CHAPTER TWO

RELIGIOUS TENSIONS IN THE 1520S

It amazes me that the poor Christians are persecuted in every way to such a degree. For a small ‘misbelief,’ a poor Christian must suffer . . . in the whole world, only the poor people are persecuted.1 In this way an Augsburg resident lamented the harassment religious dissidents faced in the 1520s. Georg Zeindelweber was an experienced soldier, guardian of the city’s arsenal, and he had seen the suffering of peasants and Anabaptists fi rsthand. Ironically, with all the weapons and skill at his disposal, even he was vulnerable to the contemporary fear of religious deviance. While individuals often coexisted peacefully despite differences, tensions fueled by the religious disputes of the early Reformation could also lead to confl icts with one’s neighbors or authorities. Like most places in the Empire, Augsburg experienced a rise in tensions in the 1520s due in part to the intensifying of religious disagreements. Combined with economic and social grievances, the reforming spirit led to a number of incidents that threatened to shake up both the spiritual and secular institutions of Augsburg. Several cases from the mid to late 1520s illustrate the presence of tension and confl ict between the citizens and their spiritual and secular authorities. For the most part, these incidents involved people protesting against authority fi gures, such as priests or the bishop’s offi cers and even occasionally the city council. As we see in a number of cases, the city council strived to keep the peace by suppressing the rebellious elements and mitigat- ing religious tensions without committing themselves to any particular type of reform. Regarding the impact of religious disunity on the city’s inhabitants, however, the most interesting incidents concern confl icts between Augsburg’s citizens. Both the government and populace attempted to go about business as usual, in spite of the potential for religious friction.

1 “in dem hette Zeugwart gesagt, es nem in wunder, das man sich allenthalben dermassen an die armen Christenn Richtet, Ettwan von ains klainen mißglaubens wegen mußt ain armes Christ herheben, in nome nur wunder an eine hern, und in der ganzen welt, so richt sich nur an die armen leut,” StadtAA, Reichsstadt, Urg. 12 June 1529, Peter Sölber. 46 chapter two

Several of incidents in the mid 1520s illustrate the nature of religious rebellion directed against the spiritual and secular authorities in Augs- burg. The year 1524 saw a series of spectacular events in Augsburg. One of the earliest events took place in April, when Georg Näßlin’s servant splashed blood onto paintings and statues in the Cathedral of Our Lady.2 Näßlin anticipated being blamed and initially fl ed justice. When he eventually turned himself in he was interrogated three times over the course of four days, from 8 to 11 May. Despite undergoing torture Näßlin confessed only that he had known of his servant’s plans ahead of time but refused to admit that he had countenanced or par- ticipated in the iconoclastic plot in any way. The same day that Georg Näßlin turned himself in, a number of his friends were arrested for an incident at the Franciscan church. On 8 May 1524, a group of men and women, who had gathered in the church for Mass, confronted one of the friars who had arrived to bless the holy water in the font. When the friar refused to perform the bless- ing in the vernacular instead of the traditional Latin, a man grabbed the prayer book out of the friar’s hand and threw it into the basin of water. Another man retrieved the book, tried to tear it in two and, when the parchment would not tear, threw it back into the water. Other testimony confi rms this basic narrative with only negligible differences in the details. An interesting variation appears in one witness’s account, which claims that the women who were present had suggested throwing the friar himself into the water.3 Arriving shortly after the incident, one man asked the friars why they were not holding Mass, and they told him that they were afraid to go back into the church for fear of being injured.4 Going into the cloister the same witness, Sixtus Saur, asked the church’s lector,5 to convince the friars to say Mass, but that only led to another bitter argument between the lector, Johann Schilling, and the verger.6 The Franciscans’ verger, Herr Laurenz, declared that “the devil had brought [Schilling] into the cloister,” while the lector responded that “[Herr Laurenz] should thank God that many abuses

2 Georg Näßlin’s case is discussed in more detail in Chapter One. 3 StadtAA, Reichsstadt, Urg. 8–11 May 1524, Hans Beringer, Franz Lamenit, Bar- tholome Nußfelder, Ulrich Richsner, Sixt Saur, and Peter Scheppach. 4 Ibid., Sixt Saur. 5 The lector or reader is one who reads lessons in a church service. 6 The verger is the caretaker or attendant of a church.