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[German Version] 1. Peter (Tossanus; 1499, St. Laurent, Lorraine – Oct 5, 1573, Montbéliard), canon in Metz after 1515. His attempt to preach the Reformation in Metz was unsuccessful. In 1535 Tossanus was charged with continuing the Reformation of the Württemberg count of Montbéliard (Mömpelgard), begun by G. Farel. The introduction of the Württemberg church order of 1536 and then the order of 1559 created difficulties, since Tossanus and his colleagues favored the Swiss Reformation. Negotiations le…

[German Version] I. Early Church – II. Middle Ages – III. Reformation – IV. Modern Period – V. Present – VI. Practical Theology I. Early Church The church polity projected and in part realized in early Christianity is one of the most significant institutional inventions of Late Antiquity. Since it has survived into the present, with many modifications and variations, it also represents an element of continuity between the ancient world and the modern world. Church polity as used here means all the institutions affecting the external organization of early Ch…

[German Version] 1. Nicolas Perrenot de (1484/85, Ornans, France – Aug 27, 1550, Augsburg) was a Burgundian official in the service of the Habsburgs, initially at the court of Besançon. After receiving the Dr.iur., Granvelle became chief councilor of the Franche-Comté in 1518. Charles V named him chief minister in 1524. After the death of his protector, Mercurino Arborio di Gattarina, Granvelle succeeded him as minister for the northern regions ¶ of the Empire in 1530. The emperor's great confidence in Granvelle, despite many accusations of bribery, made him one of…

[German Version] (c. 1534, chateau Chabottes-en-Mâconnais – Feb 23, 1591, Geneva). Having already come into contact with Reformed thinking through his tutor in Paris, after law studies in Toulouse Chandieu went to Geneva, where he was won over for the Reformation by Calvin and Beza. From 1557 to 1562 he was pastor of the Protestant congregation in Paris and he took part in the first general synod in 1559, also participating in the preparation of the confession a…

[German Version] The establishment, rise, and heyday of the Saumur academy are closely associated with the name of P. Duplessis-Mornay. In March of 1593, the governor of Saumur received from King Henry IV a decree empowering him to found an academy; this and the Edict of Nantes in 1598 (Huguenots: I, 1) created the conditions for establishing a Calvinist training center in that city, which was one of the safe havens for Huguenots. The Academy comprised a collège, a faculty of arts, and a faculty of theology, with chairs in rhetoric, ancient languages, mathematics, philos…

[German Version] (1518, Vitteaux, France - Sep 30, 1581, Antwerp, Belgium), studied law in Poitiers and earned a doctorate in Padua. He was won over to the Reformation after reading Melanchthon's Loci communes, whereupon he went to Wittenberg in 1549 to meet the praeceptor. The latter's recommendation to the councilor of Electoral Saxony, Ulrich von Mordeisen, enabled him to enter the service of August I, Elector of Saxony (until 1577). Diplomatic missions led him, among other places, to Paris and to the imperial court in Vienna. He was …

[German Version] I. Church History – II. Music I. Church History 1. Europe The term Huguenot – whose etymology is unclear, although it probably traces back to the French eyguenot (cf. Ger. Eidgenossen) attested since 1520 – surfaces in relation to the Amboise conspiracy in 1560 and soon also found entry – in addition to the otherwise customary designation of French Protestants as adherents of the “supposedly reformed religion” ( religion prétendue réformée, R.P.R.) – into official texts. As early as the 1520s and 1530s, under the influence of the biblical humanism…

[German Version] (1599). The Staffort Book is witness to the change of confessional allegiance of Margrave Ernst Friedrich v. Baden-Durlach, one of the three sons of Margrave Charles II, on whose behalf the guardians Louis, elector palatine, Philip Louis, count palatine of Neuburg, and Duke Louis of Württemberg had signed the Formula of Concord after the margrave’s death. The book, printed at Schloß Staffort near Durlach, consisted – in its larger version – of a rejection of the Formula of Concord…

[German Version] The Camisards were Protestants in southern France who, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1686 (Huguenots), secretly formed armed bands in the Cévennes region, the “desert,” to fight for the freedom and rights of their suppressed church in the face of harsh persecution. The term “Camisard” probably derives from the camisia (“shirt”) worn over their clothing during night raids, which were therefore called camisades. The movement, which at times appeared fanatical, survived until 1711; especially when its followers were being pu…

[German Version] (Jun 17, 1657, Paris – Jun 6, 1719, Paris) received his Dr.Theol. from the Sorbonne in 1684 and became professor at the Collège Royal in Paris. His signature to the “Cas de conscience” in sympathy with Jansenism in 1703 cost him his chair and brought him expulsion to Châtellerault. He recanted (1704) and was thus able to return to Paris, but not to his chair. In …

[German Version] (Dec 18, 1610, Amiens – Oct 23, 1688, Paris). After a humanist education at the Jesuit college in Amiens and law studies at the University of Orléans, Du Cange became a parliamentary advocate in Paris in 1631, but soon returned to Amiens. ¶ There he purchased the office of trésorier in 1645, which allowed him to devote himself to his historical and philosophical studies. He continued these in Paris in 1668 after an outbreak of the plague in Amiens. As an aut…

[German Version] (May 30, 1599, Rouen – May 16, 1667, Caen) studied philosophy in Sedan and theology in Saumur as well as in Leiden, where he devoted himself to Arabic. From 1625 he was a pastor in Caen. His dispute with the Jesuit François Véron (Sep 22 – Oct 3, 1628) and the publication of the proceedings made him well known, and the release of his Geographia sacra even more so. An invitation to the court of Christina of Sweden in 1652 gave him the opportunity to evaluate the Arabic manuscripts of the royal library for his Hierozoicon. In 1661 he got into contr…