Melanchthonian school, in distinction from the rigid Lutheranism which triumphed in the Formula
of Concord.^760
Bremen accepted Protestantism in November, 1522, by calling Heinrich Moller, better
known as Heinrich von Zütphen (1468–1524), to the parish of Ansgari, and afterwards two other
Protestant preachers. Moller had studied at Wittenberg, 1515, and taken a degree in 1521 under
Melanchthon. He was prior of an Augustinian convent at Dort, and preached there and in Antwerp
the doctrines of the Reformation, but had to flee for his life. He followed an invitation to preach in
Ditmar, but met with opposition, and was burnt to death by a fanatical and drunken mob excited
by the monks. Luther published an account of his death, and dedicated it to the Christians in Bremen,
with an exposition of the tenth Psalm. He rejoiced in the return of the spirit of martyrdom, which,
he says, "is horrible to behold before the world, but precious in the sight of God."^761
In 1527 all the churches of Bremen were in charge of Protestant pastors, and afterwards
divided between the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions. The convents were turned into schools
and hospitals.
Hamburg, which shares with Bremen the supremacy in the North German and maritime
commerce, followed in 1523. Five years later Dr. Bugenhagen, called Pomeranus (1485–1558),
was called from Wittenberg to superintend the changes. This Reformer, Luther’s faithful friend
and pastor, had a special gift of government, and was the principal organizer of the Lutheran
churches in Northern Germany and Denmark. For this purpose he labored in the cities of
Braunschweig (1528), Hamburg (1529), Lübeck (1530–1532), in his native Pomerania (1534), and
in Denmark, where he spent nearly five years (1537–1542). His church constitutions were models.^762
Lübeck, a rich commercial city, and capital of the Hanseatic League, expelled the first
Lutheran preachers, but recalled them, and removed the priests in 1529. Bugenhagen completed
the work.
In Braunschweig-Lüneburg, Duke Ernst the Confessor favored the new doctrines in 1527,
and committed the prosecution of the work to Urbanus Rhegius, whom he met at the Diet of
Augsburg, 1530.
Rhegius^763 (1489–1541) belongs to the second class of Reformers. He was the son of a
priest on the Lake of Constance, educated at Lindau, Freiburg-i.- B. (in the house of Zasius), and
Ingolstadt under Dr. Eck, and ordained priest at Constance (1519). He joined the humanistic school,
entered into correspondence with Erasmus, Faber, and Zwingli, and became an imperial orator and
poet-laureate, though his poetry is stiff and conventional. He acquired the doctorate of divinity at
Basel. He was called to Augsburg by the magistrate, and labored as preacher in the Dome from
1523 to 1530. He passed from Romanism to Lutheranism, from Lutheranism to Zwinglianism, and
(^760) Köstlin, biography of Hess in the "Zeitschrift des schlesischen Geschichtsvereins," vol. VI. Gilett, Crato von Crafftheim und seine
Freunde, Frankfurt-a.-M. 1860, 2 parts. A very learned work. To Ursinus we shall return in the history of the Reformation in the Palatinate.
In the cities of the Hanseatic League the Reformation was introduced at an early period.
(^761) Vom Bruder Heinrich in Ditmar verbrannt, Wittenberg, 1525, in the Erl. ed. XXVI. 313-337; in Walch, XXI. 94 sqq. Comp. Paul
Crocius, Das grosse Martyrbuch, Bremen, 1682. Klaus Harms, Heinrich von Zütphen, in Piper’s "Evang. Kalender," 1852.
(^762) Printed in Richter, Die evang. Kirchenordnungen, vol. I. C. Bertheau, Bugenhagen’s Kirchenordnung für die Stadt Hamburg vom
J. 1529, 1885. L. Hänselmann, B.’s Kirchenordnung f. d. Stadt Braunschweig, 1885. Frantz, Die evangelische Kirchenverfassung in den
deutschen Städten des 16. Jahrh., Halle, 1876. Vogt, Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus, Elberfeld, 1867. The year 1885, the fourth
centennial of Bugenhagen’s birth, called out several popular sketches of his life by Knauth, Petrich, Zitzlaff, and Hering (1888). See also
O. Vogt, Bugenhagen’s Briefwechsel, Stettin, 1888.
(^763) So he spells his name (Rieger in German), not Regius (König).