Chapter 5
THE CASE OF THE 1562/63 PEST IN NÜRNBERG
Ronald K. Rittgers
From January 1562 to April 1563, the Protestant city of Nürnberg experienced the worst outbreak of plague in its long history. During this sixteen-month period, some 9,000 of the city’s 40,000 inhabitants succumbed to the deadly pestilence.1 At its peak, the plague claimed as many as 500 people per week.2 The city’s clergy were utterly overwhelmed by the sheer number of funerals to be performed.3 One prominent female burgher observed at the height of the plague, “The clerics like the candles are melting away.”4 Many Nürnbergers left the city, seeking shelter in nearby towns and cities unaffected by plague. A contemporary report claims that the streets of Nürnberg were empty, the majority of citizens having fled for their lives.5
This outbreak of plague in mid-sixteenth-century Nürnberg provides a valuable case study of how the Reformation shaped early modern burgher responses to physical suffering, a topic that has not received adequate scholarly attention. Central to the Evangelical agenda was an attempt to change rather radically how Christians understood and coped with misfortune, part [133]of the reformers’ larger effort to re-Christianize Christendom, that is, to make it less “superstitious,” less “pagan”—at least according to Evangelical lights.6 The Reformation may be seen as a missionary enterprise committed to the re-evangelization of Europe. The goal was to root out what the reformers took to be pagan or quasi-pagan beliefs and practices, and to plant in their place biblical substitutes.
Protestant preachers and their sympathizers had been engaged in this re-Christianization effort in Nürnberg for some forty years when plague struck the city in the early 1560s. Evangelical teaching had made its way into the imperial city in the late 1510s, and then in 1525 the council of patricians who governed the polis had officially adopted the reformed faith, thus making Nürnberg the first imperial city to become Protestant. Because of its early and consistent commitment to the Evangelical cause, along with its size, wealth, and cultural significance, Nürnberg had quickly become a leading center of Protestant reform, especially in southern Germany. By midcentury, Nürnberg was among the most staunchly Lutheran cities in the empire.
What difference, then, did this Protestant identity make in the way Nürnbergers responded to plague? Was there a reformation of attitudes toward suffering in early modern Nürnberg? If so, what did it look like, and was it limited to so-called elites or did it also affect common burghers? Before examining these questions, a brief history of responses to plague in pre-Reformation Nürnberg is in order.
PLAGUE AND LATE MEDIEVAL NÜRNBERG
Prior to the Reformation, Nürnbergers employed several means for contending with the outbreaks of plague that afflicted their city every eleven years or so.7 In 1482, the master singer and barber-surgeon Hans Folz (1450–1513) composed a Plague Regimen (Pestregimen) that listed many of these means. In the first place, Folz recommended immediate flight from the infected area: “Before fear becomes deeply rooted, flee fast, flee far, and return late, so that the next time [of infection] does not become worse than the first.”8 Folz also recommended moderation in eating and drinking; avoidance of all [134]large gatherings, including church attendance; periodic bloodletting and the taking of various purgatives; avoidance of foul smells associated with graves, stagnant water, and human or animal waste; limitation of bodily exertion (including sex) and restraint in emotional expression; avoidance of all unnecessary contact with infected people, especially their breath; and avoidance of the breeze at certain times of day. All of this was very common in late medieval Germany and stemmed from the assumption that plague was the result of poisoned air—in many cases owing to astral influence—and an imbalance in the body’s four humors.9 This explanation, along with its implications for prevention and treatment, continued well into the early modern period.
In keeping with his vocation as a barber-surgeon, Folz made a point of arguing for the validity of natural means of combating plague, insisting they were gifts of God.10 Such means were not to be maligned, provided one did not confuse medicine with magic and other “superstitious” means of coping with misfortune.11 But natural medicine had its limits, something Folz readily acknowledged. The most reliable source of protection was a more narrowly spiritual regimen. “The greatest medicine and the surest way [to avoid plague],” he wrote, “is to do penance, love God above all things, fear him, [and] keep his commandments, completely submitting your will to them.”12 Plague might be the result of poisoned air, but behind this natural cause was the supernatural First Cause, God.13
This emphasis on divine sovereignty over plague, indeed, over all of life, is readily evident in the extant private letters of prominent burghers from the pre-Reformation period. These letters always depict God both as the ultimate cause of plague and as humanity’s final hope for deliverance from it. On 20 September 1520, Linhart Tucher (1487–1568)14 wrote a letter [135]to his father, Anton Tucher (1458–1524),15 from the safe haven of Nördlingen, a small imperial city to which Nürnbergers often fled during outbreaks of plague. Having received news from his father about the course of the plague in Nürnberg, Linhart observed, “I was pleased to learn from your letter that things are more stable at home with respect to the plague. I hope to God that he will continue to give us his grace. There is no plague here and the air is good . . . . My children and I, along with all of our relatives, are fresh and healthy. I hope to God the same is true for you, sir, and yours.”16 Unfortunately for Linhart, his young family did not remain healthy: he lost his wife and two children to the plague.17 The Lord had given and the Lord had taken away.
Given the widespread assumption that God was the ultimate cause of plague, and that God used plague to punish sin, it was logical for Hans Folz to assume that the most important defense against plague was penance and single-hearted devotion to the divine will. This penance could take the form of going to confession, although during outbreaks of plague it more typically meant participation in special penitential processions designed to assuage divine wrath. The Nürnberg city council regularly called for such processions during outbreaks of plague,18 hoping that God would be moved to mercy by these communal displays of contrition.
In addition to individual and corporate acts of penance, Nürnbergers also had recourse to another important means of coping with plague, the intercession of the saints. As was true throughout late medieval Germany, inhabitants of the imperial city regularly turned to the Virgin Mary for protection and healing during times of plague. In 1483, the Nürnberg magistrates instructed the city’s clergy to sing “Salve Regina” every day after vespers and to conduct biweekly processions, all in an effort to ward off the deadly plague that was then threatening the city.19 Similar measures were taken in 1520 during another outbreak of plague.20 That burghers took [136]these measures to heart is illustrated by their regular custom during plague of commending their loved ones to the care of God and the Virgin Mary. For example, on 23 August 1520, Anton Tucher received a letter from his sister-in-law, Cordula Anthoni Deylin, with the following conclusion: “I commend you to Almighty God and the Virgin Mary that they will protect you from the sickness.”21
Pre-Reformation Nürnbergers also sought protection from the two most important plague-saints, St. Sebastian, to whom burghers dedicated a hospital for plague victims,22 and St. Rochus, whose cult the city’s faithful helped spread throughout early modern Germany.23 As was true throughout late medieval Europe, devotion to the cult of the saints in Nürnberg went hand in hand with a desire for protection and healing from misfortune and sickness. It was believed that the saints—and especially the Virgin—could persuade God not to shoot his flaming missiles at Christendom, or, in the event that God had already let them fly, provide healing for those pierced by the divine arrows.
[137]PLAGUE, SUFFERING, AND THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REFORMATION IN NÜRNBERG
The Nürnberg council’s decision to adopt the Evangelical faith in 1525 had immediate consequences for the way burghers were expected to cope with plague and other forms of suffering. As part of the council’s larger effort to combat “superstition” and “idolatry” in the imperial city, the magistrates abolished most saints’ days,24 declaring the veneration of the saints to be unbiblical, as it detracted from Christ’s unique mediatory role between God and humanity.25 This move marked the official end of the cults of Saints Sebastian and Rochus in the imperial city. The council also prohibited the singing of the “Salve Regina”26 and abolished traditional processions and private masses. Following Luther, leaders of the Evangelical movement in Nürnberg argued that the true Christian had no need of such “pagan” practices: faith alone in the good God who cloaked himself in suffering and the cross should suffice, come what may.27 The new teaching about salvation was supposed to change the way believers understood and coped with suffering.
The Nürnberg preacher Wenzeslaus Linck discussed this change in a 1528 pamphlet entitled How a Christian Person Should Console Himself in Suffering (Wie sich ein Christen mensch im leyden trösten sölle). Linck explained that the believer did not have to view her suffering as a punishment for sin, because Christ had already borne the full penalty for sin on the cross. When the Christian was united with Christ through faith, both her sin and her suffering came to belong to him, and his righteousness now belonged to her. Thus, the Christian could be confident that she did not suffer as a thief or a criminal, but “as an innocent saint” (als ein vnschuldiger heylige), and her suffering was not a payment for sin, but simply a “pleasing sacrifice to God” (ein angeneme opffer fu[e]r Got).28 Suffering was no longer a good work that atoned for (the penalty of) sin; it was now a test of faith in Christ’s work on the cross, and thus of the Christian’s [138]willingness to “let God be God,” that is, to see God as the creator and source of all things, especially salvation.
The city fathers sought to promote this understanding of suffering further when they adopted the Brandenburg-Nürnberg Kirchenordnung (1533),29 an Evangelical guide for worship and belief that was extremely influential in the German Reformation.30 The ratification of this church ordinance marked a decisive and final break with the imperial city’s spiritual overlord, the bishop of Bamberg, and signaled the magistrates’ intention to become Nürnberg’s new spiritual overlords. The Kirchenordnung had the force of law in the imperial city and its surrounding environs: the clergy who ministered at the council’s pleasure were required to preach, teach, preside, and exercise pastoral care in accordance its stipulations, or forfeit their posts.
The authors of the new church ordinance were Andreas Osiander, the leading preacher and reformer in the city, and Johannes Brenz, an influential reformer in Schwäbisch Hall. Osiander contributed a section to the church ordinance that was specifically designed to encourage the Evangelical approach to suffering. Entitled “Concerning the Cross and Suffering” (Vom kreuz und leiden), it urged pastors to dissuade their flocks from turning to magic and “superstition”—both pagan and Catholic—as they faced suffering, and instead to see God as the author of all misfortune, the ultimate end of which was their temporal and eternal good. The common folk were to trust in God’s goodness, knowing that God only disciplined those whom he loved (Hebrews 12:3–11).31 Such instructions on the pastoral care of the sick and the suffering were a common feature of most Evangelical church ordinances.
The clergy in Nürnberg and its surrounding environs soon had an opportunity to put Osiander’s advice into practice. In the summer of 1533, plague struck the city with unprecedented ferocity. One contemporary witness claimed that fully one-third of Nürnberg’s 40,000 inhabitants—nearly 13,000 people—left the city for fear of their lives.32 By the time the deadly pestilence had relented in February of 1534, over 5,800 inhabitants of the city had succumbed to its ravages.33
[139]The plague of 1533 marked the first time Nürnberg faced the deadly pestilence as a Protestant city. The precedents set and measures taken in 1533 had a direct bearing on how the city would deal with plague in the future, including the outbreak in 1562. In many ways, the city’s response was thoroughly traditional. On 16 July 1533, the magistrates issued a document authored by the city’s doctors entitled A Short Regimen for How One Should Conduct Oneself during Plague (Ein kurtz Regiment, wie sich zu zeiten der pestilentz zuhalten sey). It recommended many of the measures seen in Hans Folz’s Plague Regimen: flight from infected persons and places; avoidance of large crowds; recourse to various “potions” to ward off or treat plague; avoidance of putrid air; modesty in eating and physical activity; periodic bloodletting, sweating, and taking of purgatives.34
While the Short Regimen recommended little that was new by way of practical means of combating plague, the religious measures it urged were quite novel, and clearly revealed the impact of the Reformation on how the city’s leaders viewed suffering and plague. The 1533 Short Regimen began by observing,
In such dangerous times there is nothing more necessary, fruitful, salutary, or comforting than for a Christian to lift up his heart and mind [gamüt] to God the Father through a genuine, strong, [and] constant faith in the gracious [gnadenreich] gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to believe without doubt that [God] is our ever-gracious Father, who has mercifully forgiven us our sin through the suffering and death of Christ, and who will truly and certainly give us eternal life when this life is over.
The Evangelical emphases on faith, grace, and the certainty of salvation are readily apparent. The Regimen then continued by encouraging burghers to regard all that God might do with them in the meantime as the efforts of a loving father to discipline his beloved children and to conform them to the image of Christ, their lord and hertzogen (duke). It followed from this that whatever God ordained for them—joy or sorrow, health or illness, life or death—was to be received as “nothing more than good gifts or healing medicine [heylsame ertzney] that flow forth from the tender and good hands of our heavenly father.” The Regimen then exhorted burghers to ask God in this same faith to protect and rescue them from the plague through his angels and through his gifts of natural medicine. If burghers approached God in such faith they could be assured that he would hear them, although God was left free to respond as he saw fit. The Regimen went on to argue that [140]those who entrusted themselves to God would experience joy, security, and health in their earthly lives, and also be able to bear up under times of crisis with greater ease.35 In other words, there were tangible benefits in this life for those who embraced justification by faith—one could face hell on earth with the same confidence one could have before the prospect of hell itself at the Last Judgment.36 In both cases, the source of this confidence was faith, a trust in God that looked away from human experience to assess God’s character and instead looked toward the Word—that is, Christ and Christ’s promises contained in scripture—for knowledge of God’s true intentions toward humankind. Martin Luther once referred to this Word-based epistemology as a “Christian art,” conceding that it was a very difficult skill to master.37
Nine days after the Nürnberg council issued the doctors’ Short Regimen, Osiander delivered a sermon on Psalm 91 that dealt with the issue of flight from plague.38 Osiander’s central task in this sermon was to deliver his audience from the false fear he believed was causing them to respond to the pestilence in an unchristian manner. The Nürnberg preacher observed that [141]many people had completely abandoned their obligation to love their neighbors as themselves as they sought to preserve their own lives. The result was that the gospel was defamed and God was moved to punish Nürnberg even more for its lack of obedience to his commandments.39 In order to combat this inordinate fear and its deleterious effects on the city, Osiander endeavored to teach his auditors how they could “flee” the plague in a more Christian way, namely, through repentance, faith, and loving service to neighbor.40
The Nürnberg preacher stated several times that it was not his intention to denigrate natural means for dealing with plague. He simply wanted to make sure that those who employed such measures did nothing contrary to their faith in God or to their obligation to love and serve others, whether in their specific vocations or in their more general calling as Christians.41 Osiander similarly maintained that he was not opposed to naturalistic explanations of the plague (such as movement of the stars, comets, unusual weather, winds from the south, putrid water), as long as one looked to the word to find the ultimate cause of such disasters.42 According to Osiander, the clear testimony of scripture was that plague was an expression of divine wrath against human sin, especially the sins of unbelief, disobedience, and lack of gratitude for the gospel (cf. Deut. 28:15, 21–22, 59–61; Num. 13:27–14:13; 2 Sam. 24:10–16).43
Because plague was ultimately the result of sin, Osiander concluded that the surest way to “flee” the pestilence was to repent.44 Hans Folz had recommended the same course of action some fifty years earlier. However, Osiander’s call to repentance had a uniquely Evangelical tone. For him, the [142]root sin was unbelief, lack of faith in God, which necessarily led to diminished love for neighbor, because the source of this love, God, only dwelt in the hearts of those who put their trust in him.45 According to the Nürnberg preacher, inhabitants of the imperial city had committed “spiritual adultery” (gaistliche hurerey) by trusting in reason and natural remedies, rather than in God.46 Only by placing their full confidence in God alone would they be delivered from fear and premature death—this is what God promised in Psalm 91.47 Osiander argued that those who trusted in their own wisdom, strength, wealth, and friends would ultimately be disappointed. The Nürnberg preacher explained, “when people want to hide themselves behind such things it is the same as if they were to hide behind a ladder, and when they want to seek protection in such things, it is the same as if a wolf were supposed to protect a sheep or a goose.”48
Osiander conceded that those who put their full trust in God might still perish, though similar to the doctors’ Regimen, the preacher claimed that those who replaced fear with faith and flight with service to neighbor generally fared better than did their fearful and self-absorbed counterparts.49 Still, Osiander readily acknowledged that believers and unbelievers alike succumbed to the plague. The difference was that believers died at the divinely preordained time and went to heaven, while unbelievers had their length of days cut short and went to hell. God used plague both to summon the faithful home and to dismiss the faithless to damnation. Osiander conceded that this distinction was only open to the eye of faith.50
Both the city council’s 1533 Short Regimen and Osiander’s plague sermon were reprinted in 1543, when some 1,500 burghers succumbed to [143]plague,51 and then again in 1562, when the death toll was much higher. Between 1533 and 1562, the civic and religious leaders of Nürnberg expended a great deal of effort to uproot the old faith and plant the new one in the hearts and minds of burghers. Magistrates, teachers, and preachers made use of every means at their disposal—legislation, catechesis, preaching, private instruction, and the printing press—to promote the re-Christianization of Nürnberg. They were quite successful at changing the theological content of sermons and catechisms, and enjoyed similar success at reforming worship and public piety. But what about the beliefs and practices of burghers as they faced suffering; did the reformation of official policy correspond to a change of burgher hearts, minds, and actions?
BURGHER RESPONSES TO THE PLAGUE OF 1562/63
The Reformation did little to dissuade burghers from fleeing Nürnberg during plague. Those with means and connections outside the city followed the advice of Hans Folz and fled. Osiander never condemned this traditional means of contending with plague in his 1533 sermon, but he was clearly not satisfied that all refugees had fulfilled their Christian duties to their neighbors before escaping the infected area. Osiander was less willing to justify flight than Luther in the latter’s 1527 pamphlet, Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague.52 According to Osiander, the Reformation seemed only to have decreased love of neighbor, as burghers fled in unprecedented numbers. The Nürnberg preacher lamented this development, as did the faithful remnant in 1562/63,53 but these expectations of human altruism were rather high, especially given the Evangelical view of human moral potential and the severity of the 1533 and 1562/63 plagues.
The Reformation also seems to have done little to discourage the stoicism that was so much part of traditional burgher piety.54 One continues to see this sense of resignation before the divine will in the letters of prominent burghers. In February of 1562, Linhart Tucher, who by now had become both a Protestant and a leading member of the city council, wrote a letter to one Hans Tiedeshoren in which he commented on the death of a mutual friend (it is not clear from the letter if the friend died of plague or some other cause). Tucher wrote, “I have a true empathy with [the deceased’s] beloved and remaining relatives, but we still must allow the will of God to please us and we must be prepared, for he will also summon us.”55 A [144]burgher named Sebastian Imhoff (1511–72) was similarly stoic in the face of death. He wrote from his safe refuge in nearby Nördlingen to a Nürnberg relative, observing of a friend’s passing, “because it is the will of God, one must commend the situation to him. Whatever God allows here on earth is most fitting.”56 Imhoff observed in another letter that people could take whatever measures they wanted against the plague; “nevertheless, the whole affair is in the hands of God, whom we must ask to take away this punishment from us.”57 A city council member named Joachim Haller (1524–70) informed a friend in Speyer about the progress of the plague in Nürnberg, and then shared the news that the recipient’s cousin had “paid the debt of nature” while living in Nördlingen. Haller concluded, “because it is according to the gracious decree of God, we must give it over with patience to his divine will.”58
Far from discouraging traditional burgher stoicism, Evangelical teaching may have actually strengthened it.59 Protestant Reformers were opposed to the cult of the saints, one of the late medieval Christian’s most important sources of consolation in the midst of suffering. The result, some scholars maintain,60 was an even greater sense of resignation before the divine will, because now the Christian was left with far fewer defenses before the “visitations” of heaven. The extant burgher letters attest the decreasing importance of the saints in lay piety, along with a pronounced emphasis on the sovereignty of God.
The saints begin to fade from burgher letters after 1525, and then disappear altogether by the mid-1530s. Objects associated with the cult of the saints also disappear. Inventories of burgher households conducted in 1530 discovered that about half of the households contained rosaries, while similar inventories conducted from 1550 to 1560 revealed just one.61 It is possible that some burghers continued to invoke the saints.62 A church visitation that took place just before the outbreak of the 1562/63 plague discovered several instances of the common folk turning to traditional piety—and magic—when faced with misfortune.63 However, this visitation was limited to the countryside surrounding Nürnberg; it did not examine the religious life of the city itself. A sermon preached during the 1543 plague reminded [145]burghers that the practice of seeking help from the saints during plague belonged to Nürnberg’s papist past. The preacher Veit Dietrich urged his hearers to call upon “the one, eternal, almighty God, who will help in such times of need, and from whom alone one can seek help, and nowhere else.”64
It seems that many burghers had taken the Protestant message concerning the saints to heart. To cite one striking example, up until 1528, a merchant’s son named Michael Behaim (1510–69) began all his letters with “Praise be to God and Mary.” From 1528 on, he changed the dedication to “Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ.” This change is quite significant because Michael had earlier believed that the Virgin Mary had helped to deliver him from the plague in Milan.65 The opening dedications of letters written during the 1533 plague reveal a similar resolve to look to God alone for hope and help in times of suffering. Instead of a traditional header like “In the name of Jesus and Mary” (In nomen Jhus ett maria), one finds more Protestant sounding dedications: “Glory to God” (Laus deo),66 or “God our protection” (Got unser schutz), or “God our consolation” (Got unser trost).67 One finds the same resolve in letters from the early 1560s. When a nobleman named Christoff Kress (1541–83) wrote to comfort his mother at the passing of his father—this was before the outbreak of plague in 1562—he concluded his letter, “May Almighty God give you health and a long life, in whose protection and defense I now commend you.”68 Linhart Tucher concluded his letter to Hans Tiedeshoren in similar fashion, saying that they should commend themselves to God “every moment” (alle augenplick).69 There are no intermediaries between God and humanity in these letters, save Christ alone. The authors simply commend themselves and [146]their loved ones to God, and humbly accept his will for their lives, whether it means life or death.
Burghers further down the socioeconomic ladder displayed a similar stoicism—or perhaps, faith—during the plague of 1562/63. In early December of 1563, the shoemaker-poet and master singer Hans Sachs (1494–1576) published a poem that took up the controversial issue of flight from the plague.70 The city’s doctors had recommended flight,71 but Osiander’s sermon had raised concerns about this advice. Sachs had known Osiander quite well before the latter’s departure from the city in the 1540s. The shoemaker had been an early supporter of the Reformation in Nürnberg, and had authored the single most important artisan pamphlet of the Evangelical movement, The Wittenberg Nightingale (1523). In his 1562 poem, Sachs sided with Osiander on the issue of flight from the plague.
The main body of the poem is a dialogue between the Tichter (poet), Sachs, and an interlocutor referred to simply as Der Freund, a character based on an actual friend of Sachs’s who had put the question about flight to him at the beginning of the plague. Sachs responds to his friend’s query in the poem, saying, “O friend, how may a person escape the hand of God in this or that land so that God does not know how to find him?”72 The friend then references the doctors’ advice to flee the city and thus escape the poison air that is causing the plague. Sachs retorts that if the air were really poisoned then everyone would die, because everyone breathes the same air. When the friend asks why so many die in Nürnberg and not elsewhere, Sachs replies that God has sent the plague to punish sinners in the city. His friend objects that many seemingly innocent people die as well, including children. Sachs argues, “God through divine wisdom does the best in all things. If he takes away a young blood, the child will be delivered from the many burdens it would have to suffer here on earth.”73 The friend again objects, charging, “Whether a person is evil or pious, God does not much care” (Er sey geleich böß oder frumb, Gott kümmert sich nicht vil darumb).74 This is too much for the pious and elderly Sachs (the shoemaker was in his late sixties at the time of writing): “This word that you have spoken does not proceed from a Christian heart.”75 Sachs reminds his friend that according to the gospel, God counts every hair on our heads, and not one can fall to the ground without his willing it (Matt. 10:30; Luke 12:7). Sachs writes, “I let this word still my heart, that no one will die in this time unless he has been ordained to it. Everyone’s end is set; we can do nothing about it [147]and will not die before our appointed time. Therefore, I will not flee, because God’s will is my goal.”76
The friend then confesses to Sachs that he wants to escape all the gruesome sights and sounds of the dying in Nürnberg. But the poet urges his friend not to ignore death, especially his own; he must consider his mortality well and frequently, which is the only sure antidote to fear of death and an even surer curb to sin and disobedience to God’s word. When the friend persists in his fear of death, especially a death that comes so quickly and takes so many at once, Sachs replies that it is better to go quickly than to linger, provided one is prepared to die. The poet then observes that if one regards the present situation from the perspective of faith one will conclude that “at this time heaven stands open.”77
The friend still wishes to flee, and points to the safety and happiness of those who have done so, especially the wealthy. But Sachs charges that such people cannot flee the fear of death, which only grows as one seeks to suppress it. Additionally, those who flee are consumed by concern for their servants and possessions that remain behind, and worry about the trustworthiness of those they have left in charge of their affairs.78 When such people return home, others refuse contact with them and their businesses crumble. They die sick with worry and a guilty conscience. Sachs repeats his determination not to flee Nürnberg: “If I die then it will happen in the name of God, to whom I commend everything together.”79
“You foolish man!” his friend exclaims, arguing that in Nürnberg there is only death and sadness.80 Sachs remains firm in his resolve, and concludes the dialogue by saying that he will stay in the city and write useful poems, which is exactly what he did.
In the summer of 1563, Sachs produced another poem that captured very well his Evangelical understanding of suffering.81 In the poem, a commentary on Hosea 13, Sachs lamented the all too human tendency toward trusting in creatures rather than in the Creator, forgetting that God alone is the source of all good. God responds to such disobedience by sending war, famine, and plague. According to Sachs, God wishes to communicate [148]through these punishments and their removal the following message: “O man, I alone am your salvation; in yourself stands only your destruction.”82
It is the “alone” part of this sentence that makes it so uniquely Protestant.83 The Evangelical burgher stood alone before God alone on the basis of faith alone.84 There were no intermediaries, no ways to access the divine, save Christ alone (and perhaps the angels).85 In this scheme, the believer’s sense of confidence rested squarely on the character of the God who so completely ruled all things. Was this God for him or not? As Steven Ozment has observed,
In the classic Protestant traditions . . . as distinct from the reigning Thomist tradition of the later Middle Ages, God’s freedom and sovereignty were seen to transcend his goodness and love, though Protestants believed that the latter were also very real. One approached such a God not with the offerings of good works expecting fairness, but in simple faith and trust hoping for mercy. Such a perspective on religion, with its roots in late medieval Augustinianism and Ockhamism, made the nature of God a far more burning question for Protestants than the quality of an individual’s moral life. Everything in religion hinged on God’s keeping his word and proving to be as good as the Bible portrayed him.86
Hans Sachs believed that God was both faithful and good, despite appearances to the contrary. This is why he responded so strongly to his friend’s charge that God was purely arbitrary in his dealings with human beings—that God did not care whom his pestilential arrows killed, he simply let them fly. Sachs did not have a St. Sebastian to intercept such arrows for him, or even a Virgin Mary to persuade God not to fire his missiles in the first place—he had flatly rejected the cult of the saints already in The Wittenberg Nightingale.87 Sachs had God and God alone, which is the way the [149]Protestant Reformers and the Protestant God wanted things. As it turned out, Sachs survived the 1562/63 plague in Nürnberg, a fact he no doubt attributed to the sovereign will of God alone.
N
Based on the relevant sources from the 1562/63 plague in Nürnberg, one can safely conclude that the Protestant identity of the city directly influenced the way its leaders and at least some of its inhabitants—from both upper and middle classes—responded to the suffering associated with the deadly pestilence. To be sure, there was still much continuity between how pre- and post-Reformation burghers understood and coped with misfortune, but the “sola existence” encouraged by Protestant teaching marks an important departure from late medieval piety. This is especially true where the abolition of the cult of the saints is concerned.
Several scholars have argued that the Evangelical rejection of the saints was part of a larger process of “disenchantment” that left Protestant laypeople with very few resources as they faced suffering.88 The eventual result, such scholars contend, was a heightened apocalyptic outlook and concomitant fear of the devil,89 a fascination with astrology and various signs and portents,90 an obsession with moral discipline as a way of seeking divine favor,91 a stoic resignation in face of the inscrutable will of an utterly free and sovereign God,92 and a generalized sense of anxiety and collective guilt for having squandered the gospel that God provided to Germany through Luther.93
The stoicism in Evangelical burgher piety is clearly present in the letters of Protestant laypeople, and may well have grown stronger owing to the rejection of the saints, coupled with other Evangelical innovations. One may also find evidence in the extant sources for some of these other scholarly claims. For example, during the plague of 1533, eighteen-year-old Katherina Tucher (1515–61), daughter of Linhart, displayed in her letters a fascination with portents in the heavens. She wrote to her father from nearby Nördlingen about the signs she had recently seen in the sky, insisting that they were [150]not carriers of poison, as some thought; rather, they were portents of the Last Judgment, which would soon be upon Germans. The only appropriate response was to pray for divine mercy and the reformation of their hearts.94 It should be noted that Catholic laypeople could display a similar fascination with portents. Katharina was almost certainly a Protestant, and therefore may have been predisposed toward such a preoccupation, but there was nothing exclusively Protestant about it.
One also finds in the extant sources a certain anxiety about how the apparent abuse of the gospel has provoked divine wrath. After the 1533 plague subsided, the city council ordered its preachers to read out an exhortation to their congregations that specifically blamed the pestilence on the burghers’ sinful lives and “extreme ingratitude” (ubermessigen undanckbarkeit).95 The sin of ingratitude became a major source of concern for Evangelical leaders as the sixteenth century wore on,96 and also helped them explain, in part, why Protestants continued to suffer catastrophes like the plague, even though they had renounced the alleged idolatry and superstitions of popish religion. God was punishing his chosen ones for showing indifference toward the gift of the gospel. In some ways, God was now more “dangerous” than ever, because his expectations of his children had increased considerably with Luther’s “discovery” of the gospel. Much was expected from those to whom much had been given.
One sees these heightened moral expectations in the 1562 edition of the doctors’ Plague Regimen issued by the Nürnberg city council. The Regimen maintained that God had sent the plague as a punishment for “our godless, unrepentant lives and . . . great sins.” Therefore, the most effective means of combating the pestilence was heartfelt confession coupled with a firm faith in the grace of God and a resolve to follow Christ more obediently in the future.97 While there was nothing new about seeing plague as a punishment for sin, it is significant that the 1533 edition contained no such statements; it was much more consoling in tone. Another plague ordinance [151]issued by the city council in 1562 similarly asserted that the pestilence was God’s “rod” to punish Nürnbergers for their “manifold, sinful transgressions.” These transgressions included blasphemy, swearing, gluttony, lack of discipline, and lack of love for neighbors. The ordinance urged repentance and conversion to God so that the divine “Allmechtigkeyt” (omnipotence) might become “Barmhertzigkeyt” (mercy).98 Similar to Osiander and Sachs, the city’s leaders were obviously concerned that the Reformation had not had its intended effect on burgher morality, and now there was hell to pay, at least for the ungodly.
The plague sources from sixteenth-century Nürnberg thus provide support for some of the claims made by recent scholars. However, these sources also challenge the aggregate image of the Evangelical burgher that emerges from this scholarly work. The Evangelical burgher was not an anxiety-ridden protopuritan completely devoid of the spiritual consolation preached by Luther and others.99 Recent scholarship has presented a one-sided picture of Evangelical burgher mentalities. There is no room for Hans Sachs and those like him in this scholarly literature. There is no discussion of burghers who may have actually preferred the Evangelical approach to suffering over its late medieval alternative, who may have found it more, rather than less, consoling. In fact, such a possibility does not seem to have occurred to most of these scholars. Perhaps this is because they have focused exclusively on what the Reformation took away from burghers and largely ignored the resources it offered as a replacement. Ironically, these scholars wind up depicting Evangelical burghers in the same way that a previous generation of scholars depicted the late medieval laity—as spiritually anxious and psychologically burdened.100
Standing alone before God alone on the basis of faith alone certainly had the potential to increase burgher anxiety in the face of suffering, and it most likely did so for a portion of those early modern Protestants who took their religion seriously. As Luther observed, the Christian art of suffering was difficult to learn. But this “sola existence” could also reduce a burgher’s anxiety, as the testimony of Hans Sachs and many others clearly illustrates. The source of this consolation was a belief articulated by Wenzeslaus Linck, the doctors’ Regimen, and Osiander’s sermon: that suffering and adversity were not finally indicative of God’s true character. Yes, God punished sinners, but God did not punish his faithful children—he only disciplined them. Those who clung to God and his promises through faith could have confidence that their suffering was not a punishment for sin, but a test of faith and call to greater conformity to Christ. Nor did the faithful Christian need to view her suffering as a summons to penance: she neither could nor [152]needed to appease God with her good works. She needed only to trust in God’s good work in Christ. This divine good work transformed her into “an innocent saint” who no longer needed the traditional saints to protect her and intercede for her, because the full penalty for sin had been paid by Christ. God was no longer angry with her, provided she was in Christ. Armed with this confidence, the Evangelical burgher was freed from the burden of having to “read” her life for signs of divine favor or wrath, an integral part of traditional burgher piety. She could accept the hardships (and joys) of life with patience and humility, knowing they came from the hand of the gracious God who had shown himself to be good and loving beyond measure in Christ.101 Surely this approach to suffering could console as effectively as its Catholic counterpart—it certainly did so for Hans Sachs.102 Scholars may concede this point, but few have explored it in their work. The result has been an impoverished understanding of pastoral theology and lay piety in the Reformation.
[153]ABBREVIATIONS
AOGA Andreas Osiander d.A., Gesamtausgabe, edited by Gerhard Müller, 10 vols. (Gütersloh: Gütersloh Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1975–97).
GNM-HA Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Historisches Archiv (Nürnberg)
LW Luther’s Works. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, 55 vols. American edition, St. Louis: Concordia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1955–76.
StadtAN Stadtarchiv Nürnberg
WA D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 127 vols. Weimar,1883–.
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1 The official number of plague victims was 9,034; Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 40. See also StadtAN, Reichsstadt Deputation 480.
2 Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 40.
3 At times the clergy resorted to burying the dead in mass graves; Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 107–8.
4 On 2 October 1562, Marggrettha Cristoff Hallerin wrote to her brother, Paulus Behaim, who was then living in nearby Fischbach, about the progress of the plague in Nürnberg. She observed, “des strebens [sic] halben wiss das es ser uber hand nymt . . . es ist 2 tag so gar hefftig gestorben / das es der pfaffen vnnd der kertzen syn zurunen / der almechtig got wol vns allen genedig vnnd parnhertzig sein. vnnd wol seinen zorn vonn vns abwenden.” GNM-HA, Rep. II/67, Behaim Archiv, Nr. 29h, Paulus I, Briefe von verschiedenen an denselben (860 Dok.) v. 1533–1568, VIII Faszikel von 1559–1568, item 21.
5 Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 46.
6 Hendrix, Recultivating the Vineyard, esp. xvii. On the malleability of the term “superstition” in early modern Europe, see Parish and Naphy, Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe, 1–2.
7 Charlotte Bühl (“Die Pestepidemien,” 123) states that from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century Nürnberg experienced plague on average every 10.3 years, while the figure for the whole of Germany was 11.1 years. In her more recent study, Carolin Porzelt (Die Pest in Nürnberg, 37) claims that Nürnberg suffered outbreaks of plague every eleven years. In 1490, a prominent Nürnberger named Sebald Schreyer observed that the plague “gemainklich in zehen oder zwelf Jahren ungeverlich ein mal ereignet.” Quoted in Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 37.
8 “Pestregimen in Prosa,” in Hans Folz, ed. Fischer, 1:434, lines 196–97. Folz also produced a rhymed version of the “Pestregimen” that appeared earlier in the same year; “Pesteregimen,” in Hans Folz, ed. Fischer, 1:412–28. In recommending his audience to “flee fast, flee far, and return late,” Folz was, in fact, repeating a commonplace of the time, often expressed in its Latin formulation, “Cede mox, recede longe, redi tarde” see Mormando, “Response to the Plague in Early Modern Italy,” in Hope and Healing, 15–16.
9 Sebald Schreyer (see note 7 above) accounted for the 1490 plague in the following way: “Durch die wurckung der cörper des himmels [habe] sich in disen landen vergiftung des luftes regirung der pestilenz begeben.” Caesar, “Sebald Schreyer, 109. See also Esser, Pest, Heilsangst und Frömmigkeit, 14–15.
10 “Pestregimen,” in Hans Folz, ed. Fischer, 1:429, line 19.
11 Folz observed, “ . . . wir finden, das worhaftige erczney, so sie an zauberlist, karackter, segen oder anders unglaubes halben nit beswert werden, nit zu versmeen sint.” “Pestregimen,” in Hans Folz, ed. Fischer, 1:430, lines 27–29. Here we see evidence of the Catholic Christianization campaign that pre-dated the Reformation.
12 Folz asserted, “die höchst erczney und der sicherst weg ist: puß thun und got ob allen dingen liben, in fürchten, seine gepot halten und im deinen willen gancz heimseczen.” “Pestregimen,” in Hans Folz, ed. Fischer, 1:434, lines 193–95.
13 The private letters of prominent burghers reflect Folz’s attempt to combine natural and spiritual means of combating plague, all the while giving priority of place to the latter. On 25 October 1506, council member Michael Behaim (1459–1511) wrote to his son, Friedrich (1491–1533), who was then serving as a merchant’s apprentice in Lyon, that he should observe the following advice when faced with plague: “gee nit vil unter die Leut vnd gee nit nüchtern aus iß das pulffers vnd anders das dir die muter geschichkt hat vnd piß frum vnd gotz forchtig daß ist die pest ertzenney.“ GNM-HA, Rep. II/67, Behaim Archiv, no. 64, Friedrich VII, Sohn Michels Briefwechsel, von 1503–1533. For a discussion of how late medieval theologians related natural and supernatural causes in seeking to account for plague, see Esser, Pest, Heilsangst und Frömmigkeit, 37, 56–57.
14 Although Evangelical teaching was present in Nürnberg in 1520, there is no evidence in Linhart’s letters that he had embraced it. He continued to greet the recipients of his letters in the name of Christ and the Virgin Mary.
15 From 1507 on, Anton was Nürnberg’s chief financial officer (Vorderster Losunger), arguably the most influential governmental position in the whole city; Beer, “Private Correspondence in Germany,” 933.
16 “So hab ich in eurm schreyben gern vernomen das do haympt mit dem sterben zimlich stett hoff zu gott er soll sein genad furtter auch mit thaillen / / man weyß hie gar von keinem sterben zu sagen und ist gutter luft . . . so pin ich sampt kindern und allem anndern gesindt frysch und gesunt der gleiche hoff ich zu gott E. W. auch seyen.” StadtAN, Rep. E 29 IV, Fasz. I, 10a: 9 Briefe des Linhart Tucher (1487–1568) an seinen Vater Anton Tucher den Alteren, no. 2. On Linhart Tucher, see Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 38:770–72 (available online at mdz1.bib-bvb.de/~ndb/adb_index).
17 Beer, “Private Correspondence in Germany,” 936.
18 For example, during the 1483/84 plague, the city council ordered penitential processions in both parish churches and in the city’s monasteries from early 1484 through Lent of the same year; Schlemmer, Gottesdienst und Frömmigkeit, 276.
19 The council members ordered, “der regierenden pestilentz halber alle tag nach der vesper zu lob der Hymelkunigen Marie die Antiphon Salve Regina zu singen mit der dazudienenden collecten [und] in iren gotsheusern zwischen hie und Egidii die wochen zwiemal proceß halten und got umb mittelung seiner gnade der pestilentz und auch des gestrengen dürren wetters halben demütigklich anzeruffen.” Dormeier, “St. Rochus,” 35.
20 See Schlemmer, Gottesdienst und Frömmigkeit, 276.
21 “damit befyl ich auch dem almechtigen got und der junckfrauwen maria das euch woln behuten vor der kranckeyt . . . .” StadtAN, E 29 IV, Fasz. II, 5a, no. 1.
22 According to tradition, St. Sebastian had survived the efforts of a Roman execution squad armed with bows and arrows. Hence it was believed that he could help Christians endure God’s arrows of plague, war, and famine. On Sebastian, see Mormando, “Response to the Plague in Early Modern Italy,” in Hope and Healing, 30–31; and Sheila Barker’s essay in this volume. In 1501, Sebald Schreyer announced his plans to found a hospital for those suffering from plague that would be dedicated to St. Sebastian. A notice was nailed to the doors of a Nürnberg parish church that promised donors protection from serious illness through the intercession of St. Sebastian, along with an indulgence. The notice read, “durch furpet des lieben heiligen und nothelffers sant Sebastians, in deß ere auch an sollichem haus ein capellen gepawt wirt, den lon von got mit behuttung vor sollicher swerer kranckheit erlangen, sich auch darinnen teilhaftig machen mogen deß ablaß, so dartzu gegeben ist.” Dormeier, “St. Rochus,” 34.
23 Rochus (Roch in French, Rocco in Italian) was a medieval Christian who had reportedly healed others of plague and had even survived the deadly pestilence himself; Worcester, “Saint Roch vs. Plague, Famine, and Fear,” in Hope and Healing, 164–65. Nürnbergers contributed a great deal of money to the cult of St. Rochus in their city, a fact illustrated by the elaborate altar dedicated to the saint in the St. Lorenz church, one of the earliest and certainly most impressive of its kind in late medieval Germany. One of the external panels of the altar has St. Rochus praying the following prayer:
O got zu dir ich schrey vn[d] gliff,
Dem folck vm solch rett[u]ng vn[d] hilff,
Wem pestilentz ode[m] vergifft,
Des luffts forcht oder grawen stifft,
Vnd dir zu ern mich ruffen an,
Welstu dar in nit sterbe[n] lan.
(Dormeier, “St. Rochus,” 27)
24 StadtAN, Rep A6, Mandate, 1525, Mai 24, “Neuordnung der gesetzlichen Feiertage,” Einblattdruck.
25 On Lutherans and the cult of the saints, see Heming, Protestants and the Cult of the Saints; and Kolb, For All the Saints.
26 See Dormeier, “St. Rochus,” chap. 7.
27 See the following works by council secretary Lazarus Spengler: “Ein tröstliche christliche Anweisung und Arznei in allen Widerwärtigkeiten” (1521), “Ein kurzer Begriff und Unterrichtung eines ganzen wahrhaften christlichen Wesens” (1522), and “Ein kurzer Begriff, wie sich ein wahrhafter Christ in allem seinem Wesen und Wandel gegen Gott und seinen Nächsten halten soll” (1525), in Lazarus Spengler Schriften, ed. Hamm and Huber, 1:224–43, 280–97, 411–26. See also the following works by the Nürnberg preacher Wenzeslaus Linck: “Wie sich ein Christen mensch im leyden trösten sölle” (1528) and “Wie man Christenlich die krancken tro[e]sten mu[e]ge / durchs vater vnnser / Zehen gebot / vnnd Artickel des glaubenns / sampt nu[e]tzunge der Sacramennt / darauff das gantz Christliche wesen stehet” (1529), in Wenzeslaus Linck, ed. van der Kolk, 86–92, 115–36.
28 Linck, “Wie sich ein Christen mensch im leyden trösten sölle,” in Wenzeslaus Linck, ed. van der Kolk, 90.
29 Brandenberg-Nürnberg Kirchenordnung (1533), in AOGA, 5:57.
30 Most of the major Franconian cities, towns, and principalities adopted the 1533 Brandenburg-Nürnberg Church Ordinance. It also influenced church ordinances in Swabia, Württemberg, northern Bavaria, Mecklenburg, and Saxony. Based on its widespread influence, the editor of the 1955 edition of the Sehling volume has written of the 1533 Brandenburg-Nürnberg Church Ordinance, “one may properly refer to it as the stem-mother [Stammutter] of a very important family of clearly Lutheran church ordinances.” Sehling, Evangelischen Kirchenordnungen, 11:125.
31 “Vom kreuz und leiden,” in AOGA, 5:97–106; and Sehling, Evangelischen Kirchenordnungen, 11:160–65.
32 Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 46.
33 One of the more reliable Nürnberg chronicles records that, according to some sources, 5,830 people died in the 1533/34 plague, along with another 1,130 in the Lazareth hospital, which lay outside the city walls. In contrast, in his own chronicle, Johannes Müllner, puts the number of dead in the city at 5,526; Diefenbacher, Johannes Müllner, 3:642.
34 StadtAN Rep. B19 Reichsstädische Deputationen, No. 470, “Ein kurtz Regiment, wie sich zu zeiten der pestilentz zuhalten sey,” Gedruckt zu Nürnberg durch Jo: Petreium, 16. Julii / anno 1533, fols. a iii–c iiii’.
35 [a ii] “Zum ersten. Ist in solchen farlichen zeiten nichts nützer / fruchtbarer hailsamer / noch tröstlicher / dann das ein Christen mensch sein hertz und gemüt / durch ein rechten festen / bestedigen glauben / an das gnadenreich Euangelion unsers herrn Jesu Christ / gegen Gott dem vater erhebe / und ungezweyfelt dafür halte / Er sey unser aller gnediger vatter / der uns unnser sund / durch das leyden und sterben Christi gnedigklich vergeben hab / und das ewig leben nach disem / trewlich und gewißlich geben wöll / Darzu alles das / das er mitler zeit mit uns handele / dahin richte / das er uns als seine liebe kinder züchtige / und dem ebenbild Christi unsers herrn und hertzogen / gleych mache / Daraus wird dann ervolgen, das wir / freud und traurigkeit / glück und widerwertigkeit / gesundheit und kranckheit / leben und sterben / und alles was uns in disem zergencklichen leben begegnen mag / nicht anderst an sehen / dann als eitel gute gaben / oder heylsame ertzney / die aus der milten und gütigen hand unsers vatters im himel herfliessen. Aus solchem glauben / sollen wir darnach Got den herrn ernstlich bitten / das gleich wie er uns sonnst on unterlaß / vor sund unnd schanden / vor unglauben und unwissenheit / vor armüt und elendt / vor krieg und auffrhur / durch sein heiligs wort / durch seine heylige Engel / durch fromme und redliche Obrigkeit / unnd durch fruchtbar segen und wetter behüttet / Also wölle er uns auch in diser farlichen zeit / durch seinen vatterlichen willen / durch seine heyligen Engel / und durch seine natürliche unnd heylsame gaben der ertzney / die er uns zu gut beschaffen hat / nach seinem götlichem willen behütten unnd erretten. Dann wann wir das thun / wird on zweyfel solch unser gepet erhöret / und so es unser seel heyl und nutz ist / das wir lenger leben sollen / wird uns alle ertzney / uns natürliche gaben / durch Gottis wort und unsern glauben gesegnet / und zu erhaltung unserer gesundheit krefftig. Ist es dann der güte will Gottis vaters im himel / das er uns wil fordern / so können wir sicher und frölich / sund / todt und hell / durch den glauben an sein wort uberwinden / Unnd wer durch diesen weg / sein hertz also gegen Gott zu friden stelt / wirt allzeit befinden / das auch das leiblich leben / dester geruter [?] / frölicher / sicherer / gesundter / und in aller gefarlicheit dester leichter zu erhalten ist.” Ibid., fols. a ii–a ii’.
36 Steven Ozment (Protestants, 214) has argued that justification by faith freed burghers from worrying about things they could neither understand nor control, both in this life and the next.
37 “Sermon vom Leiden und Kreuz” (1530), in WA 32:34; and LW 51:203.
38 “Wie und wohin ein Christ fliehen soll” (1533), in AOGA, 5:384–411. The sermon appeared in print on 3 August 1533, and was reprinted four more times that year in Nürnberg. The sermon appeared again in Nürnberg during the plagues of 1543 and 1562, and was also reprinted in Augsburg (1533), Basel (after 1533), and Königsberg (1549). The English translation by Miles Coverdale was printed twice in Southwarke (1537 and 1538) and once in London (1564); ibid., 5:387–89. Similar to Luther, Osiander referred to the Evangelical word-based epistemology in his sermon as “die rechte kunst”; ibid., 5:402.
39 “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:394–95.
40 The full title of the sermon was “Wie und wohin ein christ die grausamen plag der pestilentz fliehen soll.”
41 “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:391.
42 “Wer nun Gottis zorn förcht und diser greulichen plag zu entfliehen begert, der frage nicht sein eigne vernunft, wie er im thun söll, sonder glaub und folge dem wort Gottis.” “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:396.
43 Osiander wrote, “Dann wir wöllen inen [i.e., those who look to natural causes] solche ihre weyßhait unveracht lassen und nichts darwider fechten, sonder wir wöllen uns als christen zum wort Gottis halten, dasselbig unser höchste weyßhait sein lassen und im glauben und volgen. So werden wir vil pessern und gewissern bericht finden, nemlich das dise greüliche plag der pestilentz kom aus Gottis zorn von wegen der verachtung [seines heiligen euangelions] und ubertrettung seiner göttlichen gepot.” “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:391–92. Elsewhere Osiander specifically mentioned the sins of “unglaub, ungehorsam und undanckbarkait” as causes of the plague. Ibid., 5:393.
44 Osiander argued, “Dieweil wir dann die rechten ursach diser grausamen plag aus dem wort Gottis erkennen, nemlich, das es unserer sunden als unglaub, ungehorsam und undanckbarkait schuld ist, so wirt vor allen dingen vonnoten sein, das wir derselben abstehn, büß thun und unser leben bessern, wöllen wir anderst vor diser greulichen plag behüt und errettet werden. Dann so uns Gott umb der sunde willen strafft, ist gut zu ermessen, das wir zuvor unser sund erkennen und meyden müssen, sol er sein zorn und straff von uns wider abwenden und nachlassen. Dann so wir in unserm bösen, sundlichen und straflichen leben verharren, wirt er warlich mit der straff auch nicht auffhören, sonder ymer fortfaren, bis er uns gibt und bezalt nach unsern wercken.” “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:393. Later Osiander argued that repentance and reformation of life were “die einig gewiß und heilsame flucht in diser gefarlichen zeyt, dardurch man diser plag entgehen und errettet werden kann.” Ibid., 5:396.
45 There are clear indications in this sermon that already in 1533 Osiander believed that salvation consisted in a real union between the believer and the divine nature of Christ (cf. “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:397, 408, 409), a position that would later earn him much disdain from Lutheran and Reformed theologians alike.
46 “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:398.
47 “Wer unter dem schirm des höchsten sitzt und unter dem schatten des almechtigen bleibt, der spricht zum Herrn: Mein zuversicht und mein burg, mein Gott, auff den ich hoffe. Dann er errettet mich vom strick des jegers und von der schedlichen pestilentz.” “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:390. Osiander emphasizes later in the sermon that these verses are not a “menschenwort,” but the very words of the Holy Spirit spoken through the mouth of the “prophet.” Ibid., 5:396.
48 “Wann sie sich darhinter wöllen verpergen, so ists eben, als wann sich ainer hinter ein laitern verpirgt, und wann sie darpey wöllen schutz suchen, ists eben, als wann ein wolf ein schaff oder ein ganß beschützen solt.” “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:398.
49 “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:395. The editor of this sermon, Bernhard Schneider, notes that during the plague of 1533 only one out of forty clergymen died, although all forty ministered to plague victims: see ibid., 5:395n7.
50 “Darumb, wann gleich ein frommer, rechtgeschaffner christ an diser plag stirbet, so ist es gewißlich sein rechte stund, im von Got auffgesetzt . . . . Aber es sterben darneben on zweyfel vil sunder, die wol lenger leben köndten, wann sie puß theten.” “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:410. A little later in the sermon, Osiander summarized his argument: “In summa: Wer glaubige augen hat, der sihet, das die rechtglaubigen zur rechten zeit, aber die gotlosen vor der zeit sterben. Darumb, es sterben die frommen oder leben, so geschicht es in zugut. Sterben aber die bösen oder leben, so geschicht es in zur straff und werden in alle weg geplagt und wirt in ihr boßhait wol vergolten.” Ibid., 5:411.
51 From 25 September 1543 to 15 April 1544, 1,508 inhabitants of Nürnberg succumbed to the plague; StadtAN, Reichst. Deput. 480.
52 Luther, “Ob man vor dem Sterben fliehen möge” (1527), in WA 23 (323) 339–79; and LW 43:113–38.
53 See discussion of Hans Sachs below.
54 See Hamm, Lazarus Spengler, 50–53.
55 StadtAN, Rep. E 29 IV, Fasz. I, 10b: Breifwechsel Linhart Tucher (1487–1568), no. 27, 13 February 1562.
56 GNM-HA, Rep. II/67, Behaim Archiv, Nr. 29h, Paulus I, Briefe von verschiedenen an denselben (860 Dok.) v. 1533–1568. VIII Faszikel 1559–1568. The letter from Sebastian Imhoff is dated 28 September 1562 (no. 15).
57 GNM-HA, Rep. II/67, Behaim Archiv, Nr. 29h, Paulus I, Briefe von verschiedenen an denselben (860 Dok.) v. 1533–1568. VIII Faszikel 1559–1568. The letter is dated 25 September 1562.
58 GNM-HA, Rep. II/76a, Kress Archiv, Schachtel XXXIV, Fasz. C. The letter is dated 2 October 1562.
59 Ozment, Protestants, 198–200.
60 See works listed in notes 88–91 below.
61 See Heal, “Images of the Virgin Mary and Marian Devotion,” 39.
62 Heming (Protestants and the Cult of the Saints, 105) argues that many Protestants continued to invoke the saints, regardless of what their preachers and rulers mandated to the contrary.
63 See Hirschmann, Die Kirchenvisitation, 49, 54, 83, 110, 116, 161, 168, 182, 191, 211, 233, 236, 237, 249, 251, 252, 253.
64 When preaching on Psalm 90 [91], Dietrich asserted, “Wir wissen alle / was für abgötterey im Bapstumb gewesen ist / vnd noch / Sonderlich in sterbenßleufften / das man S. Rochus / S. Sebastian / S. Barbara angeruffen / vnd mancherleyweyse jhnen gedienet hat / Darumb / das man durch solche verstorbene heiligen / so es anders heiligen sind / verhoffet hat für der pestilentz sicher zu sein. Wie reimbt sich aber solches zum Befelh vnsers Herren Gottes hie? [Ps. 91:15] Denn klar ist es / das er nit spricht / Rüffe disen / oder jhenen menschen an. Sonder / Er rüffe mich an. Wer ist der MICH? Es ist der einige / ewige / allmechtige Gott / der will in solcher not helffen / vnd kan allein / vnnd sonst nirgend hilff suchen.” Dietrich published his sermon in early 1544 under the title, “Der XCI. Psalm. Wie ein Christ in sterbßleufften sich trösten soll.” Cited in Klaus, Veit Dietrich, 224.
65 Ozment, Three Behaim Boys, 19, 25. Ozment (Protestants, 197–98) also discusses the change in Michael’s greetings.
66 StadtAN, Rep. E 29 IV, Fasz. I, 11: 43 Briefe des Lorenz Tucher (1490–1554) an seinen Vetter Linhart Tucher in Nürnberg.
67 The latter two dedications come from letters written by Lazarus Spengler, secretary to the city council and defender of the Reformation; Oohlau, “Familiengeschichte der Spengler,” 243–44.
68 “Gott der Almechtig verleihe euch gesuntheit vnd langes Leben. In welches schutz vnnd schirm ich euch uf ditz mal thu bevelh.” GNM-HA, Rep. II/76a, Kress Archiv, Schachtel XXX, Fasz E, no. 8, Christoff Kress an Helena Christoph Kressin, 7 January 1561.
69 See note 55 above.
70 The poem appears at the beginning of the fourth book of poems Sachs was then composing and thus bears the misleading title, “Der eingang diß vierdten buchs,” in Hans Sachs, 15:17–28.
71 Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 45.
72 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:20, lines 19–22.
73 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:21, lines 13–17.
74 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:21, lines 19–24.
75 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:21, lines 26–27.
76 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:21, line 31–22, line 3.
77 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:23, lines 16–17.
78 Sebastian Imhoff, who had fled to Nördlingen, seems to have experienced little of the anxiety Sachs says is all too common among those wealthy people who seek to escape the plague through flight. Imhoff wrote to a relative in Nürnberg that he and his family have found “such good company (gesellschafft) that I have in part grown accustomed to it here, because there is nothing to do but eat, drink, and go for walks.” GNM-HA, Rep. II/67, Behaim Archiv, Nr. 29h, Paulus I, Briefe von verschiedenen an denselben (860 Dok.) v. 1533–1568. VIII Fasxikel von 1559–1568. The letter is dated 25 September 1562.
79 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:25, lines 25–27.
80 Sachs, “Eingang,” in Hans Sachs, 15:25, line 29.
81 “Das 13 capitel Osee, des propheten. Got ist allein unser heyland, und wir sind unser eygen verderben,” in Hans Sachs, 15:240–44.
82 Sachs, “Das 13 capitel Osee,” in Hans Sachs, 15:243, lines 33–34.
83 A devout Catholic could have agreed with much, if not all, of what Sachs had argued in both of his poems, including the statement that God alone was the Christian’s source of help during adversity. But a Catholic burgher would have understood the “alone” differently than his Evangelical counterpart. The former would have seen recourse to the saints and a whole host of sacraments and sacramentals as being perfectly in keeping with fidelity to God; they were simply the means the one true God used to comfort his people. The latter had a much narrower definition of “alone,” one that left no room for mediators, save Christ.
84 It should be noted that here “alone” refers to the Evangelical burgher’s relationship to God, not to her relationship to other believers. She was not alone on the horizontal plane, but she was on the vertical plane. She could expect prayers and other forms of support from the saints on earth, but nothing from the saints in heaven.
85 For an interesting discussion of how Protestants replaced veneration of the saints with increased attention to angels, see Gordon, “Malevolent Ghosts and Ministering Angels,” 87–109. The 1533 Short Regimen speaks of God employing angels to rescue burghers from plague, but burghers do not discuss this possibility in their private letters. There are no references to angels in the extant letters examined for this study.
86 Ozment, Protestants, 198–200.
87 Sachs referred to the cult of the saints as an example of the menschenfünd, human inventions, that preachers of the old faith sought to impose on the faithful; “Die wittembergisch Nachtigall,” in Hans Sachs, 6:381, line 14.
88 For example, see Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual, 191.
89 This is the argument of Robin Bruce Barnes’ Prophecy and Gnosis. See also Kolb, For All the Saints, 150; and Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints, 142. Heiko Oberman (Luther) argued persuasively for the apocalyptic nature of Luther’s theology.
90 See Zambelli, “Astrologi hallucinati,” 101–51; Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints, 147–50; Soergel, “Miracle, Magic, and Disenchantment,” 233; and Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, 87.
91 Scribner, Religion and Culture, 355–57; and Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, 6.
92 Ozment, Protestants, 198–200.
93 Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, 262.
94 StadtAN, Rep. E 29 IV, Fasz. II, 5a, letter no. 23 from 28 Nov. 1533, in Nördlingen, fols. 23–23’. Matthias Beer (“Private Correspondence in Germany,” 942) also mentions this letter.
95 “Ir allerliebsten, weyl uns Got der almechtig ein zeitlang here on zweyfel auß unser sundtlichen ubertretung und ubermessigen undanckbarkeit nit mit geringer straff als teuerung, pestilentz, krieg und andern teglichen zufelligen beschwerungen haimgesucht hat, weliche beschwerungen auch noch vor augen seyen, zudem das auch die leufft allerley konftiger ferligkeit droen, so werden eur lieb hiemit getreulich ermant, das sie mit enderung ires sundtlichen lebens zu Got dem herrn hertzlich ruffen und schreyen und den mit vleys bitten, das er die gaysell seiner gerechten wolverdienten straf von uns gnedigklich abwenden und vor kunftigen ferlicheyten der selen und leybs barmhertzigklich beworen und seinem cristenlichen heufflein fride, ainigkeit und rue mitteylen wolle. Solichs zu erwerben sprech ein ytlichs ein andechtigs vaterunser.” “Wie und wohin,” in AOGA, 5:385n14.
96 Cf. Osiander’s above-cited comments about burgher ingratitude for the gospel in his 1533 plague sermon on Psalm 91.
97 “Ein kurtz Regiment / wie man sich in zeit Regierender Pestilentz halten soll. Durch die Hochgelerten vnd erfarnen der Ertzney Doctores / zusammen gefast vnd gebessert. Anno 1562. Zu Nurmbergtrucks Valentin Geyßler.” StadtAN, Rep. A6, Mandate, 1562 (1), Pestordnung, Nürnberg 1562, fols. Aii–Aiii.
98 Cited in Porzelt, Die Pest in Nürnberg, 181.
99 See note 36 above.
100 See Ozment, Reformation in the Cities, 22–32.
101 In The Wittenberg Nightingale, Hans Sachs makes a direct connection between faith in the goodness of God as it relates to salvation, and faith in the goodness of God in the midst of trials and tribulations. The one who trusts in the divine promise of forgiveness in Christ, and who is thus born again and delivered from sin, death, and the devil, submits herself completely to God’s will, trusting in God’s goodness, come what may. Sachs writes,
Wer also ist im geist verneyt,
Der dient Gott im geist und warheit.
Das ist, das er Gott hertzlich liebt
Und sich im gantz und gar ergiebt,
Helt in für ein gnedigen Gott;
In trübsal, leyd, in angst und not
Er sich als guts zu Gott versicht;
Gott geb, Gott nem, und was geschicht,
Ist er willig und trostes vol
Und zweyffelt nit, Gott wöll im wol
Durch Jesum Christum, seinen sun,
Der ist sein fried, rhu, frewd und wun
Und bleibt auch sein einiger trost.
(Hans Sachs, 6:378, lines 27–39)
102 See note 101 above.