“Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy”: Visions, Apocalypticism, and Gender in Strasbourg
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy”: Visions, Apocalypticism, and Gender in Strasbourg, 1522-1539 by Christina Moss A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2019 © Christina Moss 2019 Examining Committee Membership The following served on the Examining Committee for this thesis. The decision of the Examining Committee is by majority vote. External Examiner DR. JOHN ROTH Professor of History Supervisor(s) DR. GRETA KROEKER Associate Professor of History Internal Member DR. TROY OSBORNE Associate Professor of History, Dean of Conrad Grebel University College Internal-external Member DR. ALICIA BATTEN Professor of Religious Studies and Theological Studies Other Member(s) DR. PETER GODDARD Associate Professor of History ii Author’s Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of my thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that this thesis may be made electronically available to the public. iii Abstract This study examines the life and work of Lienhard and Ursula Jost, two peasant religious visionaries active in Strasbourg between 1522 and 1539, in the midst of the religious turmoil of the early Reformation. The Josts were illiterate, but, through their association with the Anabaptist preacher Melchior Hoffman, they were able to reach an audience not only in Strasbourg, but also in the Low Countries. Hoffman produced two editions of the Josts’ visions and prophecies: one printed in Strasbourg in 1530, which contained only Ursula’s visions, and one printed in Deventer in 1532, which included the prophecies of Lienhard and a second, expanded edition of Ursula’s visions. The Josts’ visions and prophecies provide a rare opportunity to hear the beliefs, concerns, and ideas for reform advanced by illiterate early modern peasants and recorded by a sympathetic—rather than a hostile—scribe. This dissertation uses these sources to analyze the lives and prophetic careers of the Josts both before and after their encounter with Hoffman, the late medieval religious milieu in Strasbourg that gave rise to them, their interactions with Strasbourg’s religious and political authorities in the first decades of the Reformation, their relationship to early modern apocalypticism, and the gendered and class- based dimensions of their lives and thought. This study finds that the non-textual forms of late medieval spirituality that were prevalent in Strasbourg deeply shaped the Josts—though they were not necessarily conscious of this impact. Their visions and prophecies contain themes and ideas also present in works of religious art in the Strasbourg Cathedral and in sermons by the renowned Strasbourg preacher Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445-1510). The Josts also displayed an affinity for aspects of Protestant thought, and Lienhard, in particular, hoped to cultivate the city’s reformers and magistrates as allies, though he was ultimately unsuccessful in this task. The strongest current that ran through the Josts’ writings, however, was their distress at the oppression of the poor— with whom they identified personally—and their apocalyptic conviction that they were on the cusp of a new era, in which God would finally right the wrongs the powerful had inflicted on the vulnerable for so long. iv Acknowledgments My advisor, Greta Kroeker, championed me wholeheartedly and consistently from my arrival in Waterloo and made me a better scholar and teacher in every way. Wherever I end up, I hope to be as good a mentor as she is. I am also grateful to the members of my committee—to Troy Osborne and Peter Goddard for their invaluable advice and guidance throughout the planning and writing of this dissertation and to John Roth and Alicia Batten for their feedback and expertise in this crucial last stage. Many thanks as well to Arnold Snyder, who first convinced me to study Ursula, and to Jonathan Green, who alerted me to the survival of Lienhard’s visions in 2014 and generously shared research materials and a then-unpublished article with me. Moreover, I extend my gratitude to Marc Lienhard and Mathieu Arnold, who kindly met with me in Strasbourg to discuss the Josts (and Reformation-era Strasbourg more generally). I have been fortunate to work with an abundance of great mentors, both in Waterloo and in Fredericton. Thank you in particular to Steven Bednarski, Gary Waite, Rusty Bittermann, Robin Vose, and Janet Mullin—for the reference letters, for the guidance in writing applications and navigating academia, and for deepening my love of history. I also wish to thank my fellow tri- University doctoral students Marian Toledo and Andrew Moore, who understand all the good and the bad of the past several years better than anyone else. Thank you for being great colleagues and friends. I wish you every success and happiness in what comes next. I would be remiss not to acknowledge the work of so many others who made the process of researching, writing, and defending a dissertation (all while first TA-ing and then teaching courses) so much easier for me: the archivists at the Archives de la Ville et de l’Eurométropole de Strasbourg, the administrative assistants (past and present) at the department of History and Conrad Grebel University College, and the great librarians of the tri-University group, particularly those from the Milton Good and Dana Porter libraries. They do their jobs excellently, and without them I could not do mine. I am likewise grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Waterloo for their financial support of my research. Thomas and Katherine Brady were incredibly generous with their library and with their contacts in Strasbourg, and I am deeply appreciative. Many thanks also to Mme Monique Fuchs and her family and to the whole congregation of the Église Évangélique Mennonite de Strasbourg- Illkirch, who were so welcoming to me during the months I spent there doing research and made me feel a little less far from home. Far too many friends and family to name have come alongside me since I began this degree in 2014. I particularly wish to thanks my parents, John and Ulrike Entz, my siblings Johanna Hiltz and Philipp and Rachelle Entz, my parents-in-law Kevin and Connie Moss, my dear friends Emily Johnson-Tracy, Jessica Windsor, Kandace Boos, and Bekah Smootenns, and the many other great friends I made through Lamplight Church Kitchener-Waterloo and Stirling Avenue v Mennonite Church. Thank you for asking me how research was going (but not too often) and for all your emotional support throughout this process. It can often be isolating and lonely, but thanks to you I have always felt surrounded and supported. And, of course, first, last, and always, all my love and thanks to my husband Aaron, who has shared my joys and talked me off of several ledges over the course of this degree. He has borne cheerfully with my prolonged absences for research travel and has shouldered more than his share of the housework whenever I stared down the barrel of a deadline, all while completing his own doctoral degree. Aaron, I love you, and I’m excited for what comes next. vi Table of Contents Examining Committee Members………………...………………………………………………..ii Author’s Declaration…………………………………………………………...…………………iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………v Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………...vii Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter Two: The Josts Before Melchior Hoffman, 1522-1529...………………………………..16 Chapter Three: The Josts after Melchior Hoffman, 1529-1539…………………………………..51 Chapter Four: Medieval Strasbourg: The World that Shaped the Josts………………………….87 Chapter Five: The Josts and Strasbourg Political and Religious Authorities’ Response to Dissent, 1522-1539………………………………………………………………………………………117 Chapter Six: The Josts and Early Modern Apocalypticism……………………………………..162 Chapter Seven: Gender, Class, and Prophecy in the Josts’ World……………………………….193 Chapter Eight: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...229 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………232 Appendix A: A Translation of the 1532 Deventer Edition of Lienhard’s Prophecies and Ursula’s Visions………………………………………………………………………………………….246 vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION In 1532, as he travelled the Low Countries and made converts, Melchior Hoffman published a collection of two different writings using the press of the Deventer printer Albert Paffraet. These writings were not the work of Hoffman himself—though he served as their editor and added forewords of his own. Rather, they were the visions and prophecies of a married couple: Lienhard and Ursula Jost of Strasbourg, the city where Hoffman had completed his transition from Lutheran lay preacher to Anabaptist apostle. The Josts were prophets, whose utterances Hoffman considered as valuable as those of the biblical prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah. For Hoffman, the Josts’ very existence as prophets validated his belief that he lived in the Last Days and that, as proof, God had raised up a new generation of prophets. Hoffman considered the Josts’ writings a valuable resource for discerning the future and hearing and understanding the will of God in turbulent times. For modern historians, the Josts’ visions and prophecies are valuable in a different way. As an illiterate peasant couple, the Josts were unable to commit their