back to a moderate Lutheranism. He sympathized most with Bucer, and labored afterwards for the
Wittenberg Concordia. The imperial prohibition of Protestant preaching, June 16, 1530, terminated
his career in Augsburg, though he remained till Aug. 26, and conferred much with Bucer and
Melanchthon.
He now entered upon his more important and permanent labors as general superintendent
of Lüneberg, and took the leading part in the Reformation of Celle, Hannover, Minden, Soest,
Lemgo, and other places; but he gives a doleful description of the moral condition. He attended the
colloquy at Hagenau, and died soon after his return, May 27, 1541.
He wrote two catechisms and several devotional books. In his earlier career he was vain,
changeable, and factious. He lacked originality, but had the talent of utilizing and popularizing the
new ideas of others. Luther gives him the testimony: "He hated not only the popish abominations,
but also all sectaries; he sincerely loved the pure word, and handled it with all diligence and
faithfulness, as his writings abundantly show."^764
The Dukes of Mecklenburg, Heinrich and Albrecht, applied to Luther in 1524 for
"evangelists," and Luther sent them two Augustinian monks. Heinrich favored the Reformation,
but very cautiously. The university of Rostock, founded 1419, became at a later period a school of
strict Lutheran orthodoxy.
§ 97. Protestantism in Augsburg and South Germany.
Augsburg, first known twelve years before Christ as a Roman colony (Augusta Vindelicorum),
and during the middle ages an imperial city (since 1276), the seat of a bishop, the chief emporium
for the trade of Northern Europe with the Mediterranean and the East, and the home of princely
merchants and bankers (the Fuggers and Welsers), figures prominently in the early history of the
Reformation, and gave the name to the standard confession of the Lutheran Church in 1530, and
to the treaty of peace in 1555.^765 Luther was there in 1518 at a conference with Cardinal Cajetan,
and lodged with the Carmelite friar Frosch, who remained faithful to him. Peutinger, the bishop
(Christoph von Stadium), and two canons (Adelmann) were friendly to reform, at least for a time.
Urbanus Rhegius preached there from 1523 to 1530, and exerted great influence. He distributed,
with Frosch, the communion with the cup at Christmas, 1524. Both married in 1526.
But the Zwinglians, under the lead of Michael Keller, gradually gained the upper hand
among influential men. Zwingli took advantage of the situation in his famous letter to Alber, Nov.
16, 1524, in which he first fully developed his theory. Even Rhegius, who had written before against
Carstadt (sic) and Zwingli, became a Zwinglian, though only for a short period.
The Anabaptist leaders, Hubmaier, Denck, Hetzer, Hut, likewise appeared in Augsburg,
and gathered a congregation of eleven hundred members. They held a general synod in 1527. They
(^764) Rhegius, Opera latine edita, Norimb. 1561; Deutsche Bücher und Schriften, Nürnb. 1562, and again Frankf. 1577. Döllinger, Die
Reform. II. 58 sqq. Uhlhorn, Urbanus Rhegius, Elberfeld, 1862, and his sketch in Herzog2, XIII. 147-155.
(^765) Friedrich Roth, Augsburgs Reformationsgeschichte, 1517-1527. München, 1881.