HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*

 

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

SPREAD OF THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND.

 

 § 30. The Swiss Diet and the Conference at Baden, 1526.

 

Thomas Murner: Die Disputacion vor den XII Orten einer löblichen Eidgenossenschaft ... zu Baden gehalten. Luzern, 1527. This is the official Catholic report, which agrees with four other protocols preserved in Zurich. (Müller-Hottinger, VII. 84.)  Murner published also a Latin edition, Causa Helvetica orthodoxae fidei, etc. Lucernae, 1528. Bullinger, I. 331 sqq. The writings of Zwingli, occasioned by the Disputation in Baden, in his Opera, vol. II. B. 396–522.

Hottinger: Geschichte der Eidgenossen während der Zeit der Kirchentrennung, pp. 77–96. Mörikofer: Zw., II. 34–43. Merle: Reform., bk. XI. ch. 13. Herzog: Oekolampad, vol. II. ch. 1. Hagenbach: Oekolampad, pp. 90–98. A. Baur: Zw.’s Theol., I. 501–518.

 

The Diet of Switzerland took the same stand against the Zwinglian Reformation as the Diet of the German Empire against the Lutheran movement. Both Diets consisted only of one house, and this was composed of the hereditary nobility and aristocracy. The people were not directly represented by delegates of their own choice. The majority of voters were conservative, and in favor of the old faith; but the majority of the people in the larger and most prosperous cantons and in the free imperial cities favored progress and reform, and succeeded in the end.

The question of the Reformation was repeatedly brought before the Swiss Diet, and not a few liberal voices were heard in favor of abolishing certain crying abuses; but the majority of the cantons, especially the old forest-cantons around the lake of Lucerne, resisted every innovation. Berne was anxious to retain her political supremacy, and vacillated. Zwingli had made many enemies by his opposition to the foreign military service and pensions of his countrymen. Dr. Faber, the general vicar of the diocese of Constance, after a visit to Rome, openly turned against his former friend, and made every effort to unite the interests of the aristocracy with those of the hierarchy. "Now," he said, "the priests are attacked, the nobles will come next."159  At last the Diet resolved to settle the difficulty by a public disputation. Dr. Eck, well known to us from the disputation at Leipzig for his learning, ability, vanity and conceit,160 offered his services to the Diet in a flattering letter of Aug. 13, 1524. He had then just returned from a third visit to Rome, and felt confident that he could crush the Protestant heresy in Switzerland as easily as in Germany. He spoke contemptuously of Zwingli, as one who "had no doubt milked more cows than he had read books."  About the same time the Roman counter-reformation had begun to be organized at the convent of Regensburg (June, 1524), under the lead of Bavaria and Austria.

The disputation was opened in the Catholic city of Baden, in Aargau, May 21, 1526, and lasted eighteen days, till the 8th of June. The cantons and four bishops sent deputies, and many foreign divines were present. The Protestants were a mere handful, and despised as "a beggarly, miserable rabble."  Zwingli, who foresaw the political aim and result of the disputation, was prevented by the Council of Zurich from leaving home, because his life was threatened; but he influenced the proceedings by daily correspondence and secret messengers. No one could doubt his courage, which he showed more than once in the face of greater danger, as when he went to Marburg through hostile territory, and to the battlefield at Cappel. But several of his friends were sadly disappointed at his absence. He would have equalled Eck in debate and excelled him in biblical learning. Erasmus was invited, but politely declined on account of sickness.

The arrangements for the disputation and the local sympathies were in favor of the papal party. Mass was said every morning at five, and a sermon preached; the pomp of ritualism was displayed in solemn processions. The presiding officers and leading secretaries were Romanists; nobody besides them was permitted to take notes.161  The disputation turned on the real presence, the sacrifice of the mass, the invocation of the Virgin Mary and of saints, on images, purgatory, and original sin. Dr. Eck was the champion of the Roman faith, and behaved with the same polemical dexterity and overbearing and insolent manner as at Leipzig: robed in damask and silk, decorated with a golden ring, chain and cross; surrounded by patristic and scholastic folios, abounding in quotations and arguments, treating his opponents with proud contempt, and silencing them with his stentorian voice and final appeals to the authority of Rome. Occasionally he uttered an oath, "Potz Marter."  A contemporary poet, Nicolas Manuel, thus described his conduct: —

 

"Eck stamps with his feet, and claps his hands,
He raves, he swears, he scolds;

’I do,’ cries he, ’what the Pope commands,
And teach whatever he holds.’ "162

 

Oecolampadius of Basle and Haller of Berne, both plain and modest, but able, learned and earnest men, defended the Reformed opinions. Oecolampadius declared at the outset that he recognized no other rule of judgment than the Word of God. He was a match for Eck in patristic learning, and in solid arguments. His friends said, "Oecolampadius is vanquished, not by argument, but by vociferation."163  Even one of the Romanists remarked, "If only this pale man were on our side!"  His host judged that he must be a very pious heretic, because he saw him constantly engaged in study and prayer; while Eck was enjoying rich dinners and good wines, which occasioned the remark, "Eck is bathing in Baden, but in wine."164

The papal party boasted of a complete victory. All innovations were forbidden; Zwingli was excommunicated; and Basle was called upon to depose Oecolampadius from the pastoral office. Faber, not satisfied with the burning of heretical books, advocated even the burning of the Protestant versions of the Bible. Thomas Murner, a Franciscan monk and satirical poet, who was present at Baden, heaped upon Zwingli and his adherents such epithets as tyrants, liars, adulterers, church robbers, fit only for the gallows!  He had formerly (1512) chastised the vices of priests and monks, but turned violently against the Saxon Reformer, and earned the name of "Luther-Scourge "(Lutheromastix). He was now made lecturer in the Franciscan convent at Lucerne, and authorized to edit the acts of the Baden disputation.165

The result of the Baden disputation was a temporary triumph for Rome, but turned out in the end, like the Leipzig disputation of 1519, to the furtherance of the Reformation. Impartial judges decided that the Protestants had been silenced by vociferation, intrigue and despotic measures, rather than refuted by sound and solid arguments from the Scriptures. After a temporary reaction, several cantons which had hitherto been vacillating between the old and the new faith, came out in favor of reform.

 

 § 31. The Reformation in Berne.

 

I. The acts of the disputation of Berne were published in 1528 at Zurich and Strassburg, afterwards repeatedly at Berne, and are contained, together with two sermons of Zwingli, in Zwingli’s Werke, II. A. 63–229. Valerius Anshelm: Berner Chronik, new ed. by Stierlin and Wyss, Bern, 1884, ’86, 2 vols. Stürler: Urkunden der Bernischen Kirchenreform. Bern, 1862. Strickler: Aktensammlung, etc. Zurich, 1878 (I. 1).

II. Kuhn: Die Reformatoren Berns. Bern, 1828. Sam. Fischer: Geschichte der Disputation zu Bern. Zürich, 1828. Melch. Kirchhofer: Berthold Haller oder die Reformation zu Bern. Zürich, 1828. C. Pestalozzi: B. Haller, nach handschriftl. und gleichzeitigen Quellen. Elberfeld, 1861. The monographs on Niclaus Manuel by Grüneisen, Stuttgart, 1837, and by Bächthold, Frauenfeld, 1878. Hundeshagen: Die Conflicte des Zwinglianismus, Lutherthums und Calvinismus in der Bernischen Landeskirche von 1532–’58.  Bern, 1842. F. Trechsel: articles Berner Disputation and Berner Synodus, and Haller, in Herzog², II. 313–324, and V 556–561. Berner Beiträge, etc., 1884, quoted on p. 15. See also the Lit. by Nippold in his Append. to Hagenbach’s Reform. Gesch., p. 695 sq.

III. Karl Ludwig von Haller (a distinguished Bernese and convert to Romanism, expelled from the Protestant Council of Berne, 1820; d. 1854): Geschichte der kirchlichen Revolution oder protestantischen Reform des Kantons Bern und umliegender Gegenden. Luzern, 1836 (346 pages). French translation, Histoire de la revolution religieuse dans la Swiss occidentale. Paris, 1839. This is a reactionary account professedly drawn from Protestant sources and represents the Swiss Reformation as the mother of the Revolution of 1789. To the French version of this book Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore (he does not mention the original) confesses to be "indebted for most of the facts" in his chapter on the Swiss Reformation which he calls a work established "by intrigue, chicanery, persecution, and open violence!"  Hist. of the Prot. Ref. in Germany and Switzerland, I. 181, 186 (8th ed., Baltimore, 1875).

 

Berne, the largest, most conservative and aristocratic of the Swiss cantons, which contains the political capital of the Confederacy, was the first to follow Zurich, after considerable hesitation. This was an event of decisive importance.

The Reformation was prepared in the city and throughout the canton by three ministers, Sebastian Meyer, Berthold Haller, and Francis Kolb, and by a gifted layman, Niclaus Manuel,—all friends of Zwingli. Meyer, a Franciscan monk, explained in the convent the Epistles of Paul, and in the pulpit, the Apostles’ Creed. Haller, a native of Würtemberg, a friend and fellow-student of Melanchthon, an instructive preacher and cautious reformer, of a mild and modest disposition, settled in Berne as teacher in 1518, was elected chief pastor at the cathedral 1521, and labored there faithfully till his death (1536). He was often in danger, and wished to retire; but Zwingli encouraged him to remain at the post of duty. Without brilliant talents or great learning, he proved eminently useful by his gentle piety and faithful devotion to duty. Manuel, a poet, painter, warrior and statesman, helped the cause of reform by his satirical dramas, which were played in the streets, his exposure of Eck and Faber after the Baden disputation, and his influence in the council of the city (d. 1530). His services to Zwingli resemble the services of Hutten to Luther. The Great Council of the Two Hundred protected the ministers in preaching the pure gospel.

The Peasants’ War in Germany and the excesses of the Radicals in Switzerland produced a temporary reaction in favor of Romanism. The government prohibited religious controversy, banished Meyer, and ordered Haller, on his return from the Baden disputation, to read Romish mass again; but he declined, and declared that he would rather give up his position, as he preferred the Word of God to his daily bread. The elections in 1527 turned out in favor of the party of progress. The Romish measures were revoked, and a disputation ordered to take place Jan. 6, 1528, in Berne.

The disputation at Berne lasted nineteen days (from Jan. 6 to 26). It was the Protestant counterpart of the disputation at Baden in composition, arrangements and result. It had the same effect for Berne as the disputations of 1523 had for Zurich. The invitations were general; but the Roman Catholic cantons and the four bishops who were invited refused, with the exception of the bishop of Lausanne, to send delegates, deeming the disputation of Baden final. Dr. Eck, afraid to lose his fresh laurels, was unwilling, as he said, "to follow the heretics into their nooks and corners"; but he severely attacked the proceedings. The Reformed party was strongly represented by delegates from Zurich, Basel, and St. Gall, and several cities of South Germany. Zurich sent about one hundred ministers and laymen, with a strong protection. The chief speakers on the Reformed side were Zwingli, Haller, Kolb, Oecolampadius, Capito, and Bucer from Strassburg; on the Roman side, Grab, Huter, Treger, Christen, and Burgauer. Joachim von Watt of St. Gall presided. Popular sermons were preached during the disputation by Blaurer of Constance, Zwingli, Bucer, Oecolampadius, Megander, and others.

The Reformers carried an easy and complete victory, and reversed the decision of Baden. The ten Theses or Conclusions, drawn up by Haller and revised by Zwingli, were fully discussed, and adopted as a sort of confession of faith for the Reformed Church of Berne. They are as follows: —

 

1. The holy Christian Church, whose only Head is Christ, is born of the Word of God, and abides in the same, and listens not to the voice of a stranger.

2. The Church of Christ makes no laws and commandments without the Word of God. Hence human traditions are no more binding on us than as far as they are founded in the Word of God.

3. Christ is the only wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. Hence it is a denial of Christ when we confess another ground of salvation and satisfaction.

4. The essential and corporal presence of the body and blood of Christ cannot be demonstrated from the Holy Scripture.

5. The mass as now in use, in which Christ is offered to God the Father for the sins of the living and the dead, is contrary to the Scripture, a blasphemy against the most holy sacrifice, passion, and death of Christ, and on account of its abuses an abomination before God.

6. As Christ alone died for us, so he is also to be adored as the only Mediator and Advocate between God the Father and the believers. Therefore it is contrary to the Word of God to propose and invoke other mediators.

7. Scripture knows nothing of a purgatory after this life. Hence all masses and other offices for the dead166 are useless.

8. The worship of images is contrary to Scripture. Therefore images should be abolished when they are set up as objects of adoration.

9. Matrimony is not forbidden in the Scripture to any class of men; but fornication and unchastity are forbidden to all.

10. Since, according to the Scripture, an open fornicator must be excommunicated, it follows that unchastity and impure celibacy are more pernicious to the clergy than to any other class.

All to the glory of God and his holy Word.

 

Zwingli preached twice during the disputation.167  He was in excellent spirits, and at the height of his fame and public usefulness. In the first sermon he explained the Apostles’ Creed, mixing in some Greek and Hebrew words for his theological hearers. In the second, he exhorted the Bernese to persevere after the example of Moses and the heroes of faith. Perseverance alone can complete the triumph. (Ferendo vincitur fortuna.)  Behold these idols conquered, mute, and scattered before you. The gold you spent upon them must henceforth be devoted to the good of the living images of God in their poverty. "Hold fast," he said in conclusion, "to the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1). You know how much we have suffered in our conscience, how we were directed from one false comfort to another, from one commandment to another which only burdened our conscience and gave us no rest. But now ye have found freedom and peace in the knowledge and faith of Jesus Christ. From this freedom let nothing separate you. To hold it fast requires great fortitude. You know how our ancestors, thanks to God, have fought for our bodily liberty; let us still more zealously guard our spiritual liberty; not doubting that God, who has enlightened and drawn you, will in due time also draw our dear neighbors and fellow-confederates to him, so that we may live together in true friendship. May God, who created and redeemed us all, grant this to us and to them. Amen."

By a reformation edict of the Council, dated Feb. 7, 1528, the ten Theses were legalized, the jurisdiction of the bishops abolished, and the necessary changes in worship and discipline provisionally ordered, subject to fuller light from the Word of God. The parishes of the city and canton were separately consulted by delegates sent to them Feb. 13 and afterwards, and the great majority adopted the reformation by popular vote, except in the highlands where the movement was delayed.

After the catastrophe of Cappel the reformation was consolidated by the so-called "Berner Synodus," which met Jan. 9–14, 1532. All the ministers of the canton, two hundred and twenty in all, were invited to attend. Capito, the reformer of Strassburg, exerted a strong influence by his addresses. The Synod adopted a book of church polity and discipline; the Great Council confirmed it, and ordered annual synods. Hundeshagen pronounces this constitution a "true masterpiece even for our times," and Trechsel characterizes it as excelling in apostolic unction, warmth, simplicity and practical wisdom.168

Since that time Berne has remained faithful to the Reformed Church. In 1828 the Canton by order of the government celebrated the third centenary of the Reformation.

 

 § 32. The Reformation in Basel. Oecolampadius.

 

I. The sources are chiefly in the Bibliotheca Antistitii and the University Library of Basel, and in the City Library of Zürich; letters of Oecolampadius to Zwingli, in Bibliander’s Epistola Joh. Oecolampadii et Huldr. Zwinglii (Basel, 1536, fol.); in Zwingli’s Opera, vols. VII. and VIII.; and in Herminjard, Correspondance des Réformateurs, passim.  Several letters of Erasmus, and his Consilium Senatui Basiliensi in negotio Lutherano anno 1525 exhibitum. Antiquitates Gernlerianae, Tom. I. and II. An important collection of letters and documents prepared by direction of Antistes Lukas Gernler of Basel (1625–1676), who took part in the Helvetic Consensus Formula. The Athenae Rauricae sive Catalogus Professorum Academics Basiliensis, by Herzog, Basel, 1778. The Basler Chroniken, publ. by the Hist. Soc. of Basel, ed. with comments by W. Vischer (son), Leipz. 1872.

II. Pet. Ochs: Geschichte der Stadt und Landschaft Basel. Berlin and Leipzig, 1786–1822. 8 vols. The Reformation is treated in vols. V. and VI., but without sympathy. Jak. Burckhardt: Kurze Geschichte der Reformation in Basel. Basel, 1819. R. R. Hagenbach: Kirchliche Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte Basels seit der Reformation. Basel, 1827 (pp. 268). The first part also under the special title: Kritische Geschichte und Schicksale der ersten Basler Confession. By the same: Die Theologische Schule Basels und ihrer Lehrer von Stiftung der Hochschule 1460 bis zu De Wette’s Tod 1849 (pp. 75). Jarke (R. Cath.): Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der Reformation.  Schaffhausen (Hurter), 1846 (pp. 576). Fried. Fischer: Der Bildersturm in der Schweiz und in Basel insbesondere. In the "Basler Jahrbuch "for 1850. W. Vischer: Actenstücke zur Geschichte der Reformation in Basel. In the "Basler Beiträge zur vaterländischen Geschichte," for 1854. By the same: Geschichte der Universität Basel von der Gründung 1460 bis zur Reformation 1529. Basel, 1860. Boos: Geschichte der Stadt Basel. Basel, 1877 sqq. The first volume goes to 1501; the second has not yet appeared.

III. Biographical. S. Hess: Lebensgeschichte Joh. Oekolampads. Zürich, 1798 (chiefly from Zürich sources, contained in the Simler collection). J. J. Herzog (editor of the well-known "Encyclopaedia" d. 1882): Das Leben Joh. Oekolampads und die Reformation der Kirche zu Basel. Basel, 1843. 2 vols. Comp. his article in Herzog², Vol. X. 708–724. K. R. Hagenbach: Johann Oekolampad und Oswald Myconius, die Reformatoren Basels. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften. Elberfeld, 1859. His Reformationsgesch., 5th ed., by Nippold, Leipzig, 1887, p. 386 sqq. On Oecolampadius’ connection with the Eucharistic Controversy and part in the Marburg Colloquy, see Schaff, vol. VI. 620, 637, and 642.

 

The example of Berne was followed by Basel, the wealthiest and most literary city in Switzerland, an episcopal see since the middle of the eighth century, the scene of the reformatory Council of 1430–1448, the seat of a University since 1460, the centre of the Swiss book trade, favorably situated for commerce on the banks of the Rhine and on the borders of Germany and France. The soil was prepared for the Reformation by scholars like Wyttenbach and Erasmus, and by evangelical preachers like Capito and Hedio. Had Erasmus been as zealous for religion as he was for letters, he would have taken the lead, but he withdrew more and more from the Reformation, although he continued to reside in Basel till 1529 and returned there to die (1536).169

The chief share in the work fell to the lot of Oecolampadius (1482–1531). He is the second in rank and importance among the Reformers in German Switzerland. His relation to Zwingli is similar to that sustained by Melanchthon to Luther, and by Beza to Calvin,—a relation in part subordinate, in part supplemental. He was inferior to Zwingli in originality, force, and popular talent, but surpassed him in scholastic erudition and had a more gentle disposition. He was, like Melanchthon, a man of thought rather than of action, but circumstances forced him out of his quiet study to the public arena.

Johann Oecolampadius170 was born at Weinsberg in the present kingdom of Würtemberg in 1482, studied law in Bologna, philology, scholastic philosophy, and theology in Heidelberg and Tübingen with unusual success. He was a precocious genius, like Melanchthon. In his twelfth year he composed (according to Capito) Latin poems. In 1501 he became Baccalaureus, and soon afterwards Master of Arts. He devoted himself chiefly to the study of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. Erasmus gave him the testimony of being the best Hebraist (after Reuchlin). At Tübingen he formed a friendship with Melanchthon, his junior by fifteen years, and continued on good terms with him notwithstanding their difference of opinion on the Eucharist. He delivered at Weinsberg a series of sermons on the Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, which were published by Zasius in 1512, and gained for him the reputation of an eminent preacher of the gospel.

In 1515 he received a call, at Capito’s suggestion, from Christoph von Utenheim, bishop of Basel (since 1502), to the pulpit of the cathedral in that city. In the year following he acquired the degree of licentiate, and later that of doctor of divinity. Christoph von Utenheim belonged to the better class of prelates, who desired a reformation within the Church, but drew back after the Diet of Worms, and died at Delsberg in 1522. His motto was: "The cross of Christ is my hope; I seek mercy, not works."171

Oecolampadius entered into intimate relations with Erasmus, who at that time took up his permanent abode in Basel. He rendered him important service in his Annotations to the New Testament, and in the second edition of the Greek Testament (concerning the quotations from the Septuagint and Hebrew). The friendship afterwards cooled down in consequence of their different attitude to the question of reform.

In 1518 Oecolampadius showed his moral severity and zeal for a reform of the pulpit by an attack on the prevailing custom of entertaining the people in the Easter season with all kinds of jokes. "What has," he asks, "a preacher of repentance to do with fun and laughter?  Is it necessary for us to yield to the impulse of nature ?  If we can crush our sins by laughter, what is the use of repenting in sackcloth and ashes?  What is the use of tears and cries of sorrow? …  No one knows that Jesus laughed, but every one knows that he wept. The Apostles sowed the seed weeping. Many as are the symbolic acts of the prophets, no one of them lowers himself to become an actor. Laughter and song were repugnant to them. They lived righteously before the Lord, rejoicing and yet trembling, and saw as clear as the sun at noonday that all is vanity under the sun. They saw the net being drawn everywhere and the near approach of the judge of the world."172

After a short residence at Weinsberg and Augsburg, Oecolampadius surprised his friends by entering a convent in 1520, but left it in 1522 and acted a short time as chaplain for Franz von Sickingen at Ebernburg, near Creuznach, where he introduced the use of the German language in the mass.

By the reading of Luther’s writings, he became more and more fixed in evangelical convictions. He cautiously attacked transubstantiation, Mariolatry, and the abuses of the confessional, and thereby attracted the favorable attention of Luther, who wrote to Spalatin (June 10, 1521): "I am surprised at his spirit, not because he fell upon the same theme as I, but because he has shown himself so liberal, prudent, and Christian. God grant him growth."  In June, 1523, Luther expressed to Oecolampadius much satisfaction at his lectures on Isaiah, notwithstanding the displeasure of Erasmus, who would probably, like Moses, die in the land of Moab. "He has done his part," he says, "by exposing the bad; to show the good and to lead into the land of promise, is beyond his power."  Luther and Oecolampadius met personally at Marburg in 1529, but as antagonists on the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, in which the latter stood on the side of Zwingli.

In Nov. 17, 1522, Oecolampadius settled permanently in Basel and labored there as preacher of the Church of St. Martin and professor of theology in the University till his death. Now began his work as reformer of the church of Basel, which followed the model of Zürich. He sought the friendship of Zwingli in a letter full of admiration, dated Dec. 10, 1522.173  They continued to co-operate in fraternal harmony to the close of their lives.

Oecolampadius preached on Sundays and week days, explaining whole books of the Bible after the example of Zwingli, and attracted crowds of people. With the consent of the Council, he gradually abolished crying abuses, distributed the Lord’s Supper under both kinds, and published in 1526 a German liturgy, which retained in the first editions several distinctively Catholic features such as priestly absolution and the use of lights on the altar.

In 1525 he began to take an active part in the unfortunate Eucharistic controversy by defending the figurative interpretation of the words of institution: "This is (the figure of) my body," chiefly from the writings of the fathers, with which he was very familiar.174  He agreed in substance with Zwingli, but differed from him by placing the metaphor in the predicate rather than the verb, which simply denotes a connection of the subject with the predicate whether real or figurative, and which was not even used by our Lord in Aramaic. He found the key for the interpretation in John 6:63, and held fast to the truth that Christ himself is and remains the true bread of the soul to be partaken of by faith. At the conference in Marburg (1529) he was, next to Zwingli, the chief debater on the Reformed side. By this course he alienated his old friends, Brentius, Pirkheimer, Billican, and Luther. Even Melanchthon, in a letter to him (1529), regretted that the "horribilis dissensio de Coena Domini" interfered with the enjoyment of their friendship, though it did not shake his good will towards him ("benevolentiam erga te meam"). He concluded to be hereafter, a spectator rather than an actor in this tragedy."

Oecolampadius had also much trouble with the Anabaptists, and took the same conservative and intolerant stand against them as Luther at Wittenberg, and Zwingli at Zürich. He made several fruitless attempts in public disputations to convince them of their error.175

The civil government of Basel occupied for a while middle ground, but the disputation of Baden, at which Oecolampadius was the champion of the Reformed doctrines,176 brought on the crisis. He now took stronger ground against Rome and attacked what he regarded as the idolatry of the mass. The triumph of the Reformation in Berne in 1528 gave the final impetus.

On the 9th of February, 1529, an unbloody revolution broke out. Aroused by the intrigues of the Roman party, the Protestant citizens to the number of two thousand came together, broke to pieces the images still left, and compelled the reactionary Council to introduce everywhere the form of religious service practised in Zürich.

Erasmus, who had advised moderation and quiet waiting for a general Council, was disgusted with these violent, measures, which he describes in a letter to Pirkheimer of Nürnberg, May 9, 1529. "The smiths and workmen," he says, "removed the pictures from the churches, and heaped such insults on the images of the saints and the crucifix itself, that it is quite surprising there was no miracle, seeing how many there always used to occur whenever the saints were even slightly offended. Not a statue was left either in the churches, or the vestibules, or the porches, or the monasteries. The frescoes were obliterated by means of a coating of lime; whatever would bum was thrown into the fire, and the rest pounded into fragments. Nothing was spared for either love or money. Before long the mass was totally abolished, so that it was forbidden either to celebrate it in one’s own house or to attend it in the neighboring villages."177

The great scholar who had done so much preparatory work for the Reformation, stopped half-way and refused to identify himself with either party. He reluctantly left Basel (April 13, 1529) with the best wishes for her prosperity, and resided six years at Freiburg in Baden, a sickly, sensitive, and discontented old man. He was enrolled among the professors of the University, but did not lecture. He returned to Basel in August, 1535, and died in his seventieth year, July 12, 1536, without priest or sacrament, but invoking the mercy of Christ, repeating again and again, "O Lord Jesus, have mercy on me!"  He was buried in the Minster of Basel.

Glareanus and Beatus Rhenanus, humanists, and friends of Zwingli and Erasmus, likewise withdrew from Basel at this critical moment. Nearly all the professors of the University emigrated. They feared that science and learning would suffer from theological quarrels and a rupture with the hierarchy.

The abolition of the mass and the breaking of images, the destruction of the papal authority and monastic institutions, would have been a great calamity had they not been followed by the constructive work of the evangelical faith which was the moving power, and which alone could build up a new Church on the ruins of the old. The Word of God was preached from the fountain. Christ and the Gospel were put in the place of the Church and tradition. German service with congregational singing and communion was substituted for the Latin mass. The theological faculty was renewed by the appointment of Simon Grynäus, Sebastian Münster, Oswald Myconius, and other able and pious scholars to professorships.

Oecolampadius became the chief preacher of the Minster and Antistes, or superintendent, of the clergy of Basel.

On the 1st of April, 1529, anorder of liturgical service and church discipline was published by the Council, which gave a solid foundation to the Reformed Church of the city of Basel and the surrounding villages.178  This document breathes the spirit of enthusiasm for the revival of apostolic Christianity, and aims at a reformation of faith and morals. It contains the chief articles which were afterwards formulated in the Confession of Basel (1534), and rules for a corresponding discipline. It retains a number of Catholic customs such as daily morning and evening worship, weekly communion in one of the city churches, the observance of the great festivals, including those of the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and the Saints.

To give force to these institutions, the ban was introduced in 1530, and confided to a council of three pious, honest, and brave laymen for each of the four parishes of the city; two to be selected by the Council, and one by the congregation, who, in connection with the clergy, were to watch over the morals, and to discipline the offenders, if necessary, by excommunication.—In accordance with the theocratic idea of the relation of Church and State, dangerous heresies which denied any of the twelve articles of the Apostles’ Creed, and blasphemy of God and the sacrament, were made punishable with civil penalties such as confiscation of property, banishment, and even death. Those, it is said, "shall be punished according to the measure of their guilt in body, life, and property, who despise, spurn, or contemn the eternal, pure, elect queen, the blessed Virgin Mary, or other beloved saints of God who now live with Christ in eternal blessedness, so as to say that the mother of God is only a woman like other women, that she had more children than Christ, the Son of God, that she was not a virgin before or after his birth," etc. Such severe measures have long since passed away. The mixing of civil and ecclesiastical punishments caused a good deal of trouble. Oecolampadius opposed the supremacy of the State over the Church. He presided over the first synods.

After the victory of the Reformation, Oecolampadius continued unto the end of his life to be indefatigable in preaching, teaching, and editing valuable commentaries (chiefly on the Prophets). He took a lively interest in French Protestant refugees, and brought the Waldenses, who sent a deputation to him, into closer affinity with the Reformed churches.179  He was a modest and humble man, of a delicate constitution and ascetic habits, and looked like a church father. He lived with his mother; but after her death, in 1528, he married, at the age of forty-five, Wilibrandis Rosenblatt, the widow of Cellarius (Keller), who afterwards married in succession two other Reformers (Capito and Bucer), and survived four husbands. This tempted Erasmus to make the frivolous joke (in a letter of March 21, 1528), that his friend had lately married a good-looking girl to crucify his flesh, and that the Lutheran Reformation was a comedy rather than a tragedy, since the tumult always ended in a wedding. He afterwards apologized to him, and disclaimed any motive of unkindness. Oecolam-padius had three children, whom he named Eusebius, Alitheia, and Irene (Godliness, Truth, Peace), to indicate what were the pillars of his theology and his household. His last days were made sad by the news of Zwingli’s death, and the conclusion of a peace unfavorable to the Reformed churches. The call from Zürich to become Zwingli’s successor he declined. A few weeks later, on the 24th of November, 1531, he passed away in peace and full of faith, after having partaken of the holy communion with his family, and admonished his colleagues to continue faithful to the cause of the Reformation. He was buried behind the Minster.180

His works have never been collected, and have only historical interest. They consist of commentaries, sermons, exegetical and polemical tracts, letters, and translations from Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Cyril of Alexandria.181

Basel became one of the strongholds of the Reformed Church of Switzerland, together with Zürich, Geneva, and Berne. The Church passed through the changes of German Protestantism, and the revival of the nineteenth century. She educates evangelical ministers, contributes liberally from her great wealth to institutions of Christian benevolence and the spread of the Gospel, and is (since 1816) the seat of the largest Protestant missionary institute on the Continent, which at the annual festivals forms a centre for the friends of missions in Switzerland, Würtemberg, and Baden. The neighboring Chrischona is a training school of German ministers for emigrants to America.

 

 § 33. The Reformation in Glarus. Tschudi. Glarean.

 

Valentin Tschudi: Chronik der Reformationsjahre 1521–1533. Mit Glossar und Commentar von Dr. Joh. Strickler. Glarus, 1888 (pp. 258). Publ. in the "Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins des Kantons Glarus," Heft XXIV., also separately issued. The first edition of Tschudi’s Chronik (Beschryb oder Erzellung, etc.) was published by Dr. J. J. Blumer, in vol. IX. of the "Archiv für schweizerische Geschichte," 1853, pp. 332–447, but not in the original spelling and without comments.

Blumer and Heer: Der Kanton Glarus, historisch, geographisch und topographisch beschrieben. St. Gallen, 1846. DR. J. J. Blumer: Die Reformation im Lande Glarus. In the "Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins des Kantons Glarus."  Zürich and Glarus, 1873 and 1875 (Heft IX. 9–48; XI. 3–26). H. G. Sulzberger: Die Reformation des Kant. Glarus und des St. Gallischen Bezirks Werdenberg. Heiden, 1875 (pp. 44).

Heinrich Schreiber: Heinrich Loriti Glareanus, gekrönter Dichter, Philolog und Mathematiker aus dem 16ten Jahrhundert. Freiburg, 1837. Otto Fridolin Fritzsche (Prof. of Church Hist. in Zürich): Glarean, sein Leben und seine Schriften. Frauenfeld, 1890 (pp. 136). Comp. also Geiger: Renaissance und Humanismus (1882), pp. 420–423, for a good estimate of Glarean as a humanist.

 

The canton Glarus with the capital of the same name occupies the narrow Linththal surrounded by high mountains, and borders on the territory of Protestant Zürich and of Catholic Schwyz. It wavered for a good while between the two opposing parties and tried to act as peacemaker. Landammann Hans Aebli of Glarus, a friend of Zwingli and an enemy of the foreign military service, prevented a bloody collision of the Confederates in the first war of Cappel. This is characteristic of the position of that canton.

Glarus was the scene of the first public labors of Zwingli from 1506 to 1516.182  He gained great influence as a classical scholar, popular preacher, and zealous patriot, but made also enemies among the friends of the foreign military service, the evils of which he had seen in the Italian campaigns. He established a Latin school and educated the sons of the best families, including the Tschudis, who traced their ancestry back to the ninth century. Three of them are connected with the Reformation,—Aegidius and Peter, and their cousin Valentin.

Aegidius (Gilg) Tschudi, the most famous of this family, the Herodotus of Switzerland (1505–1572), studied first with Zwingli, then with Glarean at Basel and Paris, and occupied important public positions, as delegate to the Diet at Einsiedeln (1529), as governor of Sargans, as Landammann of Glarus (1558), and as delegate of Switzerland to the Diet of Augsburg (1559). He also served a short time as officer in the French army. He remained true to the old faith, but enjoyed the confidence of both parties by his moderation. He expressed the highest esteem for Zwingli in a letter of February, 1517.183  His History of Switzerland extends from a.d. 1000 to 1470, and is the chief source of the period before the Reformation. He did not invent, but he embellished the romantic story of Tell and of Grütli, which has been relegated by modern criticism to the realm of innocent poetic fiction.184  He wrote also an impartial account of the Cappeler War of 1531.185

His elder brother, Peter, was a faithful follower of Zwingli, but died early, at Coire, 1532.186

Valentin Tschudi also joined the Reformation, but showed the same moderation to the Catholics as his cousin Egidius showed to the Protestants. After studying several years under Zwingli, he went, in 1516, with his two cousins to the classical school of Glarean at Basel, and followed him to Paris. From that city he wrote a Greek letter to Zwingli, Nov. 15, 1520, which is still extant and shows his progress in learning.187  On Zwingli’s recommendation, he was elected his successor as pastor at Glarus, and was installed by him, Oct. 12, 1522. Zwingli told the congregation that he had formerly taught them many Roman traditions, but begged them now to adhere exclusively to the Word of God.

Valentin Tschudi adopted a middle way, and was supported by his deacon, Jacob Heer. He pleased both parties by reading mass early in the morning for the old believers, and afterwards preaching an evangelical sermon for the Protestants. He is the first example of a latitudinarian or comprehensive broad-churchman. In 1530 he married, and ceased to read mass, but continued to preach to both parties, and retained the respect of Catholics by his culture and conciliatory manner till his death, in 1555. He defended his moderation and reserve in a long Latin letter to Zwingli, March 15, 1530.188  He says that the controversy arose from external ceremonies, and did not touch the rock of faith, which Catholics and Protestants professed alike, and that he deemed it his duty to enjoin on his flock the advice of Paul to the Romans 14, to exercise mutual forbearance, since each stands or falls to the same Lord. The unity of the Spirit is the best guide. He feared that by extreme measures, more harm was done than good, and that the liberty gained may degenerate into license, impiety, and contempt of authority. He begs Zwingli to use his influence for the restoration of order and peace, and signs himself, forever yours" (semper futurus tuus). The same spirit of moderation characterizes his Chronicle of the Reformation period, and it is difficult to find out from this colorless and unimportant narrative, to which of the two parties he belonged.

It is a remarkable fact that the influence of Tschudi’s example is felt to this day in the peaceful joint occupation of the church at Glarus, where the sacrifice of the mass is offered by a priest at the altar, and a sermon preached from the pulpit by a Reformed pastor in the same morning.189

Another distinguished man of Glarus and friend of Zwingli in the earlier part of his career, is Heinrich Loriti, or Loreti, better known as Glareanus, after the humanistic fashion of that age.190  He was born at Mollis, a small village of that canton, in 1488, studied at Cologne and Basel, sided with Reuchlin in the quarrel with the Dominican obscurantists,191 travelled extensively, was crowned as poet-laureate by the Emperor Maximilian (1512), taught school and lectured successively at Basel (1514), Paris (1517), again at Basel (1522), and Freiburg (since 1529). He acquired great fame as a philologist, poet, geographer, mathematician, musician, and successful teacher. Erasmus called him, in a letter to Zwingli (1514),192 the prince and champion of the Swiss humanists, and in other letters he praised him as a man pure and chaste in morals, amiable in society, well versed in history, mathematics, and music, less in Greek, averse to the subtleties of the schoolmen, bent upon learning Christ from the fountain, and of extraordinary working power. He was full of wit and quaint humor, but conceited, sanguine, irritable, suspicious, and sarcastic. Glarean became acquainted with Zwingli in 1510, and continued to correspond with him till 1523.193  He bought books for him at Basel (e.g. the Aldine editions of Lactantius and Tertullian) and sought a place as canon in Zürich. In his last letter to him he called him, the truly Christian theologian, the bishop of the Church of Zürich, his very great friend."194  He read Luther’s book on the Babylonian Captivity three times with enthusiasm. But when Erasmus broke both with Zwingli and Luther, he withdrew from the Reformation, and even bitterly opposed Zwingli and Oecolampadius.

He left Basel, Feb. 20, 1529, for Catholic Freiburg, and was soon followed by Erasmus and Amerbach. Here he labored as an esteemed professor of poetry and fruitful author, until his death (1563). He was surrounded by Swiss and German students. He corresponded, now, as confidentially with Aegidius Tschudi as he had formerly corresponded with Zwingli, and co-operated with him in saving a portion of his countrymen for the Catholic faith.195  He gave free vent to his disgust with Protestantism, and yet lamented the evils of the Roman Church, the veniality and immorality of priests who cared more for Venus than for Christ.196  A fearful charge. He received a Protestant Student from Zürich with the rude words: "You are one of those who carry the gospel in the mouth and the devil in the heart;" but when reminded that he did not show the graces of the muses, he excused himself by his old age, and treated the young man with the greatest civility. He became a pessimist, and expected the speedy collapse of the world. His friendship with Erasmus was continued with interruptions, and at last suffered shipwreck. He charged him once with plagiarism, and Erasmus ignored him in his testament.197  It was a misfortune for both that they could not understand the times, which had left them behind. The thirty works of Glarean (twenty-two of them written in Freiburg) are chiefly philological and musical, and have no bearing on theology.198  They were nevertheless put on the Index by Pope Paul IV., in 1559. He bitterly complained of this injustice, caused by ignorance or intrigue, and did all he could, with the aid of Tschudi, to have his name removed, which was done after the seven Catholic cantons had testified that Glarean was a good Christian.199

The Reformation progressed in Glarus at first without much opposition. Fridolin Brunner, pastor at Mollis, wrote to Zwingli, Jan. 15, 1527, that the Gospel was gaining ground in all the churches of the canton. Johann Schindler preached in Schwanden with great effect. The congregations decided for the Reformed preachers, except in Näfels. The reverses at Cappel in 1531 produced a reaction, and caused some losses, but the Reformed Church retained the majority of the population to this day, and with it the preponderance of intelligence, enterprise, wealth, and prosperity, although the numerical relation has recently changed in favor of the Catholics, in consequence of the emigration of Protestants to America, and the immigration of Roman-Catholic laborers, who are attracted by the busy industries (as is the case also in Zürich, Basel, and Geneva).200

 

 § 34. The Reformation in St. Gall, Toggenburg, and Appenzell. Watt and Kessler.

 

The sources and literature in the City Library of St. Gall which bears the name of Vadian (Watt) and contains his MSS. and printed works.

I. The historical works of Vadianus, especially his Chronicle of the Abbots of St. Gall from 1200–1540, and his Diary from 1629–’33, edited by Dr. E. Goetzinger, St. Gallen, 1875–’79, 3 vols.—Joachimi Vadiani Vita per Joannem Kesslerum conscripta. Edited from the MS. by Dr. Goetzinger for the Historical Society of St. Gall, 1865.—Johannes Kessler’s Sabbata. Chronik der Jahre 1523–1539. Herausgegeben von Dr. Ernst Goetzinger. St. Gallen, 1866. In "Mittheilungen zur vaterländischen Geschichte" of the Historical Society of St. Gall, vols. V. and VI. The MS. of 532 pages, written in the Swiss dialect by Kessler’s own hand, is preserved in the Vadian library.

II. J. V. Arx (Rom. Cath., d. 1833): Geschichte des Kant. St. Gallen. St. Gallen, 1810–’13, 3 vols.—J. M. Fels: Denkmal Schweizerischer Reformatoren. St. Gallen, 1819.—Joh. Fr. Franz: Die schwarmerischen Gräülscenen der St. Galler Wiedertäutfer zu Anfang der Reformation. Ebnat in Toggenberg, 1824.—Joh. Jakob Bernet: Johann Kessler, genannt Ahenarius, Bürger und Reformator zu Sankt Gallen. St. Gallen, 1826.—K. Wegelin: Geschichte der Grafschaft Toggenburg. St. Gallen, 1830–’33, 2 Parts.—Fr. Weidmann: Geschichte der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallens. 1841.—A. Näf: Chronik oder Denkwürdigkeiten der Stadt und Landschaft St. Gallen. Zürich, 1851.—J. K. Büchler: Die Reformation im Lande Appenzell. Trogen, 1860. In the "Appenzellische Jahrbücher."—G. Jak. Baumgartner: Geschichte des Schweizerischen Freistaates und Kantons St. Gallen. Zürich, 1868, 2 vols.—H. G. Sulzberger: Geschichte der Reformation in Toggenburg; in St. Gallen; im Rheinthal; in den eidgenössischen Herrschaften Sargans und Gaster, sowie in Rapperschwil; in Hohensax-Forsteck; in Appenzell. Several pamphlets reprinted from the "Appenzeller Sonntagablatt," 1872 sqq.

III. Theod. Pressel: Joachim Vadian. In the ninth volume of the "Leben und ausgewählte Schriften der Väter und Begründer der reformirten Kirche."  Elberfeld, 1861 (pp. 103).—Rud. Stähelin: Die reformatorische Wirksamkeit des St. Galler Humanisten Vadian, in "Beiträge zur vaterländischen Geschichte," Basel, 1882, pp. 193–262; and his art. "Watt" in Herzog², XVI. (1885), pp. 663–668. Comp. also Meyer von Knonau, "St. Gallen," In Herzog², IV. 725–735.

 

The Reformation in the northeastern parts of Switzerland—St. Gall, Toggenburg, Schaffhausen, Appenzell, Thurgau, Aargau—followed the course of Zürich, Berne, and Basel. It is a variation of the same theme, on the one hand, in its negative aspects: the destruction of the papal and episcopal authority, the abolition of the mass and superstitious rites and ceremonies, the breaking of images and relics as symbols of idolatry, the dissolution of convents and confiscation of Church property, the marriage of priests, monks, and nuns; on the other hand, in its positive aspects: the introduction of a simpler and more spiritual worship with abundant preaching and instruction from the open Bible in the vernacular, the restoration of the holy communion under both kinds, as celebrated by the congregation, the direct approach to Christ without priestly mediation, the raising of the laity to the privileges of the general priesthood of believers, care for lower and higher education. These changes were made by the civil magistracy, which assumed the episcopal authority and function, but acted on the initiative of the clergy and with the consent of the majority of the people, which in democratic Switzerland was after all the sovereign power. An Antistes was placed at the head of the ministers as a sort of bishop or general superintendent. Synods attended to legislation and administration. The congregations called and supported their own pastors.

St. Gall—so-called from St. Gallus (Gilian), an Irish missionary and pupil of Columban, who with several hermits settled in the wild forest on the Steinach about 613—was a centre of Christianization and civilization in Alemannia and Eastern Switzerland. A monastery was founded about 720 by St. Othmar and became a royal abbey exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, and very rich in revenues from landed possessions in Switzerland, Swabia, and Lombardy, as well as in manuscripts of classical and ecclesiastical learning. Church poetry, music, architecture, sculpture, and painting flourished there in the ninth and tenth centuries. Notker Balbulus, a monk of St. Gall (d. c. 912), is the author of the sequences or hymns in rhythmical prose (prosae), and credited with the mournful meditation on death ("Media vita in morte sumus"), which is still in use, but of later and uncertain origin. With the increasing wealth of the abbey the discipline declined and worldliness set in. The missionary and literary zeal died out. The bishop of Constance was jealous of the independence and powers of the abbot. The city of St. Gall grew in prosperity and longed for emancipation from monastic control. The clergy needed as much reformation as the monks. Many of them lived in open concubinage, and few were able to make a sermon. The high festivals were profaned by scurrilous popular amusements. The sale of indulgences was carried on with impunity.

The Reformation was introduced in the city and district of St. Gall by Joachim von Watt, a layman (1484–1551), and John Kessler, a minister (1502–1574). The co-operation of the laity and clergy is congenial to the spirit of Protestantism which emancipated the Church from hierarchical control.

Joachim von Watt, better known by his Latin name Vadianus, excelled in his day as a humanist, poet, historian, physician, statesman, and reformer. He was descended from an old noble family, the son of a wealthy merchant, and studied the humanities in the University of Vienna (1502),201 which was then at the height of its prosperity under the teaching of Celtes and Cuspinian, two famous humanists and Latin poets. He acquired also a good knowledge of philosophy, theology, law, and medicine. After travelling through Poland, Hungary, and Italy, he returned to Vienna and taught classical literature and rhetoric. He was crowned poet and orator by Maximilian (March 12, 1514), and elected rector of the University in 1516. He published several classical authors and Latin poems, orations, and essays. He stood in friendly correspondence with Reuchlin, Hutten, Hesse, Erasmus, and other leaders of the new learning, and especially also with Zwingli.202

In 1518 Watt returned to St. Gall and practised as physician till his death, but took at the same time an active part in all public affairs of Church and State. He was repeatedly elected burgomaster. He was a faithful co-worker of Zwingli in the cause of reform. Zwingli called him "a physician of body and soul of the city of St. Gall and the whole confederacy," and said, "I know no Swiss that equals him."  Calvin and Beza recognized in him "a man of rare piety and equally rare learning."  He called evangelical ministers and teachers to St. Gall. He took a leading part in the religious disputations at Zürich (1523–1525), and presided over the disputation at Berne (1528).

St. Gall was the first city to follow the example of Zürich under his lead. The images were removed from the churches and publicly burnt in 1526 and 1528; only the organ and the bones of St. Othmar (the first abbot) and Notker were saved. An evangelical church order was introduced in 1527. At the same time the Anabaptists endangered the Reformation by strange excesses of fanaticism. Watt had no serious objection to their doctrines, and was a friend and brother-in-law of Grebel, their leader, but he opposed them in the interest of peace and order.

The death of the abbot, March 21, 1529, furnished the desired opportunity, at the advice of Zürich and Zwingli, to abolish the abbey and to confiscate its rich domain, with the consent of the majority of the citizens, but in utter disregard of legal rights. This was a great mistake, and an act of injustice.

The disaster of Cappel produced a reaction, and a portion of the canton returned to the old church. A new abbot was elected, Diethelm Blaurer; he demanded the property of the convent and sixty thousand guilders damages for what had been destroyed and sold. The city had to yield. He held a solemn entry. He attended the last session of the Council of Trent and took a leading part in the counter-Reformation.

Watt showed, during this critical period, courage and moderation. He retained the confidence of his fellow-citizens, who elected him nine times to the highest civil office. He did what he could, in co-operation with Kessler and Bullinger, to save and consolidate the Reformed Church during the remaining years of his life. He was a portly, handsome, and dignified man, and wrote a number of geographical, historical, and theological works.203

John Kessler (Chessellius or Ahenarius), the son of a day-laborer of St. Gall, studied theology at Basel, and Wittenberg. He was one of the two students who had an interesting interview with Dr. Luther in the hotel of the Black Bear at Jena in March, 1522, on his return as Knight George from the Wartburg.204  It was the only friendly meeting of Luther with the Swiss. Had he shown the same kindly feeling to Zwingli at Marburg, the cause of the Reformation would have been the gainer.

Kessler supported himself by the trade of a saddler, and preached in the city and surrounding villages. He was also chief teacher of the Latin school. In 1571, a year before his death, he was elected Antistes or head of the clergy of St. Gall. He had a wife and eleven children, nine of whom survived him. He was a pure, amiable, unselfish, and useful man and promoter of evangelical religion. His portrait in oil adorns the City Library of St. Gall.

The county of Toggenburg, the home of Zwingli, was subject to the abbot of St. Gall since 1468, but gladly received the Reformed preachers under the influence of Zwingli, his relatives and friends. In 1524 the council of the community enjoined upon the ministers to teach nothing but what they could prove from the sacred Scriptures. The people resisted the interference of the abbot, the bishop of Constance, and the canton Schwyz. In 1528 the Reformation was generally introduced in the towns of the district. With the help of Zürich and Glarus, the Toggenburgers bought their freedom from the abbot of St. Gall for fifteen hundred guilders, in 1530; but were again subjected to his authority in 1536. The county was incorporated in the canton St. Gall in 1803. The majority of the people are Protestants.

The canton Appenzell received its first Protestant preachers—John Schurtanner of Teufen, John Dorig of Herisau, and Walter Klarer of Hundwil—from the neighboring St. Gall, through the influence of Watt. The Reformation was legally ratified by a majority vote of the people, Aug. 26, 1523. The congregations emancipated themselves from the jurisdiction of the abbot of St. Gall, and elected their own pastors. The Anabaptist disturbances promoted the Roman-Catholic reaction. The population is nearly equally divided,—Innerrhoden, with the town of Appenzell, remained Catholic; Ausserrhoden, with Herisau, Trogen, and Gais, is Reformed, and more industrious and prosperous.

The Reformation in Thurgau and Aargau presents no features of special interest.205

 

 § 35. Reformation in Schaffhausen. Hofmeister.

 

Melchior Kirchofer: Schaffhauserische Jahrbücher von 1519–1539, oder Geschichte der Reformation der Stadt und Landschaft Schaffhausen. Schaffhausen, 1819; 2d ed. Frauenfeld, 1838 (pp. 152). By, the same: Sebastian Wagner, genannt Hofmeister. Zürich, 1808.—Edw. Im-Thurm und Hans W. Harder: Chronik der Stadt Schaffhausen (till 1790). Schaffhausen, 1844.—H. G. Sulzberger: Geschichte der Reformation des Kant. Schaffhausen. Schaffhausen, 1876 (pp. 47).

 

Schaffhausen on the Rhine and the borders of Württemberg and Baden followed the example of the neighboring canton Zürich, under the lead of Sebastian Hofmeister (1476–1533), a Franciscan monk and doctor and professor of theology at Constance, where the bishop resided. He addressed Zwingli, in 1520, as "the firm preacher of the truth," and wished to become his helper in healing the diseases of the Church of Switzerland.206  He preached in his native city of Schaffhausen against the errors and abuses of Rome, and attended as delegate the religious disputations at Zürich (January and October, 1523), which resulted in favor of the Reformation.

He was aided by Sebastian Meyer, a Franciscan brother who came from Berne, and by Ritter, a priest who had formerly opposed him.

The Anabaptists appeared from Zürich with their radical views. The community was thrown into disorder. The magistracy held Hofmeister and Myer responsible, and banished them from the canton. A reaction followed, but the Reformation triumphed in 1529. The villages followed the city. Some noble families remained true to the old faith, and emigrated.

Schaffhausen was favored by a succession of able and devoted ministers, and gave birth to some distinguished historians.207

 

 § 36. The Grisons (Graubünden).

 

Colonel Landammann Theofil Sprecher a Bernegg at Maienfeld, Graubünden, has a complete library of the history of the Grisons, including some of the manuscripts of Campell and De Porta. I was permitted to use it for this and the following two sections under his hospitable roof in June, 1890. I have also examined the Kantons-Bibliothek of Graubünden in the "Raetische Museum" at Coire, which is rich in the (Romanic) literature of the Grisons.

I. Ulrici Campelli Raetiae Alpestris Topographica Descriptio, edited by Chr. J. Kind, Basel (Schneider), 1884, pp. 448, and Historia Raetica, edited by Plac. Plattner, Basel, tom. I., 1877, pp. 724, and tom. II., 1890, pp. 781. These two works form vols. VII., VIII., and IX. of Quellen zur Schweizer-Geschichte, published by the General Historical Society of Switzerland. They are the foundation for the topography and history of the Grisons in the sixteenth century. Campell was Reformed pastor at Süs in the Lower Engadin, and is called "the father of the historians of Rätia."  De Porta says that all historians of Rätia have ploughed with his team. An abridged German translation from the Latin manuscripts was published by Conradin von Mohr: Ulr. Campell’s Zwei Bücher rätischer Geschichte, Chur (Hitz), 1849 and 1851, 2 vols., pp. 236 and 566.

R. Ambrosius Eichhorn (Presbyter Congregationis S. Blasii, in the Black Forest): Episcopatus Curiensis in Rhaetia sub metropoli Moguntina chronologice et diplomatice illustratus. Typis San-Blasianis, 1797 (pp. 368, 40). To which is added Codex Probationum ad Episcopatum Curiensem ex proecipuis documentis omnibus ferme ineditis collectus, 204 pp. The Reformation period is described pp. 139 sqq. Eichhorn was a Roman Catholic priest, and gives the documents relating to the episcopal see of Coire from a.d. 766–1787. On "Zwinglianisms in Raetia," see pp. 142, 146, 248. (I examined a copy in the Episcopal Library at Coire.)

II General works on the history of the Grisons by Joh. Guler (d. 1637), Fortunatus Sprecher a Bernegg (d. 1647), Fortunatus Juvalta (d. 1654). Th. Von Mohr and Conradin Von Mohr (or Moor): Archiv für die Geschichte der Republik Graubünden. Chur, 1848–’86. 9 vols. A collection of historical works on Graubünden, including the Codex diplomaticus, Sammlung der Urkunden zur Geschichte Chur-Rhätiens und der Republik Graübunden. The Codex was continued by Jecklin, 1883–’86. Conradin Von Moor: Bündnerische Geschichtschreiber und Chronisten. Chur, 1862–277. 10 parts. By the same: Geschichte von Currätien und der Republ. Graubünden. Chur, 1869.—Joh. Andr. von Sprecher: Geschichte der Republik der drei Bünde im 18^ten Jahrh. Chur, 1873–’75.2  vols.—A good popular summary: Graubündnerische Geschichten erzählt für die reformirten Volksschulen (by P. Kaiser). Chur, 1852 (pp. 281). Also J. K. von Tscharner: Der Kanton Graubünden, historisch, statistisch, geographisch dargestellt. Chur, 1842.

The Reformation literature see in § 37.

III. On the history of Valtellina, Chiavenna, and Bormio, which until 1797 were under the jurisdiction of the Grisons, the chief writers are: —

Fr. Sav. Quadrio: Dissertazioni critico-storiche intorno alla Rezia di qua dalle Alpi, oggi detta Valtellina. Milano, 1755. 2 vols., especially the second vol., which treats la storia ecclesiastica.—Ulysses Von Salis: StaatsGesch. des Thals Veltlin und der Graftschaften Clefen und Worms. 1792. 4 vols.—Lavizari: Storia della Valtellina. Capolago, 1838. 2 vols. Romegialli: Storia della Valtellina e delle già contee di Bormio e Chiavenna. Sondrio, 1834–’39. 4 vols.—Wiezel: Veltliner Krieg, edited by Hartmann. Strassburg, 1887.

 

The canton of the Grisons or Graubünden208 was at the time of the Reformation an independent democratic republic in friendly alliance with the Swiss Confederacy, and continued independent till 1803, when it was incorporated as a canton. Its history had little influence upon other countries, but reflects the larger conflicts of Switzerland with some original features. Among these are the Romanic and Italian conquests of Protestantism, and the early recognition of the principle of religious liberty. Each congregation was allowed to choose between the two contending churches according to the will of the majority, and thus civil and religious war was prevented, at least during the sixteenth century.209

Graubünden is, in nature as well as in history, a Switzerland in miniature. It is situated in the extreme south-east of the republic, between Austria and Italy, and covers the principal part of the old Roman province of Rätia.210  It forms a wall between the north and the south, and yet combines both with a network of mountains and valleys from the regions of the eternal snow to the sunny plains of the vine, the fig, and the lemon. In territorial extent it is the largest canton, and equal to any in variety and beauty of scenery and healthy climate. It is the fatherland of the Rhine and the Inn. The Engadin is the highest inhabited valley of Switzerland, and unsurpassed for a combination of attractions for admirers of nature and seekers of health. It boasts of the healthiest climate with nine months of dry, bracing cold and three months of delightfully cool weather.

The inhabitants are descended from three nationalities, speak three languages,—German, Italian, and Romansh (Romanic),—and preserve many peculiarities of earlier ages. The German language prevails in Coire, along the Rhine, and in the Prättigau, and is purer than in the other cantons. The Italian is spoken to the south of the Alps in the valleys of Poschiavo and Bregaglia (as also in the neighboring canton Ticino). The Romansh language is a remarkable relic of prehistoric times, an independent sister of the Italian, and is spoken in the Upper and Lower Engadin, the Münster valley, and the Oberland. It has a considerable literature, mostly religious, which attracts the attention of comparative philologists.211

The Grisonians (Graubündtner) are a sober, industrious, and heroic race, and have maintained their independence against the armies of Spain, Austria, and France. They have a natural need and inclination to emigrate to richer countries in pursuit of fortune, and to return again to their mountain homes. They are found in all the capitals of Europe and America as merchants, hotel keepers, confectioners, teachers, and soldiers.

The institutions of the canton are thoroughly democratic and exemplify the good and evil effects of popular sovereignty.212  "Next to God and the sun," says an old Engadin proverb, "the poorest inhabitant is the chief magistrate."  There are indeed to this day in the Grisons many noble families, descended in part from mediaeval robber-chiefs and despots whose ruined castles still look down from rocks and cliffs, and in greater part from distinguished officers and diplomatists in foreign service; but they have no more influence than their personal merits and prestige warrant. In official relations and transactions the titles of nobility are forbidden.213

Let us briefly survey the secular history before we proceed to the Reformation.

The Grisons were formed of three loosely connected confederacies or leagues, that is, voluntary associations of freemen, who, during the fifteenth century, after the example of their Swiss neighbors, associated for mutual protection and defence against domestic and foreign tyrants.214  These three leagues united in 1471 at Vatzerol in an eternal covenant, which was renewed in 1524, promising to each other by an oath mutual assistance in peace and war. The three confederacies sent delegates to the Diet which met alternately at Coire, Ilanz, and Davos.

At the close of the fifteenth century two leagues of the Grisons entered into a defensive alliance with the seven old cantons of Switzerland. The third league followed the example.215

In the beginning of the sixteenth century the Grisonians acquired by conquest from the duchy of Milan several beautiful and fertile districts south of the Alps adjoining the Milanese and Venetian territories, namely, the Valtellina and the counties of Bormio (Worms) and Chiavenna (Cleven), and annexed them as dependencies ruled by bailiffs. It would have been wiser to have received them as a fourth league with equal rights and privileges. These Italian possessions involved the Grisons in the conflict between Austria and Spain on the one hand, which desired to keep them an open pass, and between France and Venice on the other, which wanted them closed against their political rivals. Hence the Valtellina has been called the Helena of a new Trojan War. Graubünden was invaded during the Thirty Years’ War by Austro-Spanish and French armies. After varied fortunes, the Italian provinces were lost to Graubünden through Napoleon, who, by a stroke of the pen, Oct. 10, 1797, annexed the Valtellina, Bormio, and Chiavenna to the new Cisalpine Republic. The Congress of Vienna transferred them to Austria in 1814, and since 1859 they belong to the united Kingdom of Italy.

 

 § 37. The Reformation in the Grisons. Comander. Gallicius. Campell.

 

The work of CAMPELL quoted in § 36.

Bartholomäus Anhorn: Heilige Wiedergeburt der evang. Kirche in den gemeinen drei Bündten der freien hohen Rhätien, oder Beschreibung ihrer Reformation und Religionsverbesserung, etc. Brugg, 1680 (pp. 246). A new ed. St. Gallen, 1860 (pp. 144, 8°). By the same: Püntner Aufruhr im Jahr 1607, ed. from MSS. by Conradin von Mohr, Chur, 1862; and his Graw-Püntner [Graubündner]-Krieg, 1603–1629, ed. by Conr. von Mohr, Chur, 1873.

*Petrus Dominicus Rosius De Porta (Reformed minister at Scamff, or Scanfs, in the Upper Engadin): Historia Reformationis Ecclesiarum Raeticarum, ex genuinis fontibus et adhuc maximam partem numquam impressis sine partium studio deducta, etc. Curiae Raetorum. Tom. I., 1771 (pp. 658, 4°); Tom. II., 1777 (pp. 668); Tom. III., Como, 1786. Comes down to 1642. Next to Campell, the standard authority and chief source of later works.

Leonhard Truog (Reformed pastor at Thuais): Reformations-Geschichte von Graubünden aus zuverlässigen Quellen sorgfältig geschöpft. Denkmal der dritten Sekular-Jubelfeier der Bündnerischen Reformation. Chur (Otto), 1819 (pp. 132).—Reformationsbüchlein. Ein Denkmal des im Jahr 1819 in der Stadt Chur gefeierten Jubelfestes. Chur (Otto), 1819. (pp. 304).

*Christian Immanuel Kind (Pfarrer und Cancellarius der evang. rhätischen Synode, afterward Staats-Archivarius of the Grisons, d. May 23, 1884): Die Reformation in den Bisthümern Chur und Como. Dargestellt nach den besten älteren und neueren Hülfsmitteln. Chur, 1858 (Grubenmann), pp. 310, 8°. A popular account based on a careful study of the sources. By the same: Die Stadt Chur in ihrer ältesten Geschichte, Chur, 1859; Philipp Gallicius, 1868; Georg Jenatsch, in "Allg. Deutsche Biogr.," Bd. XIII. Georg Leonhardi (pastor in Brusio, Poschiavo): Philipp Gallicius, Reformator Graubündens. Bern, 1865 (pp. 103). The same also in Romansch.—H. G. Sulzberger (in Sevelen, St. Gallen, d. 1888): Geschichte der Reformation im Kanton Graubünden. Chur, 1880. pp. 90 (revised by Kind).—Florian Peer: L’église de Rhétie au XVI^me XVII^me siècles. Genève, 1888.—Herold: J. Komander, in Meili’s Zeitschrift, Zurich, 1891.

 

The Christianization of the Grisons is traced back by tradition to St. Lucius, a royal prince of Britain, and Emerita, his sister, in the latter part of the second century.216  A chapel on the mountain above Coire perpetuates his memory. A bishop of Coire (Asimo) appears first in the year 452, as signing by proxy the creed of Chalcedon.217  The bishops of Coire acquired great possessions and became temporal princes.218  The whole country of the Grisons stood under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Coire and Como.

The state of religion and the need of a reformation were the same as in the other cantons of Switzerland. The first impulse to the Reformation came from Zürich with which Coire had close connections. Zwingli sent an address to the "three confederacies in Rhätia," expressing a special interest in them as a former subject of the bishop of Coire, exhorting them to reform the Church in alliance with Zürich, and recommending to them his friend Comander (Jan. 16, 1525).219  Several of his pupils preached in Fläsch, Malans, Maienfeld, Coire, and other places as early as 1524. After his death Bullinger showed the same interest in the Grisons. The Reformation passed through the usual difficulties first with the Church of Rome, then with Anabaptists, Unitarians, and the followers of the mystical Schwenkfeld, all of whom found their way into that remote corner of the world. One of the leading Anabaptists of Zürich, Georg Blaurock, was an ex-monk of Coire, and on account of his eloquence called "the mighty Jörg," or "the second Paul."  He was expelled from Zürich, and burnt by the Catholics in the Tyrol (1529).

The Reformers abolished the indulgences, the sacrifice of the mass, the worship of images, sacerdotal celibacy and concubinage, and a number of unscriptural and superstitious ceremonies, and introduced instead the Bible and Bible preaching in church and school, the holy communion in both kinds, clerical family life, and a simple evangelical piety, animated by an active faith in Christ as the only Saviour and Mediator. Where that faith is wanting the service in the barren churches is jejune and chilly.

The chief Reformers of the Grisons were Comander, Gallicius, Campell, and Vergerius, and next to them Alexander Salandronius (Salzmann), Blasius, and John Travers. The last was a learned and influential layman of the Engadin. Comander labored in the German, Gallicius and Campell in the Romansh, Vergerius in the Italian sections of the Grisons. They were Zwinglians in theology,220 and introduced the changes of Zürich and Basel. Though occupying only a second or third rank among the Reformers, they were the right men in the right places, faithful, self-denying workers in a poor country, among an honest, industrious, liberty-loving but parsimonious people. With small means they accomplished great and permanent results.

John Comander (Dorfmann), formerly a Roman priest, of unknown antecedents, preached the Reformed doctrines in the church of St. Martin at Coire from 1524. He learned Hebrew in later years, to the injury of his eyes, that he might read the Old Testament in the original. Zwingli sent him Bibles and commentaries. The citizens protected him against violence and accompanied him to and from church. The bishop of Coire arraigned him for heresy before the Diet of the three confederacies in 1525.

The Diet, in spite of the remonstrance of the bishop, ordered a public disputation at Ilanz, the first town on the Rhine. The disputation was begun on Sunday after Epiphany, Jan. 7, 1526, under the presidency of the civil authorities, and lasted several days. It resembled the disputations of Zürich, and ended in a substantial victory of the Reformation. The conservative party was represented by the Episcopal Vicar, the abbot of St. Lucius, the deans, and a few priests and monks; the progressive party, by several young preachers, Comander, Gallicius, Blasius, Pontisella, Fabricius, and Hartmann. Sebastian Hofmeister of Schaffhausen was present as a listener, and wrote an account of the speeches.221

Comander composed for the occasion eighteen theses,—an abridgment of the sixty-seven conclusions of Zwingli. The first thesis was: "The Christian Church is born of the Word of God and should abide in it, and not listen to the voice of a stranger" (John 10:4, 5). He defended this proposition with a wealth of biblical arguments which the champions of Rome were not able to refute. There was also some debate about the rock-passage in Matt. 16:18, the mass, purgatory, and sacerdotal celibacy. The Catholics brought the disputation to an abrupt close.

In the summer of the same year (June 26, 1526), the Diet of Ilanz proclaimed religious freedom, or the right of all persons in the Grisons, of both sexes, and of whatever condition or rank, to choose between the Catholic and the Reformed religion. Heretics, who after due admonition adhered to their error, were excluded and subjected to banishment (but not to death). This remarkable statute was in advance of the intolerance of the times, and forms the charter of religious freedom in the Grisons.222

The Diet of Ilanz ordered the ministers to preach nothing but what they could prove from the Scriptures, and to give themselves diligently to the study of the same. The political authority of the bishop of Coire was curtailed, appeals to him from the civil jurisdiction were forbidden, and the parishes were empowered to elect and to dismiss their own priests or pastors.223

Thus the episcopal monarchy was abolished and congregational independency introduced, but without the distinction made by the English and American Congregationalists between the church proper, or the body of converted believers, and the congregation of hearers or mere nominal Christians.

This legislation was brought about by the aid of liberal Catholic laymen, such as John Travers and John Guler, who at that time had not yet joined the Reformed party. The strict Catholics were dissatisfied, but had to submit. In 1553 the Pope sent a delegate to Coire and demanded the introduction of the Inquisition; but Comander, Bullinger, and the French ambassador defeated the attempt.

Comander, aided by his younger colleague, Blasius, and afterwards by Gallicius, continued to maintain the Reformed faith against Papists, Anabaptists, and also against foreign pensioners who had their headquarters at Coire, and who punished him for his opposition by a reduction of his scanty salary of one hundred and twenty guilders. He was at times tempted to resign, but Bullinger urged him to hold on.224  He stood at the head of the Reformed synod till his death in 1557.

He was succeeded by Fabricius, who died of the pestilence in 1566.

Philip Gallicius (Saluz) developed a more extensive activity. He is the Reformer of the Engadin, but labored also as pastor and evangelist in Domleschg, Langwies, and Coire. He was born on the eastern frontier of Graubünden in 1504, and began to preach already in 1520. He had an irresistible eloquence and power of persuasion. When he spoke in Romansh, the people flocked from every direction to hear him. He was the chief speaker at two disputations in Süs, a town of the Lower Engadin, against the Papists (1537), and against the Anabaptists (1544).225  He also introduced the Reformation in Zuz in the Lower Engadin, 1554, with the aid of John Travers, a distinguished patriot, statesman, soldier, and lay-preacher, who was called "the steelclad Knight in the service of the Lord."

Gallicius suffered much persecution and poverty, but remained gentle, patient, and faithful to the end. When preaching in the Domleschg he had not even bread to feed his large family, and lived for weeks on vegetables and salt. And yet he educated a son for the ministry at Basel, and dissuaded him from accepting a lucrative offer in another calling. He also did as much as he could for the Italian refugees. He died of the pestilence with his wife and three sons at Coire, 1566.

He translated the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments, and several chapters of the Bible, into the Romansh language, and thus laid the foundation of the Romansh literature. He also wrote a catechism and a Latin grammar, which were printed at Coire. He prepared the Confession of Raetia, in 1552, which was afterwards superseded by the Confession of Bullinger in 1566.

Ulrich Campell (b. c. 1510, d. 1582) was pastor at Coire and at Süs, and, next to Gallicius, the chief reformer of the Engadin. He is also the first historian of Raetia and one of the founders of the religious literature in Romanic Raetia. His history is written in good Latin, and based upon personal observation, the accounts of the ancient Romans, the researches of Tschudi, and communications of Bullinger and Vadian. It begins a.d. 100 and ends about 1582.

The Romansh literature was first cultivated during the Reformation.226  Gallicius, Campell, and Biveroni (Bifrun) are the founders of it. Campell prepared a metrical translation of the Psalter, with original hymns and a catechism (1562). Jacob Biveroni, a lawyer of Samaden, published a translation of Comander’s Catechism, which was printed at Poschiavo, 1552, and (with the aid of Gallicius and Campell) the entire New Testament, which appeared first in 1560 at Basel, and became the chief agency in promoting the evangelical faith in those regions. The people, who knew only the Romansh language, says a contemporary, "were amazed like the lsraelites of old at the sight of the manna."

The result of the labors of the Reformers and their successors in Graubünden was the firm establishment of an evangelical church which numbered nearly two-thirds of the population; while one-third remained Roman Catholic. This numerical relation has substantially remained to this day with some change in favor of Rome, though not by conversion, but by emigration and immigration. The two churches live peacefully together. The question of religion was decided in each community by a majority vote, like any political or local question. The principle of economy often gave the decision either for the retention of the Roman priest, or the choice of a Reformed preacher.227  Some stingy congregations remained vacant to get rid of all obligations, or hired now a priest, now a preacher for a short season. Gallicius complained to Bullinger about this independence which favored license under the name of liberty. Not unfrequently congregations are deceived by foreign adventurers who impose themselves upon them as pastors.

The democratic autonomy explains the curious phenomenon of the mixture of religion in the Grisons. The traveller may pass in a few hours through a succession of villages and churches of different creeds. At Coire the city itself is Reformed, and the Catholics with their bishop form a separate town on a hill, called the Court (of the bishop).

There is in Graubünden neither a State church nor a free church, but a people’s church.228  Every citizen is baptized, confirmed, and a church member. Every congregation is sovereign, and elects and supports its own pastor. In 1537 a synod was constituted, which meets annually in the month of June. It consists of all the ministers and three representatives of the government, and attends to the examination and ordination of candidates, and the usual business of administration. The civil government watches over the preservation of the church property, and prevents a collision of ecclesiastical and civil legislation, but the administration of church property is in the hands of the local congregations or parishes. The Second Helvetic Confession of Bullinger was formally accepted as the creed of the Church in 1566, but has latterly gone out of use. Ministers are only required to teach the doctrines of the Bible in general conformity to the teaching of the Reformed Church. Pastors are at liberty to use any catechism they please. The cultus is very simple, and the churches are devoid of all ornament. Many pious customs prevail among the people. A Protestant college was opened at Coire in the year 1542 with Pontisella, a native of Bregaglia, as first rector, who had been gratuitously educated at Zürich by the aid of Bullinger. With the college was connected a theological seminary for the training of ministers. This was abolished in 1843,229 and its funds were converted into scholarships for candidates, who now pursue their studies at Basel and Zürich or in German universities. In 1850 the Reformed college at Coire and the Catholic college of St. Lucius have been consolidated into one institution (Cantonsschule) located on a hill above Coire, near the episcopal palace.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Reformed clergy were orthodox in the sense of moderate Calvinism; in the eighteenth century Pietism and the Moravian community exerted a wholesome influence on the revival of spiritual life.230  In the present century about one-half of the clergy have been brought up under the influence of German Rationalism, and preach Christian morality without supernatural dogmas and miracles.

The Protestant movement in the Italian valleys of the Grisons began in the middle of the sixteenth century, but may as well be anticipated here.

 

 § 38. The Reformation in the Italian Valleys of the Grisons. Vergerio.

 

I. P. Dom. Rosius De Porta: Dissertatio historico-ecclesiastica qua ecclesiarum colloquio Vallis Praegalliae et Comitatiis Clavennae olim comprehensarum Reformatio et status ... exponitur. Curiae, 1787 (pp. 56, 4°). His Historia Reformations Eccles. Rhaeticarum, bk. II. ch. v. pp. 139–179 (on Vergerio).—Dan. Gerdes (a learned Reformed historian, 1698–1765): Specimen Italiae Reformatae. L. Batav. 1765.—*Thomas McCrie (1772–1835, author of the Life of John Knox, etc.): History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy. Edinburgh, 1827. 2d ed. 1833. Republished by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, 1842. Ch. VI., pp. 291 sqq., treats of the foreign Italian churches and the Reformation in the Grisons.—F. Trechsel: Die protest. Antitrinitarier, Heidelberg, 1844, vol. II. 64 sqq.)—G. Leonhardi: Ritter Johannes Guler von Weineck, Lebensbild eines Rhätiers aus dem 17^ten Jahrh. Bern, 1863. By the same: Puschlaver Mord. Veltiner Mord. Die Ausrottung des Protestantismus im Misoxerthal. In the Zeitschrift "der Wahre Protestant," Basel, 1852–’54.—B. Reber: Georg Jenatsch, Graubündens Pfarrer und Held während des dreissigjährigen Kriegs. In the "Beitäge zur vaterländischen Geschichte," Basel, 1860.—E. Lechner: Das Thal Bergell (Bregaglia) in Graubünden, Natur, Sagen, Geschichte, Volk, Sprache, etc. Leipzig, 1865 (pp. 140).—Y. F. Fetz (Rom. Cath.): Geschichte der kirchenpolitischen Wirren im Freistaat der drei Bünde vom Anfang des 17^ten Jahrh. bis auf die Gegenwart. Chur, 1875 (pp. 367).—*Karl Benrath: Bernardino Ochino von Siena. Leipzig, 1875 (English translation with preface by William Arthur, London, 1876). Comp. his Ueber die Quellen der italienischen Reformationsgeschichte. Bonn, 1876.—*Joh. Kaspar Mörikofer: Geschichte der evangelischen Flüchtlinge in der Schweiz. Zürich, 1876.—John Stoughton: Footprints of Italian Reformers. London, 1881 (pp. 235, 267 sqq.).—Em. Comba (professor of church history in the Waldensian Theological College at Florence): Storia della Riforma in Italia. Firenze, 1881 (only l vol. so far). Biblioteca della Riforma Italiana Sec. XVI. Firenze, 1883–’86. 6 vols. Visita ai Grigioni Riformati Italiani. Firenze, 1885. Vera Narrazione del Massacro di Valtellina. Zürich, 1621. Republished in Florence, 1886. Comp. literature on p. 131.

II. The Vergerius literature. The works of Vergerius, Latin and Italian, are very rare. Niceron gives a list of fifty-five, Sixt (pp. 595–601) of eighty-nine. He began a collection of his Opera adversus Papatum, of which only the first volume has appeared, at Tübingen, 1563. Recently Emil Comba has edited his Trattacelli e sua storia di Francesco Spiera in the first two volumes of his "Biblioteca della Riforma Italiana," Firenze, 1883, and the Parafrasi sopra l’ Epistola ai Romani, 1886. Sixt has published, from the Archives of Königsberg, forty-four letters of Vergerius to Albert, Duke of Prussia (pp. 533 sqq.), and Kausler and Schott (librarian at Stuttgart), his correspondence with Christopher, Duke of Würtemberg (Briefwechsel zwischen Christoph Herzog von Würt. und P. P. Vergerius, Tübingen, 1875).—Walter Friedensburg: Die Nunciaturen des Vergerio, 1533–’36. Gotha, 1892 (615 pp.). From the papal archives.

Chr. H. Sixt: Petrus Paulus Vergerius, päpstlicher Nuntius, katholischer Bischof und Vorkämpfer des Evangeliums. Braunschweig, 1855 (pp. 601). With a picture of Vergerius. 2d (title) ed. 1871. The labors in the Grisons are described in ch. III. 181 sqq.—Scattered notices of Vergerius are found in Sleidan, Seckendorf, De Porta, Sarpi, Pallavicini, Raynaldus, Maimburg, Bayle, Niceron, Schelhorn, Salig, and Meyer (in his monograph on Locarno. I. 36, 51; II. 236–255). A good article by Schott in Herzog², XVI. 351–357. (Less eulogistic than Sixt.)

 

The evangelical Reformation spread in the Italian portions of the Grisons; namely, the valleys of Pregell or Bregaglia,231 and Poschiavo (Puschlav), which still belong to the Canton, and in the dependencies of the Valtellina (Veltlin), Bormio (Worms), and Chiavenna (Cleven), which were ruled by governors (like the Territories of the United States), but were lost to the Grisons in 1797. The Valtellina is famous for its luxuriant vegetation, fiery wine, and culture of silk. A Protestant congregation was also organized at Locarno in the Canton Ticino (Tessin), which then was a dependency of the Swiss Confederacy. This Italian chapter of the history of Swiss Protestantism is closely connected with the rise and suppression of the Reformation in Italy and the emigration of many Protestant confessors, who, like the French Huguenots of a later period, were driven from their native land, to enrich with their industry and virtue foreign countries where they found a hospitable home.

The first impulse to the Reformation in the Italian Grisons came from Gallicius and Campell, who labored in the neighboring Engadin, and knew Italian as well as Romansh. The chief agents were Protestant refugees who fled from the Inquisition to Northern Italy and found protection under the government of the Grisons. Many of them settled there permanently; others went to Zürich, Basel, and Geneva. In the year 1550 the number of Italian refugees was about two hundred. Before 1559 the number had increased to eight hundred. One fourth or fifth of them were educated men. Some inclined to Unitarian and Anabaptist opinions, and prepared the way for Socinianism. Among the latter may be mentioned Francesco Calabrese (in the Engadin); Tiriano (at Coire); Camillo Renato, a forerunner of Socinianism (at Tirano in the Valtellina); Ochino, the famous Capuchin pulpit orator (who afterwards went to Geneva, England, and Zürich); Lelio Sozini (who died at Zürich, 1562); and his more famous nephew, Fausto Sozini (1539–1604), the proper founder of Socinianism, who ended his life in Poland.

The most distinguished of the Italian evangelists in the Grisons, is Petrus Paulus Vergerius (1498–1565).232  He labored there four years (1549–1553), and left some permanent traces of his influence. He ranks among the secondary Reformers, and is an interesting but somewhat ambiguous and unsatisfactory character, with a changeful career. He held one of the highest positions at the papal court, and became one of its most decided opponents.

Vergerio was at first a prominent lawyer at Venice. After the death of his wife (Diana Contarini), he entered the service of the Church, and soon rose by his talents and attainments to influential positions. He was sent by Clement VII., together with Campeggi and Pimpinelli, to the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, where he associated with Faber, Eck, and Cochlaeus, and displayed great zeal and skill in attempting to suppress the Protestant heresy. He was made papal secretary and domestic chaplain, 1532. He was again sent by Paul III. to Germany, in 1535, to negotiate with the German princes about the proposed General Council at Mantua. He had a personal interview with Luther in Wittenberg (Nov. 7), and took offence at his bad Latin, blunt speech, and plebeian manner. He could not decide, he said in his official report to the papal secretary (Nov. 12), whether this German "beast" was possessed by an evil demon or not, but he certainly was the embodiment of arrogance, malice, and unwisdom.233  He afterwards spoke of Luther as "a man of sacred memory," and "a great instrument of God," and lauded him in verses which he composed on a visit to Eisleben in 1559. On his return to Italy, he received as reward for his mission the archbishopric of Capo d’ Istria, his native place (not far from Trieste). He aspired even to the cardinal’s hat. He attended—we do not know precisely in what capacity, whether in the name of the Pope, or of Francis I. of France—the Colloquies at Worms and Regensburg, in 1540 and 1541, where he met Melanchthon and Calvin. Melanchthon presented him on that occasion with a copy of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology.234  At that time he was, according to his confession, still as blind and impious as Saul. In the address De Unitate et Pace Ecclesicae, which he delivered at Worms, Jan. 1, 1541, and which is diplomatic rather than theological,235  he urged a General Council as a means to restore the unity and peace of the Church on the traditional basis.

His conversion was gradually brought about by a combination of several causes,—the reading of Protestant books which he undertook with the purpose to refute them, his personal intercourse with Lutheran divines and princes in Germany, the intolerance of his Roman opponents, and the fearful death of Spiera. He acquired an experimental knowledge of the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith, which at that time commended itself even to some Roman divines of high standing, as Cardinal Contarini and Reginald Pole, and which was advocated by Paleario of Siena, and by a pupil of Valdés in an anonymous Italian tract on "The Benefit of Christ’s Death."236  He began to preach evangelical doctrines and to reform abuses. His brother, bishop of Pola, fully sympathized with him. He roused the suspicion of the Curia and the Inquisition. He went to Trent in February, 1546, to justify himself before the Council, but was refused admittance, and forbidden to return to his diocese. He retired to Riva on the Lago di Garda, not far from Trent.

In 1548 he paid a visit to Padua to take some of his nephews to college. He found the city excited by the fearful tragedy of Francesco Spiera, a lawyer and convert from Romanism, who had abjured the evangelical faith from fear of the Inquisition, and fell into a hell of tortures of conscience under the conviction that he had committed the unpardonable sin by rejecting the truth. He was for several weeks a daily witness, with many others, of the agonies of this most unfortunate of apostates, and tried in vain to comfort him. He thought that we must not despair of any sinner, though he had committed the crimes of Cain and Judas. He prepared himself for his visits by prayer and the study of the comforting promises of the Scriptures. But Spiera had lost all faith, all hope, all comfort; he insisted that he had committed the sin against the Holy Spirit which cannot be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come; he was tormented by the remembrance of the sins of his youth, the guilt of apostasy, the prospect of eternal punishment which he felt already, and died in utter despair with a heart full of hatred and blasphemy. His death was regarded as a signal judgment of God, a warning example, and an argument for the truth of the evangelical doctrines.237

Vergerio was overwhelmed by this experience, and brought to a final decision. He wrote an apology in which he gives an account of the sad story, and renounces his connection with Rome at the risk of persecution, torture, and death. He sent it to the suffragan bishop of Padua, Dec. 13, 1548.

He was deposed and excommunicated by the pope, July 3, 1549, and fled over Bergamo to the Grisons. He remained there till 1553, with occasional journeys to the Valtellina, Chiavenna, Zürich, Bern, and Basel. He was hospitably received, and developed great activity in preaching and writing. People of all classes gathered around him, and were impressed by his commanding presence and eloquence. He founded a printing-press in Poschiavo in 1549, and issued from it his thunderbolts against popery. He preached at Pontresina and Samaden in the Upper Engadin, and effected the abolition of the mass and the images. He labored as pastor three years (1550–53) at Vicosoprano in Bregaglia. He travelled through the greater part of Switzerland, and made the acquaintance of Bullinger, Calvin, and Beza.

But the humble condition of the Grisons did not satisfy his ambition. He felt isolated, and complained of the inhospitable valleys. He disliked the democratic institutions. He quarrelled with the older Reformers, Comander and Gallicius. He tried to get the whole Synod of the Grisons under his control, and, failing in this, to organize a separate synod of the Italian congregations. Then he aspired to a more prominent position at Zürich or Geneva or Bern, but Bullinger and Calvin did not trust him.

In November, 1553, he gladly accepted a call to Würtemberg as counsellor of Duke Christopher, one of the best princes of the sixteenth century, and spent his remaining twelve years in the Duke’s service. He resided in Tübingen, but had no official connection with the University. He continued to write with his rapid pen inflammatory tracts against popery, promoted the translation and distribution of the Bible in the South Slavonic dialect, maintained an extensive correspondence, and was used in various diplomatic and evangelical missions to the Emperor Maximilian at Vienna, to the kings of Bohemia, and Poland. On his first journey to Poland he made the personal acquaintance of Albert, Duke of Prussia, who esteemed him highly and supplied him with funds. He entered into correspondence with Queen Elizabeth, in the vain hope of an invitation to England. He desired to be sent as delegate to the religious conference at Poissy in France, 1561, but was again disappointed. He paid four visits to the Grisons (November, 1561; March, 1562; May, 1563; and April, 1564), to counteract the intrigues of the Spanish and papal party, and to promote the harmony of the Swiss Church with that of Würtemberg. On his second visit he went as far as the Valtellina. He received an informal invitation to attend the Council of Trent in 1561 from Delfino, the papal nuncio, in the hope that he might be induced to recant; he was willing to go at the risk of meeting the fate of Hus at Constance, but on condition of a safe conduct, which was declined.238  At last he wished to unite with the Bohemian Brethren, whom he admired for their strict discipline combined with pure doctrine; he translated and published their Confession of Faith. He was in constant need of money, and his many begging letters to the Dukes of Würtemberg and of Prussia make a painful impression; but we must take into account the printing expenses of his many books, his frequent journeys, and the support of three nephews and a niece. In his fifty-ninth year he conceived the plan of contracting a marriage, and asked the Duke to double his allowance of two hundred guilders, but the request was declined and the marriage given up.239

He died Oct. 4, 1565, at Tübingen, and was buried there. Dr. Andreae, the chief author of the Lutheran Formula of Concord, preached the funeral sermon, which the learned Crusius took down in Greek. Duke Christopher erected a monument to his memory with a eulogistic inscription.240

The very numerous Latin and Italian books and fugitive tracts of Vergerio are chiefly polemical against the Roman hierarchy of which he had so long been a conspicuous member.241  He exposed, with the intemperate zeal of a proselyte, the chronique scandaleuse of the papacy, including the mythical woman-pope, Johanna (John VIII.), who was then generally believed to have really existed.242  He agreed with Luther that the papacy was an invention of the Devil; that the pope was the very Antichrist seated in the temple of God as predicted by Daniel (11:36) and Paul (2 Thess. 2:3 sq.), and the beast of the Apocalypse; and that he would soon be destroyed by a divine judgment. He attacked all the contemporary popes, except Adrian VI., to whom he gives credit for honesty and earnestness. He is especially severe on "Saul IV."  (Paul IV.), who as Cardinal Caraffa had made some wise and bold utterances on the corruption of the clergy, but since his elevation to the "apostate chair, which corrupts every one who ascends it," had become the leader of the Counter-Reformation with its measures of violence and blood. Such monsters, he says, are the popes. One contradicts the other, and yet they are all infallible, and demand absolute submission. Rather die a thousand times than have any communion with popery and fall away from Christ, the Son of God, who was crucified for us and rose from the dead. Popery and the gospel are as incompatible as darkness and light, as Belial and Christ. No compromise is possible between them. Vergerio was hardly less severe on the cardinals and bishops, although he allowed some honorable exceptions. He attacked and ridiculed the Council of Trent, then in session, and tried to show that it was neither general, nor free, nor Christian. He used the same arguments against it as the Old Catholics used against the Vatican Council of 1870. He repelled the charge of heresy and turned it against his former co-religionists. The Protestants who follow the Word of God are orthodox, the Romanists who follow the traditions of men are the heretics.

His anti-popery writings were read with great avidity by his contemporaries, but are now forgotten. Bullinger was unfavorably impressed, and found in them no solid substance, but only frivolous mockery and abuse.

As regards the differences among Protestants, Vergerio was inconsistent. He first held the Calvinistic theory of the Lord’s Supper, and expressed it in his own Catechism,243 in a letter to Bullinger of Jan. 16, 1554, and even later, in June, 1556, at Wittenberg, where he met Melanchthon and Eber. But in Würtemberg he had to subscribe the Augsburg Confession, and in a letter to the Duke of Würtemberg, Oct. 23, 1557, he confessed the ubiquitarian theory of Luther. He also translated the Catechism of Brenz and the Würtemberg Confession into Italian, and thereby offended the Swiss Zwinglians, but told them that he was merely the translator. He never attributed much importance to the difference, and kept aloof from the eucharistic controversy.244  He was not a profound theologian, but an ecclesiastical politician and diplomatist, after as well as before his conversion.

Vergerio left the Roman Church rather too late, when the Counter-Reformation had already begun to crush Protestantism in Italy. He was a man of imposing personality, considerable learning and eloquence, wit and irony, polemic dexterity, and diplomatic experience, but restless, vain, and ambitious. He had an extravagant idea of his own importance. He could not forget his former episcopal authority and pretensions, nor his commanding position as the representative of the pope. He aspired to the dignity and influence of a sort of Protestant internuncio at all the courts of Europe, and of a mediator between the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. Pallavicino, the Jesuit historian of the Council of Trent, characterizes him as a lively and bold man who could not live without business, and imagined that business could not get along without him. Calvin found in him much that is laudable, but feared that he was a restless busybody. Gallicius wrote to Bullinger: "I wish that Vergerio would be more quiet, and persuade himself that the heavens will not fall even if he, as another Atlas, should withdraw his support."  Nevertheless, Vergerio filled an important place in the history of his times. He retained the esteem of the Lutheran princes and theologians, and he is gratefully remembered for his missionary services in the two Italian valleys of the Grisons, which have remained faithful to the evangelical faith to this day.

 

 § 39. Protestantism in Chiavenna and the Valtellina, and its Suppression.

 The Valtellina Massacre. George Jenatsch.

 

See literature in §§ 36 and 38, pp. 131 and 144 sq.

 

We pass now to the Italian dependencies of the Grisons, where Protestantism has had only a transient existence.

At Chiavenna the Reformed worship was introduced in 1544 by Agostino Mainardi, a former monk of Piedmont, under the protection of Hercules von Salis, governor of the province. He was succeeded by Jerome Zanchi (1516–1590), an Augustinian monk who had been converted by reading the works of the Reformers under the direction of Vermigli at Lucca, and became one of the most learned and acute champions of the Calvinistic system. He fled to the Grisons in 1551, and preached at Chiavenna. Two years later he accepted a call to a Hebrew professorship at Strassburg. There he got into a controversy with Marbach on the doctrine of predestination, which he defended with logical rigor. In 1563 he returned to Chiavenna as 245pastor. He had much trouble with restless Italian refugees and with the incipient heresy of Socinianism. In 1568 he left for Heidelberg, as professor of theology on the basis of the Palatinate Catechism, which in 1563 had been introduced under the pious Elector Frederick III. He prepared the way for Calvinistic scholasticism. A complete edition of his works appeared at Geneva, 1619, in three folio volumes.

Chiavenna had several other able pastors,—Simone Florillo, Scipione Lentulo of Naples, Ottaviano Meio of Lucca,

Small Protestant congregations were founded in the Valtellina, at Caspan (1546), Sondrio (the seat of government), Teglio, Tirano, and other towns. Dr. McCrie says: "Upon the whole, the number of Protestant churches to the south of the Alps appears to have exceeded twenty, which were all served, and continued till the end of the sixteenth century to be for the most part served, by exiles from Italy."

But Protestantism in Chiavenna, Bormio, and the Valtellina was at last swept out of existence. We must here anticipate a bloody page of the history of the seventeenth century.

Several causes combined for the destruction of Protestantism in Upper Italy. The Catholic natives were never friendly to the heretical refugees who settled among them, and called them banditi, which has the double meaning of exile and outlaw. They reproached the Grisons for receiving them after they had been expelled from other Christian countries. They were kept in a state of political vassalage, instead of being admitted to equal rights with the three leagues. The provincial governors were often oppressive, sold the subordinate offices to partisans, and enriched themselves at the expense of the inhabitants. The Protestants were distracted by internal feuds. The Roman Counter-Reformation was begun with great zeal and energy in Upper Italy and Switzerland by the saintly Cardinal Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan. Jesuits and Capuchins stirred up the hatred of the ignorant and superstitious people against the Protestant heretics. In the Grisons themselves the Roman Catholic party under the lead of the family of Planta, and the Protestants, headed by the family of Salis, strove for the mastery. The former aimed at the suppression of the Reformation in the leagues as well as the dependencies, and were suspected of treasonable conspiracy with Spain and Austria. The Protestant party held a court (Strafgericht, a sort of tribunal of inquisition) at Thusis in 1618, which included nine preachers, and condemned the conspirators. The aged Zambra, who in the torture confessed complicity with Spain, was beheaded; Nicolaus Rusca, an esteemed priest, leader of the Spanish Catholic interests in the Valtellina, called the hammer of the heretics, was cruelly tortured to death; Bishop John Flugi was deposed and outlawed; the brothers Rudolf and Pompeius Planta, the Knight Jacob Robustelli, and other influential Catholics were banished, and the property of the Plantas was confiscated.

These unrighteous measures created general indignation. The exiles fostered revenge, and were assured of Spanish aid. Robustelli returned, after his banishment, to the Valtellina, and organized a band of about three hundred desperate bandits from the Venetian and Milanese territories for the overthrow of the government of the Grisons and the extermination of Protestantism.

This is the infamous "Valtellina Massacre (Veltliner Mord) of July, 1620. It may be called an imitation of the Sicilian Vespers, and of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. It was the fiendish work of religious fanaticism combined with political discontent. The tragedy began in the silence of the night, from July 18th to 19th, by the murder of sixty defenceless adult Protestants of Tirano; the Podesta Enderlin was shot down in the street, mutilated, and thrown into the Adda; Anton von Salis took refuge in the house of a Catholic friend, but was sought out and killed; the head of the Protestant minister, Anton Bassa of Poschiavo, was posted on the pulpit of the church. The murderers proceeded to Teglio, and shot down about the same number of persons in the church, together with the minister, who was wounded in the pulpit, and exhorted the hearers to persevere; a number of women and children, who had taken refuge in the tower of the church, were burnt. The priest of Teglio took part in the bloody business, carrying the cross in the left, and the sword in the right hand. At Sondrio, the massacre raged for three days. Seventy-one Protestants, by their determined stand, were permitted to escape to the Engadin, but one hundred and forty fell victims to the bandits; a butcher boasted of having murdered eighteen persons. Not even the dead were spared; their bodies were exhumed, burnt, thrown into the water, or exposed to wild beasts. Paula Baretta, a noble Venetian lady of eighty years, who had left a nunnery for her religious conviction, was shamefully maltreated and delivered to the Inquisition at Milan, where a year afterward she suffered death at the stake. Anna of Libo fled with a child of two years in her arms; she was overtaken and promised release on condition of abjuring her faith. She refused, saying, "You may kill the body, but not the soul;" she pressed her child to her bosom, and received the death-blow. When the people saw the stream of blood on the market-place before the chief church, they exclaimed: "This is the revenge for our murdered arch-priest Rusca!"  He was henceforth revered as a holy martyr. At Morbegno the Catholics behaved well, and aided the Protestants in making their escape. The fugitives were kindly received in the Grisons and other parts of Switzerland. From the Valtellina Robustelli proceeded to Poschiavo, burnt the town of Brusio, and continued there the butchery of Protestants till he was checked.246

The Valtellina declared itself independent and elected the Knight Robustelli military chief. The canons of the Council of Trent were proclaimed, papal indulgences introduced, the evangelical churches and cemeteries reconsecrated for Catholic use, the corpses of Protestants dug up, burnt, and cast into the river. Addresses were sent to the Pope and the kings of Spain and France, explaining and excusing the foul deeds by which the rebels claimed to have saved the Roman religion and achieved political freedom from intolerable tyranny.

Now began the long and bloody conflicts for the recovery of the lost province, in which several foreign powers took part. The question of the Valtellina (like the Eastern question in modern times) became a European question, and was involved in the Thirty Years’ War. Spain, in possession of Milan, wished to join hands with Austria across the Alpine passes of the Grisons; while France and Venice had a political motive to keep them closed. Austrian and Spanish troops conquered and occupied the Valtellina and the three leagues, expelled the Protestant preachers, and inflicted unspeakable misery upon the people. France, no less Catholic under the lead of Cardinal Richelieu, but jealous of the house of Habsburg, came to the support of the Protestants in the Grisons, as well as the Swedes in the north, and sent an army under the command of the noble Huguenot Duke Henri de Rohan, who defeated the Austrians and Spaniards, and conquered the Valtellina (1635).

The Grisons with French aid recovered the Valtellina by the stipulation of Chiavenna, 1636, which guaranteed to the three leagues all the rights of sovereignty, but on condition of tolerating no other religion in that province but the Roman Catholic. Rohan, who had the best intentions for the Grisons, desired to save Protestant interests, but Catholic France would not agree. He died in 1638, and was buried at Geneva.

The Valtellina continued to be governed by bailiffs till 1797. It is now a part of the kingdom of Italy, and enjoys the religious freedom guaranteed by the constitution of 1848.247

In this wild episode of the Thirty Years’ War, a Protestant preacher, Colonel Georg Jenatsch, plays a prominent figure as a romantic hero. He was born at Samaden in the Upper Engadin, 1590, studied for the Protestant ministry at Zürich, successively served the congregations at Scharans and at Berbenno in the Valtellina, and narrowly escaped the massacre at Sondrio by making his flight through dangerous mountain passes. He was an eloquent speaker, an ardent patriot, a shrewd politician, and a brave soldier, but ambitious, violent, unscrupulous, extravagant, and unprincipled. He took part in the cruel decision of the court of Thusis (1618), and killed Pompeius Planta with an axe (1621). He served as guide and counsellor of the Duke de Rohan, and by his knowledge, pluck, and energy, materially aided him in the defeat of Austria. Being disappointed in his ambition, he turned traitor to France, joined the Austrian party and the Roman Church (1635), but educated his children in the Protestant religion. He was murdered at a banquet in Coire (1639) by an unknown person in revenge for the murder of Pompeius Planta. He is buried in the Catholic church, near the bishop’s palace. A Capuchin monk delivered the funeral oration.248

 

 § 40. The Congregation of Locarno.

 

Ferdinand Meyer: Die evangelische Gemeinde von Locarno, ihre Auswanderung nach Zürich und ihre weiteren Schicksale. Zürich, 1836. 2 vols. An exhaustive monograph carefully drawn from MS. sources, and bearing more particularly on the Italian congregation at Zürich, to which the leading Protestant families of Locarno emigrated.

 

Locarno, a beautiful town on the northern end of the Lago Maggiore, was subject to the Swiss Confederacy and ruled by bailiffs.249  It had in the middle of the sixteenth century a Protestant congregation of nearly two hundred members.250  Chief among them were Beccaria, Taddeo Duno, Lodovico Ronco, and Martino Muralto. A religious disputation was held there in 1549, about the authority of the pope, the merit of good works, justification, auricular confession, and purgatory.251  It ended in a tumult. Wirz, the presiding bailiff, who knew neither Latin nor Italian, gave a decision in favor of the Roman party. Beccaria refused to submit, escaped, and went to Zürich, where he was kindly received by Bullinger. He became afterwards a member of the Synod of Graubünden, and was sent as an evangelist to Misocco, but returned to Zürich.

The faithful Protestants of Locarno, who preferred emigration to submission, wandered with wives and children on foot and on horseback over snow and ice to Graubünden and Zürich, in 1556. Half of them remained in the Grisons, and mingled with the evangelical congregations. The rest organized an Italian congregation in Zürich under the fostering care of Bullinger. It was served for a short time by Vergerio, who came from Tübingen for the purpose, and then by Bernardino Ochino, who had fled from England to Basel after the accession of Queen Mary. Ochino was a brilliant genius and an eloquent preacher, then already sixty-eight years old, but gave offence by his Arian and other heretical opinions, and was required to leave in 1563. He went to Basel, Strassburg, Nürnberg, Krakau; was expelled from Poland, Aug. 6, 1564; and died in poverty in Moravia, 1565, a victim of his subtle speculations and the intolerance of his times. He wrote an Italian catechism for the Locarno congregation in the form of a dialogue (1561).

The most important accession to the exiles was Pietro Martire Vermigli, who had likewise fled from England, first to Strassburg (1553), then to Zürich (1555). He was received as a member into the council of the Locarno congregation, presented with the citizenship of Zürich, and elected professor of Hebrew in place of Conrad Pellican (who died in 1556). He labored there till his death, in 1562, in intimate friendship and harmony with Bullinger, generally esteemed and beloved. He was one of the most distinguished and useful Italian converts, and, like Zanchi, an orthodox Calvinist.

The Italian congregation was enlarged by new fugitives from Locarno and continued to the end of the sixteenth century. The principal families of Duno, Muralto, Orelli, Pestalozzi, and others were received into citizenship, took a prominent position in the history of Zürich, and promoted its industry and prosperity, like the exiled Huguenots in Brandenburg, Holland, England, and North America.252

 

 § 41. Zwinglianism in Germany.

The principles of the Helvetic Reformation spread also to some extent in Germany, but in a modified form, and prepared the way for the mediating (Melanchthonian) character of the German Reformed Church. Although Luther overshadowed every other personality in Germany, Zwingli had also his friends and admirers, especially the Landgrave, Philip of Hesse, who labored very zealously, though unsuccessfully, for a union of the Lutherans and the Reformed. Bucer and Capito at Strassburg, Cellarius at Augsburg, Blaurer at Constance, Hermann at Reutlingen, and Somius at Ulm, strongly sympathized with the genius and tendency of the Zürich Reformer.253  His influence was especially felt in those free cities of Southern Germany where the democratic element prevailed.

Four of these cities, Strassburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau, handed to the Diet of Augsburg, 11th July, 1530, a special confession (Confessio Tetrapolitana) drawn up by Bucer, with the assistance of Hedio, and answered by the Roman divines, Faber, Eck, and Cochlaeus. It is the first symbolical book of the German Reformed Church (Zwingli’s writings having never acquired symbolical authority), but was superseded by the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and the Second Helvetic Confession (1566). It strikes a middle course between the Augsburg Confession of Melanchthon and the private Confession sent in by Zwingli during the same Diet, and anticipates Calvin’s view on the Lord’s Supper by teaching a real fruition of the true body and blood of Christ, not through the mouth, but through faith, for the nourishment of the soul into eternal life.254

The Zwinglian Reformation was checked and almost destroyed in Germany by the combined opposition of Romanism and Lutheranism. The four cities could not maintain their isolated position, and signed the Augsburg Confession for political reasons, to join the Smalcaldian League. The Reformed Church took a new start in the Palatinate under the combined influence of Zwingli, Melanchthon, and Calvin (1563), gained strength by the accession of the reigning dynasty of Prussia (since 1614), and was ultimately admitted to equal rights with the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches in the German Empire by the Treaty of Westphalia.