Author’s Note
Where translations exist, I have made use of them, although they were checked against the originals, and extensive alterations were made to correct and update the language. Otherwise, I am responsible for the English versions of the Latin and German. I am very grateful to Pierrick Hildebrand and David Noe for their guidance. I have kept masculine pronouns for the deity, mindful that for many it jars with modern views. My intention was to remain close to sixteenth-century usage.
The nomenclature of the early Reformation is a minefield. As the term ‘Protestant’ is inappropriate for the years before 1529, I have preferred to designate the supporters of the Reformation ‘evangelicals’, although the name is highly elastic. I fully recognize that ‘Zwinglian’ or ‘Lutheran’ is almost meaningless in an age of doctrinal plurality, and so I have kept them to a minimum. I have also used ‘Reformed’ to reference adherents to the Swiss theological teachings, again aware that, as a group, they were hardly homogeneous. Finally, until the adult baptisms of 1525, I speak of ‘radicals’, and not Anabaptists. It is a loaded term, and used advisedly.
I avoid using ‘Switzerland’ and ‘cantons’, as they are a later usage, preferring the ‘Swiss Confederation’ and its ‘Confederates’ or ‘states’. The Mandated Territories were those lands under joint authority of the Confederates. The Five States designates Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Lucerne and Zug, all of which remained Catholic.
There is no good English translation of Zwingli’s position in Zurich as Leutpriester, and so I have stuck with the traditional ‘people’s priest’. All bible passages are from the New Revised Standard Version.