The correspondence of the Strasbourg reformer Martin Bucer. Scientific source edition as part of the Opera Omnia Martini Buceri
Final Report Abstract
Within the funding period, four vol.umes (BCor 7–10, 2008–2016) were published, with a fifth volume (BCor 11) forthcoming in 2022. Each volume presents a representative cross-section of Reformation history from 1531 to 1534, drawing attention to the manifold dimensions (theologically, socially, and with regard to the history of events) of one of the leading Reformer’s correspondence. Bucers letters from 1531 shed light on the inauguration of the Reformation in imperial free cities of Augsburg and Ulm and the questions of church government raised thereby. Correspondence treating the matter of King Henry VIII’s divorce allows us to better grasp the political background of the theological and legal debates it started, and Bucer’s 1531 letters also show how the development of the Swiss Reformation after Zwingli’s death was observed, and discussed by other Reformers. In 1532, the Holy Roman Empire becomes the focus of Bucer’s correspondence, as he reacts to, and plays his part in, the strategies of the Emperor and the Protestants. By signing the Augsburg Confession, the upper German cities counter Charles V’s attempts at dividing the Protestant estates, nwhereas the following theological debates demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between confessional identity and politics as well as different ideas of truth, and quite intriguing ways of establishing connivance. The letters from 1533 centre on Bucer’s relationship to Protestant dissenters, touching baptism and sin especially, which also shaped the debate on Strasburg’s Church Order. Bucer’s correspondence also allows us to look into the Protestant reception of the Emperor’s initiative for a general council, the situation of Protestants in Paris, and the strategies of the Zurich City Council. In especial detail, Strasburg’s raise as a place of higher learning can be observed, as the letters entail crucial information on the establishment of the divinity school, and on the personnel policy for the city’s grammar school. In 1534, the correspondence focusses on the protestants’ European strategies, but also presents us with detailed insights into the social mechanisms of the urban elites in Augsburg, with dissenters as object of magisterial coercive measures. Bucer is involved into the Reformation in the duchy of Württemberg, and he counters Caspar Schwenkfeld.
