Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany
- 2 The German Reformed Congregation and its Province of Lower Germany
- 3 The Antwerp Cloister
- 4 The Authorities Respond: Pope and Emperor Seize the Initiative
- 5 Wittenberg’s Influence on the Events in Lower Germany
- 6 Reformation Ideas in the Low Countries
- 7 ‘Summer is at the Door’: The Impact of the Executions on Martin Luther
- 8 The Impact of the Executions in the Low Countries
- 9 The Impact of the Executions in the German-Speaking Lands of the Holy Roman Empire
- 10 The Marian Dimension
- 11 The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany and the Dynamics of the Early Reformation
- Bibliography
- About the Author
- Index
2 - The German Reformed Congregation and its Province of Lower Germany
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany
- 2 The German Reformed Congregation and its Province of Lower Germany
- 3 The Antwerp Cloister
- 4 The Authorities Respond: Pope and Emperor Seize the Initiative
- 5 Wittenberg’s Influence on the Events in Lower Germany
- 6 Reformation Ideas in the Low Countries
- 7 ‘Summer is at the Door’: The Impact of the Executions on Martin Luther
- 8 The Impact of the Executions in the Low Countries
- 9 The Impact of the Executions in the German-Speaking Lands of the Holy Roman Empire
- 10 The Marian Dimension
- 11 The Reformed Augustinians of Lower Germany and the Dynamics of the Early Reformation
- Bibliography
- About the Author
- Index
Summary
Abstract
To fully appreciate the events leading to the executions of Vos and van den Esschen, it is critical to understand the establishment, structure, and growth of the German Reformed Congregation of Augustinians (Observants) in the Holy Roman Empire during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In particular, close analysis of the Congregation’s expansion into Lower Germany in the 1510s, a result of encouragement by its leader, Johann von Staupitz, reveals a clear set of tactics at work. An awareness of this strategy establishes the foundation for one argument of this monograph: that having learned how the objectives of the Observant movement could be promoted and disseminated, Martin Luther and his colleagues repurposed these methods in the service of the Reformation.
Key Words: Augustinian Order, Johann von Staupitz, Observant Movement, German Reformed Congregation, Hendrik van Zutphen (Heinrich von Zutphen), Johann van Mechelen
In order to understand the role played by the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany in the early Reformation, a brief overview of the history of the Augustinian Order, the origins of its German Reformed Congregation, and the Congregation's administrative structure is necessary. Particularly relevant in this regard is an examination of the Congregation's expansion into Lower Germany in the decade prior to the Reformation and specifically the tactics employed to increase its influence there, for it was these very strategies that would be appropriated and redeployed by Martin Luther and his colleagues to promote the Reformation via the Congregation's administrative structures and educational procedures. Before the Congregation could become an instrument to disseminate Reformation ideas, however, its members first had to encounter and be convinced by those ideas. Therefore this chapter also addresses the basic content of Luther's message at this early stage and the various means by which it spread through the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians.
A Brief History of the Augustinian Order and the Origins of the German Reformed Congregation
The Order of Hermits of St. Augustine (Ordo Eremitarum Sancti Augustini; OESA) originated in Northern Italy in the mid-thirteenth century when a group of established hermitages adopted a structure similar to that of other mendicant orders, a decision confirmed by Pope Alexander IV in 1256.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020