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Martin Cellarius and the Reformation in Strasburg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

R. L. Williams
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Extract

The years following the Peasants' Revolt posed difficult problems for the city of Strasburg. Always the ‘city of refuge’ of the Reformation, it attracted men of widely different temperaments and religious views. Especially difficult were the Anabaptists who constituted a threat not only to theological orthodoxy—however hard that might have been to define—but also to that civil order which rested on the validity of the authority of the magistrates. In these circumstances, one episode is of pre-eminent interest. In 1526 Martin Cellarius, a young man with a reputation for radicalism, came to Strasburg and found lodging in the house of one of its leading pastors, Wolfgang Capito. In July 1527 Cellarius published a theological work, De Operibus Dei, in which he disavowed his radical sympathies and for which Capito wrote a commendatory preface. The following March, however, Capito published a commentary on Hosea in the preface to which he expressed distinct Anabaptist leanings. This provided personal embarrassment if not public danger. Bucer was furious. Concern was expressed by all the leading reformers of the Rhineland. But an immediate scapegoat was found in the person of Martin Cellarius.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 1981 , pp. 477 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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4 Reigate MS 1463. I am indebted to the Vicar of Reigate and his librarian, Mr J. Walters tor allowing me to see this manuscript.

5 He is also encountered as Martin Borrhaus or Burress. He is not to be confused with John Cellarius, who in 1533 terminated his ministry in Frankfurt-am-Main and moved 10 Bautzen: Luther's Table Talk, American ed., 196, 293, 364, 405, and Erasmi Epistolae, ed. Allen, P. S., Oxford 1906–1958Google Scholar (hereafter cited as EE.) iii. 414; or with Michael Cellarius, a Bavarian priest, who, having visited Wittenberg, settled in Augsburg in 1524 and in 1545 introduced the Reformation into Kautbeuren. EE. viii. 422.

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7 Hubmaicr, too, went to Ingolstadt. He Followed John Eck there from Freiburg. Ingolstadt seems to have nurtured a nest of radicals.

8 Ottilia von Uttenheim was the daughter of John Uttenheim and Einbeth Lumbard. She had been married before to Schmassmann von Berckheim by whom she had a son and daughter. I do not know whether there is any connection between this Uttenheim family and Christopher von Uttenheim, the humanist bishop of Basle.

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13 I have collated this with the Latin edition of 1527 and Found it to be a faithful translation.

14 Reigate MS 1463, fo. la.

15 Ibid., fo. 2a.

16 Ibid., fo. 3a.

17 Ibid., To. 6b. For Milntzer, see Rupp, C., Patterns of Reformation, London 1969Google Scholar,

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19 Ibid., fos. 19b-20a.

20 Ibid., fo. 39b.

21 Ibid., fo. 40a.

22 Ibid., fo. 42a.

23 Ibid., fo. 42b.

24 Ibid., fo. 56b.

25 Ibid., fo. 59b.

26 Ibid., fos. 59b-60a.

27 E.g., Krebs and Rott, i. 164, no. 140, Pellikan to Capito.

28 Reeves, M., The l'nfiuence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford 1969, 291Google Scholar.

29 Reeves, op. cit., 258–9 and 470 ff., demonstrates how Joachism made its impact on northern Europe. It is evidence of Cellarius's continuing apocalyptic strain that he found himself in Basle with Curio and Castellio who represent the Italian strain of expectation. Cantimori has shown how they form a group with many interconnections and many contacts with Protestants, especially in Basle and Geneva.

30 Williams, G. H., The Radical Reformation, London 1962, 51Google Scholar. The Super Hieremiam is pseudo-Joachim, the product of the spiritual Franciscans, but the basic point about the tradition in which these stand is not lost.

31 Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, 491 and Williams, Radical Reformation, 263.

32 Corpus Reformatorum, xcvi, Hulreich Zwinglis Sämtliche Werke, ix, ed. by Egli, E., Finalcr, G., Kohler, W. and Farner, O., Leipzig 1995Google Scholar, 195, no. 644 (hereafter cited asCR. Zw. ix).

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34 Van de Poll, G. J., Martin Bucer's Liturgical Ideas, Assen 1954, 44Google Scholar. Bucer's ideas of baptism are treated on pp. 44–8 and 93–9. A full discussion will also be found in Stephens, W. P., The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Martin Bucer, Cambridge 1970, 221–38Google Scholar. Bucer's concept of the Church has been the subject of a detailed study by Courvoisier, J., La Notion de l'Église chez Bucer, Paris 1933Google Scholar.

35 See below, pp. 493–4.

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41 There are but two pieces of evidence for the reputation of Cellarius in England. His work, however, draws attention to a strand in the theology of the reformed cities which might help us to see a continuing influence between them and the English Reformation. Bucer was to find refuge in England and offered Edward vi his De Regno Christi. Although Henrician reformers like Gardiner, who conceived the unity of Church and State, should not be overlooked, the influence of the European free cities was more immediate for Elizabeth. They were responsible not for sectarian puritanism, which constituted a threat for England analogous to the Anabaptist threat to themselves, but for that identity of Church and Commonwealth expressed in Jewel and Hooker.

42 Rupp, Righteousness of God, 281.

43 Luther, On Che Bondage of the Will, Library of Christian Classics, xvii. 138.

44 Ibid., 118–19.

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58 CR. Zw, viii. 819, no. 564.

59 Krebs and Rott, i. 5g. no. 62.

60 The fullest accounts of the debates at the end of December are to be found in A. Hulshof, Geschiedenis van de Doopsgezinden te Straatsbwrg van 1525 tot 15) 7, Amsterdam 1905, 33ff; and J. F. Gerhard Goeters, Ludwig Hatzer, Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte, Gutersloh 1957, xxv. 90ff. I have taken the date of this discussion from Goeters at p. 92.

61 Krebs and Rott, i. 60–2, nos. 64, 65 and 66.

62 CR. Zw. viii. 818, no. 564.

63 CR. Zw. ix. 60, no. 595.

64 Reigate MS 1463, Capito's preface. The folios of the preface are unnumbered. The Latin is reprinted in Krebs and Rott, i. 1 16f.

65 CR. Zw. ix. 206f., no. 649.

66 CR. Zw. ix. 191, no. 643.

67 CR. Zw. ix. 195, no. 644.

68 CR. Zw. ix. 218, no. 655.

69 CR. Zw. ix. 233, no. 656.

70 CR. Zw. ix. 218, no. 655.

71 Krebsand Rott, i. 80, no. 81.

72 CR. Zvv. ix. 426. no. 713.

73 Ibid.

74 Krcbsand Rott, i. 179. no. 146.

75 Krcbsanri Rott, i. 163, no. 137.

76 Krebs and Rott, i. 180, no. 147.