Holy Roman Empire / Germany: Notable Religious Figures, Theologians, Philosophers, and Linguists

Organized chronologically by death year / date of publication

1200 - 1285 - St. Albertus Magnus (All Facts)

• German Dominican Friar, Bishop, Philosopher, and Scientist

• He mentored St. Thomas Aquinas

• He brought works of Aristotle, recently available in new Latin translations from Arab sources, into scholasticism, the study of the meaning of Christian teaching

1260 - 1328 - Meister Eckhart (All Facts)

• German Dominican Theologian, Philosopher, Priest, and Mystic

  • He was a celebrated mystic

  • He presented himself in Avignon in France to face his critics at the convocation called by Pope John XXII, who condemned 28 of the namesake’s views in his “In Agro Dominico” Papal Bull

• He saw the soul as the divine spark which enabled man to know God

  • To reach God meant

    • turning inwards, doing nothing, owning nothing, and knowing nothing

    • being free of desire, even the desire for sanctity and God

      • This particular belief set him apart from many monks who had chosen poverty and self-abnegation

• He argued that the sacraments, though they played a part as preparation, must be cast off if man was to have direct access to God

  • This view was seen as the most direct threat to the authority of the Church and what Pope John XII saw as heretical

• He died in Avignon in France

1325 - 1397 - Henry of Langenstein (All Facts)

• German Scholastic Philosopher, Theologian, and Educator

• He taught at the University of Paris in France, where he attempted to end the Great Schism, but his arguments were not accepted by King Charles VI of France

• He was promptly dismissed from the University of Paris and France altogether

1401 - 1464 - Nicholas of Cusa (All Facts)

• German Philosopher

• He wrote that the Earth, and not the heavens, revolved daily, a refutation of the accepted Ptolemaic System

• His idea was based upon philosophic notions, however, and not on observable scientific data

• He was also appointed cardinal by Pope Nicholas V and sent on a successful mission to lead reform in Germany

1433 - Nicholas of Cusa: The Catholic Concordance / De Concordantia Catholica (ALl Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author argued for the General Council’s authority over the Pope

• Despite this, the council’s lack of power led the namesake author to reverse his position on this issue four years after the publication of the namesake

1440 - Nicholas of Cusa: Of Learned Ignorance (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author argues against the possibility of ever attaining eternal truths

1379 - 1471 - Thomas a Kempis (All Facts)

• German-Dutch Writer of Devotionals

1427 - Thomas a Kempis: The Imitation of Christ (All Facts)

• Was considered at the time to be the most influential Christian work since the Bible

• Simple book which emphasized the need for a moderate asceticism

1436 - 1495 - Jakob Sprenger (All Facts)

• German Dominican Theologian and Inquisitor

• He was authorized by Pope Innocent VIII to stamp out witchcraft in Germany in the 1400s

• He and his co-inquisitor had burnt 41 witches who had confessed to having sex with the devil

1430 - 1505 - Heinrich Kramer (All Facts)

• German Dominican Theologian and Inquisitor

• He was authorized by Pope Innocent VIII to stamp out witchcraft in Germany in the 1400s

• He and his co-inquisitor had burnt 41 witches who had confessed to having sex with the devil

1486 - Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer: Hammer of Witches / Malleus Maleficarum (All Facts)

• Work which suggests that witches

  • really do fly

  • raised hailstorms and hurtful tempests and lightnings

  • caused sterility

  • made horses go mad under their riders

  • ate children

  • had sex with the devil

  • engaged in sexual orgies

  • engaged in cannibalistic orgies

• Work which provides voluminous evidence of these practices, mostly obtained from torturing suspected witches

• Work which described witchcraft, condemned its practices, and encouraged its suppression

• Work written by German Dominicans and authorized by the pope, whose pages inflamed many peasants who were fearful of satanic attacks on their crops

• Work which was highly misogynistic, obsessed with female lust; with the majority of the namesake accused persons having been women and introducing the concepts and potent images of the namesake persons’ '“Sabbath” or “black mass”

1465 - 1519 - Johannes Tetzel (All Facts)

• German Dominican Friar and Preacher

• His travelling around Germany with a papal bull on a scarlet velvet cushion auctioning indulgences like a common street peddler shocked and inspired Martin Luther to publish his 95 theses against the sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins

1469 - 1521 - Johannes Pfefferkorn (All Facts)

• German Ex-Jewish Catholic Theologian

• He engaged in a long running pamphleteering battle with Johann Reuchlin

  • He had obtained authorization from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, with the help of the Cologne Dominicans to destroy all Hebrew books except the Bible

  • He was opposed by Reuchlin and the Archbishop of Mainz

  • He vented this anger towards Reuchlin, alleging in print that

    • he had accepted bribes from Jews

    • other scholars had written books which Reuchlin claimed as his own

1455 - 1522 - Johann Reuchlin (All Facts)

• German Catholic Humanist Hebraist

  • He first became interested in Hebrew and the Jewish mystical texts of the Kabbalah while visiting Pica de la Mirandola in Florence in Italy

• He was an internationally known scholar who was particularly respected in Italy

• He was brought before the court of the inquisition in Cologne, charged with heresy because of his most famous work

• He opposed Johannes Pfefferkorn and his attempt to destroy all Hebrew books except the Bible

• He was not without hope in his quest to preserve Hebrew literature as the Archbishop of Mainz was a powerful friend of his despite his enemies being that of

  • The Cologne Dominicans

  • The Inquisition courts and their draconian powers

1506 - Johann Reuchlin: On The Rudiments of Hebrew (All Facts)

• Work which shows how the Hebrew language is essential for Christian theology

• Work which is the namesake author’s most famous

1511 - Johann Reuchlin: Augenspiegel (All Facts)

• Work which argues for the preservation of Jewish literature

• Work which was the namesake’s stinging reply to Johannes Pfefferkorn’s charges against him

1488 - 1523 - Ulrich von Hutten (All Facts)

• German Humanist Scholar

  • He came from a wealthy Franconian noble family

  • He studied Greek and Latin in Bologna

• He never ceased to stress the warrior code of a nobleman of the Holy Roman Empire

• He was a staunch opponent of the Roman Catholic Church

  • He was something of a hothead and had long had a reputation for ferocious anti-clericism

1515 - Ulrich von Hutten: Letters from Obscure Men / “Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum” (All Facts)

• Work which was a satire and which was designed to help Johann Reuchlin in his battle to escape from the clutches of the Inquisition

• Work which consists of an amusing skit on the Dominican monks, deliberately written in vile Latin

• Work which is in the form of letters written to monks, teachers, and theologians

  • Work whose letter writer purports to be Ortvinus Gratius, a theologian of the University of Cologne who is (was) one of the principal supports of the Dominicans in their attempt to convict Johann Reuchlin

• Work which portrays monks as having more taste for earthly pleasures than for prayer

  • Work in which the monks portrayed love the wine of the Rhine River more than the wine of the Mass

  • Work in which the letters in it are long on coarse pleasantries and short on theological discussion

• Work whose title refers to another work, “Letters from Illustrious Men” written by humanists who supported the namesake author’s cause

1489 - 1525 - Thomas Müntzer (All Facts)

• German Preacher and Theologian

• He preached in Zwickau

• He had radical political aspirations

• He clashed with Martin Luther

  • He advocated both social and religious reform while Luther advocated that religion was above political and social matters

• He supported (led) the German Peasants’ War / German Peasants’ Revolt

  • He was imprisoned and beheaded as a result

1482 - 1531 - Johannes Oecolampadius (All Facts)

• German Protestant Reformer

• He attended the Marburg Colloquy

1495 - 1535 - Bernard Rothmann (All Facts)

• German Preacher

• He was the Anabaptist Leader of Anabaptist Munster

  • He won the first townspeople of Munster to the Anabaptist cause when he

    • questioned infant baptism

    • promoted a community of goods among Christians

  • He was elected to the city council, the first of many to quickly overtake the Munster city council

• He was killed in the Anabaptist Munster Rebellion

1486 - 1543 - Johann Eck / Johann Maier (All Facts)

• German Catholic Theologian

  • He was also a Renaissance Humanist scholar

  • He hoped to see the revival of the Catholic Church

• He was the Chief Opponent of Martin Luther in his day

  • He was responsible for having Martin Luther excommunicated by the Catholic Church

• He attended the

  • (Second) Diet of Augsburg, supporting Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Catholics

• He published a Catholic version of Luther’s German translation of the Bible

• He died at Ingolstadt

1514 - 1545 - Albert von Brandenburg (All Facts)

• German Cardinal and Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg

• He was deeply in debt to the Fuggers and paid off his debts by selling indulgences, one of the worst offenders of the crime

  • Through his notorious sale of indulgences, he became the catalyst for Martin Luther's Reformation and thus its staunch opponent

1483 - 1546 - Martin Luther (All Facts)

• Leader of the Protestant Reformation

  • He was the effective leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany (the Holy Roman Empire)

• He argued that

  • priests should not stand between men and the Bible

  • faith is a gift from God

  • faith, as a gift from God, cannot be gained by scholarship, despite what his contemporaries, the Humanists, believed

  • the pope was fallible

    • When he implied this, he was summoned to Rome to answer a charge of heresy on this point

• He published

  • the first German Mass

  • a book of hymns

  • a book of catechisms

• He

  • was born of peasant stock to a wealthy copper miner in Eisleben in Saxony

  • was totally committed to the needs of the ordinary people

  • studied nominalist philosophy at the University of Erfurt

  • eventually became an Augustinian monk after a dramatic experience in a thunderstorm in which he decided to enter a convent of the Austin Friars

  • studied St. Augustine heavily and fell in love with his work

  • became a doctor and professor at the University of Wittenberg while living at Austrian Friars

  • eventually abandoned his monastic life and vows as an Augustinian

• He

  • was a big, tough man with disturbing eyes

  • was often vulgar, coarse, and crude in his language and renown for his violent temper; but usually when focusing on the cause of ordinary people, who he felt were exploited and oppressed by the church and secular authorities

  • was immensely proud of his peasant blood, having come from peasant stock himself

  • laughed long, loud, and deeply

  • sang tenor

  • played the flute

  • had a happy home life

    • He married Katarina von Bora, a former nun

      • One time she told him he was too rude, to which he responded that “they [his enemies] teach me to be rude”

    • He fathered six children

• His lectures laid great stress on

  • the Epistles of St. Paul

  • his view that “the just shall live by faith” (“Sola Fide”)

• As a scholar, he was unusual in that

  • he had no sophistication or cunning

  • was open about his views and feelings

  • always wrote in plain language (German)

  • he always made sure to be in tune with the language of the common people by listening to phrases they use in the marketplace

• He deepened his rift with Rome after he published three pamphlets on reform

• During the (First) Imperial Diet of Augsburg,

  • He refused to retract his then-widely-circulated 95 Theses

• He was excommunicated after publicly burning Pope Leo X’s Exsurge Domine Papal Bull, which condemned his 95 Theses as “heretical and scandalous”

  • His breach with the Catholic Church became total when this occurred

  • However, the rebellious German princes helped him to establish the new churches and maintain the Protestant Reformation

• During the Imperial Diet of Worms, he

  • challenged the papal claim that the Papacy was to be the sole authority on the scriptures

  • questioned many of the rights of the priests

  • rejected the belief that bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ

  • affirmed Christians’ personal right to faith

  • moved the audience, whose revolutionary spirit Holy Roman Emperor Charles V feared would affect his power

• After the Imperial Diet of Worms, he

  • was “kidnapped” for his own safety by Duke Frederick of Saxony

  • rejected Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen’s request to form a military branch of German knights to support him and his revolt against the Church

• He clashed with Thomas Müntzer

  • He considered religion to be above political and social matters; while Müntzer advocated both social and religious reform

• His teachings were one of the main causes of the German Peasants’ War / German Peasants’ Revolt

  • However, while he supported many of their aims, he condemned the revolt as a whole, especially because of the atrocities the protestors were carrying out

• He clashed with Ulrich Zwingli

  • He attended the Marbury Colloquy

• He failed to attend the Diet of Augsburg with Philip Melanchthon because he was still in exile from the Holy Roman Empire at that time

  • He made it clear he would not go along with armed resistance to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, but his battle with Catholic theologians was as fierce as ever by this time

• He died at Eisleben in Saxony

  • His body was broken after years of overwork and illness

  • However, his mind was as clear as a bell right to the end

  • He died in a mood of total serenity, despite being renowned for his violent temper

1517 - Martin Luther: 95 Theses (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author argued against the sale of indulgences granting the forgiveness of sins, published on the eve of All Saints’ Day by him having posted the pamphlet on the front door of his church in Wittenberg

• These theses attacked the use of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church

• They were written in Latin

• They mixed fine theological points with emotional attacks on Pope Leo X’s men

• He published these in reaction to his shock when he saw a Dominican named Johannes Tetzel travelling around Germany with a papal bull on a scarlet velvet cushion, auctioning indulgences like a common street peddler

• He argued that selling / auctioning indulgences does not justify suggesting to people that they can buy remission from their sins, even if the money if used to build religious structures like St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome

• In one thesis, he asserted that if the Pope knew of his preacher’s exactions, he would rather have St. Peter’s Basilica reduced to ashes than “built with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep”

• In another thesis, he asserted that any Christian who is truly repentant is entitled to forgiveness, without any indulgences

• Although these were not especially radical, especially in the context of contemporary and prior critics of the Roman Catholic Church, his students who attended his lectures at the University said that the namesake publisher was an unusual man who was developing a radical theology which could easily bring him into head-on collision with the Roman Catholic Church

• Work which was condemned by Pope Leo X in his Papal Bull, Exsurge Domine, as “heretical and scandalous”

1525 - Martin Luther: Against the Murdering Thieving Hordes of Peasants (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author condemned (condemns) the German Peasants’ War / German Peasants’ Revolt

• Work in which the namesake author writes that, “you cannot meet a rebel with reason” and “[that] your best answer is [to] punch him in the face until he has a bloody nose”

• Work which the namesake author wrote because he was deeply shocked by the atrocities committed by the German Peasants (many of whose aims he initially supported), such as when peasants speared the Count of Helfenstein in front of his wife and child at Weinsberg

1534 - Martin Luther: Luther(an) (German) Bible (All Facts)

• Work which consists of the Bible in the (plain) German language, translated by the namesake in his most ambitious work

• Work which allowed Germans who did not understand Latin to be able to read the Bible for themselves

  • Work which allowed the thousands of poor Germans who could not previously read the Holy Scriptures to be able to do so

• Work which allowed the common Germans to purchase it because it could be bought relatively cheaply because of the recent boom in printing presses

• Work which contains thrilling narrative, not dull theology

1497 - 1560 - Philip Melanchthon (All Facts)

• German Protestant (Lutheran) Reformer

  • He was a loyal disciple of Martin Luther, who did not compromise with the Holy Roman Empire or any other entity on matters of essential doctrine

  • He was a close associate of Martin Luther

  • He was influenced by the humanism of Desiderius Erasmus

• He drafted the Augsburg Confession

  • He attended the (Second) Diet of Augsburg to present it

  • He was a pacifist who wanted to avoid common cause with the more rebellious Swiss

• He became the spiritual leader of the Lutheran Church after Martin Luther’s death

• He made great efforts to reconcile opposing factions amongst the Protestant Reformers

  • He attended the Marburg Colloquy

• He died at Wittenberg

1528 - 1590 - Jakob Andreae (All Facts)

• German Lutheran Theologian and Protestant Reformer

• He was the Chancellor at the University of Tubingen

1577 / 1580 - Jakob Andreae: Formula of Concord / Book of Concord (All Facts)

• Work which comprised a formidable tract of some 17K words

• Work which was designed to heal divisions in the Lutheran church at the time

• Work which was published on the day of the jubilee of the Augsburg Confession

• Work which reaffirms (reaffirmed) the Augsburg Confession as the heart of Lutheran doctrine, after the Bible and the “three creeds”

• Work which is conciliatory in tone to Catholic, but fiercely attacks Calvinist views of presedestination as “all false, horrifying, and blasphemous”

1548 - 1606 - Balthasar von Dernbach (All Facts)

• Abbot who presided over the Fulda Witch Trials with the help of his assistant minister Balthasar Ross

1575 - 1624 - Jakob Bohme (All Facts)

• German Lutheran Theologian, Mystic, Philosopher, Theosophist, and Shoemaker

1612 - Jakob Bohme: Aurora (All Facts)

• Work which comprises revelations and meditations on God, man, and nature

• Work in which the namesake author shows a remarkable familiarity with alchemical writings as well as the scriptures

• Work which was condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities at the time of its publication

1623 - Jakob Bohme: Mysterium Magnum (All Facts)

1591 - 1635 - Fredrich Spee (All Facts)

• German Jesuit Priest and Theologian

• He was a courageous opponent of the procedure followed in Germany’s Witch Trials

1631 - Fredrich Spee: Cautio Criminalis (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author gives a passionate plea on behalf of those accused of witchcraft

1601 - 1680 - Athanasius Kircher (All Facts)

• German Jesuit Scholar and Linguist

• He worked on deciphering the Coptic language and Egyptian hieroglyphics