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Martin Bucer
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Martin Bucer (or Butzer) (11 November 1491 – 28 February 1551) was a Protestant reformer whose principal ministry was in Strasbourg.
in Bucer was born in Sélestat (Schlettstadt), Alsace, a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. His father, Claus Butzer, Jr., and grandfather, Claus Butzer, Sr., were coopers (barrelmakers) by trade. Nothing is known about Bucer’s mother except that her name was Eva.
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Martin Bucer (or Butzer) (11 November 1491 – 28 February 1551) was a Protestant reformer whose principal ministry was in Strasbourg.
Early years (1491–1523)
Martin Bucer was born in Sélestat (Schlettstadt), Alsace, a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. His father, Claus Butzer, Jr., and grandfather, Claus Butzer, Sr., were coopers (barrelmakers) by trade. Nothing is known about Bucer’s mother except that her name was Eva. It was likely that he attended Sélestat’s Latin school where artisans sent their children. By the time he completed his studies in the summer of 1507, he was able to read and speak Latin fluently and was familiar with Aristotelian logic and its philosophical system. In the same year, he joined the Dominican order. Bucer claimed in later years that he was forced into the order by his grandfather. Bucer's family did not plan for him to learn a craft and they did not have enough money to provide a university education. Hence, the Dominicans provided Bucer a path toward social advancement. After a year of being a novice, he was consecrated as an acolyte in the Strasbourg church of the Williamites and in 1508 he took his vows to become a full Dominican friar. By 1510 he was consecrated as a deacon.
In 1515 Bucer studied theology in the Dominican monastery in Heidelberg. The following year he took a course in dogmatics in Mainz, where he was ordained a priest. In January 1517 he returned to Heidelberg, where he enrolled in the university. An inventory of his books made in 1518 showed that he owned all of the important works of Thomas Aquinas, the leader of medieval scholasticism within the Dominican order. At the same time, Bucer became increasingly influenced by humanism and started to purchase books from Johannes Froben, the publisher of the great humanist, Erasmus. In April 1518, Johannes von Staupitz, the vicar-general of the Augustinians, invited the Wittenberg reformer, Martin Luther, to present his theology at the Heidelberg Disputation. It was on this occasion that Bucer met Luther for the first time. In a long letter to his mentor, Beatus Rhenanus, he recounted what he learned and commented on several of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. Bucer largely agreed with Luther, and he was pleased with the far-reaching agreement he perceived between the ideas of Luther and Erasmus. However, Bucer also clearly understood the risk of his encounter with Luther. He asked Rhenanus to not let his letter fall into the wrong hands. Sensing the potential danger, Bucer formally wrote his will in the form of the previously mentioned inventory of all his books.
By early 1519, Bucer received the degree of baccalaureus biblicus. In the summer of that year, he publicly expressed his theological views for the first time in a disputation before the faculty. His theses revealed his first break with Aquinas and scholasticism. When he read Luther's commentary on Galatians, he was pleased to find that his own views agreed with Luther's developing theology. While Bucer wrestled with the new thoughts and ideas, political turmoil was brewing that would eventually force him to abandon the Dominican order. A fellow Dominican Jacob van Hoogstraaten who was the grand inquisitor of Cologne had decided to prosecute Johann Reuchlin, a humanist scholar. Other humanists including the imperial knight Franz von Sickingen came to Reuchlin's defense. Bucer felt quite isolated given his sympathies with Luther and humanism. In 1519 he established contacts with other humanists and reformers including Ulrich von Hutten and Wolfgang Capito. On 11 November 1520 Bucer wrote a letter to Capito in which he revealed that Hoogstraaten was threatening to make an example of him as a follower of Luther. Bucer needed to be freed of his monastic vows in order to escape from the jurisdiction of the Dominicans. Capito and other associates of Bucer were able to expedite the annulment of his monastic vows and on 29 April 1521 he was formally released.
For the next two years, Bucer was associated with Sickingen and Hutten. He also worked for a short period as the court chaplain of Frederick II, Count Palatine of the Rhine, although it is unclear how he obtained this post. This provided the opportunity for Bucer to live in Nuremberg, the most powerful city of the Empire whose governing officials were strongly influenced by the Reformation. Here he met many people who shared his concerns including the humanist, Willibald Pirckheimer, and Andreas Osiander, the future reformer of Nuremberg. In September 1521, Sickingen offered Bucer the position of pastor of the town of Landstuhl. Bucer took his offer and moved to Landstuhl in May 1522. Sometime during the six months that he lived there, he met and married Elisabeth Silbereisen, a former nun. Sickingen also offered to pay for Bucer's studies in Wittenberg. For this, Bucer planned on traveling to Strasbourg to leave his wife with his parents and then travel alone to Wittenberg. While on his way to Strasbourg, he stopped in the town of Wissembourg, where the leading reformer of the town, Heinrich Motherer, asked him to become his chaplain. Bucer agreed and he went to work immediately, preaching daily sermons in which he attacked traditional church practices and monastic orders. He summarised his convictions in six theses and arranged for a public disputation. However, his opponents, the Franciscans and Dominicans of Wissembourg, simply ignored him. His sermons did stir up the people of Wissembourg to the point of threatening the town's monasteries. The bishop of Speyer reacted by excommunicating Bucer. The town council continued to support him, but events occurring outside Wissembourg sealed his fate. Bucer's leading benefactor, Sickingen, was defeated in Trier during the Knight's Revolt and the forces of the Reformation began to retreat. The council urged Bucer and Motherer to leave and on 13 May 1523, they fled to Strasbourg.
Reformer in Strasbourg (1523–1525)
When Bucer arrived in Strasbourg, he was in a precarious situation as he was excommunicated and he had no means of subsistence. He was not yet a citizen of the city which would afford him protection. On 9 June 1523, he wrote a desperate letter to the Zürich reformer, Huldrych Zwingli, and pleaded that he find him a safe post in Switzerland. Fortunately, the Strasbourg council was under the influence of the reformer, Matthew Zell. During his first few months, he worked as Zell's unofficial chaplain and it was through Zell that he was given opportunities to give classes on books of the Bible. The largest guild in Strasbourg, the Gärtner or Gardeners, eventually assisted Bucer in his integration into the community. On 24 August, the guild used a special assembly under its control in order to appoint Bucer as their pastor. A month later the council accepted his application for citizenship.
Bucer joined an illustrious team of reformers; Zell took the role of the preacher to the masses, Wolfgang Capito was the most influential theologian of the city, and Caspar Hedio was the cathedral preacher. One of Bucer's first activity in supporting the reform cause was to debate Thomas Murner, a Franciscan monk, where Bucer repudiated the idea that the rite of mass was a true sacrifice. The city council, however, vacillated on the religious issues even while the number of people supporting the Reformation continued to rise. Hostility for the clergy grew and emotions reached the boiling point when on 20 August, Conrad Treger, the prior provincial of the Augustinians, attacked not only the reformed preachers but he also labelled all the burghers of Strasbourg as heretics. On 5 September angry mobs formed and broke into the monasteries, looting and destroying religious images. Many opponents of the Reformation were arrested including Treger. The council finally took action and requested an official statement from the evangelical ministers. Bucer drafted twelve articles summarising the teachings of the Reformation including justification by faith (sola fide) and the rejection of the mass and other concepts such as monastic vows, saint veneration, purgatory, and the traditional liturgy. He rejected the authority of the pope and emphasised obedience to the government. Treger was released on 12 October and left Strasbourg. With his departure, overt opposition to the Reformation came to an end.
The reformers' first goal was the creation of a new order of service. They presented their views to the theologians of Wittenberg and Zürich in order to propose a common order of service for the entire Reformation movement. However, the future conflict over the interpretation of the Lord's Supper that would eventually divide the two cities and the two leading reformers, Luther and Zwingli, was already beginning. At this point, the Strasbourg reformers clearly followed the liturgical model of Zwingli. In Bucer's booklet Grund und Ursach (Ground and Cause) published in December 1524, he not only attacked the idea of the mass as a sacrifice, but he also rejected liturgical garments, the altar, and any form of ritual. By May 1525 the reforms were implemented in the parish churches, but the city council decided to retain the holding of mass in the cathedral and the collegiate churches, St Thomas', Young St Peter's, and Old St Peter's.
Dialogue with Zwingli and Luther (1524–1533)
From the end of 1524, Bucer concentrated on the major dividing issue within the reformed camp: the understanding of the Eucharist. Bucer played the role of the man of dialogue between Zwingli and Luther. The two theologians disagreed on the issue of whether the body and blood of Christ were truly present within the elements during the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Although Bucer was willing to dialogue for the sake of unity, he did promote his own position on the issue. By late fall 1524, Bucer had abandoned the idea of the Real Presence. Ironically, the impetus for this change came from his reading of a sermon by Luther on John 6. Luther emphasised the importance of faith and Bucer applied this to the understanding of the eucharistic elements. Hence, Bucer concluded that Zwingli’s interpretation was the right one from an exegetical standpoint. However, Bucer differed with Zwingli in that Bucer believed only faith in Christ was normative and all other matters were of secondary importance.
In October 1525 Bucer sent an envoy to Luther in order to present Zwingli's view and pleaded that they would agree to differ and accept each others opinions. When Luther refused, Bucer came to the conclusion that he had to formulate the wording so that both sides would agree. For Bucer, different understandings of scripture were perfectly acceptable and as long as both sides had a "child-like faith in God", church unity would be preserved. In March 1526, Bucer published Apologia defending his view. At the same time he published two translations of works by Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen. In both cases, he interpolated his own interpretation of the Lord’s Supper into the translations. The Wittenberg theologians were predictably outraged at the result and their relationship with Bucer was seriously damaged. In 1528 when Luther published Vom Abendmahl Christi, Bekenntnis (Confession Concerning Christ's Supper) detailing Luther’s concept of the sacramental union, Bucer responded with a treatise of his own, Conciliation between Dr. Luther and His Opponents Regarding Christ’s Supper. It was written in the form of a dialogue between two merchants, one from Nuremberg who supported Luther and the other from Strasbourg who supported Bucer with the latter succeeding in winning over his opponent. Luther again harshly rejected Bucer’s interpretation.
During the eucharistic controversy Bucer and Zwingli remained in close communication and they consulted each other on many other topics concerning theology and practice. Although they shared common goals, Bucer did not hesitate to disagree with Zwingli. However, any differences always took second priority over unity between Strasbourg and the Swiss churches. In 1527, Bucer and Capito were invited to attend a disputation in Bern, where a debate was held in order to decide whether the city should accept reformed doctrines and practices. Bucer provided strong support to Zwingli's leading role in the disputation which finally brought the Reformation to Bern.
The final occasion to bring Zwingli and Luther together, the Marburg Colloquy, was organised by Philip of Hesse in October 1529. Bucer was also invited to the disputation as Philip considered him to be the leading reformer who sought common ground between the two antagonists. However, Bucer was unable to overcome Luther's distrust. Luther declared, "It is obvious that we do not have one and the same spirit." The meeting ended in failure. Bucer's disappointment in the outcome is seen when he later wrote,
If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn't quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ's Spirit, and consider anyone to be the enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother? I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing. This holds true in theology as well.
The theological division of the reformers was evident when the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V convened the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 and requested that the Protestants present their views to him. Philipp Melanchthon was the main delegate from Wittenberg and he quickly prepared a confession representing their views. Strasbourg was now in a bind; they were being forced to choose sides. When attempts by Strasbourg to adopt the new confession without the article on the Lord’s Supper were rejected, Bucer was called upon to write a completely new confession. The result was the Confessio Tetrapolitana, so named because only four cities, Strasbourg, Konstanz, Memmingen, and Lindau adopted it. On 22 September, however, Charles rejected the Protestants completely and decreed that they were required to reconcile with the Catholic faith. This prompted Melanchthon to finally meet with Bucer and after lengthy discussions, they agreed on nine theses which were dispatched to Luther and to Strasbourg. The Strasbourg magistrates forwarded the articles to Basel and Zürich. Bucer went to Coburg to meet with Luther on 26–28 September. Although Luther still rejected Bucer's theses, he encouraged him to continue to seek unity. Consequently, Bucer traveled to the southern German cities and to Basel and Zürich. On 12 October, Bucer presented the articles to the Zürich authorities and although Zwingli did not oppose Bucer, he was unwilling to agree with him.
In December 1530 a defensive Protestant alliance, the Schmalkaldic League, was created and Strasbourg was admitted on the basis of the Confessio Tetrapolitana. By this time, Bucer's relationship with Zwingli was beginning to unravel. Strasbourg's political relations with the Elector of Saxony and Bucer's partial theological support of Luther was too much for Zwingli and on 21 February 1531, he wrote a final letter to Bucer, ending the years of friendship. Bucer continued to nurture his relationship with the Lutherans. When the south German cities convened in Ulm on 23-24 March 1532 to discuss their alliance with the Schmalkaldic League, Bucer was able to convince the cities that they would sign the Augsburg Confession if they were required to do so. His championing of the confession came as a great surprise to the Swiss cities and yet Luther did not support Bucer for this new endorsement. Despite Luther's continuing polemical attacks on Bucer, he remained unfazed and he wrote,
In any case, we must seek unity and love in our relationships with everyone—regardless of how they behave toward us.
In April and May 1533, he made another tour of the south German cities and Switzerland. Although he was politely received, the Swiss cities were unconvinced and they never took part in the Protestant alliance.
Organising the Strasbourg church (1529–1534)
seen behind timber-framed houses that were already standing when Bucer officiated in Strasbourg.]]
Reform in the Strasbourg church was being slowly implemented even while Bucer was occupied with theological developments. The Strasbourg ministers pressed the council to completely abandon the mass. On 20 February 1529, the mass was officially suspended throughout Strasbourg and with this decision, the city joined the Reformation. Two preaching services (Predigtgottesdienste) per Sunday were held in all the parish churches. On 5 January 1530, when Strasbourg decided to join in an alliance with the Swiss cities (Christliches Burgrecht or Christian Federation), the council decided to remove images and side altars in the churches.
Bucer’s main priority, however, was the instilling of moral discipline in the church. Special wardens (Kirchenpfleger) chosen among the laity were assigned to each church to supervise both doctrine and practice. The council’s attitude of implementing disciplinary procedures was lukewarm at best. Thus, the pastors and wardens presented a major petition on 30 November 1532 that called for better enforcement of ethical standards and the preaching of true doctrine. The petition was largely triggered by concern over the refugee population that had risen dramatically due to Strasbourg’s tolerant asylum policies. A significant number of the refugees included Anabaptists and spiritualists including followers of Melchior Hoffman, Caspar Schwenckfeld, and Clemens Ziegler. The council established a commission that studied the matter and proposed that a city synod be held. Bucer provided a basis document in the form of sixteen articles on church doctrine. On 3 June, the synod convened at the Church of the Penitent Magdalens, debated on Bucer’s text, and accepted them in full.
After the first session of the synod, the city council took no action for several months. On their own initiative, Bucer and Capito prodded the commission to produce a draft of an ordinance for the regulation of the church. The draft ordinance allowed the city council to retain almost complete control of the church. The council was responsible for supervising doctrine, appointing church wardens, and maintaining moral standards. The council continued, however, to delay on any corrective action against Hoffman and Schwenckfeld. The pastors pressed their demands even to the point of threatening resignation. The council finally took action when followers of Hoffman seized power in Münster. Wishing to avoid a similar incident, on 4 March 1534 the council announced that Bucer’s Confessio Tetrapolitana and his sixteen articles on church doctrine were official church statements of faith. All Anabaptists had to either subscribe to these documents or leave the city. A new church was established in Strasbourg to which Capito declared, "Bucer is the bishop of our church."
Champion of Protestant unity (1534–1538)
By 1534 Bucer was becoming one of the leading figures in the German Reformation. Despite the difficulties he had in bringing Wittenberg, the south German cities, and Switzerland together to agree on matters of doctrine, he ceaselessly searched for unity among the Protestants, using various formulations that could be interpreted in different ways. In 27–29 December, Bucer met Melanchthon in Kassel where they discussed various theological topics. They found that they agreed on most issues, as Melanchthon’s view on the Lord’s Supper had moved toward Bucer’s position. However, they both realised that it was Luther’s opinion on the matter that was crucial. The warming relations was evidenced by the Wittenberg theologians' acceptance of ten theses drafted by Bucer. In October 1535, Luther suggested that a meeting be held in Eisenach in order to fully conclude an agreement. Bucer spared no effort in trying to convince the Swiss and south Germans to attend. The south Germans agreed, but the Swiss could not be persuaded and they remained skeptical of Bucer’s intentions. On the day of the planned meeting, Luther fell ill and was unable to travel. The theologians who had gathered in Eisenach were undaunted and they immediately proceeded directly to Wittenberg to meet with Luther on 21 May 1536. In their first meeting, Luther attacked the south German delegates, Bucer in particular, demanding that they recant their false understanding of the Eucharist. Capito quickly intervened to calm matters and Bucer claimed that Luther had misunderstood their views. It became clear that the difference between the two sides centered on the belief of whether unbelievers who partook the eucharist truly received the body and blood of Christ or just the simple elements. Bugenhagen formulated a compromise that distinguished between unbelievers (impii) and the unworthy (indigni). The south Germans accepted that the unworthy received Christ, while the question on what occurred with the unbelievers was left unanswered. Overcoming this impasse, the two sides continued to work fruitfully on other issues and on 28 May, the Wittenberg Concord was signed.
The results of the agreement were mixed. Not surprisingly, Strasbourg quickly endorsed the document while the south German cities required much coaxing from Bucer. In the end, almost all of them were won over by his arguments. The Swiss cities proved to be much more difficult, Zürich in particular. Even a mild statement suggesting a union of Christ with the elements was immediately rejected by the Swiss. Bucer argued that it was not a true union but something unexplainable and mysterious. He urged the Swiss to hold a national synod to decide on the matter, hoping to convince at least Bern and Basel. His goal was to approach something close to a Europe-wide Protestant unity in order to deal with future ecclesiastical and political conflicts. The synod was held in Zürich from 28 May to 4 April 1538, but Bucer was unable to convince a single city. The Swiss neither accepted nor rejected the Wittenberg Concord.
Bucer's influence on the Swiss would eventually be felt indirectly; in summer 1538 he invited a gifted Frenchman to lead a French refugee congregation in Strasbourg. The newly installed twenty-nine year old pastor was John Calvin, the future reformer of Geneva. Bucer and Calvin had a good relationship that survived many years and they had much in common theologically. Although it is an open question among modern scholars on the extent to which Bucer influenced Calvin, it is known that many of the reforms that Calvin implemented in Geneva, including the liturgy and the church organisation, was originally developed in Strasbourg.
Colloquys and the imperial diet (1539–1542)
At the end of 1538, when the Catholic Duke Georg of Saxony died, a religious colloquy was convened in Leipzig to discuss potential reforms within the Duchy. Electoral Saxony sent Melanchthon, while Philip of Hesse sent Bucer. The Duchy itself was represented by Georg Witzel, a former Lutheran who had converted to Catholicism. From 2 to 7 January 1539, Bucer and Witzel had a theological discussion in which they agreed to defer controversial points of doctrine. Melanchthon felt that doctrinal unity was a prerequisite to any agreement on reforms and he withdrew from the discussion. Bucer and Witzel agreed on fifteen articles on various issues of church life. Bucer made no doctrinal concessions, but he remained silent on critical issues such as the mass and the papacy. Bucer’s ecumenical actions generated harsh criticism from other reformers.
Bucer’s work in Saxony was effectively replaced by the Truce of Frankfurt in which Charles and the leaders of the Schmalkaldic League agreed to proceed with a major colloquy that would settle religious issues within the German states. Bucer placed great hopes on this meeting, believing that it would be possible to convince most German Catholics to accept the doctrine of sola fide which would then be the basis for future discussions on all other issues. He published several tracts under various pseudonyms in promoting a German national church. On 12 June 1540 a conference in Haguenau was inaugurated. After over a month of discussion, there was no progress as the two sides could not agree on a common starting point. The decision was taken to reconvene in Worms. The Protestants were led by Melanchthon, but Bucer was a major player behind the scenes. When the colloquy made no progress, the imperial chancellor Nicholas Perrenot de Granvelle called for secret negotiations. Bucer teamed with Johannes Gropper, a delegate representing the archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied. The two had got on well when they first met in Haguenau. Bucer was aware of the risks involved in participating in what might appear as collusion. However, his desire to bring unity to the German churches induced him to proceed. They agreed on twenty-three articles and produced the "Worms Book". The book was confidentially presented to two princes on each side of the religious divide, Philip of Hesse and Joachim II, Elector of Brandenburg.
The Worms Book laid the groundwork for the final negotiations which were to take place at the Conference of Regensburg. The imperial diet opened on 5 April 1541 with Charles present. He created a small committee consisting of Johannes Eck, Gropper, and Julius Pflug on the Catholic side and Melanchthon, Bucer, and Johannes Pistorius on the Protestant side to settle the religious matters. The basis text was the "Regensburg Book" which was essentially the Worms Book with modifications made by the papal legate Gasparo Contarini and other Catholic theologians. The two sides discussed each article in the book and initially there was much optimism as they were able to hammer out an agreement over the issue of justification by faith. However, they encountered major obstacles midway through the book. The two sides could not agree over the question of the teaching authority of the Church, the Catholics claiming this for the magisterium and the Protestants insisting that it was the Bible. On the mass and the Lord's Supper, Contarini had inserted the concept of transubstantiation into the original version of Bucer and Gropper's article. The Protestants would not accept this position. It appeared that the colloquy was headed toward an impasse. In salvaging some of the agreements that were obtained, Charles and Granvelle had the Regensburg Book reprinted with additional articles where the Protestants were allowed to present their views. However, by this time Luther in Wittenberg and the papal court in Rome had already seen the book and they both publicly rejected the article on justification by faith. The two sides in the conference grew further apart, each taking uncompromising stands. The conference failed completely to unite the German churches and was a major setback for Bucer.
Sometime after Bucer had returned from Regensburg, the plague struck the city of Strasbourg. His wife, Elisabeth, died on 16 November 1541 and he lost five children to the epidemic. His colleague, Wolfgang Capito, was also a victim to the disease. On 16 April 1542 he married Capito's widow, Wibrandis Rosenblatt, who had also outlived her two previous husbands, Ludwig Keller and Johannes Oecolampadius. She brought four children from her previous marriages and the new couple would have a daughter of their own, Elisabeth.
Reformation in the Electorate of Cologne (1542–1547)
On 5 February 1542, Bucer and Gropper met with Hermann von Wied to discuss the introduction of church reform in his archbishopric. After consulting the territorial diet, the archbishop decided that Bucer would lead the reformation and on 14 December Bucer moved to Bonn, the seat of the Electorate. His selection caused much consternation in the Cologne cathedral chapter. The hostility of the clergy caused Gropper to retreat from his friendship with Bucer. On 19 December, a formal protest against Bucer’s selection was lodged by the cathedral chapter, but Hermann von Wied supported his new protégé and he was allowed to stay. Bucer led a small congregation in Bonn and he preached three times a week at Bonn cathedral. However, his main tasks were to provide expert opinions and to promote reform.
In January 1543 Bucer began work on a major document for Hermann von Wied, Simple Consideration Concerning the Establishment of a Christian Reformation Founded upon God’s Word. Melanchthon came to Bonn in May to assist Bucer in drafting the document. Caspar Hedio joined them a month later. The draft was discussed with the archbishop at the beginning of July and he studied the text for five continuous days. On 23 July Hermann von Wied submitted Simple Consideration to the territorial diet. Although the cathedral chapter flatly rejected it, the closing decree stated that the reform programme was accepted by the diet.
The first tentative steps toward reform were immediately negated when Charles led a military campaign against William of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, a Protestant duke who tried to expand his territorial control over lands which Charles claimed for himself. On 17 August, Charles’ forces entered Bonn and vandalised the neighbouring land. Bucer was forced to leave Bonn and return to Strasbourg. During the Diet of Speyer in 1544, Charles declared a truce with the Protestants in order to attack France. Once he was able to obtain a peace treaty with the French, he turned his attention back to coercing the Protestants to return to Catholicism. When the cathedral chapter and the University of Cologne appealed to the emperor and the pope for protection from their own archbishop, Charles responded affirmatively and he took sides for the first time in their conflict. Bucer wrote several treatises defending Hermann von Wied's reformation plan including a six-hundred page book, Beständige Verantwortung (Steadfast Defence). However, he was unable to influence the course of events. Hermann von Wied was excommunicated on 16 April 1546 and he formally relinquished his electoral titles on 25 February 1547. Bucer’s small congregation in Bonn wrote a letter to him expressing their astonishment and disappointment at the disastrous results. Bucer could only console them by noting that Christians who humble themselves before God would eventually receive his protection.
Rejecting the Augsburg Interim (1547–1549)
With the onset of the Schmalkaldic War, Protestants began a gradual retreat within the Empire. On 21 March 1547 Strasbourg surrendered to the imperial army and the following month, the decisive victory at the Battle of Mühlberg ended most Protestant resistance. Within Strasbourg, however, Bucer and his colleagues including Matthew Zell, Paul Fagius, and Johannes Marbach continued to press the council to bring more discipline and independence to the church. Their efforts were effectively overruled by the work of the Diet of Augsburg which first met on 1 September. The meeting produced the Augsburg Interim, a document of twenty-six articles which imposed the practice of Catholic rites and ceremonies within the Empire. In order for the document to be acceptable to the Protestants, the Diet needed the endorsement of a major public figure and that person was Bucer.
Bucer arrived in Augsburg on 30 March 1548. On 2 April he announced that he was willing to ratify the document but only after certain changes were made. He had not realised that the time for negotiations had passed. Charles insisted on his signature and when he refused, he was placed under house arrest on 13 April. Shortly thereafter he was put in close confinement by the order of the Emperor. On 20 April, Bucer signed the Interim and he was freed immediately.
Bucer’s capitulation during his short encounter with Charles did not stop him from continuing the fight. On his return to Strasbourg, he stepped up his attacks on Catholic rites and ceremonies and on 2 July he published the Concise Summary of Christian Doctrine and Religion. Charles ordered all copies of the book to be destroyed. Tension was now growing in Strasbourg as Bucer's opponents began to fear that he was leading the city to disaster. Many Strasbourg merchants started to leave to avoid a potential clash with imperial forces. On 30 August, the guild officials voted overwhelmingly to begin negotiations on how to introduce the Interim. Bucer was still not cowed; even as the city of Konstanz surrendered and accepted the Interim, he called for Strasbourg to reject it unconditionally. In January 1549 as plans were prepared for the implementation of the Interim, Bucer and his colleagues continued to attack it and they produced a memorandum on how the Protestant faith might be preserved under its directives. Without any significant supporters left, Bucer and Fagius were finally relieved of their positions and dismissed on 1 March 1549. Bucer left Strasbourg on 5 April just as he had arrived twenty-five years ago—as a refugee.
Exile in England (1549–1551)
Bucer received several invitations offering sanctuary, including Melanchthon in Wittenberg and Calvin in Geneva. He took Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's invitation to come to England as he had corresponded with several notable English theologians and he believed that the Reformation had advanced quite successfully in that country. Bucer, Fagius, and others in their company arrived in London on 25 April 1549 and Cranmer received them with full honours. A few days later, Bucer and Fagius were introduced to King Edward VI and the entire court.
Bucer took the position of Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. In June he got caught in a controversy against his will by Peter Martyr, another refugee who had taken the equivalent Regius Professor position in Oxford. Martyr was debating with Catholic colleagues in Oxford over the issue of the Lord’s Supper and he asked Bucer for his support. However, Bucer did not totally agree with Martyr’s position and he realised that exposure of the difference in views would not assist the cause of reform. He also did not want the Eucharist conflict that occurred in his homeland to repeat itself in England. He told Martyr that he did not take sides, neither Catholic, Lutheran, nor Zwinglian and instead he asked him to edify as many people as possible and to offend no one.
In 1550, another conflict arose when John Hooper, the new bishop of Gloucester, refused to don the traditional clothes necessary for his ordination. The vestments controversy pitted Cranmer who supported the wearing of clerical garments against Hooper as well as Martyr and Jan Laski, pastor of the Stranger church in London. It was well-known that Bucer had reformed the church services in Strasbourg to emulate the simplicity of the early church and Hooper expected Bucer's support. However, Bucer tried to stay above the fray and he argued that there were more important issues to deal with such as the lack of pastors and pastoral care, the need for catechismal instruction, and the implementation of church discipline. Hooper refused to be swayed and he was imprisoned in the Tower until he was forced to accept Cranmer's demand.
Bucer had very ambitious goals for spreading the Reformation throughout England. Thus he was quite disappointed when those in power did not consult him in bringing about change. When he learned about the custom of presenting a memorandum to the king every new year, he worked on a major treatise and presented a draft to his friend John Cheke on 21 October 1550. The De Regno Christi (On the Kingdom of Christ) was the culmination of the many years of experience in various cities throughout the Continent, summarising his thought and theology. Bucer, himself, described it as his legacy. He urged the king to take control of the reform of the church. He planned for evangelists to preach the gospel and to win over the people. The Parliament would then introduce fourteen laws of reform covering both ecclesiastical and civil matters. He covered religious instruction, church offices, and an overhaul of matrimonial law. He presented in great detail surprisingly modern ideas on divorce and women's rights. Bucer was, however, a man of the sixteenth century and his ideal society was distinctively authoritarian with a strong emphasis on Christian discipline. As much as he hoped that his vision would become a reality, the De Regno Christi was never destined to be the charter of the English Reformation; the book was finally printed not in England, but in Basel in 1557.
Bucer's last major contribution for England was a major treatise on the original 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer had requested his opinion on how the book should be revised and he submitted his response on 5 January 1551. Bucer called for simplicity by noting as superfluous certain holidays, actions of piety such as genuflections, and ceremonies such as private masses. He focused on the congregation and how the people would be taught and worship. Whether Cranmer actually followed Bucer's recommendations is a matter of conjecture. Although Bucer's influence on the Church of England should not be overestimated, it is likely that his greatest contribution was on the 1552 revision of the Book of Common Prayer.
Death and legacy
Bucer’s time in England was marked by many illnesses including rheumatism, coughs, and intestinal ailments. Symptoms such as vomiting, shivering, and sweating indicate that he probably suffered from a severe case of tuberculosis. On 13 February 1551 his health finally broke down and on 22 February he dictated an addition to his last will. He named Walter Haddon and Matthew Parker as executors, commended his loved ones to Thomas Cranmer, and thanked his stepdaughter Agnes Capito for taking care of him. On 28 February, after encouraging those near him to do all they could to make his design for the kingdom of Christ to come true, he died. He was only fifty-nine years old.
He was buried in the church of Great St Mary’s before a large crowd of university professors and students. In a letter to Peter Martyr, John Cheke wrote a fitting eulogy:
We are deprived of a leader than whom the whole world would scarcely obtain a greater, whether in knowledge of true religion or in integrity and innocence of life, or in thirst for study of the most holy things, or in exhausting labour in advancing piety, or in authority and fulness of teaching, or in anything that is praiseworthy and renowned.
Several years later when Mary I came to the throne, she had Bucer and Fagius tried posthumously as heretics as part of her efforts to restore Catholicism in England. Their caskets were disinterred and their remains were burned along with available copies of their books. On 22 July 1560, Elizabeth I formally rehabilitated Bucer and Fagius. A brass plaque on the floor of Great St Mary’s designates the earlier location of Bucer’s grave.
After his death, Bucer’s writings continued to be translated, reprinted, and disseminated throughout Europe. Several groups laid claim to him as a spokesman for their views; Anglicans, Puritans, Lutherans, and Calvinists alike saw him as one of their own. Although his ideas were adapted for each confessional view, this also encouraged polemicists to criticise Bucer for being weak and accommodating in his theology. No "Buceran" denomination emerged from his ministry; most likely this was because he had not developed a systematic theology as Melanchthon had done for the Lutheran church and Calvin for the Reformed churches. He is chiefly remembered for his promotion of religious pluralism and his lifelong struggle to create an inclusive church.
Further reading
External links
- links to the digitised versions of the early editions of Bucer's works.
- (contains a translation of selections from Bucer's De Regno Christi)
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