Johann Sleidan and the Protestant Vision of History
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Johann Sleidan and the Protestant Vision of History Frontispiece: Engraving of Johann Sleidan by Johannes Paulus Crusius (Zurich ZB, Graphische Sammlung, Portraitsammlung I a, 1) – Zentralbibliothek Zurich Johann Sleidan and the Protestant Vision of History ALEXANDRA KESS First published 2008 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Alexandra Kess 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Alexandra Kess has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Kess, Alexandra Johann Sleidan and the Protestant vision of history. – (St Andrews studies in Reformation history) 1. Sleidanus, Johannes, 1506–1556 2. Church historians France – Strasbourg – Biography 3. Protestantism – Historiography 4. Reformation – Historiography I. Title 280.4’092 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kess, Alexandra Johann Sleidan and the Protestant vision of history/by Alexandra Kess. p. cm. – (St. Andrews studies in Reformation history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5770-5 (hbk) 1. Sleidanus, Johannes, 1506-1556. 2. Reformation – Biography. 3. History – Religious aspects – Christianity. I. Title. BR350.S48K47 2007 274’.06092—dc22 [B] 2006036031 ISBN 9780754657705 (hbk) To Matthew Contents List of figures ix List of abbreviations and editorial conventions xi Acknowledgements xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 The making of a historian – Sleidan in France 11 3 Historian of the Schmalkaldic League 35 4 In the service of Strasbourg 59 5 Sleidan’s De statu religionis et reipublicae, Carolo Quinto, 89 Caesare, Commentarii – an official Protestant view of history? 6 Sleidan and the German historians 119 7 Sleidan’s reception in France 149 8 Conclusion 179 Appendix 183 Select bibliography 207 Index 241 List of figures Frontispiece: Engraving of Johann Sleidan by Johannes Paulus ii Crusius (Zurich ZB, Graphische Sammlung, Portraitsammlung I a, 1) – Zentralbibliothek Zurich 2.1 Johann Sleidan (Zurich ZB, Graphische Sammlung, 14 Portraitsammlung, Sleidanus, Joh. I a, 3) – Zentralbibliothek Zurich 4.1 Sleidan’s letter to the XIII of Strasbourg, 18–20 February 66 1552 (Appendix 264) (in: Ficker, Johannes, Winckelmann, Otto (1905), Handschriftenproben des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, Strasbourg: K.J. Trübner, p. 87, Tafel A; Zurich ZB) – Zentralbibliothek Zurich 4.2 Title page of a 1555 Latin folio edition (Vekene E/a 003) 82 of Sleidan’s Commentaries, bearing three handwritten provenances, reading ‘Collegij Societatis Jesu Monachij. 1608’; ‘Wigulej hundt de Lauterpach LL. D.’; ‘Emptus ab alexandro pro 1,5 lb. [?Pfund?] ligatus auguste pro 30 kz. [Kreuzer]’ (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 2. Eur. 85) List of abbreviations and editorial conventions ADB Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 55 vols, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot 1875–1910 (reprint 1971) ARG Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History Baumgarten Baumgarten, Hermann (1881), Sleidans Briefwechsel, Strasbourg: K.J. Trübner BSHPF Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français CR Corpus Reformatorum, repr. New York: Johnson, Frankfurt/Main: Minerva (1963) ELJB Elsass-Lothringisches Jahrbuch General History Sleidan, Johann, transl. Bohun, Edmund (1689), The General History of the Reformation of the Church from the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome …. To which is added a continuation to the end of the Council of Trent in … 1562, London: Edward Jones for Abel Swall and Henry Bonwicke JGPrÖ Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für die Geschichte des Protestantismus in Österreich LP Brodie, R.H. and Gairdner, J. (1907–08), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum and elsewhere in England, vols XX/II, XXI/I, London: HM State Office PC Politische Correspondenz der Stadt Strasbourg im Zeitalter der Reformation (1882–1933), eds Virck, Hans, Winckelmann, Otto, Gerber, Harry and Friedensburg, Walter, 5 vols, Strasbourg: K.J. Trübner, Heidelberg: Winter xii JOHANN SLEIDAN AND THE PROTESTANT VISION OF HISTORY SCJ Sixteenth Century Journal TRE Theologische Realenzyklopädie (1977–), Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Vekene Vekene, Emil van der (1996), Johann Sleidan (Johann Philippson). Bibliographie seiner gedruckten Werke und der von ihm übersetzten Schriften von Philipe de Comines, Jean Froissart und Claude de Seyssel. Mit einem bibliographischen Anhang zur Sleidan- Forschung, Stuttgart: Hiersemann ZGO Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins Zurich StA Staatsarchiv Zürich Zurich ZB Universitätsbibliothek Zürich The spelling of sixteenth-century Latin and German has been standardised according to modern spelling in the case of ‘u’ and ‘v’, ‘i’ and ‘j’. Sixteenth- century French has been standardised according to modern spelling in the case of ‘s’ and ‘f’, ‘i’ and ‘j’, and ‘u’ and ‘v’. The contractions ‘ã’, ‘ẽ’, ‘õ’, and ‘ũ’ in sixteenth-century French and German have been expanded to ‘an/am’, ‘en/em’, ‘on/om’ and ‘un/um’. Quotations from Sleidan, Johann, transl. Bohun, Edmund (1689), The General History of the Reformation of the Church from the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome …. To which is added a continuation to the end of the Council of Trent in … 1562, London: Edward Jones for Abel Swall and Henry Bonwicke [General History] are slightly modernised for better understanding. Acknowledgements This book is based on my PhD thesis submitted at the University of St Andrews in 2004, and would not have been possible without the help of many. My utmost thanks go to my supervisor Prof. Andrew Pettegree, from whose help, advice and most of all friendship I have benefited ever since I stumbled into his office as a young exchange student to inquire whether he would be my supervisor at an unknown time in the future. I am grateful for financial assistance by the David and Dorothy Daniell William Tyndale Foundation, the Royal Historical Society and the Modern History Department of the University of St Andrews. I also thank the staff of all the libraries I have worked in during the course of my research, especially the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, the Bibliothèque Municipale in Lyon, the University Library at St Andrews and the Zentralbibliothek in Zurich. Throughout the years I have benefited from the friendship and support of many colleagues and friends in Germany, Britain and Switzerland. I have always valued Prof. Alasdair Heron’s (University of Erlangen) interest in my work. I enjoyed happy years at the Reformation Studies Institute in St Andrews, where I profited from the help and friendship of Prof. Andrew Pettegree, Dr Bruce Gordon, Dr Jeffrey Ashcroft, Dr Mike Springer, Lauren Kim and many others. I was never able to complain about Scottish summers since I swapped these for delightful tours of France with the extended Pettegree family and colleagues from the St Andrews French Book Project. At the Institute of Swiss Reformation History in Zurich my colleague Rainer Henrich never ceased to unearth references to Sleidan from our vaults of Bullinger correspondence, which is very much appreciated. I am extremely grateful to my family, my parents Ellen and Hans Kess, my grandparents Gerda and Kurt Meiss, and my sister Judith Kess, for all their support. Finally, I owe a special debt to my husband Matthew Hall, on whose constant help and support I have been able to count throughout the years of writing the thesis and turning it into a book. CHAPTER 1 Introduction One of the great challenges of the new Protestant faith was to establish itself in a hitherto Catholic world. Protestantism was faced with an urgent need to create a common identity, a key element of which involved a repossession of the past: history had to be rewritten to underline the Protestant Church’s claim for legitimacy and authority, and to give believers a sense of belonging.1 Theologically, history was to provide a continuation of salvation history; politically, it served to consolidate state and religion. Furthermore, history was a prominent weapon of propagandists and polemicists. There were few who were more aware of this particular situation than Strasbourg’s intellectual ‘triumvirate’: the theologian Martin Bucer and the politician Jakob Sturm, the intellectual figureheads of the Schmalkaldic League, as well as the pedagogue Johann Sturm. At their instigation the League, under the leadership of Philip von Hessen and Johann Friedrich von Sachsen, employed their fellow Alsacian Johann Philippson von Schleiden (1506–56), or Sleidanus in the Latinised form, to write the official history of the Protestant movement. Sleidan was not the most obvious choice; one would expect that a more central figure, somebody with the stature of Philip Melanchthon, would have been entrusted with such an important task. But it was Bucer and Jakob