The Peace of Augsburg and the Meckhart Confession: Moderate Religion in an Age of Militancy

352 Pages·2019·17.011 MB·English

by  Adam Glen Hough

The Peace of Augsburg and
the Meckhart Confession
Taking the religiously diverse city of Augsburg as its focus, this book
explores the underappreciated role of local clergy in mediating and
interpreting the Peace of Augsburg in the decades following its 1555
enactment, focusing on the efforts of the preacher Johann Meckhart and
his heirs in blunting the cultural impact of confessional religion. It argues
that the real drama of confessionalization was not simply that which
played out between princes and theologians, or even, for that matter,
between religions; rather, it lay in the daily struggle of clerics in the
proverbial trenches of their ministry, who were increasingly pressured
to choose for themselves and for their congregations between doctrinal
purity and civil peace.
Adam Glen Hough is a graduate of the University of Arizona’s Division
for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies, and a past fellow at the
Herzog August Bibliothek and the University of Victoria’s Centre for
Studies in Religion and Society.
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The English Woollen Industry, c.1200–c.1560
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The Peace of Augsburg and the Meckhart Confession
Moderate Religion in an Age of Militancy
Adam Glen Hough
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Research-in-Early-Modern-History/book-series/RREMH
The Peace of Augsburg and
the Meckhart Confession
Moderate Religion in an
Age of Militancy
Adam Glen Hough
First published 2019
by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hough, Adam (Adam Glen), author.
Title: The Peace of Augsburg and the Meckhart confession :
moderate religion in an age of militancy / by Adam Glen
Hough.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge
research in early modern history | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018058269 (print) | LCCN 2019000193
(ebook) | ISBN 9780429261534 (ebook) | ISBN
9780367204495 (hbk.) | ISBN 9780429261534 (ebk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Peace of Augsburg (1555) | Meckhart, Johann,
–1559. | Church history—16th century. | Reformation.
Classification: LCC BR355.A8 (ebook) | LCC BR355.A8 H68
2019 (print) | DDC 274.3/37506—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058269
ISBN: 978-0-367-20449-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-26153-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures vi
List of Abbreviations vii
Acknowledgments viii
1 Introduction 1
2 That Forgotten Place Between Heaven and Hell:
Resistance and Compromise During the Augsburg Interim 33
3 The Sin Unconfessed: Meckhart and the Act of Confession 71
4 Dance of the Augsburg Preachers: The Melhorn
Controversy and the Culture of Confessionalization 91
5 The Meckhart Confession: Negotiating Moderation 126
6 A Rudderless Ship in Stormy Seas: Conflict, Crisis, and
Concord at the Dawn of the Confessional Age 145
7 Hellhounds in the House of Fugger 171
8 The Path of Resistance: Augsburg’s Divergent
Evangelical Responses to the Counter Reformation 210
9 The Calendar Riot: Conceptually Expanded,
Contextually Explored 249
10 Caught in No-Man’s-Land: The Vocation Controversy 299
11 Conclusion 328
Index 336
Figures
2.1 The title page of a polemical tract written against
Charles V’s perceived overreach of imperial authority in
opposing the Reformation. 52
7.1 This broadsheet, which circulated in Augsburg, helped
propagate the relationship between female vice and sin
and the invitation of demons into the homes of the faithful. 172
8.1 This graphic depiction of famine in Russia was a call for
Germans to hold on to their faith and civility in the face
of similar challenges facing them in the early 1570s. 213
8.2 Johann Nass’ polemic presents militant hordes of
evangelical beasts desecrating the Church. 238
9.1 The mythical “Bigorne,” depicted here, was a creature
used to shame and emasculate husbands who would not,
or could not, discipline their wives. 254
9.2 A classic representation of a natural disaster—here, a
volcano—brought on by God’s wrath over the collective
sins of a community. 256
9.3 A broadsheet depiction of the miraculous birth of
quintuplets just outside Augsburg. 257
9.4 Another depiction of a contemporary miracle; in this
case, rain fell from the sky on a Bavarian farming village. 258
9.5 A depiction of Georg Müller’s liberation from the city
guard in the square before the Gögginger Gate. 282
Abbreviations
CS Corpus Schwenkfeldianorum: Letters and Treatises of Cas-
par Schwenckfeld von Ossig. Ed. Chester David Hartranft,
et al. Vols. 1–19. Norristown: Board of Publication of the
Schwenckfelder Church, 1907–1961.
DStChr Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16.
Jahrhundert. Volumes 32–34. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck u.
Ruprecht, 1965–1966.
HAB Herzog August Bibliothek
MBW Melanchthons Briefwechsel: kritische und kommentierte
Gesamtausgabe / im Auftr. der Heidelberger Akademie der
Wissenschaften. Eds. Heinz Scheible, Christine Mundhank,
et  al. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog,
1977–2016.
PCE Beati Petri Canisii Epistulae et acta. Ed. Otto Braunsberger.
Friburgi Brisgoviae : Herder, 1896–1923.
SuStBA Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg
StadtAA Stadtarchiv Augsburg
(AKC): Ad Kalenderstreit Criminalia 1583–1589
(CAA): Censuramt Akten
(Cod Aug): Codex Augustana
(EWA): Evangelische Wesenarchiv
(KWA): Katholische Wesenarchiv
(LS): Literaliensammlung
(LS Ref): Reformationsakten, Wiedertäufer, Religionsakten
(Mil): Militaria
(Straf): Strafamt/ Strafbücher
(Urg): Urgichtensammlung
Ulm Ulm Stadtarchiv
VD 16 Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen‚
Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts
VD 18 Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen
Drucke des 18. Jahrhunderts
Acknowledgments
Many and wonderful were the people and institutions who helped me
over the last few years to first write and edit my doctoral dissertation, and
subsequently to transform and refine that work into the book you have
before you today. Allow me to begin by thanking everyone at the Uni-
versity of Arizona’s Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies,
whose tireless fundraising efforts funded no less than six months of my
archival research, principally through the Ora DeConcini Martin and
Morris Martin Scholarship. To Susan Karant-Nunn, Luise Betterton, and
Ute Lotz-Heumann, I say a heartfelt thank you in this regard! I would
also double my thanks to Luise for helping me find my way through the
arcane, labrynthine bureaucracy that was the bane of this international
student for some six years. Your guidance, Luise, helped me focus on the
big things without getting weighted down by the small.
Much of the first stage of my research was conducted over three months
at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, study that was made pos-
sible thanks to that institution’s Rolf und Ursula Schneider-Stiftung. Not
only was I given a monthly stipend and a place to stay, but the library
even went further, helping fly me to Germany in the first place. Beyond
this most generous financial support, though, I would also like to extend
my thanks to Dr. Jill Bepler, Dr. Elizabeth Harding, and Gerlinde Strauß
for their extraordinary patience and encouragement as I found my feet as
a researcher in that strange and beautiful land of theirs.
Further with respect to funding, I would be woefully remiss if I did
not also thank the University of Arizona’s Graduate and Professional
Student Council for helping me get to and from Germany; the Social &
Behavioral Sciences Research Institute for providing me with funding for
an additional three months of research at the end; and last, the College
of Social and Behavioral Sciences for a summer writing fellowship, which
allowed me to finish writing the darn thing.
Getting to the archives was one thing; navigating them was another.
At the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg—my home away from
home for nine months—I would like to thank Dr. Brigitte Schürmann,
Dr. Hans-Jörg Künast, Gudrun Jungke, and the entire staff, all of whom
Acknowledgments ix
made me feel perfectly welcome. I’d also like to add special thanks to
Ursula Korber in the Fotostelle for helping me access and employ the
wonderful archival images you’ll find in this work.
At the Augsburg Stadtarchiv, I would likewise like to thank Simone
Herde, as well as again the entire reading room staff for their patience
and diligence, even during the course of extensive renovations. Finally,
at the Ulm Stadtarchiv—where I closed out my research—I would like to
add my thanks to Frau Mühlhausen and Dr. Litz.
The inspiration for this project owes in no small part to the support
and counsel of the late Dr. Peter Foley, who first suggested I look at these
preachers as not just theologians but as constituent members of a com-
munity in turmoil, divided against itself over questions of conformity.
This project really began in conversations held in Dr. Foley’s office far
off on the distant edge of campus, often involving extended, meandering
discussions that called to question the boundaries between philosophy,
religion, and history. I always left those meeting a little awestruck, but
still always a little more confident than when I had gone in.
Along the way, I benefited greatly from the counsel of my committee
members. Dr. Beth Plummer was there at the beginning of my research,
always with a ready ear; and again towards the end, graciously agreeing
to serve on my defense committee. Dr. David Graizbord has been a veri-
table pillar of support throughout much of my graduate career, always
finding time for another meeting, another letter. Your encouragement, sir,
meant a great deal to me at some difficult points in my career.
From beginning to end, Susan Karant-Nunn and Ute Lotz-Heumann
have been there. Professor Karant-Nunn, you asked the big questions
that always had me thinking about my work and its place in the world.
I didn’t always find the answers, but I am richer for having looked for
them. Professor Lotz-Heumann, you often asked the hard questions,
keeping me honest and forcing me to confront my own biases. I wanted
to write the best history I could, and that would not have been possible
without your candid feedback. To both, then, thank you.
The dissertation from which this present work arose was my mean-
dering yet impassioned attempt to bring to the light of day a vast col-
lection of extraordinary archival discoveries, hoping that I might make
the context surrounding my arguments as rich and present as possible.
As often happens with young scholars, that context and the volume of
evidence brought to bear in its development at times overgrew the path
of my analysis, leading to some confusion. In clearing up that path, as it
were, I am indebted again to my doctoral committee for their notes and
insight, both during my defense and after. Further, I would like to thank
Max Novick at Routledge, Taylor & Francis for taking on this project in
the first place, and for allowing me the time to get it right. My thanks also
to the anonymous readers who provided feedback on this project while
it was under review.