9. Alliances and Confrontations
NINE ALLIANCES AND CONFRONTATIONS
Zwingli believed passionately in the providence of God, that divine benevolence unfolded in the world, delivering humanity out of the ruck of sinfulness. Yet he would surely have struggled to identify signs of an orderly plan in his remaining years after 1528. With the Reformation – first in Bern and then in other cities, such as Basel and Schaffhausen – the attempts at alliances, the First Kappel War in 1529 and the Diet of Augsburg the following year, Zwingli was caught up in a maelstrom of events far beyond his control. Although the Reformation had been planted in Zurich and its institutional forms were slowly taking root, Zwingli’s own place was never entirely secure. His influence on the ruling magistrates was significant – at moments, even decisive – but never unquestioned. The Council was equally capable of heeding his advice and ignoring his urging, giving the lie to any sense of a theocracy ruled over by a prophet. Even among the supporters of the Reformation, considerable unease was evident at Zwingli’s sense that military conflict was necessary. Equally, his attempts at forming alliances in the Empire, for example with Philipp of Hesse, were seen by many as not necessarily in Zurich’s best interests.
By the late 1520s, the Reformation had become a fragmented movement, with few clear lines. The German territories and cities were not simply Lutheran or Reformed, for they contained a broad range of competing religious views that reflected the shifting and evolving nature of what was to become known as Protestantism. Within the Swiss Confederation, the spread and establishment of the Reformation did not, as we shall see, bring uniformity of either doctrine or goals. On almost every level, disagreement reflected particular religious, political and economic circumstances. Additionally, fierce Catholic resistance grew during the late 1520s, as Charles V became increasingly determined to staunch the flow of heresy.
Where do we find Zwingli in all of this? As we follow the story of his last years, we need to bear in mind that he was not the sole leader of a movement, but was a prominent figure within a group of reformers that extended across the Empire and Confederation. At Marburg, he shared the stage with Oecolampadius; in the period leading up to the First Kappel War, his voice was one among several, such as the Bernese reformer-politician Niklaus Manuel, a fierce opponent of military conflict. Frustrated by foes and allies alike, Zwingli moved away from compromise. His confession to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 was his own and represented no city or other reformer. At significant moments during his last years, Zwingli was an isolated figure.
A German ballad from the late 1520s caught the mood:
There is a noble hero, Huldrych is his name. He comes from good family, the Zwinglis, as you know. He it is who teaches in his doctrine the true honour of the living God, whose commandments we must obey. He also serves all the Swiss and labours not in vain for a Christian federation. The people, however, pride themselves on being pious folk; they give themselves to mischief and hold his plans for nought.1
BEYOND THE RHINE
The Reformation in Zurich was never purely a Swiss event: it unleashed a powerful and unsettling force across the southern German lands of the Empire. Zwingli saw Charles V as a tyrant eager to restore the Roman Empire, and he had cast the new faith in terms of liberation from oppressive laws that burdened lives and consciences. In his mind, the Habsburgs posed the greatest threat to true religion, even worse than Rome, and they had to be vanquished. His calls for religious freedom were coupled with demands for liberty from tyranny, both religious and political. Yet there were limits to Zwingli’s revolution: the faith had been placed in the hands of the Zurich magistrates, and the Reformation brought social reform, but not restructuring. Nevertheless, beyond his reach Zwingli’s ideas fed an impulse for resistance with which his name was closely associated. Like Luther, Zwingli also found that his convictions established a life of their own, labile in nature and often at a distance from the original intentions and contexts. The appeal of ‘Zwinglian’ preachers in the German cities lay in their ability to hitch anti-Catholic and clerical sentiments to an idea of gospel renewal that would deliver a more just society.2 Similarly, Zwingli’s teachings were attractive to guilds that perceived a message of communal ideals dispatching patrician oligarchies. The Swiss served as a model for German cities, where hopes of reform grew from shared religious, social and political ideals. The Confederates had come together through a series of agreements. Now Zurich sought to join hands with Constance and Strasbourg, and looked to other German cities in which the Reformed faith found fertile ground.3
Following his triumph in Bern in 1528, Zwingli became increasingly consumed by affairs within the Empire, and with good reason. The Baden Disputation had made clear the depth of Catholic opposition within the Confederation, and the Reformation in Bern did not resolve the confessional gridlock. Although the Catholic states were not strong enough to defeat the Reformed, the Protestants possessed no unified desire to press their advantage through force. Zwingli remained the most prominent Swiss reformer, but he did not speak unequivocally for Zurich, and certainly not for Bern and Basel.
1. Huldrych Zwingli in 1531, the year of his death. The painting is by the Zurich artist Hans Asper (1499–1571), who was influenced by Hans Holbein.
2. The house in Wildhaus, Toggenburg, where Zwingli was born and lived a happy childhood that he would frequently recall. He often spoke of the virtues of those who lived in the Swiss mountains and valleys.
3. A somewhat romanticized image of a sixteenth-century Swiss mercenary, many of whom died in battle. The Swiss depended on the sale of young men into foreign military service. Zwingli became prominent as an inveterate opponent of mercenary service as morally and politically corrupt.
4. Desiderius Erasmus aged about sixty, painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1530. Zwingli always regarded the Dutch humanist as his great mentor, even after they had parted ways.
5. Widespread woodcut that shows the reformers bringing the Word of God to the people. Erasmus, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, gathers the flour provided by Christ, which Martin Luther bakes into the bread of the Gospel. Zwingli may be the figure in the background with the Bible.
6. The city of Zurich at the time of the Reformation, dominated by the two towers of the Grossmünster, which sits next to the River Limmat. As priest and preacher in the Grossmünster, Zwingli occupied the most prominent place in Zurich.
7. The first disputation of January 1523 was a defining moment of the Reformation. Zwingli put forward his radical ideas before the magistrates, who largely supported him, securing his authority in Zurich. The talented Johannes Fabri ably led the Catholics but the event gave them no chance.
8. The tearing down of the large cross at Stadelhofen just outside Zurich in spring 1523 was one of the most provocative acts of iconoclasm. Unrest and violence against churches threatened to throw the Reformation cause into chaos and the magistrates punished the offenders.
9. In July 1524, after much hesitation the magistrates decreed that the churches in Zurich be stripped of all images and devotional objects and their walls whitewashed. Most of the images were destroyed, sold or returned to patrons.
10. The arrest of Anabaptists who had gathered to worship in woods outside Zurich. Their meetings were illegal and punishable with imprisonment, later execution.
11. The execution of Felix Manz, who was drowned in the River Limmat in Zurich in 1527. Manz, once Zwingli’s friend and later his bitter opponent, was the first Anabaptist to be executed and became an early martyr.
12. The drowning of two Anabaptists in Zurich in 1528. Zwingli supported the Council’s decision to put unrepentant radicals to death.
13. Johannes Oecolampadius, reformer of Basel and Zwingli’s close friend and colleague, painted by Hans Asper in 1550. Quiet and unassuming, Oecolampadius was a prodigious scholar and in some respects the superior theologian.
14. Johann Eck and Johannes Oecolampadius debate at the Baden Disputation in 1526. Oecolampadius took the lead for the Reformed when Zwingli declined to attend. The encounter was a major victory for the brilliant Eck and the Catholics and a major reverse for the Reformation.
15. The disputation held in Bern in 1528 led to the adoption of the Reformation in the most powerful Swiss city. The event marked the height of Zwingli’s influence within the European Reformation and fuelled his hopes that Bern and Zurich would become part of a wider Protestant alliance.
16. Signatures, including those of Huldrych Zwingli and Martin Luther, on the articles agreed at the Disputation of Marburg in the autumn of 1529. The participants could not agree on the Lord’s Supper and the two sides quickly fell back into poisonous polemic, blaming each other for the failure.
17. The execution of the Reformed preacher Jakob Kaiser in May 1529, who had been arrested in Schwyz for illegal preaching. Kaiser’s death was a significant cause of the First Kappel War in 1529. Zwingli argued that war was necessary to punish those who kept the Gospel from the people.
18. A tale from the First Kappel War tells of when Zurich men and Catholic troops shared a milk soup on the border between their two lands. When one soldier sought to take soup from the opposite part of the pot he was told to remain on his side. The account reflects the reality that many soldiers had little desire to fight.
19. Title page of the Zurich Bible of 1531, printed by Christoffell Froschauer. The Bible was the intellectual and spiritual culmination of Zwingli’s efforts, and was the first complete German translation of the Bible in the Reformation. Zwingli led the group of scholars who prepared the translations from Hebrew and Greek and he wrote the extensive preface. The Bible contained woodcuts from Hans Holbein.
20. August Weckesser’s romanticized watercolour Zwingli’s Death on the Battlefield at Kappel (1854). The painting belongs to the efforts of nineteenth-century Protestants to portray Zwingli as a martyr rather than an instigator of religious war.
21. Dedication of the Zwingli monument in Zurich in 1885. It was long debated whether to commemorate Zwingli publicly in the city. The ceremony was a major civic event owing to the leadership of Georg Finsler, head of the church. Philip Schaff, the great Swiss-American historian of Christianity, was in attendance.
22. The Zwingli monument outside the Wasserkirche in Zurich on the River Limmat. The controversial representation of the reformer, the work of the Austrian Catholic Heinrich Natter, depicts him with the Bible in one hand and a sword in the other. There is an ongoing discussion as to whether it was intended to represent his bellicosity and should now be removed.
23. For the 500th anniversary in 2019 of Zwingli’s arrival in Zurich, replicas of his monument were created with ironic humour to represent and question his many characteristics. The colourful figures reflect how a secular city remembers a controversial religious figure.
24. Anna Reinhart (Sarah Sophia Meyer) listens to Zwingli preach in the Grossmünster in Stefan Haupt’s Zwingli. She tended him when he was suffering from the plague and they married first secretly and then in public. Little is known of Anna’s life during the Reformation.
25. Zwingli (Max Simonischek) attends the sausage-eating at the printer Froschauer’s house that broke the Lenten Fast in 1522. The flaunting of the church’s prohibition of meat was the first open protest and the beginning of the reformation in Zurich.
26. Zwingli (Max Simonischek) departs Zurich for battle in 1531 with a poorly prepared army that would be overwhelmed by the Catholics. The reformer died at the Battle of Kappel and his body was quartered and burnt.
Yet the Zurich reformer was deeply involved in the unfolding drama. Friends and sympathetic preachers rapidly carried Swiss religious views through the cities of Swabia and the Upper Rhine. Zwingli’s advocacy of the absolute power of God and of religion in the hands of rulers proved remarkably supple, adaptable to changing circumstances.4 In Constance, perched on the border between the German and Swiss lands, the bishop had been displaced by a Reformation led by Johannes Zwick and Ambrosius Blarer, who were close to both Zwingli and Oecolampadius. Reformed-inspired preachers were very much in the mix in the religious tumult in wealthy Augsburg, where Zwinglians made inroads into the guilds and higher society, garnering considerable support within the ruling Council.5 That Zwingli had not explicitly called for political change was not relevant: his influence was determined by how he was heard and read. The appeal of his message lay in its striking clarity: moral renewal, purging churches of images to benefit the poor, simplicity of worship and a doctrine of the Lord’s Supper that was readily comprehensible (unlike that of the Lutherans). His ideas also found enthusiastic followers in Nuremberg, Ulm and, most significantly, Strasbourg. The close connections between the southern German cities enabled Zwingli’s ideas to gain access to circles of reform-minded clerics and laity.6 Again, we need to be careful about attributing everything to Zwingli alone, as his work was read as part of a growing body of pamphlets and texts, in particular those of his colleagues Oecolampadius, Bucer and Capito; and his ideas were declared by preachers whose influences came from Strasbourg and Basel, as well as from Zurich. Nevertheless, Zwingli’s name was everywhere.
THE LANDGRAVE
By the time of the Diet of Speyer in March 1529, more recent victories by Charles V against his long-time enemy Francis I had put the Catholics in a strong position to reverse the Reformation. Concessions to the evangelicals granted in 1525 were to be rolled back and the Edict of Worms enforced. Charles was represented by his brother Ferdinand, who was in no mood to compromise, and who demanded that the Catholic faith be restored in the Empire. The ‘protest’ against the recess of the Diet was signed by the leading evangelical princes, including Elector Johann of Saxony and Philipp of Hesse, together with 14 imperial cities. The Swiss were not party to the event. The signatories denounced the declarations of the Diet as contrary to the Word of God and their consciences. Little room for compromise remained, and territorial states and cities were forced to declare their hand either in support or in opposition to the emperor and the Catholic Church. Looming large in the background was the Turkish threat, as Ottoman ships sailed up the Danube and would eventually lay siege to Vienna in September 1529.
The Protestant cause, however, was politically divided. The powerful territorial princes such as Johann of Saxony and Philipp of Hesse spoke of military resistance and a refusal to pay imperial taxes. The cities, however, had traditionally enjoyed a close and profitable relationship with the Holy Roman emperors, serving as bankers and enjoying trade privileges, and were less inclined to belligerency.7 Nevertheless, in April 1529, Strasbourg concluded a defensive alliance with Philipp of Hesse, Johann of Saxony, and the cities of Nuremberg and Ulm explicitly to defend true religion.8
The sacramental differences remained, however, a thorn in the side, intensified by Luther’s insistence that Oecolampadius and Zwingli were literally hell bound. A broader cultural difference also separated Lutherans and Swiss Reformed. Although the Swiss still nominally belonged to the Empire, they were de facto independent and occupied little mental space for most Germans. Other than Germans in the south, few in the Empire knew much about the Swiss, beyond their reputation as warlike peasants. The rustic Confederates were the butt of bawdy jokes, not least about their sexual proclivities for farm animals.
Luther’s association of the Swiss with the fanatics expressed his great fear that their theological errors went hand in hand with political and social disorder, an association that conjured up the Peasants’ War. Luther shared the common attitude that the Swiss were insubordinate: the traditional republican and communal traditions of the Confederation might incite rebellion or insurrection in the German lands.9 Philipp Melanchthon predicted that the Swiss would use force ‘from which is to be feared not only a terrible and great butchery but also great disputes in all ecclesiastical affairs and the erosion of government, which could not be repaired in a hundred years – nay not for the rest of time’.10 In response, Philipp of Hesse told Melanchthon that, as far as he knew, the Zwinglians were not revolutionaries.
The relationship between Philipp of Hesse and Zwingli took shape during the summer of 1529, although there had been contact for some three years. This imperial prince and the cleric with a rustic background were not equals, but their bond came with genuine respect and even fondness. Zwingli’s talent lay in articulating a new faith with remarkable persuasion, and in working with those who possessed power. And although his own lands were largely Lutheran, Philipp was drawn to Zwingli’s theology. At first their contact seemed to promise much, and Philipp worked hard to protect the Zurich reformer from attacks from the Lutherans. He was eager for a meeting in his own territory at Marburg to find a resolution. But he, too, had little understanding of the unique nature of the Swiss Confederation, and assumed a unity that did not exist – a miscalculation whose consequences would soon become evident. Bern, preoccupied with internal concerns and with avoiding war in the Confederation, had little interest in a grand Protestant alliance. Despite last-minute efforts to persuade them otherwise, the Bernese did not send representatives to Marburg, and their lack of engagement seriously weakened the Swiss presence. Zwingli, for his part, placed on Philipp’s shoulders the weight of his expectations for the Reformation. Their exchanges were a mixture of political information and doctrinal elucidations.
After the failure to reach agreement at Marburg, Philipp revised his plans towards the possibility of two separate Protestant alliances for the north and south, in which he would play a leading role.11 The idea was rejected out of hand by the elector of Saxony, with the result that by the end of 1529 the landgrave was becoming isolated. In the southern part of the Empire, he turned his attention to an alliance with Strasbourg and the Swiss, with Jakob Sturm in Strasbourg and Huldrych Zwingli his principal contacts. The landgrave understood his own position as pre-eminent, and while in Basel during March 1530 made clear his expectations that the Swiss would provide soldiers to aid in the restoration of Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, and possibly against the emperor. That same month, Zwingli wrote a set of brief notes in which he expressed the smug hope that Philipp would back the Reformed Swiss and secure the Reformation in the Confederation.12 For the landgrave, however, the Swiss were to fall in line, and he paid little heed to Zwingli’s opposition to the use of mercenaries.
Philipp of Hesse and Zwingli met in person only once, at Marburg. But their ongoing correspondence maintained their relationship, and their exchanges were warm and trusting – the landgrave requested that the reformer keep confidential information to himself.13 In his letters to Zwingli, Philipp sought news, influence and ideas; for his part, Zwingli was clearly flattered by the landgrave’s attention. He saw himself as a theological counsellor to the prince. Yet each man hoped for more of the other than he was able or willing to provide. Philipp believed that Zwingli might open the door to crucial political contacts that would enable the building of an alliance with the Protestant Swiss. This sanguine assessment arose in part out of ignorance. The landgrave seemed to understand little either of the ongoing opposition to Zwingli in Zurich or of the reality that the magistrates were not always inclined to follow the preacher.14 Yet Philipp was, in the end, shrewd enough to recognize that he needed the support of the political leaders. Zwingli likewise expected more of his influence with Philipp, whom he saw as the key to a broader alliance that would secure the Reformation among the Swiss. For the reformer, the alliance would further the spread of evangelical faith in the German lands and form a religious bond with the Confederation. The landgrave was primarily interested in imperial religious politics; Zwingli was thinking about the Swiss.
THE FIRST KAPPEL WAR, 1529
Zwingli’s instincts were for peace and negotiation, but he was also clear that the gospel must not be impeded by the agents of Antichrist. It was incumbent upon the faithful to bring the Word of God to their suffering compatriots. He did not want war, but he was willing to countenance it. And in the face of redoubtable resistance from the Catholic Five States, the reformer had a growing sense that military action would be necessary.15 He faced an enormous challenge in rallying the magistrates to his cause, as the Council in Zurich continued to be divided over the most prudent course of action. What Zwingli perceived as havering among the magistrates increased his frustration and, ultimately, disappointment.
From January 1529, the Christian Civic Union, first formed in 1527 between Zurich, Constance and Bern, met regularly with the intention of supporting the Reformation.16 Basel joined in March, after its successful Reformation. The Bernese were clear that the purpose was to administer matters among the Swiss, and not engage in foreign alliances with Hesse or the deposed duke of Württemberg. Although the links between the cities were a remarkable achievement of the Reformation, the individual members had differing agendas and expectations. Strasbourg was looking to bolster its position in the Empire through Swiss military and commercial support, while Bern was primarily concerned with stability in the Confederation and the avoidance of conflict with Savoy in the east. Zurich largely followed Zwingli’s ambitions for an expansion of the evangelical faith, but was less certain about conflict. The admission of Basel to the union deeply unnerved the Catholics, and influenced the creation of an alliance known as the Christian Alliance between the Austrian Habsburgs, Württemberg and the Five States in the Confederation. The bond with Ferdinand of Austria brought the promise of troops, cannon and cavalry, should Zurich and its allies attack. The stated purpose of the alliance was defensive, but the Swiss Catholic states insisted on the right of legitimate conquest.17 Ferdinand’s calculations were based, however, on acknowledgement of the strength of the Reformed states of Zurich, Bern and Basel.
Within the Confederation, the Mandated Territories, jointly administered by Reformed and Catholic Confederates, were a constant flashpoint. Zurich pushed hard for the spread of the evangelical faith in Thurgau and the Freie Ämter, and for communities to be allowed to choose their religion, under the influence of evangelical preachers. Efforts to win over the villages and lands of the Mandated Territories were fiercely resisted by the Catholics, but support from the Reformed cities proved difficult to deter. Controversy also enveloped St Gallen, at the end of 1528. The city, under Zwingli’s friend Vadian, who served as Bürgermeister, had adopted the Reformation, but its great Benedictine abbey had not. The abbey and its extensive lands had traditionally been under the joint authority of Zurich, Lucerne, Schwyz and Glarus, which would take turns to appoint a protector. Zurich attempted to impose a Reformed protector for the abbey, driving out the abbot and outraging the Catholic Confederates.18 Zwingli was closely involved, writing briefs for the Zurich magistrates and encouraging them to stand firm for the gospel. The situation remained unresolved until the abbot was restored in 1531, after Zurich’s military defeat. To this day St Gallen remains a confessionally divided city.
The burning of the evangelical preacher Jakob Kaiser in Catholic Schwyz on 29 May 1529 proved a provocation too far, and Zurich was thrown into a frenzy, with sentiments for war shouted everywhere and with Zwingli fully in the mix. Immediately he drafted his ‘Advice about the War’, which he seems to have done on his own initiative.19 Zwingli regarded the execution of Kaiser as a crime, and he offered a detailed plan for an aggressive attack that involved troops liberating people in lands under the tyranny of the false religion. Whether Zwingli consulted with other military and political leaders is not clear; but remarkably, when Zurich finally mobilized in early June, it largely followed the plans set out by the reformer.20 The proposal for the magistrates involved a three-pronged attack on Schwyz and Zug, with the bulk of the army advancing to Kappel, on the border with Zug. Bern was proving an unwilling partner, but for the reformer, the only way forward was for Zurich to act alone in forcing the true faith on the recalcitrant Confederates. Bold and confrontational, Zwingli’s proposal encountered stiff resistance in Zurich from those reluctant to act without consulting Bern, and the magistrates vacillated, once more divided. The Large Council was unwilling to send its troops to war without any allies, and the preacher’s martial plans were temporarily set aside.
The reversal was a harsh reminder that Zwingli served at the pleasure of his political masters. His humiliation was made all the greater in early June 1529 with the arrival in the city of the Bernese envoy Niklaus Manuel (1484–1530), who argued for the cause of peace and negotiation before the Large Council and found many sympathizers.21 ‘God’s Word,’ Manuel declared, ‘calls only for peace and unity. You cannot really bring faith by means of spears and halberds.’22 Zurich needed Bern, and such was the political reality that Zwingli believed he had no alternative but to resign his position and leave his adopted city, having, he reckoned, lost the confidence of Zurich’s rulers. According to one report, Zwingli wept as he addressed the magistrates.23 He was dissuaded from departing by a couple of friends. Shortly before his death in 1531, Zwingli would again declare his desire to quit the city.
Despite Manuel’s words, there was a widespread presentiment of war. There was little possibility of the Catholics attacking either Zurich or Bern, but the growing sense of military conflict led to the implementation of defensive measures in the Five States.24 Bells were ready to warn of the advance of hostile forces, while scouts were placed on mountains to light fires by which messages were conveyed and inhabitants warned as quickly as possible. Young men were forbidden from leaving to serve in foreign armies as they were needed at home. While an assault by Zurich seemed imminent, it was not known where or when the attack would come. Perhaps Lucerne, the major Catholic city, would be Zurich’s focus, but there was also reason for the Zurichers to move against either Schwyz or Zug.
Zurich’s vacillation ended when the city decided to go it alone. Believing its cause against the Catholics just, Zurich declared war on 8 June and was able to put 3,000 men in the field.25 The War Council that was created by the Zurich magistrates consisted of men with experience in the mercenary service who knew how to prosecute a campaign. Zwingli was not included in this council, which largely consisted of veterans of conflict who now wielded influence. The leading Zurich figure was Jörg Berger, who had drawn up the plans for Zurich’s military action, similar to Zwingli’s proposal, laid before the Large Council. Troops marched on the Catholics with the intention of driving the Five States from the Mandated Territories and the abbey of St Gallen.26 The main force moved on Kappel, in order to engage in decisive action against Zug. But the indecision in Zurich had allowed the Catholics time to prepare, and the troops found themselves facing a well-equipped and organized force consisting of men from all of the Five States ready for combat.
Despite frantic negotiations, the Catholics received no support from Austria and were therefore woefully outmanned. A Zurich force quickly occupied Thurgau, Rheintal and St Gallen in the east.27 Zwingli accompanied the troops on horseback with halberd in hand. He wrote to a friend that
the peace, for which so many strive, means war. The war that we call for means peace, for we thirst for no man’s blood but are determined that the effective force of the Catholic overlords shall be cut off. If that does not happen neither the truths of the Bible nor the lives of its servants are safe. Our intentions are not cruel ones, for what we seek is friendship and the true interests of our country. We hope to save it when through ignorance it is in danger of being overthrown. With all our might we strive to secure freedom.28
The Catholics and Reformed forces faced each other across a field prepared for a battle that did not happen. Bern had sent a force of 6,000 men but was by no means eager to support Zurich, and the troops stayed away from the prospective battlefield at Kappel. Basel and the other Reformed states were equally unwilling, and offered to negotiate. Bern counselled Zurich to lower its swords – indeed, it went beyond mere words of caution to demand that Zurich pull back, emphatically stating that the cities of the Christian Civic Union would not come to its support. The warning resonated in Zurich, where, although the Large Council was divided, the desire for peace prevailed and, at the last moment, the army at Kappel was ordered not to attack. Zwingli had wanted battle, and years later Bullinger reported his words to a mediator from Glarus:
You shall give account of your conduct before God. While the enemy is weak and ill equipped, they speak fair words that you believe and call for peace. But if they are able to rearm, they will have no pity on us and there will be no one to make peace.29
Away from the calculated words of politicians and leading clerics, the soldiers facing one another at Kappel had little interest in the official declarations and bellicose sermons that had brought them to the field. Few had a clear sense of why they had taken up arms against their neighbours, with whom they regularly traded. Chroniclers on both sides of the religious divide recorded fraternizing among the putative enemies: drinking, eating and even humorous banter were perhaps the most telling signs that the Swiss soldiers had little appetite for combat. A witness from Strasbourg was reported to have said, ‘You Swiss are a fine people . . . you do not forget the ancient friendships.’30
According to legend, at Kappel the soldiers from Schwyz, having prepared a large cauldron of soup, called out to the Zurichers that, because of the sanctions, they had no bread. Loaves were duly provided and the two armies shared the soup, each remaining on its side of the line between them. When one Zurich soldier extended his spoon too far across the pot, he had his knuckles rapped and was told to eat from his own side.31
FRAGILE PEACE
Most of the Swiss Confederates remained neutral in the First Kappel War. Basel, Schaffhausen, Fribourg, Solothurn and Appenzell, as well as Glarus and Graubünden, assumed the role of peace negotiators between the Five States and Zurich and Bern.32 Zwingli found himself in an awkward position. He had donned armour and taken up the halberd to enter possible combat. Although his role was largely as preacher, his sermons were incendiary. Now, in unequivocal language, he warned the Council not to accept a cheap peace or to be overly influenced by Bern. His voice in the Council had continued to wax and wane in the run-up to the First Kappel War, but Zurich’s position now coalesced around the condition that had always been his central demand: the Five States should agree to the free preaching of the gospel in both the Mandated Territories and, more dramatically, their own lands.33 This non-negotiable charge was, for Zwingli, nothing less than a divine command. He retained an almost naïve optimism that should gospel preaching be permitted, reform would naturally follow. Zwingli never relinquished his conviction that false and idolatrous religion was imposed on the people by corrupt political and religious leaders. He had no doubt that God would guide the way to the triumph of the Reformed faith, working as he did through the deeds of men. If war was the only option to realize this imperative, it was no time for knees to buckle.
As Zwingli well knew, his position contravened an established principle of the Swiss Confederation – no member should intervene in the affairs of another. He saw this tradition as no obstacle, for human convention could not resist the divine will, and it was God’s will for the gospel to be proclaimed. Submission to God’s demands was, however, only the beginning. The hated mercenary service was once more the object of his ire, and the Five States were to be required to forswear their adherence to arrangements by which pensioners were receiving blood money. As he rode to war, Zwingli had told the Zurich Bürgermeister that war was necessary to break the corruption of the pensions.34
What Zwingli refused to reckon with, however, was the continuing popularity of mercenary service among the youth of the mountainous Confederates, where few other sources of income and adventure beckoned. What he denounced as endemic evil was nothing less than a lifeline for young men in a culture where military prowess and reputation formed the very idea of being Swiss. Zwingli refused to believe that the Reformation had been rejected for any other reason than the tyranny of Catholic rulers. It seemed to make no impression on him that the reform movement had made little progress among the people in large parts of the Confederation, or that the communes of the Five States were deeply committed to the Catholic faith.35 The tragicomedy that was the First Kappel War unravelled during the first two weeks of June 1529, but the negotiations trundled on for a good while, as dissension plagued both parties.
For Zwingli, the First Kappel War had been a punishing reversal; but the negotiations were far worse, being nothing less than a betrayal of the Reformation.36 Zwingli’s primary goal was to spread the gospel to the Catholic lands of the Five States, and that had been denied. Furthermore, he sought the abolition of pensions for mercenaries, and that had not come to pass. He had initially had reason to be optimistic as the Reformed conducted themselves as if they had won and set punitive terms as the price for peace. The Catholic Confederates were to pay war reparations and to remove themselves from the Mandated Territories, as well as from their alliances with the Habsburgs. But Zurich’s neighbour Bern did not stick to the script and set its own conditions. It became poignantly clear that Bern, not Zurich, was calling the shots. Following the traditional Swiss arrangement, the Bernese argued for the right of each Confederate to determine its own faith. In other matters there was consensus, but on the question of religion there was no disguising the disagreement. Bern, however, did demand that the alliance with the Habsburgs be dissolved and reparations paid. Further, slanderous remarks against the Reformation were to cease and offenders punished. In the matter of mercenary service, Bern did not provide its delegates with leadership, leaving them a free hand in negotiations. Zwingli found himself unsupported on the two central questions of the gospel and pensions.
On 25 June, a peace treaty was signed at Kappel. The Catholics agreed to end their alliance with Ferdinand and allow congregations to choose their faith in the Mandated Territories. The issue of gospel preaching in the Catholic Confederates was left unresolved. The Zurichers returned to their city triumphant and full of cheer, firing their guns in the Lindenhof, the site of a Roman fort in the old town of the city.37 Two days later, however, Zwingli, who was in no mood to celebrate, preached in the Grossmünster denouncing the abomination that was the treaty, which had thwarted God’s Reformation.38 The brutal reality for Zwingli and Zurich was that their confessional allies had not supported their primary goal – the free preaching of the gospel in Catholic lands. The principal term of the peace treaty stipulated that each Confederate should decide its own confessional status, keeping intact the founding principle of non-interference.39
Within the city, Zwingli’s position among the magistrates was again consolidated when the military leaders, whose influence on the War Council during the conflict had been decisive, were required to step down. The Zurich Council grew once more inclined to Zwingli’s argument that the Catholic Swiss Confederates must accept the Reformation. The deal that Zwingli sought to drive, backed by the Council, concerned the amount of the reparations that the Catholic Confederates should pay the Christian Civic Union. Zwingli put forward the case that the level of payment might be lowered if free preaching of the gospel was introduced. The thirteenth article of the treaty allowed the Reformed states to impose a blockade if the Catholics did not adhere to the terms of the treaty, including free preaching of the gospel and payment of reparations.40 Such demands, however, were tempered by rumours that Habsburg forces were gathering in support of the beleaguered Swiss Catholics. The Reformed policy was very much driven by Bern, whose primary interest was to settle its dispute with Unterwalden and create an atmosphere of stability.
Zwingli pushed the Zurich Council to insist on the first article of the peace treaty, guaranteeing religious freedom, which he regarded as ensuring the right of all Swiss to hear the gospel preached. He did not accept that it actually ensured that those who wished to remain Catholic could do so with impunity.41 In the end, the negotiators set the sum for the Catholic states to pay at a level that the Reformed states regarded as risible.42 Nevertheless, they chose to accept the rather modest amount because of developments occurring outside the Confederation. Rumours started to circulate that the Habsburgs were massing troops in southern Germany to come to the aid of the Catholic Confederates. Fear of war, not against the Five States, but with the old dynastic fiend, pushed the Reformed Confederates to agree to the settlement. The principal weapon that remained in the hands of the Protestants was the right granted by the treaty to impose a blockade on the Catholics if they should fail to abide by their agreement to pay. Both Bern and Zurich were insistent on this point.
By September 1529, a blockade had been imposed by the Reformed cities, with the consequence that the Catholics were unable to obtain the grain necessary to survive the winter, forcing them to supplicate and promise to pay the required sum by the end of June 1530. Bern was satisfied with their submission, but Zurich was not. Zwingli’s city was disposed to force its confessional position on the Catholics, but there was insufficient support among the other Reformed states for Zurich’s crusading zeal. The First Kappel War and its ensuing peace was a classic pyrrhic victory for Zurich. In truth, it had lost its pre-war pre-eminence and prestige, only to find itself isolated from its allies, while facing recalcitrant opponents who had no desire to cower.
The Catholic states were not, as the Reformed suspected, negotiating an alliance with the Austrians, but were playing for time. They were unwilling either to permit the hated evangelical faith or to pay the reparations.43 Both sides prepared for war. Bern was eager to impose a food blockade in order to force the Catholics into compliance. At this point, in early September, Zwingli secretly left Zurich for his meeting with Luther in Marburg. In his parting words to the Council, he wrote:
although the current situation of the wars, hostilities and price increases is all too clear to us and seeks to distract me, I have always considered first the grace of God, who neither deceives nor abandons us. He ordains all things to the good for his own and he makes all things to come about for his glory.44
In the summer of 1529, following the First Kappel War, Zwingli’s position was unclear: as he grew more adamant about a resumption of war, the magistrates seemed less sure. The preacher was the most powerful voice outside the ruling Council calling for aggression. Yet, he struggled to create a consensus. One crucial development by 1529 was that almost no Catholic opponents were any longer on the councils, thus ending years of conflict. Nevertheless, the supporters of the Reformation in Zurich were not necessarily beholden to Zwingli; Bern’s calls for moderation were favourably heard by many influential politicians. Soon after his arrival in 1519, Zwingli had stirred up controversy and opposition, and over the years had fought with Catholics, Anabaptists and Lutherans. In his last years, he increasingly struggled with his religious sympathizers, many of whom found parts of his message more compelling than others. To his way of thinking, they and Bern had opted for peace and stability, not the gospel.45
CONFESSION OF FAITH (1530)
On 21 January 1530, Charles V summoned the German estates to an Imperial Diet to be held at Augsburg. It would tackle the defence of the Empire against the Turkish threat and internal mutual concerns, such as currency standardization, but it would also address the confessional ructions. The emperor announced that he was prepared to receive representations from the religious parties in the German lands – a promise that led the Christian Civic Union to meet in Basel to agree on a response to this unexpected turn of events. The cities of Zurich, Bern, Basel, Strasbourg and Constance concluded that a moderate response should be made, written by the theologians of the cities.46 It seemed prudent to prepare several confessions, with the most suitable to be sent to Augsburg. Oecolampadius in Basel took up the task, writing to Zwingli on 30 March that the two men should exchange drafts; Zwingli, however, was unpersuaded and was slow to engage.47 He had few expectations that the overtures from Charles, whom Zwingli saw as the great enemy of the Reformation, would yield any fruit.
Jakob Sturm in Strasbourg was the key player. An influential politician close to Philipp of Hesse, he had his own ideas about peace in the Empire, and regarded Zwingli with suspicion. Sturm had never been as close to the reformer as he was to the preachers Bucer and Capito in his own city.48 He had visited Zurich shortly after the First Kappel War, but there was no warm relationship with Zwingli. Sturm was concerned that the Swiss, following Marburg, would scupper any possible religious settlement in the Empire. To this end, he played Zwingli. On 26 May, Sturm wrote from Augsburg to the reformer to relay the situation in the run-up to the Diet.49 He told Zwingli that it made good sense for Strasbourg and the Swiss cities to submit a confession to the emperor, but only if the text was non-polemical and timely – both factors to be decided by the Reformed delegation.50 Thomas Brady has suggested that ‘Sturm intended to ensure that the Lutheran princes and preachers could favourably compare the moderate opinions of Strasbourg and the radically anti-Lutheran opinions of Zwingli.’51 He sought to free Strasbourg from any charge that it was too close to Zwingli and Zurich, and he believed that an unacceptable confession from the reformer would suit his purpose. The argument is compelling, as Sturm had wanted nothing to do with Zwingli’s efforts to create an anti-Habsburg alliance of the Swiss and imperial cities that would lead to the spread of his theology in the Empire. Timing was everything. In mid-June, when Charles arrived in Augsburg, Sturm wrote once more to Zwingli to say that he truly believed that the emperor wanted to hear from all parties. He was now full of encouragement for the Christian Civic Union to prepare a confession.52 Zwingli had hoped that through the good offices of Landgrave Philipp of Hesse he might receive an invitation to appear at Augsburg, but Sturm disabused him. He would not be summoned.53
Sturm viewed Zwingli as a major impediment to Strasbourg’s efforts to make peace with the Lutheran princes. His plans to woo them, however, were not successful, as he was rebuffed by Johann of Saxony in Augsburg. It was at that point that he wrote again to Zwingli, asking for a confession of faith. He sent the reformer the Schwabach Articles, which he knew would have the effect of pouring oil on fire. The Articles revealed to Zwingli that Luther had reneged on any agreement they had made at Marburg.54 Sturm was exploiting Zwingli for his own ends, for while writing to the Zurich reformer he was at the same time arranging for Bucer and Capito to appear in Augsburg on behalf of Strasbourg, to provide a more moderate account of their theology. Further, he was negotiating for Strasbourg to sign the Lutheran confession. He kept both Zwingli and his own city in the dark about his plans.55
Realizing that he was being given no role in imperial religious negotiations, and perceiving little support from the Zurich Council for involvement, Zwingli struck out on his own. The time since Marburg had made it clear to him that reconciliation with the Lutherans was beyond hope. Luther and his supporters had betrayed the Swiss and resumed hostilities. In the city, Zwingli had worked for years with the magistrates, but had grown increasingly frustrated with their dithering. The Catholics and Anabaptists were beyond redemption. Zwingli saw himself as standing alone, and in response to Augsburg he took the extraordinary step of preparing a confession that represented no one other than himself. It was his boldest statement of his convictions, uttered as a prophet convinced of his beliefs and no longer willing to compromise. Zwingli gave himself three days to draw up a statement of faith, and the text was printed by Froschauer on 3 July. Five days later, a representative from Zurich arrived in Augsburg with his confession, entitled ‘Fidei ratio’ or ‘Account of the Faith’.56
The text appeared with a preface for Emperor Charles. The confession, Zwingli wrote, was personal, as he had not had sufficient time to draw one up on behalf of the cities of the Christian Civic Union. Why had he done it? Because, he claimed, he had read the Schwabach Articles, which had been drawn up in the summer of 1529 by Philipp of Hesse, Luther and Justus Jonas as a confession of faith of the Wittenberg theologians. The Articles, presented at a meeting following Marburg, were hostile to the Swiss. Furthermore, Zwingli had read the 404 objections to the Reformation prepared by the Catholic Johann Eck. In response, he believed it appropriate to prepare his own statement of faith, which he now submitted to the emperor and the whole Church for judgement.
Zwingli may have responded to Sturm’s encouragement, but he did not listen to his advice about tone. The ‘Account of the Faith’ was harshly polemical and took no prisoners – or if it did, they were immediately shot. Zwingli had no more time for Luther and did not even pretend to seek conciliation. The document sought to admonish Charles and rain down judgement on the Roman Church. Zwingli stuck to his guns on all the tenets of his theology, writing in a tone both deeply personal and excoriating. His confession was presented in Augsburg at the same moment as the ‘Confessio Tetrapolitana’, a conciliatory text drawn up by Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito and intended to find something more of a middle way. While Zwingli had largely spoken for himself, the ‘Confession’ from Strasbourg was signed by the city’s magistrates, along with the rulers of Constance, Memmingen and Lindau. Bucer’s confession, however, despite its moderation, fell on stony ground. Quite simply, Luther did not trust him.
Zwingli’s contribution, however, crashed into the Diet, inflaming controversy. Although the confessions were meant to be confidential, the contents were quickly leaked. Bucer was appalled by the tone of the work, and the Lutherans were incensed that their old enemy had simply restated claims that they had repudiated. Worse, he had departed from the articles on which there had been agreement at Marburg. Johannes Brenz responded that the confession had no basis in scripture, while Philipp Melanchthon was uncharacteristically harsh. In a letter of 14 July to Martin Luther, he wrote that one could consider the author of the ‘Account’ ‘mad’.57 Zwingli had regurgitated his errors on original sin and the sacraments, and trashed any concord at Marburg. The document was widely distributed among the princes and theologians, probably leaked by the imperial officials to divide the Protestants. The Catholics, although incensed by Zwingli’s coruscating attack, must have rubbed their hands in glee at this testament to Protestant sectarianism.
Zwingli was uncompromising. All ceremonies were to be abolished and the office of bishop was fiercely attacked. Melanchthon’s general assessment was that the text was ‘brutal’ and that Zwingli had shown himself to be more ‘Swiss’ than ‘Christian’.58 The reference to being Swiss was by no means a compliment: Melanchthon equated that identity with ‘barbarianism’.59 Melanchthon had sent Luther a copy of the text, and the Wittenberger was hardly more charitable, responding caustically that Zwingli had finally revealed himself. The mask he wore pretending to be a Christian theologian had slipped from his face.60 Luther’s wrath, however, was not for Zurich alone: he believed that the wily Bucer had put Zwingli up to this abomination.61
Zwingli’s friends rallied to his support, although not without a queasy sense that he had gone too far. Oecolampadius wrote that he had read the ‘Fidei ratio’ approvingly. However, he commented that Zwingli was preaching to stopped-up ears.62 Berchtold Haller reported from Bern that the text was being widely read.63 Martin Bucer was in an impossible situation, having submitted his own confession to the Augsburg Diet. His attempts to find some path between Wittenberg and Zurich could not sustain the hit inflicted by Zwingli, with his raw polemic against the Lutherans. He informed Zwingli that many Catholics had also been particularly hurt by the ferocity of the attack from Zurich.64 Apart from causing outrage, Zwingli’s work had no influence at Augsburg.
Johann Eck, Zwingli’s old adversary, thought the ‘Account’ worthy of a response, and in haste prepared a razor-sharp refutation that appeared on 17 July 1530. He accused Zwingli of being ‘a liar’ bound for hell, whose claim to the emperor that he desired peace was pure dishonesty. He applied to the Zurich reformer the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
‘They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace”, when there is no peace’ [8:11]. For Zwingli is of the number of those of whom David says, ‘Who speak peace with their neighbour, but evils are in their heart’ [Psalm 28:3].65
Once more he mocked the Zurich reformer’s teaching on the sacraments ‘as if the holy mysteries of our faith were no more efficacious than the shadowy and figurative ceremonies of the Jews’. Another favoured theme were the radicals and Zwingli’s responsibility for their raving: ‘I laugh at the empty boasting of Zwingli that he was the first to teach and write against the Anabaptists, since I am aware that it was Zwingli who by his counsel and advice really founded this lost sect.’66
Zwingli’s submission to the Diet was a repudiation of all his opponents: Catholics, Lutherans and Anabaptists. He rejected their teachings by re-affirming those beliefs they had found so offensive. That is perhaps why we find in the ‘Account’ the reformer’s few ventures into speaking about death, judgement and the afterlife. For those who believe in purgatory, they have no Christ. Hell, in contrast, was an eternal reality, of which Christ spoke in the Gospel of Matthew when he warned that ‘then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”’ (25:41). Against the Anabaptists, Zwingli was adamant that the fires of hell are eternal.67 It is difficult not to find in his words judgement on his opponents.
Zwingli had not written on behalf of any institution, but had offered Charles a statement of his own convictions. In the text, his old enemies were assaulted with renewed ferocity, indicating that the Swiss reformer no longer felt the slightest obligation to make any concessions. Catholics were idolatrous and beyond the pale of the Church; Lutherans were committed to papist errors; and Anabaptists were a pernicious sect. There was no room in the ‘Account of the Faith’ for any of them, and the Swiss stood in opposition to their errors. Unless his interpretation of Christianity was accepted, the Church was a broken body. Despite the influence of his thought in the southern German cities, none was inclined to adopt his confession. In the end, it remained a statement of personal convictions that reflected Zwingli’s unrelenting hostility to his enemies and confidence in his prophetic calling.