Joh. W. Baum: Capito und Butzer, Elberfeld, 1860 (partly from MSS. See a complete chronological
list of Bucer’s works, pp. 577–611). W. Krafft: art. "Butzer" in Herzog’s Encykl.2, vol. III.
35–46 (abridged in Schaff-Herzog). Tim. W. Röhrich: Gesch. der Reformation in Elsass und
besonders in Strassburg, Strassb. 1830–32, 3 vols. A. Erichson: L’Église française de Strasbourg
au seizième siècle d’après des monuments inédits. Stasb. 1885. Max Lenz: Briefwechsel Landgraf
Philipps mit Bucer, Leipzig, 1880 and 1887, 2 vols. Ad. Baum: Magistrat und Reformation in
Strassburg. Strassb. 1887 (212 pages).
Strassburg, the capital of the Alsace, celebrated for its Gothic cathedral, university, and libraries,
had been long before the Reformation the scene of the mystic revival preacher Tauler and the
Friends of God. It was a thoroughly German city before Louis XIV. incorporated it with France
(1681), and was re-conquered by Germany in 1870.
The Reformation began there in 1523. Zell, Bucer, Capito (Köpfel), Hedio (Heil), and for
a few years Calvin also (1538 to 1541), labored there with great success. The magistrate abolished
the mass, 1528, and favored the Protestant cause under the lead of Jacob Sturm, an enlightened
patriot, who represented the city in all important transactions at home, in the Diet, and in conferences
with the Romanists, till his death (1553). He urged the establishment of a Christian college, where
classical learning and evangelical piety should be cultivated. His namesake, Johann Sturm, an
eminent pedagogue, was called from Paris to preside over this college (1537), which grew into an
academy, and ultimately into a university. Both were moderate men, and agreed with Capito and
Bucer.^754 The church of Strassburg was much disturbed by the Peasants’ War, the Anabaptists, and
still more by the unfortunate sacramental controversies.
The chief reformer of Strassburg was Martin Bucer (1491–1552).^755 He was a native of
Alsace, a Dominican monk, and ordained to the priesthood. He received a deep impression from
Luther at the disputation in Heidelberg, 1518; obtained papal dispensation from his monastic vows
(1521); left the Roman Church; found refuge in the castle of Francis of Sickingen; married a nun,
and accepted a call to Strassburg in 1523.
Here he labored as minister for twenty-five years, and had a hand in many important
movements connected with the Reformation. He attended the colloquy at Marburg (1529); wrote,
with Capito, the Confessio Tetrapolitana (1530); brought about an artificial and short-lived armistice
between Luther and Zwingli by the Wittenberg Concordia (1536); connived, unfortunately, at the
bigamy of Philip of Hesse; and took a leading part, with Melanchthon, in the unsuccessful
reformation of Archbishop Herrmann of Cologne (1542). Serious political troubles, and his resistance
to the semi-popish Interim, made his stay in Strassburg dangerous, and at last impossible.
Melanchthon in Wittenberg, Myconius in Basel, and Calvin in Geneva, offered him an asylum; but
be accepted, with his younger colleague Fagius, a call of Cranmer to England (1549). He aided
him in his reforms; was highly esteemed by the archbisbop and King Edward VI., and ended his
labors as professor of theology in Cambridge. His bones were exhumed in the reign of Bloody
Mary (1556), but his memory was honorably restored by Queen Elizabeth (1560).
Bucer figures largely in the history of his age as the third (next to Luther and Melanchthon)
among the Reformers of Germany, as a learned theologian and diplomatist, and especially as a
(^754) On Jacob Sturm see the monograph of H. Baumgarten, Strassburg. 1876. Of John Sturm (who died 1589, in his eighty-second year),
there are several biographies, by C. Schmidt (in French, 1855), Rieth (1864), Kückelhahn (1872), and Zaar (1872).
(^755) Butzer in German, Bucerus in Latin.