The Zurich ministry

The Zurich ministry

The Zurich ministry, 1519-1522 The word Zurich* (Tigurinum) had a double meaning at the opening of the sixteenth century. There was the city, exactly defined by its walls and defences; and there was the countryside with boundaries only marginally different from those of the twentieth century canton. Together they made up the Orf, state or canton, a highly developed political organism with a long tradition behind it. The inhabitants spoke their own Swiss-German dialect, not at all easily understood by a pure-bred German from Saxony or Hanover, different also linguistically from the usages of Basle, Berne and Lucerne.

There had been a Roman settlement where the Limmat flowed from the lake. Charlemagne was a legendary founder, patron and visitor; and his grandson, Lewis the German, set up and lavishly endowed a monastery2 for Benedictine nuns in 853. This was intended from its beginning to be a place of refuge for religious-minded aristocrats; and the abbess - the first one was the king's own daughter, Hildegard - ruled the little cluster of buildings which expanded steadily round the cloister. The convent owned much land, and the abbess had rights of jurisdiction3 over the tenants living thereon and also over the incipient market town. The church, known as das Fraumunster^ several times rebuilt, was served by seven canons, who, with the nuns, constituted the chapter; and by chantry priests and preachers in the usual style of a collegiate church. Initially, the abbess had the right to mint coins and to collect tolls on goods coming in 1 Zurich is the accepted English spelling. From the large literature dealing with its history it is possible to select J. C. Bluntschli, Staatsund Rechtsgeschichte der Stadt und Landschaft

Zurich2 2. Teile (Zurich, 1856). K. Dandliker, Geschichte der Stadt und des Kantons Zurich.

3 Bde. (Zurich, 1908-12). A. Largiader, Geschichte von Stadt und Landschaft Zurich. 2 Bde.

(Erlenbach-Ziirich, 1945). An annual survey of current literature appears in ZT.

2 Foundation charter in Bluntschli (1. Beilage) 1,487-8. See also G. v. Wyss, Geschichte der Abtei

Zurich, MAGZ 8 (1951-8); J. R. Rahn, Das Fraumunster in Zurich, MAGZ 25 (1900-14)

1-36. For the extent of the endowment, Map 14, Historischer Atlas der Schweiz.

3 Not extending to life and limb (Blutgericht). Bluntschli 1, 134.

4 The use of the word Fraumunster (or Frauenmunster) for the nunnery church seems to date only from the early fourteenth century. S. Vogelin, Das alte Zurich 2 Bde. (Zurich, 1879,

1888) 1, 501.

3-2

ZWINGLI and out;1 her patronage was usually influential at the imperial court and at first was much sought after. Like St Alban's in England, the town grew up round the monastery, but it early secured substantial independence of it.

The principal parish church was built in what became the business and industrial quarter west of the river. It was collegiate from its earliest

Carolingian days, with a school for training future clerics attached to it; and, early known as the Great Minster {das Chorherrenstift am Grossmunster), it dominated the religious lives of the citizens.

The town was at first little more than a place of refuge from Hungarian marauders in the tenth century, but, in the eleventh, expansion was possible. A market, walls and a mint soon appeared. The whole of the adjacent territory fell within the domains of the Counts of Zahringen (i 096-1218) and then of Ulrich of Kiburg, followed by Rudolf of Habsburg. Zurich succeeded in establishing its status as a free imperial city in 1218, thus becoming'immediate'. Hence the citizens owed a double allegiance, to the abbess as landlord and to the Emperor2 who was represented by a deputy or vicar (Vogt) who met the small community in the Lindenhof. The abbess worked through her agent or Schultheiss whose authority ultimately devolved upon the city council. In October 1291, only two months after the conventional inauguration of the original Confederation, Zurich was a corporate entity able to make an alliance with Uri and Schwyz.3 It was to be of some importance that Zurich developed into a city while Berne and Freiburg-im-Breisgau were created ones. As elsewhere, nobles from the countryside soon sought to build houses within the city walls, and the more prosperous city dwellers owned or had interests in land outside.

Parentage and place of birth were all-important, and memories of ancestry were long. It could all too easily have become a narrow aristocratic city of lords and dependants, but it did not.

This was in large measure because there were thriving markets and sufficiently skilled craftsmen numerous and wealthy enough to make their voices heard - particularly the weavers of silk and cloth, supported by the leather-workers and smiths. These strongly objected to full citizenship being limited to members of families owning real property within the city precincts, living on rents and dues and allied to the few large wholesale traders who dealt in commodities in bulk. In 1336, reflecting in some ways the unrest that characterised the Europe of the mid fourteenth century, the craftsmen, led by Rudolf Brun,4 effected a violent and rapid revolution which made Zurich into a gild-city, Zunftstadty a fact of importance for 1 The later Stadtzolle. Bluntschli i, 129.

2 O. Redlich, Rudolf von Habsburg (Innsbruck, 1903) 107-12.

3 Largiader, I, 86; Bluntschli, 341.

4 A. Largiader, Bur germeister Rudolf Brun und die Ziircher Revolution von 1336, MAGZ 31

(Zurich, 1936).

The Zurich ministry Zwingli later. The organisation of the artisans into thirteen (later, twelve) associations or gilds was now recognised1 as equal in political authority with the patricians and capitalists who had hitherto dominated affairs through their own powerful group, the Constaffel.2 Brun, as first Biirgermeister for life, became almost dictator, and was the real creator of the state as it existed until the end of the eighteenth century. It now had a constitution, * der erste geschworene Brief (1336), and a perpetual alliance

(ein ewiges Biindnis)3 with the central states (Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Lucerne) sealed in May 1351, accompanied by territorial expansion along both sides of the lake, pointing the way to further advances later.

After an unsuccessful war with Schwyz and Glarus over the Toggenburg inheritance from 1436 to 1444, by a policy of steady purchase and acquisition, Zurich came to be master of a territorial state4 second only to Berne in size and more productive in men and revenue. All this was very piecemeal, and the nature of the jurisdiction exercised by the Zurich council over the component parts of its territory varied from area to area according to the constitution of the previous authority and the terms of the takeover. The form of government was complicated enough and, as in most other medieval cities, rested in part on local custom. It was to be of decisive importance in the spread of the Reformation. The common use of the word Zurich to mean either the area enclosed by the city walls or the whole district over which its rulers had authority is a convenient one. It corresponds to the facts of the sixteenth century: it was a city state, the city was the state. The city was, as it were, the mainspring. Yet the real strength of Zurich lay in its countryside, whence came men for the armed forces, goods, services and money raised by rents, dues and taxes. All citizens were not equal - very far from it. There were ranks and grades, sorts and conditions within the city5 and, equally, in the countryside. Men knew their

1 Largiader 1, 133; Bluntschli 1, 33if; Zeller-Werdmiiller, 1, 72 n. 2, 101-15, expanded in ZT (1898) 108-31. Zunft is not easy to translate. 'Association' is a little too amorphous;

'city company', perhaps the closest parallel, does not fit a group of working artisans, and 'trade union' is scarcely applicable to vintners or grocers. 'Gild' is a neutral and acceptable

English equivalent.

2 See below 54.

3 A. Largiader, Zurichs ewiger Bund mit den Waldstdtten vom i. Mai 1351 (Zurich, 1951).

4 E. Gagliardi, Hans Waldmann und die Eidgenossenschaft des 15. Jahrhunderts (Basle, 1912); also Dokumente zur Geschichte des Burgermeisters Hans Waldmann, 2 Bde QSG (Basle, 1911,

1913). Important accessions were Kiburg (1452), Stammheim (1464) and Winterthur (1467).

See Map 45 (by Paul Klaui) in Historischer Atlas.

5 The obvious class groupings were nobles (knights - die Ritterschaft), clergy (der Klerus) and citizens (die Burger). There were also residents (die Hintersassen, die Einsassen, die Einmohnern) and strangers (Fremdesvolk) (Bluntschli 1, 143). The simple fact of residence within the city boundaries did not make a citizen nor did it prevent some citizens from habitually living outside the walls. Nobles and clergy apart, citizenship was relatively easy to obtain in the fifteenth century: for the newcomer the necessary requirements were five years residence within the city walls, payment of taxes and membership of a gild. These were not specially difficult for a man of substance to secure.

ZWINGLI status because it was that of their fathers: it was as difficult as elsewhere in Europe to escape from the state of life into which you were born save, as Hans Waldmann demonstrated most effectively, by successful military service. When, however, he seemed to be making himself dictator, he was hurriedly put to death (6 April 1489).

The outline framework of the government was simple and apparent, however complex in detail. Authority rested with the council-the 'mighty, powerful, honourable and wise lords, Biirgermeister and councillors'1 -which appears in the twelfth century and expands in the thirteenth. It became an assembly of some two hundred elected and changing individuals, elected - chosen is perhaps the better word since

'elected' easily implies voting and selection, which hardly ever took place - by the organised craftsmen. There is an analogy with the City of London with its Common Council elected by the wards and its Lord Mayor and sheriffs elected by the Common Council and Liverymen of the City

Companies meeting in the Guildhall. For Zurich there were the corresponding Biirgermeister, Zunftmeister, Zunftbriider and a Rathaus. If we think of the council as a sovereign body of about two hundred and of the effective electorate as at most two thousand strong we shall not be far wrong. Further, since there was strong tradition of variation and alteration in the chosen representatives, most qualified artisans had a fair chance of appearing on the governing body and knew how the government functioned.2 The twelve companies or gilds were formed by the retail shop-keepers, tailors, vintners, bakers, weavers,3 smiths, tanners, butchers, shoemakers, carpenters, fishermen and gardeners, each with sub-divisions and each with its hall - 'zur Schmiden', 'zur Meisen', 'zum Saffran' and the rest, some of which have survived or been revived as restaurants and headquarters of social clubs. The thirteenth company was careful to retain a different title - Gesellschaft - an association of all those with accepted pretensions to nobility, whose meeting place was 'zum Ruden'. Before Brun's day, the 'Constables',4 die Gesellschaft zur Constaffel, formed a 1 'ersamen strengen vessten fursichtigen wyssen burgermeister und ratt zu Zurich.' Z VII, 469.

2 Bluntschli 1 332-3, 11, 16-19; Largiader 1, 184-5, 265-8; H. Morf, Zunftverfassung und

Obrigkeit in Zurich von Waldmann bis Zwingli MAGZ 45 (Zurich, 1969); L. Weisz, Verfassung und Sta'nde des alten Zurich (Zurich, 1938); H. Nabholz und W. Schnyder, Quellen zur

Zurcher Zunftgeschichte 13. Jfahrhundert bis 17Q8 2 Bde. (Zurich, 1936) print all the essential documents. P. Guyer, Verfassungszustdnde der Stadt Zurich im 16., IJ. und 18. Jahrhundert unter der Einwirkung der sozialen Umschichtung der Bevolkerung (Zurich, 1943); Max Huber,

Die Verfassung des alten Zurich, in Vermischte Schriften Bd. 1. Heimat und Tradition (Zurich

1947) 173-87, is rather slight.

3 Originally the wool weavers and the linen weavers (and dealers) formed separate gilds.

4 The 'Constables' by word analogy included all the knights and those of noble family, together with citizens who lived solely upon the rents of their estates, the wholesale merchants, the cloth merchants, money-changers, bankers, goldsmiths and dealers in salt. The nobles and knights had usually obtained, or were descendants of those who had obtained, patents from 5°

The Zurich ministry kind of House of Lords, with considerable powers. Even when their privileges had been largely surrendered, they retained precedence, social esteem and a tradition of leadership. The 'Constables' had the right to carry the city colours, but each company likewise had its own colours. Each company elected its own master (der Zunftmeister) twice annually, these masters representing their crafts on the council and leading the company's contingent of soldiers. In addition, each company chose a special committee of six1 (Sechser), also twice a year, who acted as its executive and as conciliators in disputes and miscellaneous business. All this emerged in the sixteenth century from the successive modifications of the constitution known as the 'sworn documents'.2 The governing body, the council,3 consisted of two parts, large and small. The great or large council was made up of 162 members (die Burger), twelve (die Zwblfer) from each company, with eighteen (die Achtzehner) from the 'Constables' -die Constaffelherren. The small council (strictly the two small councils, die Kleine

Rate) had twenty-four masters and immediate past masters of the companies (die Ratsherren der Zunfte), Zurich born and resident, together with twenty-four representatives of companies and 'constables'. These latter in practice consisted of four direct nominees of the 'constables', with two more nominated by the whole council from among the eighteen (die

Achtzehner), twelve chosen by the council from the companies, and six more (die Ratsherren freier Wahl) elected without any limitation. The two

Blirgermeister for the year were ipso facto members.

The small (or inner) council, meeting on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, every member being also on the full council, was a kind of cabinet or executive committee responsible for the day-to-day administration of justice and carrying out the policy of the larger body. The great council was responsible for the budget, the money being entrusted to a treasurer (der Seckelmeister).4 Foreign affairs, alliances, treaties, peace and war, the appointment of ambassadors, criminal justice, coinage, admission to citizenship, the acquisition and sale of territory, taxation and the choice of all officers from the Blirgermeister downwards, were likewise matters for the great council, whose direct significance increased steadily in the sixteenth century. the Emperor, for whom the sale of such titles and privileges was lucrative. They wore armour and enjoyed the prefix von: it is curious how much interest there is in heraldry, coat-armour and family descent in 'democratic' Switzerland.

1 Bluntschli I, 332; Nabholz u. Schnyder, Queilen 64 (no. 45).

2 I335~^ der erste geschworene Brief, 1373 der zweite, 1393 (26 July) der dritte, 1489 (25 May) der vierte, 1498 (20 January) der fiinfte, each in some measure enhancing the authority of the council at the expense of the Biirgermeister and of the Gemeinden alike. Bluntschli 1, 343-50.

3 'Biirgermeister, Rat und der Grossrat, so man nennt die Zweihundert der Stadt Zurich.'

4 H. Hussy, Das Finanzwesen der Stadt Zurich im Zeitalter der Reformation (Zurich Diss.,

Affoltern a.A., 1946), 27; Largiadcr 1, 272-3.

ZWINGLI There was a Town Clerk (Stadtschreiber)1 with a deputy (Unterschreiber) and a small office or chancery; both the great and the small council quite frequently appointed ad hoc committees for particular purposes. One of these was a more or less permanent standing committee known as the Privy or Secret (heimliche) council, whose powers and influence have been supposed to be much greater than in fact they were.2 The Biirgermeister was chairman of both councils, but his authority was limited by the election of a second or co-Biirgermeister, each in practice officiating for six months between the feast of St John the Baptist (24 June) and that of St John the Evangelist (27 December). Council changes were made at the same time, so that there was a Christmas council (Natalrat) and a Baptist council

(Baptist air at). These dates were to be of some importance in the progress of the Zwinglian Reformation.

Thus the council, although sovereign, was far from static; as new members came in in the second half of the year, policy might change. There is seldom any suggestion of voting or formal divisions since the assembly was small enough for its decision-'common mind'-to be clear to the Biirgermeister who announced it. Attendance at council meetings obviously involved absence from a man's place of employment and, with nearly all members being de facto self employed and many finding it quite difficult to survive without constant attention to their own business, membership of the council was not often actively sought. Inevitably the richer, more substantial citizens, some of whom derived additional revenue from the ownership of property in the countryside, tended to be re-elected. As we should expect, the same names frequently recur in the lists of council members. If an influential person, and still more an influential family, could be won over to a cause, its chances of success were enormously enhanced. Grebel, Bindner, Thumysen, Escher, Lavater,

Roist, Roubli, Wyss, Schmid, Fischer, Engelhard, Goldli, Edlibach, are names most frequently met with. Among the nobles, the families of Bonstetten, Bubenberg, Landenberg, Gachnang, were still powerful but steadily becoming less so.3 In spite of the elaborate arrangements for election and rotation, public affairs were for long periods in fact dominated by a relatively small group of leaders of the greater companies, Constaffel, Meisen, Saffran, most of all. It was they, for example, who had brought Waldmann's brief and benevolent dictatorship to an end, and it was their support which was decisive for the Reformation.4

1 Zeller-Werdmiiller, vi.

2 E. Fabian, 'Zwingli und der Geheime Rat, 1523-1531' in Gottesreich und Menschenreich,

Ernst Staekelin zum 80. Geburtstag (Basle, 1969) 149-95. See below 390-1.

3 Largiader, 1, 279. Intermarriage between the leading families was extremely common.

4 L. v. Muralt, Stadtgemeinde und Reformation in der Schweiz, ZSG x (1930), 349-84.

The Zurich ministry Although the city population1 proper was less than 6,000, there were ten times that number in the dependencies of the countryside. The area

{Landschaft) controlled by the council included the innere Vogteien? the home counties, as it were, around the lake, and the country districts

(Landvogteien) of Kiburg, Grtiningen, Eglisau, Greifensee, Andelfingen, Regensberg, Knonau, Wadenswil, with certain shared rights of jurisdiction in Thurgau and Baden. They were controlled by Governors (Vogte)3 and these lucrative offices were coveted. Justicia est magnum emolumentum

- the profits of civil and criminal jurisdiction, added to the payments and taxes extracted from the country people, were considerable. These officials had power and dignity and were responsible for local defence, which might be expensive but could also be profitable. Between city and country there were the inevitable differences, but normally the councillors were skilful enough to recognise this and never strained the patience or loyalty of the farmers too far. The precise extent of the jurisdiction exercised on behalf of the council varied in accordance with the agreements by which the different areas had been taken over, and with local customs. In general, however, the council had complete authority, including the execution, or pardon, of criminals.4 The coinage, for which the city had been fully responsible since 1425, was maintained at a consistent standard of purity, and was thus a stabilising element.5

Like all other states, Zurich relied for its security upon the army.6

Military service was taken for granted; to be a citizen was also to be armed, and self protection was assumed. For all practical purposes there was a compulsory citizen army even if some of the obligatory parades and duties were not always popular. The Swiss reputation at the opening of the sixteenth century was that of a people of warriors and, certainly, warfare was almost endemic. There were few mounted men; a Swiss army fought on foot, relying on the weight of an orderly advance of men armed with long spears, halberds, swords and battle axes. Cohesion, discipline and 1 Largiader I, 268 estimates 4,500, as does Gagliardi, Waldmann LVIII. Egli (Z vn, 245 n. 14)

5,000-7,000; Koehler, Zivingli, 45, favours 7,000; P. Klaui, Zurich, Geschichte der Stadt und des Bezirks (Zollikon, 1948), 62 gives 'rund 4,500'; P. Guyer, Verfassungszustdnde, 79 n. 1 is curiously precise - 4,615-5,540; L.v. Muralt, Zurich im Schweizerbund (Zurich, 1951), 47, has 4,600-5,500, followed by M. Haas, Huldrych Zwingli und seine Zeit (Zurich, 1969), 66;

W. Schnyder, Die Bevolkerung der Stadt und Landschaft Zurich votn 14. bis 17. Jahrhundert

(Zurich, 1925), Handbuch I, 427 gives 7,000 'auf hochstens'.

2 Or Obervogteien. There were twenty of these. Dandliker 11, 246.

3 A common rendering is 'bailiffs' - they were local officers combining the duties of Lord

Lieutenant and Sheriff with the administrative responsibilities of estate agents. The Landvogte in practice exercised their authority through local subordinates, Untervogte. Bluntschli

1, 222-36, 395-400.

4 Bluntschli 1, 403-5; Dandliker, 11, 237.

5 Largiader 1, 276.

6 Die Feuerwerker-Gesellschaft (Artillerie-Kollegium) in Zurich has published a Neu,'ahrsblatt annually since 1806, often splendidly illustrated, dealing with every aspect of the military history of Zurich.

ZWINGLI determination gave a local force, where every man knew his fellow, remarkable fighting power. Marksmanship with the crossbow was assiduously cultivated and highly esteemed; shooting matches which were occasions of rivalry and competition were also social gatherings and provided an opportunity for mobilisation and training. The Zurich forces, whether civic, from within the walls, or rural, from the subject populations, were organised by 'banners', groups centreing on the standard-bearer with a commander and officers. Each gild in the city produced its own following, the 'constables' having traditional and unchallenged precedence in command. There was a civic armoury where spears and halberds were stored, and after 1477 there was a small train of artillery with specialists able to use it. There was no 'standing' army and no question that policy was decided by the civilians, the council. Only when war was imminent was an experienced officer chosen to command the whole available force, and he retired when the campaign was over. There were, however, plenty of such hardened warriors since from the mid-fifteenth century onwards mercenary service, especially in Italy, was continuous. Neither officers nor men were paid; they expected to be fed by the localities in their own state and to live off the country outside it. The purpose of warfare was loot - portable valuables for the men, territory for the state. All this implied constant vigilance. Within walled towns the walls were maintained and guarded.

In Zurich, specially selected groups from seven sections of the city were responsible for guarding portions of the walls,1 and this provided a nucleus for defence from attack if required.

The soldiers were also artisans or farmers. There were no barracks or 'full-time' regiments, but there were always sufficient men with experience in warfare. Zurich had sent a contingent of 1,500 men to the help of Berne at Morat in 1476, and similar numbers to the Swabian war and to Italy. In case of necessity, this could be greatly increased and Zurich could put into the field a powerful force of at least 15,000 men, greater than that of any other state except Berne, and less unruly than the detachments of some other constituents of the Federation.2

A flourishing trading centre holding the key to the main north-south trading route along which flowed supplies of salt, corn and wine, a busy manufacturing community, although its woollen and linen-weaving had

1 There were seventeen towers and seven gates, and the fortifications were well maintained in the early seventeenth century. The seven sections or * watches' were Oberdorf, Lindentor,

Neumarkt, Niederdorf, Miinsterhof, Kornhaus, Rennweg. Largiader 1, 91.

2 H. Escher, Das schweizerische Fussvolk im 15. und im Anfang des 16. jfahrhunderts, Nbl. der

Feuerwerker-Gesellschaft in Zurich (Zurich, 1905-7). F. Rieter, Von der militdrischen

Tradition Zurichs, 139. Nbl. der F-G. (Zurich, 1948). J. Hane, Militdrisches aus dent Alten

Ziirichkrieg: Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Infanterie (Zurich, 1928), 22, 143-4 estimates the effectives as 20,000, and enumerates 12,338 in 1529.

The Zurich ministry declined since the fourteenth century,1 the city of Zurich also had considerable ecclesiastical importance. The enormous province of Mainz embraced most of the Confederation, the Archbishop of Besan9on claiming the rest. There were three dioceses,2 of which Constance was the largest, and within it Zurich was the greatest city. Berne was at the extreme western point of the diocese, the river Aar marking the line of demarcation.

Within Zurich there were seven principal churches, fancifully compared with the seven churches of Rome3 - the Great Minster, the Fraumiinster,

St Peter's, the new river church built on piles over the water, and the churches of the Augustinians, Franciscans and Dominicans.

There was also a small group of Beguines (later Dominican nuns) in the cloister of St Verena in the Brungasse near the Dominican church; while across the river and technically outside the city there was the large

Dominican nunnery of Oetenbach with, not far away to the east across the Sihl, the Cistercian nunnery of Selnau (Seldenau) and Austin Canons at St Martin in the Ziirichberg. There were monasteries at Embrach, Kappel,

Riiti, Toss, Heiligenberg (near Winterthur) and Beerenberg near Wtilflingen. In addition, the Order of the Hospitallers owned considerable property in the state and maintained three commanderies {Komtureien) at Bubikon, Wadenswil and Kiissnacht.4 All this was about the normal complement for a state of the size of Zurich; and it meant that friars, monks, nuns and priests5 were extremely familiar figures, much seen in the streets, and church bells calling to worship were much heard.

The Great Minster was a splendid and renowned collegiate church founded in the eighth century, dedicated to Saints Felix and Regula (and, as a kind of afterthought, to St Exuperantius) and endowed with considerable real property in Meilen, FIdngg, Schwamendingen and elsewhere. Before 1525 its Provost exercised important police rights in the neighbouring villages of Fluntern, Rieden, Riischlikon and Riifers.6 This large parish, with, as its population grew, valuable oblations, provided occupation, opportunity and emoluments for the secular canons, who lived close to the church, following initially the Rule of St Chrodegang of 1 This decline had been responsible for the reduction of the number of gilds or companies from thirteen to twelve in 1440. Largiader 1, 269.

2 Basle, Lausanne, Constance. The sees of Chur and Sion were outside the old Confederation; some parts of the south were ecclesiastically in the dioceses of Como and Milan.

3 In 1514 Leo X agreed that pilgrimages to the seven churches of Zurich should confer the same advantages on pilgrims as did those to the seven churches in Rome. Largiader I, 287;

J. C. Wirz, Ennio Filonardi (Zurich, 1894), 30-1.

4 A. Niischeler, Die Gotteshduser der Schweiz (4. Hefte, Zurich, 1864-73), 438-73 enumerating

23 houses, some very small, within reach of the centre of Zurich. There were 60 nuns at Oetenbach in 1310 and over 30 in 1470. Cf. P. Klaui u. E. Imhof, Atlas zur Geschichte des

Kantons Zurich (Zurich, 1951).

5 There were at least 200 priests within the city walls. Schnyder, Bevolkerung, 67-70.

6 Bluntschli 1, 395.

ZWINGLI Metz. When, somewhat surprisingly, Charlemagne had become a canonised saint in 1165, his effigy appeared on the Provost's seal1 and the inevitable relics were exhibited to the faithful. By the mid thirteenth century the body corporate consisted of a Provost and twenty-four canons,2 each now with his own prebend and house, frequently of noble birth and with no duties save to take part in the elaborate choral services of the Minster, which, in turn, might be done by deputy. There was a treasurer, chancellor, precentor, Scholasticus and Plebanus^ the latter, with three assistants, being primarily responsible for the spiritual welfare of the parishioners.

They were privileged people:3 a canon vacating his office could nominate his successor, so that expectants were always there waiting and hoping for the promotion or death of an incumbent" Since 1417 the canons had been obliged to reside, and in 1479 Pope Sixtus IV had agreed that if a canon died during the papal (or odd) months the city council might choose his replacement.4 An open sale of the next turn would be invalid as being simony, but there are strong suggestions that value was sometimes received for a nomination and that this was widely tolerated. On the whole the Provosts were worthy of their calling: they had included a count of Toggenburg, two came from the renowned Manesse family, one was a son of Biirgermeister Brun, and many were of noble birth, but by the sixteenth century a decline was apparent. Matthew Nithart (1440-66), for example, was also a Canon of Freising and had a benefice in Ulm, so that he left much of the Zurich business to his administrator (custos), Werner von

Waldenburg, greatly to the indignation of the learned Canon Felix Hemmerli,5 who, a little smugly and self-righteously, commented freely on the ignorance and loose conduct of his fellows. Following Werner von Waldenburg came Heinrich Nithart, who in the common fifteenth century tradition also held canonries at Constance, Speier and Strassburg. Jakob von

Cham (1473-94) and Johannes Mantz (1494-1513) were natives of Zurich, acceptable partly because they welcomed the alliance with the papacy and forwarded the recruiting campaign of Cardinal Schiner which Zwingli had recently found so distasteful. All these wealthy ecclesiastics, exempt from 1 Largiader I, 103-4.

2 They were classified as eight priests, eight deacons and eight sub-deacons, not, of course, implying that all were not in major orders. There were also thirty-two chaplains who could deputise when required. Largiader 1, 104, 105; Jaques Figi, Die innere Reorganisation des

Grossmiinsterstiftes in Zurich von is 19 bis 1531 (Zurich, 1951), Ziircher Beitrage zur Geschichtswissenschaft Bd. 9, 9. Cf. E. Egli, Die Zurcherische Kirchenpolitik von Waldtnann bis

Zwingli, JSG xxi, 13-14.

3 The priests and chaplains were called Burger, but they were not full citizens: they were specially protected persons, Schutzgenossen. Bluntschli I, 393-4.

4 Largiader I, 281.

5 P. Banziger, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Spatscholastik und des Fruhhumanismus in der Schweiz,

Schweizer Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft, 4 (Zurich, 1945), 52, 53. B. Reber, Felix

Hemmerlin von Zurich (Zurich, 1846), 157-65.

The Zurich ministry state taxation, from military service and from any civic duties, responsibilities or jurisdiction, were an obvious target for criticism.1 The nuns across the Limmat in the Fraumiinster had fallen steadily from the condition in which their abbess had at one time been almost owner and ruler of the community. Invariably daughters of high-born nobles or patricians, they seem to have treated the cloister as a highly exclusive hotel or nursing home. The finances were grossly mismanaged, little attempt was made to enforce and maintain inherited privileges in the face of a growing, powerful and potentially hostile city, and their numbers dwindled. The council appointed an administrator of the property who easily became its protector and director. Property-rights, tolls, coinage, control of weights, measures and market-dues had been alienated one by one.2 By Zwingli's time state control over what had once been a superior corporation was complete, so that when the end came in 1524 the one surviving Lady passed simply into gracious and adequately compensated retirement without fuss or bother.3

Attached to both the Great Minster and the Fraumiinster were chaplains and chantry priests, together with two small grammar schools wherein a few selected boys, paying fees, were taught Latin to what might be described as 'university standard'.4 These were, obviously, potential future clerics; they had been through the song-school, they sang anthems and responses in the increasingly elaborate services, they went in annual procession to the Lindenhof and were often to be seen, in surplice and with lighted candle, accompanying the priest carrying the reserved host through the streets to the sick.

In addition to the churches, monasteries and chantries, there were three hospitals, a word that has so much changed in meaning and connotation as to be highly misleading without a gloss. A medieval hospital5 was a place where selected infirm persons resorted for rest together with care and attention which was primarily spiritual. The first duty of the hospital master and his staffthere were some fifty of these attached to the main

1 Anti-clericalism was no new thing: Zurich had welcomed Arnold of Brescia and his teaching in 1139. Clerics were obliged to take an oath of fealty to the city and state and were forbidden to appeal to any external authority except in purely spiritual matters. In 1506 the Bishop of Constance accepted that the Zurich Council had jurisdiction over felonious priests within its borders. Bluntschli, 125-6, 393-4. J. M. Steffen-Zehnder, Das Verhdltnis von Staat und

Kirche im Spdtmittelalterlichen Zurich (Diss. Zurich, Immensee (Schwyz) 1935).

2 Bluntschli 379-82.

3 The last abbess (1481-96) was Katharina von Zimmern of a renowned Swabian noble family who executed the final deed of transfer on 30 November 1524 (Egli /, 265 (No. 595)), married

Eberhard von Rischach (Reischach) of Schaffhausen a little later, and died in 1529 or 1530.

Z VIII, 203 n. 1.

4 Largiader 1, 287.

5 R. M. Clay, The Mediaeval Hospitals of England (London, 1909); B. Milt, Geschichte des

Ziircher Spitals, in Ziircher Spitalgeschichte (Zurich, 1951) I, 11-26.

ZWINGLI Zurich hospital - was prayer; if there was healing, it was not the result of medical knowledge, drugs, surgery or nursing. A hospital, therefore, from a secular point of view, could be something of a parasite; the many priests of Zurich were reinforced by those serving the hospital chapel which was situated between the Dominican cloister and the river. In addition, there were larger houses for lepers, so called, isolation hospitals for those with seriously contagious skin diseases - St James on the Sihl and St Maurice on the north road.1 The clerical community was thus large and wealthy, but for long it had been becoming less and less independent of the state government.

In any sizeable and compact community there always appear a few outstanding individuals who provide unity, direction, purpose, policy and leadership. Such men had never been lacking in Zurich, whose people were notorious for their easy ductility, volatility and intelligence. Everyone there knew and admired figures like Marx Roist, Biirgermeister between 1505 and 1523; Felix Frei, Provost of the Great Minster and chairman of the Chapter; the Grebels,2 Ritter Peter Grebel and his brother James

(Jakob), executed in 1526 for supporting foreign recruiting and accepting a pension from foreign agents, and James's son Conrad, a brilliant student,

Zwingli's intellectual peer and his most serious antagonist. Gerold and Hans Edlibach were wealthy, stable and conservative.

This Zurich city population had many of the characteristics of a village society, intimate, gossiping, subject to the vicissitudes of plague and external danger, almost as closely crowded together as passengers on board ship. Everyone was class conscious and status conscious; the most obvious line of distinction was between Zurich-born propertied citizens whose ancestry everyone knew and to whom office came almost as a birthright, and the strangers who came to the city to seek their fortunes and who were assimilated reluctantly and slowly. For the leading citizens, there were opportunities and duties, districts to be governed, castles to be garrisoned, church and monastic foundations to be supervised, men to be coerced and money to be collected.

Outside the city, the basic unit was the Gemeinde, the rural village community and usually also a parish with its church and priest. Originally, it had normally been formed by small groups of families cohering for protection against dangerous wild beasts and for the cooperation essential to communal grazing and farming. It was the smallest group with which corporate feeling could be connected, and there was an obvious measure of similarity between these communities which made common treatment, within the framework of customary law, possible. With larger places,

1 Largiadcr I, 289.

2 K. Keller-Escher, Die Familie Grebel (Frauenfeld, 1886); Wirz, 382.

The Zurich ministry country towns like Winterthur, Elgg, Biilach, Eglisau and Rheinau, or fortified positions (Vorburgen) like Regensberg, Glanzenberg, Grliningen,

Greifensee and Maschwanden, relations were different.* Where there were walls and a market and usually a local constitution, it would be almost like bargaining between equals, with the Zurich Council almost invariably able to enforce its own policies but acting with circumspection and reasonableness. The fundamental divisions remained between nobles, knights, ecclesiastics and townsmen on one side, and the cultivators of the soil, some free, some almost serfs, burdened with obligations of service and of payment, collectively designated peasants2

(Bauern).

The peasant was no slave. He, or his farm, was indeed often burdened with heavy obligations; there were many inescapable customary payments, tolls and dues; he must take an oath of obedience to his masters; he was obliged to undertake military service if called upon and he was subject to some legal disabilities compared with the city dwellers, but he was far less at the mercy of the arbitrary whims and fancies of an individual overlord than many of his fellows in Germany. A common policy for the state was supplied by the Council, and local law, custom, precedents and the corporate wishes of the inhabitants were always given serious consideration.

The councillors of Zurich thus had to exercise knowledge, tact, firmness and persuasion in dealing with their subjects, and this was done with considerable skill. It is on the whole remarkable that with very small legal and chancery departments things went so smoothly. Thus, in 1519,

Zwingli came to a city in which the art of government was effectively and efficiently practised.

Zurich was accepted as Vorort^ the first among the thirteen dissimilar cooperating units that made up the Confederation.3 Its own external or foreign policy was dictated by geography, tradition and events. The Zurchers were highly conscious of their German connections; the Rhine whither they had strained to reach in the north was not so much a barrier as a magnet or meeting place. It was with the inhabitants of the Black

Forest, Baden, Wiirttemberg, Swabia and upper Bavaria, that commercial and personal relations were closest, although there was growing suspicion

1 Dandliker I, 310-12; Winterthur was easily the most important. H. Klaui, Geschichte von

Oberwinterthur in Mittelalter (Winterthur, 1968-9), Nbl. der Stadtbibliothek Winterthur,

299. Bluntschli, 183-5.

2 Cf. F. Martini, Das Bauerntum im deutschen Schrifttutn von den Anfdngen bis zum 16. jfahrhundert (Halle, 1944) 240-301.

3 Lucerne had occupied this position before c. 1480. G. Stucki, Ziirichs Stellung in der Eidgenossenschaft vor der Reformation (Aarau, 1970), 11-13. The Diet of the Confederation and its allies usually assembled eight times a year, frequently in the Zurich Rathaus - 161 meetings have been counted between 1500 and 1520. Staehelin I, 122.

ZWINGLI and dislike for the rulers of the Habsburg lands around and beyond them.

At the same time, their neighbours of Zug, Lucerne, Glarus, St Gall abbey and city, Appenzell, Schwyz and Uri, were never forgotten, and it was with them that a series of compacts and understandings had been made for security, trade and joint advantage, which were valued by all the components.1 Zurich's interests were thus predominantly German, eastern and in a sense imperial, while the need to keep open the route towards Italy was always apparent. These principles controlled policy;

Zurich could never, in fact, act entirely in isolation whether in matters of religion or of politics.

There was one other inescapable consideration. Seventy difficult miles to the south-west lay Berne. Neither the Switzerland of the sixteenth century nor the course of the Reformation there can be comprehended without taking into careful account the position of the city and state so often playfully designated 'the bear'. Berne adhered to the Reformation slowly but decisively - how this came about will be described later. Basle, the largest city in the Confederation, was reluctant to break directly with the Papacy in spite of the long residence there of Erasmus, the teaching of Oecolampadius and the close connection with Strassburg and Lutheran

Germany. The lead came from Zurich, and from Zurich only, because of the abilities, persistence and convictions of Zwingli.

On Saturday, i January 1519, the thirty-five year old priest announced in his first sermon in the Great Minster that on the following Sunday he would begin a series of discourses on the Gospel according to St Matthew, ignoring the customary limitations and divisions known as pericopes, expounding instead the complete plain text without any accretions of scholastic interpretation.2 Preaching the pure Gospel was an indispensable element of the Reformation and it therefore used to be said that Reform in Zurich began there and then.

It was not as simple as that. Exactly what was said in these sermons we shall never know, for Zwingli did not write them out and it was only a good deal later that diligent disciples, Megander and Leo Jud in particular, began to record their recollections of what he had said.3 Certainly he was introducing a new and thoroughly Erasmian concept of Bible-ap1 E.g. 1 May 1351, alliance of Zurich, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden; 4 June 1352, alliance of Zurich, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, Glarus; 7 October 1370, renewed alliance of Zurich, Lucerne, Zug, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden. (Pfaffenbrief) 23 May 1477, alliance of Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Fribourg and Solothurn; 22 December 1481, renewed non-aggression agreement of Unterwalden, Glarus, Berne, Uri, Schwyz, Lucerne, Zug and Zurich

(Stanser Verkommnis).

2 Bullinger, Ref. 1, 12; Z vn, 106. At Einsiedeln he had confined his exposition to the said pericopes (Staehelin 1, 135); Luther had at first observed a similar limitation.

3 Morikofer I, 57. In any case Leo Jud knew of the early sermons only by hearsay since he did not come to Zurich until the end of 1522. ZWA vn, 486.

The Zurich ministry proach1 and exegesis, but this was to be expected from an advanced humanist-minded thinker of his age.

Even more than Luther, Zwingli valued preaching very highly and was indefatigable in the pulpit. The sermons now consisted in the first place of reading the whole Bible text methodically but not chronologically. The start was with the genealogy of Jesus Christ (Matthew i. 1-17), known to the middle ages best from the Jesse windows in some great churches, then to the whole of St Matthew, the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles to Timothy, Galatians and of Peter, so to all the New Testament except the Apocalypse, and finally the books of the Old Testament in apparently arbitrary order.2 He began with simple, didactic Bible lessons, moving to more difficult subjects only after his hearers, to whom the Bible was almost unknown and most of whom were unable to read it, had had adequate instruction. His chief objective in preaching was to repeat the word of God unabbreviated and unadulterated, clearly setting out the Law and the Prophets, vehemently calling his hearers to repentance and, with the gentleness of a shepherd, guiding the community to salvation. The actions of the preacher should correspond to his words, and he must be prepared, if necessary, to accept a martyr's fate.

That his sermons were adapted to his hearers, full of plain speaking and homely illustrations, preaching such as had not been heard before in Zurich, is certain enough. There were no gimmicks, no rhetoric, no violent gestures or theatrical denunciations, but simple conviction combined with humour, allusions to current affairs and local personalities and happenings, all set out with rare simplicity, clarity and honesty. The delivery was quiet, but later experience enabled him to fill a large church with his voice. Offenders high or low, monks and recipiants of foreign pensions in particular, were attacked vigorously; sometimes it was even possible to identify the individual to whom reference was made,3 and when occasion called for it, he was outspoken in his denunciation of the opponents of the Gospel.

These included those, bishops and others, who tried to prohibit vernacular translations of the Bible. It is easy to exaggerate, as it is difficult to assess accurately, the extent and importance of Bible reading at the'opening of the sixteenth century. That there had been much interest in the Bible, sometimes connected with the educational work of the Brethren of the 1 Koehler, 'Zwingli als Theologe' Geddchtnis c. 41 shows that his doctrine wras still Catholic.

Erasmus had very similar influence on some English preachers. J. K. McConica, English

Humanists and Reformation politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford, 1965), 15-38,

114-20.

2 Z 1, 133 and n. 2; Wyss 9, 67, 92.

3 Farner j , 116-29 shows how political matters became increasingly the theme of such sermons as were reported.

ZWINGLI Common Life, and also an accompaniment of increasing literacy, is certain. The literature that came from the early printing presses was largely theological in nature. The new Bible-based preaching was as welcome as it was unusual: instead of stories from the legends of the saints, anecdotes, or commonplaces about the seven deadly sins, the people now heard the plain text with unusual words explained and difficult passages compared with similar or analogous ones which might make them clearer. Above all, there was no appeal to tradition; long-accepted belief or practice, the ruling of Pope or council or canon law were not to prevail against, or even to be used in amplification of, the words of holy scripture. To the Zurich artisans it was all new, exciting and challenging.

Vernacular Bibles were far from unknown before the appearance of the first edition of Luther's translation of the New Testament at Wittenberg in September 1522, which was reprinted by Adam Petri in Basle in December of that year. Other editions and reprints followed1 and were eagerly purchased.

In addition to his sermons, the newly appointed priest said mass, heard confessions, took his place in processions and highly ritualistic services in an image-packed church, dressing and speaking like his colleagues. He was, however, fast becoming completely scripture-dominated. This was not the result of sudden revelation or conversion: there was no Lutheran ' towerexperience': there was not even Calvin's decisive moment of choice.

A good deal of attention has been given, not very profitably, to the attempt to define the precise moment when Zwingli became evangelical. That he was an orthodox Catholic priest at least until the end of 1518 is reasonably certain; that he was no longer so by 1522 is also clear. There is no clean dividing line.2 His own testimony is in a letter of 29 December 1521 to Berchtold Haller, in which he insisted that it was five years since he started to work on the Gospels. The chronology thus fits in admirably with Zwingli's mastery of sufficient Greek to enable him to compare the text of the Greek New Testament (1516) with the Vulgate and to study intensively the divine word in the original.3 We can readily accept the statement that 1 The earliest printed German Bible appeared in 1483, and by 1522 eighteen German versions of the Bible had already been available. See below 128 n. 4.

2 Koehler, Zwingli 70-5; G. W. Locher, Die Theologie Huldrych Zwinglis im Lichte seiner

Christologie: I Die Gotteslehre (Zurich, 1952), 54; A. Rich, Die Anfdnge der Theologie Huldrych

Zwinglis (Zurich, 1949), 93-5; H. W. Pipkin, The Nature and development of the Zwinglian

Reformation to August 1324 (Hartford (diss.) 1968): copy in StaZ.

3 Z 1, 256 n. 4; ZWA VIII, 504-5, 512-19; J. F. Goeters, Zwinglis Werdegang als Erasmianer

(Witten, 1969) 268-71 {Reformation und Humanismus. Robert Stupperich zum 65. Geburtstag)

255-71. It is a pity that later events unnecessarily caused the historical question of the originality of Zwingli's contribution to the Reformation to be involved with the unfortunate controversy with Luther. The tendency of modern scholarship, especially since Joseph Lorz, has been in the direction of making Reformation history less personal and stressing con-

The Zurich ministry he had not directly come into contact with, let alone read carefully,

Luther's early works. None the less, the critical approach, deriving among others from Valla, was becoming part of the tissue and fabric of the age, and a widely disseminated Bible must have been revolutionary in any case.

Many a modern Marxist became so before reading Das Kapital or even the Communist Manifesto of 1847; so, too, there were Lutherans who had not read the three Reformation treatises. Luther himself confessed to having reached Hussite conclusions before he read Hus' book On the Church.

Zwingli was frequently accused of being a follower of Wyclif, not one word of whose writings he can have read.

The historian is wedded to records, to the written and printed word.

Unrecorded conversations can only be guessed at, and in the sixteenth century an enormous amount depended upon word-of-mouth communication. In this way after 1517a good deal of what was happening in Saxony could quite well have been known in a pilgrimage-centre like Einsiedeln without being recorded. The absence of evidence of the existence of a printed Lutheran text does not necessarily mean that some part of the content of these writings was entirely unknown. In this connection, some rather speculative deductions have been drawn from the marginalia in Zwingli's books, particularly those in his earlier handwriting.1 It has, for example, been argued that before 1519 he had already worked out his later pneumatology from 2 Peter 1. 21.2 That the Bible was the direct word of God, the revelation of Him who was Truth itself, he never doubted, but there was nothing specially new about this - it was a commonplace assumption of the Fathers and the scholastic theologians. What was new for him was the growing realisation that traditional, conventional and even authoritarian interpretation must be subject to individual conviction based on careful study. He had early transcribed a good deal of the Pauline epistles and, with a trained and retentive memory, could reproduce long passages as well as convenient texts, verbatim. All this was to be of great value in the public disputations in which he was involved and in the controversial writing which had to be produced rapidly.

Like his contemporaries, he submitted himself wholly and willingly to the tyranny of the Book.3 Then, and much later, there was no questioning the canon of the scriptures, which included, but with considerably tinuity rather than personal innovation. After the Council of Trent, it was too easy to represent the Roman Catholic Church as a huge monolith, which it was not in 1519. In this year

Zwingli's thought was emphatically Erasmian. It was Erasmus who was forced by events

(and a temperamental determination to keep out of trouble) to avoid identification with heresy and to break, one by one, with Hutten, Luther and Zwingli.

1 These investigations were started by Usteri, Initia.

2 F. Schmidt-Clausing, Zwingli (Berlin, 1965), 41.

3 C. Nagel, Zwingli's Stellung zur Schrift (Freiburg/Leipzig, 1896).

ZWINGLI diminished authority for him, the Apocrypha. Just as for Luther the general Epistle of James was 'an epistle of straw', so, for Zwingli, quite early, the Apocalypse was somehow suspect. Even this qualification was made slowly. What was wonderful to him and his generation was that they had before their eyes the original Greek, and Hebrew, texts. The very words directly inspired by the Holy Spirit1 were there for them to read, and the printing-press made possible an exactness unknown previously.

It was in 1516 that this great treasure had been delivered into Zwingli's hands, and early 1519 allows exactly the right length of time for assimilation and cogitation. Further, during the immediate pre-Zurich years, he had read and re-read all that he could of the Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose,

Augustine and, in place of the usual Gregory, Origen. Here again it is the disciple of Erasmus that appears. From the Basle presses, overseen by Erasmus and with his introduction and comments, each of these had come or was to come.2 The study of Patristics was indeed still in its infancy, texts were uncertain and deductions from them disputable. While

Zwingli perused them eagerly, he applied his full critical faculties to them; they provided useful supplementary ammunition, but not much more.

The Zurich Zentralbibliothek guards Zwingli's own copies of them all except, probably, the Ambrose, which bears no mark of his ownership, although he quotes from this unconvincing author often enough. The great folios of Augustini Opera, delivered to him with Froben's compliments as a gift, bear a large number of annotations which reveal the diligent reader, but the books were in his possession all his life and St Augustine was too much the most popular of the Fathers to be specially decisive at this stage.

In his edition of Jerome (Basle, Froben, 1516) which was to be re-used by Pellican and still again by Bullinger, Zwingli a little self-consciously writes his name in Greek characters.3 The introductions by Erasmus were obviously valued, as were also the Jeromean comments on the Prophets, notably Jeremiah. Erasmus had a special affection for Jerome and was particularly attracted to Jerome's Letters, while both he and Zwingli could not fail to note that Jerome himself had suffered some persecution because of his efforts to secure a satisfactory Bible text.4 We think, and rightly, of 1 That 'all scripture is given by inspiration of God', II Timothy 3.16 (which appears in the New English Bible as ' every inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error') was basic to Zwingli as to Luther. This in turn depended upon the acceptance of Christ as the centre and purpose of all revelation. Through him both old and new Testaments proclaimed the word of God. Zwingli's religious thought never ceased to be dominated by the Incarnation.

2 Amerbach had printed at Basle the works of Ambrose in 1492, Augustine in 1506, and called in Erasmus to help with Jerome in 1514. Ambrose was re-edited by Erasmus in 1527,

Augustine in 1528. P. S. Allen, Erasmus, Lectures and wayfaring sketches (Oxford, 1934) 47-55.

3 Koehler, Bibliothek 19 (No. 150).

4 P. S. Allen, Erasmus, Lectures and wayfaring sketches (Oxford, 1934), 72.

The Zurich ministry Zwingli as the independent commentator on the Bible and even as a critic of the Vulgate text, but the solid learning and sensible as well as sensitive thought of Jerome were never entirely forgotten by him and were specially prominent in his mind in these early Zurich days.

His edition of Origen was that printed at Paris in 1512,1 and again his annotations, and his later commendation of this Father to Myconius,2 indicate appreciative study. Anyone who has tried to use, or even to move about, these great folio volumes, will realise that their assimilation and annotation occupied many studious hours. Later in life, Zwingli frequently had to read and write at high speed under pressure, and it was then that he was grateful for solid foundations that he had been able to lay in his early thirties. Zwingli must have brought with him to Zurich one of the best libraries possessed at the time by a simple secular priest, and his books he esteemed all his life.3 Many threads were now being drawn together in 1519-20-memories of rather barren university scholasticism with no desire on his part to return to Aristotle, Peter Lombard, Aquinas, Scotus and the rest, yet he knew them well and was therefore suitably equipped to meet his opponents in verbal-logical Latin discussions, each knowing that the other side was well trained in the formalities of logical thought.

Over and beyond this was the almost fashionable humanist, ready to produce the telling sentence, the well-turned epigram and the apt quotation; able to read and write in Greek, knowing his Plato, poets and playwrights, rejoicing, in common with Erasmus and More, in the light satire and subtle wit of Lucian. Solid learning, classical outlook, parochial and pastoral duties being fulfilled and under control, Italy visited at least twice, Swiss military service shared and evaluated, his name known at Rome, the Leutpriester of the Great Minster had much to offer outside the pulpit as well as from it.

Bold and even corrosive as some of this preaching was, it was already, as it always remained, basically and fundamentally Christ-centred.4 The Cross, and all that it meant, was never absent: the tidings were of eternal salvation. There was no word or sentence of the three creeds, that of the Apostles to which he believed each of the Twelve had contributed a clause, that of Nicaea and that attributed to Athanasius with its uncompromising

1 Koehler, Bibliothek, 30 (No. 250).

2 Z VII, 287-91.

3 Koehler, Bibliothek, 3-32. This was exceptional; it was noted as something unexpected of his predecessor, Hemmerli, that he had a good library. Zwingli may have known that Johannes

Heynlin von Stein (de Lapide) (1430-96) gave 283 volumes to the Carthusians of Basle.

J. Rosen, Die Universitdt Basel im Staatshaushalt 1460 bis 1535, BasZG 72 (1972), 207.

4 A. Rich, Zwinglis Weg zur Reformation, ZWA vin, 511-35 esp. 523-32; Z VII, 341-5. The second point for discussion at the first Zurich disputation emphasised this. 'The essence of the Gospel is this that our Lord Christ Jesus, the very son of God, brought us tidings of the will of his heavenly Father and by his sinlessness saved us from death and reconciled us to God.'Z 1, 458; Z n , 27.

ZWINGLI definition of the Trinity, which he did not fully accept and proclaim. He was no more 'modernist' than was Luther, Cranmer, or Calvin. Angels,

Satan, the virgin birth, the biblical miracles and Christ's physical ascension were the certainties to him that they were to all save Jews and infidels. Deep as was the division that his later teaching was to bring, he was at one with his opponents about the basic articles of the Christian faith.

It was the message of salvation as set forth by Christ's own words in the Gospels that this cheerful, sanguine, short-sighted priest was now starting to deliver. The 'establishment' was clearly a little taken aback. The elderly Canon Conrad Hofmann, who had helped to bring about Zwingli's election and supported his attacks on mercenary service and the hierarchy, found the sermons not entirely to his taste. There were too many attacks on notorious sinners, too much exposure of evils sometimes best not proclaimed from the pulpit, and all this spoken too quickly. Zwingli should not think himself wiser or more learned than everyone else and should show greater respect for authority, whether of the church, the government or the traditional and accepted writers of antiquity. More care should be given to examination of the new teachings of Luther, exaggeration should be avoided and not everything which could be said or written for the clergy in Latin was necessarily suitable for ignorant laymen. A little less violence, a little more respect for the Virgin Mary, the rosary and prayers to saints would be appreciated, while attacks on purgatory and excommunication, and unreliable views on infant baptism should be abandoned.1

Other canons supported Hofmann, but Zwingli was not to be stopped.2

He insisted that he was no innovator, that he was following the teaching of the early church as found in the Bible, and that it was his duty to expound this teaching to the artisans of Zurich in words that they could understand. It was indeed the matter rather than the manner of his discourses that was popular, combined with manifest sincerity and charisma.

The great age of the sermon was just opening: it was to be the most powerful instrument of the coming century. The word was power.

There were, however, other things beside sermons to think about. The new minister must ride frequently to Wytikon and Zollikon, he must know his parishioners, baptise, administer extreme unction, say mass, hear confessions, urge his penitents to make offerings to the fabric of the church and see to it that his assistants were usefully and suitably employed. At the end of his first month, he was being asked questions, as he had been before, about the indulgences which Sanson3 was offering at the 1 Egli i 59-65 (No. 213); Z 11, 683 n. 8.

2 O. Vasella, Huldrych Zwingli und seine Gegner, ZSK 56 (1962), 281-300.

3 Z VII, 115 n. 4, 183-4; Bullinger, Ref. 1, 13-18. See above 44 n. 2.

The Zurich ministry city gate, coming from Constance and calling for money. His answers were naturally, hostile. Without directly condemning the whole theory behind the offer, he insisted that people were not properly informed about the conditions of the indulgence which they did not understand or perform and were being induced to part with their money on what amounted to false pretences.1 This was nearly two years after Luther's 'Ninety-five theses', and by now the topic had received wide publicity and had become for Germany much more than a doctrinal dispute. The Bishop of Constance let it be known through his Official that he did not support Sanson, who in any case was taking money out of his diocese. The Zurich council refused him entry to the city, as did Bremgarten, and everywhere the whole business was thrust into the background.2 At Rome the authorities were anxious that the fire that had been started at Wittenberg should not spread to Switzerland. The papacy was the ally of the Confederation and a generous employer; Zwingli himself had not attacked the Pope and was still on friendly terms with Fabri,3 the bishop's adviser. Sanson was recalled and the affair seemed at an end.

It had, however, meant that the problem of authority within the church would receive renewed attention; Luther's writings were now being widely circulated, and Zwingli welcomed them. Further south, these tendencies and the treatment of Sanson had not passed unnoticed. Word came from Myconius4 of rising concern at Lucerne.5 This place was, and long remained, the heart of Catholic Switzerland, the principal bastion of the papacy within the Confederation. It was also at the very core of this latter, the natural meeting point for the original Confederates, Uri,

Schwyz and Unterwalden which, with Zug, later acted together as the 'Five Orte\ It was their largest town and well situated for communication by water. The inhabitants were almost entirely employed in agriculture or pastoral activities, usually poor, ignorant and limited in outlook. Much of the land was barren mountain and utterly unattractive - there were no tourists then - grain, iron, salt and wine, all had to be imported; life was exceedingly hard. What this bred was a tough, unyielding and conserva1 T. von Liebenau, Zur Geschichte der Ablassprediger in der Schweiz, BasZG H (Basle, 1903),

78-80.

2 EA3, 2, 1141.

3 As late as 18 October 1520, Zwingli and Fabri were in amiable correspondence with one another. See below 209-310.

4 Z vii, 317. 'Evomunt contra Zinglium non quidem vera male interpretantes, sed omnino pervertentes.'

5 P. X. Weber, Der Kanton Luzern vom eidgenossischen Bund bis zum Ende des 75. Jfahrhunderts.

Geschichte des Kantons Luzern von der Urzeit bis zum jfahre 1500 (Lucerne, 1932) m. Teil,

627-866. S. Grtiter, Geschichte des Kantons Luzern im 16. und 17. jfahrhundert (Lucerne,

1945) 50-2. W. Brandly, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Stadt und Land Luzern (Lucerne,

1956), 91. (LuzernGeschichte und Kultur hg. v. J. Schmid, 11. Staats-und Kirchengeschichte.

Kirchengeschichte Bd. 4.)

ZWINGLI tive peasantry clinging devotedly to the past and jealously disliking and despising the more fortunate dwellers of the plain. Lucerne itself, although a walled city, shared the prejudices and convictions of the country people and reflected the age-long dislike of the food producer for the food consumer. The very poverty and barrenness of the land made the area especially susceptible to outside inducements, above all to foreign pensions to the leading citizens. A little gold went a very long way, and the leaders of the communities were willing enough to see young men, whom it was difficult to employ or to feed, go off as mercenaries. That this had papal approval made it all the better, and if it also kept the path to Italy open this too was advantageous.

Hence northern criticism of papal indulgences and foreign pensions were much resented there. Suspicions of heterodoxy, even heresy, were roused when news came that another highly controversial matter was being ventilated in the Zurich pulpit. The assiduous study of the New

Testament, particularly the Acts of the Apostles, had caused the preacher to examine with special care the nature and institutions of the primitive church. This led to diligent consideration of the now controversial subject of clerical celibacy and clerical morality. Before long he concluded that clerical celibacy rested on no adequate biblical basis, the new touchstone by which he was now testing everything, and, although he had little sense of history, he was also aware that before the eleventh century many priests could, and did, marry.I On the themes both of indulgences and clerical marriage there was still room for manoeuvre. Canon law on these subjects might be amended by papal decree, by a General Council or even by favourable interpretation; a great deal more and clearer definition was needed, much of which was to be supplied by the Council of Trent for another generation; but, while much was still fluid, discussion should proceed. One of the popular convictions of the day was that a suitable way of reaching conclusions was by a public verbal exchange of views. The universities had long since encouraged the formulation of questions for debate, discussion and settlement by the application of the agreed logical rules of the schools. It was but to take this a stage further to believe that wider conclusions could be reached by similar methods. In addition, the printing-press made written controversy inevitable, indeed interminable. Question and answer, challenge and response, the flat assertion, the written dialogue, the open letter, were all being employed. There were no laws of libel or of copyright, and at the same time the printed word had all the fascination of a new invention and also the authoritative implications of scholarship for the unlettered. Zwingli certainly hoped that Rome itself might be influenced by 1 See below 78-80.

The Zurich ministry the force of argument in writing and public discussion. There was much that needed elucidation.

However, the new Leutpriester had completed only some six or seven months of duty1 before he came near to relinquishing his post for ever. In August 1519, Zurich received its visitation of the plague.2 Such outbreaks were common enough in the sixteenth century, but they were serious enough also. Complete ignorance of the nature of the transmission of disease, and the close crowding together of people in uncleansable narrow lanes with animals wandering about freely, made infection unavoidable.

At this visitation at least one in four died;3 there can hardly have been a house in Zurich without at least one corpse to be buried. Such a time was obviously dangerous for a priest whose duty it was to fortify the dying with the last consolations of religion. All who could afford it left the city, and it is to Zwingli's credit that in duty bound4 he returned to his post. In September he caught the disease and nearly died.5 It is well to remember that if this illness had proved fatal to him, as it did to his brother Andrew,6 his name would have remained almost unknown except to diligent historians of south German humanism. It is also curious that he may have owed his survival to the skilled attentions of the papal legate's personal physician who was sent to him at Zurich. Quite certainly Zwingli knew that he had been at death's door, and like many another man, he was never entirely the same after so serious an illness. How he prepared himself for death he described later in a German hymn or poem7 in three parts, each of four stanzas, giving expression to his feelings at the onset, at the height of the fever, and during convalescence. In few, but moving, words, he commits himself entirely to God's mercy 1 In July 1519 he had obtained leave of absence to visit Pfafers (near the present-day Rhine frontier of St Gall but then in the county of Sargans) for a 'cure1 and had to be hurriedly summoned home. It is a little curious that he had already thus intermitted his sermons and pastoral work so soon after his appointment.

2 Bullinger, Ref. 1, 28.

3 Koehler, Zwingli, 76, estimated one in three; Egli, Z 1, 62, between one in two and one in four.

4 Koehler, Buck, 68.

5 Z VII, 200 n. 2; Z 1, 62.

6 Z VII, 211 n. 1.

7 This single page of verse, frequently reprinted, being almost the earliest of Zwingli's known writings, has been subjected to minute analysis. There are several references in letters to a lost treatise or tract written by him in the autumn of 1519 entitled Dialogus pestis: possibly the Pestlied was an arrangement of the essentials of this, set to music to be sung as a kind of psalm. In favour of this is the well-known fact that Zwingli was exceptionally musically gifted even for that age; against it, that he would be unlikely to put his thoughts just in this form. It is all made more complicated by the existence of a later version, perhaps a semiindependent composition, owned and used by Bullinger with an even later recension (1551) attributed to Theodore Beza. Farner 11, 360-73, and the authorities cited on p. 477 especially A. Walther, Zwinglis Pestlied, in Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift (Erlangen/Leipzig,

1901) XII. Jg., 813-27; A. Bouvier, Henri Bullinger, Reformateur et conseiller oecumenique

(Neuchatel, 1940) 269-71, 514-16; J. Schweizer, Reformierte Abendmahlsgestaltung in der

ZWINGLI Thy purpose fulfil: nothing can be too severe for me.

I am but thy vessel to be made whole or broken in pieces.1

Restored by God's will, he is ready for anything that the world has to bring With thy help, without which I can do nothing I will gladly endure the knocks and noise of this world as the price of health.2

There was no appeal to the saints or the Virgin Mary, no vow, no suggestion of reliance on the church; his grave illness had brought him into direct contact with eternity.3 By God's mercy he had been granted life, and this life was now to be lived for God's purposes only. He was a man with a mission. At the end of 1519 he felt, what he had not done at its beginning, an intense sense of purpose, complete self-confidence, arising from the assurance that God would use him and direct his steps and thoughts to His chosen ends. It carried with it that strengthening of faith that could remove mountains, a certainty of aim which overcame doubt and brought with it invaluable self-assurance and optimism.4 Later in life he was to think of himself as a prophet, knowing that words came to him from above, sure that his opponents were at best mistaken, at worst wickedly and vainly opposing God's chosen instrument. This Pestlied thanksgiving was rightly compared to a psalm, and there was thenceforth something of King

David about his ways and action. During his illness and recovery some notable events took place in Germany.

Schau Zwinglis (Basle, 1954), 54-5; A. Rich, Die Anfdnge der Theologie Huldrych Zwinglis

(Zurich, 1949), 104-19. Perhaps too much has been read into 75 lines of poetry!

1 Z 1. 67

Thii, wie du wilt; mich nut befilt.

Din haf bin ich.

Mach gantz aid brich.

2 Z 1. 69

So wil ich doch den trutz und boch in diser wait tragen frolich umb widergelt mit hilffe din, on den mit mag vollkummen sin.

3 ZWA v, 323.

4 By 31 December 1519 he was writing enthusiastically to the gloomy Myconius: 'We are not alone; in Zurich there are more than 2000 relatively enlightened people.' Z vn, 245.

The Zurich ministry On 28 June 1519 the young Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor and was crowned at Aachen on 23 October 1520, between which dates, as was to be of significance for Zurich later, Duke Ulrich of Wiirttemberg was forced to leave his duchy. Martin Luther, distinguished university professor and Augustinian friar, had written the too-notorious 95 theses in October 1517, and within twelve months these, and their author, had received wide publicity so that a charge of heresy had to be faced. Refusing to retract when asked to do so by Cardinal Cajetan, at Leipzig in July 1519, he rejected Pope and Council alike and was excommunicated on 15 June 1520.1 By then he had written the three celebrated treatises - To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation^ On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church and On the Freedom of a Christian. These, with his other works, were soon in print and sold widely. In April 1521 he made his celebrated appearance before the Emperor at Worms, and in May, outlaw and heretic, he went underground temporarily at the Wartburg.

Few topics have been more discussed than the impact of Luther upon Zwingli in 1520 and 1521, and necessarily without certain conclusion.

What can be said with a degree of certainty is that it was Erasmus' thought to which Zwingli owed most in these early years. However, as from 1519 onwards, more of Luther's writings were available in Basle, copies reached

Zwingli, and in 1521 he was considering them carefully.2 By then, too, the term 'Lutheran' was already being applied indiscriminately to anyone who was critical of the hierarchy or of accepted doctrine, and Zwingli came within this category. To support a heretic, to befautor, was to be in danger of the stake to which heretics were consigned unless there was hurried and adequate recantation. The ban of the Empire did indeed mean very little in practice unless, as in the case of Ulrich of Wiirttemberg, powerful interested parties were prepared to maintain it by armed force, but it could have appreciable legal inconveniences. There might well be occasion when individually or corporately Zurich citizens needed to approach one of the imperial courts, and to find themselves excluded as supporters of Luther would not be good enough. Zurich was an imperial city and unwilling to risk any curtailment of its legal rights. The Pope, too, still owed Zurich money for military services rendered but not paid for, and there was no intention of gratuitously offering the papacy an opportunity to repudiate its obligations.

Zwingli came to Zurich at the moment when the controversy about 1 The effective excommunication was on 3 January 1521 by the Bull Decet Romanum

Pontificem. E. G. Rupp and B. Drewery, Martin Luther (London, 1970) 62-7.

2 Z vii, 365-6,461; ZWA in, 162-80; Koehler, Zwingli, 60-1. In May 1521 in England Wolsey presided at the first of the futile burnings of Lutheran literature there, which advertised its existence and also showed the tendencies of some of the more reflective elements of English society. A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (London, 1964), 68f.

ZWINGLI mercenary service was at its height. The Zurich tradition had been to support Pope and Emperor as against France, whereas the other Swiss cantons were orientated towards France, drawn in large measure by the interest of Berne. The Popes were extremely anxious and careful to maintain close contact with Zurich as a source of manpower. Through a series of nuncios, particularly Ennio Filonardi, efforts were consistently made to keep up the supply of soldiers. Whether, if the expeditions of 1510 and 1511 had been more successful, if papal promises of cash payments had been promptly honoured and if Zwingli's eloquence had been less singularly compelling, the result might not have been different, cannot be answered. What is certain is that the early preaching of reform was tolerated by Rome in Zurich because its military support was needed.

Although in fact no more such help was forthcoming, it was to the advantage of the papacy that in May 1521 Zurich refused to join the other twelve states in an alliance with France.

All these factors militated against the acceptance of Lutheranism, the more so as after 1521 any hopes of its reconciliation with Rome vanished.

The citizens of Zurich were not likely to be willing to be accounted followers of a German heretic instead of their own minister. The decision, in any case, would lie with the council. Luther was safe and able to continue writing and preaching because he had the support of his prince, the powerful and almost autocratic Elector of Saxony. Zwingli had to carry with him two hundred leading citizens, unwilling to risk reputation and possibly livelihood without sound reason and conviction, a large body of experienced men who could be relied upon to act circumspectly and rather slowly. The sermons of a stranger, however compelling, would hardly suffice.

Zwingli's appeal was to the Bible, and here he was at one with Luther; Schriftprinzip, the text of Holy Writ, was paramount. He also accepted, having reached the same conclusion independently, 'justification by faith', solifidism. Many pages have been written on the Lutheran discovery or exposition of Romans 1. 17, Justus ex fide vivit, a text to which Zwingli alludes infrequently. Instead, and with ever increasing emphasis, he was preaching that faith was the first of the virtues and must take precedence of all else, that without the certain conviction of redemption through Christ, a conviction that could come only by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit, a man could not be a true Christian. To those to whom this supreme revelation had been vouchsafed all else, in greater or less degree, might be added. They, and they alone, could understand rightly the divine message. To them was shown the meaning of the scriptures, and if this conflicted with practice, tradition or even, but here again with certain qualifications, with reason, these must give way. The books of the Bible

The Zurich ministry formed a coherent whole, entirely reconcilable, unalterable and comprehensible through faith by any adult. The partial revelation of the Old

Testament was completed in the New Testament, the Law of Moses was merged into and submerged by the Law of Christ. This in one sense was commonplace and universally acceptable; in another sense it meant the rejection of the traditions of the ages, canon law and papal authority.

Human interpretations - menschensatz is Zwingli's favourite word - must give way to the certainty of the pure Bible text. Personal actions, however strenuous, virtuous and good, were of no avail without faith.

Some time in 15201 the council was sufficiently impressed to require all priests to preach the Gospels and Epistles in accordance with the pure texts of the two testaments, avoiding human additions and explanations.

' Innovations', however, were to be avoided also, and there is little evidence that the decree meant anything more than a kind of vote of confidence in Zwingli as an acceptable preacher.

Two years of steady expository activity were rewarded for Zwingli on 29 April 1521. On that date he was elected to a canonry in the Great

Minster vacated by Dr Heinrich Engelhard2 who had been persuaded to exchange this for a similar position in the Fraumlinster. This was the outcome of some considerable negotiation and was an indication that many of the canons were now sympathetic to the new teaching. It meant also that Zwingli, by becoming a canon, became also, for the first time, a full citizen of Zurich. He continued to act as public preacher with two assistants,

Georg Staehelin and Heinrich Llithi; he now had a house, a horse, a secure if modest income (seventy gulden) and a base for further operations.3 It gave him greater authority and he was proud of it. 'I am in this city of Zurich bishop and pastor, the cure of souls has been laid upon me;

I have taken an oath to this effect which the monks have not done.'4 His influence was manifestly growing, but it is worth emphasising that as Luther was leaving Worms for the Wartburg, Zwingli was accepting the position, and taking the requisite oaths, of one within the Roman hierarchy and part of the governing body of a great collegiate church.

1 The exact date is uncertain, and the source is Bullinger, Ref. 1,32-* all gemeinlich, und fry die heyligen Evangelia... vnd rachter gottlicher geschrifft beider testamenth, predigen sollind... Was aber Niiwerungen vnd von menschen erfunden sachen vnd Satzungen syend, dess sollind sy geschwigen.' ZWA 11, 166-72, 208-14.

2 Z 1, 144-5 n. 3; VII, 113 n. 7, 475; Wyss, 17; Egli /, 897 (No. 164^); Egli 4,1, 22-4.

3 Morikofer 1, 94-5; Staehelin 1, 193.

4 Wyss 19.

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