2:565. 55 Spalatin, Excerpta quaedam e Diario, p. 412. 56 CD, 4: doc. 95.

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the possibility that some sort of action against the Antwerp Augustinians took place in the spring and summer of 1522 seems likely in light of broader efforts by the queen regent to eliminate the overall threat of the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, as demonstrated above.57 In any case, for the remainder of the summer and into the fall of 1522, the Antwerp Augustinians appear to have remained quiet. But this would soon change, largely due to the arrival of Hendrik van Zutphen, who left Wittenberg shortly after the Grimma Chapter meeting in early June, arriving in Antwerp sometime in the late summer or early autumn of 1522, where he was warmly received and soon became prior. There is also some evidence, although I have not been able to confirm it, that when van Zutphen arrived in Antwerp, he initially kept a low profile; it was only when indulgence salesmen arrived in the city that van Zutphen began to preach publicly: first from the pulpit, then in the streets.58 On 29 September 1522, under the pretext of being called to visit an ailing parishioner, he was lured from the cloister, arrested, and held overnight in the Abbey of St. Michael’s for transport to appear before the Inquisition’s court in Brussels the next day. However, a crowd of some three hundred enraged supporters, mostly women, broke down the doors of the abbey, freed him, and returned him to his cloister.59 After hiding for three days, he escaped the city and made for Wittenberg, taking a detour north to the German city of Bremen. From there, van Zutphen wrote a number of letters to Luther and Probst explaining his escape, and asking permission to preach in Bremen, which was granted.60 Van Zutphen would remain in Bremen until two years later when he was called to preach in nearby Heide Dietmarsch. Recognized by local inhabitants there, he was captured and burned on 10 December 1524. 57 One other modern historian has also claimed that the friars were arrested, taken to Vilvoorde, examined, and convinced to recant prior to the final evacuation and closing of the cloister that took place in October of 1522. A. de Decker, seemingly following Bertrijn, suggests as much, placing these events in June of 1522. Decker, ‘Les Augustins d’Anvers’, pp. 380–81. 58 So asserts van Zutphen’s biographer, J. Friedrich Iken; see his Heinrich von Zütphen, p. 27. Iken cites C.H. van Herwerden, Het Aandenken van Hendrik van Zutphen, p. 78 ff., and says that Herwerden claims this information comes from ‘Hollandische Berichten’. But I can f ind no reference to any such reports in Herwerden. 59 Van Zutphen outlines these events in a letter to Probst and Reiner Reynstein, an Augustinian friar from the Enkhuizen cloister, both at the time residing in Wittenberg. This letter may be found in ‘Zutphen’s Briefe’, pp. 241–245; or in CD, 4: doc. 110. 60 Luther to Wenceslaus Link, 19 December 1522, WABr 2:632; on van Zutphen’s letters to Luther explaining the situation, see Rudloff, Bonae Literae et Lutherus, p. 199. We know Luther responded to van Zutphen, but that letter is no longer extant. Luther also passed the information along to Spalatin and Link. See ‘Zutphen’s Briefe’, pp. 241–252.

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But van Zutphen’s liberation and flight were the last straw for the emperor’s queen regent and she decided to dissolve the Antwerp Augustinian cloister altogether, an event in which she participated personally. Multiple sources tell us that Margaret had come from Brussels to Antwerp to negotiate a subsidy from the city council (Senatus), and one source indicates that she stayed for a few days (aliquot dies morata).61 This must have been in late September 1522. It appears that while she was there, Zutphen preached a sermon or series of sermons that she found offensive, and she took the opportunity to have him incarcerated.62 On 6 October 1522, one week after 61 Wolfgang Rychardus to Johann Alexander Brassicanus, 15 November 1522. CD, 4: doc. 109. 62 Circumstances surrounding Margaret’s actions in Antwerp are murky, and the descriptions we have are highly partisan. The reform-minded medical doctor Wolfgang Reichardt wrote the following to his friend Johann Alexander Brassicanus: ‘Lest she [Margaret] receive nothing, she was impelled by the demonically-blind monks [probably a reference to the Dominicans and Carmelites who were part of van der Hulst’s inquisition], and together with her advisors she invaded the monastery of the Augustinians. There she bawled out a certain monk [van Zutphen] who had displeased her, but who was highly esteemed by all the people. What happened? The Augustinian was snatched by force, he was first thrown in chains into the money-house of the emperor; but when the crowds complained, he was taken in chains and thrown into the cloister of St. Michael’ (‘Ne nihil ageret, a monachis cacodemonis adacta in monasterium augustinianum cum suo satellitico irruptionem fecit; indidem monachum quendem, qui, quod dominicastris displicuit, omni autem alij plebe summe probatur, declamavit. Quid multis? Augustinianus vi ereptus, primum in Caesaris monetariam domum coniectus in vincula, postea, murmurante plebe, ad sanctum Michaelem coenobiarchae traditus in vincula coniectus’) Wolfgang Rychardus to Johann Alexander Brassicanus, 15 November 1522. CD, 4: doc. 109. That ‘certain monk’ who had displeased her was van Zutphen. Telling his own story, in which he refers to Margaret as Jezebel, the Old Testament pagan queen married to the evil Israelite King Ahab, van Zutphen also alludes to Margaret’s economic motives for attacking the cloister: ‘For that godless Jesabel, melting with greed, discovered false witnesses, sons of Belial, who said that they heard from my mouth heretical words and things offensive to piety. From this opportunity, seeking occasion against Antwerp (of course they did not wish to satisfy her greed), she laboured to turn the city to sedition, so that she might be permitted to extort as much gold as she wanted as punishment. But God guided all things, lest anything be done by the citizens in a tumultuous way rather than a prudent way, despite all their efforts at bringing the city to violence’ (‘Invenit enim impiissima Iesabel, avaritia tabescens, suos falsos testes, f ilios Belial, qui dixerunt, se audisse de ore meo verba heretica et piarum aurium offensiva, unde occasionem querens contra Antverpiensis (quippe noluerunt illius avaritiam explere) moliebatur in seditionem vertere civitatem, ut sic liceret, quantum voluisset auri pro punitione extorquere, sed praecavit omnia Deus, ne quid ageretur a civibus tumultuosius quam prudentius, quantiscunque violentiis ad hoc provocatis’). Hendrik van Zutphen to Jacob Probst and Pater Reiner, 29 November 1522. CD, 4: doc. 110; and Zutphen, ‘Zutphen’s Briefe’, p. 16. This economic issue might also be obliquely referred to by Richard Wingfield, English ambassador to the court of Margaret, in his report of 4 October 1522 to Cardinal Wolsey, where he writes that ‘[Margaret] told me what trouble she had had with the estates of the country, who are to be here [in Antwerp] again today to make a full conclusion’. Wingfield, Letters and Papers, vol. 3, part 2, p. 1103.

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Zutphen’s flight, Margaret had the remaining friars arrested, then led a procession of the Eucharist out of their cloister church to the Church of Our Lady, symbolically demonstrating the heterodoxy of the Augustinians. The friars who were sons of Antwerp’s citizens were not removed from the city but remained “imprisoned” in the houses of the Beghards, an act that may well have been a concession to the city fathers. By tradition, the imperial authorities could not arrest citizens of Antwerp except under exceptional circumstances, generally limited to cases of treason.63 The remaining friars were loaded in carts and taken to prison. A few months later, Margaret would destroy the cloister and transform its church into the parish church of St. Andreas, which it remains to this day. That Wittenberg was following these events closely is clear from Luther’s letter to Linck dated 9 December 1522, in which he wrote: The brothers have been expelled from the monastery, some imprisoned in various locations, some let go, having denied Christ, while some have remained steadfast until now. Those who are sons of the city have been scattered in the houses of the Beghards. All of the monastery’s goods have been put up for sale, and the church and monastery have been blockaded, eventually to be torn down. With great pomp the Sacrament was transferred to the Church of Our Lady, as if out of a heretical place, where it was received honourably by Lady Margaret. Several citizens and women have been harassed and punished.64 Gerard Geldenhauer, the humanist-minded correspondent of Erasmus, who likewise referred to Margaret as Jezebel, reports the event as follows: ‘There was a certain preacher appointed by those who call themselves Augustinian Eremites. When he had preached the Gospel for several days in Antwerp, it was commanded by the Lady Margaret that he be arrested and held in the monastery of St. Michael. But by force he was removed from there by some women of Antwerp and restored [to his place]. And, having been urged by his friends, and according to the Gospel’s admonition to shake the dust from your feet, he fled from the city to the [next] city’ (‘Concionator quidam instituti eorum qui se heremitas divi Augustini vocant, cum aliquot diebus evangelium Antverpiae praedicasset, jussus est a domina Margarita apprehendi et custodiri in divi Michaelis coenobio, sed inde per matronas aliquot Antverpianas vi abstractus, suis restitutus est et, suadentibus amicis, secundum evangelicam admonitionem excutere pulverem pedum suorum de civitate in civitatem fugit’). Geldenhauer, Collectanea, p. 67. This quotation suggests that van Zutphen had not preached for very long in Antwerp. It also seems to indicate that his preaching was the last straw for Margaret, as Geldenhauer’s next sentence is: ‘Therefore the indignant Lady Margaret commanded that the entire Augustinian monastery be demolished’ (‘Quare indignata domina Margarita jussit totum Augustinensium monasterium demoliri’). 63 Duke, ‘Salvation by Coercion’, p. 149. 64 ‘Monasterio expulsi fratres, alii aliis locis captivi, alii negato Christo dimissi, alii adhuc stant fortes, qui autem filii civitatis sunt, in domum Beghardorum sunt detrusi; vendita omnia vasa

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All of this information is accurate, for at the time it was Margaret’s intention to destroy the church along with the rest of the monastery.65 And Luther continued to be updated on the situation between 6 October 1522 and 1 July 1523, while the inquisitors interrogated the captive Augustinians, convincing all but three to recant.66 Unfortunately, questions remain regarding the captivity of the Augustinians during this period. It is clear that sixteen friars were brought to prison at Vilvoorde, just outside of Brussels, on 7–8 October 1522, and that at least some of them were held until 29 May 1523.67 Van der Hulst interviewed them on 30 October 1522, and released eight of them at the command of the queen regent, one of whom was referred to as the ‘prior’.68 The identity of this prior is unknown. Another officer of Charles V also indicated that he had been paid for holding some of the friars in the castle at de Longue, probably a reference to Longueville in Brabant, where there was also a prison.69 Thus it seems as though the friars were broken into groups and held in separate jails, which would explain Luther’s reference to them being ‘imprisoned in various locations’, and the claim in one of the pamphlets produced in the wake of these events that they were ‘held in many places’.70 Eventually monasterii, et ecclesia cum monasterio clausa et obstructa, tandem demolienda. Sacramentum cum pompa in Ecclesiam beatae Virginis translatum, tanquam e loco haeretico, susceptum honorifice a Domina Margareta. Cives aliquot et mulieres vexatae et punitae.’ Luther to Link, 19 December 1522. WA Br 2:632. 65 We know this because on 10 January 1523, the emperor wrote to Margaret: ‘And regarding the destruction of the cloister and church, which you requested be done as an enduring reminder of this case, it is my opinion and that of our holy father that the living quarters of the monks be destroyed, such that only the church itself is retained to serve in the future as a parish church.’ ‘Et quant à la démolicion que désirez faire dudit cloister et de l’église pour une perpétuelle mémoire du cas y advenu, je suis bien d’aviz, quant en aurez eu le congié de nostre sint père, que les habitacions des religieux soient desmolies en réservant seulement en son entire l’église pour en faire une paroisse’. Letter from Charles V to Margaret, 10 January 1523. CD, 4: doc 120. 66 Van Zutphen himself writes to Probst (who was in Wittenberg by this time) that a citizen of Bremen brought him news of the events in Antwerp. For van Zutphen’s letters from this period, see ‘Zutphen’s Briefe’, pp. 241–242. Ortwin Rudloff claims that in December 1522, three letters from van Zutphen arrived in Wittenberg, all containing information on the events in Antwerp and Bremen. However only one, van Zutphen’s letter to Probst mentioned above, has survived. Rudloff, Bonae Literae et Lutherus, p. 77. 67 CD, 4: doc. 118. 68 CD, 4: doc. 119. 69 CD, 4: doc. 119. I am grateful to Guido Marneff for ascertaining the probable location of the ‘castel de Longue’. 70 ‘[I]nn vil orten gefangen geweßt’. Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung, p. 1. Other information in this paragraph comes from CD, 4: doc. 118. When he finally arrived in Bremen, van Zutphen recounted hearing the following about the captivity of his former colleagues: ‘A citizen of Bremen

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the three who refused to recant, Hendrik Vos, Johann van den Esschen, and Lambert Thorn, were brought to Brussels, where at the last moment Thorn, the man originally slated to follow Probst as prior, asked for time to reconsider and consequently had his sentence commuted to life in prison.71 Vos and van den Esschen were burned in the Grand Plaza of Brussels on 1 July 1523 by the Council of Brabant, the emperor’s imperial authorities, as a result of the Inquisition led by van der Hulst. The charges against the men were never publicly stated. Since the chapter meeting at Dordrecht (27 July 1522), the reformed cloisters of Lower Germany no longer had any official connection to the German Reformed Congregation. By early October of 1522, the Antwerp Augustinians had ceased to exist as a corporate entity. But in its eight brief, eventful years, many threads of the Reformation, as well as initial efforts at countering the Reformation, came together there. The history of the Antwerp cloister bears the marks of Staupitz, Luther, Charles V, and Popes Leo X and Adrian VI. Its rise had been engineered by Staupitz and van Mechelen, its demise by the Inquisition of Charles V and the efforts of his queen regent Margaret. Clear strategies were at work on all sides in its establishment and in its destruction, and it is to a closer investigation of these tactics that we now turn.

came from Antwerp the next day who said that princess Margaret, urged by the emperor […] led all the brothers of our house to Vilvoorde, dismissing a few to Dordrecht and allowing a few who wished, to go free – who are said to be coming to Wittenberg. Some, however, remained of their own will, not wishing to be disbanded until they are taught why they have been arrested like a bunch of thieves’ (‘Venit ex Hantverpia postridie civis quidam Bremensis, qui dixit, principem Margaretam citatam esse ad imperatorem, […] omnes fratres domus nostre ducti fuerunt ad Vilvordam, quorum pars dismissa est ad Dordracum, pars in libertatem ire, quo voluisset, qui dicuntur Wittenbergam venturi, pars autem sua sponte remansisse nec velle dimitti, donec doceat [sic], quare tam turpissime tanquam latrones sint deducti’.) Zutphen, ‘Zutphens Briefe’, p. 244. 71 It may well be that Vos and van den Esschen had been in prison since the previous summer, when the imperial authorities first ‘raided’ the cloister. Evidence for this possibility comes from Dierxcsen’s account (see above). There is also some confusion about Thorn’s status. In his diary, George Spalatin indicated that Thorn was supposed to succeed Probst but could not because he had been jailed. Spalatin, Excerpta quaedam e Diario, p. 412; Luther refers to Thorn as the successor to Probst ‘in words’, (in verbo) suggesting that Thorn was never actually made prior but was his spiritual and oratory successor. WABr 3:115. This might be why Diercxsens claims that Lambert Thorn followed van Zutphen as prior of the Antwerp Augustinians. He does not indicate where he got that information. Diercxsens, Antverpia Christo Nascens et Crescens, vol. 3, p. 376.

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Works Cited Akerboom, Dick and Marcel Gielis, ‘“A New Song Shall Begin Here …”: The Martyrdom of Luther’s Followers among Antwerp’s Augustinians on July 1, 1523 and Luther’s Response’, in More than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity in the History of Christianity, ed. by Johan Leemans (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 243–270. Aleandro, Girolamo, Aleander und Luther 1521: die vervollständigten Aleander– Depeschen nebst Untersuchungen über den Wormser Reichstag, ed. by Theodor Brieger (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1884). Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung/ der degradation und ver/prennung der Christlichen dreyer Ritter und Mer/terer, Augustiner or/dens geschehen zu Brüssel (Various locations: various publishers, 1523). Bertrijn, Geraard, Chronijck der Stadt Antwerpen (Antwerp: P. Kockx, 1879). Boehmer, Julius, ‘Die Beschaffenheit der Quellenschriften zu Heinrich Vos und ­Johann van den Esschen’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 28 (1931), 112–133. Bünger, Fritz and Gottfried Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, in Das Bistum Brandenburg, Part II, Germania Sacra, ed. by Gustav Abb and Gottfried Wentz, 2. vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1929–1941), 1.3: 440–499. Clemen, Otto, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner-Kloster bei Beginn der Reformation (1513–1515)’, Monatshefte der Comenius–Gesellschaft 10 (1901), 306–313. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitats Neerlandicae (=CD), ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols. (Gent: J. Vuylsteke, 1889–1902). Decker, A. de, ‘Les Augustins d’Anvers et la Réforme’, Messager des sciences historiques ou archives des arts et de la bibliographie de Belgique 26 (1883), 373–388. Diercxsens, Jean, Antverpia Christo Nascens et crescens seu Acta Ecclessiam Antverpiensem ejusque Apostolos ac Viros pietate conspicuous concernentia usque ad speculum XVIII. 7 vols. (Antwerp: Joannem Henricum van Soest, 1773). Duinen, Herman van, Hendrik van Zutphen (1489–1524), prior – reformator – martelaar. Bleskensgraaf: Blassekijn, 2004). Duke, Alistair, ‘Salvation by Coercion: the Controversy surrounding the ‘Inquisition’ in the Low Countries on the Eve of the Revolt’, in Reformation Principle and Practice. Essays in Honour of Arthur Geoffrey Dickens, ed. by P.N. Brooks (London: Scolar Press, 1980), pp. 137–154. Ennen, Leonard, Geschicht der Stadt Köln, Meist aus den Quellen des Stadt–Archiv, 5 vols. (Cologne: Schwann, 1863–1880). Erasmus, Desiderius, Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami denuo recognitum et auctum, ed. by Percy Stafford Allen and H. M. Allen, 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906–1958).

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Geldenhauer, Gerard, Collectanea, ed. by J. Prinsen (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1901). Gielis, Gert and Violet Soen, ‘The Inquisitorial Office in the Sixteenth–Century Habsburg Low Countries: A Dynamic Perspective’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66 (2015), 47–66. Gielis, Marcel, ‘Augustijnergeloof en Predikherengeloof: Het conflict tussen de reformatorische verkondiging van de Antwerpse augustijnen en de scholastieke leer van de Leuvense theologen (ca. 1520)’, Luther–Bulletin: Tijdschift voor interconfessioneel Lutheronderzoek 6 (1997), 46–57. Gielis, Marcel and Gert Gielis, ‘Adrian of Utrecht (1459–1523) as Professor at the University of Louvain and as a Leading Figure in the Church in the Netherlands’, in Adrian VI: A Dutch Pope in a Roman Context, ed. by Hans Cools and others (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2012), pp. 1–22. Harreld, Donald J., High Germans in the Low Countries: German Merchants and Commerce in Golden Age Antwerp (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004). Herwerden, C. H. van, Het Aandenken van Hendrik van Zutphen (Groningen: J. Oomkens, 1840). Iken, J. Friedrich, Heinrich von Zutphen, Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 12. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1886). Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904). Lang, Johannes and others, Historia wie S. Heinrich von Zutphan newlich yn Dittmars vmbs Euangelions willen gemartert vnd gestorben ist. Jtem ein Sendbrieff desselbigẽ was er zů vorne anderßwo derohalben erlitten habe. (Altenburg: Gabriel Kantz, 1525). Lanz, Karl, ed. Correspondenz des Kaisers Karl V. Aus dem königlichen Archiv und der Bibliothèque de Bourgogne zu Brüssel, 3 vols. (Frankfurt: Minerva GmbH, 1966). Latomus, Jacobus, Articulorum doctrinae fratris M. Lutheri per theologus Lovanienses damnatorum ratio ex sacris literis et veteribus tractoribus (Antwerp, n.p. 1521). Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke (=WA), vols. 1–73 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel (=WABr), vols. 1–18 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–1985). Papebrocius, Daniel, Annales Antverpienses ab urbe condita ad annum 1700 (Antwerp: J.E. Buschmann, 1895). Pont, Johannes, Geschiedenis van het Lutheranisme in de Nederlanden tot 1618 (Haarlem, De Erven F. Bohn 1911). Prims, F., ‘Het vette Vlaminkje’, Antverpiensia 3 (1929), 66–73. Probst, Jacob, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis in Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie

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des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst, ed. by Ortwin Rudloff, Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte 14 (1985), 42–59. Rudloff, Ortwin, Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst (= Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte) 14 (1985), 11–274. Spalatin, Georg, ‘Excerpta quaedam e Diario Georgii Spalatini MSto’ in Amoenitates Literariae Quibus Variae Observationes Scripta item quaedem anecdota & rariora Opuscula exhibentur, ed. by J. Schelhorn, 4 vols. (Frankfurt and Leipzig: Daniel Bartholomaei, 1725), 4: 389–432. Spangenberg, Cyriakus, Mansfeldische Chronica in Mansfelder Blätter 27, 28, 30, 31, 32 (1913, 1914, 1916, 1917, 1918). Spruyt, Bart J., Cornelius Henrici Hoen (Honius) and his Epistle on the Eucharist (1525): Medieval Heresy, Erasmian Humanism, and Reform in the Early Sixteenth–Century Low Countries (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006). ———, ‘Humanisme, Evangelisme en Reformatie in de Nederlanden, 1520–1530’, in Reformatie in meervoud : congresbundel 1990, ed. by W. de Greef and M. van Campen (Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 1991), pp. 26–54. Vercruysse, Jos E., ‘Was haben die Sachsen und die Flamen gemeinsam…?’, in Wittenberg als Bildungszentrum 1502–2002, ed. by Peter Freybe (Lutherstadt–Wittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 2002), pp. 9–32. Visschers, P., Geschiedenis van St. Andries Kerk te Antwerpen, 3 vols. (Antwerp: P.E. Janssens, 1853). Visser, Casper, Luther’s Geschriften in de Nederlanden tot 1546 (Assen: van Gorcum, 1969). Walsh, Katherine, ‘Papacy and Local Reform: B) Congregatio Ilicetana: The Augustinian Observant Movement in Tuscany and the Humanist Ideal’, Römische historische Mitteilungen 22 (1979), 105–146. Wingfield, Richard, Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols. (London: Longman, 1864–1932). Winterhager, Wilhelm, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars in der Reformkongregation der deutschen Augustiner–Eremiten’, in Vita Religiosa im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Kaspar Elm zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Franz Felten and Nikolas Jaspert (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999), pp. 707–738. Zütphen, Heinrich von. ‘Zutphen’s Briefe‘, ed. by Johann Friedrich Iken Bremisches Jahrbuch 2. 1 (1885), 241–252. Zwingli, Ulrich, Zwinglis Briefwechsel, Die Briefe von 1510–1522 in Corpus reformatorum vol. 94, ed. by Georg Finsler (Leipzig: M. Heinsius, 1911).

4. The Authorities Respond: Pope and Emperor Seize the Initiative Abstract Chapter Four investigates the responses of various opponents of Reformation ideas emanating from the Reformed Augustinian cloisters of Lower Germany. After the Diet of Worms (1521), pope and emperor made common cause with forces already arrayed against religious dissent in Lower Germany. This chapter traces the development of the campaign against the Antwerp Augustinians, which quickly expanded to include the other six Reformed Augustinian cloisters of Lower Germany. It also explores the pope’s response to these Augustinians as it relates to his capacious efforts to limit Reformed Augustinian influence throughout the empire. The chapter demonstrates that key authorities understood the Reformed Augustinians as a threat, and that the response to that threat was an important element in the early Reformation. Keywords: Jerome Aleander, book burnings, Inquisition, Frans van der Hulst

A simple narration of the events surrounding the rise and fall of the Antwerp Augustinian cloister reveals its connections to the highest levels of temporal and ecclesiastical authority of the era, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Roman Pontiff respectively. It further indicates that Luther and the hierarchy of the German Reformed Augustinians were keenly aware of what was happening. But if one argument of this book is that the fight over the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany must be seen as a proxy battle, it is necessary to investigate more closely the precise roles played by the emperor and pope in the events surrounding the cloisters of that province – especially the Antwerp house – and to consider their actions against the background of broader events in the early Reformation. An analysis of the nature and extent to which they were involved will demonstrate not only an awareness of, but a considerable direct participation in these events.

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch04

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Efforts to Control Religious Dissent in the Low Countries Prior to 1521 Prior to pope and emperor entering the struggle against Reformation impulses in Brabant, the lines there had already been drawn. A coalition comprised of the faculty of theology from the University of Leuven, representatives of the mendicant orders, and the inquisition of the Bishop of Cambrai (with significant overlap among these three groups) had already censured Luther’s ideas and confronted humanist-minded reformers in the Low Countries. Following the lead of its colleagues at the University of Cologne, the Leuven faculty of theology had been among Luther’s first critics, censuring his teachings in 1519. But there was some disagreement among these professors over how to proceed: whether to simply condemn Luther or to respond to his teachings more precisely.1 Another sticking point was the issue of papal primacy. The Bull of Excommunication against Luther robustly emphasized the pope’s powers, particularly as interpreter and arbiter of scripture and doctrine. Some of the Leuven professors were reluctant to cede so much authority to the pontiff.2 Others, particularly the Carmelites, Dominicans, and Franciscans, were absolutely in favour of such papal primacy. Their critique of Luther had gone beyond restrained academic disputation, and was now being disseminated from the pulpits, where one mendicant reportedly stated that if he had stabbed Luther with his own hands, he would not hesitate to perform the mass (with those same hands), as both actions were a worthy service to God.3 A like-minded Dominican took things a step further, allegedly declaring in a sermon that ‘If I ever have the chance to tear out Luther’s throat with my own teeth, I would not hesitate to perform the mass with bloody lips’.4 And the mendicant orders in Leuven 1 Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vo. 1, p. 73. 2 Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 78. The Bull reads, ‘With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers [Augustine and Cyprian], with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses [which condemn Luther], and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth’. http:// www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm. Accessed 8/22/2019. 3 ‘[W]ann er den Luther mit seiner eygen handt erstochen hett, so wolte er nit dester minder meßlesen, ja auch got daran ein dienst thun’. Probst, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia, in Rudloff, Bonae Literae et Lutherus, pp. 42–59. 4 ‘Wenn ich doch mit meinen Zähnen dem Luther die Gurgel zerreißen dürfte, ich würde mich nicht scheuen mit noch blutigen Lippen das Meßopfer zu vollziehen’. Quoted in Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 61.

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had been emboldened by the arrival of the Dominican Jacob Hochstraten from the University of Cologne, who had come to the University of Leuven seeking support for his institution’s condemnation of Luther. Throughout Europe, Hochstraten was already famous for his outspoken and relentless pursuit of those deemed religious dissenters.

Early Efforts of the Papacy and Emperor Against the Augustinians Into this scenario arrived Jerome Aleander, the papal legate, on 26 September 1520, going first to Antwerp where the emperor was holding court. The Low Countries were not entirely foreign to the forty-year-old Italian, celebrated as one of the most learned men of his time. A little over a decade earlier, in 1508, he had accepted an invitation from King Louis XII of France to teach Greek at the University of Paris, becoming Rector there in 1513 and being appointed secretary to the Bishop of Paris and Vice-Chancellor of France at the same time. But it was on entering the service of Eberhard, Prince-Bishop of Liège shortly thereafter that Aleander came to know the Low Countries. Liège lay less than 100 kilometres from Brussels, right next door to the Diocese of Cambrai in which both Brussels and Antwerp were located. From this vantage point, the bishop’s secretary was well placed to observe the lay of the land. In fact, Aleander would retain a residence in Liège even after returning to Rome and becoming papal secretary and librarian under Pope Leo X in 1517. Three years later, the pope assigned to him the causa Lutheri, the case of Martin Luther. He was charged with publicizing in the Low Countries the bull Exsurge Domine (15 June 1520) threating Luther with excommunication, and convincing the emperor and princes to enact forceful measures against Luther and his followers. Having left Rome on 27 July 1520, Aleander stopped in Florence to see Giulio de Medici, cousin of Pope Leo X and a future pope himself (Clement VII, 1523–1534). At the time, de Medici was Leo’s principal minister and confidant. He was also Aleander’s immediate superior. Throughout his time at the emperor’s court, whether in the Low Countries or at Worms, Aleander would write frequent reports back to de Medici informing him of news, the status of negotiations, and his own efforts, and asking questions on how to proceed. De Medici thus served as a conduit to his cousin Leo through which information was passed on to the pope, and directives from the pontiff back to Aleander. On 20 September 1520, at the encouragement of Aleander and in support of the condemnations by the theologians of the Universities of Cologne and

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Leuven, Charles V promulgated his first edict against Luther’s teachings.5 A few weeks later, on 8 October 1520, Aleander was able to convince Charles V to allow him to burn Luther’s books in Leuven, a spectacle that took place with members of the faculty of theology and representatives of the mendicant orders in attendance. The coalition of these three bodies (papacy, faculty of theology, and mendicant orders) was already beginning to take shape. But this book burning was just a precursor to a more comprehensive campaign against heterodox ideas in the Low Countries. Not long thereafter, Aleander travelled to Aachen for the emperor’s coronation (22 October 1520), then on to the Diet of Worms (28 January 1521–25 May 1521). It was only after the Diet that the pope and emperor took control of the struggle against Luther’s ideas in the Low Countries, leading eventually to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen. Following his return to the Low Countries from the Diet of Worms Aleander immediately began a tour of its most important cities, in which he publicized the Edict of Worms (25 May 1521), burned Luther’s books, and censured key representatives of Reformation doctrine and religious dissent. It was not long before he had Jacob Probst firmly in his sights; as he proceeded against the Augustinian prior, he turned to the papacy for advice and to the emperor for support, as evidenced by correspondence among Aleander, de Medici, and Jean Glapion, the emperor’s father confessor. On 9 September 1521, Aleander wrote to de Medici that Erasmus and Probst were the two key problems in Brabant, adding that Probst was ‘of that type of demons who requires a stick’.6 Nine days later he received a reply from de Medici: Aleander should make common cause with Glapion and other like-minded individuals in order to discipline ‘the damned Lutheran prior in Antwerp’.7 Nine days thereafter, de Medici repeated this order, adding that ‘as for the villainous prior who has just returned [from Wittenberg], see if you can chastise him without scandal’ (for there was fear that a tumult would arise if they proceeded too harshly), and reminding Aleander to work closely with the emperor.8 In fact, wrote de Medici, Aleander should make 5 For a helpful summary of this and Charles V’s other anti-heresy edicts see Goosens, Les Inquisitions modernes, vol. 1, pp. 48–68. 6 ‘[E]st ex eo genere Demonum che ha bisogno di baston’. Aleander to Vice-Chancellor Medici, 8 September 1521, Monumenta Reformationis, p. 289. 7 ‘Quel maledicto Lutherano priore di Augustiniani’. Vice-Chancellor de Medici to Aleander, 18 September 1521, Monumenta Reformationis, p. 292. 8 ‘Quanto a quel ribald priore che è tornado in Antwersa, vedete se senza scandalo si potesse gastigare’. Vice-Chancellor de Medici to Aleander, 27 September 1521, Monumenta Reformationis, pp. 292–293.

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clear to the emperor that energetic steps must be taken against Probst so the disease of heresy did not spread throughout the land and destroy the church.9 For de Medici, and therefore for the papacy, failure to act against the Augustinian prior could set off a domino effect. Aleander immediately wrote to Glapion, informing him of the papacy’s wishes and asking for the emperor’s support. By 10 October 1521, the papal nuncio received the emperor’s permission to start legal proceedings against Lutherans. Glapion wrote that ‘[i]f two or one are legally condemned’, they should suffer the punishment they deserve.10 But Glapion also reminded Aleander that this must all take place in full accordance with the laws of the state. Up to this point Aleander, representing the interests of the papacy, was the key force behind the burgeoning efforts to discipline the Augustinian prior.

Charles V and the Augustinians of Lower Germany But the emperor had no interest in merely ceding the problem of heresy to the papacy, or to the local bishops. His father confessor’s insistence that any judicial procedures against vocal supporters of Luther be done in accordance with the laws of the state intimated that he saw heresy as a political matter and desired to retain judicial control over it.11 Realizing the grave danger posed by heterodoxy, Charles thus took the unusual step of establishing his own secular inquisition, as noted in the previous chapter. Under the directorship of Frans van der Hulst, this new body fell under the jurisdiction 9 De Medici writes, ‘Make sure that, along with the protonotary, you make it clear to his majesty the Emperor, that they will also infect all the rest of the country, and ultimately rebel from the obedience to the Church and to His Majesty, and multiply to the degree that between them and the Turks they will become a scourge to all the Christians’ (‘vedete ogni modo voi et il Prothonotario con la Maestà Cesarea che vi si proveda vivamente, che altramente infetteranno tutto ’l resto del paese, et per ultimo et dalla ubbidientia della Chiesa et di Sua Maestà si rebellerano, et potrebbero in tanto multiplicare che fra loro et Turchi guai a tutti i Christiani’). Vice-Chancellor de Medici to Aleander, 27 September 1521, Monumenta Reformationis, p. 293. 10 ‘[W]enn zwei oder einer gesetzmäßig angezeigt worden sein’. Kalkoff quotes this letter from Glapion to Aleander, citing Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 18 (1907), 131 as his source. Although I have found the periodical, I have been unable to identify any letter of Glapion in it. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 2, p. 58. 11 Among historians of the Inquisition in the Low Countries it is a widely accepted position that early modern inquisitions (as opposed to their medieval counterparts) were among the principle motors of the establishment of princely sovereignty, and that Charles V’s attempt at a ‘secular inquisition’ was, in part, an attempt to increase his authority and control at the expense of ecclesiastical power. See, for example, Goosens, Les Inquisitions modernes, vol. 1, p. 12; and Decavele, De Dageraad van de Reformatie, vol. 1, pp. 10–11.

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of the emperor’s Council of Brabant.12 Van der Hulst’s status as a layman required him to employ spirituals, and in order to appease the local bishop he chose Egmond and Latomus to assist him, both of whom had previously been employed by the Bishop of Cambrai’s inquisition.13 It was this group, working directly with Glapion and some of his advisors, that arrested and interrogated Probst. With the death of Leo X on 1 December 1522, Aleander was recalled to Rome, although not before presiding over Probst’s public recantation in Brussels on 9 February 1522. With Aleander out of the picture, the papacy’s direct influence on the case against the Antwerp Augustinians waned for a time. On 23 April 1522, Charles publicly confirmed van der Hulst in his position as secular inquisitor for Brabant and the rest of the emperor’s territories in the Low Countries (although he was never referred to specifically in any official documents as ‘inquisitor’), whereupon responsibility for controlling heresy in the Low Countries fell firmly into the hands of the emperor, and a new assault began.14 Thus it was under imperial auspices that van der Hulst (in conjunction with Margaret, the Queen Regent), questioned Miritsch, sponsored the chapter meeting at Dordrecht in 1522 that severed the Augustinians of Lower Germany from the German Reformed Congregation, arrested van Zutphen, and dissolved the Augustinian cloister in Antwerp. The responsibility for the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, however, is a more complicated matter.

Pope Adrian VI and the Campaign against the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians The degree to which the new Pope Adrian actively promoted the actions taken by the secular inquisition is difficult to gauge.15 But two points are 12 For a broader description of Charles V’s ‘secular inquisition’, its organization, and procedures, see Aline Goosens, Les Inquisitions modernes, vol. 2, pp. 77–100, and Gielis and Soen, ‘The Inquisitorial Office’. 13 Kalkoff, Der Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 2, p. 63. 14 Fühner, Die Kirchen- und die antireformatorischen Religionspolitik, p. 225. Fühner also provides a helpful summary of the precise provisions of van der Hulst’s appointment and responsibilities. See pp. 226–227. 15 It is worth noting that already under Leo X, there is some evidence that the Congregation was the cause of papal suspicion and dissatisfaction. In 1519, Leo recommended to the observant cloisters in Southwest Germany (Alzey, Esslingen, Heidelberg, Tübingen, and Weil der Stadt), which had severed themselves from the Congregation over Staupitz’s plans for a union between Conventuals and Observants, that they not rejoin the German Reformed Congregation, but accept

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beyond question. First, that Adrian – who came from Utrecht, had been a member of Leuven’s theological faculty and the tutor of Charles V, had represented the canons of the Church of Our Lady against the nascent efforts of the German Reformed Augustinians to establish a cloister in Antwerp, and had been a friend, mentor, and colleague to van der Hulst – possessed an intimate knowledge of what was happening in Brabant and was well aware of the steps being taken against the Antwerp Augustinians.16 Second, despite the fact that his pontificate was cut short by his untimely passing after less than two years, that Adrian clearly recognized the threat posed by the German Reformed Congregation: for at the time of his death (as will be demonstrated), he was in the process of developing a campaign against them throughout the empire, but especially in the Low Countries. Adrian’s knowledge of the situation in the Low Countries most likely came from a variety of sources. He was a towering figure in the ecclesiastical and political life of the Low Countries before being sent to Spain in 1516 (to represent Charles V’s interests there), and then on to Rome in 1522. As vice-chancellor of the University of Leuven, he had been mentor to many of the men now in positions of power in Leuven’s theology faculty, some of whom would eventually act as judges in the case of Vos and van den Esschen.17 As evidence of their continued deference to Adrian, the faculty had sent its condemnation of Luther’s teachings to him in Spain asking for his approval, which they received in the form of a letter shortly the reform as offered by the Conventual Province of Rhenish-Schwabia. It is unclear whether this was connected to Luther and the air of suspicion he brought to the Congregation or other, unrelated issues. What is clear, however, is the fact that Prior General of the Augustinian Order, Gabriel de Venezia, had no misgivings about what Luther’s teachings could mean for the Order. In 1520, he wrote to Staupitz indicating that not only was Luther giving the Order a bad name, but that his actions had the potential to impact in particular the German Reformed Congregation, which stood to lose its privileges, exemptions, and immunities. Schneider, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’ Amtsverszicht’, pp. 200–201. 16 At the University of Leuven in 1483, van der Hulst and Adrian had already struck up a friendship, and in 1505, Adrian assumed the guardianship of van der Hulst’s children, who had not yet come of age. For Adrian’s connections to van der Hulst see Gielis and Gielis, ‘Adrian of Utrecht’, pp. 16–22. 17 In one of the pamphlets published immediately after the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, the following men are named as their judges: Frans van der Hulst, Jacob Hochstraten, Nicolaas Baechem from Egmond, Godschalc Rosemondt, Jacob Latomus, Ruard Tapper, and Jan Pascha. With the exception of Hochstraten, all had been Adrian’s students. See Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, p. 8. For Adrian’s specific connection to each of these men see Gielis and Gielis, ‘Adrian of Utrecht’, esp. pp. 5–22. For Adrian’s broader association with the University of Leuven see Geurts, De Nederlandse Paus Adrianus, esp. pp. 68–88; and Verweij, Adrianus VI, pp. 17–38.

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thereafter.18 The missive subsequently served as the introduction to the condemnations of Luther published by the faculties of theology at Leuven and Cologne. With so many local connections, the pope was surely kept well appraised of the developments in the Low Countries. If perchance these failed him, then his papal legates undoubtedly kept him informed. As early as 5 November 1522, just weeks after the queen regent had closed the Antwerp Augustinians’ cloister, Francesco Chiericati, Papal Legate to the Diet of Nuremberg, described the events surrounding van Zutphen’s arrest and the incarceration of the remaining Antwerp Augustinians in a letter to an acquaintance. After outlining how the women had rescued van Zutphen, and how the queen regent had responded by dissolving the cloister, Chiericati ended his account claiming confidently that as a result of these severe measures, all the Lutherans now trembled in fear.19 It stands to reason that if Chiericati had precise knowledge of these events, so too did Adrian – if for no other reason than that the legate was tasked with passing such information on to the pope. Of the pope’s next move, there can be no doubt. In a letter dated 1 June 1523, one month prior to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, Adrian officially named van der Hulst a papal inquisitor, in addition to his position as head of Charles V’s secular inquisition. In his letter of appointment, the pope indicated that van der Hulst’s morals and extensive learning were well known to him, so despite the fact that he was not a cleric van der Hulst was nonetheless well qualified to direct the inquisition in the lands of Charles V. Although he was required to enlist the services of clerics, he was vested with the same inquisitorial powers as an episcopal or papal inquisitor.20 Thus, when van der Hulst condemned Vos and van den Esschen four weeks later and gave them over for execution, he did so with the full authority of both emperor and pope.21 18 Meyer, ‘Adriaan Florisz. Van Utrecht’, pp. 4–6. 19 Francesco Chiericati to Isabella D’Este Gonzaga, 5 November 1522. Chiericati, Vescovo e Diplomatico, p. 104. 20 He was promoted to ‘universal and general inquisitor with complete power and authority in all its forms’ (‘universalis et generalis inquisitor et investigator cum plena ac omnimoda potestate et auctoritate’). See the papal bull appointing van der Hulst as papal inquisitor, CD, 4: doc. 136. Fühner sees this as a move by the curia to reassert the supremacy of ecclesiastical authority over the prosecution of heresy. Fühner, Die Kirchen- und die antireformatorische Religionspolitik, pp. 228–229. But it is noteworthy that Charles’s advisors carefully vetted the pope’s letter appointing van der Hulst before it was allowed to be publicized. 21 It is interesting to note that this experiment was short-lived and Charles’s attempt to establish a secular imperial inquisition in the Low Countries was ultimately a failure. Prior to the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen, van der Hulst had already begun a judiciary process

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The close chronology of the papal appointment and the executions begs the question as to whether the two events were related. It seems suspicious that after holding Vos and van den Esschen for about a year, van der Hulst suddenly decided to push their case forward mere weeks or even days after the pope’s letter appointing him papal inquisitor arrived in Antwerp. And indeed, one of the pamphlets produced in the wake of the executions seems to suggest such a connection. The anonymous author writes that only after letters arrived from Rome censuring all who held “Lutheran” views were the Augustinians burned.22 Beyond dispute, however, is the fact that in condemning Vos and van den Esschen to death, van der Hulst was operating in his new position as papal inquisitor, for Charles V did not make heresy a capital crime until 1529.23 Thus, without having been named the papal inquisitor, van der Hulst would have had no power to execute these men. Was Pope Adrian aware that, at the moment he made this inquisitorial appointment, three recalcitrant German Reformed Augustinians from Antwerp were being held prisoner by van der Hulst? It is difficult to believe that he was not. Did he have them specifically in mind when he conferred the powers of papal inquisitor on van der Hulst? The sources do not permit us to answer this question. But while it remains unknown whether Pope Adrian directly authorized the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, even before these events occurred he had officially approved various measures taken by van der Hulst and the against Cornelius Hoen, a Christian Humanist in the Province of Holland. So violently did he proceed against Hoen that the States in the Low Countries protested to Queen Regent Margaret, insisting on their privilege de non evocando (by which their citizens were exempt from being called to answer before a court outside of the territory), and entreating her to remove van der Hulst from his position as inquisitor. In September of 1523 she wrote to Adrian, requesting that he deprive van der Hulst of his commission. By early 1524, she herself had removed him as inquisitor. The case was an important victory for the States. Charles V never again established a tribunal for the prosecution of heresy, a task that now devolved to the secular courts at the provincial level and to the ecclesiastical courts. For more on the precise nature of van der Hulst’s fall, see Spruyt, Cornelius Henrici Hoen (Honius), pp. 75–84. For broader information on the establishment and subsequent demise of the Emperor’s inquisition, see Tracy, Holland under Habsburg Rule, pp. 152–155. 22 ‘Then other monks and ecclesiastics bribed the Regent with money against the pope so that an edict arrived from Rome in which the pope condemned all who held such opinions to the stake’ (‘Nun haben andere münniche und geystliche so vil durchs Gelt mit den Regenten gehandelt auch gegen dem Babst daß ein Mandat von Rom kommen ist dar in der Bapst alle die so auff dißer meynung sind verurteylt hatt die selben zuverprennen’). Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung, p. 3. And indeed, in the text of van der Hulst’s appointment, the unorthodox teachings of Luther are clearly articulated. CD, 4: doc. 136. 23 Christman, Pragmatic Toleration, 25.

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queen regent against the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany. In a letter dated 23 November 1522, Adrian provided his imprimatur for the vote at the chapter meeting in Dordrecht that severed the Reformed Augustinian Province of Lower Germany from the German Reformed Congregation’s hierarchy in Saxony, establishing Johann van Mechelen as Vicar General of Lower Germany.24 And he was soon to give his blessing to the destruction of the Augustinians’ cloister and the conversion of their church into a parish church.25 While it is tempting to assume that someone as overburdened as Adrian probably had assistants who made such decisions, this is unlikely. Adrian was well-known for his micromanaging style, which caused one historian to remark that ‘[the pope] tended to personally handle as many affairs as possible and hardly delegated anything’.26 The actions taken against the Reformed Augustinians indicate not only that the pope was aware of the specific situation of the Antwerp friars, but also that he understood the broader threat posed by the cloisters that made up the Province of Lower Germany. The probability that a papal strategy against the Reformed Augustinians was at work in the Low Countries becomes even greater when these events are viewed against the backdrop of Adrian’s other moves against the German Reformed Augustinians. As noted, due to his untimely death the pope had only a narrow window to use his particular personal knowledge of this group. He had received news that he was chosen pope on 24 January 1522 while in Spain, but did not arrive in Rome until 28 August 1522. Just over one year later, on 14 September 1523, he would breathe his last. And while it is true that during his short pontificate he did not enact any bulls against the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians, there are indications that he was preparing to do so in the correspondence of Prior General Gabriel de Venezia from this period. Three times in his register of correspondence Gabriel mentions an expected papal bull that would have returned control of the Congregation’s houses to the respective provincials, a move that would have essentially ended the German Observant movement. In the first 24 Pope Adrian VI confirmed the decision made in Dordrecht and at the same time conferred powers on this new Vicar General for Lower Germany equal to those of the German Reformed Congregation’s Vicar General. Leonard Ennen, Geschichte der Stadt Köln, vol. 4, p. 184. 25 Although we do not have the document, we know that Adrian VI did confirm this decision because on 10 January 1523, Charles V wrote to Margaret informing her that she should wait to destroy the cloister until permission was received from the pope; what is more, she should not destroy the cloister church but, as per the request of the pope, turn it into a parish church. CD, 4: doc. 120. 26 Hulscher, ‘The Pontificate of Adrian VI’, p. 55.

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reference, Gabriel merely forwards to the pope the Provincial of the Cologne’s request for the Prior General to help recuperate the monasteries that had been ‘usurped’ by the Observants by requesting that the pope promulgate a Bull to that effect.27 A few months later on 12 June 1523, corresponding with the Provincial of the Cologne Province, the Prior General refers to the requested bull, indicating that he hopes it will be finished any day now.28 And only days later, on 15 June 1523, the Prior General writes to the Provincial of Rheinish-Swabia, encouraging him to root out all members in his province who have become infected with the Lutheran heresy, and promising the imminent appearance of ‘apostolic letters’ (litteras apostolicas) ‘through which that entire [German Reformed] Congregation and their houses will be subjected to the General Provinces’.29 From Gabriel de Venezia’s perspective, Pope Adrian was preparing to take drastic steps to break up the German Reformed Congregation by returning authority over its houses into the traditional structures of the order.30 But the anticipated Bull never came. Was all this talk merely wishful thinking on the part of the Prior General? Other actions taken by Adrian regarding individual Augustinian houses 27 Cited in Meyer, ‘Adriaan Florisz. van Utrecht’, p. 52, n. 2. 28 ‘In addition, I informed him [the Provincial of the Cologne Province] of a pontifical bull being drafted for the recovery of the monasteries which I hope will be completed shortly’ (‘Preterea significavimus illi bullam pontificam cudi pro monasteriorum recuperatione quam prope diem confectam fore speramus’). Cited in Meyer, ‘Adriaan Florisz. van Utrecht’, p. 52, n. 2. 29 ‘[Q]uibus tota illa congregatio et eorum domus Generali provincialibusque subiicietur’. Cited in Meyer, ‘Adriaan Florisz. van Utrecht’, pp. 52–53, n. 2. 30 If the pope needed one more source of information regarding the German Reformed Augustinians and the situation in Wittenberg, he certainly could have called on Gabriel de Venezia directly, for the Prior General of the Augustinian Order was keeping close tabs. In early 1523, de Venezia reported to the Provincial of the Saxon Province that in Rome he daily heard the shameful reports coming out of Germany. Most of these reports have been lost, but a newly discovered letter dated November 1522 from Nicolaus Coci, an Augustinian studying in Wittenberg, to the Prior General himself, provides direct evidence regarding de Venezia’s knowledge of the situation in Saxony. Coci, himself from Saxony, had been studying in Rome while holding the position of sub-prior at the Convent of St. Augustine, which was also de Venezia’s residence. In autumn of 1522, on his return home to Germany, he was sent by de Venezia to deliver a message to the Provincial of Saxony, but then went to study at the University of Wittenberg, already considered a hotbed of heresy by this point. Why would the Prior General allow this? Hans Schneider sees only one possible rationale: that Coci was sent to Wittenberg to gather direct information. He was a spy. In his one surviving letter to the Prior General, sent just days after his arrival in Wittenberg, he gives a broad, if not particularly deep description of the lay of the land. The point is that de Venezia, and therefore Rome, were directly informed about the circumstances in Wittenberg and even in the Black Cloister itself, where Coci would have resided during his time in Wittenberg. See Schneider, ‘Zwei Briefe über die Situation in Wittenberg’, 11–34. I am thankful to Dr. Schneider for sharing his work with me.

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suggest that it was not, but that the pope was broadly engaged in a critical response to the German Reformed Augustinians, particularly those with “Lutheran” notions. Adrian’s efforts regarding their cloister in Cologne demonstrate that he was keenly aware of the danger they posed and was willing to move against them, even when it brought him into conflict with the cloister’s local patrons, the city council, not to mention the wishes of the imperial authorities. Cologne was one of three cloisters that had abstained from voting to secede from the German Reformed Congregation at the chapter meeting in Dordrecht in July 1522. As a result, the cloister was immediately deemed suspect by the faculty of theology at the University of Cologne. These powerful professors soon instituted a rule that no one coming from Wittenberg to study or teach at the university would be allowed to proceed unless they swore an oath damning Luther’s heresy and promising not to disseminate it. When friar Heinrich Himmel arrived from Wittenberg in October 1521, having been assigned to teach in the Cologne cloister’s studium generale – a task that also included lecturing at the University – he refused to swear the oath and was not allowed to take up his position.31 Yet, as will become apparent in the following chapters, this move did not hinder the emergence of a considerable group of supporters of Reformation doctrines in that city’s Reformed Augustinian cloister. Various efforts were made to rein in this small but vocal minority, all of which failed. New, more aggressive measures were required. In theory, the cloister fell under the spiritual authority of Johann van Mechelen, now Vicar General of the newly established autonomous Reformed Augustinian Province of Lower Germany. However, because he did not initially undertake action to address the problems in the Cologne cloister, on 28 April 1523 Pope Adrian promulgated a bull that removed the cloister from obedience to van Mechelen and placed it directly under the joint authority of the Apostolic See and the faculty of theology of the University of Cologne. This was a deliberate effort by the pope to increase control over the cloister and eliminate heresy, a move undertaken despite the fact that van Mechelen was a convinced opponent of Luther and had the support of the imperial government. But due to his status as an Observant, van Mechelen apparently retained an air of suspicion for Adrian.32 And although the pope’s attempt ultimately failed, it signalled his awareness of the situation in the Lower German cloister of Cologne, and his rather forceful efforts to bring the Reformed Augustinians there to heel. 31 Rotscheidt-Mörs, ‘Die kölner Augustiner’, p. 38. 32 For the text of the Papal Bull, see Rothscheidt-Mörs, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner’, pp. 44–45.

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The scenario in the Munich cloister, another German Reformed Augustinian house with pro-Reformation impulses, presents an even starker example of the pope’s recognition that the friars were a threat. That cloister had joined the ranks of the German Reformed Congregation in 1481, when Observant friars were brought in and the Conventuals expelled. In 1488, the cloister was placed under the authority of Andreas Proles, Staupitz’s predecessor as Vicar General of the Congregation. In 1500, Staupitz himself became prior, a role that Wenceslaus Linck would eventually fill from 1515 to 1517.33 It would not be an overstatement, then, to suggest that the Munich cloister played a leading role within the German Reformed Congregation. But in March 1522, when Linck, in his capacity as Vicar General, invited representatives of all of the Congregation’s cloisters to meet in Eschwege, the prior of the Munich cloister refused to attend. Instead he forwarded Linck’s invitation to the Duke of Bavaria, a convinced opponent of the Reformation who had forbidden the cloister all contact with the German Reformed Congregation. At the request of the Duke, the pope now got involved. On 7 August 1523, he issued a bull removing the Munich cloister from control of the German Reformed Congregation and placing it directly under papal authority.34 The document provides some insight into Adrian’s impression of the German Reformed Congregation a little over a month since the executions of Vos and van den Esschen. The Congregation, he asserted, was ‘formerly a holy congregation, but now is a synagogue of Satan’, their head and many of their brothers following the schismatic and heretic, Martin Luther, to their destruction.35 As his actions regarding the Cologne and Munich cloisters make clear, Adrian was aware of the role of the German Reformed Augustinians as purveyors of the early Reformation. Why he never promulgated the bull that would have brought the entire Congregation firmly under the control of the Provincials is unknown – perhaps he just ran out of time; however, his actions with regard to the cloisters in Cologne and Munich demonstrate that he understood the threat they posed. When all the pieces are put together it becomes apparent that, by the summer of 1523, the papacy had its sights trained on the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians. In early November of 1522, Chieriecati had reported that as the result of the arrest of van Zutphen, the closing of the Antwerp cloister, and the incarceration of the Antwerp friars, the 33 Hemmerle, ‘Die Augustiner-Eremiten in Bayern’, p. 433. 34 Dreher, ‘Die Augustiner-Eremiten in München’, p. 123. 35 ‘olim sancte congregationis, nunc vero synagoge sathanae’. For a text of this letter see Meyer, ‘Adriaan Floriz. van Utrecht’, pp. 68–70, here at p. 68.

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Lutherans now cowered in fear. On 23 November 1522, Pope Adrian gave his imprimatur to the establishment of a Vicar General for the Province of Lower Germany, the outcome of the Dordrecht Chapter meeting. On 28 April 1523, the pope made his first direct move against the Augustinians, decreeing the Cologne cloister be placed under joint control of the papacy and the University of Cologne faculty of theology. On 1 June 1523, he gave van der Hulst full powers as papal inquisitor, undoubtedly aware that some of the friars from the Antwerp cloister were still incarcerated. On two occasions after this, 12 and 15 June, the Prior General of the Augustinian Order referred to the papacy’s efforts to produce a bull that would essentially dissolve the German Reformed Congregation. On 1 July, Vos and van den Esschen were burned in Brussels. On 4 August, Adrian removed the Munich cloister from control of the ‘synagogue of Satan’ and placed it under his direct control. And early in 1524, the pope gave permission to the queen regent to have the Augustinian cloister in Antwerp destroyed and its church turned into a parish church. All of these moves suggest a multifaceted campaign against the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians, particularly those in Lower Germany. Both pope and emperor targeted them as purveyors of Reformation heresies and religious dissent and did their best to eliminate the threat.36 These cloisters, then, cannot be considered peripheral to the action of the burgeoning Reformation, but must be understood as an early battleground, part of a conflict that reached into the highest ecclesiastical and temporal circles in Europe. However, the forces supporting the Reformation, particularly the hierarchy of the German Reformed Congregation, were not about to abandon their brethren in Lower German. The battle would be waged on both sides.

36 It is perhaps worth noting that not only did the pope and emperor perceive the threat posed by the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, but the local authorities did as well. The magistrate at Ghent in their letter to Margaret of Austria describing the outcome of the Dordrecht Chapter meeting, claimed that actions had been taken ‘[…] in order to root out the error and heresy of Martin Luther from these Low Countries of the emperor, our lord, and also from the reformed Augustinian [Observant] cloisters, which number seven and have come under suspicion of the said heresy of Martin Luther since they fell under the authority of the Vicar of Germany [=Wenceslas Link], himself also suspected and condemned [of heresy]’ (‘pour extirper lerreur et hérésie de Martinus Luther de ses pays dembas de lempereur nostre sire, et mesmement des cloisters de la réformacion [=Observants] de lordre de St Augustin estans en nombre de sept couvents, lesquelz estoient suspectz dud. erreur de Martinus Luther, à cause que lesd. couvents estoient dessoubz lobédience du vicaire dAllemaigne [=Linck], que dud. erreur estoite pareillement diffamé et suspect’). CD: doc. 91.

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Works Cited Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung/ der degradation und ver/prennung der Christlichen dreyer Ritter und Mer/terer, Augustiner or/dens geschehen zu Brüssel (Various locations: various publishers, 1523). Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, ob Evangelij doctrinam exustis Bruxellae, die trigesima Iunij. Anno domini M.D.XXIII (n.p.: n.p). Chiericati, Francesco, Vescovo e Diplomatico del Secolo Decimosesto Lettura, ed. by Bernardo Morsolin (Vicenza: Tip. Naz Paroni, 1873). Christman, Victoria, Pragmatic Toleration: The Politics of Religious Heterodoxy in Early Reformation Antwerp (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2015). Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitats Neerlandicae (=CD), ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols. (Gent: J. Vuylsteke, 1889–1902). Decavele, Johan, De Dageraad van de Reformatie in Vlaanderen (1520–1565), 2 vols. (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1975). Dreher, Max, ‘Die Augustiner-Eremiten in München im Zeitalter der Reformation und des Barock (16. Bis Mitte 18. Jahrhunderts)’, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Salzburg, 2002. Verlag Dr. Kovač. Ennen, Leonard, Geschicht der Stadt Köln, Meist aus den Quellen des Stadt-Archiv, 5 vols. (Cologne: Schwann, 1863–1880). Fühner, Jochen, Die Kirchen- und die antireformatorischen Religionspolitik Kaiser Karls V. in den siebzehn Provinzen der Niederlande 1515–1555 (Leiden: Brill, 2004). Geurts, Twan, De Nederlandse Paus Adrianus van Utrecht 1459–1523 (Amsterdam: Balans, 2017). Gielis, Gert and Violet Soen, ‘The Inquisitorial Office in the Sixteenth-Century Habsburg Low Countries: A Dynamic Perspective’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66 (2015), 47–66. Gielis, Marcel and Gert Gielis, ‘Adrian of Utrecht (1459–1523) as Professor at the University of Louvain and as a Leading Figure in the Church in the Netherlands’, in Adrian VI: A Dutch Pope in a Roman Context, ed. by Hans Cools and others (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2012), pp. 1–22. Goosens, Aline, Les Inquisitions modernes dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux 1520–1633, 2 vols. (Brussels: Editions de l’ Université de Bruxelles, 1997–1998). Hemmerle, J., ‘Die Augustiner-Eremiten in Bayern’, Augustiniana 6 (1956), 385–489. Hulscher, Hans, ‘The Pontificate of Adrian VI (9 January 1522 – 14 September 1523)’, in Adrian VI: A Dutch Pope in a Roman Context, ed. by Hans Cools, Catrien Santing, and Hans de Valk, (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2012), 47–66. Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904).

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Meyer, A. de, ‘Adriaan Florisz. Van Utrecht in zijn Contacten met de Augustijnen’, Archief voor de Gescheidenis van de Katholieke Kerk in Nederland 2 (1960), 1–72. Monumenta Reformationis Lutheranae ex tabularis s. sedis, 1521–1525, ed. by Petrus Balan (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1883). Papal Encyclical, “Bull of Excommunication” http://www.papalencyclicals.net/ Leo10/l10exdom.htm. Accessed 13 July 2019. Probst, Jacob, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis in Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst, ed by Ortwin Rudloff Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte 14 (1985), 42–59. Rotscheidt-Mörs, Wilhelm, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner und die Wittenberger Reformation’, Monatshefte für Rheinische Kirchengeschichte 17 (1911), 33–58. Schneider, Hans, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’ Amtsverszicht und Ordenswechsel’, Augustiniana 66 (2016), 185–231. ———, ‘Zwei Briefe über die Situation in Wittenberg 1522 und 1524 im Register des Ordensgenerals der Augustinereremiten’, Lutherjahrbuch 83 (2016), 11–34. Spruyt, Bart J., Cornelius Henrici Hoen (Honius) and his Epistle on the Eucharist (1525): Medieval Heresy, Erasmian Humanism, and Reform in the Early Sixteenth-Century Low Countries (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006). Tracy, James D., Holland under Habsburg Rule, 1506–1566: The Formation of a Body Politic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) Verweij, Michiel, Adrianus VI (1459–1523) De tragische paus uit de Nederlanden (Antwerp–Apeldoorn: Garant, 2011).

5.

Wittenberg’s Influence on the Events in Lower Germany Abstract Chapter Five shifts the focus to Martin Luther and the Reformed Augustinian leadership in Wittenberg. Traditional historiography insinuates that these men merely observed the tragedy unfolding in the Low Countries from afar and lamented its outcome. But this chapter argues for a more proactive involvement, demonstrating that not only were Luther and his colleagues aware of the events in Lower Germany, they sought to influence them. Moreover, they employed the strategies developed by Staupitz in the 1510s to expand the Congregation’s influence, this time in the service of the Reformation. Thus by 1521, Luther and his colleagues were already using the assets of the Augustinian Order under their control to disseminate Reformation ideas. Keywords: German Congregation of Reformed Augustinians, Jacob Probst, Hendrik van Zutphen, Augustinian Education

Both the emperor and pope understood the threat posed by the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians, particularly those in the Province of Lower Germany, and because these authorities possessed the necessary influence to proceed against them, they were able to silence the friars there. Despite this, it is clear that the networks the Congregation forged in the first decades of the sixteenth century, along with the tactics employed by Staupitz in his efforts to expand the influence of the group, offered the Congregation’s pro-Luther elements an opportunity: they could use those assets in the service of Reformation ideas. Previously, historians appear to have assumed that any actions taken by Congregation members in Lower Germany in support of the Reformation were motivated by individual conscience and personal conviction, not the consequences of any formal or even loosely devised plan. But a closer look at the interaction between

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch05

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the Congregation’s hierarchy and their members in the Province of Lower Germany reveals that not only were Wenceslaus Linck, Martin Luther, Johannes Lang, and other key members keenly aware of what was happening in the Low Countries, they were working to control, or at the very least to influence the situation.

Education in the Ways of the Congregation To understand their actions in support of their ‘Lower German’ brethren, it is important to recognize that these men stood at the top of the Congregation’s hierarchy. By 1520, each of them had spent well over a decade in the Reformed Augustinians’ system under the tutelage of Johann von Staupitz, who was in many ways a role model for the actions they would now undertake. Theologians and historians have often pointed to Luther’s debt to Staupitz in the area of doctrine, not least because Luther himself acknowledged it with gratitude.1 But it is difficult to imagine that these men did not also observe and benefit from Staupitz’s other aptitudes, in particular his skill in ecclesiastical politics. Brief biographical sketches of Linck, Luther, and Lang as relates to their time as Augustinians indicate the degree to which they were products of the Congregation’s administrative environment, and party to its inner workings. A direct contemporary of Luther, Wenceslaus Linck (1482–1547), who would ultimately succeed Staupitz as Vicar General, was a Saxon who had joined the Augustinians in their Waldheim cloister. He must have shown academic promise, for in 1508 (the same year that van Zutphen arrived) his cloister sent him to study at the University of Wittenberg, where Luther had just arrived for his first Wittenberg phase. Linck received his Doctorate in Theology in 1511, the year before Luther. In 1512, at the Congregation’s chapter meeting in Cologne, Staupitz appointed his two young protégés to lead the Wittenberg cloister: Linck as prior, Luther as sub-prior. Linck was also given the position of Dean of the Faculty of Theology and District Vicar for the Congregation’s Province of Saxony-Thuringia from 1512 to 1515, while Luther was named regent or director of the cloister’s studium generale. Johannes Lang, who was likewise sent from Erfurt to Wittenberg at this time, was installed as Luther’s assistant in the studium generale. 1 Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr) 3:155–156. Much has been written on Luther and Staupitz. For a few works to orient the reader see Saak, Highway to Heaven, pp. 637–660; Hamm, ‘Johann von Staupitz’; and Wriedt, Gnade und Erwählung.

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It was during this period that the three men became close friends. When his duties as District Vicar ended in 1515, Linck accompanied Staupitz on several visitations of the Congregation’s cloisters. A gifted preacher, he was called to Nuremberg in 1516, where he effectively assumed leadership of the intellectual circle that had once gathered around Staupitz, promoting reform ideas there among the likes of Willibald Pirckheimer, Lazarus Spengler, and Albrecht Dürer. In 1518, Linck attended the Heidelberg chapter meeting at which the Heidelberg Disputation was held, after which he travelled with Staupitz and Luther to the Reformer’s famous meeting with Cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg. In 1520, Linck was chosen by the Congregation to be Vicar General, successor to Staupitz himself. In a variety of ways Linck was a product of Staupitz’s grooming and a gifted intellectual, but also someone who evidently had the administrative and political skills necessary to be selected for the Congregation’s top position. Due to his clear intellectual aptitude, Staupitz kept Luther on more of an academic track within the Congregation, but this does not mean that administration and ecclesiastical politics were foreign to him. Luther had entered the Congregation’s cloister in Erfurt in 1505 and soon developed a close relationship with Staupitz, who singled him out for advanced studies. Over the next decade, Staupitz would become a mentor, father-figure, teacher, and confessor.2 But as has been noted, in addition to his academic duties, Staupitz named Luther sub-prior and director of Wittenberg’s studium generale. And it is in this second capacity that Luther came into direct contact with many academically gifted young Augustinian friars sent from the Congregation’s cloisters to study at Wittenberg.3 Three years later, in 1515, Staupitz added the role of District Vicar for the Congregation’s Saxony-Thuringia province to Luther’s responsibilities, a position he would hold until 1518. As District Vicar he was given oversight of ten monasteries, to which an eleventh, the newly established cloister of St. Anne’s in Eisleben, was soon added. He was thus responsible for well over one-third of the Congregation’s cloisters, located in the heartland of the Observant Movement. Furthermore, in the administrative structure of the Congregation the District Vicar was not merely a representative of the Prior General, but had considerable power of his own, particularly with regard to visitations – power that, in extreme circumstances, included 2 See Saak, Highway to Heaven, pp. 637–660. 3 Günther makes the important point that after 1512, Erfurt increasingly lost its prestige as the Congregation’s intellectual centre. Wittenberg took its place, where Martin Luther, a representative of the new generation, held the Congregation’s most important Chair of Theology. Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 335.

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the removal of unfit priors.4 And as one of the group’s three District Vicars, he was one small step from the leadership of the entire Congregation.5 In addition to presiding over the integration of the new St. Anne’s cloister during his time as District Vicar, Luther would have witnessed the Congregation’s incorporation of the newly established Antwerp cloister, as well as its expansion into the Ghent and Dordrecht cloisters. Of course, his fellow District Vicar of the Province of Lower Germany, Johann van Mechelen, would have been more intimately involved in these affairs, but it is nonetheless probable that Luther would have been privy to discussions involving these events at the Congregation’s highest levels. If his letters are any indication, Luther kept a close eye on the news and politics of the Congregation, noting who was being placed where and in what position within the Congregation, and commenting on the status of its various cloisters. It is clear that Luther took his role as District Vicar seriously and as a result received a thorough education into how the Congregation functioned.6 In his missives he mentions his various duties, including the punishment of wayward brothers, responding to questions regarding assorted cloisters’ finances and inventories, settling cases of discord within houses, and admonishing cloisters under his authority to make the instruction of young friars a priority.7 Describing his varied responsibilities in a 1516 letter to Lang, one gets a sense of how thoroughly he had been incorporated into the Congregation’s administration: he was his convent’s preacher, a reader at table, a parish preacher and priest, director of the studium generale, District Vicar – which, as he put it, was like being a prior eleven times over – a collector of alms, a judge, and a lecturer on Paul, all the while trying to prepare his lectures on the Psalms for publication. ‘But the greatest portion of my time’, complained Luther, ‘[was] taken up writing letters’,8 most of which were undoubtedly related to his role as District Vicar. 4 Winterhager, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars’, p. 718. 5 Scholars are quick to point out that Luther only rose to a modest position within the Augustinian Order. But within the little German Reformed Congregation, he must be counted among the leading members from 1515 onwards. Regarding the position of ‘Regional Vicar’, another name for District Vicar, Wilhelm Winterhager claims that ‘Under and next to the Vicar General, they embodied the leadership echelon of the entire Congregation’ (‘Unter und neben dem Generalvikar verkörpern sie die Leitungsebene der gesamten Kongregation’). Winterhager, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars’, p. 716. 6 For a fuller discussion of Luther’s work as district vicar, particularly in his duties as visitor, see Winterhager, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars’, pp. 729–738. 7 Saak, Luther and the Reformation, pp. 210–213. 8 ‘[Q]uod iam dixi maiorem partem occupare temporis mei, epistolarum scribendarum negotium’. WABr 1:72.

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As a result of his growing responsibilities, Luther could not help but be swept into the politics of the Augustinian Order. The Erfurt cloister, where he had first joined, was among the chief representatives of the Observant movement in the German-speaking lands. As noted previously, Staupitz’s initial plan to expand the Congregation’s influence, one apparently supported by the Prior General of the Order, was to have himself named as both Provincial of Saxony and Vicar General of the Congregation, with the ultimate goal of ending the strife between Conventuals and Observants and reforming all of the cloisters. But the plan had been met with scepticism by a group of seven Reformed cloisters, Erfurt chief among them. These opponents to Staupitz’s plan feared that this move would dilute the Observant movement within the Order, and considered Staupitz’s assumption of these two positions simultaneously to be illegal. Thus Luther found himself caught between the plans of his mentor and the position of his fellow Erfurt friars. In 1510, Luther and a colleague travelled to Rome, a journey traditionally explained as part of this opposition group’s resistance to this union; however, this explanation is no longer tenable. In fact, as Hans Schneider has convincingly argued, Luther went to Rome at the behest of Staupitz. He was sent to accompany the senior and more experienced Johann van Mechelen, and their assignment was to respond critically to the repeated appeals to the pope that had been articulated by the seven oppositional cloisters (his own among them) – and perhaps to give Luther experience in ecclesiastical diplomacy as well as opportunity to take spiritual advantage of a pilgrimage to Rome.9 What van Mechelen and Luther talked about during the two months they walked the 1,600 km to Rome in late 1511, and on their return in early 1512, is anybody’s guess, but there certainly would have been ample time for Luther to hear from van Mechelen about the Low Countries and the situation there. Luther’s decision to side with Staupitz against his Erfurt brethren would arouse some negative reactions among those opposing the union, but in the long run it does not appear to have been detrimental to his standing in the Congregation.10 In fact, his loyalty ultimately worked to his advantage, for when Luther was awarded his Doctorate in Theology a few years later, Staupitz called him to Wittenberg as Professor of the Bible, the academic position that up to that point Staupitz himself had held. By 1520, Luther was not only a veteran of monastic administration, particularly 9 See Hans Schneider’s careful explanation and reinterpretation of this event in ‘Martin Luthers Reise nach Rom’, esp. pp. 111–116. 10 For the tensions with his erstwhile brothers in Erfurt caused by this event see Saak, Luther and the Reformation, pp. 203–213.

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within the Congregation, but someone with first hand experience of broader ecclesiastical politics. A third Augustinian who seems to have gravitated into the proReformation brain trust of the Congregation in the period after 1520 is Johannes Lang (1488–1548). Lang entered the Augustinian cloister in Erfurt no later than 1506, the year after Luther arrived, where he pursued humanist studies; in this regard he influenced Luther, with whom he had a burgeoning friendship. Together with Luther he was sent to Wittenberg in 1511, where the two worked closely together in the cloister’s studium generale.11 Already well versed in classical languages, Lang studied Hebrew and would become a close adviser to Luther on the translation of the Old Testament. In Wittenberg Lang obtained his Bachelor of the Bible degree (baccalaureus biblicus), before returning to Erfurt as temporary prior in 1516, a position that he would take up permanently that same year as the result of Luther’s confirmation in has capacity of District Vicar. Lang himself would succeed Luther as District Vicar from 1518–1520. In 1519 Lang also received his Doctor of Theology degree at the University of Erfurt, but he remained closely connected to events and individuals in Wittenberg. For example, Luther sent him an original copy of the Ninety-Five Theses, supported him in his efforts against the champions of Aristotelian education at the University in Erfurt, and remained in constant correspondence with him. Lang also accompanied Luther to the chapter meeting in Heidelberg (1518) and the Leipzig Disputation (1519), before becoming one of the leaders of the Reformation movement in Erfurt. Although he was eventually expelled from the faculty of theology at Erfurt, Lang worked to reorganize Erfurt’s church, became pastor at St. Michael’s, and was eventually made superintendent in that city. Further research on his life is warranted, as many of even the most basic facts are contested, but he certainly had the opportunity to observe the politics and methods used at the highest levels of the Congregation. All this shows that by 1520, Linck, Luther and Lang must be considered veterans within the German Reformed Congregation, occupiers of its key positions, and possessors of a keen understanding of how it functioned. While Luther’s formal position of District Vicar in the Congregation ended in 1518, the same year in which Staupitz released him from his vows of obedience, Luther’s correspondence from this period continues to demonstrate an active interest in the administration of the Congregation. He frequently disseminated news regarding various brothers, passed judgement on the actions of fellow friars and decisions made regarding their placement in 11 Zumkeller, ‘Johannes von Staupitz’, p. 43.

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the Congregation’s various cloisters, and in the end appears, through his towering presence, to have become the spiritual father and de facto leader of this group. Even more concretely, one historian has noted that during his time as Vicar General of the Congregation (1520–1523), Linck often went to Luther for advice – underscoring the de facto nature of this leadership.12 Through all of this, Luther also became increasingly involved in the events taking place among the German Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, particularly those in Antwerp.

The New Generation Assumes Control In 1520, there was a changing of the guard in the German Reformed Congregation. At their chapter meeting in Eisleben, Staupitz – whose superiors in the Augustinian Order had placed him in the unenviable position of censuring Luther – decided to lay down his office as Vicar General. Chosen to replace him was Linck, who immediately proved himself a good student of his predecessor by undertaking a thorough visitation of the Congregation’s cloisters in Thuringia and Saxony; he continued on to Lower Germany in the spring of 1521, where he visited the cloisters in Cologne, Ghent, and Enghien.13 As indicated by his companion Nikolaus Besler, who documented the journey, he also visited the cloisters in Holland, Flanders, and Brabant, which undoubtedly included the remainder of the houses of the Reformed Province of Lower Germany.14 By early 1521, Linck possessed first-hand knowledge of the situation in each cloister in Lower Germany, and probably a pretty clear understanding of the broader state of religious and political affairs there as well. As to Luther, we know that in addition to whatever news he was getting from Linck, Spalatin, and students from the Low Countries, he was also receiving letters directly from Probst, for on 1 September 1520 he passed along correspondence to Spalatin that he had received from the Antwerp prior outlining the steps being taken by those authorities

12 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 406. 13 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 5, p. 509. 14 By this point Besler was well-established as a leader within the German Reformed Congregation. He had served as prior of cloisters in Munich and Nuremberg, had been sent on Congregation business by Staupitz to Rome, had been District Vicar of the Congregation’s Province of Upper Germany, and had accompanied Staupitz twice on visitation journeys. Shortly after his trip with Linck, he would break with the supporters of Luther and remain faithful to the church. See Besler, ‘Die Autobiographischen Aufzeichnungen’, p. 119.

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attempting to silence religious dissent.15 There can be no doubt that Linck, Luther, and others in leadership positions had a clear, accurate, and broad knowledge of what was happening in and to the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany. However, there is also evidence that these men attempted to influence the outcomes there by employing Staupitz’s method of placing key individuals in positions of influence to represent specific interests. In particular, Linck’s installation of two men into important positions in the Province of Lower Germany suggests that this strategy was indeed being utilized. At the Congregation’s Eisleben chapter meeting in 1520 it was decided that Lang should become prior of the Dresden cloister (a move that did not, in fact, take place), while Melchior Miritsch, a former student at Wittenberg, former prior in Cologne (1514–1517) and Dresden (1518–1520), and committed Observant was to be installed as prior of the Ghent cloister. Historian Paul Kalkoff has suggested that the purpose of sending Miritsch to Ghent was to ‘strengthen the position of the Observants in the Low Countries’16 and Johan Decavele has referred to him as an active promoter of the Saxon Observance.17 But Luther himself, in relaying this information to Spalatin, sounds a little less certain about the reasoning behind these changes: ‘Everything is so muddled for the reign of the new vicar [Linck] that I do not know whether these things [including Miritsch’s installation as prior in Ghent] are done in the spirit of fortitude’.18 In time, however, Luther would come to see Miritsch’s placement in Ghent as a move made in the service of the Reformation. Upon his return to Wittenberg after visiting the Congregation’s cloisters in the Low Countries in summer of 1521, Linck sent another individual back to Lower Germany, this time to Cologne. Heinrich Himmel returned to his cloister of origin for the express purpose of joining the faculty of the studium generale there, which was closely associated with the University of Cologne. It may be recalled that Himmel, a native of Emmerich, a city on the Rhine in Lower Germany, was among the f irst friars from the Cologne cloister sent to study in Wittenberg after that Lower German 15 ‘I send [along] letters from Antwerp from the prior there so that you might see what is happening [there] concerning me’ (‘Mitto literas ex Antwerpia datas a priore loci eiusdem, ut videas, de me quid agatur’.) WABr 2: 180. 16 ‘[U]m die Stellung der “Vikarianer” in den Niederlanden weiter zu befestigen’. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 55. Here Kalkoff is in agreement with Kolde and the editors of the WABr. See Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, p. 362; and WABr 2:181, n. 9. 17 Decavele, ‘De noodlottige zestiende eeuw’, p. 69. 18 ‘[N]escio, an spiritu fortitudinis acti sint, adeo turbata sunt omnia ad nouum regnum novi vicarii’. WABr 2:180.

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cloister was reformed. Since Himmel’s arrival in 1516, Luther in his capacity as regent of the studium generale had prepared him for his exams. In 1517, Himmel received his Bachelor of Arts degree (baccalaureus artium), and in 1518 his Master of Arts degree (magister artium). On 1 October 1521, Himmel matriculated in theology at the University of Cologne, but when he refused to sign the oath not to teach Luther’s doctrines, he was forbidden from holding lectures. Nonetheless, he soon began to promote Luther’s teachings within the cloister itself, as will be explained more fully in Chapter Eight. Were the deployments of Miritsch and Himmel done in support of Observant reform or Reformation? From these two placements it seems likely that the Congregation was in something of a transitional phase at this time. While it is clear that in Ghent, where the membership of the cloister was split between Observants and Conventuals, the appointment of a convinced Observant like Miritsch could well have been made in the cause of Augustinian reform. But Luther saw the situation differently. For him, Miritsch was expected to represent and defend Reformation ideas, as demonstrated in the Reformer’s response to Miritsch’s interrogation by the Inquisition in August 1522. Following this interview, Miritsch sent news back to Wittenberg describing the questions he had been asked and the answers he had given, information that made its way into Luther’s hands. Luther was furious: ‘I read the letters of Miritsch, that most prudent apostate’, he told Spalatin, ‘and as much as I suffer concerning the miserable fall of Jacob [Probst]19, so much I resent [Miritsch’s] most impious sham’.20 And to Lang, Luther wrote, ‘Melchior Miritsch did not recant, but he writes that he acts prudently so that he might preserve their favour – that is – he worships Satan and pretends to know Christ, charming boaster!’21 And again to Linck, ‘You have read the letters of the most glorious Solon among us. I speak of Miritsch who denies Christ thus far so prudently, so that no one might dare to call it a denial of Christ’.22 Clearly Luther believed that Miritsch had betrayed the cause, a cause that now must be understood as encompassing Reformation 19 This is a reference to Probst’s public recantation. 20 ‘Literas mirisschii, prudentissimi apostate, legi, et, quantum de miserabili lapsu Iacobi doleo, tantum huius fuco impiissimo indignor’. Luther to George Spalatin, 12 April 1522, WABr 2:493. 21 ‘Melchior Mirisch non revocavit, sed scribit se prudenter egisse, ut gratiam eorum servaret, hoc est, Satanam adoravit, et Christum simulavit se scire, bellus gloriator!’ Luther to Johannes Lang, Wittenberg, 12 April 1522, WABr 2:495. 22 ‘Epistolam gloriosissimi Solonis apud nos leges, Mirischium loquor, qui Christum adeo prudenter negavit, ut nemo audeat id negatum Christum appellare’. WABr 2:496.

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theology and ecclesiology. Luther even went so far as to accuse Miritsch of collusion with the emperor against the Augustinian Order.23 But if the precise reason for Miritsch’s appointment to Ghent was not entirely clear, the same cannot be said about Himmel’s placement in Cologne, for there could have been no question of his doctrinal loyalties. By 1521 he had been working on his studies in Wittenberg for five years. His fierce loyalty to Reformation theology was displayed immediately after his arrival in Cologne when he refused to take the oath to avoid referencing Luther’s views. His willingness to put himself in harm’s way on this account would become increasingly clear during his time at the cloister in Cologne. He certainly must have been well-known as a supporter of Reformation theology and ecclesiology before Linck sent him to teach in Cologne. Thus the new Vicar General chose a convinced adherent of Luther’s ideas for the influential position of preparing the next generation of young Reformed Augustinians for the University. In other words, Linck was using Staupitz’s method of placing individuals in particular positions to encourage Reformation doctrine among the Reformed Augustinians in the Province of Lower Germany.

The Cases of Jacob Probst and Hendrik van Zutphen Against this backdrop, Luther’s and Linck’s role in the events affecting the Antwerp cloister becomes increasingly clear, as can be seen in the behaviour and actions of Jacob Probst and Hendrik van Zutphen. It should be remembered that these two men were known quantities in Wittenberg, so it comes as no surprise that in a letter to Staupitz dated 3 October 1519, Luther spoke of them familiarly:24 Both priors from Lower Germany have written to me, Jacob and Henry, desperate and complaining, beseeching you that nothing is being done by their [District] Vicar [van Mechelen]. But they say they will send someone, or rather they will come themselves. But this has not happened since the letters are dated from Eastertime, and they have not yet arrived.25 23 ‘Melchior Miritsch, that blessed theologian, is an agent of the emperor against the Augustinian Order’ (‘Melchior Mirisch est executor Caesaris contra nostros de ordine Augustini, sanctus ille theologus’). WABr 2:559. 24 For Probst’s and van Zutphen’s many connections to Wittenberg, see Chapter 3. 25 ‘Scripsit mihi uterque Prior querulosissime ac desperate prorsus, tete implorantes, nihil agi per eorum Vicarium, missuros tamen dicunt se fratres, imo se ipsos venturos; sed non fiet, cum in paschalibus datae sint literae, nec dum comparent’. WABr 1:513–514.

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This short quotation alludes to three important issues. First, that Probst and van Zutphen saw the situation in Lower Germany as one requiring fervent action. Second, that a rift existed between the two priors and the District Vicar van Mechelen, who was increasingly critical of Luther and his cause. And third, that the two priors were intent on going over the head of their District Vicar, whom they saw as obstructionist, writing instead directly to Luther, who passed on their concerns to the Vicar General. Probst and van Zutphen were looking to Luther and Staupitz for support and answers. As an aside, it is noteworthy that Luther had never been their District Vicar, nor was he District Vicar in Saxony anymore. In fact, by the end of 1519, he had no official standing in the administration of the Congregation, and yet these two priors nevertheless chose to write to him. His de facto authority, it seems, was growing. Although neither was able to accomplish this journey at the time they wrote, both men would return to their alma mater, Probst from May to September 1521 and Zutphen from 1520 until sometime in June of 1522. We might ask why Probst would leave Antwerp at this critical moment, with the pressure on the Antwerp Augustinians increasing, and come to Wittenberg. The traditional answer has been that he returned to continue his education, and while in Wittenberg he did indeed receive his Bachelor of the Bible degree (baccalaureus biblicus) on 13 May 1521, followed by his promotion to Lizentiaten on 12 July 1521. But from Luther’s reference to the letter he had received from Probst, it was clear that the Antwerp prior was not simply coming to Wittenberg to brush up on his theology. We must assume that Probst also had discussions in Wittenberg over how to proceed in the increasingly unsafe atmosphere in the Low Countries. Who precisely he spoke with and what he was told remains a mystery, as Luther himself was away in the Wartburg. But that does not mean that Probst was not on the Reformer’s mind, or that a meeting between the two did not take place. In fact, there is some evidence that Luther had Probst spirited into the Wartburg to visit him.26 In the same letter to Melanchthon in which he indicated that he would address ‘the fat little Flemish guy’ directly,27 Luther referred to the Antwerp prior again using opaque language: ‘It is enough for Flemish Jacob that he see you, and may he not be too happy, seeing everything that he wants [to see]’.28 Is this Luther’s imprimatur to allow Probst to visit the Wartburg should he desire it? Or is he providing an answer to another 26 This is Braekman’s theory. Braekman, ‘Luther et les chrétiens’, p. 151. 27 See Chapter 2. 28 ‘Iacobo Flemmichen satis est te videre, et uti ne nimio felix sit, omnia quae vellet videns’. WABr 2:348.

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of Probst’s inquiries? It is difficult to know, but clearly Probst was searching for answers. If he did meet Luther secretly, did the two men now discuss strategy in light of the promulgation of the Edict of Worms (26 May 1520)? If not, did Probst converse with other Wittenberg Augustinians about his return to Antwerp? It is difficult to imagine that he did not. Aleander, for one, noted Probst’s return to Antwerp and was convinced that he had gone to Wittenberg to confer with Luther as a result of the Edict of Worms.29 What is more, the papal nuncio detected a distinct change in the prior’s approach after his return from Wittenberg; no longer did Probst mention Luther’s name overtly, even if he did expound on many of the points Luther was making.30 Shortly thereafter, Aleander noted that Probst ceased preaching publicly, limiting himself to covert activities to disseminate heresies.31 From Aleander’s point of view, Probst’s behaviour had changed as the result of strategic advice he had received from Wittenberg. Van Zutphen’s journey from Dordrecht to Wittenberg in summer of 1520, his activities there during the next two years, the timing of his return to the Low Countries, and his renewed activities in his homeland, all raise even greater questions about the role that Linck, Luther, and their colleagues played in guiding the situation in Antwerp. Van Zutphen’s time as prior in Dordrecht (1516–20), the subject of some scholarly debate, suggests that before his return to Wittenberg, he was already moving in the direction of Reformation theology. An earlier scholarly tradition, claiming that the cloister in Dordrecht was among the first locations in the Low Countries where outspoken Reformation-oriented critiques (particularly of indulgences) were sounded, thereby bringing the friars into conflict with the Dordrecht city council, has been disproven.32 But this does not mean that all was well there, or that the cloister was necessarily absent any Reformation-related impulses. 29 ‘This prior [Probst] went to find Martin [Luther] after the Edict of Worms [was promulgated], and has now returned’ (‘Hor questo prior era ito a trovar Martino dopoi il decreto di Wormes et al presente è ritornato’). Aleander to the Vice Chancellor, 2 September 1521. Monumenta Reformationis, p. 286. 30 ‘[A]nd now he never mentions Luther in his sermons or speaks of him’ (‘et benchè publicamente in suoi sermoni mai nomina Luther nè parla di lui’). Aleander to the Vice Chancellor, 2 September 1521. Monumenta Reformationis, pp. 286–287. 31 ‘The second [individual causing problems for the church in addition to Erasmus of Rotterdam] is the Augustinian prior in Antwerp who no longer [infects people] with his public sermons (as before), but now infects many secretly’ (‘L’ altro è il Prior di Augustini in Antwersa, el qual non già in publicis sermonibus (ut prius) sed clam multos inficit’). Aleander to the Vice Chancellor, 9 September 1521. Monumenta Reformationis, pp. 289. 32 Herman van Duinen argues that this tradition has its origins with Schotel, Kerkelijk Dordrecht, pp. 15–17, whom all subsequent historians appear to have followed. But van Duinen

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Although we do not know the precise nature of van Zutphen’s (and Probst’s) complaints articulated in their letters to Luther, clearly they saw the situation in Lower Germany as deteriorating and requiring immediate action. It might also be noted that Erasmus had already stated five months before this that Probst was publicly connecting himself to Luther. Now suddenly Probst and van Zutphen appear together with a similar complaint. Thus it seems as though van Zutphen was already gravitating toward the new Wittenberg theology during his time in Dordrecht. In the emerging struggle between Observants who were faithful to the church and those who supported Luther’s ideas, he stood among the latter. Van Zutphen’s ardent zeal for the Reformation cause would be demonstrated again during his time in Wittenberg. He studied with Luther and earned his Bachelor of the Bible degree (baccalaureus biblicus) on 12 January 1521. We know little more about his activities until his departure for the Low Countries in June of 1522, but for much of this period Luther was in the Wartburg, and as the situation among the Wittenberg Augustinians became increasingly chaotic, van Zutphen was almost certainly among those friars pushing for radical reform.33 While in Wittenberg, van Zutphen also would have been on hand for the Wittenberg chapter meeting in January 1522, as well as the Grimma chapter meeting that began on 8 June 1522, where he took part in a theological disputation. It is after Grimma, we are told, that van Zutphen returned to the Low Countries, by which time Probst had recanted and been sent to Ypres. The only surviving reference that gives any indication as to why van Zutphen decided to return from the Low Countries comes from Linck, who writes: ‘when [van Zutphen] arrived back in Wittenberg [from Grimma] and heard there how his Augustinian brothers in Antwerp and other pious Christians were suffering so much persecution on account of the Gospel, his spirit could find no rest. So he prepared himself and went off to console the sad and abandoned Christians’.34 Taken at face value, Linck’s letter, a sort of biography/hagiography published after van Zutphen had been burned in 1524, makes it sound as if his decision to go to has convincingly demonstrated that the unrest attributed by Schotel to the Augustinian cloister in Dordrecht was actually taking place in the city’s Franciscan cloister, and the claim that the disorder was related to Reformation impulses is merely an assumption. Duinen, Hendrik van Zutphen, pp. 14–17. 33 This point will be addressed further in Chapter Six. 34 ‘[G]en Wittemberg kam, und alda erfur, wie die Augustiner brüder zu Handtwerp vil verfolgunge duldeten des evangelii halben mitsampt andern frommen christen etc. da hatte sein geist nit ruwe, machete sich auff und zog hinab die betrübten verlassenen christen zu trösten’. Linck, ‘To the Christian Reader’, p. 202.

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Antwerp – a cloister where he had never been a member – was entirely of his own choosing, a simple question of individual conscience. But in fact van Zutphen does not appear to have gone directly to Antwerp, but rather to his old cloister in Dordrecht, where he would have arrived at about the time of the chapter meeting held there on 27 July 1522 – the meeting that severed the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany from the control of the German Vicar General.35 On the surface it seems odd that van Zutphen would go to a cloister where the anti-Lutheran prior van Mechelen was firmly entrenched. But there is a plausible explanation. We know that the emperor had forbidden the Augustinians of the Low Countries to attend the Grimma Chapter six weeks earlier, where, I have argued, the situation in the Low Countries must have been discussed.36 I believe that Linck and Luther sent van Zutphen to the Dordrecht Chapter meeting to represent the Congregation’s interests, and perhaps even suggested that he move on to Antwerp if Dordrecht proved unwelcoming – a scenario made all the more likely since, immediately upon arriving in Antwerp, van Zutphen was made prior of that cloister. It even seems reasonable that he arrived in Antwerp with the imprimatur of the Congregation’s hierarchy for that position. At very least, the brain-trust of the German Reformed Congregation certainly provided advice on how he should conduct himself against the opponents of the Reformation in Lower Germany, for van Zutphen’s biographer claims that when he arrived in Antwerp he kept a low profile at first, just as Probst had initially done upon his return from Wittenberg.37 Is this evidence of a strategy emanating from Wittenberg? It seems likely. But the most compelling piece of evidence that Luther and Linck were guiding these events comes from van Zutphen’s time in Bremen following his escape from Charles’s inquisition. From that North German city, van Zutphen wrote a number of letters to Luther and Probst explaining his actions, and one to Linck asking the Vicar General’s permission to remain and preach there. But it was Luther who took the initiative to respond to this request. This is evident because on 13 December 1522, van Zutphen wrote from Bremen to a friend: ‘From Dr. Martin I have received consolation [for my troubles] and approval for my calling’ – a reference to the Bremen city 35 Van Zutphen’s precise itinerary remains somewhat speculative. His biographer, Iken, suggests that he likely went first to Dordrecht then on to Antwerp, but does not provide any evidence. Probst’s biographer agrees. See Janssen, Jacobus Praepositus, p. 100. Daniel Gerdes states plainly that van Zutphen went f irst to Dordrecht and then on to Antwerp, but again without any reference to his source. Gerdes, Origines Ecclesiarum in Belgio Reformatarum, p. 23. 36 See Chapter Three. 37 Iken, Heinrich von Zütphen, pp. 26–27.

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council’s request that van Zutphen remain.38 Six days later, in a letter to Linck, Luther corroborated van Zutphen’s claim. The Reformer noted that he had received (intercepted?) a letter from van Zutphen to Linck in which van Zutphen obediently asked Linck’s permission to remain in Bremen. Because Linck could not be reached immediately, Luther added: ‘therefore [I] have, [myself], given [a letter of permission] to him in your name, under the seal of our prior. If you wish, you can conf irm [my] actions’.39 This episode is revealing in a number of ways. First it demonstrates definitively that van Zutphen did not see himself as a free agent, someone simply following the dictates of his conscience, but as a member of a group with its own hierarchy. He felt obliged to ask permission to take up a new position. I believe this makes it all the more likely that van Zutphen’s return to the Low Countries following the Grimma Chapter meeting was not purely a personal decision, but a corporate one. But this exchange also indicates that Luther had assumed a rather central, if de facto role in the hierarchy of the Observant Augustinians. Although he had no official position or standing in the Congregation, Luther had no compunction about reading Linck’s mail and then assuming the Vicar General’s authority to make a significant decision. What is more, in his letter to his friend, van Zutphen indicates that it was Luther who approved his calling to Bremen, suggesting that from van Zutphen’s perspective, Luther possessed this authority. Finally this interaction reveals that the hierarchy of the German Reformed Augustinians was no longer working in the service of the Observant cause. By approving van Zutphen’s request to remain and preach in Bremen, a city lacking any Augustinian cloister, Luther was deploying his fellow friar fully in the service of the Reformation. 40 When observed from the perspective of those attempting to prevent the spread of Reformation ideas in the Low Countries, Probst and van Zutphen returned from Wittenberg at key moments in the struggle. Aleander noted, for example, that when Probst arrived in Antwerp in late summer 1521, he, 38 ‘De doctore Martino brevi recepi consolatorias et vocationis mei probatorias’. van Zutphen to Gerhard Hecker, 13 December 1522, in Zütphen, ‘Zütphen’s Briefe’, p. 247. 39 ‘Ideo dedimus nos ei sub tuo nomine, sigillo Prioris nostri; tu, si voles, poteris confirmare nostrum factum’. Luther to Wenceslaus Linck, 19 December 1522, WABr 2:632. 40 It is worth noting here that, as Wolfgang Günther has pointed out, Luther took an active role either directly or via trusted associates, in helping to dissolve cloisters that were part of the Congregation. For example, in June of 1524, he appeared personally in Magdeburg to help negotiate the handing over of that cloister to the city council. Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 410–411. Issues associated with the Congregation, it seems, were still very much on his mind during this period.

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the papal nuncio, had finally ‘pacified’ the city and now the recalcitrant prior was back, stirring up trouble again. 41 As for van Zutphen, his arrival in Antwerp in late summer 1522 occurred shortly after the authorities had raided the Augustinian cloister for the first time, interrogated its inhabitants, and convinced all but three to recant publicly. They were in desperate need of an experienced and forceful leader and suddenly one materialized. It seems eminently plausible that Aleander was right: Wittenberg was offering some guidance. Linck’s continuation of Staupitz’s tactic of sending particular individuals to specific cloisters to represent the interests of the Observants – or in this case of the burgeoning Reformation – appears to be at work here. It is clear that the moves made by Probst and van Zutphen, and their support for Reformation ideas, were not purely the result of personal convictions. Rather, the hierarchy of the Reformed Congregation, with Luther playing a central role, was using them in the service of the Reformation cause. If this is the case, then the executions of Vos and van den Esschen must be understood as more than a local or even regional event. They were, rather, a key point of conflict in the broader narrative of the early Reformation, one that set the tone for what was to follow, hardening each side’s impressions of the other.

Works Cited Besler, Nikolaus, ‘Die Autobiographischen Aufzeichnungen des Nürnberger Augustinereremiten Nikolaus Besler’, ed. by Hans Schneider Augustiniana 62 (2012), 119–152. Braekman, Emile Madeleine, ‘Luther et les chrétiens des Pays-Pas d‘après sa correspondance’, Bulletin de la Societé d‘Histoire du Protestantisme belge 8 (1983), 149–196. Decavele, Johan, ‘De noodlottige zestiende eeuw’, in Zeven eeuwen Augustijnen, Een kloostergemeenschap schrijft geschiedenis, ed. by Werner Grootaers and Marc Mees (Gent: Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, 1996), pp. 69–81. Duinen, Herman van, Hendrik van Zutphen (1489–1524), prior – reformator – martelaar. Bleskensgraaf: Blassekijn, 2004). Gerdes, Daniel, Origines Ecclesiarum in Belgio Reformatarum, sive historia ecclesiastica evangelii seculo decimo sexto in Belgio renovati, doctrinæque reformatæ, quam usque ad excessum Imperatoris Caroli Quinti descripsit D.G. (Groningen: Hajonem Spandaw, 1749). 41 Aleander to Vice Chancellor de Medici, 2 September 1521. Monumenta Reformationis, p. 287.

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Günther, Wolfgang, Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018). Hamm, Berndt, ‘Johann von Staupitz (ca. 1468–1524): spättmittelalterlicher Reformer und ‘Vater’ der Reformation’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 92 (2001), 6–41. Iken, J. Friedrich, Heinrich von Zutphen, Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 12 (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1886). Janssen, Hendrik, Jacobus Praepositus, Luthers leerling en vriend: geschetst in zijn lijden en strijden voor de Hervormingzaak (Amsterdam: P. N. van Kampen, 1862). Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904). Kolde, Theodor, Die deutsche Augustiner-Kongregation und Johann von Staupitz (Gotha: F.A. Perthes, 1879). Kunzelmann, Adalbero, OSA, Geschichte der deutschen Augustinereremiten, 7 vols. (Würzburg: Augustinus Verlag, 1969–1976). Lang, Johannes and others, Historia wie S. Heinrich von Zutphan newlich yn Dittmars vmbs Euangelions willen gemartert vnd gestorben ist. Jtem ein Sendbrieff desselbigẽ was er zů vorne anderßwo derohalben erlitten habe. (Altenburg: Gabriel Kantz, 1525). Linck, Wenceslaus, ‘To the Christian Reader’, in Johannes Lang, Historia wie S. Heinrich von Zutphan newlich in Dittmars umbs evangelions willen gemartert und gestorben ist. Item ein sendbrieff desselbigen was er zu vorne andersswo erlitten habe. Mathei 10. Sihe, ich sende euch wie die schaffe mitten unter die wölffe, darumb seit klug wie die schlangen, und on falsch wie die tauben, etc. This text may be found in Bremisches Jahrbuch, Zweite Serie 1 (1885), 191–221. Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel (=WABr), vols. 1–18 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–1985). Monumenta Reformationis Lutheranae ex tabularis s. sedis, 1521–1525, ed. by Petrus Balan (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1883). Saak, Erik, Highway to Heaven: The Augustinian Platform between Reform and Reformation, 1292–1524 (Leiden: Brill, 2002). ———, Luther and the Reformation of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Schneider, Hans, ‘Martin Luthers Reise nach Rom – neu datiert und neu gedeutet’, in Studien zur Wissenschafts- und zur Religionsgeschichte, vol. 10.2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), pp. 1–158. Schotel, Gilles, Kerkelijk Dordrecht: eene bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der vaderlandsche Hervormde Kerk sedert 1572. D. 1 (Utrecht: van der Monde, 1841). Winterhager, Wilhelm, ‘Martin Luther und das Amt des Provinzialvikars in der Reformkongregation der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten’, in Vita Religiosa im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Kaspar Elm zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Franz Felten and Nikolas Jaspert (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999), pp. 707–738.

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Wriedt, Markus, Gnade und Erwählung. Eine Untersuchung zu Johann von Staupitz und Martin Luther (Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1991). Zumkeller, Adolar, ‘Johannes von Staupitz und die klösterliche Reformbewegung’, Analecta Augustiana 52 (1989), 31–49. Zütphen, Heinrich von. ‘Zütphen’s Briefe‘, ed. by Johann Friedrich Iken, Bremisches Jahrbuch 2. 1 (1885), 241–252.

6. Reformation Ideas in the Low Countries Abstract While the premise of Chapter Five was that the leadership of the Reformed Augustinians in Wittenberg influenced the Reformation in Lower Germany, Chapter Six examines whether the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany influenced Luther and his colleagues in Wittenberg. While Luther was sequestered in the Wartburg (1521 to early 1522), Wittenberg seethed as extremists agitated for radical reform. Among the chief instigators was a cadre from within the Reformed Augustinian cloister, a dozen or so friars from the Low Countries studying in Wittenberg. Their willingness to support revolutionary change suggests a perspective on reform that differed from that of many of their German-speaking counterparts. This chapter explores the reasons for their more extreme approach and its impact on Luther. Keywords: late medieval critique of indulgences, Jacob Probst, Hendrik van Zutphen

If one contention of this book is that the cloisters of the German Reformed Augustinians’ Province of Lower Germany served as the arena for a proxy battle between pope and emperor on the one side, and Luther and the hierarchy of the Congregation on the other, then by definition the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany are placed in a passive position. In such a version of events they come to Wittenberg, imbibe Luther’s ideas, and are sent back to articulate them in their homeland. And while there can be no doubt that they acted as a persistent and forceful mouthpiece of religious dissent, a ‘Hauptherd of Luther’s ideas’ as Aleander put it, such a simplistic narrative raises questions. Were they merely messengers or did they demonstrate some autonomy from Wittenberg by offering their own version of or putting their own particular emphases on Reformation doctrines? Or if they did merely serve as a conduit for Wittenberg’s ideas, did they influence reform in other ways, with regard

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch06

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to its speed and intensity for example? And is there something essentially different about openly espousing the same ideas emanating from Wittenberg in the very different context of Brabant and the Low Countries? Exploring the content of the message articulated by the Reformed Augustinians in Lower Germany also offers the opportunity to assess the response of the authorities, both ecclesiastical and temporal. How did these authorities hear and understand the friars? What in their preaching was deemed most intolerable? And what “counter-message” did they favour to refute it? Answers to these questions provide a deeper understanding of the essence of the Reformation debate at this early point, particularly as it was being played out in the public arena of the Low Countries.

The Disposition of the Antwerp Augustinians and its Origins To begin with the question of context, it is safe to say that due to their very circumstances, the German Reformed Augustinians in the Low Countries were in a qualitatively different position from their Wittenberg brethren, and this fact could only have impacted their view of the situation. For although in some ways, Antwerp was a ‘Wittenberg on the Schelde’, as one historian has suggested, in others, the circumstances of the Reformation-minded forces in the two cities were drastically different.1 Whereas Wittenberg was a relatively safe haven for anyone with Reformation impulses, Brabant must be understood as an epicentre of the anti-Reformation forces during this period, where Charles V had demonstrated his commitment to the eradication of heresy and Aleander had had great success in forging an alliance of churchmen against the Reformation. 2 So while Luther and his comrades carried out literary battles from the relative safety of Wittenberg, the Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany fought on the front lines, with spies everywhere.3 This fact alone accords 1 Vercruysse, ‘Was haben die Sachsen’, p. 16. 2 In a letter of 1524, Luther acknowledged the security felt by all who lived in the lands of the Elector of Saxony, juxtaposing it with other places where supporters of the Reformation are being persecuted. ‘Among us who are under the rule of our prince, there is peace’ (‘Apud nos sub ducatu principis nostri pax est’). Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr) 3:239. A year earlier, he had also suggested to Linck, who at the time was in Neustadt an der Orla and apparently in some danger of arrest, that he come to Wittenberg because there was no safer place to be. Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 402. 3 For example, just prior to Probst’s arrest, Margaret, the Queen Regent, sent the theologian and inquisitor Egmond to Antwerp to surreptitiously attend the Augustinian prior’s sermons and

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them an important role in the early Reformation and raises the possibility, that operating in this context of conflict, they might have had a different attitude with regard to the intensity and the tactics with which the fight should be waged. In fact, there is ample evidence that they were willing to push more forcefully and vocally than their brethren in Wittenberg: in short, that they were inclined to more radical action. In 1521, with Luther in the Wartburg, the Reformed Augustinians in the Wittenberg cloister hinted at this tendency when they began to agitate for rapid theological and liturgical change. A close examination of just who was behind these impulses is revealing. During any given moment between the years 1516 and 1522, the inhabitants of the Wittenberg cloister included fifteen to twenty students from houses across the empire and Low Countries who had come to Saxony to study in that cloister’s studium generale or at the university. In 1521, approximately ten to twelve of these “outsiders” hailed from cloisters of Lower Germany, primarily Antwerp, Dordrecht, and Ghent. 4 Under the leadership of the fiery Wittenberg Augustinian Gabriel Zwilling, himself closely allied to the equally ardent Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, the Augustinians in Wittenberg began to make significant changes to religious practice.5 In mid-October 1521 they discontinued the mass in the cloister church. In early November, twelve friars left the cloister altogether, with others soon to follow, and Zwilling himself removed his monastic garb. Such innovations quickly caught the attention of the Elector of Saxony who demanded an explanation. In response, the prior of the Wittenberg Augustinians, Conrad Held, himself deeply dismayed by the changes, described the group agitating for such reforms as follows: the majority of that party are from the Low Countries, and do not belong to the cloister of your Electoral Grace. They are only here for the purpose of education, having been sent by the leaders of our order. With the exception of two, they are merely guests who have no power to enact the slightest change. Because they have dared such wanton presumption against my will and without the permission of our leader, [I ask] that your Electoral Grace for God’s sake not fail to punish the actions of the friars here, or report back, which he did in early November, 1521. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 2, p. 61. 4 Bünger and Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’, p. 450. 5 The actions of the Wittenberg Augustinians took place in a larger context of ritual and theological change and unrest in that city. For an overview, see Krentz, Ritualwandel und Deutungshoheit.

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the others throughout the city. They have occurred by force and without my approval or that of my superior.6

Clearly Held was troubled by the actions of the Augustinians who had come from the Low Countries, not to mention by their insolence. And although Probst had left Wittenberg six weeks before Held wrote this letter, van Zutphen, who had received his Bachelor of the Sentences (baccalaureus Sententiarum) degree under the tutelage of Karlstadt only a fortnight earlier, was undoubtedly among those backing Zwilling.7 It was in this atmosphere that Vicar General Linck called the Congregation together for a chapter meeting at Wittenberg in early January 1522 to address reform in the cloisters. At the same time Luther dedicated On the Misuse of the Mass to the Augustinians in Wittenberg, then published On Monastic Vows a few weeks later – both treatises that addressed issues surrounding the uproar.8 But neither Luther’s publications, intended to calm the situation, nor the chapter meeting with similar goals, had much success stilling the radical elements among the Augustinians in Wittenberg; in early January 1522, again under the leadership of Zwilling, they destroyed altars and images of the saints, and burned the oil for last rites.9 It was just such actions, part 6 ‘der meyste deyl gener parthey niderlender seyn, vnnd disem ewer churfurstlichen gnaden closter nichczet zukörich, Vnnd allein vmb der lernung willen vom vnserm öbersten her gesanndt. Vnnd hie nicht anders (zwen aus geschlossenn) den gest gehalten werden, Vnnd gar kein gewaltt haben, sich des aller wenigsten zubemechtigen. Die weil si sich ie wider meinen willen Vnnd an ersuchung vnser obersten einer solchen vermessenheit muthwilligklichen vnderstannden, E. C. G. wol es vmb gottes willen weder den orden, noch das Kloster, hie czu wittenberg gelegen, entgeltten lassenn. Es ist ie mit gewalth vnd an mein vnnd meiner öbersten verwilligung geschehenn’. Conrad Held to Frederick the Wise, 30 October 1521. Müller, ed., Die Wittenberger Bewegung, p. 56. 7 Duinen, Hendrik van Zutphen, p. 23. It is also noteworthy that Probst had recently received both his Bachelor of the Bible degree (13 May 1521) and Licentiate (12 July 1521) under the auspices of Karlstadt. In other words, both he and van Zutphen had close ties to Karlstadt. 8 Vom Mißbrauch der Messe was published on 1 November 1521. Luther, Abteilung Werke (=WA) 8:477–563; De votis monasticis Martini Lutheri iudicium was published on 21 November 1521. WA 8:564–669. 9 ‘The day after the end of the Augustinian chapter meeting in Wittenberg, on Monday, if I am not mistaken, six days after the feast of the Epiphany, the remaining members of the Congregation of the Augustinians at Wittenberg, perhaps with Gabriele [Zwilling] as instigator, were not content to overturn the altars, but what is more, they set fire to images and paintings and burned up the oil for extreme unction’ (‘Die postridiano abitionis Augustinianorum ex Synodo Vuittenbergensi, Feria, nisi fallor, VI. proxima post Festum Epiphaniae, reliqui Augustinianorum Wittenberge, autore fortassis Gabriele, non contenti subvertisse altaria, praeter summum, exussisse imagines Duorum & tabulas depictas, etiam unctionem extremam combusserunt’). Spalatin, ‘Chronicon sive Annales Georgii Spalatini’, col. 628. See also Krentz, Ritualwandel und Deutungshoheit, p. 153.

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and parcel of the radical movement led by Karlstadt, that compelled Luther to leave the Wartburg and return to Wittenberg on 6 March 1522. A less dramatic, but still telling example of the tendency by the friars from Lower Germany to be assertive in the implementation of reforms comes from Luther’s Table Talk. Thinking back on the early days of the Reformation, the Reformer explains how, after he had publicly denounced many monastic practices (i.e. wearing the cowl, celibacy, fasting) as neither obligatory nor salvific, the ‘papists’ ridiculed him, saying, ‘If what he teaches is true, then let him also act on it’.10 At some point during his two-year stay in Wittenberg (1522–1524), after having escaped the Low Countries, Probst decided to press the issue. Luther explained, ‘on Palm Sunday, among other dishes [Probst] prepared a chicken for me and said, “If we teach it, why do we not do it?”’, a reference to the breaking of the Palm Sunday prohibition to eat meat.11 Clearly the Augustinians in the Province of Lower Germany were willing to push the pace and parameters of change, apparently more forcefully than Luther and many of the Wittenberg Augustinians. Why might this be? One answer can be found in the immediate context. Unlike their brethren from the Wittenberg cloister, the Augustinians of Lower Germany had experienced oppression and persecution first hand. As has been demonstrated, from 1519 onwards they were under increasing and direct pressure from a variety of ecclesiastical and temporal authorities, observed multiple burnings of Luther’s books in their cities, and experienced arrests and detentions of their colleagues and supporters. Some had been forced to recant publicly. The two leaders of the movement among the cloisters of Lower Germany, Probst and van Zutphen, had their own histories that undoubtedly increased their fervour. Van Zutphen had struggled in Dordrecht to the point that he was forced to write desperately to Luther. Probst was under increasing pressure from the Inquisition. And when the friars from Lower Germany who followed Karlstadt and Zwilling engaged in iconoclasm in Wittenberg in January of 1522, they would have been acutely aware that at that very moment, Probst sat in prison at the mercy of the Inquisition. The Augustinians in the Wittenberg cloister who did not hail from the Low Countries never experienced this type of pressure first hand. In short, the experiences of the Augustinians from the cloisters of Lower Germany on the front lines of the Reformation, in danger of life and limb, seem to have increased their intensity and desire for radical change. 10 ‘Wehre es recht, das er leret, so thet ers auch!’ Luther, Tischreden (=WATr) 4:303 (no. 4414). 11 ‘[I]n die Palmarum inter alia fercula gallinam mihi apparavit dicens: Si docemus, quare non facimus?’ WATr 4:303 (no. 4414).

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What the Augustinians in Lower Germany Preached But perhaps it was not just the immediate atmosphere of oppression that heightened their zeal, but the broader environment of church critique common in the Low Countries prior to the Reformation. For over a century, groups such as the Modern Devotion and more recently, biblical humanists and chambers of rhetoric, had not only fostered lay piety, but had criticized abusive financial practices of the church and certain pious practices that they considered superstitious. If we take the issue of indulgences, for example, long before Luther began to speak against them in the German-speaking lands there was a tradition of opposition to them in the Low Countries. And although criticism of indulgences is increasingly seen by historians as part and parcel of the early sixteenth century, in the Low Countries it was especially pronounced.12 Already by the late fourteenth century the spiritual father of the Modern Devotion, Geert Groote (d. 1384), had chastised the diocesan authorities for using indulgences to siphon off revenues that normally would have gone to support the poor. Nor did Thomas á Kempis (d. 1471), another giant of that movement, hold them in much regard.13 Although these two men both focused their critique on the abuses of indulgences, by the late fifteenth century, Wessel Gansfort (d. 1489) challenged the notion of their very existence, not to mention the concept of papal infallibility.14 On an even more popular level, in 1498 a Franciscan friar was condemned for preaching against them, and by the 1510s, earthy vernacular critiques of the practice were widespread.15 Historian Charles Casper connects this burgeoning critique of indulgences to a deeper phenomenon: What is striking in the mentality of the urban and intellectual elites – already emerging in the fifteenth century and maturing further in the early decades of the sixteenth century – is that the critique of indulgences is a consequence of the critique of the institutional church. After having been witness for generations to the pact between church and state, 12 Much has been written on late medieval indulgence practices and the critique of indulgences in the Low Countries. For a helpful introduction, see Caspers, ‘Indulgences in the Low Countries’; on the criticisms of indulgences specifically, see Clemen, ‘Das Antwerpener-Kloster’, pp. 308–309. 13 Caspers, ‘Indulgences in the Low Countries’, pp. 78–79. 14 See Winterhager, ‘Ablaßkritik als Indikator’. 15 For example, a vernacular pamphlet was published in Deventer in 1516 in which the ghost of a dead monk appeared on the day after his death to one of his former monastic brothers warning him that despite the fact that the deceased had procured a letter of indulgence, he was now eternally damned to hell. Clemen, ‘Das Antwerpener-Kloster’, p. 308.

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many people in the Low Countries no longer had confidence in the moral integrity of the clergy. In particular the letters of indulgence […] which from the second half of the fifteenth century had been sold much more than ever before, became the focus of criticism as documents which were of no value in the salvation of souls but served only to fatten the purses of the indulgence-mongers and those for whom they worked.16

Thus when the Antwerp Augustinians began to disparage pious practices such as indulgences, they were not introducing new ideas, but drawing on themes that had been around for decades – and to significant success. By 1520 and perhaps earlier, the Antwerp Augustinians had already come out forcefully against indulgences. As a result, their preaching became so popular that balconies had to be built in their church to accommodate the masses, and crowds stood outside to hear their sermons.17 Moreover, efforts to silence the friars had little effect. When the Antwerp Augustinians were forbidden from preaching in their church, they were not averse to taking their message into the streets.18 And even their enemies had to admit that they were excellent preachers. In a letter to de Medici, Aleander identified Probst as ‘a most gifted orator in the Flemish language’.19 But where the content of their message seems to have struck the hardest was in their absolute rejection of all church practices lacking scriptural precedent, and in their denunciation of ecclesiastical authority.20 Although we do not possess copious evidence for precisely what the friars of Lower Germany preached to the populace, a few extant sources shed some light on the matter. In 1521, after he fled back to Wittenberg, Jacob Probst published a work entitled ‘The Story of both his Captivities for the sake of the Word 16 Caspers, ‘Indulgences in the Low Countries’, pp. 87–88. 17 See Corpus documentorum (=CD) 4:36. 18 Regarding the summer of 1522, Theodor Kolde writes, ‘The friars were probably forbidden to enter the pulpits. So they preached in the streets, and chief among them, Henrik van Zutphen’ (‘Vermutlich war den Brüdern verboten worden, die Kanzel zu betreten. Nun predigten sie auf den Straßen. Allen voran Heinrich von Zutphen’). Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Congregation, p. 390. 19 Aleander says of Probst that he is ‘in questa lengua fiammenga facundissimo homo’. Aleander to the Vice Chancellor Medici, Brussels, 2 September 1521. Monumenta Reformationis, p. 287. 20 A comprehensive examination of the theology of the Augustinians of Lower Germany lies outside the bounds of this study, but appears to include elements foreign to Luther’s teachings. For example, in Probst’s theology Ortwin Rudloff has found evidence of Erasmus’s influence, particularly with regard to “accommodation theory.” See Rudloff, Bonae Literae et Lutherus, pp. 152–153; and in van Zutphen’s theology, van Duinen has detected the influence of Karlstadt, specifically with regard to the former’s understanding of the Eucharist. Duinen, Hendrik van Zutphen, p. 24.

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of God’, essentially an account of his interactions with the Inquisition.21 Attached to the document was his ‘Letter in which the Aforementioned Brother Jacob Probst Exhorts all those who Heard his Sermons, Particularly those in Antwerp’. In it, Probst expressed shame for his failure to die for the Gospel, but also rehearsed once more to his followers the key points of his message, before ending with the assertion: ‘My miserable failure and my sacrilegious and impious recantation are mine; the preaching you have heard from me is not mine [i.e., it is God’s]’.22 It is in reminding his supporters in Antwerp of his message that we get some sense of what he preached there. First, Probst insisted salvation comes to sinners through Christ alone, not via good works or anything that the human being does. Second, he reminded his followers to treat one another with love, just as Christ had done with them, so that their fellow believers would benef it from their prayers, words, and works. Having articulated Luther’s central teachings regarding justification and its ethical consequences, Probst then attacked the Roman church directly, telling his followers that they should not be deceived into believing that the following could contribute to their salvation: food and drink, clothes, shaving, cells, cords, fast days, little prayers, rosaries and the like, which he referred to as the ‘lies of the mendicants’ and the ‘devil’s tricks’.23 ‘Cincturing a cord does not make you a Christian’, wrote Probst, ‘because the same thing can be demanded of a pig and each day it obeys. Nor are you [a Christian] because you don’t eat fish on a certain day, for the Turk can do likewise’.24 Finally Probst ended by undermining ecclesiastical authority altogether, juxtaposing it with the authority of Christ: ‘Therefore, most beloved, obey this leader and master [Jesus Christ] and follow Him resolutely, and do 21 Probst, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis. 22 ‘[M]eus quidem est ille miserabilis lapsus et revocatio sacrilega et impia, sed sermo, quem audistis per me, non est meus’. Probst, Epistola ad Auditores Suos, p. 62. 23 ‘Observe the novel omens, which are the traditions of base men, so that you might guard against them. These concern eating and drinking, clothing and hair cutting, cells, rules for fasting, specif ic ornaments, rosaries, and whatever deceits are contrived by the mendicant friars. For these things are tricks, artifices of Satan, by which the conscience is led away from faith and charity’ (‘Portenta autem novissima, quae sunt traditiones hominum reproborum de esca et potu, de veste et rasura, de funibus, de cellis, de statis ieiuniis, de certis praeculis, de rosariis et quicquid finxerunt mendaces fratres mendicantes, videte, ut caveatis. Hae enim sunt fallaciae, hae technae Satanae, quibis conscientias a fide et caritate abducit’). Probst, Epistola ad Auditores Suos, p. 64. 24 ‘Non enim ideo christianus es, quod cordula stringaris, quando et porcus id peti potest, et cottidie parit nec ideo, si piscis certo die edas, quod et Turca potest’. Probst, Epistola ad Auditores Suos, p. 64.

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not fear or honour the bulls of popes or anyone else (contrary [to Christ]) for they are mere bubbles’ – a play on the dual meaning of the Latin word bulla, which can refer to a papal document or a bubble. 25 In this brief overview, we see Luther’s doctrine of justification, but also a great deal of critique of traditional pious practices and a rejection of the Roman church’s authority. During his interrogations, Hendrik Vos made similar statements about the limitations of ecclesiastical and even temporal authority, statements for which he was ultimately executed.26 He declared that, ‘Neither the pope nor any other prelate may command or prohibit anything that sacred scripture does not contain or that God has not commanded or prohibited, by which the conscience might be offended’;27 and that ‘the pope does not have any power other than the preaching of the Word of God, and the shepherding of his sheep by the preaching of the Word of God’.28 Finally, he insisted that ‘The secular power is able to command and prohibit such things as pertain to the body, but not that which pertains to the conscience’.29 In short, the power of all clerics was limited to the ministry of the word, their ability to oblige certain beliefs and actions was held in check by the Scriptures and this included fasting or the observance of festival days. Such statements severely circumscribed ecclesiastical authority, and while we do not know if Vos ever preached them publicly, they certainly correspond with what Probst was expressing, suggesting that they were held by many of the Antwerp Augustinians. But it is van Zutphen who appears to have been the fieriest in his rejection of ecclesiastical authority and his anti-clericalism. An account of his sermons provides some insight into the way such ideas were expressed by 25 ‘Hunc ergo ducem et magistrum audite et confiantes sequemini, amantissimi, bullas autem istas, sive papae, sive quascunque alias contrarias, nec timete nec suscipite, bullae enim sunt’. Probst, Epistola ad Auditores Suos, p. 65. 26 This observation comes from one of the pamphlets produced in the wake of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, which includes a section entitled ‘Articuli Asserti per fratrem Henricum etc.’. What follows is a list of sixty articles or statements by Heinrich Vos that the inquisitors found heterodox. Although the precise origin of the document is unknown, from its content it appears to be genuine. Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, pp. 6–12. 27 ‘Nec papa, nec quicunque alius praelatus potest aliud praecipere vel prohibere, quod sacra scriptura non continent, vel quod deus non praecepit, vel prohibuit, quo laederetur conscientia’. Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, p. 7. 28 ‘Papa non habet aliam potestatem, quam praedicandi verbum dei, & pascendi oves suas praedicatione verbi dei’. Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, p. 11. 29 ‘Secularis potestas potest talia praecipere & prohibere quo ad corpora, sed non quo ad conscientiam’. Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, p. 8.

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the Augustinians. Unfortunately, the only description of his preaching to have survived comes from a critic, so on the one hand, it is not without potential for bias. But on the other hand, it was considered a legal document and its author therefore constrained to recount van Zutphen’s words accurately. The document originates from van Zutphen’s time in Bremen. Once there, it did not take long for him to arouse the interest of the local clergy, particularly the canons of the Cathedral. They sent one of their own, the Doctor of Law Paul Bähr, to listen to van Zutphen’s sermons and take notes regarding any heretical utterances.30 During the months of January and February 1523, Bähr observed van Zutphen, compiling a list of thirty-two heretical statements the friar had made in his sermons.31 In many of them, van Zutphen colourfully rejects ecclesiastical authority. The bishops he refers to as ‘thieves, robbers, murderers, oil salesmen, and deceivers of souls’,32 and the pope as the ‘antichrist’ whose status should not be above that of any priest. Moreover, both pope and emperor ‘subvert divine law and the gospel with their sanctions and constitutions, and lead men miserably to blackest hell’.33 Those individuals commonly considered prelates trample the Gospel of Christ, while true prelates are those who preach the Gospel and are persecuted for it. What is more, all of the spirituals should be subject to the temporal authorities, because each soul is to be subject to the higher powers.34 Finally, van Zutphen asserted ‘that there is no difference or distinction between priests or those ordained in priestly orders and the laity’.35 From a private letter of the period it is clear that 30 Although Bähr (or one of his representatives assigned the task) was certainly a critical spectator at van Zutphen’s sermons, and therefore his report must be viewed with discrimination, two factors suggest that in its essence it may be deemed credible. First, as a canon and doctor of law, Bähr was producing a legal brief, one that included legal language swearing to the fact that its author heard van Zutphen firsthand and that the document was a truthful representation of what he said. See Bähr, ‘Häretische Sätze’, p. 78. Therefore Bähr possessed both the expertise and the motive to be accurate. Second and more importantly, to the degree that we know van Zutphen’s doctrinal and ecclesiological positions (as well as those of his fellow Antwerp Augustinians) Bähr’s report appears to reflect them accurately; what is more, in their turn of phrase and in the passion with which they are articulated, Bähr’s report reflects a style and intensity for which van Zutphen was famous. 31 Bähr, ‘Häretische Sätze’, p. 71. 32 ‘fures, latrones, homicidas et olei venditores ac deceptores animarum’. Bähr, Häretische Sätze, p. 72. 33 ‘[Q]ui suis sanctionibus et constitutionibus legem divinam seu evangelicam subvertunt et homines miserrime ad atra tartara ducunt’. Bähr, ‘Häretische Sätze’, p. 73. 34 Bähr, ‘Häretische Sätze’, pp. 74–75. 35 ‘[N]ullum est discrimen et distinctio inter sacerdotes vel in sacerdotii ordinibus constitutos et ipso laicos’. Bähr, ‘Häretische Sätze’, p. 73.

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behind such public pronouncements stood even more strident beliefs, as van Zutphen writes to a friend: Concerning the Roman pontiff and the universal papacy, that is [concerning] the embodiment of the reign of the anti-Christ, I am able to predict nothing other than destruction and its ejection into the utmost abyss on Judgement Day […] I hold this as more certain than my own life, that the Roman rule that they call the spiritual estate is the power of darkness, of spiritual wickedness concerning salvation in the heavens, external to and the last enemy of Christ, two times the complete opposite of any Christian institution.36

For van Zutphen, the church was no longer merely corrupt but entirely illegitimate, its rule the work of Satan. It is not difficult to imagine that such language would be disturbing to the ecclesiastical authorities, not to mention the emperor himself. We have no direct evidence to demonstrate whether the laity of Antwerp were attracted to the doctrine of justification espoused by the Augustinians, or their ethic of love for neighbour. We have, however, seen demonstrations of the popularity of their critique of church practice, and in particular of indulgences. But the actions of the laity also demonstrate that they had imbibed and were ready to act upon the Augustinians’ rejection of ecclesiastical authority. On three separate occasions the masses rose up, or offered to, in order to defend the Augustinians when they were threatened.37 The first instance occurred when Frans van der Hulst summoned Probst to Brussels in December of 1521. Before his departure, Probst preached one last sermon, after which his audience pleaded with him not to go to Brussels then offered to protect him from the authorities. But he told them that it was the will of God that he go and asked them not to interfere.38 And when van Zutphen was arrested a few months later, a crowd formed outside the monastery where he was being held, and eventually intervened. Van Zutphen himself 36 ‘De Romano pontif ice et universico papistici, id est anti-christiani regni corpore nihil aliud quam perditionem et ad novissimum barathrum dejectionem augurari possum […] Tam certum habeo, Romani regni quod vocant spirituale dominium esse potestatem tenebrarum, spiritualis nequitiae in coelestibus, extraneum et novissimum adversarium Christi, δίς διά πασῶν ab omnibus christianis institutis dissidere, quam certum habeo, me vivere’. Hendrik van Zutphen to Gerhard Hecker, 13 December 1522. Zütphen, ‘Zütphen’s Briefe‘, pp. 246–247. 37 For a discussion of popular support for the Augustinians, see Marnef, ‘Tussen tolerantie en repressie’, p. 195. 38 Planitz, Berichte aus dem Reichsregiment, p. 60.

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describes his rescue: ‘In the evening, after the sun had gone down, there broke into the monastery in which I was detained several thousand women, together with some men. Having battered down the doors, they led me out and restored me to my brothers with whom I spent three days’.39 Other sources suggest a much more modest number involved in the rescue – 300 women, 40 500 women with swords, 41 or just ‘some women’, 42 though all suggest that the crowd was comprised mostly of women. 43 And finally, when all the members of the Antwerp cloister were arrested just one week 39 ‘Vespere, dum sol occubuisset, irruperunt in monasterium, quo detinebar, aliquot mulierum milia, concurrentibus simul viris, et ruptis foribus eductum me restituerunt fratribus meis, cum quibus egi triduo’. Van Zutphen to Probst and Reiner in Wittenberg, 29 November 1522. This letter may be found in Zütphen, ‘Zütphen’s Briefe‘, pp. 241–245; or in CD, 4: doc. 110. 40 ‘And from here the rumor spread, as the result of which some members of the community came and assisted by three hundred women, assailed his room with such violence that they were able to extract him [van Zutphen] and take him back to his cloister’ (‘Hier duere rees het rumoere voors., so datter sommighe vander ghemeenten quamen, geassisteert wel met iijc vrauwen, ende deden up die camere sulck een ghewelt, so dat sy en daer wt creghen ende leyden hem weder in sijn cloostere’). CD, 4: doc. 97. 41 ‘The entire city raging, this unavenged crime of the lady was almost allowed to transpire. But in the end, more than 500 women with swords (as it is said) and with torches besieged the monastery of St. Michael. Rummaging about, they burst in and finally succeeded in freeing the Augustinian from his chains. Then they returned him to his own monastery. Having received news of this crime, Lady Margaret with her “a” and “b” and ambassadors put several of the women who had been the standard-bearers of the tumult into prison’ (‘Tota urbs tumultuans vix facinus hoc inultum dominicastris transire sinit. Sed tandem plus amplius quingentae mulieres gladijs (ut aiunt) et fustibus sancti Michaelis monasterium obsederunt, effodiendo irrumpendo tandem augustinianum e vinculis liberarunt pristinoque monasterio restituerunt. Hoc facinore agnito, domina Margareta cum suis alpha et beta atque satellitibus aliquot mulierculas tumultus vexilliferas in carcerem abdidit’). Letter of Wolfgang Rychardus to Johann Alexander Brassicanus, 25 November 1522, CD 4: doc. 109. 42 ‘There was a certain preacher appointed by those who call themselves Hermits of St. Augustine. When he had preached the Gospel for several days in Antwerp, it was commanded by the Lady Margaret that he be arrested and held in the monastery of St. Michael. But by force he was removed from there by some women of Antwerp and restored [to his place]. And, having been urged by his friends in accordance with the Gospel’s admonition to shake the dust from your feet, he fled from one city to the next city’ (‘Concionator quidam instituti eorum qui se heremitas divi Augustini vocant, cum aliquot diebus evangelium Antverpiae praedicasset, jussus est a domina Margarita apprehendi et custodiri in divi Michaelis coenobio, sed, inde per matronas aliquot Antverpianas vi abstractus, suis restitutus est et, suadentibus amicis, secundum evangelicam admonitionem excutere pulverem pedum suorum, de civitate in civitatem fugit’). Geldenhauer, Collectanea, p. 67. 43 This is one of five recorded events during the early years of the Reformation in which large groups of women intervened in the defense of Reformation preachers. For information on the other four, all of which occurred in the German-speaking lands see Scott, ‘The Collective Response of Women’.

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later on the evening of 6 October 1522, the day in which the monastery was closed, a woman named Margaretha Boonams from Mechelen organized a demonstration in front of the monastery to support the friars being held there. As a result, she herself was arrested and a week later sentenced by the Antwerp city council to do penance by undertaking a pilgrimage to Cyprus. 44 In short, among the local laity, the Antwerp Augustinians had widespread and vocal support that was not beyond disregarding and even disobeying the authorities or using mob action to foil their plans. To conclude this discussion of the Antwerp Augustinians’ preaching, it is worth noting that long-standing tradition of criticizing church practice and authority in the region from which they hailed may well have encouraged them to emphasize and accentuate this aspect of the Reformation message, with the result that they were more willing to push for radical change than their counterparts from the Wittenberg cloister. What is more, this tradition provided a foundation upon which the Reformed Augustinians could build, one that translated into widespread and potentially radical popular support, creating an atmosphere that emboldened anarchy and lawlessness, or at least rapid and drastic change. 45 If we combine this scenario with the fact that the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany had directly experienced repression and persecution and had watched first hand as their compatriots suffered, the result is an intensity in their willingness to induce reform – even in the face of powerful opposition, and even if that meant that extreme steps must be taken. If we pan out to look at the big picture, it becomes clear that the Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany influenced the Reformation at its Wittenberg centre, pushing reforms forward at a pace and in a manner unwelcome to many, Luther among them. Put another way, reform did not merely emanate from Wittenberg, but was promoted by the Augustinians coming from the Low Countries in ways with which Luther and others were not entirely comfortable. The Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany were not merely pawns in a larger conflict, but actors in their own right. 44 Margaret, Queen Regent, responded forcefully to the intervention of these women, for which her nephew, Charles V, would later praise her. CD, 4: doc 120. 45 It is important to note that critique of the church in the Low Countries had not only a long history, but that during the period of the early Reformation, it took multiple forms that fed off of and encouraged one another. Various scholars, for example, have observed the overlap between humanism’s calls for reform and those of Luther. See Spruyt, ‘Humanisme, Evangelisme en Reformatie’, pp. 26–54. Others have detected the influence of humanism in the theology of Probst and van Zutphen. See note 17.

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The Response of the Authorities The aggressive efforts to silence the Augustinians of Lower Germany undertaken by the ecclesiastical and temporal authorities in the Low Countries have already been recounted in Chapter Four. But having rehearsed the message of the Augustinians, it is worth noting here the aspects of it that most deeply troubled these authorities, as demonstrated by their public response or counter-message. Such a response allows us to better understand the crux of the Reformation conflict at this early stage, and not surprisingly, it illustrates that the real issue revolved around questions of authority. Of the aforementioned sources used to outline the message of the Augustinians of Lower Germany, only Probst’s open letter was composed by the author himself for public consumption and without duress. So if we use this admittedly limited sample as a general indicator of what was preached publicly in Antwerp we can distill the friars’ message down to four themes: Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone, a Christian ethic emphasizing love of neighbour based upon that doctrine, a claim that all religious practices without Biblical origins were ineffectual and should not be compulsory, and an outright rejection of papal and ecclesiastical authority in favour of biblicism. If this was indeed the thrust of their message, it is interesting to consider just what the authorities found most offensive in it. The best source by which to do so is the recantation of Jacob Probst. On 9 February 1522, in the presence of a capacity crowd that included the papal legate Aleander, representatives of the imperial government and of various ecclesiastical foundations, and members of the local temporal government, Probst recanted at St. Gudula’s Church in Brussels following a protocol that had been established by tradition. First, he listed those assertions he had made that he now deemed heretical; then he went back and described his current, orthodox beliefs on each one. It is the recounting of his ‘current beliefs’ that provides insight into what the authorities found most distressing in Probst’s preaching and what the Inquisition wanted the people to hear in response to it. By this I mean that public recantations of the period were hardly designed for the personal edification of the individual recanting, but rather for the instruction of the crowd, a lesson in orthodoxy and heresy. In his case, Probst’s recantation was practically a sermon. What is more, having a crowd on hand was important – so important, claims Probst, that the inquisitors ensured a packed church with promises of money to anyone who attended. 46 46 Probst, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis, p. 54.

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And in order to achieve maximum distribution of these ideas, Probst was required to read his recantation in both Latin and Flemish, after which the Inquisition quickly had it printed and distributed in both languages. 47 Moreover, Probst asserted that the inquisitors had composed the recantation according to their own desires, with the result that he, Probst, was shocked when he heard it, insisting that he had never preached those things, nor had they ever entered his mind. 48 As a result, when the ceremony began, Probst began to speak extemporaneously, causing the inquisitors to quickly stop him, ‘and put the sacrilegious document [=revocation] that I was forced to read into my hand, as if [I were] a boy’.49 Because of its importance for understanding how the public battle over Reformation ideas was being framed in Lower Germany, this document will be quoted at length. Probst began as follows: 1. Having made my revocation, it is expedient that I now clearly declare, in so far as I am able, my faith and my beliefs concerning those things which I have preached, taught, and believed, of which I will now speak: I assert and pronounce my faith concerning the sacraments of the church, that I believe those things that the holy Roman Mother Church holds and believes, namely that the seven sacraments, baptism, penance, the Eucharist, confirmation, ordination, marriage, and extreme unction were instituted by Christ. But in anything else I have taught or preached, I have erred in faith reducing the number of sacraments established by Christ.50

The issue here is the doctrine of the sacraments; but equally, it is the question of who has the authority to define them. Probst admits the holy Roman Mother Church does. 47 Anathematizatio et revocatio fratris Iacobi Praepositi was published in Latin and Flemish in Antwerp, and in Latin in Cologne, Strasburg, and Leipzig. 48 Probst, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis, p. 54. 49 ‘et tradiderunt in manus velut puero sacrilegas illas schedulas, quas legi victus’. Probst, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis, p. 55. 50 ‘Quoniam videtur expedire post revocationem factam aliquantisper eam declarare, potissimum ut ego lucidius manifestem fidem et credulitatem meam circa ea quae predicavi, docui vel sensi vel de quibus confabulatus sum, manifesto et pronuntio fidem meam de sacramentis ecclesie, et assero me credere quod de illis tenet et credit sancta mater ecclesia Romana, esse videlicet septem sacramenta, scilicet baptismum, penitenciam, eucharistiam, confirmationem, ordinem, matrimonium et extremam unctionem, instituta a Christo. Quod autem aliter docui vel predicavi, erravi in fide, numerum sacramentorum a Christo traditum minuens’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 33.

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2. I regard it as a heresy to say that laity are priests, and I believe those men are priests who go through ordination by a bishop according to the rites of the church; it is not sufficient to be a priest just by offering yourself to God. But when I proclaimed otherwise, I erred, denigrating the priestly dignity, bringing confusion into the statutes of Christianity.51

Here the institutional church’s authority to ordain clergy, thereby making them distinct from the laity, the foundation of the church’s hierarchical structure, is confirmed. Rejected as unorthodox is the Reformation doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers.” 3. Concerning indulgences, moreover, I believe they ought to be understood in those ways which the church allows, by which the sins of men are absolved from the debt of penalty in purgatory, and I assert that the pope is able to assume for himself the authority of divine tradition, and therefore I have erroneously said in the past that indulgences are nothing, and that they are not efficacious. Indeed, everything that is written in letters of indulgence is efficacious and surely has an impact and ought to reflect consolation to the soul and the conscience.52

In other words, the church defines practice and ensures the efficacy thereof, and the papacy asserts the right to base decisions on tradition, itself referred to as “divine”. 4. Concerning the merits of the saints I believe firmly that they can be applied to others, as can be proven by many passages of Holy Scripture. But whatever I have said and preached otherwise, I was mistaken. Indeed, on account of the merits of the saints we obtain from God those things that can be applied to us, so that on account of their merits, our debt of penalty is removed. In no way should it be supposed, nor do I any longer 51 ‘Dico heresim esse laicos esse sacerdotes et credo esse precise sacerdotes ordinatos ab episcopis secundum ritum ecclesie, nec suff icere ad sacerdotium quod quis se Deo offerat. Quod autem aliter predicaverim, erravi dignitati sacerdotali derogans et confusionem in statu christianorum inducens’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 33. 52 ‘De indulgentiis autem credo conf idendum esse in eis ad intencionem, qua in ecclesia conceduntur, quibus homines peccatores absolvuntur a penis debitis in purgatorio, et assero eas posse summum pontificem concedere auctoritate sibi divinitus tradita, et ideo erronee dixi indulgentias esse nullas et non esse efficacies, quinimo, positis illis quae in litteris indulgentiarum exprimuntur, efficacies sunt et suum sortiuntur effectum, et solatium anime et conscientie sunt reputande’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, pp. 33–34.

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believe that all works of the saints are sins, requiring remission. But I believe and assert that their works were meritorious toward eternal life, that they are all free from blame. But when I preached otherwise, I erred, by denigrating the works of the saints and by insulting them.53

Mentioned for the first time, Scripture is used to justify the notion that the merits of the saints are transferable, and this article represents the first reference to the doctrine of justification. 5. Concerning the treasury of the church, I believe it to be the treasury of merits of Christ and the saints, which can be applied to the faithful as I said before. But whenever I have spoken otherwise, I have erred, diminishing the treasury of the church.54

This doctrine of the treasury of merits, articulated in the papal bull Unigenitus, was itself heavily contested. Here Probst recognizes papal authority in defining this doctrine and rejecting the idea of sola scriptura. 6. Concerning the apostolic condemnation by which Luther and his dogmas were damned, I believe and assert it to be the legitimate law of God, consonant with the holy councils and the sacred doctors, just as I have said repeatedly in my recantation. But when I have preached or said the opposite, I erred impiously, and I rashly damaged the holy apostolic faith.55

In other words, legal rulings of the church are spiritually binding, a reflection of divine law. 53 ‘De meritis autem sanctorum credo firmiter posse alijs applicari, ut ex multis passibus Sacre Scripture constare potest; quod autem aliter dixerim vel predicaverim, erravi; quinimo propter merita sanctorum multa impetramus a Deo, quod possint ea nobis applicari, ut propter eorum merita nobis pene debite relaxentur. Nullo pacto censendum est nec ego jam credo omnia opera sanctorum fuisse peccata, indigentia remissione; sed credo et assero opera eorum fuisse sic vite eterne meritoria, quod omni culpa carerent; quod autem aliter predicaverim, erravi, opera sanctorum denigrando et eis contumeliam inferendo’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 34. 54 ‘De thesauro autem ecclesie credo esse ecclesie thesaurum merita Christi et sanctorum, quae possunt f idelibus applicari, ut predictum est; quod autem oppositum dixerim, erravi thesaurum ecclesie diminuens’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 34. 55 ‘De condemnatione autem apostolica, qua Lutherus cum suo dogmate est damnatus, credo et assero fuisse legittimam legi Dei, sacris conciliis sacrisque doctoribus consonam, sicut in mea revocatione peramplius dixi; quod autem oppositum predicaverim vel dixerim, impie erravi et sacrosancte fidei apostolice injuriam temerarie intuli’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 34.

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7. Concerning the freedom of the will, I believe and assert that it actively engages and works freely to do good works. But when I spoke and preached otherwise, I erred, withdrawing liberty from free will, contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the doctrines of the sacred doctors.56

This article and the next directly address the issue of justification. Here the freedom of will is asserted, and the scriptures are employed as the operative authority, along with the church’s traditional interpretation of them. 8. Concerning the works of free will, I believe that not all of them are sins, but that some are meritorious to eternal life. But whenever I have spoken and preached otherwise, I erred impiously and scandalously in faith and morals. Nor do I believe that everything a man does before being justified by grace is a sin. Rather, he is able to push himself toward grace without sin, and to do many works which are not imputed as blame. But whenever I have preached and taught otherwise, I have erred rashly by asserting [these things] and by denying the ability of a sinner to correct his own sins.57

This article refers again to the church’s doctrine of justification, this time in response to its stance on free will. Justification requires good works for salvation, works fully within the capacity of the sinner. 9. Concerning the observance of fasts and the abstention from meat at certain times, I hold and believe them to be reasonably enjoined on the faithful of Christ, and to assist with the observation of the divine law, the mortification of the flesh, and the elevation of the mind toward God. And Christians are to be held to this type of observance established by the church and [are to be considered] in mortal delinquency for transgressing it, unless they are excused for the sake of some legitimate reason. Nor 56 ‘De libero autem arbitrio credo et assero, quod active concurrit et coagit ad actus bonos libere; quod autem aliter dixerim vel predicaverim, erravi, auferens libri arbitrii libertatem contra Sacram Scripturam et sacrorum doctorum doctrinam’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 34. 57 ‘De operibus autem liberi arbitrii credo non omnia esse peccata, sed aliqua esse vite aeterne meritoria remittente; quod autem aliter dixerim vel predicaverim, erravi impie et scandalose in f ide et moribus. Non credo quod quicquid homo agat ante gratiam justif icantem, peccet; imo, sine peccato posset se ad gratiam disponere et multa opera agere, quae non imputantur ad culpam; quod autem aliter predicaverim vel docuerim, erravi temerarie illud asserendo et peccatores peccatorum suorum emendatione retrahendo’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 34.

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ought this type of work be eliminated. And I believe that a person is able, by his own vows to oblige himself to be abstinent. But whenever I have preached otherwise, I have erred against the law of God and of his church, inciting rebellion against the means of mortifying the flesh and enticing souls toward those things that impede them from being elevated toward God.58

Behind this article is the church’s authority to establish practices and statues, which then take on the necessity of divine law and the transgression of which therefore incurs mortal punishment. 10. I believe that prelates are able to oblige their subordinates so that if they transgress any precept, they are mortally delinquent, nor does ignorance or any passion excuse them, even if they did not cause scandal or ignominy. But wherever I have spoken and preached otherwise, I have erred in faith and morals, drawing the subordinate away from the debt of obedience and subjection to the prelates, seditiously destroying the positive laws.59

The article asserts the authority to judge and to coerce according to the laws and traditions of the church, and to hold parishioners mortally accountable. 11. I believe the canon Omnis utriusque sexus, in which it is ordered that at least once a year confession ought to be made, to be most reasonable and wholesome. Nor should it be judged unreasonable on account of the determination of time.60 But wherever I have preached otherwise, I have 58 ‘De observantia autem jejuniorum et abstinencia a carnibus certo tempore teneo et credo esse rationabiliter injunctas christifidelibus et facere ad observantiam legis divine et macerationem carnis et mentis elevationem in Deum, et christianos teneri ad hujusmodi observantiam ab ecclesia traditam et transgredientes mortaliter delinquere, nisi legittime rationabili causa venirent excusandi, neque hoc cujuslibet arbitrio est dimittendum. Et credo hominem posse ex voto ad hujusmodi abstinentiam obligari; quod autem aliter predicaverim, erravi contra legem Dei et ejus ecclesiam, tollens modum reprimendi carnis rebellionem et alliciens ad illud per quod impeditur anima ne in Deum elevetur’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, pp. 34–35. 59 ‘Credo prelatos posse taliter subditos obligare, quod si transgrederentur preceptum, mortaliter delinquerent, nec omnis ignorantia vel passio eos excusat, etiam ubi non fuerit scandalum nec contemptus; quod autem aliter dixerim vel predicaverim, erravi in fide et moribus retrahens subditos a debita obedientia et subjectione prelatorum, leges positivas seditiose destruens’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 35. 60 This a reference to Canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which requires every Christian who has reached the age of discretion to confess his or her sins at least once a year to his or her own priest.

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erred rashly and brought injury to the holy council, drawing men away from the necessity of the sacrament of confession.61

A church council may establish a rite; once confirmed, that rite attains the power of divine authority. 12. I believe that the apostle Peter was established by Christ as first among the apostles, and I assert that whoever is his successor is the head of the church under Christ by divine authority.62

The article affirms the papacy’s claims of the Roman bishop’s primacy as a divinely instituted office. 13. In addition, I declare that not all bishops are equal, particularly with regard to external issues. But wherever I have preached otherwise, I have erred, diminishing the principle of apostolic superiority, withdrawing the authority from his successors, and altogether perverting the ordered hierarchy.63

The article verifies the notion that there is a hierarchy within the spiritual estate, and that the pope sits at its apex above all bishops. 14. Other articles that I believed, that I did not openly preach, I refrain from declaring, for the revocation of them appears to be sufficient.64 15. So that the cause of my errors and perverse sermons might be made known to all, everyone should know that they are on account of my too great affection for Luther. For with his perverse dogmas, I appear to have 61 ‘Capitulum Omnis utriusque sexus, quo cavetur semel saltem in anno confitendum, rationi consonum et saluberrimum censeo nec propter determinationem temporis est irrationabile judicandum; quod autem oppositum predicaverim, erravi temerarie et injuriam sacrosancto concilio intuli a debita sacramentali confessione homines retrahens’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 35. 62 ‘Petrum apostolum inter apostolos supremum a Christo institutum credo et assero quemlibet ejus successorem auctoritate divina esse caput ecclesiae sub Christo’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 35. 63 ‘Judico insuper non omnes episcopos esse equales potissimum in foro exterior; quod autem aliter predicaverim, erravi principis apostolorum superioritati derogans et ejus successoribus auctoritatem adimens, ordinem hierarchicum omnino pervertens’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 35. 64 ‘Aliorum autem articulorum quos senseram, quos me predicasse non recolo, declarationi supersede; sufficere enim videtur eorum revocatio’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 35.

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enmeshed the people in errors that I have preached and believed, about which I have spoken. Having by the grace of God come to know the truth and having been instructed by others, I recant and retract all errors that I have preached and believed, and about which I have spoken. And I damn all errors and heresies, particularly the Lutheran ones, and I embrace the Catholic faith, which the Holy Roman Church holds and preaches. And I submit myself in faith to all things that it teaches. This I promise. And I now declare, just as I have promised and declared, to adhere to it and to cast Luther with all his dogmas far away from me.65

The recantation ends with a formulaic condemnation of Luther as originator of his heresies, and a confirmation of the notion that the Roman Church is the receptacle and guardian of truth. Two aspects of these articles prove noteworthy. First, Probst proclaims the church’s doctrine of justification: the human being possesses free will to do good works and these works merit salvation. But he does so in only a handful of the fifteen articles, tucked into the middle of the recantation. Second, the preponderance of the articles addresses the issue of authority. References to the Scriptures are few and far between; references to the Roman Church’s right to articulate doctrine, practice, and binding laws abound: laymen may not assume the role of the priests; the pope, backed by scripture and tradition, has the authority to define doctrine, institute and regulate church practice and custom, and assign binding punishments on pain of eternal damnation. The church is a hierarchical institution with authority ultimately residing with the papacy. Simply put, the conflict is not first and foremost over the doctrine of justification; it is about the institutional authority of the church. A final source articulating the church’s public response to the message of the friars, one that encapsulates that response in its most crystalized form, supports this contention. It is another recantation allegedly made by Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen with their dying breaths. Shortly after 65 ‘Ut autem omnibus innotescat mei erroris et perverse predicationis causa, noverint omnes, quod propter nimiam meam erga Lutherum affectionem, et quia videbar populo dogmate illo perverso placere, in errores turpiter incidi et predicavi. Cognoscens igitur per Dei gratiam veritatem et instructus aliter sensiens revoco et retracto ut dixi, omnes errores, quos predicavi et sensi et de quibus confabulatus sum, et damno omnem errorem et haeresim, potissimum Lutherianam, et amplector fidem catholicam, quam tenet et predicat sancta Romana ecclesia, et ei me in fide et omnibus quae docet, submitto et eidem promitto et jam juro, sicut jam promisi et juravi, adherere et Lutherum cum suo dogmate procul a me abjicere’. Anathematizatio et revocatio, p. 35.

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their deaths, the rumour spread (as will be discussed in detail in Chapter Ten) that at the last moment, in the midst of the flames, the men recanted. The content of that recantation comes from a letter of the chief inquisitor, Frans van der Hulst, composed the same day that they died. Writing to a fellow cleric, van der Hulst communicates the breaking news that at the very last moment before their deaths, They embraced once more the holy Catholic church, adding of their own accord “Roman” to this phrase. [And] they entreated the bystanders […] [to remain] in the faith of their parents, their predecessors, and of the prelates of the church, convinced that our lord, the pope, was the true successor to Peter, etc.66

Van der Hulst encouraged the recipient of the letter to spread the news of the recantation which, he claimed, had saved their souls from eternal damnation, if not their bodies from death. It is interesting to note how the men’s final words reaffirm the authority of the Church, specifically the Roman Church. They also endorse the legitimacy of the traditions of the church (the faith of parents, predecessors, and prelates), and confirm the primacy of the papacy. A more condensed and overt declaration of ecclesiastical and papal authority is difficult to imagine: and it is precisely that allegiance – so the rumour went – that Vos and van den Esschen had emphasized with their dying breaths.

Conclusion Whether these two recantations, those of Probst and of Vos and van den Esschen, provide an accurate description of these men’s true convictions is highly unlikely. But in any case, the authorities’ efforts to publicize them indicate that the powers that be had found a beneficial public response to the preaching of the Augustinians. If these recantations are any indication, then the essence of the dispute was not so much the doctrine of justification, or of good works, but the issue was simply one of the Roman church’s authority. 66 ‘[E]t praesertim eos quos ipsi tenuerunt, credentes nedum in sanctam ecclesiam catholicam, se addentes Romanam; rogantes assistentes ne quis proprio sensu staret praesumptuose, unde et ipsi se deceptos fatebantur, sed in fide parentum, praedecessorum et Ecclesiae praelatorum; credentes dominum nostrum papam verum esse Petri successorem, etc.’. Frans Van der Hulst to Jan Pascha, 1 July 1523, CD 4: doc. 144.

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Works Cited Anathematizatio et revocatio fratris Iacobi Praepositi, olim prioris fratrum heremitarum Sancti Augustini opidi antverpiensis, in Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst, ed. by Ortwin Rudloff, [= Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte] 14 (1985), pp. 27–37. Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, ob Evangelij doctrinam exustis Bruxellae, die trigesima Iunij. Anno domini M.D.XXIII (n.p.: n.p). Bähr, Paul, ‘Häretische Sätze aus den Bremer Predigten Heinrichs von Zütphen, Januar und Februar 1523’, ed. by Ortwin Rudloff Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte 15 (1987), 71–104. Bünger, Fritz and Gottfried Wentz, ‘Das Augustinereremitenkloster in Wittenberg’ in Das Bistum Brandenburg, Part II, Germania Sacra, ed. by Gustav Abb and Gottfried Wentz, 2. vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1929–1941), 1.3: 440–499. Caspers, Charles, ‘Indulgences in the Low Countries c. 1300 – c. 1520’, in Promissory Notes on the Treasury of Merits: Indulgences in Late Medieval Europe, ed. by R. N. Swanson (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 65–100. Clemen, Otto, ‘Das Antwerper Augustiner-Kloster bei Beginn der Reformation (1513–1515)’, Monatshefte der Comenius-Gesellschaft 10 (1901), 306–313. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitats Neerlandicae (=CD), ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols. (Gent: J. Vuylsteke, 1889–1902). Duinen, Herman van, Hendrik van Zutphen (1489–1524), prior – reformator – martelaar. Bleskensgraaf: Blassekijn, 2004). Geldenhauer, Gerard, Collectanea, ed. by J. Prinsen (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1901). Günther, Wolfgang, Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018). Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904). Kolde, Theodor, Die deutsche Augustiner-Kongregation und Johann von Staupitz (Gotha: F.A. Perthes, 1879). Krentz, Natalie, Ritualwandel und Deutungshoheit – Die frühe Reformation in der Residenzstadt Wittenberg (1500–1533) (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke (=WA), vols. 1–73 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883-) ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel (=WABr), vols. 1–18 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–1985). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Tischreden (=WATr), vols. 1–6 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1912–1921).

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Marnef, Guido, ‘Tussen tolerantie en repressie: Protestanten en religieuze dissidenten te Antwerpen in de 16de eeuw’, in Minderheden in Westeuropese steden (16de-20ste eeuw), ed. by Hugo Soly and Alfons K.L. Thijs (Brussels and Rome: Institut Historique Belge de Rome, 1995), pp. 189–213. Monumenta Reformationis Lutheranae ex tabularis s. sedis, 1521–1525, ed. by Petrus Balan (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1883). Müller, Nikolaus, ed. Die Wittenberger Bewegung 1521 und 1522. Die Vorgänge in und um Wittenberg während Luthers Wartburgaufenthalt, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Heinsius, 1911). Planitz, Hans von der, Berichte aus dem Reichsregiment in Nürnberg, 1521–1523, ed. by Ernst Wülker & Hans Virck (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1899). Probst, Jacob, Epistola ad Auditores suos Antuuerpienses in Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst, ed. by Ortwin Rudloff Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte 14 (1985), 60–65. ———, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis in Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst, ed. by Ortwin Rudloff Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte 14 (1985), 42–59. Rudloff, Ortwin, Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst (= Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte) 14 (1985), 11–274. Scott, Tom, ‘The Collective Response of Women to Early Reforming Preaching: Four Small Communities and their Preachers Compared’, in The Early Reformation in Germany: Between Secular Impact and Radical Vision (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 117–141. Spalatin, Georg, ‘Chronicon sive Annales Georgii Spalatini A M. Augusto Anni MDXIII usque ad finem fere Anni MDXXVI ex autographo auctoris descripti’, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum prœcipue Saxonicarum 2 (1728), cols. 589–662. ———, ‘Excerpta quaedam e Diario Georgii Spalatini MSto’ in Amoenitates Literariae Quibus Variae Observationes Scripta item quaedem anecdota & rariora Opuscula exhibentur, ed. by J. Schelhorn, 4 vols. (Frankfurt and Leipzig: Daniel Bartholomaei, 1725), 4: 389–432. Spruyt, Bart J., ‘Humanisme, Evangelisme en Reformatie in de Nederlanden, 1520–1530’, in Reformatie in meervoud : congresbundel 1990, ed. by W. de Greef and M. van Campen (Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 1991), pp. 26–54. Vercruysse, Jos E., ‘Was haben die Sachsen und die Flamen gemeinsam…?’, in Wittenberg als Bildungszentrum 1502–2002, ed. by Peter Freybe (LutherstadtWittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 2002), 9–32.

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Winterhager, Wilhlem, ‘Ablaßkritik als Indikator historischen Wandels vor 1517: Ein Beitrag zu Voraussetzungen und Einordnung der Reformation’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 90 (1999), 6–71. Zütphen, Heinrich von. ‘Zütphen’s Briefe’, ed. by Johann Friedrich Iken Bremisches Jahrbuch 2. 1 (1885), 241–252.

7.

‘Summer is at the door’: The Impact of the Executions on Martin Luther Abstract In this chapter, Martin Luther’s response to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen is examined with the benefit of a clear understanding of the Reformer’s close connections to the case. His reaction can be observed on two levels, theological and temporal/political. A close analysis of his first musical composition, ‘A New Song’, a ballad recounting the history of the two executed friars, illustrates how he understood these events in theological terms. However, they also provided Luther with evidence that Adrian VI, who had ascended to the papacy on a platform of church reform and personal piety, was a hypocrite. The result is that the executions become a true watershed for Luther in the early Reformation. Keywords: Martin Luther, ‘A New Song Here Shall Be Begun’, Pope Adrian VI, Luther’s hymns

If the administrative assets, not to mention individual members of the Congregation of Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, were utilized by Linck, Luther, and the rest of the hierarchy in the service of the Reformation, and if the Lowlanders also played a role in the pace and even content of reform in Wittenberg, the outcomes of their experiences and the profound impact of these events also belong to the story of the early Reformation in its Reformed Augustinian context. Such influence is especially true of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, which were broadly publicized throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond. This chapter assesses these varied and continuing consequences for the Reformation. Given that these events impacted diverse individuals and groups to varying degrees over vast swathes of space (and time), quantifying and evaluating their influence raises significant organizational challenges. The following assessment is structured on the model of concentric circles, beginning in this chapter

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch07

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with the impact of these events on a key individual, Martin Luther, before moving on in subsequent chapters to their consequences locally in the Low Countries, and finally more broadly throughout the empire. Of the many individuals affected by the news of the burning of Vos and van den Esschen it would be difficult to find anyone more deeply moved than Martin Luther, or anyone whose response itself had a broader impact.1 In the past, scholars have evaluated the impression made by the executions on the Reformer, but without a complete understanding of the parameters of the situation, and lacking a realization of how deeply and directly he was involved.2 When these factors are taken into consideration, Luther’s reaction becomes clearer and may be analysed from two perspectives, themselves reflecting two aspects of the Reformer’s disposition. On the one hand Luther responded theologically, processing the events in Brussels through the lens of the Bible. As a man whose life was ‘lived in the shadow of eternity’ and with the full conviction that God was the ruler of history, Luther saw this event as evidence of divine intervention, essentially biblical in nature.3 But Luther also understood the world in concrete and practical terms, as demonstrated by his work in the service of the German Reformed Augustinians and dramatically underscored in his recent efforts to foster and support the printing industry in Wittenberg and throughout Germany. 4 He knew ecclesiastical politics, he knew how power was exercised, and he knew how to reach the masses. So on the other hand, he could assign blame for the deaths of these men to the machinations of those individuals and entities he saw as responsible for or complicit in the executions – a political understanding of the case. Luther’s response demonstrates that for him, the burning of Vos and van den Esschen was a watershed in the history of the Reformation, both as a divinely governed episode and as a very worldly and temporal matter.

Luther’s Theological Understanding of the Events of 1 July 1523 in Brussels With his knowledge of the situation in the Low Countries, Luther must have been aware of the likelihood that the first individuals executed for 1 Parts of this chapter have been previously published as Christman, ‘“For he is coming”’. 2 See Chapter 1, note 2. 3 This aspect of Martin Luther’s nature is best portrayed by Oberman in his biography Martin Luther. 4 See Pettegree, Brand Luther.

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their Evangelical beliefs would die there. But who was to suffer that fate and how they were to go to their deaths appear to have surprised him. Luther’s initial response to the news of the burnings was disappointment that he was not the first deemed worthy to die for the Gospel.5 Having overcome this reaction, it was these unexpected aspects of the story that most influenced his response and informed his theological interpretation of the event. In the days after the news arrived in Wittenberg, Luther would refer to the executions in a series of letters,6 but it was his ballad, ‘A New Song Here Shall be Begun’, and to a lesser degree his Open Letter to the Christians in the Low Countries, that reveal his conviction that the Reformation had entered a new phase of divine history.7 Something novel was happening, something that required expression in song. An analysis of his ballad, particularly in light of our new understanding of his close connections to the case, demonstrates Luther’s awareness of these new things and reveals how he was inspired by Scripture to articulate them in song. For many scholars, ‘A New Song Here Shall be Begun’ falls outside the parameters of the rest of Luther’s hymn writing corpus in a variety of ways. It predated his ‘initial’ outpouring of hymns in 1523–1524, which came as a pointed response to Thomas Müntzer’s musical efforts.8 Most of Luther’s hymns are transpositions of a section of Scripture or the catechism into 5 Johann Kessler, a Swiss student studying in Wittenberg at the time, noted that when Luther heard about the deaths ‘he began to cry inwardly and said, “I thought that I would be the first person martyred for the holy Gospel, but I was not counted worthy”’ (‘hatt er angefangen innerlich zů wainen und gesagt, ich vermaint, ich solte ja der erste sin, der umb diß hailig euangelion wegen solte gemarteret werden, aber ich bin des nitt wirdig geweßen’). Kessler, Sabbata, p. 241. This was not the first time Luther connected the events in the Low Countries to what he thought was his own imminent execution. Karel Rose, an erstwhile member of Luther’s cloister in Wittenberg who at the time was in the Augustinian cloister in Nuremberg, commenting on the arrival of Probst there in September 1522, claims that when Luther heard from Probst about his difficulties in the Low Countries he replied: ‘If such flames are flying out of the fire, I won’t remain unburned for very long’ (‘Wen solche flammen aus dem feuer fligen, so wirdt ich noch lang nicht verprent’). Karel van Rose to Nicolaas van Kniebys, September, 1522, Corpus documentorum (=CD), 4: doc. 96. 6 See Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr) 3:114–116; WABr 3: 116–117; and WA 12:68–72. 7 The original title of Luther’s song was, ‘Eynn hubsch Lyed von denn zcweyen Marterern Christi, zu Brussel von den Sophisten zcu Louen verbrandt,’ but it was quickly changed to ‘Ein neues Lied wir Heben an’. Luther, Abteilung Werke (=WA) 35: 411–415. The song has been translated multiple time into English. The translation employed here is from Leupold, ed. Luther’s Works, vol. 53, pp. 214–216; Luther, Ein brief an die Christen, also in WA 12:77–79. 8 In 1523, Thomas Müntzer had made some initial attempts at writing lyrics and music. Realizing, it seems, that if no one responded in kind, the people might very well be seduced by Müntzer, Luther called on his colleagues to write hymns, then answered the call himself with an outpouring of compositions. Veit, Das Kirchenlied in der Reformation, pp. 36–40.

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music or were based upon medieval Latin or German precedents. ‘A New Song’ is not. It is his only composition that employs the musical form of a ballad.9 And it is his only song about a contemporary event, causing one historian to describe its focus ‘not on sacred material, or even immediately on the Word as such, but on a historical, highly politicized event in distant Brussels’.10 In short, it is something of an enigma.11 Most scholars focus on Luther’s summary of a political event, and his attempt to broadcast it using a musical form commonly employed at the time for publicizing news quickly and widely. The result is that Luther’s political savvy is accentuated, as is his ability to deftly use the media in the service of his cause, certainly both important elements in understanding his reaction.12 But in coming to this conclusion, historians have focused predominately on two of the ballad’s three chief elements: the recounting of the event itself, and the musical genre employed by Luther.13 To truly understand the work’s stimulus and meaning, however, it is necessary to include the third element of the song: namely its scriptural inspiration, which, once comprehended, clarifies Luther’s broader theological reaction to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen. In addition to being a polemical statement articulated in a well-established secular genre, the ballad is, in fact, very much biblically grounded, its scriptural elements no mere afterthought but central to its inspiration and essential to its framework and structure. To begin with, it seems unlikely that Luther, who by 1523 had lectured twice on the book of Psalms, recited them thousands of times in his life as a friar, and undoubtedly knew them by heart, could write the words, 9 One might argue that Dear Christians one and all Rejoice, his second hymn, shares many of the characteristics of this form. 10 Casey, ‘“Start Spreading the News”’, p. 79. 11 Rössler, ‘Ein neues Lied wir heben an’, p. 221. 12 Such impressions are found widely in the literature. For example, Paul Casey writes, ‘Luther constructed his ballad as an argument aimed directly at advancing the evangelical cause’ and argues that ‘[Luther] could use this unanticipated event to broadcast the joyous message that people were willing to die for their faith in the Word.’ Further, ‘Luther seized the opportunity presented by the events in Brussels to exploit this sign of success of his interpretation of the Word’. Casey, ‘“Start Spreading the News”’, pp. 83, 90. Rebecca Oettinger writes of Luther, ‘He wished to discredit [the Catholic Church’s] version of the events and spread the news about the executions and the brave conduct of the Augustinians as quickly as possible’. Oettinger, Music as Propaganda, p. 64. And Martin Brecht surmises, ‘It is ultimately a gripping ballad the purpose of which is doubtlessly also to serve as propaganda’ (‘Es handelt sich um eine ergreifende Ballade, die zweifellos auch dem Zweck der Propaganda dienen sollte’). Brecht, Martin Luther, p. 107. 13 For discussions of the song’s form as it fits into the genre of the Zeitungslied see Rössler, ‘Ein neues Lied wir heben an’, esp. pp. 217–221; and Casey, ‘“Start Spreading the News”’, pp. 76–77 and 83–84.

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‘A New Song here Shall be Begun’ without thinking of ‘O sing unto the Lord a new song’, the opening line of Psalms 96 and 98. Indeed, an analysis of the ballad in light of these Psalms, particularly Psalm 98, reveals Luther’s work to be a response to the Psalm that employs the events in Brussels as its material. This discovery helps us to see his work for what it truly is: not merely a piece of political propaganda couched in religious terms, but certitude that God was at work, something that required Christians to sing in response. It further highlights what Luther found so new and spectacular about the events of 1 July 1523 in Brussels, and how they served to demonstrate a divine turning point in history. And finally, it offers a new understanding of how, theologically speaking, Luther understood the Reformation as an historical event. Psalm 98 begins with the imperative, ‘O sing unto the Lord a new song’.14 But what is the impetus to sing? What conditions have presented themselves that call for not just song, but a new song? For the Psalmist the answer is fivefold: first, because God ‘has done marvellous things’; second, and more specifically, ‘his right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory’; third, ‘he has made known his victory’ and ‘revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations’; fourth, ‘he has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness’, and fifth, ‘he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity’. As a result of these divine actions, the Psalmist encourages ‘all the earth’ to ‘make a joyful noise to the Lord’, and ‘break forth into joyous song and sing praises’ with lyre and horn accompanying. Moreover not just humanity, but all creation is invoked in this chorus: ‘Let the sea roar […] Let the floods clap their hands […] Let the hills sing together for joy’. Luther chose to write about the events of 1 July 1523 in Brussels because he saw in them the hand of God, an exceptionally vivid fulfilment of the criteria set forth in the Psalm. Thus Luther’s first line, ‘A new song here shall be begun’, may be seen as a direct response to the Psalmist’s imperative: ‘O sing unto the Lord a new song’. The subject of the ballad is not, then, the story of the executions per se, but a presentation of those executions as a miracle of God or the ‘marvellous things’ ascribed to him by the Psalmist. In his own translation of Psalm 98, Luther used the phrase ‘does miracles’ (thut Wunder) to describe God’s actions, literally ‘O sing unto the Lord a new song for he has done miracles’. In the ballad, he employs the same term to describe the actions of God in Brussels, namely ‘what God himself has done’ (‘was Gott hat gethan’), and what he has done is to ‘show the wonders of his hands’ or translated 14 Bible quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

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more literally, ‘he has made his miracle known’ (‘Hat er sein Wunder macht bekannt’). Thus the active agent in these events is God and the action he performs is a miracle. However, God does his work ‘by two boys, martyrs youthful […] whom he with favour truthful, so richly hath adorned’ (‘durch zween junge Knaben […] die er mit seinen Gaben so reichlich hat gezieret’), and this is where the power and work of God intersects the events in Brussels. Luther employs the same terminology when he consoles the citizens of the Low Countries: ‘Therefore my dearest friends, be comforted and joyful in Christ, and let us be thankful for his great signs and wonders that he has begun to work among us’.15 What surprises Luther, it seems, are the particular vehicles God has chosen to demonstrate his power, and their steadfast demeanour. Prior to these executions, all of Vos’s and van den Esschen’s more senior colleagues had demurred in the face of possible martyrdom: Probst had recanted; Miritsch had talked his way out of trouble; van Zutphen had escaped; and Lambert Thorn, the third and most senior of the Antwerp Augustinians who remained jailed, had decided he needed time to ‘reconsider’. Yet these two unknown ‘boys’ ( junge Knaben) had courageously gone to their deaths. In verses three, four, six and seven, Luther recounts how the theology faculty at Leuven had attempted in vain to convince the men to recant. When the fires were finally lit, writes Luther, ‘Great wonder seized on every man, For with contempt they [the friars] view the [approaching] torments’ (‘Es nahm gross Wunder Jedermann, Dass sie solch’ Pein veracht’ten’). He continues, ‘To all with joy they [Vos and van den Esschen] yielded quite, With singing and God-praising’ (‘Mit Freuden sie sich gaben drein, Mit Gottes Lob und Singen’). It is these actions in particular that Luther sees as novel, for he refers to them as ‘new things’ (neuen dyngen). Thus the seemingly asymmetrical power held by each side – the advanced degrees of the members of the theological faculty, the inquisitors who represented both pope and emperor, against the convictions of two mere youths, indicates for Luther that God must be at work. So the marvellous deeds of God referred to in the Psalm are given a concrete form in the unexpected steadfastness of the young friars in Brussels. Next the Psalmist defines in greater detail the works of God that should give rise to song, namely ‘his right hand and his holy arm have gotten him the victory’. References to a victory necessarily assume an enemy or opponent and some sort of contest, both of which Luther introduces in verse three. The 15 ‘Darumb, meyn aller liebsten, seyt getrost und frolich ynn Christo, und last uns dancken seynen grossen zeichen und wundern, so er angefangen hat unter uns zu thun’. WA 12:78.

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opponent, learns the reader, is ‘the old fiend’ or enemy (Der alte Feind), the designation for Satan found in Matt. 13:39. But like God, he acts through his earthly agents, the inquisitors and the ‘sophists’ from the University of Leuven. In fact, Luther conflates Satan and the inquisitors into one, repeatedly using the term ‘old fiend’ to refer to all of them together. This ‘Satan,’ then, ‘gather[s] [the Sophists] to the game’ (‘versammelt er zu diesem Spiel’). In stanza three Luther also foreshadows the outcome of the tilt, again demonstrating God’s agency: ‘The Spirit [of God] fools doth make [of the Sophists] – They could get nothing by it’ (‘Der Geist sie macht zu Thoren, Sie konnten nichts gewinnen’). Throughout the ballad, the devil reappears occasionally, again amalgamated with his subordinates. In verse four, he chafes because the men, referred to here as ‘youngsters’ ( jungen) refuse to recant.16 In verse ten he hopes that by executing the men, he can silence them. But their very ashes shame and disgrace him (‘Sie macht den Feind zu Schanden’), with the result that he is forced to allow the story to be told in every land. So the general victory referred to by the Psalmist is given specific expression in the outcome of the events in Brussels, which constitute a showdown between God and the devil. And it is worth remembering here that Luther saw the devil as exceptionally active in the Low Countries during this period. The author of the Psalm further enjoins the reader to sing in response to the fact that God ‘has made known his victory’ and has ‘revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations’. Already in stanza one of the song, Luther underscores the point that God has ‘showed the wonders of his hands’ and ‘he has made his miraculous power known’ (‘Hat er sein Wunder macht bekant’). Without the Psalm as his inspiration, this phrase makes little sense, for it would be more pointed just to say, ‘God has done a miracle.’ But the Psalm and Luther’s ballad both emphasize not just the miracle, but the openness of the deed – that God has publicized his miracle as if it were an object lesson. In verse eight Luther underscores the public nature of the event when he writes that ‘Great wonder seized on every man’ (‘Es nahm gross Wunder Jedermann’) at the steadfastness of the friars as they faced the fire. This short phrase reveals that there was an audience, and that the burnings were held in a public forum, a point Luther made repeatedly in his correspondence regarding the event.17 In verse eight, Luther returns 16 ‘Den alten Feind das sehr verdross, Das er war überwunden von solchen Jungen, er so gross; Er ward vol Zorn von Stunden’. 17 To Spalatin Luther writes, ‘Facta est hec res Bruselle in publico foro’. WABr 3:115. To Jacob Montanus he writes, ‘Ex Flandria bona accepimus nuncio, esse duos ex nostris fratribus pro verbo dei exustos Brusselle in foro publico spectaculo’. WABr 3:117.

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to this idea that God reveals or makes his miracle known, writing that the Sophists’ courage melted before these new things ‘that God was thus revealing’ (‘da sych Gott liess so mercken’). In verses nine and ten Luther further addresses God’s role in spreading the news about the event, insisting that the Holy Spirit, through the blood and ashes of the men, bears witness to the executions everywhere: ‘The Spirit cannot silent be: Good Abel’s blood out-poured, Must still besmear Cain’s forehead’ (‘Doch kan der geyst nicht schweygen hie: des Habels blut vergossen, es mus den Kain melden’). Luther develops the thought further in stanza ten where the ashes of the dead announce the crime everywhere: ‘Leave off their ashes never will; into all lands they scatter’ (‘Die Aschen will nicht lassen ab, Sie stäubt in allen Landen’). It seems worth repeating that the emphasis is not only on the events themselves, but equally on the fact that God publicizes his victory. Moreover, in response to the Psalmist’s urging to ‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth’, Luther introduces a great chorus from all around that joins with the voices of the dead men who nevertheless continue to sing. In verse ten, Luther describes how the devil, who had attempted to silence the men with death, must ‘allow them to sing very joyfully’ ‘in every land’ and ‘in tongues of every people’ (‘Gar frohlich lassen singen’, ‘an allem Ort’, and ‘mit aller stym und zungen’). It is as though the men, who themselves sang as the fires burned around them as one eyewitness claims, raised a new song that now is joined by a chorus of people all over the earth.18 Having encouraged the people of the earth to praise God, the Psalmist then enjoins nature to join the chorus: ‘Let the sea roar, and all that fills it […] Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy’. In the final stanzas of the ballad, Luther picks up on this notion that nature itself joins the new song in two ways. First, nature refuses to engage in the cover-up of the executions, thereby helping to declare them. No ‘stream, hole, ditch, grave’ (‘Die hilft keyn bach, loch, grub noch grab’), says Luther, will hide the ashes of the departed. But more importantly, in the final verse, nature itself sings the new song by changing from winter into summer, and by bringing forth tender flowers (‘Der Sommer yst hart fur der thur, der winter yst vergangen; die zarten blumen gehn erfur’). This vision, which has its origins in Ecclesiastes, acts as a metaphor for the impact of the re-emergent Gospel, not unlike the flowers that often bloom under the manger in medieval depictions of the nativity.19 But it 18 Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, p. 3. 19 Song of Songs 2:11–12, ‘For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard

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also provides an example of nature praising God. What better way for nature to declare the great works of God than to break forth into renewed life and growth? Much ink has been spilled about the f inal couplet of this ballad and its relationship to this vision of springtime: ‘His hand when once extended, withdraws not till he’s f inished’. One translation renders it as a positive prognostication for the future, a happy ending: ‘And He who winter banished, will send a happy summer’. 20 But Luther’s German is more ambivalent. Literally translated, the couplet means: ‘He who has begun this [work] will bring it to a successful conclusion’ (‘Der das hat angefangen, der wirt es wol volenden’). But what does Luther have in mind here? What is this successful conclusion?21 The Psalm offers some insight. With all creation having rejoiced before the Lord, the Psalmist ends his work by articulating to the reader that the marvellous works of God are merely a prelude to his return: ‘For he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity’. 22 The progression of Luther’s thought follows the same steps: nature praises God, not because He brings better days, but because he will conclude these events, and for Luther a successful conclusion means that God comes to judge the world.23 In his Open Letter to the Christians in the Netherlands, Luther underscores this message by juxtaposing the in the land’. Luther also refers to these verses in Ein Brief an die Christen im Niederland, when he writes ‘But now the time has come again when we hear the voice of the turtle dove and the flowers bloom in our land’ (‘Aber nu ist die zeyt widder komen, das wir der dordel tauben stym hören und die blumen auffgehen ynn unserm land’). WA 12:77. 20 This is Richard Massie’s translation in Martin Luther’s Spiritual Songs, p. 44; Rössler sees it as a rather vague foreshadowing of ‘eternal summer’ or the last day. Rössler, ‘Ein neues Lied’, p. 228. 21 That the ending to the song draws its inspiration solely from Song of Songs 2:11–12, as has been argued by Dick Akerboom and Marcel Gielis, does little to explain the song’s very last line, ‘Der das hat angefangen, der wirt es wol volenden’. My argument is simply that to understand the final couplet we must look to the Psalm. See Akerboom and Gielis, ‘“A New Song Shall Begin Here…”’, p. 265. 22 Psalm 96 ends similarly: ‘For he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth’. 23 Reference to the aptness of van den Esschen’s first name, Johann, may very well be further evidence of Luther’s eschatological understanding of the event. In verse two he writes that ‘The first [Augustinian] right fitly John was named’ (‘Der erst recht wol Johannes heißt’), which Paul Casey sees as a reference to John the Baptist, martyred forerunner of Jesus. ‘“Start Spreading the News”’, p. 84. Rössler, however, interprets Luther’s words to refer to the actual meaning of the name ‘John,’ which is ‘God is merciful’. ‘Ein neues Lied’, p. 221. It is impossible to ascertain whose interpretation is correct, as both are apt.

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decisions of the inquisitors with the judgments of God when he writes, ‘But our judge is not far off, and he will offer another judgment. We know this and it is certain’.24 Why, then, did the f irst executions of the Reformation – which to someone with Luther’s knowledge of the situation should have come as no surprise – make such a big impression on Luther, and what was the nature of that impression? The simple answer is that he did not see them merely as the obvious and inevitable outcome of the struggle in which he was involved, with two sides unwilling to compromise, but rather a striking example of the hand of God at work. What stunned him most was not that the inquisitors in Brussels executed someone for the sake of the Gospel, but rather the identity and steadfastness of their victims: two young, seemingly vulnerable friars, men who had lost not one, but two forceful and committed leaders in Probst and van Zutphen, both of whom had fled the Inquisition, one of whom had publicly recanted. These were men who had watched the prior in the nearby Ghent cloister, Melchior Miritsch, talk his way out of arrest by the Inquisition; men who had heard all but three of their cohort recant and had seen the third of their small number of holdouts, Lambert Thorn – the most senior and the one seemingly best equipped to stand up to the Inquisition – ask for time to reconsider and be spared; men who could easily have saved their own lives; and men who were up against some of the most formidable imperial and papal representatives of their age. If these two seemingly unremarkable young men could succeed with such resolve and courage where so many others had failed, God must have been at work!25 This for Luther was indeed a miracle. Responding to the urging of the Psalmist that the observation of such an event should elicit song among God’s people, Luther wrote a song: a new song about what he saw as the new works of God, for what looked like a stunning defeat in human terms was to Luther’s mind a marvellous victory on the level of the divine. 24 ‘Aber unser richter ist nicht ferne, der wirt eyn ander urteyl fellen, das wissen wir, und sinds gewis’. WA 12:79. 25 I am not the first to make this point. Robert Kolb has argued convincingly that Luther’s key realization in this and other martrydoms was that in such an asymmetrical power relationship, God reveals himself when the seemingly weaker and defeated party comes out the winner. Kolb attributes this observation of Luther to the Reformer’s broader ‘“theology of the cross”, a theology of paradox which equates God’s wisdom with what seems like foolishness and God’s power with what seems like impotence’. Kolb, ‘God’s Gift of Martyrdom’, p. 401. And Martin Rössler has put what most impressed Luther about the case succinctly: ‘It is in the apparent impotence of the confessor that God demonstrates his power’ (‘In der offensichtlichen Ohnmacht der Bekenner zeigt Gott seine Macht’). Rössler, ‘Ein neues Lied’, p. 221.

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Luther’s Political Understanding of the Events of 1 July 1523 in Brussels While this explains how Luther understood this event in theological terms, its impact on Luther’s thinking about the more concrete developments in the early Reformation must also be addressed. The executions of Vos and van den Esschen appear to have confirmed his views of Pope Adrian VI, thereby offering him a public opportunity to condemn the man despite his reputation for piety and his considerable, if short-lived, efforts to reform the church. Adrian was well-known for his frugality (he had few servants and ate like a pauper) and for his piety (many contemporaries mention the fact that, for example, he celebrated Mass each day), in stark contrast with his predecessor.26 Upon his arrival in Rome, as one historian has put it, ‘The entire splendour and glory of the days of Leo X came to an abrupt halt; the music fell silent; Leo’s ostentatious banquets, enlivened by song and instrumental music, disappeared; the cardinals, who had made themselves at home in the Vatican palaces, wandered away’.27 Indeed, on the day after his coronation, Adrian held his first consistory, in which he announced that he intended to concentrate on two matters in particular: reforming the Curia and uniting the Christian rulers against the Turks. He further noted that Rome’s evil reputation had reached the ends of the earth, and urged the cardinals to remove the perverted elements from their palaces, be satisfied with an annual income of six thousand ducats, and acknowledge their holy duty to be an example to the world, setting a tone for his pontificate that one historian has suggested ‘was unparalleled throughout papal history’.28 What is more, Adrian established a committee of reform-minded individuals devoted to the examination of the issue of indulgences.29 And Adrian understood, like few others in Rome, how much of a threat Luther’s challenge to the church was.30 Perhaps even more exceptional, however, were his instructions to the papal legate, Francesco Chiericati, who was attending the Diet of Nuremberg 26 Hulscher, ‘The Pontificate of Adrian VI’, p. 53–54. 27 ‘Die ganze Pracht und Herrlichkeit der Tage Leo’s X. hörten auf, die Musik verstummte, die glänzenden Mahlzeiten Leo’s X., belebt durch Gesang und Instrumentalmusik, verschwanden, die Cardinäle, welche im vaticanischen Palaste sich häuslich niedergelassen, wanderten fort’. Höfler, Pabst Adrian VI, p. 209. 28 Hulscher, ‘The Pontificate of Adrian VI’, p. 54. 29 For a broad discussion of these efforts, see Höfler, Pabst Adrian VI, pp. 203–306. 30 Geurts, De Nederlandse Paus Adrianus, p. 232.

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(1522).31 Just a few months prior to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, Adrian ordered Chiericati to read a letter to the estates gathered in Nuremberg in which he addressed the delegates of the German Empire as ‘his own people’ (Volk), and expressed such deep desire for the peace and the unity of the church that, as he put it, he was willing to shed his own blood for this cause if need be.32 He praised the Germans for having been enemies of heresy throughout the ages, raising the example of those men who had personally dragged the heretic Jan Hus to the stake. With Luther, they had another opportunity to demonstrate their piety, for heretics were a cancer that must be excised so that the body might return to health.33 At this point, however, the address took an unprecedented turn. Speaking in the name of the pope, Chiericati delivered a first person confession or confiteor (I confess) of the abuses of the church and the necessity of reform. The pope admitted that the worst of the church’s problems had begun in the head (papacy) and had now spread to the limbs, so that the real source of the current crisis was not Germany, but Rome. Such a statement, suggests one historian, was a ‘papal first’ not to be repeated until the Holy Year 2000 when Pope John Paul II ‘expressed a mea culpa for the grave errors made by the Church’.34 In his words and deeds, Adrian expressed an authentic form of church renewal, one that contrasted dramatically in its theological underpinnings with Luther’s view but was still intent upon addressing many of the most egregious abuses. It took a hard line against heresy, but also admitted the papacy’s guilt for the sorry state of the church. In sum, Adrian offered a clear path to reform that did not require a break with the church. This, indeed, was a challenge to Luther’s Reformation. Adrian also made direct contact with Frederick the Wise, sending him at least two letters through the mediation of Chiericati in which he attempted to persuade Frederick to honour the promise he had made years earlier in 1518: namely that if Cardinal Cajetan should find Luther guilty of heresy, he, the Elector, would be the first to hand him over for prosecution.35 The second letter especially was carefully worded and has been described as 31 For helpful overviews of Adrian’s instructions to Chiericati at the Diet of Nuremberg, see Guerts, De Nederlandse Paus Adrianus, pp. 238–247, and Verweij, Adrianus VI (1459–1523), pp. 86–93. 32 Höfler, Pabst Adrian VI., p. 269. For the text of the letter see Hortleder, ed., Der Römischen Kayser-, pp. 2–4. For a summary, see Redlich, Der Reichstag von Nürnberg, pp. 97–99. 33 Hulscher, ‘The Pontificate of Adrian VI’, pp. 56–57. 34 Hulscher, ‘The Pontificate of Adrian VI’, p. 66. 35 The letters may be found in Brieger, ed., ‘Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte’, pp. 202–227.

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being very affectionate (liebesvoll) toward the Elector.36 Thus in many ways, Adrian was the opposite of his predecessor. He was learned, pious, frugal, a champion of church reform, and he was now attempting to convince the empire’s leadership, not least of all Frederick the Wise, that handing over Luther was the right course of action. But in all of these efforts, Adrian never once entertained the possibility that Luther was anything but a heretic. He had been lawfully condemned by learned men from the best institutions of higher learning in Europe, excommunicated by Pope Leo X, and outlawed by the Holy Roman Emperor. Now it was the responsibility and obligation of the authorities to hand him over for punishment. But instead of fulfilling their duty, Adrian complained, Luther was allowed to continue to spew his poison, gaining supporters not only among the common folk, but even among the nobles.37 In a third letter to Frederick the Wise, which modern historians consider to be a forgery but which Luther himself believed to be authentic, Adrian attacked the person of Luther, calling him ‘a miserable wretch who only vomits out drunkenness and noise’ and accusing him of preaching a life of complete licentiousness.38 For Luther, the execution of Vos and van den Esschen offered an opportunity to respond directly to Adrian’s efforts, and perhaps even to settle the score on a more personal level. For despite the pope’s public persona, Luther also had some “insider” information on him. From his position within the German Reformed Congregation, Luther would have heard about Floriszoon’s attempts on behalf of the Canons of the Church of Our Lady to resist the establishment of the Antwerp Augustinian cloister. And he would undoubtedly have known that van der Hulst, in his prosecution of Vos and van den Esschen, was proceeding under the authority of the papacy since at the time Charles’s secular inquisition did not have the right of capital punishment. So for Luther, the executions of Vos and van den Esschen demonstrated Adrian’s true colours, and not long after the pope’s death, he took the opportunity to expose them in writing.39 In May 1523, Adrian had declared Benno, the eleventh-century Bishop of Meissen, to 36 Otto, ‘Ueber ein Breve’, p. 240. 37 Pope Adrian’s Letter to the Diet of Nuremberg, 1522. Hortleder, ed., Der Römischen Kayser-, p. 3. 38 Quoted in Bezold, Geschichte der deutschen Reformation, p. 416. For Luther’s reference to this letter of Adrian see, WABr 3:110. See also Kalkoff, ‘Das unechte Breve Hadrians’. 39 Already in September of 1523 Luther had demonstrated his dim view of Adrian, referring to him as an ass in one of his letters to Spalatin: ‘Nam pro mea parte facile ex bucca tanto asino responderim’. WABr 3:146.

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be a saint – a decision made in large part as a statement against Luther’s ideas and in support of the anti-Reformation Duke George of Saxony. 40 Luther responded with a treatise in June of 1524 in which he condemned the canonization as the creation of a new idol, and juxtaposed true saints of God like Vos and van den Esschen, who died loyal to their faith in the gospel message, with false saints like Benno, whose legendary life was undoubtedly spurious. Luther also took the opportunity to attack Adrian directly, juxtaposing the pope’s public persona with the “true” Adrian, and at the same time pointing out the irony that the pope had failed in his attempt to transform Benno, ‘this Satan from Meissen’, into a saint, but in endeavouring to make heretics out of Vos and van den Esschen, he had transformed them into true saints. Relevant to Luther’s critique are the names by which he addresses Adrian. First he claims that ‘Pope Adrian’ was not the Vicar to Christ, but rather Satan’s ‘special helper’ (sonderlichen diener). Next he observes that ‘Adrian’ was not a pious man, but an accessory to murder: For however much I hear about this Adrian, that to all appearances he led a pious life (as such hypocrites always try to make it appear), he was nonetheless the worst enemy of God and his word, and what is more, he allowed two murders to occur in Brussels, but Christ, without Adrian’s knowledge or permission, made these two martyrs into saints [.]41

‘And’ continued Luther, ‘although I do not desire to nor am I able to judge how he died, nonetheless my assessment is correct’, that if he did not ‘recant this murder or do penance and grasp onto our Gospel, he is certainly [now] a child of damnation’.42 Here Luther turns the tables by suggesting that it was Adrian who needed a last-second ‘recantation’, which can only be considered a thinly veiled reference to the claim made by members of the Inquisition that at the moment before they died, Vos and van den Esschen had come 40 For the circumstances surrounding the canonization of Benno of Meissen, see Oettinger, Music as Propaganda, pp. 69–88. 41 ‘Denn wie wol ich höre von dem selben Adrian, das er sey eynes scheynbarlichen berumbten lebens gewest, so ist er doc (wie solche heuchler pflegen) der ergest feynd gewesen Gottes und seynes worttes, und daruber die zween mord lassen begehen zu Brüssel und Christo zween merterer gemacht und die selben on seinen willen und wissen recht zu heyligen erhaben’. WA 15: 184. 42 ‘Und wie wol ich nicht richten soll noch kan, wie er gestorben ist, So ist doch das mein urteyl recht, das wo er […] solche morde nich widder ruffet odder gepüsset hat und unserm Evangelio hold worden ist, so ist er gewislich eyn kind der verdamnis’. WA 15: 184.

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to their senses, recanted, and returned to the arms of the church. A little further on Luther writes simply that, just as previous popes had done with other true saints, ‘Master’ Adrian now does the same: ‘He burned Johann and Hendrik, true saints, in Brussels’. 43 Luther’s critique of the papacy is clear. It has been inverted into its evil opposite, the Antichrist. But why refer to the Pope by three names – Pope Adrian, Adrian, and Master Adrian? Since 1520, Luther had been using the term ‘Antichrist’ in relationship to the papacy, but for a time he had made a careful distinction between the office and the individual holding that office. In fact, in 1520 he could appeal directly to the person of Leo X in an open letter appended to his treatise The Freedom of a Christian, at the same time referring to the papacy as the Antichrist. But in this treatise against the canonization of Benno, the distinction is blurred and he attacks the person of Adrian. As pope, he is the servant of Satan or the Antichrist. As an individual, Adrian is a hypocrite. And as Master Adrian, the old professor, he is a murderer. These last two accusations are purely ad hominem attacks, essentially character assassinations, and one is left with the impression that for Luther this was personal. At the same time, for Luther, Adrian’s actions revealed that all of the papacy’s efforts at unity and reform were merely an illusion. Thus, in the final analysis, the first executions of the Reformation, coming as they did in the broader context of a campaign against the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, had both a positive and a negative impact on Luther’s thinking. On the one hand, he saw the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen as the hand of God at work in the Reformation, confirmation that the Lord of history was behind this movement. On the other hand, the executions validated his judgement of the absolute corruption and illegitimacy of the traditional church, whose hostility to the Gospel message was on full display in its efforts to silence the Augustinians. And finally, on a personal level, these deaths revealed that Adrian Floriszoon was nothing more than a hypocrite.

43 ‘Johannem und Heinricum, die rechten heyligen, hat er zu Brüssel verbrand’. WA 15: 184.

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Appendix: A New Song Here Shall Be Begun 1.

A new song here shall be begun –44 The Lord God help our singing! Of what our God himself hath done, Praise, honour to him bringing. At Brussels in the Netherlands By two boys, martyrs youthful He showed the wonders of his hands, Whom he with favour truthful So richly hath adorned.

2.

The first right fitly John was named, So rich he in God’s favour; His brother, Henry – one unblamed, Whose salt lost not its savor. From this world they are gone away, The diadem they’ve gained; Honest, like God’s good children, they For his word life disdained, And have become his martyrs.

3.

The old arch-fiend did them immure With terrors did enwrap them. He bade them God’s dear Word abjure, with cunning he would trap them: From Louvain many sophists came, In their curst nets to take them, By him are gathered to the game: The Spirit fools doth make them – They could get nothing by it.

4.

Oh! they sang sweet, and they sang sour; Oh! they tried every double; The boys they stood firm as a tower, And mocked the sophists’ trouble. The ancient foe it filled with hate

44 Martin Luther, ‘A New Song Here Shall Be Begun’, ed. by Ulrich Leupold in Luther’s Works, vol. 53, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), pp. 211–216.

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That he was thus defeated By two such youngsters – he, so great! His wrath grew sevenfold heated, He laid his plans to burn them.

5.

Their cloister garments off they tore, Took off their consecrations; All this the boys were ready for, They said Amen with patience. To God their Father they gave thanks That they would soon be rescued From Satan’s scoffs and mumming pranks, With which, in falsehood masked, The world he so befooleth.

6.

Then gracious God did grant to them To pass true priesthood’s border, And offer up themselves to him, And enter Christ’s own order, Unto the world to die outright, With falsehood made a schism, And come to heaven all pure and white, To monkery be the besom, And leave men’s toys behind them.

7.

They wrote for them a paper small, And made them read it over; The parts they showed them therein all Which their belief did cover. Their greatest fault was saying this: ‘In God we should trust solely; For man is always full of lies, We should distrust him wholly:’ So they must burn to ashes.

8.

Two huge great fires they kindled then, The boys they carried to them; Great wonder seized on every man, For with contempt they view them. To all with joy they yielded quite,

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With singing and God-praising; The sophs had little appetite For these new things so dazing. Which God was thus revealing.

9.

They now repent the deed of blame,45 Would gladly gloze it over; They dare not glory in their shame, The facts almost they cover. In their hearts gnaweth infamy -They to their friends deplore it; The Spirit cannot silent be: Good Abel’s blood out-poured Must still besmear Cain’s fore­head.

10.

Leave off their ashes never will; Into all lands they scatter; Stream, hole, ditch, grave – nought keeps them still With shame the foe they spatter. Those whom in life with bloody hand He drove to silence triple, When dead, he them in every land, In tongues of every people, Must hear go gladly singing.

11.

But yet their lies they will not leave, To trim and dress the murther; The fable false which out they gave, Shows conscience grinds them further. God’s holy ones, e’en after death, They still go on belying; They say that with their latest breath, The boys, in act of dying, Repented and recanted.

45 The broadsheet version, as well as the Erfurt Enchiridion version, do not include stanzas 9 and 10. They were probably a later addition, meant as an alternate ending to the original ending in verses 11 and 12 here. See WA 35:94.

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Let them lie on for evermore – No refuge so is reared; For us, we thank our God therefore, His word has reappeared. Even at the door is summer nigh, The winter now is ended, The tender flowers come out and spy; His hand when once extended Withdraws not till he’s finished.

Works Cited Akerboom, Dick and Marcel Gielis, ‘“A New Song Shall Begin Here…”: The Martyrdom of Luther’s Followers among Antwerp’s Augustinians on July 1, 1523 and Luther’s Response’, in More than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity in the History of Christianity, ed. by Johan Leemans (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 243–270. Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, ob Evangelij doctrinam exustis Bruxellae, die trigesima Iunij. Anno domini M.D.XXIII (n.p.: n.p). Bezold, Friedrich von, Geschichte der deutschen Reformation (Berlin: G. Grote, 1890). Brecht, Martin, Martin Luther. Sein Weg zur Reformation: 1483–1521 (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1986). Brieger, Theodor, ed. ‘Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte: Das zweite Breve Andrians an Friedrich den Weisen von Jahre 1522’, in Kirchengeschichtliche Studien. Hermann Reuter zum 70. Geburtstag gewidmet (Leipzig, J. C. Henrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1868), pp. 202–227. Casey, Paul F. ‘“Start Spreading the News”: Martin Luther’s First Published Song’, in Renaissance and Reformation Studies: In Laudem Caroli for Charles G. Nauert, ed. by James V. Mehl, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, vol. 49 (Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1998), pp. 75–94. Christman, Robert, ‘“For he is coming”: Revisiting Martin Luther’s Reaction to the Reformation’s First Executions’, Lutherjahrbuch 83 (2015), 11–41. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitats Neerlandicae (=CD), ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols. (Gent: J. Vuylsteke, 1889–1902). Geurts, Twan, De Nederlandse Paus Adrianus van Utrecht 1459–1523 (Amsterdam: Balans, 2017). Höfler, Constantin, Pabst Adrian VI. 1522–1523 (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1880). Hortleder, Friedrich, ed. Der Römischen Kayser- und Königlichen Maiestete, Auch deß heiligen Römischen Reichs Geistlicher und Weltlicher Stände, Churfürsten, Fürsten, Graven, Herren, Reichs- und anderer Städte, zusampt der heiligen Schrifft,

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Geistlicher und Weltlicher Rechte Gelehrte Handlungen und Außschreiben, Rathschläge, Bedencken, Send- und andere Brieffe, Bericht, Supplicationschrifften […] (Frankfurt am Main: Endter, 1617). Hulscher, Hans, ‘The Pontificate of Adrian VI (9 January 1522 – 14 September 1523)’, in Adrian VI: A Dutch Pope in a Roman Context, ed. by Hans Cools, Catrien Santing, and Hans de Valk, (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2012), pp. 47–66. Kalkoff, Paul, ‘Das unechte Breve Hadrians VI. an Friedrich … eine Flugschrift Hochstratens’, Theologische Studien und Kritiken 90 (1917), 231–273. Kessler, Johann, Sabbata. Chronik der Jahre 1523–1539, ed. by Ernst Goetzinger (St. Gallen: Scheitlin & Zollikofer, 1866). Kolb, Robert, ‘God’s Gift of Martyrdom: The Early Reformation Understanding of Dying for the Faith’, Church History 64 (1995), 399–441. Luther, Martin, Ein brief an die Christen ym Nidder land (Wittenberg: Lufft, 1523). ———, Luther’s Works, ed. by Ulrich S. Leupold, 78 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955-). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke (=WA), vols. 1–73 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883-). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel (=WABr), vols. 1–18 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–1985). Massie, Richard, trans., Martin Luther’s Spiritual Songs (London: Hatchard and Son, 1854). Oberman, Heiko A., Martin Luther, Mensch zwischen Gott und Teufel (Berlin: Severin und Siedler, 1982). Oettinger, Rebecca, Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001). Otto, C. ‘Ueber ein Breve des Papstes Hadrian VI. an den Kurfürsten Friedrich von Sachsen im Jahre 1522’, Der Katholik: Zeitschrift für Katholische Wissenschaft und Kirchliches Leben 53 (1873), 237–242. Pettegree, Andrew, Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation (New York: Penguin Press, 2015). Redlich, Otto, Der Reichstag von Nürnberg 1522–1523 (Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1887). Rössler, Martin, ‘Ein neues Lied wir heben an: Ein Protestsong Martin Luthers,’ in Reformation und Praktische Theologie: Festschrift für Werner Jetter zum siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. by Hans Müller and Dietrich Rössler (Göttingen: Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), pp. 216–232. Veit, Patrice, Das Kirchenlied in der Reformation Martin Luthers: Eine thematische und semantische Untersuchung, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europaische Geschichte Mainz 120 (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1986). Verweij, Michiel, Adrianus VI (1459–1523) De tragische paus uit de Nederlanden (Antwerp-Apeldoorn: Garant, 2011).

8. The Impact of the Executions in the Low Countries Abstract Chapter Eight questions the general scholarly consensus that the vigorous response of the ecclesiastical and temporal authorities in the Low Countries was largely successful in limiting the spread of Reformation ideas there (at least initially). In particular, this chapter examines the impact of the authorities’ campaign against religious dissent in the Reformed Augustinian cloisters of Lower Germany, demonstrating that in most cases that campaign was successful, but not always. In the Cologne cloister, the tactics employed by Wittenberg to spread Reformation ideas had an important and extended impact; what is more, the memory of these events and of the friars’ executions continued to influence the religious sensibilities of the laity in the Low Countries. Keywords: Claes (Nicolaas) vander Elst circle, Cologne Augustinian Cloister, Heinrich Himmel, Lambert Thorn

A previous generation of scholars has argued that the earliest Reformation impulses in the Low Countries were, to a large degree, eradicated by the comprehensive efforts of Charles V and his representatives. The emperor’s broad campaign swept up reform-minded humanists, adherents of Luther’s ideas, printers and booksellers, and anyone else with Reformation tendencies.1 More recent studies, including this one, suggest that early Reformation impulses survived these efforts, at least in some localities and among some groups.2 As an institution, certainly the Reformed Augustinians must be counted among the success stories of the authorities’ campaign. With the 1 See, for example, Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, particularly Schlussbetrachtung, vol. 2, pp. 82–85. 2 See, for example, Christman, Pragmatic Toleration.

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch08

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burning of Vos and van den Esschen, the destruction of the Augustinian cloister in Antwerp, the formal separation of the Province of Lower Germany from the control of the German Reformed Congregation, and the installation of Johann van Mechelen as Vicar General of the new autonomous province, the anti-Reformation forces were able to prevent the cloisters of the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany becoming beachheads of the Reformation. For this reason these friars have received little attention in histories of the Reformation, particularly those that focus on the Low Countries. But to suggest that the events leading up to and including the executions of Vos and van den Esschen had no impact on the Reformation in the Low Countries would be false. For while the forces attempting to eliminate religious dissent did destroy the institutional framework of the Reformed Augustinians, or at least sever it from its connections to Saxony, the opponents of the Reformation could not remove the memory of these events from the minds of the friars who experienced them, nor from the laity who had witnessed them. They lived on, continuing to inspire and arouse individuals to action.

The Cloisters of Lower Germany after the Dordrecht Chapter Meeting (27 July 1522) From the decisions made at the Dordrecht Chapter Meeting in July of 1522, it appears that the prevailing viewpoint in the Ghent, Haarlem, Enghien, and Dordrecht cloisters, each of which voted to sever ties with the German Reformed Congregation, was opposed to the Reformation. Their support for Johann van Mechelen as new Vicar General of the Province of Lower Germany further indicates that they had little stomach for Luther’s cause. A closer look at each of these houses confirms this supposition. Since 1520, when van Mechelen assumed the priorship of the Dordrecht cloister, that house had fallen under control of the Observant branch of the German Reformed Congregation opposed to Luther and his ideas. Although the idea of Dordrecht as an early outpost for Reformation-oriented critiques is no longer accepted, this does not mean that cloister lacked Reformationrelated impulses.3 But despite the fact that the details are hazy, at some point 3 Herman van Duinen has argued that this fallacious claim has its origins with Schotel, Kerkelijk Dordrecht (1841), 15–17, whom all subsequent historians appear to have followed. But van Duinen has convincingly demonstrated that the unrest attributed by Schotel to the Augustinian cloister in Dordrecht was actually taking place in the city’s Franciscan cloister, and the claim that the

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after van Mechelen’s arrival it appears that those friars from Dordrecht supportive of the Reformation fled to Wesel, Germany. We know this because the presence of “Lutheran” Augustinians in Wesel has been noted in the sources (albeit not until 1528), and these individuals have been identified specifically as those expelled from the Dordrecht cloister. According to one contemporary in Wesel, at that time they were being accused of preaching and distributing the sacrament in private homes. 4 Their departure or expulsion from Dordrecht appears to have left that cloister firmly in the hands of van Mechelen and his supporters. As to the cloister in Ghent, in 1521 Aleander had claimed that the Reformed Augustinians there ‘preach Luther’s teachings in every alleyway as [if they were] the words of the Apostle Paul or even Christ himself’.5 But such a statement must be tempered by another of Aleander’s observations regarding the Ghent Augustinians later that year. As he assessed the orthodoxy of the various Augustinian cloisters in the Low Countries he turned his attention to Bruges, a house associated neither with the German Reformed Congregation nor the Observant movement. That cloister, he noted, has not yet been infected with heresy like all the Augustinians in Antwerp have and a part of those in Ghent. The reason for this is that the Bruges cloister belongs to the order’s older associations [the Conventuals], but the Antwerp Augustinians, like Luther, [belong] to the Observants, while the Ghent Augustinians are divided between both parties. There the Observants are always trying to drive out the Conventuals, with both camps fighting against one another with bitter hatred.6

Thus the Ghent cloister was split between Conventuals, who opposed both Observant and Lutheran reform, and Observants, who from Aleander’s previous statement were supporters of the Reformation. Although he sent three friars from the Ghent house to study in Wittenberg, in his time as disorder was related to Reformation impulses is merely an assumption. Duinen, Hendrik van Zutphen, pp. 14–17; see also Meijer, ‘Augustijnen in Conflict met Dortse Magistraat?’. 4 Wolters, Reformationgeschichte der Stadt Wesel, p. 42. 5 ‘Luthers Lehre auf allen Gassen verkündigen, als die Lehre des Apostels Paulus, ja als die Christi’. Quoted but with no citation provided in Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 28. 6 ‘gli quali non sono già così infetti come tutti li Augustini di Anversa et una parte di quelli di Gand, et questo me dicono perchè li Augustini di Bruges sono della antiqua institutione, et li de Anversa del Vicariato, come è Martino et quelli di Gand sono divisi in queste due fattioni, donde li vicariani cercano sempre scacciar li altri, però intra loro è grandia odio’. Aleander to Giulio de Medici, 2 September 1521, in Aleandro, Aleander und Luther, p. 262.

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prior there Melchior Miritsch was unable to strengthen the position of the Observants as had been hoped, perhaps because his sub-prior, Gedeon van der Gracht (who would follow him as prior and eventually become the spiritual advisor to Mary of Hungary, successor to Margaret as Charles V’s queen regent in the Low Countries), was a committed Conventual.7 Miritsch’s brief encounter with the Inquisition and subsequent departure from Ghent in the spring of 1522 appear to have definitively given the Conventuals the upper hand there. Meanwhile, the cloister’s patron, the city council of Ghent, enthusiastically supported the faction opposed to Reformation impulses.8 The result was that any Reformation tendencies in the cloister were quashed. I have been unable to find any evidence regarding the situation of the Enghien cloister, but their vote for separation from the German Reformed Congregation suggests opposition to Reformation ideas there as well. In the case of the Haarlem cloister, one last-gasp of Reformation-inspired resistance occurred. The account books of the court of Holland from July of 1525 indicate that two of its officials were sent to the Haarlem house to investigate what the court called a disturbing incident. Although the authorities there had forbidden the friars to preach, one member of the Augustinian Order had climbed over a locked gate into the pulpit of Haarlem’s main church. There he preached a sermon, after which he fled the town dressed as a layman, with the help of a number of lay accomplices. Although there is no reference to what the friar preached, clearly he was willing to defy the injunctions of the authorities.9 Perhaps his decision to engage in such an act of defiance before vanishing signalled an awareness that further resistance was futile, however, for the sources do not indicate the occurrence of any other such incidents by members of the Haarlem cloister. With regard to those houses of the Province of Lower Germany that had abstained from the decision to split from the German Reformed Congregation, Antwerp was no more, and after briefly providing shelter for the fleeing Hendrik van Zutphen, Enkhuizen appears to have forgone any further Reformation activities.10 Johann van Mechelen had been prior in Enkhuizen 7 Decavele, ‘De noodlottige zestiende eeuw’, p. 70. 8 Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 2, p. 20. 9 Corpus documentorum (=CD), 4: doc. 326. 10 Van Zutphen writes that after fleeing Antwerp, he set off through Flanders and Westphalia. As part of this journey, he stopped in Enkhuizen where he stayed for a few days before slipping away just before the authorities discovered him there. See van Zutphen’s letter to Probst and Reiner Reynstein. This letter may be found in Zütphen, ‘Zutphen’s Briefe’, pp. 241–245; or in CD, 4: doc. 110. It is perhaps noteworthy, however, that in 1524, Luther sent Magister Heironymus Anger, an Augustinian from Enkhuizen to support the Lutheran-sympathizing prior Johann Steenwyck

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on and off since the 1490s, whenever Staupitz was not deploying him to found a new cloister (Antwerp), reform an established one (Dordrecht), or represent the Congregation’s interests in some other way. His steadfast loyalty to Staupitz and concomitant rejection of Luther’s Reformation appear to have influenced the overall attitudes of the friars there so that, as one historian has noted, the Enkhuizen cloister never had any significant involvement with the Reformation.11 But in Cologne, the only cloister among the Province of Lower Germany’s seven houses that lay beyond the emperor’s direct grasp, we find a different situation. There Heinrich Himmel and his followers would continue to espouse Reformation doctrines for more than a decade, to the great consternation of the city council, the local bishop, the pope, and the emperor. As may be recalled, in 1516 Himmel had been among the first young recruits from the newly-reformed Augustinian cloister in Cologne sent to Wittenberg to continue his education. In his capacity as director of the Wittenberg cloister’s studium generale, Luther himself had prepared Himmel for entrance to the University of Wittenberg, and Himmel would have been on hand for the controversy over the Ninety-Five Theses and the fallout it engendered. He may also have been among those friars from Lower Germany studying in Wittenberg who supported the radical changes of Gabriel Zwilling regarding the mass and other ecclesiastical rites. In any case, it is clear from his actions after Linck sent him back to Cologne in the autumn of 1521 that during his time in Wittenberg, Himmel had become a convinced follower of Luther. Denied the right to hold lectures there as he refused to swear an oath not to teach Luther’s ideas, Himmel nonetheless quickly gathered a group of fellow friars in the cloister who became sympathizers of Luther.12 A power struggle ensued between the Cologne city council (the Augustinians’ patron), the archbishop of Cologne, the pope, and the emperor, over who should take the lead in eradicating heresy within the cloister. On 22 April 1523 the archbishop informed the city council that he planned to interrogate Himmel and asked them not to interfere, a request with which they complied. Though the interview did indeed take place, the event does not appear to have frightened Himmel into submission, as the situation in the cloister remained (probably also from the Low Countries) at the Congregation’s house in Sternberg: see Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 412–413. This suggests that perhaps there were Lutheran-minded refugees from the house in Enkhuizen who made their way to Wittenberg. 11 Voets, ‘Hebben de Augustijnen van Enkhuizen’, p. 227. 12 Seven men are named as supporters of Himmel: Brother Lambert, Reiner von Jülich, Arnold von Mirweiler, Engelberg von Deventer, Franz von Breda, Adam Aldenhofen, and Herman von Bonn. Rotscheidt-Mörs, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner,’ p. 42.

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unchanged. As a result of this failure, on 28 August 1523, Pope Adrian VI formally removed the cloister from the authority of the new Vicar General of the Province of Lower Germany (van Mechelen), and placed it directly under the supervision of Holy See and faculty of theology of the University of Cologne.13 But the friars must have gotten wind of this change before it occurred, and because they opposed it, they appealed to the city council to be allowed to retain van Mechelen as their spiritual overlord, rather than accept the theology faculty. They further declared that neither they nor van Mechelen were followers of Luther. The request, it seems, went unanswered. But in May of 1524, van Mechelen himself arrived in Cologne to execute a visitation of the cloister, bearing a letter confirming his authority as Vicar General with the oversight for the spiritual welfare of the cloister from the emperor’s queen regent, Margaret of Austria. The city council, however, saw this action as an infringement of its rights of patronage and refused to allow van Mechelen entrance to execute the visitation. The city council now took matters into its own hands, sending a series of individuals (among them some of their own members) along with representatives of the bishop’s court to address the conflict within the cloister. Occurring over the course of June 1524, these efforts, too, ended in failure, eliciting a letter to the new Vicar General of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians, Johann Spangenberg who, unlike his predecessor Linck, was a well-known opponent of Luther.14 Spangenberg agreed to come to Cologne himself. Once there, he joined forces with the city council. After carrying out a visitation of the cloister, two friars were expelled, but soon returned to Cologne against the wishes of the authorities. In September 1524, members of the city council again entered the cloister with the goal of eradicating heresy and ending conflict among the friars, all of whom were required to sign a document stating that they would neither preach nor represent the Lutheran heresy and would desist from forming conventicles and practicing discord. Failure to adhere, the council stated, would lead to arrest and exile. Meanwhile, Spangenberg remained in the cloister until early 1525, working to end the conflict. But none of these steps succeeded in eliminating Lutheran teachings there. In May of 1525, the city council again questioned a number of the brothers, and on 2 August they interviewed Himmel and Brother Lambert of 13 See Chapter Four. 14 Despite the fact that the Cologne cloister no longer technically belonged to the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians, nonetheless the Cologne city council asked for the Vicar General’s help.

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Bonn regarding their preaching and behaviour – all in vain. Confounded, the city council turned to local Carmelite and Dominican priors asking their advice. As a result, some of the Augustinian friars were removed from the Cologne cloister, and Spangenberg was once again summoned and asked to either take up the priorship himself or send a representative whom he believed could handle the situation. Spangenberg enlisted the help of Nikolaus Besler, another Observant Augustinian deeply opposed to Luther.15 In autumn of 1525, Besler and Spangenberg travelled to Cologne, where Spangenberg installed Besler as prior against the will of the majority of brothers. It has been speculated that at this point Himmel left the cloister for good.16 Despite Himmel’s departure and four years of effort by Besler to eliminate Lutheran ideas from the cloister, the new prior was also unsuccessful. In 1529, he was called away to a chapter meeting, a move that caused anxiety among members of the city council. They immediately sent a letter to the Vicar General Spangenberg, asking him to ensure that in Besler’s absence no brothers be sent to the Cologne cloister from elsewhere who were even remotely suspected of Lutheran tendencies, because they were afraid of an outbreak of heresy while the prior was away. As late as 1532, there appears to have been a significant Lutheran presence in the cloister. In February of that year, the city council was forced to take up the issue of Brother Lambert’s preaching, which was described as wholly Lutheran. Exacerbating the problem was the fact that the friars in the Cologne cloister had elected Brother Lambert as their new prior, a move that suggests he had a great deal of support within the house. As one might imagine, however, the city council saw this as an affront and refused to let him take up that position.17 How long the presence of Reformation ideas survived in the Cologne cloister is unclear, but it must be concluded that Linck’s efforts to support the Reformation there by sending Himmel in 1521 had been highly successful in the face of considerable opposition. Clearly the Cologne Augustinians’ ability to remain an outpost of Lutheran teachings was exceptional among the Reformed cloisters of Lower Germany. Generally speaking, by 1523 the off icial institutional and administrative networks of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians were quickly disappearing as a means by which to disseminate 15 For more on Besler and his efforts to resist the Reformation see Schneider, ‘Die autobiographischen Aufzeichnungen’. 16 Clemen, ‘Ein Brief von Augustin Himmel’. 17 Günther, Reform und Reformation, p. 432.

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Reformation ideas. In 1523, Linck resigned as Vicar General of the Congregation to take up the position of Evangelical preacher in the city of Altenburg and was succeeded by Spangenberg. The leadership of the German Reformed Congregation thus fell into the hands of the Reformation’s opponents. By now, though, only a handful of cloisters remained. Many of the Congregation’s cloisters, like Luther’s in Wittenberg, had simply ceased to exist. Some, particularly in areas like Ducal Saxony, where the prince remained staunchly Catholic, or Cologne, where loyalty to the church remained strong, were retained through the efforts of the Conventuals, their patrons, or the papacy itself (as the case of the Munich cloister and the attempts regarding the Cologne cloister indicate). But even in those places, friars who supported the Reformation left, decimating the cloisters’ numbers.18 As institutions then, by 1523, the houses of the Reformed Augustinian Province of Lower Germany were no longer conduits for Reformation ideas (with Cologne the one exception).19 But individual friars who supported the Reformation would continue to be motivated by events they had experienced there, with many following Linck and Luther to careers as reformers and Evangelical pastors in the empire.20

Impact on the Laity in the Low Countries If the events that transpired in the Reformed Augustinian Province of Lower Germany between 1519 and 1523 remained an inspiration for many Reformation-minded friars, they had also been etched into the memories of the local laity and would continue to encourage Reformation impulses. Erasmus of Rotterdam concluded as much in a series of letters in which he commented on the execution of Vos and van den Esschen. Even before the executions took place he had already been a fierce critic of the inquisitors and their methods due to his own experiences in the Low Countries.21 At the end of August 1523, just weeks after the burnings in Brussels, he wrote to Ulrich Zwingli, the Reformer of Zurich, noting the steadfastness of Vos and van den Esschen as they faced the fire, but questioning the beliefs for 18 Kunzelmann, Geschichte der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten, vol. 5, pp. 508–523. 19 For a detailed account of the dissolution of various houses and the demise of the German Reformed Congregation, see Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 421–436. 20 See Chapter Nine. 21 Kalkoff claims that hardly a letter written by Erasmus in 1521 did not include complaints about the inquisitors, and in particular about the ‘fanatical monk’ Egmond. Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 75.

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which they died, which he referred to as ‘Luther’s paradoxes’ (paradoxa Lutheri).22 Eighteen months later and in subsequent years, however, Erasmus raised the event in order to critique the actions of hardline churchmen. In a letter to Duke George of Saxony, a vocal critic of Luther, Erasmus wrote, ‘What worries me now is that these common remedies, that is, recantations, imprisonment, and the stake, will simply make the evil worse. Two men were burned at Brussels and it was precisely at that moment that the city began to support Luther’.23 The following year Erasmus again suggested that such tactics produced the opposite of their intended effect: ‘The infection spread with every blow and took strength and courage from our cruelty’.24 The severe approach, he claimed, had so invigorated the Protestants that the progress of the Reformation looked like the work of heaven. By 1529, he added a further accusation, recounting how the inquisitor at the time of the executions had disseminated the ‘ridiculous lie’ (ridiculam fabulam) that the condemned friars had recanted at the last moment and made supplications to the Virgin Mary, but that even the executioner denied this.25 The ‘ridiculous lie’ Erasmus refers to here was alluded to in the last chapter and will be addressed more fully in Chapter Ten, but for now suffice it to say that, as the event receded into the past, for Erasmus it increasingly became a cautionary tale about how the church should not proceed against the Lutheran heresy. Although his support for the church as a whole remained undimmed, the case of Vos and van den Esschen provided real life proof of the wrongheadedness of those who would proceed with fire and sword. The results were often precisely the opposite of what they intended. Some evidence exists that confirms Erasmus’s claims. In Brussels and Antwerp, the executions of Vos and van den Esschen remained a deep source of inspiration among some of the Reformation-minded laity. This assertion is confirmed by documents produced in 1527 when a group of laity with Reformation beliefs was discovered in Brussels. Such conventicles were fairly widespread in the Low Countries, where their members would typically meet in secret to read the Bible, discuss religious ideas, 22 Erasmus to Huldrych Zwingli, 31 August 1523, in Erasmus, Opus epistolarum, 5:327. For an insightful analysis of this statement, see Gregory, Salvation at Stake, p. 321. 23 ‘Nunc magnopere vereor ne vulgaribus istis remediis, hoc est palinodiis, carceribus et incendiis, malum nihil aliud quam exasperetur. Bruxelle primum exusti sunt duo: tum demum cepit ea ciuitas favere Luthero.’ Erasmus to Duke George of Saxony, 12 December 1524. Erasmus, Opus epistolarum, vol. 5, p. 606. 24 ‘Damno crevit pestis, et a saeuicia duxit opes animumque nostra.’ Erasmus to Johann Henckel, 7 March 1526, Erasmus, Opus epistolarum, vol. 6, p. 275. 25 Erasmus to Charles Utenhove, 1 July 1529, Erasmus, Opus epistolarum, vol. 8, pp. 211–212.

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and exchange prohibited writings. Often they were centred around house churches.26 The leader of this particular conventicle was Claes (Nicolaas) vander Elst, born in Brussels to a wealthy family. As a young man, vander Elst had studied theology at the University of Leuven under, among others, Adrian Floriszoon and Nicholas Egmond.27 In 1524 he was named pastor at the St. Jacob’s Parish Church in Antwerp, not far from the Church of Our Lady. From the pulpit and in private, he decried the excesses of the church, criticizing the clergy as sexually promiscuous, the church’s practice of indulgences as shameful, and many other church rituals as senseless and devoid of Christian love – reproaches very similar to those espoused by the Reformed Augustinians. As a result, vander Elst quickly became popular among the people, and with his good connections to Brussels individuals were soon making their way from there to Antwerp to hear him preach. It took only four months from the time of his appointment at St. Jacob’s for the inquisitors to knock on his door. In the spring of 1524 he was summoned to answer for certain “Lutheran” ideas he had proclaimed during his Lenten Sermons. As a result of his interrogation, he recanted in the presence of the entire faculty of theology at the University of Leuven. Allowed to return to his position at St. Jacob’s Church, it did not take long for news to reach the inquisitors that he had reverted to his old ways. When the inquisitors arrived in Antwerp a second time, they immediately dismissed him from his post. He fled to Wittenberg, where he heard the sermons of Luther himself, and remained there until 1526 before making the trek back across Northern Germany. To disguise himself from the authorities upon his return to the Low Countries, vander Elst is said to have worn a beard and dressed in a hooded Spanish cloak. He was brought to Brussels by his supporters, to the home of the artist, Bernard of Orley. In short order he preached a series of nine sermons at the homes of various artists and artisans, sometimes once or twice a day, sometimes as long as three hours at a stretch, and for up to fifty people at a time.28 Within a year of vander Elst’s return, the authorities in Brussels arrested sixty-three members of this conventicle, questioning them extensively about their religious beliefs and practices. It is from the conventicle’s depositions that the connections of this group to the Antwerp Augustinians are revealed. Vander Elst’s immediate circle 26 Christman, Pragmatic Toleration, p. 37. 27 Gielis, Verdoelde schaepkens, p. 152. 28 Decavele, ‘Vroege reformatorische bedrijvigheid’, pp. 19–20. For a more thorough description of these events and the content of vander Elst’s sermons see Decavele, De eerste protestanten, esp. pp. 56–59.

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was all relatives, but more than that, they appear to have come together as a group of like-minded individuals in the wake of the executions of the Antwerp Augustinians.29 Three conventicle members claimed to have been in the crowd when Vos and van den Esschen were burned, and described how deeply moved they had been by the experience. Two of these men expressed revulsion at the event and asserted that the friars were true martyrs.30 Moreover, with regard to the subsequent trial of Jan der Kinderen, (a Cameryck lawyer and leader of the little group who had also been present at the executions), one witness testified to having heard der Kinderen say the two victims did not deserve to die, adding, ‘If I had to die, then I can only hope that I would die in a similar condition’.31 Der Kinderen was a learned man who had read works of Luther, Melanchthon, and Oecolampadius. Clearly the steadfast way in which Vos and van den Esschen had met their fate, loyal to their religious convictions, had deeply impressed him and many others. The impact of the events surrounding the Antwerp Augustinians can also be seen in the fate of Lambert Thorn, about whom there has been considerable confusion. Thorn is sometimes referred to as one of the four priors of the Antwerp cloister, but this does not appear to have been the case. The confusion may come from the fact that Luther describes him as Probst’s successor ‘in words’, suggesting that although he taught as Probst had, he was not officially named prior.32 As may be recalled, when Vos and van den Esschen were executed, Thorn escaped capital punishment by requesting time to reconsider his beliefs. For a while thereafter, it was thought that Thorn was secretly burned or strangled in prison shortly after his two fellow friars were executed.33 But in fact his sentence was commuted to life in prison 29 Decavele, ‘Vroege reformatorische Bedrijvigheid’, p. 16. 30 Decavele, ‘Vroege reformatorische Bedrijvigheid’, p. 16. 31 ‘Soude ick moeten sterven en soude wel willen / in hueren staet sterven’. Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels, Audientie, 1177/6, fols. 1–102, here at fol. 47–47v. 32 Luther to Spalatin, 22 or 23 July 1523, Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr) 3:115; Spalatin himself seems to suggest that Thorn was slated to become prior after Probst, but could not because he, Thorn, was imprisoned, presumably already in summer of 1522. Spalatin, ‘Excerpta quaedam e Diario’, p. 412. Diercxsens, however, lists Thorn as a prior of the Antwerp house. Diercxsens, Antverpia Christo Nascens et crescens, vol. 3, p. 376. 33 This rumour was widely reported in the two most broadly distributed pamphlets describing the executions. In its title, one pamphlet already refers to three Augustinians being martyred (Thorn being the third), and the author claims, ‘Thereafter on the third day [after the burning of Vos and van den Esschen] they took the third monk [presumably Thorn] who had requested time to reconsider and burned him also. And they treated him in the same way as the others. He was a seemingly learned man who, at the pyre, preached a long sermon. And thereafter he became a martyr. And even when they lit the fire he continued to preach until the fire and flames overcame him. He

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on a diet of bread and water. On 15 September 1528, he died in his cell and was buried under the scaffold in Brussels.34 During Thorn’s imprisonment, Luther sent him a letter of consolation, encouraging him to conclude that he had survived when Vos and van den Esschen died not because he was not worthy of martyrdom, but because God had willed it so, and urging him to rejoice that he had been found worthy to suffer incarceration for the sake of the Gospel. Luther also sent along greetings and encouragement from Probst and other Augustinian refugees who had gathered in Wittenberg.35 But while Luther and his comrades sent their fellow friar spiritual support, it was vander Elst, and even more so der Kinderen, who made certain that he was not forgotten, that his bodily needs were met, and that he continued to be spiritually and intellectually fed. In depositions taken from members of his conventicle it is revealed that in an Easter Sunday sermon, vander Elst encouraged his followers to support Thorn, calling him their ‘brother-inarms’ (medebrueder) whom they were obliged to help. This exhortation led to the establishment of a sort of support group for Thorn, and a collection was taken up.36 What is more, until his death, members of the vander Elst circle continued to bring him food, money, and beer and wine, or simply went to visit him, some of them frequently. This included individuals from Antwerp who visited so much that an anonymous chronicler reported that from prison this third Augustinian generated much mischief, ‘because many merchants from Antwerp who were from this sect came to visit him secretly in order to be instructed by him’.37 As Thorn himself would testify likewise departed, blessed by God’ (‘Dar nach auff den dritten tag, Hat man den dritten munch der im ein bedacht genomen hat auch verprent und mit im gehandelt wie mit den andern der ist fast ein gelert man geweẞent hat er by dem holtzhauffen ein lange predig gethon. Und ist darnach an die marter gangen. Und da sie das fewer angezund haben hatt er noch gepredigt biss das feur und flamen uber in aussgeschlagen hat und ist auch also seligklichen in got verschiden’). Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung, p. 3. The other pamphlet demonstrates less certainty about the matter, saying of Thorn regarding the day of the executions, ‘The third [Augustinian – presumably Thorn] was not led forth, but why this was, I do not know. Some say he came to his senses [i.e., returned to the church]. But because he was not led back to the crowd to make a public recantation, this is not credible. Some believe he was secretly murdered’ (‘Tertius [Augustinian = Thorn] productus non fuit, id quare factum sit, compertum non habeo. Quidam hunc resipuisse narrant, verum quando ad populum reductus non fuit publice recantaturus omnibus id persuaderi non potest. Quiddam suspicantur clam necatum’), Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, p. 4. 34 Christman, Pragmatic Toleration, p. 47. 35 Martin Luther to Lambert Thorn, January 19, 1524. WABr 3:238. 36 Christman, Pragmatic Toleration, p. 47. 37 ‘want vele cooplieden van Antwerpen die van dier seckten waeren, quamen hem seere secretelycken besoecken om van hem onderwesen te syne’. Quoted in Decavele, De eerste protestanten, p. 61.

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as part of the same proceedings, they also gave him books, many of them banned, including Oecolampadius’s commentary on Isaiah, a work by Bugenhagen on the Psalter, and Melanchthon’s commentaries on Romans and Corinthians.38 Thorn’s sacrifice for the Gospel and the memory of the executions clearly moved many to defy the laws of the emperor and offer their support. Through the efforts of such networks, it appears that the memory of the Antwerp Augustinians was kept alive among the laity well after that cloister ceased to exist.

Conclusion As an established organization then, the influence of the German Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany in support of the Reformation ended, with the exception of the Cologne cloister, in 1522. But the memory of their words and deeds lived on. Under investigation for heresy themselves, some of the laity pointed directly to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen as a source of their own sympathy for Luther’s ideas. When coupled with the continued support for Thorn it is clear that, in certain circles at least, the events surrounding the elimination of the Antwerp Augustinians retained a lasting impact. It is only through the Inquisition’s discovery of the vander Elst circle and the deposition of its members that historians have been given a glimpse into the impact of these events on the local people. But if the widespread lay support for the Reformed Augustinians before 1522 is any indication, such influence undoubtedly was much broader and deeper than these limited sources reveal.

Works Cited: Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), Brussels: Audientie, 1177/6, fols. 1–102. Aleandro, Girolamo, Aleander und Luther 1521: die vervollständigten AleanderDepeschen nebst Untersuchungen über den Wormser Reichstag, ed. by Theodor Brieger (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1884). Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung/ der degradation und ver/prennung der Christlichen dreyer Ritter und Mer/terer, Augustiner or/dens geschehen zu Brüssel (Various locations: various publishers, 1523).

38 Christman, Pragmatic Toleration, p. 47.

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Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, ob Evangelij doctrinam exustis Bruxellae, die trigesima Iunij. Anno domini M.D.XXIII (n.p.: n.p). Christman, Victoria, Pragmatic Toleration: The Politics of Religious Heterodoxy in Early Reformation Antwerp (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2015). Clemen, Otto, ‘Ein Brief von Augustin Himmel’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 21 (1924), pp. 127–132. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitats Neerlandicae (=CD), ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols. (Gent: J. Vuylsteke, 1889–1902). Decavele, Johan, De eerste protestanten in de Lage Landen: Geloof en heldenmoed (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2004). ———, ‘De noodlottige zestiende eeuw’, in Zeven eeuwen Augustijnen, Een kloostergemeenschap schrijft geschiedenis, ed. by Werner Grootaers and Marc Mees (Gent: Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, 1996), pp. 69–81. ———, ‘Vroege reformatorische bedrijvigheid in de grote Nederlandse steden: Claes van der Elst te Brussel, Antwerpen, Amsterdam en Leiden (1524–1528)’, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 70 (1990), 13–29. Diercxsens, Jean, Antverpia Christo Nascens et crescens seu Acta Ecclessiam Antverpiensem ejusque Apostolos ac Viros pietate conspicuous concernentia usque ad speculum XVIII. 7 vols. (Antwerp: Joannem Henricum van Soest, 1773). Duinen, Herman van, Hendrik van Zutphen (1489–1524), prior – reformator – martelaar. Bleskensgraaf: Blassekijn, 2004). Erasmus, Desiderius, Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami denuo recognitum et auctum, ed. by Percy Stafford Allen and H. M. Allen, 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906–1958). Gielis, Gert, Verdoelde schaepkens, bytende wolven: Inquisitie in de Lage Landen (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2009). Gregory, Brad S., Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Günther, Wolfgang, Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432–1539) (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018). Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904). Kunzelmann, Adalbero, OSA, Geschichte der deutschen Augustinereremiten, 7 vols. (Würzburg: Augustinus Verlag, 1969–1976). Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel (=WABr), vols. 1–18 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–1985). Meijer, Albéric de, ‘Augustijnen in Conflict met Dortse Magistraat? Eerste tekenen van Lutheranisme in Nederland’, Archief voor de geschiedenis van de Katholieke Kerk in Nederland 5 (1963), 343–350.

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Rotscheidt-Mörs,Wilhelm, ‘Die Kölner Augustiner und die Wittenberger Reformation’, Monatshefte für Rheinische Kirchengeschichte 17 (1911), 33–58. Schneider, Hans, ‘Die autobiographischen Aufzeichnungen des Nürnberger Augustinereremiten Nikolaus Besler’, Augustiniana 62 (2012), 119–152. Schotel, Gilles, Kerkelijk Dordrecht: eene bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der vaderlandsche Hervormde Kerk sedert 1572. D. 1 (Utrecht: van der Monde, 1841). Spalatin, Georg, ‘Excerpta quaedam e Diario Georgii Spalatini MSto’ in Amoenitates Literariae Quibus Variae Observationes Scripta item quaedem anecdota & rariora Opuscula exhibentur, ed. by J. Schelhorn, 4 vols. (Frankfurt and Leipzig: Daniel Bartholomaei, 1725), 4: 389–432. Voets, B., ‘Hebben de Augustijnen van Enkhuizen invloed gehad op de Hervorming?’, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 39 (1952), 219–227. Wolters, Albrecht, Reformationgeschichte der Stadt Wesel bis zur Befestigung ihres reformirten Bekenntnisses durch die Weseler Synode (Bonn: Adolph Marcus, 1868). Zütphen, Heinrich von. ‘Zütphen’s Briefe‘, ed. by Johann Friedrich Iken Bremisches Jahrbuch 2. 1 (1885), 241–252.

9. The Impact of the Executions in the German-Speaking Landsof the Holy Roman Empire Abstract This chapter argues that the executions of Vos and van den Esschen impacted the German-speaking lands more broadly. The first half addresses the dissemination of news of the burnings via published eyewitness accounts, as well as evidence from personal letters, revealing networks of correspondence that paralleled print as a means of diffusion. The second half of the chapter is devoted to a case study of Ingolstadt, a university city in southern Germany where booksellers and intellectuals employed the executions to demonstrate the corruption of the church. At the same time, opponents of Luther’s reform utilized them to condemn aspects of Reformation theology. The case reveals how news of the burnings worked its way into the fabric of the Reformation debates there. Keywords: University of Ingolstadt, Argula von Grumbach, Martin Reckenhofer, Reformation pamphlets (Flugschriften)

Within the confines of the Low Countries – a comparatively small, urban, and highly interconnected society, and one that was experiencing first-hand the efforts of pope, emperor, and other forces to eradicate the Lutheran heresy – the memories of the German Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany could be kept alive by word of mouth. If the case of the vander Elst circle is any indication, such recollections continued to circulate, at least within certain groups. But the situation was different in the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire. Not having witnessed these events directly, any impact on the populace there would necessarily come from printed sources or, in a limited number of cases, via personal contacts. In the wake of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen especially, the German-speaking

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch09

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lands were flooded with accounts of this event. Modern scholarly attempts to evaluate their impact have relied almost entirely on inventorying such publications and analysing their contents. From the numbers of editions and knowledge of their places of publication, much insight has been gained into the dissemination of news regarding the event, despite the fact that a comprehensive list still eludes us. Yet although an analysis of these materials has provided clarity regarding how the executions were portrayed,1 little work has been done on the reception (and therefore the impact) of this information outside its influence on a few exceptional individuals.2 What is more, it is clear that in addition to printed sources, more personal exchanges with individuals who had been party to these events in Lower Germany also account for some of their impact. For as has been alluded to throughout this study, when Reformation-minded Reformed Augustinian friars of Lower Germany found themselves in trouble, they fled to the German-speaking lands of the empire, most often to Wittenberg itself. There many went on to successful careers as Evangelical preachers and reformers, carrying their experience of the events of the early 1520s with them for the rest of their lives. The following chapter is a broad evaluation of the impact of these events on the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire. To demonstrate the degree to which the empire was blanketed with accounts of the burnings of Vos and van den Esschen in particular, the first section catalogues the printed materials devoted to this event and briefly relates their contents. There follows an account of what I have been able to discover about the distribution of information on the burnings via means other than printed sources, primarily letters. Having established some sense of the degree to which this story was disseminated, the second section of the chapter turns to a case study of the German city of Ingolstadt where, as a result of these printed materials, the executions of Vos and van den Esschen encouraged local Reformation impulses. The chapter’s final section provides a brief overview of the roles played by Augustinian friars with Lutheran sympathies, as they made their way to the German-speaking lands and became reformers and pastors. As a result of these three investigative strands, it becomes 1 See Chapter One, note 1. Brad Gregory has taken these efforts a step further by exploring the impact of these literary portrayals, particularly of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, on the content and production of martyr literature on all sides in the Reformation. Gregory, Salvation at Stake. 2 Two notable exceptions are the reactions of Erasmus, which Brad Gregory has explored (see Gregory, Salvation at Stake, p. 321), and Martin Luther. See my Chapter Seven and the reference to the literature in Chapter One, note 1.

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clear that the fallout from the events in Lower Germany had a substantial influence on the appeal and shape of the early Reformation.

Printed Accounts of the Experiences of the Antwerp Augustinians Prior to the events of 1 July 1523 in Brussels, the public already had some access to what was happening among the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany. Probst’s recantation had been published in Flemish in Antwerp and in Latin in Cologne, Leipzig, and Strasbourg.3 Moreover his own explanation of his experiences, entitled The History of My Two Captivities, in which he carefully detailed his interactions with the Inquisition in Brabant, had been published in Latin in Wittenberg and in German in Colmar.4 For anyone with access to these writings, the executions of Vos and van den Esschen already had some context. But it was the pamphlets describing the burnings themselves that really became bestsellers.5 The most widely distributed among them, written in German, runs a mere four pages and is entitled An Account of the Divestment and Burning of the three Christian Knights and Martyrs of the Augustinian Order, which occurred in Brussels on 1 July 1523.6 Published sixteen times during the second half of 1523, its places of publication reflect the chief printing centres of the Reformation, with two-thirds emanating from southern Germany (Nuremberg, Augsburg, Speyer, Bamberg), others from eastern Germany (Leipzig, Erfurt, and Wittenberg); for two editions, the place of publication is unknown.7 The pamphlet briefly describes the events leading up to the executions as well as the key charges made against the men, before providing a more detailed account of the executions themselves. It includes the information (which we now know is false) that Lambert Thorn was also burned three days later. Although there is no overt editorializing, so that the pamphlet has the feel of an objective first-hand account, clearly 3 Rudloff, Bonae Literae et Lutherus, p. 27. Rudloff does not mention the Strasbourg edition, but it may be found at Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts (VD 16) ZV 24290. 4 Probst, Fratris Iacobi Praepositi; Probst, Ein schone vnd clegliche history. 5 Much of the information in the following discussion of the pamphlet literature comes from the study by Hebenstreit-Wilfert, ‘Märtyrerflugschriften der Reformationszeit’. See also Boehmer, ‘Die Beschaffenheit der Quellenschriften’. 6 Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung. 7 Hebenstreit-Wilfert, ‘Märtyrerflugschriften der Reformationszeit’, pp. 432–436.

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the author is sympathetic to the friars and their cause and a critic of the church, as can be seen from the title. A second, longer pamphlet, entitled The Story of two Augustinians Burned in Brussels for the sake of the Gospel on 30 June 1523, survives in only two editions, both published anonymously in Latin without any reference to the place of publication.8 Its description of the event, considerably longer than the one found in the aforementioned pamphlet, is comprised of two letters, purportedly from unnamed eyewitnesses to the executions. The first letter focuses on the proceedings immediately surrounding the execution, and the demeanour and responses of the friars themselves throughout their ritual degradation and executions, events that the author claims took about four hours. The second letter, much shorter than the first, adds the names of the authorities who carried out the executions. Also included in this pamphlet is a list of sixty-two articles or assertions made by Hendrik Vos that were judged heretical, although it is unclear how the anonymous editor obtained this document.9 The pamphlet ends with a long treatise rebuking some unnamed person who had recanted his beliefs in order to save his own life. A third pamphlet, entitled The History of the two Augustinians martyred for the sake of the Gospel in Brussels, Brabant. The Articles for which they were executed, along with their interpretation and explanation is, broadly speaking, Martin Reckenhofer’s translation of the second pamphlet into German, but excluding the final reprimand to the recanter. It does, however, include the sixty-two articles for which Vos was burned, along with Reckenhofer’s lengthy rebuttal to each of them.10 But Reckenhofer also modifies the original accounts. Gone are all first-person, eyewitness references. Inserted is a short Foreword appealing to the reader to learn from this event about the cruel workings of the Endchrist, and to observe how to behave in the event that one is forced to die for one’s beliefs. A fourth document, of unknown origin but ostensibly from someone close to the proceedings, was included in two editions of Luther’s Open Letter of Consolation to the Christians in the Low Countries, referred to in Chapter Seven.11 The work consists of three questions asked of Vos and van den Esschen by the inquisitors, the friars’ answers, and a short, highly 8 Anonymous, Historia de Duobus Augustinensibus; for publication information, such as it is, see Hebenstreit-Wilfert, ‘Märtyrerflugschriften der Reformationszeit’, p. 437. 9 Cramer and Pijper indicate that the inquisitors in the Low Countries often produced such lists of heretical theses during judicial processes. Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica, vol. 8, p. 25. 10 Anonymous, Dye histori so zwen Augustiner Ordens. 11 Luther, Abteilung Werke (=WA) 15: 75–76.

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critical description of the actions taken by the authorities in response.12 Two editions of this work were published in Wittenberg in 1523. Taken as a group, these four pamphlets went through a total of twentythree editions, all in 1523. If a conservative estimate of the number of copies produced in a typical print run in the sixteenth-century was about 1,000, that would mean that a minimum of 23,000 pamphlets dedicated to this event were produced and distributed in the German heartlands.13 To give some perspective on these numbers it is worth comparing them to the spread of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. The principal way in which these ideas reached the masses was not via their original Latin version (which went through only four editions in 1517) but rather through Luther’s Sermon on Indulgence and Grace of 1518. Written in German, the sermon was published in nineteen editions in 1518, nine in 1519, and another nine in 1520, for a total of thirty-seven.14 In other words, speaking solely in terms of copies produced, Luther’s seminal ideas articulated in the Ninety-Five Theses went only through about one-third more printings than the pamphlets dedicated to the executions. They were, we might say, bestsellers. Another means for spreading the news of event in its immediate aftermath was via what we might call “second-hand interpretations” of the executions, most prominent among them the works of Luther. By far the most influential was Luther’s musical composition, ‘A New Song Here Shall be Begun’.15 Printed first as a broadsheet, thereafter the ballad was regularly included in German hymnals for the remainder of the sixteenth century, editions of which number well over 1,000.16 And as noted above, Luther also responded to the event in his Open Letter of Consolation to the Christians in the Low Countries. In it he consoled and encouraged his followers there, and expressed joy that they had been able to experience these first martyrdoms. The work went through nine editions in various formats in the months immediately following the executions.17 Other important writers from across the doctrinal spectrum also commented on the burnings in printed sources. Especially influential among them was Erasmus of Rotterdam who referred to the executions in a number 12 WA 15: 79–80. 13 This is the estimate used by both Andrew Pettegree and Mark Edwards (described as conservative) for the typical print run of a Luther pamphlet. See Pettegree, Brand Luther, p. 145, n. 2; and Edwards, Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther, p. 39. 14 WA 1:239–246. 15 See Chapter Seven. 16 Brown, Singing the Gospel, 8. 17 WA 15: 75–76.

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of his letters, all of which were printed in the sixteenth century.18 Other less well-known individuals also made brief mention of the executions in print.19 But in the immediate aftermath, word of mouth and letters were the means by which news spread most quickly. As had been the case all along, the connections within the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians remained a key means by which information was disseminated. Once again it travelled these well-worn paths, as can be seen in the correspondence of men like van Zutphen, Luther, Probst, Linck, and Lang.20 It was not just the Augustinians who were interested in the event. Others, too, referred to it in private missives, and to the situation in the Low Countries more generally. In the summer of 1522, the Bavarian noblewoman and Luther sympathizer Argula von Grumbach sent a letter to Luther recounting the incredible fury with which the “sophists” and representatives of the emperor persecuted the gospel in the Low Countries.21 Wolfgang Reichart, a doctor from Ulm, sent a description of the closing of the Antwerp Augustinian monastery to the young humanist Johann Alexander Brassicanus, who was studying in Ingolstadt at the time.22 How the information on these events – much of which was not included in the pamphlets – made its way to Reichart in Ulm and Grumbach near Ingolstadt is anyone’s guess.23 Moreover, as mentioned above, one of the pamphlets devoted to the event included two letters from purported eyewitnesses, the first of which, it has been speculated, was addressed to Erasmus,24 the second of which asks its 18 Erasmus, Opus epistolarum, vol. 5, p. 325; vol. 5, p. 606; vol. 6, p. 275; vol. 8, pp. 211–212. 19 See Coct, as quoted in Lambert, Evangelici in Minoritarum, p. 1; Emser, Annotationes Hieronymi Emser, pp. 182–183; and Hauer, Drey christlich Predig. 20 See Luther’s letters to Lang, Linck, and Gabriel Zwilling regarding Probst’s recantation, Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr) 2:494–496, WABr 2:496–497, and WABr 2: 523–524; Luther’s letters to Lang regarding Probst’s second arrest, WABr 2:558–559 and WABr 2:565–566; and to Staupitz regarding the same issue, WABr 2: 566–568; Luther to Linck regarding the closure of the Augustinian monastery in Antwerp, WABr 2: 632–635; Hendrik van Zutphen to Jacob Probst and Reiner Reyenstein regarding his capture, 29 November 1522 in Zütphen, ‘Zütphen’s Briefe’, pp. 241–245. 21 We know this because Luther informs Paul Speratus in a letter dated 13 June 1522 that von Grumbach has written to him regarding the current state of affairs in the Low Countries. WABr 2:559. 22 Wolfgang Rychardus to Johann Alexander Brassicanus, 25 November 1522 in Analecta Lutherana, pp. 49–50; this letter may also be found in Corpus documentorum (=CD) 4:157–159. 23 That Reichart was in Ulm at the time he wrote is confirmed by the fact that on the same day he wrote a letter from there to his son in Tübingen. See Wolfgang Reichart an Zeno in Tübingen, Ulm, 25 November 1522 in Ludwig, ed. Vater und Sohn, p. 120. 24 This is Cramer’s and Pijper’s conjecture. Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica, vol. 8, p. 24.

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recipient to pass along greetings to Johannes (sic) Zwingli and Hutten.25 As early as 24 August 1523, Johann Botzheim, a humanist friend of Erasmus, could write in a letter that preliminary information on the burning of three (sic) monks in Brussels had reached Konstanz via Nuremberg, but that he did not yet know the details.26 Clearly the news of these events made the rounds in private correspondence. As might be expected, high-placed government officials had their own information-gathering networks. Richard Wingfield, the English ambassador to the imperial court in Brussels, kept Henry VIII and his ministers in London fully informed about the situation of the Augustinians in Antwerp.27 Likewise George Spalatin, court chaplain and secretary to Luther’s Prince, Elector Frederick the Wise, noted that Lambrecht Mulmann, an official at the court in Brussels and another eyewitness to the events, had written to him describing the burnings.28 Moreover Hans von der Planitz, another advisor to Elector Frederick and member of the imperial court, who was in Nuremberg at the time of the executions, included news of them in a report to the Elector. Along with his account, he also sent his own source, a letter (since lost) that he describes as ‘written in the merchant style, and not very readable’.29 It seems that he had a contact in Brabant (apparently a merchant) who kept him informed of the latest news. Although he did not discuss the executions themselves, we have seen that the papal legate to the Diet of Nuremberg, Francesco Chiericati, knew all about the arrest of van Zutphen and the remaining Antwerp Augustinians shortly after these events occurred.30 In Paris, an anonymous burgher who left behind a diary for the years 1515–1536 included news of the burnings, remarking in 25 The author is most likely referring to the reformer of Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli, and the German humanist and fervent supporter of Luther, Ulrich von Hutten. Anonymous, Historia de Duobus Augustinensibus, p. 5. 26 ‘The bare details of the story of the burning of three monks in Brussels, printed in Nuremberg, have arrived. I hear that a more careful description will be produced shortly’ (‘De exustis tribus monachis Bruxellae delata est nuda historia Norimberge excusa, quam audio propediem prodituram accuratissime conscriptam’). Johann Botzheim to Erasmus, 24 August 1523, Briefe an Desiderius Erasmus, p. 27. 27 Wingfield, Letters and Papers. Comments on the situation in Antwerp as it regarded the Augustinian cloister there may be found in missives from 30 September and 4 and 7 October 1523. vol. 3, part 2, pp. 1103–1109. 28 Spalatin, ‘Excerpta quaedam e Diario’, p. 412. 29 ‘ist auf kaufmennisch geschriben, nich woll leßlich’. Planitz, Berichte aus dem Reichsregiment, pp. 493–494. 30 Francesco Chiericati to Isabella D’Este Gonzaga, 5 November 1522. Chiericati Vescovo e Diplomatico, p. 104.

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particular that the men had met their deaths with joy. How precisely news of these events made its way to this diarist remains a mystery.31 If one considers the case purely in terms of the dissemination of information, the numbers are staggering. Pamphlets, Luther’s ballad and his open letter, and references in private missives and published works cascaded across the empire. In fact, it is difficult to imagine two non-elites more broadly recognized in the early sixteenth century than Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen.

The Impact of the Pamphlets: The Case of Ingolstadt With so much information on and interpretations of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen available, one can only conclude that there was broad interest in this event. If interest of this magnitude existed, it stands to reason that these deaths influenced public opinion and private convictions. Unfortunately, for the most part, the sources necessary to demonstrate such influence (like the depositions taken by the inquisitors in the case of the vander Elst circle) are lacking for the German-speaking lands. Nonetheless, evidence from the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt provides a glimpse into how these executions moved groups of people and infiltrated the broader debate surrounding early Reformation ideas within the empire. Despite the fact that, as far as we know, none of the pamphlets were printed there, evidence from Ingolstadt indicates that the story of the executions in Brussels was widely spread, and that the case worked its way into the local fabric of the conflict between adherents of the church and those clamouring for reform. Already on the Festival of the Assumption of Mary, which occurred in mid-August 1523, six weeks after the burnings, George Hauer, a theologian from the University of Ingolstadt and preacher at the Church of Our Lady in that city, referred to Vos and van den Esschen in a sermon. Among those things on his mind was Martin Luther’s critique of the church’s conception of the Virgin Mary and her role within Christianity – a critique that left not only Hauer, but, he claimed, God himself deeply angry. It happened, dear friends, as a result of divine anger and punishment, that these blind people [i.e. Luther and his followers] attacked Mary; yes Mary I say, the best intercessor, who never bothered anyone, who is always ready to support and help [today’s] Christians in their time of great need 31 Anonymous, Journal d’un Bourgeois, p. 185.

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(as she did for those in her own lifetime as the story of the holy martyr Ignatius, her contemporary, has demonstrated) […] Thus there are already some who have attacked Mary in a most dishonourable manner [and who] have been punished, namely with the loss of their minds, swift death, and other such plagues. And this summer the executioner rewarded some on the eve of Mary’s Visitation, for they were not worthy of the day itself. For in Brussels, two Augustinian monks were burned to ashes. They did not go to the fire willingly and of their own accord as the Lutherans say, rather they had to be dragged there by the executioner. And the Lutherans claim that these men are knights and martyrs. But God Almighty did not miraculously intervene with them as he does in the cases of those who are his own.32 [And he did not intervene] so that these beginnings of their cause should not accomplish any progress, as it happened [with the death of martyrs] in the early church, and so that these new teachings that had been preached were confirmed by such signs.33

The context in which Hauer made this reference to the executions is significant. Ingolstadt was among the earliest municipalities to mount a concerted response to the challenge of Luther and his like-minded colleagues, in large part due to the efforts of the Dominican Johann Eck, one of Luther’s earliest and sharpest critics. Eck was a professor of theology at the University of Ingolstadt and canon at the cathedral in nearby Eichstätt. He had been Luther’s opponent at the Leipzig Disputation (1519), after which he had reported on this confrontation to the papal curia. On 17 July 1520, the day on which the papal bull threatening Luther with excommunication was 32 The claim that God did not intervene as he does with his own is, I believe, a rejection of the rumour that at the last moment, via the intervention of the Virgin Mary, God had given them a change of heart – something Hauer suggests God does in the case of true knights and martyrs. The implication is, of course, that neither God (nor Mary) considered these men to be Christians. 33 ‘Es geschicht allerliebsten/ aus götlichen verhengen vnd straff/ das diß verplendt volck/ Mariam der massen angreift/ mariam sag ich/ die allergüetigisten/ fürbitterin/ die nie niemant belaidigt/ die alweg/ dem christlichen volck (auch im leben/ wie der hyelig martrer Ignatius der zu irer zeit gelebt/ anzaigt) in grossen nöten bey gestanden uvd hilf than hat […] Also sein schon etlich/ die mit sondern vnern Mariam angriffen haben/ gestraft worden/ nemlich mit vnsinnigkait/ Jähem todt und der gleichen plag. Es hat auch disen sumer der hencker etlich belonet/ als am abent der haimsuechung Marie (sy wurden des tags nit wirdig) zu brussel zwen Augustiner münch zu pulver verbrent/ die nit willig/ und von in selbs/ wie die Lutherischen außgeben/ in das fewr gangen/ sonder von im dem hencker darein gezogen worden/ und sohl Ritter und martrer sein/ mit welhen got der almechtig nichts wunderperlichs/ wie er mit den seinen pfligt/ gewürckt hat/ das doch im anfang von nöten solt anderst ir sach ain fürgang gewinnen/ wie es dan in erhebung der kirchen gescheen/ und die so newe leer predigren/ die selben mit nachvolgenden zaichen bestätteten’. Hauer, Drey christlich Predig, p. A iij.

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promulgated, two men were charged with its publication and distribution. Just as Aleander had been given responsibility for disseminating the bull in the Low Countries, Eck was given the task of publicizing it in the German-speaking lands. While Aleander was making his way to Antwerp, Eck headed for Saxony, where he published the bull in Meissen, Merseburg, and Brandenburg. However, he soon ran into considerable opposition and was essentially forced to abandon the project and leave the area. He then made for Bavaria, where with like-minded individuals such as Hauer he was able to make much more headway in his task. His first order of business was to send the bull to the rector and Senate of the University of Ingolstadt, insisting that they enforce it and burn Luther’s works. At a meeting of the full Senate on 29 October 1520, Hauer gave an address in which he insisted the university demonstrate their allegiance to their colleague, Eck, who was now also a papal nuncio. He then had the Bull read by a secretary along with a written request by Eck that it be implemented. Immediately thereafter, the bull was also related from the pulpits of the city’s two main churches, including the one at which Hauer would later deliver the sermon from which the passage above is taken.34 After the promulgation of the Edict of Worms in 1521, Eck was again in Ingolstadt, and along with Hauer and another colleague helped draft the area’s first anti-Lutheran edict. Because both pope and emperor had banned Luther, the edict forbade disputations of Luther’s ideas and required that all university members remain loyal to the faith of their fathers and obedient to the emperor. The decree also warned that students suspected of holding Lutheran ideas and all booksellers who sold Luther’s works would be brought to the attention of the Inquisition and the elector. As a result of this legislation, a group of professors loyal to Eck established an Inquisitional Tribunal, a body whose oversight reached well beyond the walls of the powerful university. In the coming years, it would try a series of professors and laymen suspected of Lutheran sympathies, and its members would write Gutachten for the cases of suspected heretics throughout Bavaria.35 In 1524, just as the faculty of theology at the University of Cologne had done, this tribunal would also implement the requirement that, before they were allowed to matriculate, all students coming from ‘suspect lands’ where Lutheran ideas proliferated must sign an oath not to disseminate or hold 34 Prantl, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, vol. 1, pp. 146–147. 35 Prantl, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, vol. 1, pp. 148–149; for example, one of their number wrote the Gutachten upon the basis of which a baker in Munich was beheaded for his Lutheran leanings. Kolde, ‘Arsacius Seehofer und Argula von Grumbach’, p. 55.

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Luther’s ideas.36 Due to such measures, the University of Ingolstadt became an early bulwark against the spread of Luther’s ideas, its faculty taking the lead in anti-Reformation efforts throughout Bavaria. It is no exaggeration to say that, like the Low Countries, Ingolstadt offered one of the earliest and most forceful responses to the Reformation. However, there was also support for reform among various constituencies there. Within the student body Johann Alexander Brassicanus, recently arrived from the University of Leuven, had already demonstrated his Reformation impulses in no uncertain terms. While in Leuven, Brassicanus had witnessed one of Aleander’s first public actions against Luther, a book burning in the city square in 1519.37 In a short pamphlet recounting various reactions to the upheavals of the early Reformation, Johann Oecolampadius described this young man’s exuberant response to the book burning: When it was over, a most depraved Carmelite [this was probably the future inquisitor Egmond], devoid of all modesty, exposed his evil nature by publicly urinating on the fire and ashes. When Brassicanus, a young man who had witnessed this detestable spectacle, saw this, he waited for the [Carmelite] to return to his monastery. When he was about to enter, [Brassicanus] grabbed him by the cowl and pulled a knife on him, yelling, “Come here, come with me, come on, brother!” After kicking and beating him, he left him half dead. Brassicanus did not stay in the city that night because of the pandemonium, but escaped, returning the next day when the uproar had subsided – but wearing different clothes.38

36 Prantl, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, vol. 1, p. 159. 37 That Brassicanus was in Ingolstadt at this time we know, for Joseph Ritter von Aschbach says that after his time in Leuven he went to Ingolstadt before he was called to Vienna in 1524. Aschbach, Die Wiener Universität, pp. 127–128. If he were still in Leuven, it would not make sense that Reichart would write to him to pass along news from Leuven. See below. 38 ‘Venit postremo Carmelita nequissimus et postposita verecundia, quo animum suum inquissimum cunctis patefaceret, in ignem publice et cineres urinam projecit. Videns hoc Brassicanus junior, qui tam nefario spectaculo aderat, fratrem observat redeuntem ad monasterium. Qui cum vellet intrare, apprehenso pallio fratris et gladiolo extracto, ‘huc, huc mecum, perge, frater!’ Calcans, percutiens et semivivum relinquens abiit. Nec illa nocte propter tumultum in civitate permansit. Sed exiens in crastino mutata veste rediit, et conticuit omnis tumultus’. Oecolampadius, Oecolampadii Judicium, p. 4. See Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 1, p. 22; and Raupach, Evangelisches Oesterreich, p. 29. Brassicanus was the son of a humanist professor at the University of Tübingen. At the time he was studying law at the University of Leuven. He would go on to have a successful career as a poet and professor at the University of Vienna. For more on Brassicanus, see Aschbach, Die Wiener Universität, pp. 126–135. The quotation is taken from Raupach.

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It seems that not only was Brassicanus a sympathizer in the early Reformation, but he was also an ardent critic of the mendicant orders. His impression of them had not improved since moving to Ingolstadt, if the letter of the Ulm doctor Reichart mentioned above is any indication. Reichart, who seems to have made a point of keeping up on events in the Low Countries, wrote to Brassicanus on 25 November 1522, informing him of the arrest of van Zutphen and the dissolution of the Augustinian Cloister, but interpreting these actions as the result of the machinations of the mendicant orders. ‘Concerning the monks about whom you have written’, begins Reichart, ‘not only did they impose darkness on the liberal arts, but they poured it on the morals and business dealings of all ages: they are a plague worse than the harpies. But I have just heard news from Antwerp’ (Reichart then proceeds to describe the actions of Margaret, Queen Regent against the Augustinians there).39 With young men such as Brassicanus among the student body, it is not difficult to see why the University’s Senate would demand an oath of allegiance to the church from incoming students hailing from “suspect lands”. Nor was there disaffection only among the student body; even some members of the faculty disagreed with Eck, Hauer, and others like them. In August of 1523, the Senate of the University arrested the former student and young professor, Arsacius Seehofer, because he had lectured on the epistles of Paul using notes from Philip Melanchthon, with whom Seehofer had studied in Wittenberg. From papers seized during a search of his residence, the University Senate compiled seventeen articles deemed heretical, and on 7 September 1523 Seehofer was forced to recant them. The entire event, performed publicly, occurred in the immediate wake of the events in Brussels. 40 Seehofer also had his defenders, among them Luther himself. 41 Locally, however, his most prominent supporter was the noblewoman, Argula von Grumbach. In a series of open letters addressed to the Senate of the University, the Elector of Bavaria, and the city council of Ingolstadt, she 39 ‘De monachis autem quod scribis, qui non solum Bonis artibus imposuerunt verum etiam omnium seculorum moribus et negotiis impendio tenebras offuderunt: pestis illa plus quam harpiea. Sed audi quid iam noviter Antwerpie novi speciminis sue alee designarint’. Wolfgang Rychardus an Joh. Alex. Brassicanus, 25 November 1522 in Analecta Lutherana, pp. 49–50; this letter may also be found in CD 4:156–157. 40 For more on Seehofer and this affair see Matheson, Argula von Grumbach; and Kolde, ‘Arsacius Seehofer und Argula vom Grumbach’. 41 Martin Luther, Wider das blind und tolle Verdammniß der 17 Artikel, von der elenden, schändlichen Universität Ingolstadt ausgegangen, WA 15:110–125.

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argued for the primacy of Scripture which, she asserted, accomplished all things. There was thus no reason to use coercion in matters of faith. If Seehofer was wrong, his errors should be demonstrated via scripture, not by force or tyranny. 42 Von Grumbach undoubtedly had the events in the Low Countries in mind when she wrote this, for we know that she had been following the news of the ‘unbelievably furious’ persecution of the gospel there since at least summer of 1522. 43 But it is Seehofer’s second defender, Martin Reckenhofer of Clausen, who brings the story full circle. Little is known about Reckenhofer, who appears to have studied at the University of Ingolstadt and was probably a member of the clergy. At some point he may have heard Luther directly, as in his published work he recounts various statements Luther had made that are not found in the Reformer’s writings, and in a manner that suggests that he heard them first hand. 44 But whoever he was and whatever his relationship to Luther, he knew the situation in Ingolstadt, and had heard Seehofer speak. He was also quite familiar with the executions of Vos and van den Esschen. In fact, Reckenhofer has only two known publications to his credit: the first we have already encountered, namely his German version of the anonymous Latin pamphlet The Story of two Augustinians Burned in Brussels. How Reckenhofer came to possess a copy of this pamphlet we do not know, but it moved him enough to not only translate it, but to add his own commentary on the sixty-two articles for which Vos was executed. The second of his publications, similar in its structure to the first, was a reproduction of the seventeen articles for which Seehofer had been accused of heresy, along with Reckenhofer’s own refutation of each of them. 45 Thus for Reckenhofer, it seems, the two cases were linked. With members of the student body, faculty, clergy, and nobility openly supporting reform, it is not surprising that the story of the Augustinians excited enough interest in Ingolstadt to elicit a response from churchmen faithful to Rome, particularly those at the University. It is clear that the pamphlets describing the executions had circulated widely there, since although we do not know where Reckenhofer’s translation of The Story of two Augustinians Burned in Brussels was published, it stands to reason that it was somewhere in the area. What is more, at the end of Hauer’s sermon 42 Grumbach, Schriften. 43 ‘incredibil[is] furia’. Letter of Martin Luther to Paul Speratus, 13 June 1522, WA Br 2:559. 44 Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica, vol. 8, p. 60. For the little information that is known about Reckenhofer see Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica, vol. 8, pp. 59–64; and Ewald, Geschichte der Pfarrei Plech. 45 Reckenhofer, Die Artickel, warumb der rector.

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quoted above he stated that the Lutherans claim these men ‘are supposed to be knights and martyrs’, a direct reference to An Account of the Divestment and Burning of the three Christian Knights and Martyrs of the Augustinian Order, the most popular pamphlet produced recounting the executions. 46 Clearly, Hauer had read it and was confident that his audience had, too. It seems reasonable, then, to conclude that word of the executions spread widely in Ingolstadt. More concrete evidence for the pamphlets’ impact in that city comes from mid-August 1523, when two booksellers were accused of peddling Lutheran writings there. In response to their actions, the rector of the University had them arrested and imprisoned overnight, then sternly warned them not to sell any more ‘Lutheran books’, adding, especially those ‘libels concerning the three [sic] friars burned in Brussels’, thereby singling these works out as particularly problematic. 47 A mere six weeks after the executions, these pamphlets had reached Ingolstadt. One of the booksellers, Jacob Focker, gave up the names of two more booksellers whom he claimed were selling Lutheran works, with the result that these men were quickly arrested and held in the University’s prison. George Hauer led the investigation in which not only were the prisoners interrogated, but teachers, students, and Focker and his wife were deposed. Ultimately, the two booksellers were found guilty of holding Lutheran views on indulgences, fasting, the bann, and relics, and after being forced publicly to recant in front of the prison, they were banished from Bavaria. 48 Then there was the immediate context in which Hauer gave his sermon. As he climbed the steps to the pulpit on that mid-August day in 1523, the festival of the Assumption of Mary, he was in the middle of presiding as judge over the Seehofer case. 49 In fact, three of Seehofer’s influential family friends, all from Ingolstadt, had just petitioned the university for his release.50 In his sermon regarding the Virgin Mary, Hauer gave them his answer: the 46 ‘sohl Ritter und martrer sein’. Hauer, Drey christlich Predig, p. A iij. 47 ‘ceterorum libellulorum de tribus religiosis in Brussl combustis venditorum’. Universitätsarchiv München: UA D III/4. S 147. See also Hofmann, Geschichte der Stadt Ingolstadt, pp. 705 -706. The rector was probably referring to the pamphlet An Account of the Divestment and Burning of the three Christian Knights and Martyrs of the Augustinian Order because it was only in that pamphlet that the claim was made that three friars were killed. 48 Prantl, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, pp. 152–153. 49 The University Senate had ordered Seehofer’s arrest and the search of his residence on 11 August 1523. Prantl, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, p. 150. 50 See Prantl, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, pp. 150–151; and Kolde, ‘Arsacius Seehofer und Argula von Grumbach’, 55.

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Augustinians had been justly rewarded for their deeds.51 Their fate before God and the executioner had become a warning to all who thought likewise. Seehofer was given the choice: recant or burn. In Ingolstadt, although the extant sources do not give the impression that the burning of Vos and van den Esschen became the central issue in the early Reformation struggle, they do appear to have become an important theme in the broader conflict. Knowledge of the case was widespread. Proreform individuals like Reckenhofer attempted to publicize it, as did various booksellers; on the other side, Hauer referred to the pamphlet literature in a sermon, while the University Senate attempted to stop the sale of such materials. It also became part of the immediate backdrop to the case of Arsacius Seehofer. In short, it worked its way into the fabric of the early Reformation conflict in Ingolstadt.

Reformed Augustinians from the Low Countries in the German-Speaking Lands From the reactions of Martin Luther and members of the vander Elst circle, from the zeal expressed by the friars from the Low Countries studying in Wittenberg, from the events in Ingolstadt, and from the general widespread interest in the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, it is clear that these harrowing and traumatic incidents shaped peoples’ perceptions, often in long-lasting and decisive ways. How much more so for the men who actually lived through these events, some of whom had stood against a future pope, and experienced threats, arrests, interrogations, and incarcerations at the hand of an emperor? Certainly, such experiences shaped these men. As the Reformation developed, their voices must have carried extra weight, a 51 ‘Likewise, because the Holy Scripture promises death as wages so that God be not mocked, the same [fate awaits those who mock] his saints in whom [God] resides. And whoever despises these saints, despises God. And whatever anyone does to the least among [these saints], he does to God himself. Indeed, the angel Michael did not allow the devil to mock. So the blasphemers and mockers of the saints who speak and act against divine majesty should be punished in body and with their lives in the very same way and even more so than those who commit crimes against earthly majesty [i.e., temporal princes]’ (‘Item die weyl auch die heylig schrift bey dem todt verbeüt das got/ nit sol gelestert werden/ der gleichen auch seine heyligen in denen er wonet/ und wer die selben verschmecht/ got verschmächt/ und was ainer den wenigsten auβ inen thuet/ Christo selbs thuet/ Ja der engel Michael den teufl nit hat wellen lestern/ so sollen unnd mögen die gotlestrer und heylig schender/ als die wider götlich maiestat handeln und reden/ an lieb und leben/ als wol und mer/ dan die/ so wider irdisch maiestat verprechen/ gestraft werden’). Hauer, Drey christlich Predig, pp. 4–5.

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certain authenticity as the result of these encounters. So while the administration of the German Reformed Augustinians could be dismantled by its opponents and dissolved from within as the entire monastic enterprise was called into question, the efforts of individual former friars involved in the events that culminated in the executions of Vos and van den Esschen could not be stopped. Many went on to significant careers in the service of the Reformation, one more way in which the events in the Reformed Augustinian Province of Lower Germany continued to exert their influence in the empire. Like many others over the course of the Reformation, some of these Augustinians found refuge in Wittenberg. There Luther and his colleagues acted as a clearing house for refugee clerics, finding them temporary positions in Wittenberg, then recommending them for permanent posts in various lands where the Reformation was taking root, a practice that had been alluded to by Luther already in a mid-1522 letter to George Spalatin in which he wrote, ‘Everywhere people are thirsting for the gospel. On all sides they are asking us for evangelists’.52 To my knowledge, no study of this phenomenon has been undertaken, nor have the criteria by which Luther and his colleagues decided whom to send where been examined. But it stands to reason that the placement of specific individuals in particular posts was the result of some strategizing – one more way in which Staupitz’s legacy lived on in the Reformation. The cases of van Zutphen and Probst offer evidence of just such planning. Having fled Antwerp for Wittenberg, van Zutphen veered 120 km out of his way to the north German city of Bremen.53 Asked to preach there by a 52 ‘Vbique sititur Evangelion. Vndique petuntur a nobis Evangeliste’. WABr 2:580. 53 Why van Zutphen went to Bremen is the source of some speculation. His own explanation is vague and not particularly convincing. He suggests that along his way to Wittenberg, he decided to visit the brethren in Holland and Westphalia. Van Zutphen to Jacob Probst, 29 November 1522, in Zütphen, Zütphen’s Briefe, p. 242. However, as has been repeatedly pointed out, Bremen had no Augustinians, much less Reformed Augustinians who were members of the Congregation. Aschoff, ‘Bremen Erzstift und Stadt’, vol. 3, p. 46; Moeller, ‘Die Reformation in Bremen’, p. 52. So who were the brethren there? Was it those individuals with whom he and Probst had studied in Wittenberg – for van Zutphen, in a letter to Probst who was now safely back in Wittenberg, sent along greetings from fellow alumni of the University of Wittenberg known to both van Zutphen and Probst? Heyne, ‘Die Reformation in Bremen’, p. 15. Or were merchant connections and networks at work here? It is well known that Bremen and Antwerp were connected via trade routes, so it is possible that the merchants of Bremen who did business in Antwerp would have known of van Zutphen. Hill, Die Stadt und ihr Markt, pp. 208–229. In a letter written shortly after his arrival in Bremen, van Zutphen remarks that news of the fallout from the events surrounding the Antwerp cloister was delivered to Bremen by a citizen of that city recently returned from Antwerp, a fact that suggests van Zutphen may have had connections in the merchant community. Van Zutphen to Jacob Probst, 29 November 1522, Zütphen, Zütphen’s Briefe, p. 244. Iken refers to,

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number of leading citizens, he soon received the offer of an official post from the mayor and city council as preacher in St. Ansgar’s Church – a call, as we have seen, confirmed by Luther. Despite the efforts of the Bishop of Bremen to expel him, he was able to remain and can be credited with first bringing the Reformation to that city. As has been recounted, while there, he received a request from the patron of the church in nearby Dietmarsch to preach, and soon gathered great crowds to his sermons. When they discovered who he was, however, the local Dominicans responded forcefully and had him captured in what was essentially a mob action, before burning him on 9 December 1524.54 Meanwhile, after his ordeal in the Low Countries, Probst had arrived back in Wittenberg in April 1522. After spending almost two years there he, too, was called to Bremen at the recommendations of van Zutphen and Luther to preach at the Church of Our Lady. The two former colleagues in Lower Germany thus overlapped in Bremen for more than half a year. In 1532, Probst became superintendent of Bremen and preacher in what, to that point, had been the cathedral – a career that places him at the forefront of Bremen’s reformers. The main point, however, is that reuniting these two Augustinian comrades in the same city was no chance occurrence. It was done with the clear intent of spreading the Reformation in mind, and it was probably done with the full cognizance that the two men worked well together and that they knew the lay of the land and the nature of the people in that region so near the Low Countries. Be that as it may, the careers of van Zutphen and Probst also indicate that the events of the early 1520s continued to influence their lives and work. Other Reformed Augustinians from Lower Germany also went on to significant careers in the Reformation. A list of former friars of the German Reformed Congregation ‘whose contributions to the Reformation movement in the cities where they worked, were deemed so impressive as to but dismisses, an old seventeenth-century tradition that the merchants of Bremen brought van Zutphen there, and while it does not seem to be the case that merchants were directly involved in transporting him to Bremen, it is indeed possible that some of them invited him to Bremen. Iken, Heinrich von Zütphen, p. 32. Finally, as we have seen, van Zutphen was part of a larger network through which information traveled. At its center was Wittenberg, which kept track of the conditions as they related to the Reformation in various cities. It seems likely that through this network, van Zutphen was somehow given to know that certain constituencies in Bremen saw the situation there as fertile ground for the Reformation. I think it probable that via one of these avenues van Zutphen was led to believe that he could expect a warm welcome in Bremen. 54 The most comprehensive description of these events is Martin Luther’s text Von Bruder Henrico in Ditmar verbrannt samt dem zehnten Psalmen ausgelegt (Wittenberg: Klug, 1525), and WA 18.2:215–250.

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merit individual entries in the Protestant dictionary of Reformers’ has been compiled by Franz Posset.55 Twenty-two names appear on the list (which Posset admits is incomplete), four of which belong to men who experienced the events in the Low Countries that are the subject of this book.56 The deficiencies of Posset’s list are demonstrated by the fact that my own limited attempt to discover the later careers of members of this group quickly yielded three additional names. Moreover, Martin Jung has recently compiled a list of forty-three names (which he also admits is incomplete) of Augustinian friars who played significant and public roles in the Reformation.57 Clearly Luther’s message resonated widely among both Observant and Conventual Augustinians, but particularly among those who had been party to the events in Lower Germany.58 What is more, occasionally groups of Reformation-minded refugee friars from the Low Countries now working in the German-speaking lands are mentioned, suggesting that the number of seven (the total from Posset’s list and my efforts) is far too low. First, there are the friars from Dordrecht who went on to foster the Reformation in the German city of Wesel.59 Second, in one of his letters from Bremen, van Zutphen mentions that a group of the friars from the Antwerp cloister who had been released by the inquisitors were making their way to Wittenberg.60 Thus it comes as no surprise that Martin Luther ends his 1524 letter of consolation to the imprisoned Lambert Thorn with greetings from Probst and ‘your other brothers from Antwerp’, suggesting that a number had found their way to Saxony.61 What became of these men is for the most part unknown, but it stands to reason that Luther found them positions in new Reformation Churches. The fates of those few friars about whom something is known bear out this supposition. On 17 July 1524, Luther sent Hieronymus Anger of Enkhuizen, one of the young friars originally picked to study in Wittenberg when the Enkhuizen cloister was reformed, to support the efforts of his fellow Lowlander and Luther sympathizer, Prior Johann Steenwyck of the cloister in Sternberg. Together the two men presided over the dissolution of the cloister. 55 Franz Posset has compiled the list from the Reformatorenlexikon, ed. Stupperich. See Posset, The Front-Runner, pp. 19–20. 56 These are Adrian Buxschott, Heinrich Himmel, Jacob Probst, and Henrik van Zutphen. 57 Jung, ‘Gerhard Hecker und die Anfänge’, pp. 80–84. 58 For helpful discussion of what many Augustinians may have found appealing in Luther’s message, see Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 398–402. 59 See Chapter Eight. 60 Zutphen, “Zütphen’s Briefe,” p. 244. 61 ‘et fratres ex Antwerpia tuisque’. WA Br 3:239.

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Anger had already worked in the cause of the Reformation in Neustadt on the Orla.62 Heinrich Himmel, who probably left the Cologne cloister in 1525 when Nicholas Besler was appointed prior there, returned to Wittenberg, where he married and was installed as pastor at the Castle Church. In 1527, Luther recommended him for the position of pastor in Neustadt on the Orla, where he served for two years before moving on to a similar position in Colditz. Other posts followed and in the end he had a long career as an evangelical pastor, dying in 1553.63 Melchior Miritsch, erstwhile prior in Ghent, would also go on to a modest career as a reformer. Before Miritsch’s sojourn in the Netherlands, Luther had written positively about him,64 but during the events of Spring 1522 in the Low Countries the Reformer had repeatedly expressed his deep disappointment with Miritsch.65 But the two men seem to have reconciled as Miritsch moved to Magdeburg, set aside his monastic cowl, married, became the pastor, and co-authored a series of theses against “the papists”.66 In some ways, Lambert Thorn’s career in the service of the Reformation came to an end in 1523 when he received his life sentence. But as has also been noted, he remained an inspiration for Reformation-minded laity in Antwerp and Brussels until his death in 1528. In 1531, another former friar from the Antwerp cloister, referred to only as Brother Hadrian, also met his death at the stake, this time in Flanders. The brother in question was probably Adrian of Antwerp, who had matriculated along with Himmel at the University of Wittenberg in October 1516. Although little is known of his life, Luther mentioned him in August 1517 as one of seven candidates he was priming for master’s exams.67 Nothing more of him is known outside of Luther’s comments in the Table Talk, where upon hearing of his execution Luther noted that his blood now shed would provoke God to send someone who would give his murderers their own taste of murder.68 62 Günther, Reform und Reformation, pp. 412–413. See Luther’s letter to Johann Steenwyck, WA Br. 3:323–324. 63 Clemen, ‘Ein Brief von Augustin Himmel’, p. 129. 64 See Luther to Spalatin, 14 January 1519. WABr 1:5. 65 In fact at one point, Luther accused him of being a traitor: ‘Melchior Miritsch, that blessed theologian, is an agent of the emperor against the Augustinian Order’ (‘Melchior Miritsch est executor Caesaris contra nostros de ordine Augustini, sanctus ille theologus’). WABr 2:559. 66 See Janicke, Miritz, Melchior, vol. 21, p. 779. 67 In July of 1517, Luther wrote to Lang, mentioning that he was preparing six or seven candidates for their master’s exams, one of whom, Adrian of Antwerp is, deo volente, composing theses that will shame Aristotle. WABr 1:100. 68 ‘When it was announced to [Luther] that in 1531 in Flanders a certain Adrian of his order and from among his students was burned by the Dominicans he said: “Oh! His blood which has been shed will incite God to send someone to give those murderers [their just reward]”’ (‘Cum

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Finally there is Adrian Buxschott, another Antwerp Augustinian who apparently escaped prosecution, either because he was a citizen of Antwerp and therefore not subject to arrest by the imperial authorities, or because he recanted to save his own life. He fled to Wittenberg, where he gave up his monastic cowl and lived in Luther’s house for a few years until the count of Hoya requested a learned and experienced man to help with the Reformation in his lands. Luther recommended Buxschott. Upon arriving in the territory of Hoya, Buxschott is said to have gone directly to the main church in Neinburg where a monk was preaching against Luther, and declared: ‘I have been sent here by the well-born Count Jodocus of Hoya to punish you and your fellow liars. So tell me you evil monk in front of this whole congregation, where, when, and in which places has Luther erred?’69 The monk fell silent, left the pulpit, and was never seen in the territory again. A short time later, Buxschott challenged all the monks of the territory to a disputation. Because none of them would engage him, the Reformation of Hoya was carried out, and Buxschott became a pastor there.70 While this account has a hagiographic feel to it, Buxschott did play a significant role in the Reformation in Hoya for years to come. In 1538, with the help of Johannes Timann, pastor in Bremen and fellow Lowlander, he produced a Church Ordinance for the Lippish Lands. When sent to Wittenberg, it met the approval of Justas Jonas, Martin Luther, Johannes Bugenhagen, and Philipp Melanchthon, who referred to it as ‘Christian and proper’.71 Buxschott remained active in Hoya until his death in 1561.72 Many of the friars who had experienced the events in Lower Germany in the 1510s and early 1520s retained their fervour for their entire lives. Of these eight examples, two (in addition to Vos and van den Esschen) met their fate on the pyre; one died in prison; and if there is any truth to the story of Buxschott’s interaction with the monk in Neinburg, he certainly remained zealous. How the authentic experiences of these men in the early nuntiaretur ei in Flandrias anno 31. Adrianum quondam sui ordinis et discipulum suum exustum a praedicatoribus monachis esse, dicebat: Wola, ille sanguis, qui nunc funditur, provocabit Deum, das einer kommen mus, der wird ihn mordens gnug geben’), Luther, Tischreden (=WATr) 1:119f., n 286. 69 ‘Ich bin von dem Wohlgebornen Grafen von Hoya, Herrn Jodoco, zu dem Ende hierher gefordert worden daß ich dich und deines gleichen Lügen straffe. Darum sage an du boßhaffter Münch und zwar vor dieser gantzen Gemeinde wo, wenn, und an welchem Ort Lutherus geirret hat?’ Lehnemann, Historische Nachricht, p. 19. 70 Lehnemann, Historische Nachricht, p. 20. 71 ‘christlich und recht’. These may be found in Robert Stupperich, ed. ‘Melanchthoniana inedita III’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 52 (1961) 91–93, here at 93. 72 Stupperich, ed., Melanchthonia ineditia, p. 91; Kolde, Die deutsche Augustiner-Kongregation, p. 390.

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Reformation battle in the Low Countries influenced their parishioners and audience members is difficult to say, but they surely must have.

Conclusion The case of the German Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany and particularly the executions of Vos and van den Esschen would reverberate across the German-speaking lands in pamphlet and song. If the events in Ingolstadt are any indication, it would work itself into the broader conversation of the early Reformation in the empire, and the zeal and intensity of those who experienced the conflict in Lower Germany would persist in influencing colleagues and parishioners alike as these former friars took up leadership positions in the Reformation. Martin Luther and his colleagues in Wittenberg would continue to employ the methods used to promote the Observant cause during the first two decades of the sixteenth century by sending specific individuals to key posts where they could work in the service of the Reformation. Both the nature of the events experienced by the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany and the administrative strategies they employed would feed into the dynamics of the early Reformation.

Works Cited Analecta Lutherana. Briefe und Actenstücke zur Geschichte Luthers, ed. by Theodor Kolde (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1883). Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung/ der degradation und ver/prennung der Christlichen dreyer Ritter und Mer/terer, Augustiner or/dens geschehen zu Brüssel (Various locations: various publishers, 1523). Anonymous, Dye histori so zwen Augustiner Ordens gemartert seyn tzu Bruxel in Probant von wegen des Evangelj. Dye Artickel darumb sie verbrent seyn mit yrer asẞlegung und verklerung, etc, trans. by Martin Reckenhofer (Erfurt: Stürmer, 1523). Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, ob Evangelij doctrinam exustis Bruxellae, die trigesima Iunij. Anno domini M.D.XXIII (n.p.: n.p). Anonymous, Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris sous le règne de François Premier (1515-1536), ed. by Ludovic Lalanne (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1854). Aschbach, Joseph Ritter von, Die Wiener Universität und ihre Gelehrten, 1520 bis 1565 (Vienna: Alfred Hölder, 1888). Aschoff, Hans-Georg, ‘Bremen Erzstift und Stadt’, in Der Nordwesten. Die Territorien des Reichs im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung, Land und

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Konfession 1500-1560, ed. by Anton Schindling and Walter Ziegler, 7 vols. (Münster: Aschendorf, 1991), 3: 44-57. Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica. Geschriften uit en tijd der hervorming in de Nederlanden, ed. by Samuel Cramer and Fredrik Pijper, 10 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1903-1914). Boehmer, Julius, ‘Die Beschaffenheit der Quellenschriften zu Heinrich Vos und Johann van den Esschen’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 28 (1931), pp. 112-133. Briefe an Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam, in Beiheft zum Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 27, ed. by Joseph Förstemann and Otto Günther (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1904). Brown, Christopher, Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). Chiericati, Francesco, Vescovo e Diplomatico del Secolo Decimosesto Lettura, ed. by Bernardo Morsolin (Vicenza: Tip. Naz Paroni, 1873). Clemen, Otto, ‘Ein Brief von Augustin Himmel’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 21 (1924), 127-132. Coct, Anemond de, as quoted in Francois Lambert, Evangalici in Minoritarum Regulam Commentarij, Quibus, palam sit, tam de illa, quam de alijs Monarchorum Regulis et constitutionibus sentiendum sit (Wittenberg: n.p., 1523). Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitats Neerlandicae (=CD), ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols. (Gent: J. Vuylsteke, 1889-1902). Edwards, Mark, Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). Emser, Hieronymus, Annotationes Hieronymi Emser uber Luthers naw Testament gebessert und emendirt (Dresden: Emser, [1524] 1525). Erasmus, Desiderius, Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami denuo recognitum et auctum, ed. by Percy Stafford Allen and H. M. Allen, 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906-1958). Ewald, Paul, Geschichte der Pfarrei Plech und Umgegend (Bayreuth: Buchner, 1841). Gregory, Brad S., Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Grumbach, Argula von, Schriften, ed. by Peter Matheson (Güterloh: Güterloher Verlaghaus, 2010). Günther, Wolfgang, Reform und Reformation: Geschichte der deutschen Reformkongregation der Augustinereremiten (1432-1539) (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018). Hauer, Georg, Drey christlich Predig vom Salue regina, dem Evangeli unnd heyligen schrift gemeß (n.p: n.p., 1523). Hebenstreit-Wilfert, Hildegard, ‘Märtyrerflugschriften der Reformationszeit’, in Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit: Beiträge zum Tübinger

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Symposion 1980, ed. by Hans-Joachim Köhler (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1981), pp. 397-446. Heyne, Bodo, ‘Die Reformation in Bremen 1522-1524. Am Vorabend – Der Beginn – Die Bahnbrecher’, Hospitium ecclesiae 8 (1973), 7-54. Hill, Thomas, Die Stadt und ihr Markt, Bremens Umlands- und Außenbeziehungen im Mittelalter (12.-15. Jahrhundert) (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2004). Hofmann, Seigfried, Geschichte der Stadt Ingolstadt 1506-1600 (Ingolstadt: Donaukurier Verlagsgesellschaft, 2006). Iken, J. Friedrich, Heinrich von Zütphen, Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 12. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1886). Janicke, Karl, Miritz, Melchior in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 56 vols. (Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1875-1912). Jung, Martin H., ‘Gerhard Hecker und die Anfänge der Reformation in Osnabrück’, in Miteinander leben? Reformation und Konfession im Fürstbistum Osnabrück 1500 bis 1700, Kulturregion Osnabrück vol. 31 (Münster: Waxman, 2017), pp. 65-98. Kalkoff, Paul, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, 2 vols. (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1903 and 1904). Kolde, Theodor, ‘Arsacius Seehofer und Argula vom Grumbach’, Beiträge zur bayerischen Kirchengeschichte 11 (1905), 49-77; 97-123; 149-187. ———, Die deutsche Augustiner-Kongregation und Johann von Staupitz (Gotha: F.A. Perthes, 1879). Lehnemann, Johannes, Historische Nachricht von der vormahls im sechzehenden Jahrhundert berühmten Evangelisch-Lutherishcen Kirche in Antorff, und der daraus entstandenen Niederländischen Gemeinde Augspurgischer Confession in Franckfurt am Mayn (Frankfurt am Main: Johann Friedrich Fleischer, 1725). Ludwig, Walther, ed. Vater und Sohn im 16. Jahrhundert: Der Briefwechsel des Wolfgang Reichart genannt Rychardus mit seinem Sohn Zeno (1520-1543) (Hildesheim: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1991). Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke (=WA), vols. 1-73 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883-). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel (=WABr), vols. 1-18 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1930-1985). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Tischreden (=WATr), vols. 1-6 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1912-1921). Matheson, Peter, Argula von Grumbach Eine Biographie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014). Moeller, Bernd, ‘Die Reformation in Bremen’, Jahrbuch der Wittheit zu Bremen 17 (1973), 51-73. Oecolampadius, Johann, Oecolampadii Judicium de Martino Luther (n.p: n.p., 1520).

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Pettegree, Andrew, Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation (New York: Penguin Press, 2015). Planitz, Hans von der, Berichte aus dem Reichsregiment in Nürnberg, 1521-1523, ed. by Ernst Wülker & Hans Virck (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1899). Posset, Franz, The Front-Runner of the Catholic Reformation: The Life and Works of Johann von Staupitz (Ashgate: Aldershot and Burlington, 2003). Prantl, Karl von, Geschichte der Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität in Ingolstadt, Landshut, München, 2 vols. (Aalen: Scientia Verlag, [1968] 1972). Probst, Jacob, Ein schone vnd clegliche history bruder Jacobs probst Augustiner ordens vor zeiten Prior zu Antdorff an gemeine fromme Christenheit von beiden gefencknissen so er von wegen des worts gottes vnd vmb des heyligen Euangeliumß willen erlitten hatt. Ein Epistel darinnen obgemelter bruder Jacob probst vermanet alle die so seine predig geh[oe]rt habenn vnd sonderlich die zu Antdorff (Colmar: Amandus Farckall, 1524). ———, Fratris Iacobi Praepositi, Augustiniani quondam Prioris Antuuerpiẽsis historia vtriusque captiuitatis propter verbum Dei. Eiusdem etiam Epistola ad Auditores suos Antuuerpienses (Wittenberg: Johann Rhau-Grunenberg, 1522). Raupach, Bernhard, Evangelisches Oesterreich, das ist Historische Nachricht von den vornehmsten Schicksalen der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirchen in dem ErtzHertzogtum Oesterreich (Hamburg: Theodor Christoph Felginers Wittwe, 1736). Reckenhoffer, Martin, Die Artickel, warumb der rector und Rethe der Hohenschul zu Jngolstatt zwungen und genöttigt haben zum widerspruch Meyster Arsacium Seehofer von München, mitampt des lauts der widerrüffung und seiner erklerung. Die erklerung der Sibenzehen Artickel, durch Mayster Arsacij von München christlich gelert, und wie unbillich und wider Gott eer gezwungen ist zum widerspruch durch den Rectorn und Räthe der hohenschul zu Ingolstat, mitsampt dem Lautt seiner widderfüng, aynem yetlichen wol zubehertzen (Augsburg: Philipp Ulhart, 1524). Reformatorenlexikon, ed. by Robert Stupperich (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1984). Rudloff, Ortwin, Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst (= Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte) 14 (1985), 11-274. Spalatin, Georg, ‘Excerpta quaedam e Diario Georgii Spalatini MSto’ in Amoenitates Literariae Quibus Variae Observationes Scripta item quaedem anecdota & rariora Opuscula exhibentur, ed. by J. Schelhorn, 4 vols. (Frankfurt and Leipzig: Daniel Bartholomaei, 1725), 4: 389-432. Stupperich, Robert, ed. ‘Melanchthoniana inedita III’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 52 (1961), 91-93. Universitätsarchiv München: D-III-4, S. 147 fols.; and D-III-6, 5, fol. 212 v. Wingfield, Richard, Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols. (London: Longman, 1864-1932). Zütphen, Heinrich von. ‘Zütphen’s Briefe‘, ed. by Johann Friedrich Iken Bremisches Jahrbuch 2. 1 (1885), 241-252.

10. The Marian Dimension Abstract Chapter Ten investigates the influence of these events on the Reformation dispute over the proper understanding of the Virgin Mary within Christianity. Vos and van den Esschen were executed on the eve of the festival of Mary’s Visitation and it did not take long for the rumour to spread that at the last moment, they recanted, a turn of heart attributed to Mary’s miraculous intervention and a demonstration of her agency as a saint. Aware of the dangers posed by an overly aggressive critique of Marian piety, supporters of Reformation theology responded in gentle and subtle ways. This chapter offers an example of how these events became embedded in a broader Reformation debate about sainthood and the role of Mary within Christianity. Keywords: Marian Piety, Virgin Mary, Inquisition, Protestant Marian Antiphons

As news of the events that ended with the executions of Vos and van den Esschen rippled outward, key individuals like the anonymous pamphleteers, Martin Luther, Claes vander Elst, and George Hauer interpreted and explained it in various ways, ascribing to it diverse meanings that then went on to have their own impact.1 Up to this point, I have investigated the influence of these interpretations from the perspective of geography: in concentric circles beginning with the person of Martin Luther, then moving to the region of the Low Countries, then the German-speaking lands more broadly. But the executions of Vos and van den Esschen also became fodder for both sides in some of the broader doctrinal arguments of the period. For example, reactions to the event became a forum for questions surrounding martyrdom and sainthood, as has been noted by several 1 Much of this chapter has been previously published as ‘The Marian Dimension to the First Executions of the Reformation’, Church History and Religious Culture 95 (2015), 1–27.

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch10

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historians.2 Such uses of the executions should come as no surprise, for one side declared the men heretics, while the other, with Luther leading the way, immediately christened them the Reformation’s first martyrs. But what historians have failed to adequately note is that this dispute also became an arena for the debate regarding the nature, role, and powers of the Virgin Mary that was already underway between adherents of the church and those pressing for Reformation. This is but one more way in which the events that transpired among the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany impacted the Reformation. The figure of Mary, the loving and longsuffering mother of Jesus, empathetic and compassionate intercessor for humanity before a righteous and sometimes wrathful God, and virtuous and eternally pure maiden favoured by the divine and called blessed by an angel, was among the most ubiquitous, prominent, and attractive aspects of late medieval Christianity. Evidence of her mass appeal could be found throughout Europe: by 1500, most churches had at least one altar dedicated to her, and news of her miraculous intervention could promptly inspire a new pilgrimage site that would attract armies of admirers.3 Seven feast days commemorating key events in Mary’s life were celebrated during the church year, and confraternities devoted to the Virgin and to the rosary abounded. Among the clergy, there even raged a debate as to whether Mary should be named co-redemptrix, equal with Christ in the work of saving humankind from eternal damnation, a position favoured in particular by many in the Franciscan Order. Devotion to Mary, it seems, crossed geographical, social, intellectual, and cultural boundaries. Although a few scattered individuals voiced uneasiness about the tendency to focus on Mary rather than Christ, or were embarrassed by the suspect nature of the legends that had grown up around her life, it would be difficult to overstate her popularity.4 The Virgin Mary was deeply beloved by Christian Europe. 2 For the executions’ impact on notions of martyrdom see especially Gregory, Salvation at Stake; for their impact on disputes over the nature of sainthood, see especially Oettinger, Music as Propaganda, p. 61–69. 3 In the Bavarian city of Regensburg, for example, news in 1519 that Mary had miraculously restored the health of a worker injured during the demolition of a synagogue brought a reputed 50,000 pilgrims to a quickly-erected shrine within the f irst month. MacCulloch, ‘Mary and Sixteenth-Century Protestants’, p. 197. 4 In 1509, for example, while criticizing the superstitions he saw in lay religiosity, Erasmus of Rotterdam raised the point that ‘the common person comes close to attributing more to [Mary] than to her son’ (‘cui vulgus hominum plus prope tribuit quam filio’). Erasmus, Morae Encomivm, p. 124. For pre-Reformation critique of the cult of the Virgin, see MacCulloch, ‘Mary and Sixteenth-Century Protestants’, pp. 192–196; and Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 47–53.

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For this reason, the reformers had a problem. Criticizing such a popular and ubiquitous object of piety was an undertaking fraught with danger, especially because, unlike other forms of popular piety whose origins could easily be dismissed as non-biblical or tenuously connected to events of the Bible, Mary played a central and venerable role in the narrative of salvation. Thus with regard to Mary, the magisterial reformers desired to offer a corrective, not a rejection. Their objective was to prune away the intercessory powers attributed to Mary and the extra-biblical legends surrounding her life while retaining and even celebrating her humility, acceptance of God’s plan, loyalty, human suffering, status as a model of chastity and domesticity, and most importantly her faith in her son as the only means of salvation. This was a delicate undertaking.5 And it did not take long for some of the reformers to find themselves on the defensive over their pronouncements regarding Mary.6 Moreover, it is no accident that as the Counter-Reformation gathered steam later in the century, Mary became ‘an emblem of Catholic allegiance, a rallying point for the Catholic cause’.7 As a result of the difficulties surrounding the critique of Marian piety one historian has suggested that, ‘Magisterial reformers […] were always uncomfortably conscious that they were skating on thin ice when they took to cutting Mary down to size’.8 How, then, does the issue of Marian piety connect with the executions of Vos and van den Esschen? Although their views on Mary contributed to their demise, both supporters and critics of the friars agreed that their deaths were primarily the result of their refusal to accept the authority of the Roman church. But that is not to say that their critique of Mary played no part: in his letter confirming Frans van der Hulst as papal inquisitor, Pope Adrian VI recounted the errors of Luther and his followers for which 5 Martin Luther points to the difficulty of criticizing Marian piety when he begins his 1522 sermon on the feast of Mary’s birth with the admission: ‘You know, my friend, that the honor afforded to the Mother of God is deeply entrenched in people’s hearts, and that no one wants to hear anything contrary to it, but rather only that which increases and enlarges it’ (‘Ir wißt, mein freünd, das gar tieff in die hertzen der menschen gebildet ist die ere die man thut der mutter gotes, also auch das man nicht gern dawider hort reden, sonder allain meret und grosser macht’). Luther, Abteilung Werke (=WA) 10:3, 313. 6 Already in the early 1520s, Luther, Zwingli, and Erasmus all found themselves refuting statements that they had allegedly made about Mary. Zwingli was forced to respond to the accusation that he had referred to her as a stupid woman and had ridiculed her purity, rumours used by his opponents to discredit him. Luther had to defend himself against the charge that he had preached against Mary’s perpetual virginity. Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 63. 7 Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 149. 8 MacCulloch, ‘Mary and Sixteenth-Century Protestants’, p. 205.

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van der Hulst must now be on the lookout, among them the claim that prayers to the Virgin Mary were not efficacious.9 But more importantly, after the executions took place, some commentators claimed that Mary had intervened at the last moment, causing a change of heart in the condemned. As a result, her veneration became a point of contention in the literature produced after the event, and the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen one platform on which the debate over Mary was played out. Before addressing the case directly, it is important to note that Antwerp was as suffused with Marian piety as anywhere in late medieval Europe. For anyone visiting the modern-day city on the Scheldt, it is difficult not to be struck by the ubiquity of Marian images, evidence of the city’s long and close relationship with the saint that began in 873 when Vikings destroyed a local castle, among the ruins of which a miraculous statue of the Virgin appeared. Since then, Mary has been the patron saint of Antwerp, with all the successive iterations of its main church dedicated to her. Today’s iteration, the Church of Our Lady, boasts a massive side-chapel centred around a spectacularly adorned, life-sized statue of Mary saved by local citizens during the outbreaks of iconoclasm of the later sixteenth century. But images of the Virgin are not confined to the city’s sacred spaces. On many of the street corners, niches have been cut into the second-story corners of buildings in which are exhibited statues of various saints, with Mary by far the most popular.10 Evidence of the legal enforcement of Marian veneration also remains. Ordinances of Emperor Charles V from 1 November 1517 and 5 January 1519 criminalize blasphemy against God, but also against the glorious and pure Virgin Mary.11 In 1525, Michiel Bramaert learned to his detriment that Charles and his queen regent, Margaret, were serious about such laws when, having been convicted of blasphemy against the Virgin for the second time, he was banned from Antwerp, required to go on a pilgrimage, and had his tongue bored through.12 All of this material culture and evidence of legal enforcement speaks to a society in which Marian piety was deeply engrained. 9 Corpus documentorum (=CD) 4: doc. 136. 10 The standard, if flawed, work on the relationship of the city of Antwerp to the Virgin Mary is Thijssen, Antwerpen Vermaard. 11 See ‘Ordonnance de Charles, roi de Castille, contre les blasphémateurs’ (30 November 1517) and ‘Ordonnance de Charles, roi de Castille, mitigeant les peines comminées par l’ordonnance contre les blasphémateurs’ (5 January 1519) in Laurent, ed., Des Ordonnances des Pays-Bas, pp. 602–603, 665. 12 See AAVII, 6/9/25 in Antwerpsch Archievenblad, vol. 7, p. 142; and Ullens, Antwerpsch Chronykje, p. 26.

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It was against this backdrop that the Antwerp Augustinians preached during the early years of the Reformation, and their close association with Luther makes his views on Marian piety a logical starting point. It is perhaps worth noting that when Augustinian friars took their vows, they promised obedience not only to God and their prior but ‘to blessed Mary, ever virgin’.13 Despite this, by 1522 Luther had questioned the church’s understanding of Mary in multiple sermons and treatises,14 and in that year he published his Sermon on the Birth of Mary, the Mother of God, in which he directly criticized Marian piety and the veneration of the saints. He asserted that the church had been treating Mary as if she were a goddess, argued that the true way to honour the saints was to care for poor Christians, and recommended that Mary should indeed be held in esteem, but not above others. She, like everyone else, was made righteous by Christ.15 In particular, Luther criticized the two well-known Marian antiphons, the Salve Regina and the Regina Coeli: Look at the declarations we make concerning the Holy Virgin Mary in the Salve Regina. Who is to blame for insisting that she is our life, our consolation, and our sweetness when she [herself] thought it sufficient to be considered a humble vessel? Such prayers are sung throughout the world with church bells accompanying them. And the same goes for the Regina Coeli, which is no better, where she is called the queen of heaven. Does it not dishonour Christ to give to a creature what belongs to God? So let us cease with such incompetent formulations. I am glad to have her pray for me, but that she is my consolation and life, I do not want; and your prayer is appreciated as much as hers.16 13 Saak, Highway to Heaven, p. 635. 14 See, for example Martin Luther’s sermons In die conceptionis Marie (1519), WA 9:432–434; Mariae Heimsuchung (1520) WA 9:474–475; In die purificacionis marie (1521), WA 9:565–571; and his treatise Das Magnificat verdeutschet und ausgelegt, (1521), WA 7:538–604. For more on Luther’s views on Mary see especially Brooks, ‘A Lily Ungilded?’; and Düfel, Luthers Stellung zur Marienverehrung. 15 Martin Luther, Sermon von der Geburt Maria, WA 10:3:312–331. 16 ‘Secht nu was das fur wortt seind, die wir der heiligen jungfrawen Marie zu legen im Salve Regina. Wer wyl daz verantwurten das sy unser leben, unser trost, unser süssykeit sein sol, so sy sich doch last benügen daß sie ein armes gefesz sey. Solch gebet singt mann durch dye gantzen welt und leutt gross glocken dartzu. Der gleichen ist es mit dem Regina Coeli, weliches nit besser ist do man sy ein kunigin des himels nent. Ist das nit ein on ehr Christo gethon daß einer creatur wirt tzu gelegt das allein got gebirt. Darum last von solchen ongeschickten worten. Gern will ich haben dz sy für mich bit. Aber das sey mein trost und leben sey wil ich nit und dein gebet ist mir gleych als lieb als das ir’. WA 10:3:321–322.

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While Mary is not denigrated in these passages, Luther did attempt to reduce her to the status of a woman in need of God’s grace like every other woman, one whose prayers are welcomed, but not more than anyone else’s. At the same time, he elevated the spiritual status of his audience by increasing the value of their prayers to the level of the petitions of the Virgin, an approach that would appear in a slightly altered version in the preaching of the Antwerp Augustinians. As noted in Chapter Six, although limited evidence regarding precisely what these Augustinians preached has survived, it is clear that they spoke in a manner similar to Luther against the veneration of saints in general and Mary in particular. Like Luther, they demonstrated a clear understanding of the sensitive nature of critiquing Marian piety, approaching the Blessed Virgin with exceptional restraint. Our best evidence for this tactic comes from the mouth of Hendrik van Zutphen, who as we have seen was not in the habit of practicing moderation in his preaching. Evidence from the report of the Bremen Cathedral canon, Paul Bähr, regarding his ‘heretical’ preaching includes the following article: Contrary to the Holy Mother Church, Brother Hendrik was not afraid to preach and teach publicly that the undefiled Virgin Mary should not be venerated as holy by Christians, nor is she most blessed, as the church sings. For she is not referred to as ‘most blessed’ in the Gospels.

‘But’, continues Bähr in response to van Zutphen’s assertion, ‘it does [in fact] say in a certain passage of the Gospel: “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts which gave you suck.” [Luke 11:27] And the angel calls her full of grace, just as it is written concerning St. Stephen: “[He was] full of grace and courage [Acts 6:8]”’. Bähr adds that, ‘[van Zutphen] said likewise that an evil mother was able to carry a good child, so he dared to remark to a boy or man of great virtue, “Blessed is the womb that carried you.” Thus [he implied] that an evil woman is equal with the Virgin Mary’.17 17 ‘Item ponit et dicit, quod prefatus assertus frater Hinricus non formidavit publice predicare et docere contra sanctam matrem ecclesiam, quod intemerata virgo Maria non esset adeo sancta prout a christianis veneraretur nec esset beatissima, ut ecclesia caneret; quia non venit scriptum in evangelio, ubi nominaretur beatissima, sed legit quidem in certo passu evangelii: Beatus venter, qui te portavit, et ubera, que sumisti et cet. Angelus nominavit eam plenam gratia, sicut de sancto Steffano etiam legitur: plenus gratia et fortitudine. Et addidit idem, quod Hinricus in simili, quod mala mater quemque bonum puerum portare posset, ut indies audiretur dici ad iuvenem sue virum virtutibus pollentem: Beatus venter qui te portavit, ita equiparando malam mulierem virgini marie’. Bähr, ‘Häretische Sätze’, p. 73.

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It seems reasonable to assume that van Zutphen did not essentially alter his message on the way from Antwerp to Bremen, a supposition made all the more probable when it is noted that, as Bähr went on to indicate, with regard to the images of saints, van Zutphen’s rhetoric remained militant: they ought to be burned or thrown down a well.18 Thus it does not appear to be the case that, having been forced to flee one city, a chastened van Zutphen toned down his message in the next. Van Zutphen’s references to Mary are striking. First, it should be noted that he focuses solely on the issue of Marian veneration, grounding his critique in Scripture. Van Zutphen claims there is no evidence in the Gospels to suggest that she was ‘most blessed’ or holy, a point Bähr disputes. Such an argument consists simply of the application of Luther’s assertion of sola scriptura, the pruning away of any characteristics attributed to Mary that had not been explicitly stated in the scriptures. Second, in attempting to reduce Mary to the level of all humanity, van Zutphen not only suggests that an evil mother could give birth to a good child, implying that Mary suffered from the same sinfulness as all of humanity but still gave birth to a sinless child, but he implies its inverse as well, namely that every woman was equal with Mary. It is just this point that van Zutphen seems to emphasize. By using the words of the woman who said to Jesus, ‘Blessed is the womb that carried you’ (Luke 11:27) to refer to various women of Bremen with exceptionally virtuous children, he is in fact elevating them to the status of Mary, albeit a status that he has reduced.19 In comparison with the normally fiery van Zutphen’s calls for iconoclasm against the images of the saints, his comments about Mary are restrained and measured. What is more, in his approach to the Virgin he seems to have found a way to advance the standing of all women. Precisely how this message was received by his female audience is unknown, but it bears repeating that in Antwerp, van Zutphen was freed by a mob of angry women, and the Antwerp Augustinians found significant support among the laity in general.20 18 Bähr, ‘Häretische Sätze’, p. 73. 19 This statement appears to reflect and amplify the strategy of Luther exhibited in the quotation above, namely to reduce the status of Mary while at the same time elevating the status of the audience to her level. 20 Another aspect of the Antwerp Augustinians’ message that may have resonated with the female population was their assertion that not only laymen, but also lay women could hear confession. Evidence for this claim is found among the articles for which Hendrik Vos was condemned, which included the following: ‘All men are able to remit sins – any Christian whosoever, as long as he understands how to correct a neighbor in a brotherly way’; and ‘Women are able to absolve men from sin. He [Vos] claims this regarding evangelical absolution,’ continues the scribe, ‘because it follows from the verse, ‘If your brother should sin against you, etc. [Matt.

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Prior to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen and the closing of their cloister, the Antwerp Augustinians’ criticism of medieval Marian piety had been but one aspect of their message. During and after the executions, however, the conflict over the status of the Virgin became increasingly central in the case. The first question that arises regarding this transformation is just why these two men were executed on the 1 July, the eve of the festival of the Visitation of Mary? Was this a case of ritual violence in which the timing was imbued with meaning, so that the burning of the men on the eve of a Marian feast became an act of symbolic retribution? In other words, because the men had “attacked” Mary, they would now be burned on the eve of Mary’s day? Or did the authorities hope to encourage the miraculous intervention of the Virgin? Unfortunately there is no direct evidence from those who carried out the executions to indicate why they decided on this particular date after the men had already sat in prison for eight months.21 But it seems plausible and even likely that the authorities picked the date in order to send a message, for meaning-filled ritual pervaded the case of the Antwerp Augustinians from the beginning. Already eight months earlier on 7 October 1522, the day after all the friars of the Observant Augustinian convent in Antwerp had been arrested, the queen regent had presided over the procession that ritually removed the host from the Augustinian cloister church and solemnly processed it to the Church of Our Lady. The message of these actions seems clear: the friars had lapsed into heresy, transforming their church into an unclean space and necessitating the transfer of the host to a place befitting its holiness. This action was a mere precursor to what Margaret hoped would be the destruction of the Augustinians’ church, an act that would have sent a pretty clear message had not Charles V intervened and, with the consent of the pope, turned it into a parish church. It should come as no surprise that the actual burning of Vos and van den Esschen was filled with all of the ritual and meaning normally associated with the execution of heretics.22 The anonymous pamphlet entitled The Story 18:15]’ (‘Omnes homines possunt remittere peccata cuiuslibet Christiani, qui sciunt corripere fraternaliter proximum. Mulieres possunt absoluere homines a peccatis, quod intelligit de Evangelica absolutione, quae continetur ibi: Si peccaverit in te frater tuus etc.’). Anonymous, Historia de Duobus Augustinensibus, p. 7. Thus, it seems, Vos included women under the biblical category of ‘brother,’ a fact that may indicate that the Augustinians used what we might call “gender-inclusive” language more broadly in their preaching. 21 As mentioned in chapter four, the decision to execute them must have been made shortly after van der Hulst was appointed papal inquisitor on 1 June 1523. But this does not explain the precise date that was chosen. 22 The question of the meaning of the rituals surrounding the executions of Vos and van den Esschen is somewhat complicated by the nature of the authorities who executed them. They

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of two Augustinians Burned in Brussels for the sake of the Gospel describes the scene: It occurred in the plaza on the day before the Visitation of the Virgin Mother of God. Three orders of mendicants arrived, as those familiar with this know, proceeded by banners with crosses, just as they are accustomed to arrive with solemn pomp. The professors of sacred theology having been seated in order, with abbots’ mitres and bejewelled feet visible, they arrived at the place of the bishop, [where they took up positions] with quite a few others on the platform, for a very large stage had been erected in front of the basilica that the common people call the senate building.23

The narrator continues, noting that in the middle of the stage was a table decorated as if it were an altar before which the action would take place. First the ceremony of degradation was completed, with one priest performing the ritual actions while another preached a sermon that lasted about an hour. The sixteenth-century historian Johannes Sleidanus, in his account of the execution of Vos and van den Esschen, describes such a ceremony: Before [Vos and van den Esschen] were executed, their ordination was removed and they were ‘defrocked’ as one commonly puts it. This process goes as follows: once a person who is a priest is condemned as a heretic by a spiritual judge, he is clothed in his priestly robe. A chalice filled with water and wine and a paten on which sits unleavened bread are placed in his hands. With these things, he kneels before the bishop’s vicar, who takes one after the other away and forbids him henceforth from saying were members of the short-lived (1521-1523) secular inquisition established by Charles V, the head of which, Frans van der Hulst, was also named papal inquisitor on 1 June 1523. This judicial body does not yet seem to have established a clear protocol for executing heretics. Despite this fact, the executions incorporated some elements of an auto de fe. For example, there was a procession that included members of the mendicant orders and nobility, temporary seating erected for the dignitaries and a stage for the ritual degradation, an important site chosen to enhance the dignity of the event, and the condemned dressed in yellow, the colour signifying treason. For contemporary descriptions of the executions see Anonymous, Historia de Duobus Augustinensibus, pp. 1–4; and Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung. For a thorough description of the auto de fe ritual and its meaning, see Bethencourt, The Inquisition, esp. pp. 246–314. 23 ‘Pridie Visitationis Deiparae uirginis concurritur in forum. Conueniunt ordines mendicantium tres, neque enim plures, uti nosti, hic sunt, praeeunte uexillo crucis, veluti solent cum solenni pompa incedunt. Considentibus ordine iam sacrae Theologiae professoribus, abbatibus mitris et gemmatis pedis conspicuis, quo loco Episcoporum aderant, & alijs nonnullis in pulpito. Nam pulpitum erectum erat peramplum ante Basilicam, quam vulgo senatoriam domum uocant’. Anonymous, Historia de Duobus Augustinensibus, p. 1.

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mass for the living and the dead. After that, the vicar takes a glass shard and slices his finger, cutting it so that he can no longer give the blessing. Then the robe is removed and each [heretic] is given a special curse. And when one is defrocked from the priesthood, so all the other grades and ordinations through which one becomes a priest are taken away. So having been undressed and re-clothed in secular clothes, he is handed over to the temporal authorities. And the bishop’s vicar requests that nothing further be done for his life and body. Such ceremonies are performed so that the spirituals […] are not despised as guilty of such punishments and his blood.24

Each step in this ritual was meant to remove a different aspect of priestly ordination and its concomitant powers: the ability to consecrate the bread and the wine, the authority to say masses for the living and the dead, the capacity to bless, and finally the robe signifying priestly status. Although we do not know what the cleric preaching the sermon said as these actions were taken, undoubtedly his words further accentuated the meaning of the ritual being performed. In the end, the ecclesiastical authorities arranged on the dais withdrew their spiritual connections to the men, washing their hands of the violence that would befall them. In both cases – the removal of the Eucharist from the Augustinians’ church and the rituals surrounding the friars’ degradations and executions – who was involved, in what order they processed, what they wore, and what actions they took were all matters saturated with meaning, a meaning so clear to the participants and spectators that no one bothered to explain it. Was the decision to execute the men on the eve of the festival of Mary’s Visitation, a point made prominently in the above-mentioned description, 24 ‘Ehe man sie aber hinrichtet hat man ihnen zuvor die Weihe abgenomen und sie degradieret, wie man es gemeiniglich denn nennet. Dasselbig gehet also zu. So einer der Ketzerey halben vom Geistlichen Richter verdammet wird, und ein Priester ist, so leget man im Preisterliche Kleidung an und gibet im einen Kelch in die hand darin Wasser und Wein ist, sampt einer guldenen Paten darauff ungesewert Brodt liget. Mit solchem kniet er vor des Bischoffs vicari nider, der nimpt im dann eines nach dem anderen ab und verbeut im das er hinfurt nicht mehr opffere für die lebendingen und die todten. Darnach nimpt er ein glasscherben und schabet im die finger und leget im auf dass er hinfurt nichts mehr gesegene. Nach solchem nimpt er im auch die Kleider ab und brauchet zu einem jeden einen sonderlichen fluch. Und so einer also entweihet ist von dem Priesterthumb, so zeucht man im auch alle andere gradus unnd Weihe ab durch welche er zu dem Preisterthumb kommen ist. So er den also abgezogen und man im andere Weltliche Kleider angelegt hat, uberantwortet man in der Weltlichen Oberkeit und bittet des Bischoffs Vicari das man im an seinem liebe oder leben nichts weiteres thun wolle. Solche Ceremonien geschehen darum damit die Geistlichen […] an solcher straffe und seinem Blut nichts als schuldig geachtet werden’. Sleidanus, Warhafftige beschreibung, p. 76.

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similarly meaningful? It seems likely, particularly when it is noted that in the popular imagination the eve of a festival would have been regarded as integral to its observation, since a vespers service on the evening prior to the festival day marked the beginning of its celebration.25 What is more, at least one contemporary also suggested that the date of the executions was not chosen randomly. As has been noted in the last chapter, six weeks after the event, the Ingolstadt cleric Georg Hauer asserted that the men had been executed ‘on the eve of Mary’s Visitation, for they were not worthy of the day itself.’26 Although not involved in the planning of the event, Hauer assigned a clear motive to the decision on the timing of the executions. Moreover, it would not be without precedent that the authorities were actually hoping for a change of heart by the men, a change that might then be attributed to the saint on whose festival day the conversion took place. A year and a half earlier when Jacob Probst had recanted, his decision to do so fell on the festival of Conversion of St. Paul (25 January 1522). The inquisitors in this case, the same ones who would execute Vos and van den Esschen eighteen months later, immediately credited Probst’s change of heart to the merciful intercession of St. Paul.27 A few years after the two Augustinians were executed, Erasmus would write that when a victim of the church’s inquisition remained steadfast in the fire, the rumour was often spread that he recanted at the last moment. ‘In this way,’ claimed Erasmus, ‘[the authorities] hope to rob a man of any praise for standing by his beliefs and to escape the hostility of the multitude and their suspicions that the charge was false’.28 Erasmus then went on to describe how this had occurred in the case of Vos and van den Esschen: the authorities had insisted that the friars had recanted at the last moment due to the miraculous intervention of the Virgin Mary. If it was common practice to attribute the decision to recant to the saint on whose day that “recantation” took place, or (if we are to believe Erasmus) to start rumours of last-second recantations, it does not seem far-fetched to assume that some forethought was given by the authorities to the timing of the executions.29 In fact it is likely that the decision to burn the men on the festival of the Visitation of Mary was made intentionally. 25 Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 26. 26 ‘als am abent der haimsuechung Marie (sye wurden des tags nit wirdig)’. Hauer, Drey christlich Predig, p. 4. 27 Probst himself makes this claim. Probst, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia, p. 54. 28 ‘[Q]uo simul et vindicatae religionis laudem auferant, et multitudinis inuidiam calumniaeque suspicionem effugiant’. Erasmus to Charles Utenhove, 1 July 1529, Opus epistolarum, vol., 8, p. 211. 29 Although I have found no evidence that during the early modern period heretics were burned intentionally on saints days, or more specifically on Marian holidays, their executions were not

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As Erasmus’s letter indicates, immediately following the executions, references to the Virgin’s miraculous intervention began to appear, and it is possible in some cases to track their origins. One of the first reactions to the news comes in a letter by Frans van der Hulst. On the day of the burnings he wrote a letter to a colleague who had been active in the case but was not on hand for the deaths. In it, van der Hulst relates his joy at having been told by the confessors who had accompanied the men to the stake that, with their last breaths, the friars had recanted their heresies and returned to the church. This retraction was done with such fervour and conviction, claimed van der Hulst, ‘that to the bystanders, it appeared almost miraculous’.30 He ended his letter by urging his colleague to publicize this information.31 It seems that the colleague did, and coming on the eve of the festival of Mary’s Visitation it did not take long to connect an event that was ‘almost miraculous’ to the Virgin. From one of the pamphlets produced in the wake of the executions we learn one origin of that connection. The festival of the Visitation was a mandatory holiday, meaning that Christians were required to celebrate it. Tradition suggests that it would have been marked by the opening of altarpieces to illustrate the story of the festival, with the altars decorated with Marian images and the clergy clothed in richly embroidered chasubles; masses would include sermons in the vernacular, highlighting key Marian themes.32 It was during just such a sermon in Brussels on the day after the executions that a cleric claimed that ‘at the last moment the men had rejected their errors due to the prayers of certain people and by the intercession of the Virgin Mary, which was a miracle’, before going on to say that the clerics in Leuven had asserted the same thing.33 This claim of the last second change of heart not only served to delegitimize the “Lutheran” doctrines the men had been preaching, but more specifically it demonstrated that their scheduled randomly. Often they were performed on a Sunday due to the day’s special hallowed nature. And the highest proportion were carried out in Lent, often on the f ifth Sunday, the most solemn day prior to Holy Week, because the first verse of that Sunday’s Psalm was ‘Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.’ (Psalm 43:1). Thus, as Francisco Bethencourt has noted, ‘the choice of date […] was a crucial element in the spectacle’. Bethencourt, The Inquisition, pp. 253–254. 30 ‘ita ut ferme miraculose istud accidisse visum sit’. Letter of Frans van der Hulst to Jan Pascha, 1 July 1523, CD 4: doc. 144. 31 CD 4: doc. 144. 32 Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 26. 33 ‘[I]n extremo momento defecisse eos ab erroribus, quod quidem precibus quorundam & divae Virginis benef icio, quae miraculum aedidisset’. Historia de Duobus Augustinensibus, p. 4. It is unclear whether this last phrase regarding the clerics in Leuven refers to the Marian involvement in the last-minute conversion or only the last-minute conversion itself.

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teachings regarding Mary (that she had no miraculous powers, nor was she able to intercede on behalf of a sinner) had been false. Mary could indeed save a suppliant in the hour of death. And it appears that the assertion of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s role in their conversion was spread not only via this pamphlet, but more broadly by the churchmen involved in the case, for as noted in Chapter Eight, six years later when Erasmus recalled the event, he claimed that the judges had spread the ‘ridiculous lie’ that at the last moment the men had recanted due to the intercession of the Virgin Mary.34 The inquisitors, it seems, set the stage for Mary’s connection to this event, crediting her with saving the two men from the fires of hell. George Hauer, as we have seen, had a different interpretation.35 In his sermon on the festival of the Assumption, he claimed that the Virgin had allowed the two men to be rewarded for their attacks with wretched deaths. But instead of repeating the earlier interpretation that her miraculous intervention caused the men to recant, he noted that they had to be dragged to their deaths, thereby insinuating that Mary did not save them, but abandoned them to damnation. These Augustinians were thus punished precisely for their disrespect for the Virgin, not only with death but with eternal damnation, as signified by the fact that they refused to accept their fate, demonstrating fear rather than peaceful resignation. Clearly, their consciences were troubled. It did not take long for pro-Reformation forces to respond to the Church’s claims regarding Mary’s participation in this event, but instead of addressing the rumour directly, something difficult to disprove, they chose to reply in subtle and implicit ways. In ‘A New Song Here Shall Be Begun’, Luther himself addressed the men’s alleged recantation, boldly stating that it was a lie fabricated by the authorities to cover their crime, but he did not take up the issue of Mary’s purported intervention.36 Nonetheless, historians 34 Erasmus to Utenhove, Opus epistolarum, vol. 8, pp. 211–12. 35 See Chapter Nine. 36 ‘But yet their lies they will not leave, To trim and dress the murther; The fable false which out they gave, Shows conscience grinds them further. God’s holy ones, e’en after death, They still go on belying; They say that with their latest breath, The boys, in act of dying, Repented and recanted’. Luther’s Works, vol. 53, p. 216. ‘Noch laßen sie yr lugen nicht, denn grossen mordt zu schmucken, Sie gehen fur eyn falsch getycht,

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Dick Ackerboom and Marcel Gielis have argued that Luther did indeed respond to such claims in both the final stanza of his ballad and in his Open Letter to the Christians of the Low Countries, where he employed imagery from the first nocturne of the matins for the festival of the Visitation of Mary. The reading is Song of Songs 2:11–12: ‘For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear in the earth, the time of singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land’. In the last stanza of his ballad, Luther uses precisely this imagery to describe the re-emergence of the Gospel, a blossoming that he insists is demonstrated by the deaths of these two men: Even at the door is summer nigh, The winter now is ended, The tender flowers come out and spy.37

And in his letter to the Christians of the Low Countries, he refers to this passage even more explicitly: ‘But now the time has come that we hear the voice of the turtledoves and the flowers bloom in our land. Of this joy, my friends, you are not only partakers, but are the first ones through whom we have experienced such joy and delight’.38 The reading describes the effect of Christ’s birth on the peoples of the earth. Is Luther here carefully but artfully responding to the inquisitors’ claims regarding Mary’s intervention by applying this reading from the celebration of her Visitation to support his own interpretation of events – namely, that Christ has returned because the Gospel is once again being preached? It is impossible to say, but Dick Akerboom and Marcel Gielis have argued that he is.39 Perhaps more direct evidence that the executions became a battleground for the burgeoning Reformation debate over the Virgin Mary may be found in instances where pamphlets describing these events were published together yr gwissen thut sie drucken; die Heylgen Got’s auch nach dem todt von yn gelestert werden, Sie sagen in der letzten nott die knaben noch auf erden Sich sollen han umbkeret’. Luther, Ein neues Lied wir heben an, WA 35:414. 37 ‘Der Sommer ist hart für der Thür / Der Winter ist vergangen, / Die zarten Blümlein geh’n herfür’. WA 35: 414. 38 ‘Aber nu ist die zeyt widder komen, das wir der dordel tauben stym hören und die blumen aufgehen ynn unserm land. Wilcher freud, meyn liebsten, yhr nicht alleyne teylhafftig, sondern die furnehmsten worden seyt, an wilchen wyr solche freude und wonne erlebt haben’. WA 12:77–78. 39 Akerboom and Gielis, ‘“A New Song Shall Begin Here”’, p. 265.

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with other materials, as so often happened during the Reformation. In at least one, but probably two editions of An Account of the Divestment and Burning of the three Christian Knights and Martyrs of the Augustinian Order, a second text entitled ‘The Proper Christian “Salve”’ is also included.40 Printed first in Latin, then in German, this text is a reworked version of the Salve Regina in which supplications to Mary are replaced with appeals to Christ. Thus the whole Salve Regina is transformed into an entirely Christocentric appeal in which Christ is repeatedly referred to as ‘our only mediator.’ In 1523, the Nuremberg rector, Sebald Heyden, had prepared a Christological version of the Salve Regina, which was then sung at the Diet of Nuremberg in that year, and the version published together with the account of the burnings appears to be his work in a slightly altered form. 41 When compared with the first verse of the traditional Salve Regina, the method used by Heyden becomes clear. The traditional Salve goes as follows: Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, Our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we send up our sighs, Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, o most gracious advocate, Thine eyes toward us; And after this, our exile, Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

40 Hildegard Hebenstreit-Wilfert refers to only one edition of the pamphlet that includes the ‘Recht christliche Salve’, an edition from Speyer designated VD16 A 177 in Verzeichnis der Drucke 16. Hebenstreit-Wilfert, ‘Märtyrerflugschiften der Reformationszeit’, p. 399. In this version, the German ‘Recht christliche Salve’ precedes the Latin version. But Cramer and Pijper, who include the ‘Recht christliche Salve’ in their published edition of the broadsheet associated with the case, print the Latin version first, followed by the German. So either Cramer and Pijper arbitrarily switched the original order, a seemingly improbable occurrence, or they used an edition different from the one referred to by Hebenstreit-Wilfert that also included the ‘Recht christliche Salve’, thereby indicating that at least two editions of the pamphlet contained that work. Bibliotheca Reformatoria, vol. 8, pp. 18–19. 41 The difference between Heyden’s version and the one in the pamphlet is that Heyden addresses Christ directly (‘Salve Jesu Christi’), while the version in the pamphlet addresses Mary directly (‘Salue Regis mater misericordie’), but then proceeds to refer to the work of her son. Thus the version we find in this pamphlet is one step closer to the original in that Mary is still the individual to whom the prayer is prayed. For more on Heyden’s text and the Lutheran use of such ‘cleansed’ Marian antiphons, see Frandsen, ‘“Salve Regina/Salve Rex Christe”’, esp. pp. 147–149.

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Thus the entire text is devoted to Mary, urging her to intercede for the sinner. The text paired with an account of the burnings addresses Mary, but changes the focus of the appeals to Christ. Hail Mary, O mother of the King of mercy, of life, of sweetness, and of our hope – be greeted. To him we suffering children of Eve cry; we sigh in lament to him, weeping in this valley of tears. Ah, therefore, O Christ, our intercessor, turn your merciful eyes to us. And show us yourself, Jesus, who makes us blessed after these our miseries. 42

Why pair an account of the burnings of Vos and van den Esschen with a Christocentric version of the Salve Regina? Although the anonymous printer referred to both works on his title page (so this is not a case in which one work was simply bound together with another, but rather the two were intentionally coupled), he offers no rationale. Perhaps it is merely a question of efficiency or of economics. But the speculation regarding Mary’s intervention in the executions raises the logical possibility that ‘The Proper Christian “Salve”’ was included precisely in response to such rumours. The pairing seems to underscore the claim that Christ, not the Virgin Mary, was the sole consolation of Vos and van den Esschen. 43 One more example of such an assembly of texts serves to underscore this point. In 1523 another pamphlet consisting of two texts was produced, which like the previous example, included both works on its title page. The first was Luther’s Sermon on the Birth of Mary, the Mother of God referred to 42 ‘Hiss gegrüsst (Maria.) Du mutter des Künigs der Barmhertzikeit, des lebens, der sussegkeit. Vnd vnsser hoffnung, Sey gegrusst, Zu jm ruffen wir elende kinder Eue, Wir seufftzen, zu jm klagende vnnd weynent in dissem tall der threhern. Eya darumb (O Christe) Vnnsser fursprech disse dine barmhertzige augen kore zu vns. Vnd erzeyg Vnss dich Ihesum (das ist ein Seligmacher) nach dissem elende’. Anonymous, Der Actus unnd hendlung der Degradation und verprennung der Cristlichen dreyen Ritter und Merterer/ Augustiner ordens geschehen zu Brussel/ Anno M.D.xxiii. Prima Julii. Ist darbey das recht Christliche Salve (Speyer: 1523). 43 Although I have been unable to find any commentary on why printers paired certain texts, the more general issue of printers’ motivations for printing has been widely addressed. One school of thought sees their motives as primarily monetary. They printed what they thought would sell. See, for example, Hirsch, Printing, Selling and Reading, pp. 22–23. But such an objective does not negate the possibility that they intentionally paired certain texts along thematic lines. In fact, it supports such a notion, for if a printer thought a particular topic would appeal to his readers, no doubt two texts that addressed that topic would be even more attractive. A second school of thought suggests that printers sometimes had an ideological agenda and printed works that supported it. See, for example, Cole, ‘The Reformation Pamphlet’, p. 150. In either case, the printer appears to have been aware of the connection between the Augustinians’ case and the Virgin Mary. If the latter scenario was the reality of the situation, the printer was also intentionally making a statement about it.

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above, in which Luther criticized those aspects of Marian piety that he saw as beyond the scope of orthodoxy and addressed the issue of true sainthood.44 The second was Luther’s Open Letter to the Christians of the Low Countries, in which he referred to the two friars as ‘two noble jewels of Christ’ (zwey edle Kleynod Christi) and encouraged his readers to praise God because ‘we have heard and seen real saints and true martyrs, we who until now have raised up and worshipped so many false saints’. 45 Why pair these texts? Again, pure chance cannot be ruled out, but it is more likely that the printer was cognizant of the ways in which Mary had been connected to the case, and believed that the texts spoke to one another. By including Luther’s views on the proper understanding of the Virgin Mary, whoever produced the pamphlet responded to the claim of her miraculous intervention without taking it up directly. Mary had not intervened. Rather the friars, martyred for their faith in Christ, had themselves become true saints of God. This implicit rather than explicit approach had the advantage that no one needed attack the claims about Mary’s role in the executions directly.

Conclusion Although the essence of the church’s condemnation of the Antwerp Augustinians was really their refusal to accept the authority of its hierarchy and tradition, by claiming that Mary’s miraculous intercession resulted in their last-second change of heart (or not, as the case may be) when presenting the case to the laity, the authorities shifted the focus to questions surrounding the Virgin Mary, her love for humanity, and her ability to intercede with her son. This transformation indicates the importance of Marian piety as a tool for responding to the challenge of the early Reformation, particularly with regard to the laity. While we can never know for sure, it seems likely that the executions took place when they did to allow for the miraculous intervention of the Virgin, or at least the claim of her intervention. In any case, the authorities charged with the executions used the proximity to a Marian 44 Martin Luther, Ein merklicher Sermon von der gepurt Marie, der muter gottes, wie sie und die heyligen sollen geeret werden von eynem yegklichen Christen menschen. Ein brief an die Christen im Nyderlandt, und an die am hoff zu Prussel von den vorbranten München. Actus und handling (Speyer: 1523). For a reference to this work, see WA 15:76. It is designated VD16 L 5494 in Verzeichnis der Drucke 16. 45 ‘[W]yr erlebt haben rechte heyligen und warhafftige merterer zu sehen und zu horen, die wyr bißher so viel falscher erhebt und angebetet haben’. Luther, Ein brief an die Christen im Nyderlandt, WA 15:78.

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festival to bring the Virgin Mary into this event. The inquisitors appear to have seen the treatment of Mary as a potential weak point in the Augustinians’ platform, one that might drive a wedge between them and the laity. Current scholarship locates the Catholic response to the reformers’ criticism of Marian piety primarily in the Counter-Reformation and period of confessionalization, both phenomena that began in the mid-sixteenth century.46 But in the case of the Antwerp Augustinians, a case of empire-wide and even Europe-wide significance, the churchmen already appear to have understood the potential of traditional Marian piety as a potent response to the Reformation in 1523. The events that transpired in the German Reformed Congregation’s Province of Lower Germany not only influenced those who heard about them directly: they also worked their way into other polemics of the early Reformation period. As we have seen in the last chapter, this phenomenon occurred in the specific case of Arsacius Seehofer. But it also transpired in broader debates concerning martyrdom and sainthood, and more specifically the debate about the Virgin Mary. This is undoubtedly a testament to the breadth and depth of the story’s appeal and impact. Capturing the imagination of so many people across the empire, it stands to reason that such a dramatic moment in the history of the early Reformation as the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen would be employed in many ways and for many purposes by its interpreters. As such, it is difficult to overestimate its impact.

Works Cited Akerboom, Dick and Marcel Gielis, ‘“A New Song Shall Begin Here…”: The Martyrdom of Luther’s Followers among Antwerp’s Augustinians on July 1, 1523 and Luther’s Response’, in More than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity in the History of Christianity, ed. by Johan Leemans (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 243–270. Anonymous, Der Actus und handlung/ der degradation und ver/prennung der Christlichen dreyer Ritter und Mer/terer, Augustiner or/dens geschehen zu Brüssel (Various locations: various publishers, 1523). 46 For example, Brigitte Heal’s discussion of the Catholic response to the Protestant critique of Marian piety begins with Peter Canisius’s 1577 text De Maria Virgine incomparabili, in which Canisius attacks those who have fabricated lies about Mary. And although some of Heal’s evidence for such a response reaches back to the late 1540s, there is little reference to any Catholic response in the first two and a half decades of the Reformation. The exception is her discussion of Georg Hauer’s sermons of 1523. See Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 262–263.

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Anonymous, Historia de Dvobvs Avgvstinensibus, ob Evangelij doctrinam exustis Bruxellae, die trigesima Iunij. Anno domini M.D.XXIII (n.p.: n.p). Antwerpsch Archievenblad, ed. by Paul Génard, 30 vols. (Antwerp: Guil. Can Merlen, 1864–1893). Bähr, Paul, ‘Häretische Sätze aus den Bremer Predigten Heinrichs von Zütphen, Januar und Februar 1523,’ ed. by Ortwin Rudloff Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte 15 (1987), pp. 71–104. Bethencourt, Francisco, The Inquisition: A Global History, 1478–1834, trans. by Jean Birrel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1995] 2009). Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica. Geschriften uit en tijd der hervorming in de Nederlanden, ed. by Samuel Cramer and Fredrik Pijper, 10 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1903–1914). Brooks, Peter, ‘A Lily Ungilded?: Martin Luther, the Virgin Mary and the Saints’, Journal of Religious History 13 (1984), 136–149. Cole, Richard, ‘The Reformation pamphlet and the communication process’, in Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit. Beiträge zum Tübinger Symposion 1980, ed. by H. J. Köhler (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), pp. 139–161. Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticae pravitats Neerlandicae (=CD), ed. by Paul Fredericq, 5 vols. (Gent: J. Vuylsteke, 1889–1902). Documenta Reformatoria Neerlandica. Geschriften uit en tijd der hervorming in de Nederlanden, ed. by Samuel Cramer and Fredrik Pijper, 10 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1903–1914). Düfel, Hans, Luthers Stellung zur Marienverehrung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968). Erasmus, Desiderius, Morae Encomivm id est Stvltitiae Lavs ed. by Clarence Miller, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Ordinis quarti, vol. 4:3 (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1979). ———, Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami denuo recognitum et auctum, ed. by Percy Stafford Allen and H. M. Allen, 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906–1958). Frandsen, Mary E., ‘“Salve Regina/Salve Rex Christe”: Lutheran Engagement with the Marian Antiphons in the Age of Orthodoxy and Piety,’ Musica Disciplina 55 (2010), 129–218. Gregory, Brad S., Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Hauer, Georg, Drey christlich Predig vom Salue regina, dem Evangeli unnd heyligen schrift gemeß (n.p: n.p., 1523). Heal, Bridget, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500–1648 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Hebenstreit-Wilfert, Hildegard, ‘Märtyrerflugschriften der Reformationszeit’, in Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit: Beiträge zum Tübinger

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Symposion 1980, ed. by Hans-Joachim Köhler (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1981), pp. 397–446. Hirsch, Rudolf, Printing, Selling and Reading 1450–1550 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967). Laurent, Charles, J. Lameere, and H. Simont, eds. Des Ordonnances des Pays-Bas. Deuxième Série. 1506–1700. Règne de Charles-Quint 1506–1555, 6 vols. (Bruxelles: J. Goemaere, 1893–1922). Luther, Martin, Luther’s Works, ed. by Ulrich S. Leupold, 78 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955-). ———, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke (=WA), vols. 1–73 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883-). MacCulloch, Diarmaid, ‘Mary and Sixteenth-Century Protestants’, in The Church and Mary: Papers Read at the 2001 Summer Meeting and the 2002 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. by R.N. Swanson (Woodbridge: Ecclesiastical History Society, 2004), 191–217. Oettinger, Rebecca, Music as Propoganda in the German Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001). Probst, Jacob, Fratris Jacobi Praepositi historia utriusque captivitatis in Bonae Literae et Lutherus: Texte und Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Theologie des Bremer Reformators Jakob Probst, ed. by Ortwin Rudloff, Hospitium Ecclesiae: Forschungen zur Bremischen Kirchengeschichte 14 (1985), 42–59. Saak, Erik, Highway to Heaven: The Augustinian Platform between Reform and Reformation, 1292–1524 (Leiden: Brill, 2002). Sleidanus, Joannis, Warhafftige beschreibung geystlicher und weltlicher sachen/ under Keyser Carolo dem Fünfften verloffen (Straßburg: Josias Rihel and Theodosius Rihel, 1557). Thijssen, Augustin, Antwerpen Vermaard door den Eeredienst van Maria: Geschiedkundige Nota’s over de 500 Mariabeelden in de Straten der Stad, 2nd edition (Antwerp: Buerbaum, [1902] 1922). Ullens, Franciscus Godefridus, Antwerpsch Chronykje, in het welk zeer veele en elders te vergeefsch gezogte geschiedenissen, sedert den jare 1500 tot het haar 1574, ed. by Pieter vander Eyk (Leiden: Pieter vander Eyk, 1743).

11. The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germanyand the Dynamics of the Early Reformation Abstract After summarizing the evidence that the events in Lower Germany were a watershed in the early Reformation, this chapter turns to an analysis of how the story of Reformed Augustinians deepens our understanding of the dynamics of the early Reformation. It demonstrates how ideas were passed via Augustinian networks, and the strategic element to their dissemination. It also indicates that impulses from Lower Germany influenced Luther, raising fundamental questions about a simplistic model of the Reformation that places Wittenberg at its centre and understands Martin Luther as its sage. Finally, the chapter shows the importance of the Augustinian context, not only for its impact on Luther’s theology, but for its institutional and administrative structures, and how they facilitated the early Reformation. Keywords: Early Reformation, Protestant martyrologies

Although it falls outside the parameters of this study, when evaluating the impact of the struggle over the cloisters of the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany and especially the demise of Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen, it is worth noting that these events became notorious all over again in the 1550s when the burnings were included in English, French, Dutch, and German martyrologies. John Foxe’s English martyrology, Actes and Monuments, was first published in full in 1563, and thereafter in eight more editions and a handful of abridgements by the late seventeenth century.1 The French-speaking world gained access to the event through 1 Foxe, Actes and monuments; for information on subsequent editions see King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, pp. 92–157.

Christman, R.J., The Dynamics of the Early Reformation in their Reformed Augustinian Context. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463728621_ch11

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Jean Crespin’s Histoire des Martyrs persécutez et mis à mort, first published in 1554 and then in more than fifteen editions, including translations into Latin, Dutch, English, and German, during the next twenty years.2 The Dutch-speaking world was reminded of the executions through Adriaan van Haemstede’s De Gheschiedenisse ende den doodt der vromen Martelaren, published first in 1559 then reprinted a half dozen times by the mid-seventeenth century.3 And German speakers, if they had not already heard about it via the pamphlets or Luther’s ballad, gained access to the event through Ludwig Rabus’s Historien der Heyligen Auszerwöllten Gottes Zeugen, Bekennern und Märtyrern, published first in Latin in 1552, then subsequently in a handful of German editions.4 Via the martyrologies, a new generation of Protestants from across Europe were introduced to the struggles of the Augustinians of Lower Germany. But the presentation of these events in the new context of the later sixteenth century was limited in its scope. While each of the four major Protestant martyrologists included the story of Vos and van den Esschen in some detail, their approach was rather straightforward and limited to the fates of these two men. They took their evidence entirely from the eyewitness accounts, which they paraphrased, synthesized, or even translated word for word.5 None included more than the barest historical context. As a result, the event was almost entirely divorced from the broader developments of the Reformation. We might explain this treatment in two ways. First, it is well known that these authors borrowed from one another, thereby raising the likelihood that their entries would be similar. But second, and more importantly, the goals of the martyrologists coincided so well with those of the early eyewitness accounts that they simply allowed the pamphlets to speak for themselves. Much has been written on the role of martyrologies in the construction of group identities.6 By their very nature they were meant to tell the story of a confession’s heroes in order to inspire the faithful, provide 2 Crespin, Histoire des Martyrs; for information on the subsequent editions see Olson, ‘Jean Crespin, Humanist Printer’, pp. 328–329. 3 Haemstede, De Gheschiedenisse ende den doodt. 4 Rabus, Historien der auserwählten heiligen. 5 Crespin, Haemstaede, and Foxe paraphrase and synthesize the eyewitness accounts, while Rabus’s entry is a word-for-word translation of Anonymous, Historia de Duobus Augustinensibus; with regard to the similarities between the original accounts of executions during this period and what is found in the martyrologies, Brad Gregory asserts, ‘The most important themes of the famous Protestant martyrologies […] were already in place by the 1520s or early 1530s’. Gregory, Salvation at Stake, p. 139. 6 See especially Gregory, Salvation at Stake, pp. 139–196.

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legitimacy for the group, and in the process delegitimize the authority of those doing the persecuting – goals very similar to those of the authors of the eyewitness accounts. Emphasizing the steadfastness of the victims in the face of persecution by treacherous churchmen fit the objectives of the martyrologists; allowing the eyewitnesses to speak for themselves gave their works a further air of objectivity.7 Simply put, the broader historical context was immaterial to their goals. Like the martyrologists of the mid-sixteenth century, contemporary historians have largely taken the cue for their interpretation of these events from the early pamphleteers. As a result, the struggle of the Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany has been reduced to the story of Vos and van den Esschen and the literary impact of their dramatic demise. It goes without saying that this is an important consequence of their deaths. But restricting the encounter to this one event has obscured the roots of their executions, made it impossible to assess accurately the overall importance of the German Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany for the early Reformation, and comprehend the breadth and depth of the impact their actions and story exerted across large swathes of Europe.

The Deaths of Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen: Roots and Ramifications If we concentrate first on the central event of this investigation, the deaths of Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen, this study has demonstrated that, far from being a self-contained or anomalous curiosity, these executions represent a sharp, fatal, and precedent-setting clash in the early Reformation, with deep roots and broad repercussions that would reverberate for decades. An examination of the conflict that led to these executions reveals three important preconditions: the aggressive expansion of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians into Lower Germany; the tactics employed by the Congregation to enable that expansion (which will be addressed in the next section); and the overall religious climate of Lower Germany. Of the six houses added to the Congregation in the 1510s, four were located in Lower Germany. While the founding of the cloister in Eisleben and the annexation of the Rappoltsweiler cloister were not particularly controversial, the addition of the Ghent, Cologne, and Dordrecht houses 7 Brad Gregory has analyzed the use of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen as literary topoi in great detail. See Salvation at Stake, esp. pp. 139–196.

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and the establishment of the Antwerp cloister all raised tensions with the Conventuals and with the local ecclesiastical authorities. This is particularly true in the case of the Antwerp cloister, where the canons of the Church of Our Lady were infuriated, leading them to engage their lawyer, Adrian Florizsoon – future Pope Adrian VI – who threatened the Augustinians with excommunication. Ultimately, Frans van der Hulst, the future imperial and papal inquisitor, was brought in to mediate. With regard to the ecclesiastical politics of Lower Germany then, the situation was by no means a tabula rasa when the Reformed Augustinians began to preach “Reformation” ideas. Friction already existed; key individuals on both sides had a history. This is not to say that the actions taken against the Augustinians of Lower Germany between 1521 and 1523 were merely the settling of old scores. However, it must be said that the sharp response of the ecclesiastical authorities, particularly after the papal bull threatening Martin Luther with excommunication (1520) and the Edict of Worms (1521) were promulgated, was not without its prehistory. Second, when considering the background of the conflict that ended in the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen, it is worth noting that the general religious atmosphere in Lower Germany was likewise by no means a clean slate. Critique of the late medieval church was widespread. Indulgences had been roundly criticized for decades. The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany simply picked up on many of the criticisms already extant, and as a result they developed a significant following among the laity. The ground had been well-prepared for Luther’s ideas, many of which were not novel at all. Thus the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen were not purely the result of the preaching of “Reformation Doctrines”. They were rooted in a broader struggle and wider religious milieu. This realization begins the process of reintegrating this event into its broader historical context, and demonstrates that it was not simply an historical anomaly. Beyond providing a new understanding of the important prehistory to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, this investigation has also afforded new insight into the events themselves, and therefore the importance of the Reformed Augustinians of the Province of Lower Germany in the early Reformation. Far from being a series of random occurrences on the periphery of Luther’s geographical and mental worlds, the conflict that ended in the executions of these two friars was fully comprehended, immediate, and personal for Luther and his Augustinian colleagues in Wittenberg. Travelling back and forth from the Low Countries across Northern Germany, many of the men intimately involved in these events were not just colleagues, but close friends of the Reformer. For Luther, the prosecutions of Probst,

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Miritsch, van Zutphen, and Thorn, not to mention Vos and van den Esschen, were practically a family affair. We are left to wonder whether those charged with silencing them were also aware of this. Certainly Jerome Aleander, the papal legate, scrutinized Probst’s movements, commenting that he went to visit Luther just after the promulgation of the Edict of Worms, and returned employing a new strategy of no longer speaking the name of Luther publicly, while at the same time preaching Luther’s ideas.8 Such observations suggest that he fully understood the personal dimensions of this affair. Not only did these executions take place in the heart of Luther’s social world, but the conflict leading up to them provided Luther and his colleagues with an arena in which to meet their opponents not just in the world of literary debates, but on the ground. Even if it was only for the short period from c. 1519 until late 1522 (though longer in the case of the Cologne cloister), through their connections to their brethren in Lower Germany Luther, Linck, and the pro-Reformation brain trust of the German Reformed Augustinians had both a venue and the means by which to promote their theology and ecclesiology in the face of the enemy. Using the methods Staupitz and other predecessors pioneered to encourage Observant monastic reform, Luther and his Reformed Augustinian colleagues fostered the proliferation of their critique of the church and their understanding of theology. Due to the counter-efforts of their opponents, it soon became almost impossible to disseminate Reformation ideas by these means in the Low Countries. But for a crucial period the Reformed cloisters of the Augustinians of Lower Germany were the front lines of the early Reformation. If the Reformed Augustinians were a tightknit group closely connected to Luther, this study has also demonstrated that their array of opponents was likewise comprised of close friends and acquaintances. Far from being the result of some overzealous prosecutor, the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen were the consequences of a broad coalition of interests and individuals tied directly to the most powerful temporal and spiritual powers of the early modern period. The emperor’s inquisitor (who on 1 June 1523 also became a papal inquisitor), Frans van der Hulst, was a close associate and mentee of Pope Adrian VI. Adrian, who had represented the Canons of the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp against the interests of the Reformed Augustinians, was himself an erstwhile colleague of the faculty of theology at the University of Leuven and remained their highly respected adviser. What is more, Adrian had been the tutor of Charles V, and continued to have close ties to him. All 8 Aleander to Vice-Chancellor de Medici, 2 September 1521. Monumenta Reformationis Lutheranae, pp. 286–287.

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this emphasizes that both sides of the dispute were characterized by close personal ties. Knowledge of this fact heightens the importance of these events because they all take on a personal edge. As a result, their impact on those involved is more profound than might otherwise be the case. We see this most clearly with Luther. For him, Adrian was not just the pope on whose watch Vos and van den Esschen were executed. He was a hypocrite and murderer. What is more, for both pope and emperor, the campaign against the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany represented an early and important effort in their response to the Reformation. By establishing an imperial judicial body designed to meet the growing threat in his ancestral lands, Charles sought to seize control of the situation, bringing the issue of religious dissent into the realm of temporal politics. Although ultimately abortive, the case indicates how acute the emperor considered the threat, and perhaps even how shrewd he was in attempting to expand his powers over and against the local and ecclesiastical authorities. For the papacy, the Low Countries offered a venue in which to respond to the challenge of Luther and his allies which lacked many of the obstructions set in its path by the city and territorial authorities in the Empire. This is not to say that pope and emperor had free reign in the Low Countries, but it is to suggest that they had more room to manoeuvre than in many of the territories of the Empire. As a result, the campaign against the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany exposed the papacy’s desired response to the theology and ecclesiology of Luther and his followers. With the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen, Pope Adrian’s contention that condemned heretics of the Lutheran stripe deserved death became a reality. Cognizant of the threat posed by the German Reformed Augustinians, his confirmation of van der Hulst as papal inquisitor represents just one move in a broader strategy to eliminate their influence. In other words, the executions of Vos and van den Esschen exemplify the desired responses of pope and emperor to the threat of the Reformation. In addition to its prehistory and the nature of the event itself, this study has revealed more fully the impact of the struggle surrounding the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany. The publicity generated by the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen rippled across the Low Countries and the Empire, moving and inspiring individuals and groups from across society in a variety of ways. For Martin Luther and other German Reformed Augustinians, with their intimate connections to these friends and colleagues, the event had a clarifying effect: this struggle was no longer theoretical or literary, it had become mortal. But beyond that, or perhaps because of it, when Luther

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observed the events in the Low Countries and pondered the totality of the situation, he was moved to the theological conclusion that God himself was at work in the Reformation. By equating the deaths of Vos and van den Esschen with God’s victory as described in Psalms 96 and 98, Luther looked past the politics and temporal concerns that led to the executions and saw the workings of the Almighty in a most vivid and biblical way. With his thorough knowledge of the situation he concluded that the only possible explanation for the tremendous resolve demonstrated by Vos and van den Esschen, the two men in this story perhaps least expected to be heroic, was the miraculous hand of God at work. This conviction undoubtedly provided him with comfort and renewed confidence in the struggle in which he was involved. But these events also laid bare for him what he came to see as the true character of Pope Adrian VI, whose overtures toward reform, Luther concluded, were mere hypocrisy in light of the way he had treated Vos and van den Esschen. For Luther, then, the executions of Vos and van den Esschen represent a divine affirmation of his work, and a clear confirmation of the papacy’s opposition to the Gospel. Not only did the experiences of the Augustinians of Lower Germany significantly impact Luther, they deeply influenced the public’s perception of the Reformation movement and the traditional church. While historians have long assumed this to be the case due to the amount of press the executions received, this study has provided concrete evidence of such impact as well as insight into the nature of it. In Antwerp and Brussels, memories of these executions were kept alive by eyewitnesses appreciative of the Augustinians and their message, some of whom credited the deaths with having influenced their own religious loyalties. The steadfastness with which Vos and van den Esschen clung to their beliefs as they faced the pyre inspired many of their local contemporaries, confirming for them the truth of the Augustinians’ message. As a result of Claes vander Elst’s portrayal of Lambert Thorn, the third Augustinian defrocked and imprisoned – but not burned – Thorn became a living paradigm of a Christian life lived under persecution, and support for him as a Christian brother in need became a means of resistance to the traditional church, as well as a way to fulfill Christ’s command to visit those in prison. As the case of Vos and van den Esschen entered the world of Reformation polemics via the many pamphlets, Luther’s ballad, and personal communications, its impact manifested itself not only in the widespread interest displayed in the story of these events, but in other concrete and palpable ways. In the public debate over the Reformation in Ingolstadt, the executions of Vos and van den Esschen became a means by which the supporters of

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reform could denounce the ecclesiastical authorities and critique clerical power. On the other side, opponents of Luther’s reform understood the story’s power to influence public opinion against them and did their best to silence those who would publicize the deaths. But they also held the case up as an object lesson: Vos and van den Esschen had received the just rewards of their disloyalty to the church. With this claim, a note of warning was sounded. Others who held similar views would be handled in like manner. Thus the executions worked their way into the fabric of the Reformation contest in Ingolstadt, and the degree to which the Empire was inundated with news of these events makes it difficult to believe that this was the only city where the executions came to influence popular opinion in concrete ways. Finally, when assessing the impact of these events, particularly the burning of Vos and van den Esschen, it is important to note how the executions were interpreted in ways that in themselves could be employed as arguments for diverse purposes. A short list of such interpretations serves to illustrate this phenomenon. Luther saw the event as proof that God himself had entered the fray and as evidence that the pious reputation of Pope Adrian VI was mere hypocrisy. Erasmus considered it a warning about how a hardline approach to the Reformation by the church would have the opposite of its intended effect. The physician Wolfgang Reichart saw it as evidence of the duplicitous and intimidating nature of the mendicants. Colleagues of Frans van der Hulst deemed it evidence of the mercy, intercession, and salvific power of the Virgin Mary, while George Hauer considered it a demonstration Mary’s anger with the Protestants and employed it as a warning to Ingolstadt’s would-be “Lutherans”. The key point is that the “use” of the burning of Vos and van den Esschen went well beyond the propaganda articulated in the pamphlets recounting the event. It was imbued with a variety of meanings which were then deployed in a range of arguments current in the period – perhaps none more so than the conflict over the proper understanding of the nature and role of the Virgin Mary. Fifty years ago, Gerhard Ebeling described the Reformation as engendered by Martin Luther as a Sprachereignis, a ‘language event’. While Ebeling used the term to refer specifically to Luther’s role as university professor and preacher being the basis for his many other activities such as polemicist, publicist, churchman, and educator of the people (Volkserzieher), the term has become a sort of shorthand among historians to denote the enormous role played by language in the theological controversies of the Reformation and in the spread of Reformation ideas.9 More recently, much research on 9 Ebeling, Luther: Einführung in sein Denken, p. 5.

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the Reformation has focused on confessionalization, the process by which various groups developed and codified their confessional positions, then set about applying the results to daily life and culture, often in close alliance with the state.10 Neither approach places much emphasis on historical events as shapers of opinion and stimulators of change. Most historians would undoubtedly agree that there are some: Luther at Worms, his marriage in 1525, outbreaks of iconoclasm, the Peasants’ War, the debacle at Münster, the Schmalkald War, and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. But generally speaking, the Reformation is understood as a movement in which words and ideas were applied to the religious, political, and social issues of the time, and those words are what produced change. This investigation has demonstrated that the executions of Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen offer another exception to this rule. Their deaths, along with the events leading up to the executions and their subsequent impact, prove to be among the most important and broadly influential events of the Reformation. As such, they enrich our understanding of the Reformation in its earliest phases, and deserve a place in future studies of this period.

The Dynamics of the Early Reformation The findings of this examination range beyond a more comprehensive understanding of an important event in the early Reformation. They open a new window into the dynamics or workings of that entire movement during a crucial period in its history. Areas and issues elucidated in this examination include: a concrete understanding of the means by which ideas of the Reformation were disseminated via the Reformed Augustinian networks; the impact of this event on any model of the early Reformation that views Wittenberg as the centre and reform as emanating from it (or framed slightly differently, the dynamic between the Reformation as it played out at its centre in Wittenberg and as it was experienced “behind enemy lines”); the significance of the Low Countries as a strategic site of early confrontation; the German Reformed Augustinian context, such an important crucible for the development of the Reformation; Luther’s role in the early Reformation, not only as a source of its content, but as someone who worked strategically 10 Confessionalization may be more closely defined as the process by which various states and territories incorporated confession-building and state formation in the second half of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. See Schilling, ‘Confessionalization and the Empire’, p. 208. For a broader discussion, see Lotz-Heumann, ‘Confessionalization’.

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to disseminate his ideas using the assets at his disposal; and the resulting insight gained into the character and abilities of the Reformer. In many ways, the confrontation over the Reformed Augustinian cloisters of Lower Germany presents a microcosm of the early Reformation itself. In his monumental investigation of the early Reformation, Thomas Kaufmann has described its earliest days as a dynamic process in which events and insights experienced by groups and individuals were publicized along various communication networks, many established already prior to the Reformation. But he admits that ‘often the first and earliest mobility actors [those who transmitted ideas] of the Reformation remain cloaked in darkness; it is only seldom that we know concretely who was responsible for the fact that far from the provincial city in Electoral Saxony, Luther’s texts began to be read, discussed, and publicized’.11 The first way in which this investigation has added to our broader understanding of the workings of the early Reformation movement is by providing one clear example of who was disseminating Reformation ideas and how such information was transmitted. The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany used their established networks to communicate the ideas of the Reformation. While it is clear that Luther’s writings were circulated among them, this investigation has demonstrated that much communication took place via direct contact – word of mouth. Young Reformed Augustinian friars came to Wittenberg, learned at the feet of Luther and his colleagues, and carried their ideas and convictions back to their home cloisters. Although this study has concentrated on the seven cloisters of Lower Germany, it is difficult to imagine that similar dynamics were not at work with respect to the other houses of the Congregation, but perhaps also to the Conventual Augustinian houses, many of which had sent young recruits to Wittenberg as well. From its efforts to silence all the houses of the Congregation, it is clear that the papacy certainly considered this to be the case. In addition to these younger and undoubtedly more impressionable members of the Reformed Congregation, a cadre of Luther’s Augustinian contemporaries also travelled to Wittenberg to study, to converse, and to seek advice. Undoubtedly these men interacted on a more collegial level than their younger contemporaries, bringing news of the situations in their home cloisters, not to mention their own views with regard to theology, ecclesiology, and the general state of Christianity. At the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), Luther provided some of these mature leaders of the Congregation with an argument for his soteriology, which, it appears, many 11 Kaufmann, Der Anfang der Reformation, p. 3.

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found convincing. But soteriology was not the real issue for those prosecuting the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany; it was a critique of traditional ecclesiology and church authority, and specifically Luther’s conviction that the papacy was an illegitimate institution. By early 1520, Luther had come to the conclusion that the papacy was the seat of the Antichrist (he says as much in a private letter to Spalatin on 2 February 1520),12 and by the end of the year he had articulated this view publicly and forcefully.13 What is more, in late 1520, works such as Adversus Execrabilem Antichristi Bullam had already found some distribution in the Low Countries.14 It may be that the Antwerp Augustinians had simply read some of these works, but I think it more likely that Luther convinced his colleagues from Lower Germany in conversations that occurred during those early years when many of them lived together in Wittenberg’s Black Cloister. And perhaps it didn’t take much convincing. The zeal and absolute conviction of a man like Hendrik van Zutphen regarding his own views on the papacy suggest that such discussions were not one-sided; Luther’s colleagues both gave and received. And it is important to note that these contemporaries of Luther, men like Probst, van Zutphen, and Miritsch, were themselves influencers in the context of their own cloisters. Within these Augustinian networks, word of mouth based upon direct contact with Luther was a key means by which the early Reformation spread. The second dynamic of the early Reformation that this study reveals concerns the relationship between the centre and the periphery, so to speak. If we think spatially for a moment, understanding Wittenberg as the intellectual centre or “hearth” of the Reformation and Lower Germany in this case as the periphery, the traditional way to understand the dynamic between the two has just been alluded to: ideas are produced at the centre and emanate outward. But as the previous paragraph also hints, this interplay was not uni-directional. At the very least the experiences of those on the periphery, in this case the Augustinians of Lower Germany, directly impacted the thoughts and ideas at the centre.15 The most overt example of this phenomenon illustrates the point. When Martin Luther received news of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, the result of a series of events 12 Luther, Briefwechsel (=WABr) 2:48. 13 See Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, pp. 105–120. 14 Visser, Luther’s Geschriften in de Nederlanden, p. 131. 15 Marjorie Plummer has made a similar point with regard to the issue of clerical marriage. Luther was reluctant to address it, but the actions of many of his clerical supporters, particularly ‘rural, seemingly unimportant clergy and their parishioners’ who simply decided to marry, pushed him to engage the issue. Plummer, From Priest’s Whore to Pastor’s Wife, p. 53.

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that he had been closely following, they convinced him that God himself had become directly involved in the Reformation, that the Almighty, in his own paradoxical way, was working in support of it. Here events on “the periphery” directly and significantly influenced the thought at “the centre”. But the influence of the Augustinians of Lower Germany on “the centre” went beyond Luther merely observing what was happening on “the periphery”, then processing it, assigning meaning, and disseminating that meaning. Long before Luther published against indulgences in 1517, the Low Countries had been a hotbed of critique of the church and of the practice of indulgences in particular. With the presence of Erasmus, himself a product of Low Countries’ renewal movements (such as the Brethren of the Common Life), Christian humanism’s criticism of the church was widespread and influential, a fact attested by Papal Legate Aleander when he claimed that the two biggest problems in the Low Countries were Erasmus and the prior of the Antwerp Augustinians, who was of the genus of demons that required a stick.16 How did the experiences and ideas of those Augustinians of Lower Germany – individuals who, as we have seen, were closely connected to Luther – influence his ideas regarding indulgences, and perhaps even his views regarding the legitimacy of the contemporary church? It is impossible to say, but it strikes me as naive to think that no conversations about such topics were taking place in Wittenberg during the 1510s. Even if Luther himself never visited the Low Countries (the closest he came was attending the chapter meeting in Cologne in 1512), their religious context and the ideas circulating there were brought home to him via his colleagues in a very direct way. The “periphery”, too, it seems, generated ideas that would become aspects of Reformation thought. The influence of the Augustinians of Lower Germany on Wittenberg is on full display in the events that took place in the Black Cloister while Luther was sequestered in the Wartburg from 4 May 1521 to 6 March 1522. The contingent of students from the Low Countries, as well as near-contemporaries like van Zutphen, pushed the pace and nature of reform to levels that made him uncomfortable. Whether their fanaticism was the result of the longer tradition of church criticism in the Low Countries or the more recent phenomenon of living there under the constant fear of persecution is hard to say. But they were clearly a more radical element among the inhabitants of Wittenberg’s Reformed Augustinian cloister. Although Luther returned from the Wartburg expressly to quiet the situation, it is difficult to imagine that the impulses and zeal of the cloister’s inhabitants from Lower Germany did 16 Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation, vol. 2, p. 39.

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not impact his thinking. They were pushing him forward. Once again events, ideas, the general fervour of those involved, as well as the experiences they brought with them from “the periphery”, influenced “the centre” – not the other way around. At very least, they became grist for Luther’s mill. Such observations raise some fundamental questions about any model that presumes de facto that Wittenberg was at the centre, another way in which this investigation addresses the dynamics of the early Reformation. This centre/periphery model to which I refer is not based upon any specif ic discussion by historians, but is rather an articulation of what appears to be a common assumption, an assumption that finds expression in almost every textbook on the Reformation and every biography of Luther. The general arc of such studies is, broadly speaking, as follows: late medieval European/German discontent; Luther’s childhood, education, and existential struggles; Luther’s breakthrough; the dissemination and impact of Luther’s ideas. Whether intentionally or not, Luther becomes the movement’s intellectual guru, Wittenberg the capital or centre of the Reformation from which ideas emanate. While such a model is not entirely inaccurate, evidence derived from the experiences of the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany suggests that it is far too simplistic. For not only were these Augustinians on the front lines of the Reformation, their experiences there and their vision of reform influenced Luther’s thought and the direction of the Reformation. Such a realization raises another fundamental question: what do the events in Lower Germany in this investigation mean for our understanding of the role of the Low Countries in the early Reformation? In the early twentieth century, Paul Kalkoff published his study Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation in den Niederlanden, in which he examined the response by imperial, papal, territorial, and local ecclesiastical authorities to the earliest impulses of the Reformation there.17 Building on the work of Dutch historians who had already investigated the early Reformation in the Low Countries, Kalkoff demonstrated that this area of Europe was a key point of conflict in the early Reformation. He identified the array of forces in the Low Countries that worked to contain the spread of the Reformation, their interaction with one another, and the specifics of these efforts. By necessity he also identified individuals and groups who attempted to support and disseminate Reformation ideas. But as the title of his book suggests, his efforts ended at the borders of the Low Countries, which defined the parameters of his investigation. 17 Kalkoff, Die Anfänge der Gegenreformation.

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This study has taken one key element of Kalkoff’s investigation, the conflict surrounding the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, and followed its trail beyond the confines of the Low Countries to Wittenberg, Rome, Ingolstadt, and wherever influences from outside the Low Countries resided and news of these events travelled. The result is that the executions of Hendrik Vos and Johann van den Esschen are transformed from an important clash in the history of the Reformation in the Low Countries to a key episode in the Reformation as a whole. If we understand the Reformation not as a movement in which ideas emanated outward from a specific point, but as a Europe-wide clash of beliefs, the events in the Low Countries begin to take on a different complexion. No longer are they merely episodes in a regional conflict, but a key flashpoint on a European scale. Put another way, for the brief period 1519–1523, some of the Reformation’s most important battle lines were drawn there. In a sense, then, it was the Low Countries that were the centre of the Reformation during this period. This is not to say that anti-Reformation forces in other lands and territories were not forcefully reacting to the spread of Reformation ideas. The situation in Ingolstadt clearly demonstrates that they were. But it does suggest that it would be difficult to find many places in Europe where the fight over Reformation ideas was pursued with more vigour and with more direct involvement by important and powerful individuals and entities. It is perhaps no coincidence that the trail of controversy over the executions of Vos and van den Esschen and their interpretation manifested itself most strongly in the Low Countries and Ingolstadt – precisely the locations where Jerome Aleander and Johann Eck, the papal legates charged with publicizing the bull Exsurge Domine, had their greatest success.

The Augustinian Context of the Early Reformation The preceding discussion of the dissemination of Reformation thought via Augustinian networks, the relationship and nature of the “centre” and “periphery” of the movement, and the importance of the Low Countries in the early Reformation all take place within the context of the German Reformed Congregation of Augustinians. This observation raises the question of the importance of the Augustinian context for Luther’s development and for that of the early Reformation. Although excellent studies on Luther’s thought as it relates to and was influenced by late-medieval Augustinianism exist, especially as Luther’s thought connects to that of Johann von Staupitz, the intellectual environment tells only part of the story. This investigation has

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demonstrated that the broader Augustinian context – one that includes the whole ethos of the German Reformed Augustinians, their social, cultural, and administrative traditions – must be taken into consideration. Eric Saak has done groundbreaking work in this area, focusing specifically on Luther’s development within this broader Reformed Augustinian context.18 This study moves the camera back even further to take a wider view of the dynamics of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians during this period. By placing Luther and the early Reformation more broadly in this frame, the influence of that group and its role in the dynamics of the early Reformation are revealed. It becomes increasingly evident that, despite his eventual denunciation of the Augustinians and his removal of their cowl in 1524, Luther’s time as a friar provided him an opportunity not only to make his key theological discoveries, but to hone his skills as a preacher, educator, pastor, and administrator, while providing him with insight into ecclesiastical politics, all experiences that would benefit him in his work on the Reformation. In particular, this study has elucidated the strategies pioneered in the decades prior to the Reformation by the hierarchy of the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians for the expansion of their influence, and shown how they were assumed and repurposed by Luther and his colleagues during the Reformation. Drawing young men from across the German-speaking world to Wittenberg for training, before returning them to their homelands to spread what they had learned; installing specific individuals in key positions within the Congregation to support and expand reform; convincing powerful princes and city councils of the need of reform – these were all strategies established not in the early days of the Reformation, but in the decades prior to it. Luther and his colleagues, with their years of experience in the Congregation, merely employed them in the service of the Reformation: first within the Congregation itself, then more expansively in the broader Reformation. Such strategies for the dissemination of Reformation ideas would permeate that entire movement. Not only does this study shed new light on the Augustinian context of the early Reformation, it provides insight into Martin Luther as an individual and reformer. In the events encompassing the Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany, Luther proves to be a theologian and intellectual, but also someone deeply emotionally invested in the struggles of his fellow friars. Even more important, however, is his active observation of the personalities and events occurring in the Low Countries, and his strategizing with regard to the best 18 See Saak, Luther and the Reformation; and Saak, Highway to Heaven.

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way to respond to the opposition there and promote Reformation ideas. Luther was deeply engaged not only with the content of the Reformation, but its dissemination as well. As Andrew Pettegree has recently demonstrated, Luther harnessed the power of the printing press by becoming directly involved in the day-to-day operations of the printers, not to mention the aesthetics of his own printed works. In other words, Luther took a keen interest in the concrete ways in which his ideas were broadcast.19 The present study has revealed a similar phenomenon with regard to the assets available through the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians. Like the printing press, Luther harnessed the Congregation in the service of the Reformation cause. Clearly, he was not only an intellectual leader but a tactician in the effort to promote Reformation ideas in concrete and explicit ways. By the end of 1522 and the beginning of 1523, the burgeoning Reformation in its Reformed Augustinian context had largely passed away.20 Since 1517, this movement that began within the Reformed Congregation had been exceeding those boundaries. But in the short period from 1519 through 1523, the Reformed Augustinian context of the Reformation was still an important arena, one characterized by personal ties and interactions, and by first-hand knowledge of events and movements. Nowhere was this more the case than in Lower Germany, which might be likened to a test tube for the Reformation struggle. What happened there set a precedent and 19 See Pettegree, Brand Luther. 20 It is easy to forget that up through about the time of the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, much of the Reformation took place in the context of the Augustinian Order. It is worth remembering that Luther only removed his cowl in 1524. A quick overview of his correspondence during this period drives this point home. Volume 1 of the Weimar Edition of Luther’s Briefwechsel covers letters from the years 1501–1520. Of the 202 letters to 43 people or groups he wrote to during that period, 38 (or 18%) were to fellow Augustinians. If one subtracts letters to Spalatin and the Elector of Saxony from these numbers (106), then Luther sent 38 of 96 (40%) to fellow Augustinians. Given the early stage in his life, this high percentage should come as no surprise. A look at Volume 2 of Luther’s correspondence, covering the years 1520–1522, suggests that Luther was still very much in the world of the Augustinians during this period. Of the 273 letters Luther wrote to 74 individuals or groups, 34 (or 12%) were to fellow Augustinians; if we exclude the 135 sent to Spalatin and the Elector, then 34 of 138 of Luther’s letters were sent to fellow Augustinians or 25%. By the time we get to Volume 3 of Luther’s correspondence, the prominence of the Augustinian world, and perhaps the Augustinian world itself, had faded for Luther. In the years 1523–1525, Luther wrote a total of 347 letters to 122 individuals or groups, only 15 of which were to fellow or former Augustinians. In other words, only 4% of his letters were to fellow Augustinians, and even when we exclude the 136 letters to Spalatin and the Elector, that percentage rises only to 7%. Although this overview is entirely quantitative, and completely reliant upon what documents survived the ravages of time, this unscientific and number-reliant overview suggests that after 1522, Luther and the Reformation rapidly outgrew the Augustinian context.

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helped lay the groundwork for all that would follow. If we are to properly understand the historical unfolding of the early Reformation as experienced by those parties involved on both sides, the dynamics of the struggle over the Reformed Augustinian cloisters of Lower Germany must be a part of it.

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Pettegree, Andrew, Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation (New York: Penguin Press, 2015). Plummer, Marjorie, From Priest’s Whore to Pastor’s Wife: Clerical Marriage and the Process of Reformation in the Early German Reformation (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012). Rabus, Ludwig, Historien der auserwählten heiligen Gottszeugen, Bekenner, und Martyrer (Straßburg: Samuel Emmel, 1555-1556). Saak, Erik, Highway to Heaven: The Augustinian Platform between Reform and Reformation, 1292-1524 (Leiden: Brill, 2002). ———, Luther and the Reformation of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Schilling, Heinz, ‘Confessionalization and the Empire’ in Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society: Essays in German and Dutch History, ed. by Heinz Schilling (Leiden: Brill, 1992). Visser, Casper, Luther’s Geschriften in de Nederlanden tot 1546 (Assen: van Gorcum, 1969).

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About the Author

Robert J. Christman is Professor of History at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, USA. His publications include Doctrinal Controversy and Lay Religiosity in Late Reformation Germany: The Case of Mansfeld (2012) and numerous articles. His research focuses on the Reformation in the German speaking lands and in the Low Countries.

Index Adrian (Hadrian) of Antwerp: 189 Adrian VI, pope (Adrian Floriszoon): 14-15, 49-51, 56, 62, 80-88, 145-149, 160, 164, 197-198, 218-221 Aegidius de Viterbo: 28 Akerboom, Dick: 208 Albrecht IV, Count of Mansfeld: 28 Aleander, Jerome: 15, 52, 57-58, 77-79, 102, 105, 115, 122, 219, 226, 228 Alexander IV, pope: 22 Alexander VI, pope: 32 Anger, Hieronymus: 188-189 Antichrist: 41, 43, 119 Antwerp: 48-49, 66, 164, 198 Canons of the Church of Our Lady: 37, 49-51 Church of Our Lady: 198, 202 City Council: 50-51, 67, 121 laity of: 119 Antwerp Augustinians: 110-121 Argula von Grumbach: 176, 182-183 Aristotle: 40 Augustine, St.: 40 Augustinian Order: 12, 21-22 Lecceto, Congregation of: 23 Province of Germany: 22 Province of Bavaria: 22, 24 Province of Cologne: 22, 30, 36, 85 Province of Rhenish-Swabia: 22, 24, 27, 29 Province of Saxony: 22-24 Bähr, Paul: 118, 200-201 Beghards: 68 Benno, Bishop of Meissen: 147-149 Bernard of Orley: 164 Besler, Nikolaus: 97, 161 Billicanus, Theobald: 42 Botzheim, Johann: 177 Brassicanus, Johann Alexander: 176, 181-182 Bremen: 66, 104-105, 118, 186-187 Brenz, Johannes: 42 Brussels: 11, 58, 122, 163 Bucer, Martin: 42 Buxschott, Adrian: 190-191 Cambrai, Bishop of: 76 Casper, Charles: 114-115 Charles V, emperor: 13, 56, 61-62, 79-80, 83, 104, 198, 202 Chiericati, Francesco: 82, 145-146, 177 Cologne, city council of: 159-162 Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians: 12-13, 21-43, 224 Chapter Meetings: Dordrecht (1522): 62, 70, 84, 104, 156-157

Eisleben (1520): 97-98 Grimma (1522): 61-62, 66, 103-104 Heidelberg (1518): 41-42, 224 Wittenberg (1522): 103, 112 Cloisters: Antwerp: 12, 14-15, 37-38, 48-70, 110, 217 Cologne: 12, 34, 38, 62, 86, 159-162, 217 studium generale: 34, 86, 98-99 Dordrecht: 34-36, 38, 62, 102, 156-157, 217 Dresden: 38 Eisleben: 27, 37, 54-55, 93-94, 217 Enghien (Edingen): 12, 31-32, 62, 158 Enkhuizen: 12, 32, 37-38, 49, 62, 158-159 Erfurt: 13, 95 Ghent: 12, 36, 38, 62, 99, 157-158, 217 Haarlem: 12, 33, 62, 158 Magdeburg: 23, 38 Munich: 87 Nuremburg: 23 Rappoltsweiler: 27-28, 217 Waldheim: 23 Wittenberg: 13, 30-31, 38, 40, 61-62 studium generale: 41, 53, 92-93, 96, 111 Province of Lower Germany: 12-16, 30-39, 75, 98, 110-111, 121 Province of Saxony-Thuringia: 27, 41 Province of Upper Germany: 27 Cologne: Archbishop of: 159 City council: 33 confessionalization: 212, 222-223 conventicles: 163-167 Conventuals: 30, 157, 162 Council of Brabant: 50-51, 56, 70 Counter-Reformation: 197, 212 Crespin, Jean: 215-216 Decavele, Johan: 98 Diercxsens, Jean: 63-64 Diet of Worms: 15, 78 Diet of Nuremburg: 145-146, 209 Dietmarsh (Heide Dietmarsh): 66, 187 Dürer, Albrecht: 93 Ebeling, Gerhard: 222 Eck, Johann: 179-180, 228 Edict of Worms: 15, 57, 102, 219 Egmond, Nicholas of: 57, 80, 164, 181 Elst, Claes (Nicolaas) vander: 164-167, 221 Erasmus of Rotterdam: 16, 52, 58, 78, 103, 162-163, 175-175, 205, 207, 222, 226

254 

THE DYNAMICS OF THE EARLY REFORMATION

Esschen, Johann van den: 11-12, 37, 54-55, 63, 65, 70, 129-130, 217-223 Exsurge Domine, papal bull: 15, 77

Luther, Martin: 13, 15-18, 21, 38, 41, 57-60, 65, 68-69, 93-101, 104-105, 112, 159, 219, 220-221, 225-227, 229-230 as District Vicar of Saxony-Thuringia: 54, 93-94 The Freedom of a Christian: 149 journey to Rome: 95 ninety-five theses: 41, 96, 159, 175 Heidelberg theses: 41-42 ‘A New Song Here Shall Be Begun’: 135-155, 175, 207 Open Letter to the Christians in the Low Countries: 137, 143-144, 174-175, 208, 211 ‘priesthood of all believers’: 124 sola scriptura: 125 soteriology: 41-42 Virgin Mary, understanding of: 199-200

Fifth Lateran Council (1512-1517): 28 Focker, Jacob: 184 Foxe, John: 215 Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony: 28, 33, 111, 146-147 free will, doctrine of: 126, 129 Gansfort, Wessel: 114 Gielis, Marcel: 208 Giles of Viterbo: 40 Glapion, Jean: 57, 78-80 Goch, Johannes Pupper von: 60 Grapheus, Cornelius: 60, 65 Gregory of Rimini: 23 George of Saxony, Duke: 148, 163 Gracht, Gedeon van der: 158 Groote, Geert: 114 Haemstede, Andriaan van: 216 Hauer, George: 178-180, 184-185, 205, 207, 222 Held, Conrad: 111-112 Heyden, Sebald: 209-210 Himmel, Heinrich: 34, 86, 98-99, 159-162 Hochstraten, Jacob: 57, 77 Hoen, Cornelius: 60, 65 Hoens, Joost: 48-50, Hulst, Frans van der: 50, 56, 58, 69-70, 79-80, 82-83, 119, 130, 197-198, 206, 218-219 Huysden, Johannes: 34 indulgences: 43, 66, 102, 114-115, 218 Ingolstadt: 178-185, 228 inquisition: 56-70, 82, 122-130, 140-141, 147 Jodocus, Count of Hoya: 190 John Paul II, pope: 146 Jung, Martin: 188 justification by faith: 122, Kalkoff, Paul: 60, 98, 227-228 Karlstadt, Andreas Bodenstein von: 54, 61, 111-113 Kaufmann, Thomas: 224 Kempis, Thomas á: 114 Kinderen, Jan der: 165-167 Kolde, Theodor: 35 Lambert of Bonn: 160-161 Lang, Johannes: 96-97 Latomus, Jacob: 57-58, 80 Leipzig Disputation: 57, 179 Leo X, pope: 15, 28, 36, 145, 149 Linck, Wenceslaus: 38, 61-62, 87, 92-93, 97-100, 103-105, 112, 161-162

Mansfeld, Territory of: 28 Margaret of Austria: 62, 64, 67-68, 198, 202 martyrdom: 135-153 martyrologies: 215-217 Mary of Hungary: 158 Mechelen, Johann van: 32-33, 35, 37-38, 48-52, 62, 86, 95, 101, 104, 160-161 Medici, Giulio de (Pope Clement VII): 77-79 Miritsch, Melchior: 38, 60, 98-100, 144, 158, 189 Modern Devotion: 114 Mulmann, Lambrecht: 177 Müntzer, Thomas: 137 Mussche, Marcus: 48-50 Nicholas of Tolentino: 31 Nuremberg: 38 Observant Reform (Observance): 23-39 Observants: 12, 21-39, 157 Oecolampadius, Johann: 181 Oliva, Alexander: 24 pamphlets: 173-175, 183-184, 202-203, 208-211, 216-217 Pettegree, Andrew: 230 Pirckheimer, Willibald: 93 Planitz, Hans von der: 177 Posset, Franz: 188 Probst, Jacob: 38, 51-52, 55, 58-59, 78-79, 100-102, 112-113, 115-117, 119, 122, 140, 144, 173, 186-187, 205 Proles, Andreas: 24-25, 87 purgatory: 122 Rabus, Ludwig: 216 Reckenhofer, Martin: 174, 183 Regensburg Constitutions: 26 Additions: 26 Reichart, Wolfgang: 176, 182, 222

255

Index

Reitweiser, Wolf: 49 Reuchlin, Johannes: 57 Rule of St. Augustine: 23, 26-27, 40 Saak, Eric: 40-41 sacraments: 123 St. Andreas Church (Antwerp): 68 Salve Regina: 199, 209-211 Schneider, Hans: 95 Schnepf, Erhard: 42 scholastic theology: 41 Seehofer, Arsacius: 182-185, 212 Sleidanus, Johannes: 203-204 Spangenberg, Cyriakus: 54-55 Spangenberg, Johann: 160-162 Spalatin, George: 55, 65, 177 Spengler, Lazarus: 93 Staupitz, Johann von: 25-26, 31-34, 36, 38, 40, 48, 51, 92-93, 228-229 Steenwyck, Johann: 188 Stephanus, George: 37, 49-50 Thorn, Lambert: 65, 70, 140, 144, 165-167, 189, 221 treasury of merits: 124-125

Unigenitus: 125 University of Cologne: 99 faculty of theology: 76-77, 82, 86, 160 University of Erfurt: 96 University of Ingolstadt: 178-185 University of Leuven: 81 faculty of theology: 57, 76-77, 82, 164 University of Wittenberg: 34, 36-38, 40, 51-55 Venezia, Gabriel de: 30, 84-85 Vicarines: 12 Vilvoorde: 63, 65, 69 Virgin Mary: 163, 178-179, 184-185, 195-212, 222 Visitation, Feast of: 202-206, 208 Vos, Hendrik: 11-12, 54-55, 63, 65, 70, 117, 129-130, 217-223 Wesel: 157, 188 Wilhelm II, Duke of Saxony: 24 Wingfield, Richard: 177 Zolter, Heinrich: 23 Zutphen, Hendrik van: 35, 38, 52-54, 61, 65-68, 100-106, 113, 117-121, 140, 144, 186-187, 200-201, 225 Zwilling, Gabriel: 61, 111-113, 159 Zwingli, Ulrich: 162