Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Chapter Six The Reformation of the Empire Imperial Policy "Where are the most Holy Father, the Pope, and the very Christian King of France to be found? In spite of their great titles and names they are incapable of rescuing a thing. Poor and simple Christians are now being murdered wretchedly: men, women, and children, young and old. Whoever is able, runs away, abandoning his country and leaving behind his entire possessions. For no one is there deliverance ... Where are the glorious fighters of heretics now? ..

. As long as their opponents are poor people and innocent books, which cannot talk back and do no harm to anyone, then they are extraordinarily capable of waging war and of fighting, indeed they are lions. But when it comes to fighting the 'Turks, they are all just rabbits!"! With these words Johannes Turmair, or Aventinus, a humanist true to nation and emperor and a former Bavarian court historian who died as a Protestant in Regensburg in 1534, captured the despondent mood widespread in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1530s.

Of course, most Germans hardly expected any real help from the pope or from the French king in combating the Ottomans. German observers were more inclined to place them in the enemy camp. And did they not have every reason to expect even less from militant opponents of the Reformation? The situation was serious: the enemy of Christendom was infringing upon the very borders of the Holy Roman Empire. Many people in Germany, irrespective of their theological leaning and confessional allegiance, began asking whether the time had not arrived to put internal religious conflicts aside, or at least defer them in order to join forces in facing the 'Turkish danger behind a united front.

Martin Bucer The vast majority of Protestants, in fact, were on the emperor's side in this respect. This attitude happened to coincide felicitously with the political goals of Charles V, but this coincidence does not imply perfect agreement between the parties.' Merely in terms of geography, the emperor had a much broader perspective than did the German Protestants. For instance, he realized quite accurately that the Ottomans were not only a threat to Vienna and the Habsburg patrimonial territories but had also become the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean. People in Germany barely took notice of the battles and struggles taking place down there. The developments they followed with great fear, indeed almost passionately, were those taking place in the southeastern corner of the empire. In 1529 the Turks stood at the gates of Vienna. Even though this encroachment turned out to be a mere action of military reconnaissance and not an actual attempt at conquest by "the infidels," the event struck horror in the hearts of Europeans. In 1532 the Ottomans came as far as Styria, and in 1541 they incorporated central Hungary into their empire.

Charles's brother Ferdinand succeeded in negotiating an eighteen-monthlong cease-fire with the Turks on November 10, 1545, but not before having paid them 10,000 ducats in tribute.

The Ottomans' connections to France made them especially dangerous for the emperor. In fact, Francis I and the Turkish sultan formed a veritable alliance in 1536, thus thwarting Charles's plans to launch a crusade.

This action by the French sundered the unity of European Christendom much more dramatically than did the conflict between Protestants and Catholics. The pope (Paul III since 1534) tried to stay above the fray between the French king and the German emperor, for an emperor with too much power threatened the pope's ecclesiastical interests as well as his political goals in Italy. But Charles's military campaign against the French, and particularly his war against the Turks in the Mediterranean, failed miserably. Charles V and Francis I agreed to a ten-year cease-fire in the Treaty of Nice in June 1538. But as early as 1542, a French army invaded the Low

Countries. At the same time, Ottoman and French naval fleets carried out joint maneuvers in the Mediterranean.

The emperor found himself in sore need of allies in order to prevail against this alliance. This situation meant in the first place trying to call forth from his isolation the English king, Henry VIII, who had declared himself the head of the church in his country in 1534, and attempting to make him an ally of the German empire. Charles also needed the pope's support, especially in order to convoke a council that would finally begin tackling the task of reforming the church—something all groups regarded

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as urgently necessary. A council was also Charles's only hope of reconciling his empire's "protesting" estates—the supporters of the Reformation—with the Catholic Church and consequently obtaining their support for his political goals. This endeavor involved a number of complicating factors: Charles had to make sure not to wrong the German Catholics; they had formed an alliance of their own in Nuremberg in June 1538 against the powerful Protestant Schmalkaldic League. At the same time, he had to avoid giving his Protestant subjects the impression that he was actively assisting the Catholics. Finally, he had to woo the Protestants away from their French allies, winning them over as fellow warriors in the struggle against the Turks.

The implications were twofold. Charles V was forced, on the one hand, to make an increasing number of concessions to the Schmalkaldic League during the 1530s in order to obtain the financial and military help necessary for meeting his goals. On the other hand, he expressly and consistently restricted the concessions he made to the Protestants, declaring them valid only for the period leading up to a council, but not thereafter.

By doing so, he was making himself and his politics dependent on someone—the pope—over whom he ultimately had no influence, in spite of all his power.

On June 2, 1536, Pope Paul IH summoned a council that was to begin its sessions in Mantua on March 23, 1537. He did this not out of spiritual concern but rather because he realized that the church finally had to confront the nagging problem of religious schism in order to regain its earlier political influence. It is thus not surprising that sudden changes in political developments induced the pope to change his mind about this church assembly just as suddenly: the council was postponed five times in the course of four years. These delays were hardly due to resistance on the part of the Protestant estates, but rather were because of the French king's rejection of the pope's plan. Francis I definitely did not see the need for a council. He found himself quite capable of managing heretics in his country on his own. And he understandably had little interest in helping

Charles V resolve the confessional divide within Germany that was presenting the emperor with so many thorny problems. In Germany, but not only there, the fickleness of papal policy brought forth reactions ranging all the way from deep disappointment to unabashed satisfaction. In any case, Paul III eventually ruined his reputation in all camps because of his repeated postponements of the council. When he once again convoked a council in 1541, the initial reaction was absolute indifference. Because of this reaction, the council changed its goals fundamentally: it aimed no

Martin Bucer longer at bringing the Protestants back to the traditional fold but rather at strengthening and consolidating the Roman Catholic Church.

In Germany, people began asking themselves: If a truly universal council was not feasible and the pope was not willing to carry through with the reform of the church, did not the obvious next step consist of proceeding without the pope and convoking a national German council in which the imperial estates, the electors and princes as well as the representatives of the clergy, the nobility, and the cities, could discuss confessional issues among themselves and pass the corresponding resolutions? It is not surprising that this idea became increasingly popular in the late 1530s. And with Charles V also supporting it, it soon became a political factor to be reckoned with.

To understand this development, one must remember that countless princes and their advisers were tremendously alarmed by the political situation in Germany: at the same time that Ottoman armies were standing at its borders, the empire found itself divided into two opposing confessional camps, each with a military alliance of its own, each armed and ready to engage ina fratricidal war at any moment. What many found particularly unbearable—if not entirely absurd—about this situation was that it could not be attributed entirely to fundamental theological and ecclesiastical differences between supporters of the Reformation and their opponents. In fact, many of those involved were not even aware that Western Christendom was about to split into two confessions. Contacts and connections between both camps were intense, not least because the reigning families and dynasties in Germany were often interrelated. Therefore, was it not reasonable to assume that if both sides would make a sincere effort and display goodwill, they would be able to emphasize what they had in common and what united them, instead of what was dividing them?

'This attitude was accompanied and supported by a religious and theological trend that attached central importance to the Bible and the work of the Holy Spirit and perceived the inward renewal of man and resulting exemplary ethical conduct as fundamental to Christian existence, as well as for the renewal of society and the church. Unquestionably, this position was deeply influenced by humanism, and particularly by Erasmus of Rotterdam. His book on the Restoration of Church Unity (De sarcienda ecclestae concordia, 1533) was quoted and appealed to repeatedly during these years. However, this widespread devotion to a biblical humanism in combination with varying degrees of spiritualist emphasis can hardly be reduced to the influence of a single man. A much broader intellectual and

The Reformation of the Empire — 167 religious movement, which in Italy and elsewhere became known under the concept of evangelismo (only inadequately to be rendered as "evangelism"), contributed to the lasting influence of Erasmus's brand of humanism beyond the death of the Dutch humanist.

As mentioned previously, political leaders often tried to make this theological and intellectual trend work to their advantage. Rulers of territories such as the Duchy of Jiilich-Cleves, the Electorate of Brandenburg, and the Duchy of Saxony tried to carry out church reforms that steered a middle course between the Reformation and the papacy. But even within these two opposing camps, quite a few people—mostly political leaders but also theologians—favored the achievement of a balance, indeed, the pursuit of a definitive settlement between both sides. And the only reason this minority movement influenced politics on a larger scale lay in Charles V's participation. He needed church unity, for he needed a united empire to assist him militarily and financially in fighting the French and the Ottomans. Since he could expect no help from the pope, Charles decided to venture official theological negotiations between Catholics and Protestants. Whether he realized the depth of the theological chasm separating both sides is a moot issue. It is more probable that he, like many of his contemporaries, was convinced of the necessity of comprehensive ecclesiastical and particularly moral reforms; everything else, such as theological differences, was simply perceived by such observers as an agglomeration of exaggerations and misunderstandings.

This was the background for the Truce of Frankfurt (Frankfurter Anstand), sealed on April 19, 1539, which prolonged the peace that the warring confessional factions had already agreed to in Nuremberg back in 1532. The Frankfurt settlement was reached after almost two months of tough negotiations, and it included the following compromise. The ceasefire would initially last six months. In the course of this period, two meetings would take place: one in Worms in May, to discuss support for the emperor's military campaign against the Turks, and one in Nuremberg in August of the same year, to explore the possibility of overcoming theological, particularly ecclesiological, differences. 'This religious colloquy was to be "free," that is, not subordinate to papal authority. In addition, all legal proceedings against Protestants in the imperial Chamber Court

(Reichskammergericht) were to be put on hold during these six months. This court, with headquarters in Speyer since 1527, was the court of appeal and the highest judiciary authority for all princes, nobles, and cities that were subject to the emperor alone—and it certainly had created many problems for the Protestants in the past, most recently by imposing the imperial ban

Martin Bucer (Reichsacht) on the northern German city of Minden. The Truce of Frankfurt had just one catch for Protestants: only present supporters of the Reformation could claim the benefits of the cease-fire. Expressly excluded from it were any parties who might join the Protestant movement later.

Bucer now became extraordinarily active—at the highest political level— within the framework described above.

Religious Colloquies Leipzig At the end of 1538 and the beginning of 1539, Bucer attended negotiations in Leipzig, the most important city of the Duchy of Saxony.' Georg

Witzel wrote later that the Strasbourg reformer came disguised as a merchant.* Bucer attended on his own initiative, but several factors almost forced him to attend this meeting. For quite some time the various political leaders and estates of Albertine Saxony had been discussing the religious course that the Duchy should steer after the death of strictly

Catholic Duke Georg, who died without heirs. Everybody, including high-ranking church leaders, was convinced that church reforms were necessary and that practical measures needed to be taken. Yet it was not only religious issues that had to be solved but concrete economic and political ones as well. Merchants and craftsmen were abandoning the Duchy and moving just a few miles to neighboring Ernestine Saxony in order to be able to express their Lutheran faith openly and freely. Powerful groups in Albertine Saxony, however, remained interested in safeguarding the independence of the Duchy and therefore opposed church reforms modeled in any way after those of the neighboring, more powerful Electorate of Saxony.

Thus a plethora of motives and interests compelled the Saxon chancellor Georg von Carlowitz to invite political leaders from Ernestine Saxony and Hesse to secret discussions, of which the Duke knew nothing.

Landgrave Philip supported Carlowitz's endeavor—the prince of Hesse could only profit from these developments in the Duchy. Philip therefore sent his own chancellor, Johannes Feige, along with Bucer to Leipzig.

Electoral Saxony sent Melanchthon and Chancellor Gregor Briick. The Duchy of Saxony was represented by Carlowitz and the councillor Ludwig Fachs, as well as the former Lutheran Georg Witzel, who had converted to Catholicism.

'To restore church unity, to do away with all abuses by following the example of the church fathers of the first centuries, to renew Christian

The Reformation of the Empire

life—these were top priorities on Georg Witzel's agenda. All these goals played an important role in Bucer's thought as well. For the Strasbourg reformer, however, they hinged on the central conviction that any reformation worth its name had to be founded on the Bible and on the doctrine of the justification of sinners through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

This unshakable point of departure ensured Bucer the freedom to make extensive concessions to his theological opponents. Ultimately, Bucer was certain that Christ himself would find a way of prevailing, if one only allowed him enough freedom of action. God's truth would carry the day without fail if only God's followers would stand up for it resolutely enough and in the right way. These are the arguments Bucer used when urging his fellow Protestants to join him in negotiating with the Catholics. For we are also willing and able to defeat our opponents, he declared, "with the sword of the councils, statutes and ordinances of the Early Church."°

A heated theological discussion between Bucer and Witzel thus took place in the week from January 2 to 7, 1539, in Leipzig. This half-private, half-public debate began in the so-called Paulinum (where the Universitatshochhaus—the modern university high-rise building erected in the time of the German Democratic Republic—now stands) and was continued in Ludwig Fachs's private home. Since Bucer and Witzel were willing to defer controversial doctrinal points until a later time, Melanchthon and Briick withdrew from the negotiations; in their opinion, doctrinal unity was a prerequisite for structuring the church anew. In the course of 1539 and in the years beyond, Bucer would set forth and develop in great detail an argument that he had essentially presented in Leipzig already on this occasion: If one could succeed in getting the leading statesmen of the Holy Roman Empire, indeed, maybe even the majority of the imperial estates, to agree to a comprehensive church reform based on the norm of the early church, would not that be a decisive success? Would not even the Wittenberg reformers have to fall in line with the rest of the empire and submit to such a Germany-wide legal church ordinance? 'This effort was Bucer's goal from now on. It was an audacious endeavor, for it required Bucer to be active at the highest political level.

At the end of the Leipzig colloquy, both sides agreed on fifteen articles that Bucer himself probably drafted.° They dealt with justification, penance and confession, baptism, the Mass, confirmation, the papacy, various ceremonies, and finally the invocation of saints, the commemoration of the dead, as well as the role of government in the church—all themes relevant to the practical life of the church. Differences in doctrine were largely ignored. Therefore every reason exists to see this text as a church

Martin Bucer ordinance relevant to the life of all Christians, going far beyond problems specific only to the Duchy of Saxony. In it Bucer makes no doctrinal concessions to Catholicism. He did admit to having remained silent on crucial controversial theological issues such as baptism, confirmation, and especially with regard to the Mass and the papacy. This course of conduct on the part of Bucer was the object of harsh criticism back then and remains so today. This condemnation, however, does not do full justice to Bucer's insight that giving prominence to church customs still held in common and appealing to liturgical practices and ceremonies of the early church, on the one hand, and to the widespread yearning for moral renewal and a more personal piety, on the other, would create a pragmatic foundation for a dynamic, never-ending process of reform within the church. 'This may have been only an illusion, but it is one to which significant people in all periods of history have devoted themselves, including the ecumenical movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

For this was Bucer's concern: not to discuss dogmatic issues—as important as they were—purely as such but rather to explain and develop their significance and necessity in the context of ethics, and then of tradition and religious practice; that is to say, in the context of the day-to-day life of the church.

The text of the Leipzig agreement between Bucer and Witzel circulated widely in the following months and years, not just within the empire but as far as Rome. It did not, however, have any direct effects. One of the reasons for this was the Truce of Frankfurt (Frankfurter Anstand), which opened up entirely new prospects for a broadly imperial church reform, prospects that Bucer had every intention of making use of.

From Frankfurt to Hagenau The 'Truce of Frankfurt did not meet with Bucer's approval. Not only he but many other supporters of the Reformation as well criticized the fact that by imperial law only current members of the Schmalkaldic League were included in the cease-fire granted by the peace agreement.' He sharply reprimanded the shortsightedness and complacency of the League members, who were apparently more interested in safeguarding what they had reached than in taking the risk of expanding and laying new foundations for Christ's reign.

Bucer welcomed one aspect of the Truce of Frankfurt wholeheartedly, however, and he defended it passionately and with great skill: the emperor's promise that a free religious colloquy between the confessional parties

The Reformation of the Empire

would take place—a colloquy that, as Bucer hoped, would turn into a national church council, a Germany-wide assembly of imperial representatives without the interference of the pope and the imposition of his supposed supremacy. "I certainly believe that we could come to an agreement on those things that are truly fundamental to the Christian faith, and leave the rest unresolved in Christian freedom, if we would only focus on God with all our hearts, not allow Rome to stop us, and could come to some kind of an arrangement regarding ecclesiastical property."® These lines summarize Bucer's point of departure as well as his goals. If one kept one's eyes fixed exclusively on God, expecting help and salvation only from God, then one would be forced to admit that sinners are justified through faith in Jesus Christ alone. This remained a fundamental assertion for Bucer. If Catholics would agree with this assertion—and Bucer was convinced most of them would, if one would only explain it to them correctly—an authentic common foundation could be reached upon which one could discuss all other theological and ecclesiastical issues.

Bucer hence once again made the distinction, already known to us, between central and subordinate articles of faith. But as broad-minded as Bucer could be in this respect, he was all the more uncompromising when it came to the pope and the papal curia. Their dominant influence had to be eliminated if the church were ever to be reformed truly. Bucer was convinced that Rome was interested not in reforming the church but rather in defending the current sad state of affairs, and that it was even ready to squelch divine truth in order to maintain the status quo. A further issue of fundamental importance was that of church property. An enormous variety of problems confronting the church as an institution at the beginning of the sixteenth century (that is, as an organization involved in every aspect of daily life) ultimately derived from the question of its property.

The matter of property included problems associated with the whole system of benefices, or prebends, and the chronic absenteeism of parish pastors; it also concerned the vast property of monasteries and collegiate churches that was withheld from the common good and thus from socially responsible use, and it included the use of this property for the offspring of the city patriciate and especially of the nobility. Everybody in the early sixteenth century had experienced this reality in diverse ways, including

Bucer—among other places in his hometown Sélestat. In this respect the problem of church property was anything but a purely academic issue.

It was certainly characteristic for Bucer's approach to church reform that he paid just as much attention to these practical questions as to fundamental theological issues. The dialectical relationship between divine law

Liz Martin Bucer and God's Holy Spirit so typical of this thought also manifested itself in his handling of this issue. Bucer could not speak about the gospel and about God's truth without referring to God's statutes, norms, and ordinances at the same time.

Bucer advertised the program outlined above in a book of dialogues, On the Truce of Nuremberg (Vom Niirnbergischen fridestand), published in the summer of 1539 under the telling pseudonym of "Konrad Treue von

Friedesleben."" The work was dedicated to Ruprecht von ManderscheidBlankenheim, the nephew and political and ecclesiastical adviser of the archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied. This book represented only one small part of Bucer's broader campaign for a German national church council, a campaign he carried out with tremendous zeal and under persistent concealment of his true identity. No other German reformer could present the diversity and, in some cases, the contradictions of conflicting positions, and at the same time bring these closer to one another, with the same eloquence, journalistic skill, and theological plausibility as Martin

Bucer. With these intelligent and trenchant works capable of arousing, intensifying, and taking advantage of public moods, the Strasbourg reformer was now definitely trying to influence a wider public.

In the pseudonymous work On the Truce of Nuremberg, Bucer creates a fictitious conversation in the imperial city of Speyer among three men: a nobleman, personifying a resolute if somewhat impulsive supporter of the Reformation; a prior, embodying a reflective Catholic open to reforms; and the secretary of a prince. The secretary presents Bucer's views in such a lucid and reasonable way that he ends up convincing the nobleman and the prior of the need to carry out a national church council. In January

1540, in Aschaffenburg, Bucer, using the same pseudonym, wrote another dialogue in which the same characters conducted a detailed conversation over the question of ecclesiastical property.!° This book was dedicated to Georg Schenk von 'Tautenberg, the imperial governor of Frisia, who died shortly after its composition, however, on February 4, 1540.1! In this work

Bucer once again called for a Germany-wide church council. He wanted this dialogue to be understood as a contribution to the discussion of a problem that would certainly be on the order of business of such a council: What was to become of the vast property of the church? Bucer made it clear that Protestants had no intention of allowing Catholics to cite church tradition for their case. Bucer saw this tradition in a positive way, as church law correctly understood—that is to say, church law cleansed and purged by the Bible. The fictitious nobleman emphasizes this view as well: much too often the Protestants speak, he says, "as if the Christian

The Reformation of the Empire — 173 church would have been lying in a grave ever since the times of the Apostles, not coming back to life until we finally raised it."""

For Bucer, the Bible and church tradition proved that the church had a legitimate right to own means and resources in order to accomplish its goals and provide its services; but they also proved that these means and resources had been entrusted to the church on/y for the purpose of reaching these goals. Consequently, Bucer could throw the Catholic accusation that the Protestants were sacrilegious robbers of church property back at supporters of the traditional church themselves. After all, the canons and cathedral chapters, the monks, nuns, bishops, and cardinals, were all living off this property as if it were their own, without serving the congregations with teaching, preaching, and pastoral care. Bucer made the following suggestion for reform: every congregation should receive as much ecclesiastical property as necessary for the support of the pastor it had chosen. The civil authorities were to supervise this process, receiving their own share in exchange. "For we maintain that the necessary service that they render to the church deserves a salary just like any other useful service." !3 Henceforth monasteries were to live off of their own work, especially by providing relief for the elderly, the poor, the sick, foreigners, and handicapped persons. Just like all other ecclesiastical goods, monastic assets were to be secularized, including the extensive landed property of ecclesiastical foundations and the territories of bishops. To be sure, Bucer had no intention of expropriating the current holders of church offices; neither did he wish to deprive the nobility or the civic patriciate from the usufruct of these goods. All the above persons, however, were to cease exercising church functions. In this respect, the renewed church was going to be a poor church.

Bucer did not leave it at that. When it became a settled matter in May 1540 that the coming religious colloquy would take place in Hagenau, some thirty miles north of Strasbourg (Speyer, another likely location, happened to be in the throes of the plague), Bucer once again drafted a dialogue, slipping into the role of a reasonable Catholic canon who explains the usefulness of a national council to a fellow canon, who happens to be a somewhat less reasonable supporter of the pope.!* The selfcritical canon complains about how the Protestants are becoming stronger each day, whereas among Catholics one observes "how the more time goes by, the more dilapidated we become; we do not have any learned people; respectability and virtue cannot be found in our midst."!> Only those who derived enjoyment from their own demise were placing their hope on the pope. The reflective prelate continues: whoever wishes peace

Martin Bucer and tranquillity instead of civil war and the downfall of their existence must now vigorously demand a comprehensive reform of the church by means of a national council.

After the Hagenau conference eventually ended without any results, Bucer once again published a booklet in August 1540, this time under the pseudonym "Wahrmund Leuthold," vigorously championing the Protestant cause and advocating the unmet goals of the colloquy.'® This time he unabashedly contrasted the Protestants with the Catholics, depicting the former as peace-loving, wishing to reach an agreement with the other side, and sincerely seeking the renewal of the church, but the latter as warmongers intent on defending current abuses just because the pope wanted this. Catholics have no arguments in their favor, claimed Bucer, for Christ, the Bible, the church fathers, and even the decrees of the early church councils speak on behalf of the Protestant position. Because of this, the papists do not take the risk of disputing with Protestants and refuse to give a public account of their views. "We are thus forced to have our greatest enemies as judges over us, as lords and patrons!"!' How long could such a situation persist?

At the same time that Bucer attempted to influence public opinion in favor of a national church council, with pseudonymous publications addressed at a wide audience, he pursued the same goal in private letters to the territorial prince upon whom he had the greatest theological, ecclesiastical, and personal influence: Philip of Hesse. Two points of view appear repeatedly in Bucer's letters to the Landgrave. On the one hand,

Bucer emphasizes that conditions in the Holy Roman Empire had never been as favorable for bringing about a national council free of papal influence. A majority of imperial cities and princes clearly leaned toward the Schmalkaldic League; those still wavering could be won over easily, since

Protestants were equipped with better theological and historical arguments. It was necessary only to begin discussing controversial dogmatic issues; "thereafter, the power of the Lord will take over with his Holy

Word and produce so many results that we will have much for which we can be grateful to the Lord."!® On another occasion Bucer asserted his certainty that "we will neatly chase the Antichrist out of all of his haunts, one after another, without striking a blow and without waging war."!? This statement clearly shows that Bucer did not downplay theological differences. In this respect he saw eye to eye with the Wittenberg theologians."

He also shared with them the firm conviction that Catholics would gradually and inevitably become convinced of the fundamental theological insights of the Reformation, as soon as they had taken the first steps in

The Reformation of the Empire — 175 acknowledging the lordship of Christ, not the pope, over the church, and had given their agreement to the teaching that sinners are justified only through faith in Jesus Christ.

A second element Bucer emphasized incessantly in his letters to the Landgrave was the stern demand that territorial princes take religious issues seriously and not be interested primarily in increasing their own power and extending their own territory, but rather in "extending Christ's rule."?! He thus called on Philip to try to influence the imperial estates in the same way Bucer had done through his publications, by urging them to put pressure on Emperor Charles V and his supporters to carry through with his promise to organize a religious colloquy "that would signal the glorious beginning of a true reformation of the church.""? Bucer certainly did not expect any backing from the emperor for his ambitious plans, but rather opposition and resistance. And it was far from clear that Charles V would allow himself to be outmaneuvered by Bucer.

King Ferdinand solemnly inaugurated the conference in Hagenau on June 12, 1540; Bucer arrived on June 22. The atmosphere was edgy and hostile. The two sides were unable to agree on a joint procedure. Whereas the Catholics wished to pick up negotiations where Melanchthon and Eck had left off during the diet of Augsburg in 1530, the Protestants demanded first that the other side provide proof for its claim that the Augsburg

Confession contained doctrinal errors. Since an agreement could not be reached, Ferdinand adjourned the colloquy on July 28 and decided that it should reconvene in Worms, some seventy miles north of Hagenau. There, scholars from both sides would be given the opportunity to dispute on even footing in the presence of the emperor. This transposition thus amounted to the promise of a free confessional negotiation. It needs to be mentioned, however, that powerful pressure groups in Wittenberg and Rome were not entirely disappointed with the failure of the Hagenau meeting. In both camps concerns ran high that too many concessions could be made to the respective adversary. Bucer, however, worked hard at building bridges between both sides, engaging in conversations with Catholic representatives. Among the people with whom he became more closely acquainted in Hagenau were the aforementioned archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von

Wied, and especially his assistant Johannes Gropper."° Worms Emperor Charles V was not present, but imperial chancellor Nicholas

Perrenot de Granvelle solemnly opened the colloquy on November 25,

Martin Bucer 1540, in the historic city on the Rhine. Bucer had already arrived, on November 1.** Both sides had agreed back in Hagenau to create two commissions, each consisting of eleven members and charged with drafting a document that would serve as the point of departure for negotiations.

Nothing came of this procedure,"? for the Catholics soon realized that they were anything but united among themselves. Electoral Brandenburg and the Palatinate clearly leaned toward Protestantism. Eck's theological stance was incapable of winning over a majority within the Catholic camp.

Even the papal nuncios Giovanni Morone and Lorenzo Campeggio did not agree with one another. Whereas the members of the Schmalkaldic

League impatiently called for the beginning of theological negotiations, rallying around the revised form of their confession (Confessio Augustana variata) that Melanchthon had presented in September 1540, the Catholic representatives did all they could to prevent these very negotiations from getting off the ground. In an atmosphere laden with enormous mutual distrust and characterized by political trickery and deceit, Granvelle finally succeeded in convincing each side to name a theological spokesman. For the chancellor, it was not just a matter of preventing a victory of the Protestant estates; even public exposure of the bickering and dissension among Catholics was something he needed to avoid. Philipp Melanchthon and Johannes Eck thus carried out detailed and prolonged discussions on the topic of original sin from December 24, 1540, until January 17, 1541.

In the evening, they drafted a joint statement in Granvelle's quarters. The very next morning, the chancellor closed the colloquy in the name of the emperor and announced that theological negotiations would continue at the imperial diet to take place in Regensburg in the coming spring.

The skillful politician Granvelle had thus achieved a significant success for Charles V: an agreement between Catholics and Protestants in the form of a text that had met the approval of at least a few theologians and statesmen. Bucer helped bring this about in a decisive way. In Worms he once again got together with Johannes Gropper, who was there as a delegate of the archbishop of Cologne. The two had not only become acquainted in Hagenau but had also conversed quite intensely and thought alike on quite a few theological and ecclesiastical topics, including justification by faith. If one takes a closer look at Gropper's Manual of Christian

Education (Enchiridion christianae institutionis) of 1538, it is easy to see why

Bucer perceived him as a kindred spirit. Gropper also sought to conduct theology on the basis of the Bible and the church fathers and was wary of any doctrinal narrow-mindedness. He emphasized man's constant dependence on God's grace, which then empowered the Christian to lead a new

The Reformation of the Empire — 177 life. Gropper took giant steps toward the Protestant position when he understood faith as trust and therefore spoke of Christians' certainty of salvation, since Christ cancels their guilt but also enables them to act according to a higher ethical standard. This conviction is also what led

Gropper to reject any doctrine proclaiming man's justification by faith in Christ alone. He found this wording misleading, for it appeared to neglect the ethical commitment of Christians. Bucer agreed with Gropper's emphasis on ethics, as we have seen above, and both theologians also attached great importance to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Bucer and Gropper were convinced that they ultimately agreed theologically. Both sides appeared to mean the same things and pursue the same goals, even though they used different terminology and formulations.

Affinity and trust between the two men and their positions thus grew. At the same time, though, this growing consensus made differences and antagonisms appear all the more pronounced when unity could not be achieved, making each side feel deceived and outwitted by the opposing side.

Initially, however, harmony and consent prevailed. The two men visited each other frequently in Worms and carried on negotiations of their own—at the same time that the official colloquy was getting nowhere.

Then, on December 14, 1540, Gropper and Gerhard Veltwyck, the secretary of the chancellor,"° revealed to Bucer that Granvelle was calling for secret negotiations. Bucer and Capito, on the one hand, and Veltwyck and Gropper, on the other, were to draft a joint statement that would serve as the basis for religious negotiations at the coming imperial diet.

This information put Bucer in a quandary. Up to this point he had not expected Charles V to provide the slightest support for the reform of the church—and certainly not for his planned national council. Bucer adhered to this opinion as late as November 22, when he wrote to Philip of Hesse:

"The Imperial court is the greatest enemy of the freedom and justice of the German nation."2" But now Granvelle was suddenly telling Bucer of the need to bolster Charles V, who was interested in peace and understanding, so that those in favor of war would not carry the day. Bucer asked both Jacob Sturm and the chancellor from Hesse, Johannes Feige, for advice. Both responded favorably to Granvelle's plan. On December 20, with negotiations already under way, Bucer asked Philip for a backdated official mandate to engage in them, which the latter promptly sent him.

Bucer was well aware of being involved in a risky undertaking. Both he and Capito were "quite conscience-stricken, wondering whether we are actually serving the Devil with these talks, while intending to serve

Christ," as he wrote to the Landgrave on December 20s

Martin Bucer A combination of political, theological, and pastoral motives induced him to proceed in this venture nonetheless. From a political viewpoint, the Catholic camp appeared to fall apart into opposing groups as soon as even slightly friendly advances were made in its direction. The secular princes leaned toward the Reformation anyhow, as Bucer never tired of repeating. And he felt that prince-bishops would be easily won over when given assurances that they could keep ecclesiastical property for themselves and continue ruling as secular princes. At the same time, Protestants had to accept the fact that not all church ordinances and ceremonies introduced in the first centuries of the church's existence could simply be dismissed as flawed. Bucer therefore wished to take advantage of the current situation by winning over well-disposed members of the opposing camp with a sympathetic approach and concessions in marginal issues— thus isolating the pope politically and theologically.

The conversations took place in utmost secrecy from December 15 to 31, 1540, in Gropper's quarters in Worms, and consisted essentially of an exchange between him and Bucer. The twenty-three articles that emerged from these discussions were based on a draft by Gropper. Bucer's part in formulating them cannot be determined exactly. The closing articles do state that an agreement could not be reached on the issues of private masses, the veneration of saints, and obligatory yearly confession. Bucer professed himself to be in agreement with the remaining statements, which dealt with the Bible, tradition and ecclesiastical offices, original sin, justification and good works, the church, sacraments, and ceremonies, even though these declarations went a long way toward placating the Catholic side, at least in their wording. According to the original plan, two respected princes, each froma different side of the confessional divide, namely, Philip of Hesse and Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, were to be informed confidentially of the contents of the "Worms Book." Granvelle insisted, however, that Philip be required to approve it in advance. The Landgrave, in a precarious position on account of his bigamy and therefore intent on remaining in the emperor's good graces, gave his consent, after Bucer briefed him on the document's contents and goals on January 7, 1541, in Giessen. Philip, though, was quick to add that he perceived the book solely

"as the beginning" of conversations, and that he had no intention of allowing himself to become isolated from his fellow Protestants.2°

On January 9, Bucer was back in Worms. Granvelle had obtained what he wanted. Bucer's goals, however, were much broader and, on the whole, considerably more complicated. Td undermine the cohesion of the Catholic princes gradually, as he hoped, a minimum degree of unity had to be pres-

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ent among Protestants. 'his was far from being the case, however. Electoral Saxony was particularly adamant in its rejection of Bucer's way of proceeding. Not only Luther but Melanchthon as well was strictly opposed to his course of action. Elector John Frederick summed up the mood dominant in Saxony when he declared: "Whoever wants to accommodate should accommodate to God and his Word and accept his doctrine.">° Conditions were thus all but favorable for the imperial diet that was to meet in Regensburg in the spring of 1541.

Regensburg The imperial estates—that is, the prince electors and the imperial princes or their representatives—as well as the delegates of the cities represented in the Diet, began arriving in the months of February and March.

Emperor Charles V arrived on February 23 and Bucer on March 10. 'The leading political figure was Chancellor Granvelle. But the papal legate,

Cardinal Gasparo Contarini, soon proved to be the decisive religious and ecclesiastical personage in the Catholic camp. He had experienced faith in Christ in younger years as a release from fear and doubt, in a way similar to Luther's, but he deliberately integrated this experience into traditional church theology and piety.*! In this respect, Contarini was better acquainted with the religious roots of the Reformation than were most other Catholic theologians.

When the imperial diet opened on April 5, Charles V informed the estates that he wished to have the religious issue discussed by a relatively small committee. On April 21 he appointed Eck, Julius Pflug, and Gropper to represent the Catholic side, and Melanchthon, Bucer, and Johannes

Pistorius to be spokesmen for the Protestants. Under no circumstances could the emperor have avoided naming Eck, after all, he had been

Luther's opponent from the very beginning and had fought against the Reformation untiringly for the past two decades. As the spokesman of the Saxon Reformation, Melanchthon was an equally indispensable candidate. The fact that Charles also chose Pflug and Pistorius in addition to Bucer and Gropper shows how much importance he attached to coming to an agreement. The bishop-elect of Naumburg-Zeitz as well as the superintendent of Alsfeld and confidant of Landgrave Philip were both resolute supporters of a politics of peaceful rapprochement, as a matter of principle and for practical reasons.

Expectations and hopes on both sides—Bucer's too, of course— were enormously high when conversations began on April 27 under the

Martin Bucer chairmanship of Granvelle and of Count Palatine Frederick. Just how willing each side was to accommodate to the other is demonstrated by the fact that both Eck and Melanchthon finally declared themselves ready to accept the text placed before them—sealed by Granvelle and lacking a title page—as the basis for discussions. This "Regensburg Book"3? was essentially Gropper's and Bucer's "Worms Book," only slightly revised by Contarini and a group of Catholic theologians. Melanchthon no longer persevered in the electoral Saxon demand that the Augsburg Confession be the sole point of departure for negotiations. Furthermore, Eck's gruff excoriation of this new "Regensburg Book" found no majority backing within the Catholic camp.

Both sides were able to agree onthe first four articles, which dealt with the fall of humankind and original sin, by April 27 without any major difficulties. The issue of justification by faith proved to be more problematic. Eck and Melanchthon soon were at loggerheads on this issue. In spite of this, both sides were able to agree on a newly drafted text by May 2.

Contarini and Bucer had played key roles in conceiving it.

Conference participants were exhilarated at this success, for the crucial stumbling block preventing reconciliation between the two confessions had apparently been removed. Their disillusionment was renewed, however, as early as the following day, when ecclesiology was discussed. Which took precedence: the Bible or the magisterium, the teaching authority of the church? The Roman and the Protestant camps clashed irreconcilably on this question. The Protestants had no other choice but to put their differing views on record and let the colloquy continue its sessions with this issue unresolved. But the same collision of views repeated itself in discussions on the sacraments and their significance. To be sure, some agreements were reached on May 4, when articles 10-13, dealing with baptism and confirmation, were debated. Negotiations broke down completely, however, on May 5, when the Mass and the Lord's Supper were the order of business. Contarini had inserted the concept of "transubstantiation" into the fourteenth article, referring to the dogma proclaimed at the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome in 1215, according to which bread and wine became the actual substance of Christ's body and blood in the Mass.

With this position, the Venetian cardinal stood up unconditionally for Roman Catholic teaching. Even more crucial was the fact that he obtained the support of the entire Catholic camp for his position. Under absolutely no circumstances could the Protestants accommodate to this position— even though Bucer did undertake a weak effort on May 8. Expectations of uniting and renewing Christendom in Germany, so high on the eve of the

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colloquy, thus ran aground because of conflicting understandings of the church and of its teaching authority. Bucer's hopes of effortlessly neutralizing the pope and his supporters from a theological and political standpoint turned out to be an illusion. 'The exact opposite was taking place: his opponents were beginning to regain lost ground. 'This renewal of Catholic energy was one of the most significant results of the Regensburg colloquy.

In spite of these setbacks, the colloquy continued. The six theologians discussed the remaining articles from May 14 to 22. Of course, by now they were hardly listening to one another but rather doing their best to accentuate the differences between their respective positions. Charles V and Granvelle redoubled efforts to conclude the colloquy with some kind of a settlement. For this reason, on June 8 they presented the imperial estates with copies of the "Regensburg Book" along with the Protestant counterarticles (there were nine of them by now),°? in order for them to express their views. But in the meantime, both the papal court and Luther had rejected the agreement reached on justification by faith. This state of affairs made the imperial estates all the more reluctant to come out in favor of the "Regensburg Book." On July 5, the Catholic camp demanded a text more reflective of its own position, whereas the Protestants announced on July 12 that they were going to interpret all joint statements in the light of the Augsburg Confession and its Apologia. Mutual tolerance was the last thing each side was interested in now. Bucer passionately beseeched his fellow Protestants not to fall back on pure doctrine but rather to take the offensive and, making this unique situation work in their favor, have the imperial diet officially endorse the articles that had been agreed upon. His pleas were not heard.

Accordingly, on July 29, 1541, the Regensburg diet issued a closing decree (Reichstagsabschied) quite hostile to Protestant concerns. It did at least call on prince-prelates to carry out reforms in their territories. It also extended the legal protection of the empire to the Protestant estates for another eighteen months. Finally, Charles V gave his—alas, merely oral— promise as emperor that he would continue to try to bring about a national church council; in case he should fail in this, the confessional issue would once again be on the agenda of the next imperial diet. Yet what was to be made of this promise? Was there any reason to believe such negotiations would succeed in the future, after they had failed so miserably under such favorable conditions?

Charles V was deeply disappointed over the outcome of the colloquy.

His attempt to reach a peaceful settlement of the confessional issue had unmistakably failed. It is hardly probable, however, that he steered directly

Martin Bucer toward a religious war from this point on. A more reasonable goal for him for the time being was to weaken the Schmalkaldic League, which had recently gained more strength and self-assurance than Charles felt comfortable with. He had two opportunities to do so in Regensburg, and he made use of them skillfully. The first concerned Philip of Hesse. Charles pardoned him for his bigamy, but in exchange Philip committed himself in a secret deal with the emperor on June 13, 1541, to prevent the duke of Cleves from joining the Schmalkaldic League and to hinder an alliance between the League and France from coming about. Furthermore, he had to promise to support the Habsburg claims on Gelderland and Zutphen.

Charles V also entered into a similar treaty with Joachim II of Brandenburg. This prince-elector refrained-from joining the Schmalkaldic League, obtaining permission in return to introduce his new church ordinance. Two influential princes from the Protestant camp had thus been neutralized.

The outcome of the Regensburg colloquy was also a major setback for Bucer, and this failure weighed heavily on him. It did not, however, make him waver in his goals or in his strategy. He especially entreated Philip of Hesse to do everything in his power to ensure that the religious colloquies not become a past episode but rather continue to be an element of imperial politics. "Since God has shed so much grace upon us," wrote Bucer to Philip, "that we are called his Protestants, our governments and we all therefore have the right and the duty to place ourselves like a wall in front of God's house in this issue and not to budge until the church has been helped. 'This is something we could achieve at the next Imperial Diet if we would only insist upon it in a truly Christian way. We will be helpless in confronting the Turks and have no peace among ourselves as long as we persevere in religious discord and thus remain under God's severest

Wwirat hide Principles, not pragmatism, guided Bucer when he wrote these words.

He did not let it rest at that, however. For one thing, he continued to count on widespread dissatisfaction in Germany with the ecclesiastical estates' aversion to reform, and he tried to foster this dissatisfaction with his publications. In addition, he pinned his hopes on the Reformation's continued and apparently relentless expansion in various German territories. On July 14, before the Regensburg diet adjourned, Bucer handed over a memorandum to the emperor with concrete recommendations for overcoming the downfall of the church.*> Proceeding from the proposals made previously for solving the issue of church property, Bucer now drew the following conclusions. He suggested that the articles agreed upon in Regensburg should serve as the point of departure for a rapprochement

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between both sides. Each side should be allowed to administer the sacraments in the form it saw most fitting; each side should also be guaranteed the free election of pastors, the right for pastors to marry, and the use of church property to support pastors adequately. One needs only to place this text alongside the text that Melanchthon wrote on this subject at the same time to realize the extent to which Bucer had become the decisive figure of Protestantism during these years. Whereas Melanchthon pontificated and expressed his views on the church and society on the basis of his pedagogical model—that 1s, of the school—Bucer took legal and social circumstances and obligations into account and wrote extensively on the need for change and the possibilities for bringing about change—while articulating the very same theological views as Melanchthon.

Since subsequent developments, as we have seen, ran entirely counter to the limited mutual tolerance that Bucer demanded of both sides, the Strasbourg reformer now concentrated his literary efforts on repeating the call of the closing decree of the Regensburg diet to prince-bishops to carry out ecclesiastical reforms in their territories. One could do the church a big favor quite quickly, he wrote in the summer of 1541, in a small booklet on corruption in the church (Abusum ecclesiasticorum indicatio) that was reprinted many times, if one would simply renew the clergy by imposing the standards of the Bible and the rules of the early church upon it.*° Bucer still counted on the spontaneous, relentless expansion of the Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire. He intended to help this process along through his theological and ecclesiastical negotiations, but he also wanted to encourage the Protestant imperial estates to make use of their actual political power. For this reason, in a letter to Landgrave

Philip on August 28, 1541, he emphasized what he saw as being most important: "I do hope that something happens in Cologne, Miinster, the Palatinate and in Cleves because of the articles we agreed upon [in Regensburg]."°' In fact, something did happen. But once again, the ecclesiastical and political developments that followed were not necessarily the ones Bucer's bold plans called for.

The "Cologne Reformation"

The Electorate The spiritual jurisdiction of the archbishop of Cologne may have been farreaching—his diocese included the archdiaconates of Bonn, Cologne, Xanten, and Soest, and the bishoprics of Liége, Utrecht, Miinster, Osnabriick, and Minden were directly subordinate to him—but the territory he headed

Martin Bucer as a prince-bishop, the Cologne Electorate, was hemmed in from all sides, to an almost extreme extent.'* Located on the west bank of the Rhine

River, it comprised a narrow strip of land rarely wider than six miles and extending some forty-five miles, all the way from Kempen in the north to Godesberg in the south. The Electorate had several exclaves in addition, for instance, Rheinberg in the north and the districts of Altenahr and Niirburg in the south, as well as Linz and Altenwied on the right bank of the Rhine. This situation was typical for the empire at the end of the Middle

Ages. 'Typical as well was the sprinkling of extraneous enclaves found within the territory of the Electorate. Even more significant was the fact that the important free imperial cities of Aachen and Cologne did not belong to the Electorate. They were subject to the spiritual jurisdiction of the archbishop but not subordinate to him politically.

Actual political power in this region of Germany lay not with the elector of Cologne but with the duke of Jiilich-Cleves-Berg. His territory surrounded that of the Electorate from alli sides. The Duchy stretched as far as the Meuse River and the city of Aachen to the west, included the territory of Berg (Bergisches Land) toward the east as far as Soest, and extended north as far as Cleves (K/eve), and later, after the takeover of Gelderland and Zutphen, even as far as the Ijsselmeer. 'Traditionally, the dukes of Jiilich-Cleves-Berg had always been quite assertive when it came to organizing and reforming the church in their territory—as the contemporary saying Dux Cliviae papa est in terris suis ("the Duke of Cleves is pope in his territories") testified.*" This pro-active stance lessened even more the influence that the archbishop of Cologne had on his own diocese.

But even the political sway he held over the territory of his Electorate was subject to limitations. Every new archbishop was forced to swear an oath upon an agreement of 1453, the "hereditary territorial agreement"

(Erblandesvereinigung), which relinquished a significant portion of his power to the estates and particularly to the cathedral chapter. The chapter was the sole representative of the clergy in the territorial diet (Landtag), which also included representatives of the three temporal estates of the counts, the knights, and the cities. The cathedral chapter also had the right to convoke the diet without the consent of the archbishop. Finally, the latter was obliged to appoint two members of the diet to be part of his standing committee of councillors. he archbishop could not raise taxes or incur debts without the consent of the territorial diet. He also needed its approval to pawn a territory or begin a war. We can easily see the extent to which all these arrangements strictly limited the power of the princearchbishop of Cologne if we also take the manifold connections between

The Reformation of the Empire — 185 the cathedral chapter and the university, as well as the city council of Cologne, into account. Cologne was a free imperial city and thus not subject to the elector's jurisdiction. He had to rule together with a chapter that included not only sixteen prelates from the highest nobility of the empire but also eight university professors, most of them theologians or experts in canon law. If we also consider that some of them held the pastorate of a church in town, it is clear that in Cologne the cathedral chapter, significant sectors of the citizenry, and the university and the city council were all inextricably connected. The extremely conservative and strictly orthodox theological faculty of the university set the religious tone for the city. There was little breathing space for other views in Cologne.

Hermann von Wied, born in 1477, became the archbishop of Cologne in 1515. In the initial years of his term he gave little indication of being any different from the other prince-prelates of the empire, although he did show some interest in stabilizing the traditional church. Later, however, he attached increasing importance to the issue of church reform. The first actual steps he took in this direction were probably due to his close adviser

Johannes Gropper. They consisted of a provincial chapter of the Cologne diocese, which convened in the cathedral of the city in March 1536, as well as the publication in 1538 of the reform statutes promulgated by this chapter. The failure of these sweeping efforts led Hermann von Wied to place his hopes on the religious colloquies that soon followed. As already mentioned, Hermann was personally present in Hagenau. The urgent appeal made on all prelates in the closing decree of the Regensburg diet, to carry out reforms in the church, was one that the archbishop took very much to heart. It may be true that he was not exactly a learned man. But he was a sincere Christian, took his faith seriously, and was determined to assume his responsibility before God in improving the state of the church. He assembled a small circle of advisers to help him in this task, mostly humanists with Reformation leanings. But it was ultimately Bucer and Gropper whom Hermann was counting on to pull off the Reformation in the prince-archbishopric of Cologne. Both had gotten along well in Worms and Regensburg and had since kept closely in touch.

The Reformation Attempt Bucer and Gropper met with Hermann von Wied on February 5, 1542, at the castle of Buschhoven, his hunting retreat in the Kottenforst area some eight miles west of Bonn.*® They discussed the introduction of church reform measures in the prince-archbishopric. One month later

Martin Bucer Bucer urged the archbishop once again to carry out a "truly Christian

Reformation" in his territory, in order to set a shining example for the other imperial estates, especially the prince-bishops.t! Hermann von

Wied submitted his reformation proposals to the territorial diet in the middle of March. All four estates of the diet—including the cathedral chapter that would later oppose him so doggedly—gave the archbishop a free hand to carry out the reforms seen as so necessary by all sides.

This spirit of harmony dissipated immediately when it became known whom Hermann von Wied intended to appoint for this task. The secretary recording the proceedings of the theological faculty of the University of Cologne on July 26 excitedly took note of rumors that "the Archbishop is planning to invite Bucer over to Cologne from Strasbourg to let him win converts for Lutheranism."** This note was, of course, a crude oversimplification. But a grain of truth was present, inasmuch as Bucer was naturally no neutral figure interested in mediating impartially between two opposing sides but quite the contrary, a prominent church official and theologian bent on carrying through his vision for the reform of the church. And this vision was precisely what the clergy of Cologne intended to resist with all their available means.

Bucer and Gropper's friendship did not survive this polarization. At the beginning of August, the latter was still assuring his Strasbourg colleague that enduring personal and theological ties united them. With time, however, Gropper became weary of the hostility he had to endure within his own camp—rumors refused to abate that he was ultimately responsible for Bucer's coming to the Electorate of Cologne. Furthermore, Bucer's strong sense of calling began to frighten even Gropper, leading him eventually to retreat to the safety of his traditional Catholic circles. Regardless of the prerequisites and conditions for his appointment to Bonn, wrote Bucer to Gropper on January 2, 1543, "Here I am and I intend to remain within the Lord's calling."*? To this he added, "I belong to the party of the Protestants," which, however, did not mean reckless addiction to innovation but rather the readiness to allow everything to prevail that fit in, and agreed, with the rule of Christ.

At the end of the month Bucer tried anew to regain Gropper's sympathy by writing him a lengthy letter of a fundamental nature.*+ Once again

Bucer asserted his conviction of being on Christ's side and of experiencing Christ's very own persecution in the adverse circumstances he was going through. Gropper also belonged more properly on Christ's side, the side of truth, admonished Bucer. Of course, this allegiance would mean changing his life conduct—among other things, by no longer persisting

The Reformation of the Empire — 187 in the accumulation of ecclesiastical benefices! Bucer waited in vain for a personal response to this letter. By now Gropper had become firmly entrenched in the Catholic camp, which was undertaking everything in its might to rid the prince-bishopric of Bucer.*

Bucer had been living in Bonn since December 14, 1542. The city had about two thousand inhabitants at the time.*° Most of them were artisans and small merchants, with some fishermen and ferrymen. The town was only thinly populated, with extensive vegetable gardens, orchards, and vineyards lying within city walls. What distinguished Bonn from comparable towns was neither the market for the surrounding villages nor the Rhine tariff it charged, but rather the fact that it housed the headquarters of the electoral administration and the residence of the prince-bishop.

This had a noticeable effect on the city: its population included a significant minority of court officials and servants; the civic constitution permitted citizens only very limited self-administration under the supervision of electoral officials. A conspicuous feature of the city was the socalled Stiftsstadt in the northern part of Bonn: it included the stately cathedral (Miinster), the parish church of St. Remigius south of it, and the castle-like electoral palace. The latter, where Bucer probably had his lodging, was located approximately where the buildings of the University of Bonn stand today. On December 23, 1542, Bucer wrote to Strasbourg reporting that his accommodations were very comfortable and that the electoral administrator was providing him with a magnificent diet of fish and meats.

Bucer preached in Bonn cathedral on December 17 for the first time.

Soon afterward, he began preaching there three times a week. On December 18 he also started a series of lectures in Latin on 1 Corinthians in the local Franciscan monastery, providing an exegesis of the biblical text for his listeners three times a week. These tasks constituted only a small portion of Bucer's daily workload, which also included negotiations, traveling, drafting memoranda and expert opinions of all sorts, as well as quite a bit of writing. It is therefore understandable that he complained to Landgrave Philip at the end of April 1543: "Since Iam almost alone, fam consuming and exhausting myself."*"

On December 19, 1542, the Cologne cathedral chapter and university had filed a formal complaint with the archbishop, protesting against Bucer's appointment. Hermann von Wied summoned Bucer to his quarters in Brithl, where the Strasbourg reformer remained from December

24 until the close of the year. With the new year, however, Bucer returned to Bonn. On January 9, Gropper presented the archbishop with a hastily

Martin Bucer drafted Catholic reform proposal, which both Hermann von Wied and Bucer rejected. It is probably no coincidence that its text has not survived.

A territorial diet (Landtag) convened in Bonn from March 12 to 16.

Bucer, by now a controversial figure, was conspicuously absent, as he had deliberately not been invited. The territorial estates did authorize Hermann von Wied once more to conduct church reforms within his princearchbishopric and to appoint the appropriate persons for this task—just as long as Bucer was not among them. When the archbishop resolutely asserted that he would stick by Bucer, the representatives of the three temporal estates gave in—but not the cathedral chapter. An open struggle was now beginning.

Bucer was somewhat at a disadvantage in this situation, because neither the cathedral chapter nor the theological faculty agreed to participate in a disputation with him. Bucer's tremendous skills as a public speaker and his ready wit were thus put out of commission. All he could do now was to express himself in written form—and it was in writing that his verbal gifts became handicaps. He had always lacked an ability to formulate things briefly, to simplify his written trains of thought, and especially to bring matters to a point. Things were complicated by the fact that a plethora of popular and learned writers joined in the literary fray, publishing some 140 writings in the course of this controversy, from December 1542 to the spring of 1547. Just as important was the fact that the Catholics now succeeded for the first time in making broad use of the printing press to their advantage.

It was in this setting that Bucer, in March 1543, published the first of his writings of defense against the Cologne cathedral chapter under the title

What Is Presently Being Taught and Preached in the Name of the Holy Gospel of Our Lord fesus Christ in Bonn, in the Bishopric of Cologne (Was im Namen des

Heiligen Evangeliums unseres Herrn Jesus Christus jetzt zu Bonn im Stift Koln gelehrt und predigt wird).** The fact that the book was reprinted twice within a very short time speaks for itself. In this work, Bucer began by expounding his theological principles in very simple, almost popular language, writing among other things on justification by faith, monastic life, marriage, and the duties of civil authority. He then prudently defended his activity at Bonn, particularly by referring to the closing decree of the Regensburg diet. He concluded his treatise with the admonition to rejoice, after all, that the gospel was being preached and abuses in the church were being eliminated, and with a call to his readers to do all they could to help crown these efforts with success.

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Considerably less convincing than this work—which Bucer, still hoping to bring about a public disputation, dedicated to the city council and the University of Cologne—was his second book of defense, published at the end of July 1543.*? It was directly motivated by a malicious

Judgment (Iudicium) issued by the prior provincial of the Carmelites, Eberhard Billick, and from which even the cathedral chapter distanced itself. Melanchthon's reply appeared in June.°? In this renewed defense,

Bucer fought against the Judicium's attempt to slander the Reformation, the city of Strasbourg, and his own person. He defended the Reformation understanding of sin and of the new life of discipleship of those justified by faith, in addition to discussing the veneration of saints, confirmation, and particularly the Mass and the Lord's Supper, as well as confession and absolution. Bucer echoed one central tenet again and again: "God wants us to turn to him and to surrender to him completely and with all our hearts. That is the honor we are to give him. But this can only occur if we find comfort solely in his grace and mercy."*! On the whole, however, this second defense turned out to be rather too long and much too involved and detailed in its argumentation to attract major attention or have any lasting effect on Reformation efforts. At about the same time, Bucer and Melanchthon drafted their Christian and True Justification (Christliche und wabre Verantwortung).°* It was a brief memorandum addressed to the archbishop of Cologne in which the two reformers rejected the allegations and calumnies that the university in particular, but also the city council, had uttered against them. The work that soon attracted major attention, however, was Hermann von Wied's Simple Consideration Concerning the Establishment of a Christian Reformation Founded upon God's Word (Einfaltiges Bedenken, worauf eine christliche, im Worte Gottes gegriindete Reformation ..

. anzurichten set),> which laid out the guidelines for reforming the church in the Electorate of Cologne.

Bucer had already begun working on this major text in January 1545.

Melanchthon came to Bonn at the beginning of May and assisted him in drafting the ordinance. Caspar Hedio, coming from Strasbourg, joined them a month later. By then, however, the Szmple Consideration was essentially complete. Melanchthon and Bucer are thus to be considered the rightful authors. Determining exactly how much each one wrote, though, is extraordinarily difficult. We can be certain that Melanchthon drafted the sections on the Trinity, creation, and original sin. But this does not mean that he did not also write other chapters or have a say in their formulation.

A further, entirely different question is establishing which texts served as

Martin Bucer models. It is clear that one very important source was the BrandenburgNuremberg church ordinance of 1533, but it was certainly not the only one.

In spite of this variety of authors and models, anyone picking up and reading the Szmple Consideration would have had the impression of holding a rather uniform document in his hands. In his foreword, Hermann von Wied admitted that the ordinance was far from perfect and represented only a first step in putting the closing decree of the Regensburg diet into practice. He considered improvements possible in some sections and encouraged a debate over the draft. After this preface came an introduction that clearly reflected Bucer's thought and summarized the central ideas of the entire ordinance: taking the Bible as our point of departure, humans are called to proclaim God's truth; this is the church's primary duty; and all our preaching, teaching, faith, and action must center on Jesus Christ. Bucer presented the goals of the Simple Consideration even more concisely to Bullinger some weeks later when he wrote: "Everything has been ordered in accordance with evangelical simplicity, so that regardless of what the church does with words or signs, it is always preaching and communicating Christ alone, and this clearly and effectively, as well as proclaiming and strengthening people in the conviction that forgiveness of sins and certainty of grace can only be found in him.">+

Alas, the clarity and succinctness manifested above is not to be found in the Simple Consideration itself. In more than three hundred pages divided into sixty chapters, both authors present readers with a curious combination of theological principles, devotional meditations, church law statutes, and liturgical instructions. This work is proof once again that Bucer could not reduce himself simply to presenting and discussing the right dogmatic tenets. Critics were not at a loss to find enough to criticize about Bucer's publications—the Swiss*? as well as Luther, who said of the Consideration: "Uhe whole thing is too long and nothing but eyewash; I could tell right away that Bucer, the chatterbox, was at work here."°® This plan for reformation was indeed anything but brief and concise. On the contrary, it deliberately attempted to be broad and thus all the more inclusive. Bucer was convinced that both the congregation as a whole and the individual Christian participated in Christ's presence, and that a new way of living and thinking arose from this participation. He therefore rejected any attempts to cramp Christian teaching into a narrow doctrinal norm.

Instead, Bucer's goal was to coax Catholics to change their orientation gradually, step by step, and he wanted to do this by preaching Christ; such preaching included the message of sinners being justified alone through faith, as well as the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Fur-

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thermore, he wanted worship services to be held in the vernacular, priests to be permitted to marry, and the cup to be given to the laity in the Lord's

Supper. Finally, not only were traditional church ceremonies to be scrutinized critically, but also the legal statutes of the church. Bucer's method of proceeding earned him much criticism. In a letter to Philip of Hesse on April 29, 1543, he made the following allusion to Luther: "Many in Wittenberg grunt against me without my having deserved it. They should rather discern from my activity whether I am conducting God's affairs in a pure or impure fashion. How easy it is, behind a glass of beer or wine in a cozy tavern, to tear to shreds the humble servants involved in struggle and conflict! But then again, if this were not happening to us, then our service would not be tested in the right way."*'

This draft for the Cologne reformation was discussed with Hermann von Wied at the beginning of July. The archbishop studied the text five hours a day for five days, concentrating particularly on the quotations from the Bible. On July 23 he submitted the Consideration to the territorial diet. The three temporal estates expressed their consent with the plan; the cathedral chapter rejected it flatly, referring instead to the statutes of the provincial synod of 1536 and insisting that they be put into action.

The diet's closing decree on July 26, 1543, took note that the archiepiscopal reform program had been accepted and expressed the hope that the cathedral chapter would agree to it, after all, sometime within the next three weeks. It appeared as if the decisive step for introducing the Reformation in the prince-bishopric of Cologne had been taken.

As in the case of the previous territorial diet, Bucer was not present at this one. Nevertheless, he remained the life and soul of these efforts at reformation. He unceasingly called on Philip of Hesse to provide Hermann von Wied with moral and political support. Evangelical preaching and the administration of the Lord's Supper in both kinds was, in fact, already taking place in a number of cities—among them, Kempen, Linz, and Andernach. The center of the Reformation movement, however, was clearly the electoral residence in Bonn. The Franciscan monastery in Bonn emptied itself, some of its former members began preaching in the surrounding villages, and priests started marrying. At the same time, following the example of Strasbourg's new Latin school of 1539, a Protestant academy of sorts began developing in Bonn to serve as a counteruniversity to that of Cologne. It cannot be denied that these were only rudimentary beginnings. And yet they were significant, for Duke William IV of JiilichCleves-Berg was beginning to show interest for the Reformation, and the bishop of Miinster, Franz von Waldeck, was waiting for Hermann von

Martin Bucer Wied to have success in order to follow his example. The initial accomplishments of the Reformation in electoral Cologne, as modest as they were, carried enormous weight.

Setbacks Ultimately, it was not internal or external difficulties that brought about the collapse of the "Cologne reformation" but rather Emperor Charles

V's victorious military campaign against Duke William IV of JiilichCleves-Berg. William had gained control over Gelderland and Zutphen by succession—a takeover that was legally far from incontestable. The Duchy now represented a threat to the Habsburg Low Countries, especially since Duke William sought an alliance with France in order to shore up his power and consolidate his political independence. In addition, he was gradually introducing the Reformation into his Duchy, hoping in this way for a religious and military rapprochement with the Schmalkaldic

League. A decisive factor in preventing this approximation to the Protestants from ultimately succeeding was the secret agreement (mentioned above) that Landgrave Philip, because of his bigamy, had been forced to make with Charles V. This being the case, the Habsburg emperor was able to conquer the small fortress of Diiren, without encountering any opposition, with a brutal attack in August 1543 that provoked horror and dismay in the entire Duchy. On September 7, Charles imposed his demands on Duke William in the town of Venlo: Gelderland and Zutphen were to fall to the emperor; all religious innovations were to be annulled; the alliance with the French king was to be replaced with a treaty that committed the duke to unconditional allegiance to the emperor.

The significance of these events can hardly be overestimated. For one thing, Emperor Charles V had demonstrated unmistakably to all that he was powerful enough to suppress by sheer force any attempt at religious or political change. At the same time, by giving ample proof of its internal disunity and its political ineffectiveness, the Schmalkaldic League had made it clear to Charles V that he would have an easy time routing the Protestants.

Few people in the evangelical camp, though, fully realized the significance of these events or understood their consequences. Among them was

Martin Bucer. He had witnessed the triumphant entry of Charles V and his troops into Bonn on August 17, 1543. He had seen for himself how the imperial army looted this "Lutheran" territory and deliberately caused havoc in it, vandalizing acres and acres of vineyards.°® Bucer was forced to

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leave Bonn ten days later. He returned to Strasbourg by way of Hesse, taking time in Frankfurt to admonish Landgrave Philip once again in a stern letter: the terrible events currently besetting the Protestants were God's just punishment for their contempt of God's revealed truth and their failure to take discipleship seriously, as one could clearly see from the fact that they were not introducing church discipline! Everybody had some share in the blame, asserted Bucer, but the civil authorities were particularly responsible, for they wielded the greatest authority and influence. Bucer expressly included Philip in his criticism because the Landgrave—together with the elector of Saxony—enjoyed "the highest reputation among the princes who profess the Holy Gospel"—and enjoyed this reputation just as much "among enemies as among friends."°"

Bucer entreated Philip countless times in the coming weeks to devote himself less to eating well and drinking liberally, and especially admonished him not to spend so much time hunting but rather to attend to his governmental duties more faithfully and to put particular effort into increasing the religious discipline and devotion of his court and territory.

The Landgrave lent Bucer's critique a willing ear but disagreed wholeheartedly with the Strasbourg reformer's conviction that an amended piety and the resulting greater cohesion among Protestants would automatically solve the crisis of the Reformation. Bucer repeated his demands in a memorandum he sent to Philip in October 1543. Replying on November 11, the Landgrave claimed that little of what Bucer was calling for could be put into practice. He did not shrink from drastic examples to support his case.°! The archbishop of Cologne, he wrote, essentially had no idea of what was occurring. The Schmalkaldic League found itself at the point of collapse. Most important, the situation had changed completely with respect to the Catholics: they "now smell a rat, wondering why you consented to an agreement in Regensburg, considering what resulted from it, what you did in the Archbishopric of Cologne, and what happened as a consequence in the Bishoprics of Miinster and Osnabriick, and that with the passage of time their affairs came to naught. Especially because Gropper, Julius Pflug and others, who originally were on your side, from now on will clearly be against you."° Bucer knew this all too well. Not naiveté but the refusal to succumb to his own feelings of discouragement and hopelessness made Bucer try to mobilize the Landgrave in this way. Bucer was indeed capable of appraising the Protestant situation in extraordinarily somber terms, as a lengthy letter to Heinrich Bullinger of December 28, 1543, shows.® After briefly describing the situation in the prince-bishopric of Cologne, he bitterly

Martin Bucer lamented Luther's recent crude invectives against the Swiss regarding the Lord's Supper. Indefensible as the Wittenberg Reformer's behavior was, however, Bucer could still insist on not forgetting that Luther remained

"an admirable instrument of God for the salvation of His people." Besides, Bucer continued, it was inadmissible for Christians to accuse and inveigh against one another. Their duty was to tolerate and amend one another in love and patience—only by acting in this spirit would they be capable of achieving anything for their cause.

The same conclusions were true for high-level politics, Bucer felt. He saw quite clearly that Charles V was now the dominant political figure in Germany. He fittingly described the emperor, whom he had observed at close quarters in Bonn, as a gruff man who "pursues his goals with extreme doggedness, if indeed sometimes secretively and in an impenetrable way."

Absolutely no doubt could remain that Charles V was going to impose his will upon Germany, if not through negotiations then by force of arms.

Bucer continued his description in unwitting admiration: "Everything about him was imperial: his words, his actions, his countenance, his bearing—and his gifts. Even those who have already known him for a long time were utterly amazed at his agility, resoluteness, enthusiasm, earnestness and majesty." Later on in his letter Bucer wrote: "The Emperor could achieve so much if he would only strive to be the Emperor of Germany and Christ's servant."

What was the situation in the Protestant camp? Bucer only saw quarrel, discord, selfishness, and the greatest imaginable disunity. "So these are our pillars," he mused in conclusion. Only Philip of Hesse was exempted from his criticism. The Landgrave, wrote Bucer, could think in a longterm fashion and felt a responsibility for the whole. But what was an individual capable of achieving, particularly if the cities went their own way anyhow, without second thoughts? "Mercury, the God of merchants, has corrupted most of them anyway." And as far as the foreign powers were concerned, the French king had squandered his credit by forming a military alliance with the Ottomans, the English king stood silently on the sidelines, and the Danish king had withdrawn. "Just contemplate the ruins of Europe!"

Bucer concluded: "Hence I see that men are completely at a loss when it comes to saving Germany from its downfall." He finished his letter with the plea: "May the Lord Jesus grant that we consecrate ourselves to him with our entire hearts. Only in this way will we escape God's wrath, which is already blazing up against us. The hour of the prophets has

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arrived. The Lord grant that we may call people to repent with the same prophetic spirit."

Admittedly, Bullinger was not impressed with this letter. He continued to make derogatory remarks about Bucer and used every available opportunity to distance himself from the Strasbourg reformer in the rudest way possible.

Perseverance Fighting with the Written Word Bucer's long-term goal was that the Reformation take hold in the entire

Holy Roman Empire—and far beyond. Particularly from the beginning of the 1540s, Bucer had become convinced that this objective could be reached only if the Protestant camp were willing to make concessions to those temporal and ecclesiastical princes who did, in fact, wish to reform their territories but did not want to introduce the Lutheran confession.

Bucer's plan was two-pronged: on the one hand, he sought to initiate conversations between open-minded leading figures in both camps; on the other, he hoped the imperial estates would officially endorse this project. His ultimate aim remained the convocation of a national council: the renewal of the church in Germany was to arise from the cooperation between the imperial representatives and Protestant theologians, together with any other theologians who strove for a true reform of the church.

This plan could be carried out only if one succeeded in convincing as many rulers as possible, or at least their advisers, of its necessity. Furthermore, where reforms had gained a foothold as a consequence of the closing decree of the Regensburg diet, these at the very least had to be defended, if not expanded. This need for defense and expansion was now primarily the case in the Electorate of Cologne. Finally, Bucer's plan was crucially dependent on the ability of Protestants to neutralize the growing self-confidence of the pope's supporters among the Catholics and their erowing influence on ecclesiastical politics.

Bucer made a heroic effort to achieve as much as possible in all the areas mentioned above. He was seriously hampered, however, by the almost complete absence of any opportunities to confront his opponents personally. He thus had to limit himself to the written and printed word, a means he used to the maximum. His enormous, almost frantic literary output barely manages to conceal the series of setbacks he had to endure. At no point did he succeed in achieving a major breakthrough. In spite of all the

Martin Bucer trouble he went to and toil he performed, despite all his efforts, Bucer essentially ended up treading water.

Already in 1542 he drafted a lengthy treatise addressed to the Dutch theologian Albert Pighius, a resolute adherent of the pope. In it he set forth the essence of true church unity and outlined a path he believed would lead to this unity.°* Not by insisting on the primacy of the pope but rather by comprehending more clearly and completely Christ's pure teaching, as well as its ethical consequences for the individual and society, could one recover church unity, wrote Bucer, once again presenting Erasmus, the church fathers, the statements of the Bible, as well as the teachings of the great theologians of the Middle Ages, particularly Thomas

Aquinas, as being in perfect agreement with one another.

Soon after, the Strasbourg preachers placed high expectations on the new bishop of their region, Erasmus of Limburg.® A learned person,

Limburg had a sincere interest in renewing the church and was under pressure from many, including Hermann von Wied, to introduce reforms at long last. Much effort and trouble was put into arranging a meeting between the new bishop and the Strasbourg pastors, a meeting that finally came about under Bucer's leadership in Molsheim on October 18, 1542, but that unfortunately ended without any results. Even more disappointing for Bucer were his attempts to come to an understanding with Bartholomaeus Latomus, an adviser at the court of the archbishop of Trier. Bucer and Latomus had gradually begun to win each other's confidence, even though the Reformation attempt in Cologne was seriously straining relationships between both archbishoprics. The archbishop of Trier was particularly appalled at the fact that evangelical sermons were being preached and the newfangled evangelical Lord's Supper was being distributed in Andernach and Linz, towns that were politically part of the Electorate of Cologne but fell under the spiritual jurisdiction of the diocese of Trier.

When Bucer went a step further and tried to convince Latomus to introduce the Reformation into the territory of Trier, their budding friendship fell apart. A bitter literary battle®° ensued, particularly over the matter of the marks of the true church and the meaning of church traditions. Bucer vigorously rejected the charge that "we oppose the entire ancient and proven church, and that everything about us is new or was thought up recently." In fact, it was the evangelicals that had authentic church tradition on their side, affirmed Bucer; they, and not the papists, preserved the pure, unadulterated church of Jesus Christ. Bucer then went on to expound his understanding of the church as a republic. As far as its head—

Christ—is concerned, the church is a monarchy, asserted Bucer; but as a

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community of the faithful it is a republic. In it, all Christians are equal and fundamentally capable of filling any church office. All of them are called to show one another the way to God, serve their fellow human beings, and attend their bodily and spiritual needs, each one with his or her own gifts.

Politically, Bucer was a resolute supporter of the estates' rights, as we have seen above, and decidedly antimonarchical. 'These tendencies were even more pronounced when it came to his understanding of the church. Was

————————— _— it not absurd, Bucer asked Latomus, to assume that one person—the pope—was more capable of caring for the church's welfare than was the entire fellowship of believers?

At the same time that Bucer was suffering these individual reversals, Protestantism also endured serious political setbacks. Bucer had drafted his response to Latomus in March 1544, during the diet of Speyer. This assembly, which lasted from February to July of that year, was entirely dominated by Charles V, who stirred up emotions against the French because of their alliance with the Ottomans. The emperor did make a significant concession to the Protestants by treating them de facto like a confession in their own right, at the same level with the Catholics. He did, however, always qualify these concessions by refusing to extend them beyond an upcoming council or the next imperial diet. He also gave supporters of the traditional church the impression that he was not going to keep his promises to the evangelicals. Prepared in this way, the imperial troops launched a war against France and won it swiftly. But Charles's real victory was a diplomatic one: the peace treaty signed on September 18,

1544, in Crépy, a village near Laon, included a secret supplementary agreement committing Francis I to rescind his alliance with the Ottomans, send delegates to the pope's council, and help Charles V coerce the Protestants into returning to the Catholic fold.

On October 9, 1544, the cathedral chapter, the clergy, and the University of Cologne all appealed to the emperor and to the pope, formally requesting protection from their archbishop. At about the same time, Elector Palatine Frederick II began approaching the Protestant camp cautiously. During these months, Bucer worked with great self-sacrifice on his

Steadfast Defense (Bestandige Verantwortung), which aimed to refute the Christian and Catholic Counter-Report Gropper had written against Hermann von Wied's Reformation plan. But even potential readers favorably inclined to Bucer were probably intimidated by the resulting behemoth of a volume—over six hundred printed folio-size pages! Bucer was unable to resist the temptation of assembling every single theological and ecclesiastical objection of his opponents and then proceeding to rebut each of them,

Martin Bucer one after another. The outcome was a tediously long and exhaustively comprehensive collection of information lacking the slightest persuasive quality and leaving no doubt as to the insurmountable nature of doctrinal differences separating both camps. It is no surprise that the announced publication of the Latin translation of the work was not carried out until much, much later (1613 and 1618).

As the date for the coming imperial diet in Worms—the spring of 1545—approached, Bucer once again summoned up all his energy to help bring about a free national council in place of the council that Pope Paul

[I had convoked at Trent. Accordingly, he tried to furnish the memorandum prepared by the Wittenberg theologians on the Reformation of the empire with a considerably sharper edge. He deemed it necessary to give much more prominence to the numerous failures and grievous faults of the German bishops, as he wrote in a letter to Philip of Hesse. On the whole, he felt the Protestants should put much more pressure on their opponents. If indeed the emperor would not be won over for this cause,

Bucer remained convinced that some imperial estates could probably be persuaded. "For when truth and justice are brought to light and driven into people's hearts well," he wrote, "then they are a miraculous power.

This primarily among the children of truth, of course; but they also are capable of achieving much by destroying the defiance of God's enemies."

Bucer therefore concentrated most of his attention on the imperial estates and their activities. He drafted a number of pamphlets aimed at statesmen, whom he tried to convince to convene a national council. In the first of them, the Christian Reminder (Christliche Erimnerung), Bucer picked up, once again after twenty-five years, the theme of Luther's Address to the Christian Nobility:'° the pope, claimed Bucer, lacks the desire and the ability to reform the church, for he stands in the antichrist's camp. God will overturn him, however. In fact, he has already begun to do so. And if only the emperor, the princes, and the imperial estates, and the court advisers and jurists as well, would finally assume their Christian responsibility to amend abuses in the church, then "we will all see and experience gradually how Christ our Lord will execute and get rid of this enemy of his, without hands or a sword, but only through the spirit of his mouth."7!

In a second work, Bucer discussed "how easily and fittingly" (Wie leicht und fiiglich) Christians should be able to get along with one another and without the pope.'" Let us submit ourselves to Christ, Bucer admonished his readers; let us obey and trust him alone, on the basis of Holy Scripture, and let us love our fellow humans as ourselves—then we will have met all the prerequisites for the unity of the church. All further disagree-

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ments and differences can be settled from this starting point. Bucer was by no means unaware of the political, social, moral, and religious obstacles blocking the way to such a settlement. he pope doubtless wanted to continue his rule; bishops and prelates were worried about maintaining their prestige and their income; the Protestant princes were hungry for political power and ecclesiastical property; and finally, would it not threaten the unity of Christendom if Germany went its own way? Bucer refused to accept these as legitimate excuses. He remained convinced that only if God's clear demands were met would peace and tranquillity reign within the empire and at its borders.

Bucer published a third booklet'? repeating these thoughts in the summer of 1545. Finally, he tried once again to bring into play the agreement he had reached with Georg Witzel in 1539.'* All these endeavors, though, were ultimately futile. Emperor Charles V made it clear to the pope that he was about to wage a war against the Protestants. Paul IIT promised him a handsome financial subsidy. While the diet of Worms was still in session,

Charles V accepted the appeal of the Cologne chapter, clergy, and university, thus clearly taking sides in their conflict with Hermann von Wied.

A request for help that the temporal estates of the Electorate of Cologne addressed to the Schmalkaldic League in December 1544 remained unanswered. Equally ineffectual was Hermann von Wied's appeal in July 1545 to a free German national council. Was there anything left for Bucer to try—particularly considering that everything pointed to the fact that the pope's council in Trent was about to become reality? On September 26,

1545, Bucer wrote to Landgrave Philip: "We see and grasp quite well what times we are living in, and whose coins alone are valid, and that all promises only hold good as long they are advantageous." Strasbourg and Hesse contemplated conducting a preventive war.'? Doing so would protect the incipient Cologne reformation and pave the way for a national church council. According to the plan, Philip of Hesse would assume the role of the classical Roman "dictator," and Luther would legitimate this action with a memorandum drafted in Latin and in German. Alliances would then be sought with England, Denmark, and Switzerland. The mere order in which Bucer listed these ideas shows how unrealistic they were. This was no sober, clear-eyed plan based on political reality—it was an expression of despair and powerlessness.

Bucer was left with only his pen as a weapon. He used it to combat the "papists" and their council in Trent fiercely, while continuing to work in Germany for the convocation of a national council. The theologians of Louvain, complained Bucer, shrugged off the Bible, equated the church

Martin Bucer of Jesus Christ with the pope, and proclaimed a "new faith" with such grotesque matter-of-factness!'° The Lord was granting the antichrist so much power! "That is why it is urgent that we turn to the Lord in all earnestness and pray to him and beseech him incessantly to destroy this utter Anti-Christendom with the spirit of his mouth, as he has already begun to do gloriously."'' Were not the council fathers at Trent aware, asked Bucer in a pamphlet in August 1545, that the pope and his supporters had, from a theological, legal, and especially moral standpoint, long ago forfeited the right to hold church offices?'* The evangelicals, in contrast, wanted nothing other than "the pure and simple restoration of Christ's lordship."'""? Admittedly, Bucer was not able to influence the course of events with these arguments.

This inability to influence matters also became obvious in the Electorate of Cologne. The temporal estates still stood by the archbishop, who was determined to carry out his program of reform. But the optimistic feeling of being on the verge of bringing about something new was definitely gone. Bucer now needed to restore the confidence of Reformation supporters and was also forced to refute the trenchant theological and personal accusations that Anton Engelbrecht had launched against him in an anonymous booklet. The former suffragan bishop of Speyer and later evangelical preacher had returned to the Catholic Church and had old accounts to settle with Bucer. Bucer responded with a brief commentary on the 120th Psalm.*° In it he made the following point: "All of us whom

Christ has chosen out of the world should stick to Christ, our only savior and peacemaker. And in the midst of all the persecution that the world and all anti-Christians are inflicting upon us through their lies and wars, we find comfort in the fact that he, our peace, has overcome the world with its prince and its god, so that they can no longer harm us."®!

About eighteen months later, in the fall of 1547, Bucer once again tried to comfort the small congregation in Bonn.*? By then its situation had worsened dramatically: the Schmalkaldic League had been defeated; its leaders, the Saxon elector and Philip of Hesse, were prisoners of the emperor. In January 1547, the Cologne territorial estates, meeting in the choir of the cathedral of Cologne, confirmed Adolf von Schaumburg as the new archbishop of Cologne. Hermann von Wied, who had been excommunicated by Rome on April 16, 1546, formally relinquished his electoral and archiepiscopal titles and rights on February 25, 1547. "Did things really have to end in this way?" asked Bonn's stunned evangelicals in a letter to Bucer. How could God have allowed this to happen? After all, had they not submitted to his will and, led by his Spirit, purified and

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renewed the teaching and the life of the church? Bucer returned to theological basics in his response, asserting that, when facing God, Christian individuals and fellowships are entitled to only one thing: to confess their guilt. Only then, when men diminish and humble themselves, can God's power come into effect. "The more our physical arm declines and disintegrates, all the more powerfully and gloriously shall he, our Good Shepherd—to whom alone God has granted all power in heaven and on earth—uncover and stretch forth his divine arm to protect and to save us before the eyes of all the heathen, so that the whole world may see how our God helps us just as he has promised."** Bucer's theology once again took on a fundamentally eschatological outlook, as pronounced as at the time of his evangelical beginnings.

Life in Strasbourg The early 1540s brought deep changes in Bucer's private life. On August

28, 1541, he informed Philip of Hesse that he was in the midst of reclaiming the endowment his wife had brought with her when entering the convent of Lobenfeld more than twenty years ago. Bucer needed the money to provide his adult daughters with dowries appropriate to his social standing. When he wrote to Philip once again less than three months later to thank him for his contribution of 100 Téaler, he also disclosed the sad news that his wife and three of his children had died in the meantime.™* As Bucer wrote to friends in Bohemia on March 29, 1542, the plague had already begun to rage in Strasbourg at the beginning of August 1541, when he returned from the diet of Regensburg.*? The epidemic killed over three thousand people in Strasbourg in less than a year, reported

Bucer; hardly a home in the city had not lost a family member. At least nine people died in Bucer's own house: two servants; a foreign boarding student; his wife, Elisabeth, on November 16; three children; and, at the turn of the year, two more infant daughters. It probably strikes us today as somewhat odd that Bucer could interpret such a tremendous personal calamity as divine punishment for his sins and the sins of his family, and that in appraising his deceased wife he dryly noted that she "relieved me, for the past twenty years, entirely of all household duties and child-care, and looked after everything in an honest and circumspect fashion."*°

Bucer was also incapable of casually recalling exactly how many children had issued from his marriage.*' To understand this apparent lack of concern, we must consider the immense infant mortality of this period and also take into account that the notion of a mutual romantic bond between

Martin Bucer marriage partners and heightened emotional sensitivity, particularly toward infants, played less of a role at the end of the Middle Ages than in our own time. "Affective ties between husband and wife and between parents and children were not essential to the existence and stability of a marriage. All the better of course, when they ensued additionally."*8 A wife expected her husband to provide her with economic sustenance and legal protection, while a husband wanted a wife who was dependable and hardworking. It is understandable that a couple initially regarded its numerous newborns with a certain stoic aloofness, since the chances of an infant's survival were much smaller than the probability that it would perish. Relatively prompt remarriage after the death of a spouse was similarly taken for granted. In fact, Bucer did marry again, on April 16, 1542. His new wife was Wibrandis, née Rosenblatt, the widow of his colleague Wolfgang

Capito, who had died on November 4, 1541, also a victim of the plague.

It was Wibrandis's fourth marriage. She had survived all her previous husbands: the Basel scholar Ludwig Keller (Cellarius); the reformer of the same city, Johannes Oecolampadius; and, as mentioned, Wolfgang

Capito. She would outlive Bucer as well. She died in Basel on November 1, 1564, at the age of sixty.

In 1542, Bucer moved into a new house just across the street from St.

Thomas Church (today at no. 15 on the Rue St. Thomas). He had been elected dean of the collegiate chapter of St. Thomas in the course of its reorganization, which entitled him to an official residence in the deanery.

It was a stately building, but not too large for Bucer's large family and his many long-term guests: Wibrandis brought four children from her previous marriages and her mother into her new marriage; she and Martin later also had a daughter of their own, Elisabeth. Of Bucer's own children, it is clear that his mentally and physically handicapped son Nathanael (152982) lived in the house at least part of the time. In addition, domestic servants and especially many refugees who had been forced to flee their mother countries on account of their evangelical faith were present as well.

Supporting a household of this size was understandably no easy task. Still, Bucer often had to respond to accusations that joining the Reformation had benefited him financially, indeed, had turned him into a wealthy man.

In 1546, Bucer declared that, on the average, his income as dean of the collegiate chapter amounted to slightly less than 80 Rhenish guldens a year, depending on the harvest.*? In addition, he received about 17 guldens for his lectures in theology and possibly 70 guldens from boarders. This would mean that Bucer's annual income was about three times that of a former monk, who received a gulden a week from the confiscated property of the

The Reformation of the Empire — 203 monastery—enough to set up house and support a family. But then again, the city of Strasbourg paid Jean Sturm, the rector of the local academy,

150 guldens a year for his work, and rewarded the lawyer and civic attorney Ludwig Gremp as much as 340 guldens a year for his toils. Bucer's income may have been clearly above average," but it certainly was not enough to qualify his standard of living as opulent, particularly given the size of his household and the large number of guests frequenting his house.

At the same time, Bucer worked untiringly, often until late at night.

The Italian humanist, theologian, and refugee from the Inquisition Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), who lived in Strasbourg for several years, wrote in 1542: "I have never seen Bucer inactive. He spends his time either preaching or looking after the order and leadership of the church. . .

. After having done this kind of work all day, he devotes his nights to study and prayer. Seldom did I wake up and not find him awake as well.""! Asa result of such overwork, Bucer suffered ever increasingly from chronic bronchitis, severe indigestion, and recurring ulcers. More than anything, however, he began to age rapidly.

This waning of his physical strength and well-being was accompanied by feelings of extreme gloom. 'The dissonance, inner strife, and bitter divisions within the Protestant camp had depressed Bucer for quite some time already. Now fear of God's wrath weighed him down as well, wrath he believed was provoked by unsatisfactory moral conduct among the Reformation's supporters, especially in Strasbourg. "Truly, if we do not acknowledge, accept, keep and deepen God's blessed covenant better than we are doing it now, God will answer in kind and break it; he will no longer be our God and Savior but will—as he already did with his ancient people— abandon us to our enemies miserably, bringing about our temporal and eternal ruin."

These sentences can be found in Bucer's catechism of 1543."" At the same time, Bucer continued to promote the inner autonomy of congregations. For instance, in order to give congregational singing as central as possible a place in worship, he had a very attractive hymnal printed in 1541. But he put his greatest effort as tenaciously and unwaveringly as ever before into the enforcement of church discipline within the city. Like its predecessors, this catechism also called on the youth to submit voluntarily to the disciplinary measures of the church. Yet people in Strasbourg took offense at the fact that church discipline was apparently applied more strictly at St. Thomas—the congregation in which Bucer was a pastor, and his assistant Conrad Hubert and city council member Claus Kniebis were active as church wardens—than in the other Strasbourg parishes."

Martin Bucer What hurt Bucer more was the persistent rumor, already mentioned previously, that he was the actual author of the Dialogus Neobuli—in other words, an advocate of polygamy and thus a moral hypocrite of the worst sort. A satirical poem against the "scribes" that circulated clandestinely contained the following statement about Bucer:

By character a Jew, a false Christian, Never at a loss for cunning artifices, a sophist,

He's the author of this booklet.

A hypocrite and an insincere scribe Who perverted God's words and works. .

. .°4 By this time, Bucer evidently had powerful enemies in Strasbourg. He himself considered the civic secretary Michael Han to be one of his most ardent opponents, who, to make matters worse, had a whole network of personal and family connections." Never had the petitions and complaints that Bucer and the pastors filed with the city council to protest religious and moral abuses in Strasbourg been as ineffective as they were at this time."° Realizing this, Bucer urged the creation of an autonomous church "convent" made up of representatives of the pastors, their helpers, and the teachers, whose foremost function would be to deliberate over theological, ecclesiastical, and moral issues without the interference of the civil authorities. This convent was founded in June 1544. Bucer and Hedio were elected president and vice president, respectively, for life. It is not known how the city council reacted.

Not even at this time was Bucer ready to exempt the authorities from the ecclesiastical responsibilities that they bore, in his opinion. He emphasized this several times in his correspondence with the Bohemian

Brethren (Unitas Fratrum) between 1540 and 1542. This small, moderate group that had issued from the Hussite movement of the fifteenth century sought contact with the Strasbourg pastors. They were impressed with Bucer as an exegete, but they admired him even more as the author of On True Pastoral Care, for this book contained in condensed form all that seemed necessary to them for the inward and outward edification of the church. It was only Bucer's enlistment of the services of government for carrying out church discipline that drew criticism—indeed, sharp and detailed criticism—from these Czech Christians. Did Bucer not realize, they asked, that these views glaringly contradicted the life and teachings of Jesus? And on whom would Bucer ground his conviction that "a reform

The Reformation of the Empire

and a re-edification of the Christian church could be expected by means of the sword of civil authority" especially now, in these end times?"'

Bucer did not find it hard to correct this distortion of his theology. He praised the Bohemian Brethren for their practice of church discipline, criticized what he found to be an exaggerated regard among them for celibacy, and concluded that a government that wished to obey Christ's commandments should certainly not be prevented from "punishing those who openly harm the Christian religion and encouraging the rest to shun all evildoing."'* Bucer remained convinced that God had instituted the representatives of political authority as watchmen over the entire 'Ten

Commandments and therefore also over the first three, which concern religious conduct. But considerably more far-reaching in their consequences for the religious role of government were Bucer's theological understanding of divine law, the thrust of which was love for one's fellow human beings, and, closely connected with the latter, his conviction that the Holy Spirit developed and activated the order God had implanted into the fabric of all creation. This formed the background for Bucer's claim

"But civic institutions and governments are no less the work of the very same Holy Spirit that rules in all ecclesiastical institutions and offices."""

It is impossible to summarize more concisely the essence of Bucer's theology, with its double emphasis on law and Holy Spirit.

Just as intrinsic to his theological profile, however, was the fact that Bucer did not consider this view of the religious role of government to apply necessarily to all churches. He expressly allowed the Bohemian

Brethren to drop the offending sections of On True Pastoral Care in the Czech translation that was printed in a splendid edition in 1545. Once again, Bucer gave more importance to agreement in principle than unity in issues even important to his theology. "It is manifestly evident," he wrote from Regensburg to Johannes Augusta and "all brethren in Bohemia and Moravia who preach Christ," on August 11, 1541, "that we do not agree in everything—we do agree, however, in all things elementary, fundamental and necessary to piety."!°

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