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[German Version] (c. 1350, Leerdam, The Netherlands – Mar 24, 1400, Deventer). Following his studies in Prague (1375–1378) and ordination to the priesthood (1377), Florentius was won over by G. Groote to the latter's ideal of piety. After 1380, the first Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life lived in his vicarage in Deventer. After the death of Grootes in 1384, he acted as the leading spiritual authority of the Devotio moderna (influencing, e.g. Gerlach Peters, Thomas à Kempis, G. Zerbolt), which he organized into its non-monastic (establishing…

[German Version] (c. 1419, Groningen – Oct 4, 1489, Groningen), a reform-oriented theologian. As a pupil and teacher of the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life in Zwolle from 1432, Gansfort adopted the spirituality of the devotio moderna, which made a lasting impression on him. In 1449, he began to devote himself to intensive theological studies in Cologne, Heidelberg and Paris, in the course of which he turned to nominalism and, having learned Greek and Hebrew, laying the basis for an intensi…

[German Version] (Jan Gerritsz Versteghe; c. 1520, Stroe, Gelderland – 1570 Steeg, near Bacherach). As a priest in Garderen (from 1544), Veluanus was arrested in 1550 for preaching the Reformation. In 1553 he succeeded in escaping to the Rhineland, where he became pastor in Palatine Steeg in 1554/1555; in 1561 he was appointed superintendent for Bacharach and Kaub. In his popular works, including Der Leken Wechwyser (“Guide for the Laity,” 1554) and his Kurzer Wegweiser (publ. anonymously 1564), he encouraged an undogmatic Christianity based on the Bible; he combined …

[German Version] (before 1500, Buscher Hof near Lennep – Sep 28, 1529, Melaten near Cologne). After completing his studies in philosophy in Cologne in 1517, Clarenbach taught ancient languages in Münster, Wesel, Osnabrück and the Berg region from 1520 onward. Influenced by humanistic positions and Luther's writings, he concentrated on the exegesis of the Bible and publicly criticized the doctrine and life of the papal church. The hostility of the old believers re…

[German Version] (1516 [?], Ghent – 1565/1566, London). Born to a patrician Flemish family, Utenhove studied at Leuven and was expelled in 1544 on account of his Protestant views. He turned to Strasbourg, where he became a follower of M. Bucer and renewed his acquaintance with J. Laski. He went with Laski to England in 1548 and translated Laski’s writings into Dutch for the Protestant exile churches they estab-¶ lished. In the interests of Reformed unity, in his role as congregational elder he visited H. Bullinger in Zürich and Calvin in Geneva in 1549. His Engli…

[German Version] (Mar 16 or 26, 1478, Weidenstetten near Ulm – Nov 8, 1527, Dresden). The human-¶ istically educated Emser, from 1505 in the service of Duke George of Saxony, distinguished himself after the Leipzig Disputation (1519) as a Catholic controversial theologian. In the dispute with Luther (1519–1521 exchange of polemical writings, then only publications by Emser), he fought against A.B. v. Karlstadt and Zwi…

[German Version] (cf. Augsburg Confession; Augsburg Interim; Augsburg, Peace of). For a Christian community in the Roman colony Augusta Vindelicorum there is no certain evidence; not until 565 is the characteristic local cult of the martyr Afra attested. Augsburg was certainly an episcopal see from the 8th century. The close connection between bishop and kingd…

[German Version] (Feb 25, 1591, Kaiserswerth – Aug 7, 1635, Trier), joined the Jesuits in 1610 and worked for the order as a theological teacher in support of the Counter-Reformation; in 1629 he was appointed professor of theology in Trier. He owes his importance not to his role as an academic theologian but to his unique combination of piety, literary talent, and active commitment to the suffering. His major religious works, the Güldenes Tugend-Buch and Trutz-Nachtigall, published posthumously in 1649, influenced confessional Roman Catholic religiosity through literat…

[German Version] (Philippson; 1506, Schleiden, Eifel – Oct 30, 1556, Straßburg [Strasbourg]). After a Humanistic education, Sleidanus began working in the French diplomatic service. Prior to 1530, Melanchthon’s writings had already won him to the cause of the Reformation. Personal contact with the Protestant theologians at the religious disputations in Hagenau (Haguenau) and Regensburg in 1540/1541 inspired him to write historical attacks on the papacy. In 1545 he entered the service of the Schmal…

[German Version] (Feb 27 or Apr 11, 1501, Warburg – Apr 5, 1553, Hannover). Dismissed from the Cistercian abbey in Riddagshausen in 1523 because of his sympathies for Luther, Corvinus taught himself Reformation theology. In 1528, he obtained a preaching post in Goslar, in 1529, a pastorate in Witzenhausen, Hessen. On the commission of Landgrave Philip of Hessen, he disputed in 1535/36 with the imprisoned Anabaptists in Münster. In 1537, Corvinus signed the Schmalkaldic Articles ; in 1541, he participated as an auditor in the Regensburg religious …

[German Version] Maria Laach, Benedictine abbey on the Laacher See in the Eifel range. The abbey was founded around 1093 by the count palatine of the Rhine Heinrich II as a family foundation; in 1111 or 1112 it was made a priory of Affligem Abbey (Flanders) and thus became associated with the ordo cluniacensis (Cluny). It was made an abbey between 1135 and 1138. The Romanesque church, consecrated in 1156 and largely still in its original form, is a basilica with three naves and a double choir. Its monumental simplicity ideally expresses the self-u…

[German Version] The first Western monastic rules originated in the circle around Augustine; the influence of Eastern examples (Pachomius, Basil the Great) is evident. Transmitted as Augustinian texts are: (1) the “Praeceptum,” consisting of 12 chapters, which may have been written by Augustine himself c. 397, (2) the “Regularis informatio,” an addendum to (Pseudo?-) Augustine's Ep. 211, an adaptation for women's convents first attested in the 6th century, and (3) the “Ordo monasterii,” a brief order for external cloistered life from the 5th/6th century. From the 11th century, …

[German Version] Until a council could settle the controverted theological issues, the first Diet of Speyer in 1526 had left it to the discretion of the territorial authorities in their responsibility toward God and the emperor to enforce the terms of the Edict of Worms (1521) against Luther and his followers. This decision provided the evangelical princes and cities a basis for institutionalizing the Reformation within the framework of a polity that put governance of the church in the hands of th…

[German Version] (of Goch; c. 1415, Goch – Mar 28, 1475, Thabor, near Mechelen), reforming theologian. As a sometime member of the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life in Amersfoort, he was influenced by the devotio moderna; he combined a nominalism that is associated with his name and Augustinianism, emphasized the authority of the Bible as the basis of Christian discipleship inspired by grace, and rejected any special merit associated with monastic vows. His writings, little noticed in the 15…

[German Version] (Jul 25, 1450, Schlettstadt [Sélestat] – Nov 17, 1528, Schlettstadt), Humanist (Humanism). After studying philosophy, law, and theology at Freiburg, Erfurt, and Heidelberg (where he was rector of the university in 1481/1482), he served as cathedral vicar in Speyer from 1484 to 1498, then occupied a chair of poetry and rhetoric at Heidelberg until 1501 and finally worked as a teacher and writer in Straßburg (Strasbourg) and Schlettstadt. He championed a renewal of education based on the Latin writers and poets of antiquity, the patristic period, and the Middle Ages ( Sty…

[German Version] (1488/1489, Zutphen – Dec 10, 1524, near Heide). From 1520 onward, the observant Augustinian hermit Henry of Zutphen absorbed the theology of the Reformation as a student in Wittenberg and, in 1521, proceeded to expound it in a series of theses on justification and the priestly mediation of salvation. In 1522, he was appointed prior in Antwerp, but ¶ had to flee before the Inquisition in the same year. As a preacher in Bremen, he subsequently secured the implementation of the Reformation in that city. A preaching assignment in Dithmarsche…

[German Version] (Jul 12, 1477, Modena – Oct 18, 1547, Rome). In 1513 Leo X appointed Sadoleto, a Humanist famed for his linguistic skill, to the Curia for its diplomatic service; in 1517 he made him bishop of Carpentras. Sadoleto took the Reformation in Germany as a challenge to engage in his own theological work. He interpreted Pss 50 and 93 (1525/1530) with a clear interest in the moral renewal of the clergy. His commentary on Romans (1535) emphasized human free will vis-à-vis God so strongly that even Catholic theologians condemned it as semi-Pelagian. In 1536 he was appo…

[German Version] (von; after 1500, Fliesteden near Cologne – Sep 28, 1529, Melaten near Cologne). Fliesteden, who cannot be more precisely identified biographically, was a typical proponent of the Reformation as an anti-clerical lay movement. He was imprisoned in 1527, after he demonstratively expressed the Reformation critique of the understanding of the mass as a sacrifice in the Cologne Cathedral by spitting during the elevation of the host. In the subsequent trial, he announced his resolute re…

[German Version] (Gerlacus Petri; c. 1375, Deventer – Nov 18, 1411, Windesheim). As a member of the Windesheim Congregation, which he joined before 1400 on the advice of his spiritual teacher Florentius Radewyns, Gerlach was influential through the example of his religious life (description in the Chronicon Windeshemense by J.Busch) and through his writing. Preserved are the Latin works Soliloquium and Breviloquium in addition to two epistolary tractates addressed in middle-Dutch to his sister. In these, Gerlach combines the mysticism of Jan van Ruysbroek…

[German Version] (Rieger; May 1489, Langenargen – May 27, 1541, Celle). A student of J. Eck’s, Rhegius was appointed preacher at Augsburg cathedral, but in 1521 he accepted Luther’s understanding of the gospel and lost his position. After preaching in Hall and Tirol, he returned to Augsburg in 1524, where he served as a Protestant preacher in the city’s employ. He wrote numerous works expounding the doctrine of the Reformation movement, concentrating on the message of justification of sinners and …