HAGIOGRAPHY STS. JOHANN, HENDRIK, AND HENRY, THE FIRST MARTYRS OF THE REFORMATION Hans Wiersma he story of the first evangelical martyrs is closely related (colleagues of Erasmus on the university faculty at Lou- Tto the story of the Observant Augustinian Monastery vain). From the autumn of 1519, when the Louvain faculty at Antwerp. The brief existence of the Antwerp monastery published an official condemnation of Luther, through the roughly overlaps the first decade of Luther’s tenure at Wit- summer of 1521, when the Edict of Worms was published tenberg. Established in 1512, the Antwerp monastery was in cities and towns, these five principals turned up the heat dissolved ten years later, thanks in part to the fact that the on Luther’s adherents in the Low Countries. brethren there would not stop preaching Luther’s ideas. In Receiving particular attention was the activity of the 1522, the monastery was vacated and closed for good. In monks belonging to the Observant Augustinian Monastery 1528, the monastery’s chapel was reestablished as a Roman in Antwerp. In a letter from September 1521, Aleandro sin- Catholic parish church. gled out the Antwerp prior, Probst, as a major contributor Today, that church still stands on Antwerp’s Augustijn- to the “Lutheran problem” in the Low Countries.5 In the enstraat. If you visit the church, you will find, tucked in end, Probst earned himself a visit from the authorities. On a far corner, a small exhibit outlining the reasons for the December 6, 1521, Probst was escorted to Brussels, where demise of the old Augustinian monastery and for the exe- he was imprisoned. There he was investigated by various cution of two of its members.1 For Luther, on the other inquisitors (including Latomus and Edmond) and threat- hand, the deaths of those who were killed for propagating ened with execution. Probst relented a few months later, evangelical teaching were nothing to hide in a corner: their agreeing to recant publicly thirty articles deemed hereti- deaths were to be proclaimed far and wide. cal. On February 9, 1522, Probst renounced Luther from Luther’s connection with his monastic brothers in the the pulpit of the Brussels cathedral. The text of Probst’s Low Countries began in earnest with the 1519 arrival of a renunciation was soon published.6 new prior in Antwerp.2 The prior, a Netherlander named The publication of the Antwerp prior’s recantation and Jacob Probst, had studied at Wittenberg since before his reassignment to another monastery in Flanders did not, Luther’s arrival and was likely a Wittenberg resident when however, fully quiet evangelical impulses back in Antwerp. the Ninety-Five Theses were posted. A unique piece of In May, Luther’s chapter of Observant Augustinians con- epistolary evidence suggests Luther’s connection with and vened in Jena. There it was determined that another Neth- influence on Probst. In a 1519 letter to Luther, Erasmus erlander, Henry van Zutphen, would be sent to lead the wrote: “There is a prior in your monastery in Antwerp, a brethren at Antwerp. Zutphen took up where Probst left pure Christian man, who holds you in high regard. He has off, defying the ban on evangelical preaching. On Septem- been your student [discipulus] for a long time, as he him- ber 29, 1522, Zutphen was arrested under the orders of self proclaims. Of nearly all the clergy, he alone proclaims Governor Margaret. However, a mob uprising (made up Christ.”3 Probst also appears to have had a hand in the mostly of women, apparently) made possible the new pri- translation of Luther’s writings, which began appearing in or’s escape. After a few days hiding in Antwerp, Zutphen and around Antwerp around this time.4 fled northward, ending up in Bremen.7 The spread of Luther’s teaching in the Low Countries One week after the failed attempt to snatch Zutphen, did not go uncontested, of course. Among the principal the brothers of the Antwerp Augustinian monastery were players combating the Lutherei were Girolamo Aleandro (also arrested en masse. Each was interrogated; most were known as “Aleander,” the famous papal legate), Margaret released. However, eight of the brothers were detained. of Savoy (Charles V’s aunt and governor of Charles’s ter- Like Probst before them, the eight Augustinians were pros- ritories in northwestern Europe), and Franz van der Hulst ecuted under the terms of the Worms edict: brought to (who would become the chief inquisitor in the Low Coun- Brussels, thrown in jail, investigated by various inquisitors, tries), as well as Jacob Latomus and Nicholas van Egmond and threatened with execution. Under this process, five of LUTHERAN FORUM 27 the eight brothers were released after new technology, the printing press. courage and steadfastness of the mar- properly repudiating Luther and his Within days, pamphlets detailing the tyrs as well as the guilt and perfidy teachings. However, the remaining deaths of the two Antwerp brothers of the prosecutors. Summarizing the three friars—Lambert Thorn, Hen- were printed and distributed through- sixty-two “heretical” articles into one, drik Voes, and Johann van Esschen— out the Low Countries and beyond. Luther’s hymn explains that Voes and refused to recant. Their inquisitors In one of the pamphlets, entitled The Esschen were executed for contending prepared a document detailing sixty- Events and Circumstances concerning the that “[i]n God we should trust solely.” two articles of heterodox faith, suffi- Degradation and Burning of Three Chris- Luther then exposed the “sophists” for cient evidence to condemn the three tians Nobles and Martyrs of the Augustinian their attempt to spread the rumor that Augustinians as heretics.8 Order in Brussels, the anonymous author the two Augustinians were less than As for the Antwerp monastery, clearly sympathizes with the victims, constant: “They still go on belying; the buildings were barricaded and painting the authorities as villains and They say that with their latest breath all of the belongings were sold. The their executions as a gross miscarriage The boys, in act of dying, Repented eucharistic host was taken from the of justice.10 The tract became a best- and recanted! Let them lie on for ever- monastery’s chapel and brought in seller of sorts: editions were printed more.” For Luther, the death of his a great procession to Antwerp’s Our by various printers, one as far away as two brothers in Brussels simply con- Lady Cathedral, where, with Gov- Augsburg. firmed that the preaching of the true ernor Margaret in attendance, the As for Luther, he did not receive gospel had returned to the church: sacrament was reconsecrated. Three word of the July 1 executions until “His word is yet remaining! E’en at months later, on January 16, 1523, the the end of the month. Upon learning the door is summer nigh, The winter buildings of the Augustinian monas- that two of his fellow friars had been hard is ended.”14 tery—erected only ten years earlier— burned at the stake, Luther began to Luther’s musical memorial to Voes were leveled to the ground. Only the weep and said: “I thought I would and Esschen accomplished two char- chapel was spared. be the first one to be martyred by the acteristic aims of martyr literature. About half a year after the destruc- holy gospel, but I am not worthy.”11 Traditionally, the martyrologist’s task tion of the monastery in Antwerp, Otherwise little is known of Luther’s was to tell the story and fit it into the fates of the three holdouts were immediate reaction to the news. What the context of the divine plan. That realized. Lambert Thorn apparently is clear is that the tragedy in Brussels Luther managed to accomplish this asked for additional time and was supplied Luther with the inspiration to task in the form of a humable tune— returned to prison, kept there until his try his hand at martyrology. The result similar in sound and structure to “A death by natural causes in 1528. Hen- took two forms: a letter of consolation Mighty Fortress Is Our God”—is drik Voes and Johann van Esschen, on and a hymn of praise. noteworthy in itself. the other hand, received the complete In August, Luther was moved to Beyond the particulars of the Brus- treatment. On July 1, 1523, the two write to “the Christians in the Low sels executions, the significance of were arrayed in the full ecclesiasti- Countries.” During the same month, Luther’s hymn lies in its effort to place cal regalia of their order and led in Luther penned his first published the deaths in theological context. For a procession that included Aleandro, hymn—a ballad of sorts to the two Luther, the executions were a symp- Latomus, and Egmond. The proces- young men burned in Brussels—called tom of the battle between God and sion terminated at the square in front “Ein neues Lied wir heben an.”12 The devil—a battle brought about by the of the Brussels cathedral, St. Gudala, initial stanza of Luther’s hymn makes return of the true gospel. In Luther’s where pyres stood prepared. The fri- clear his understanding that what hap- view, the constancy of the martyrs ars were then ceremonially degraded, pened to Voes and Esschen was part (as he deems them in his hymn) was their monastic garb replaced with of the divine plan. proof of the devil’s defeat; the youths’ plain robes. Both were given one last martyrdom was a “new thing” that A new song here shall be begun— chance to recant.