In summer 1546, armed conflict erupted in the Holy Roman Empire. The war pitted the Catholic Emperor Charles V against the Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Protestant imperial estates led by Landgrave Philip of Hesse and Prince-Elector John Frederick of Saxony. While the conflict's most famous and final battle took place in Thuringia at Mühlberg, the Schmalkaldic War's first military action occurred in southern Germany in the Danube River basin. This area housed numerous evangelical imperial cities, several of which sat south of the Danube in eastern Swabia. When hostilities began in July 1546, magistrates throughout the region ordered their forces to occupy the local countryside. With their soldiers came the Reformation, as city councils sent preachers to reform the seized parishes. For councilors in Augsburg, Ulm, and elsewhere, evangelization complemented the general war effort, since true believers must “first and foremost consider God's word and honor … and let God's word be preached. … Such a thing should not be delayed until after the war, for if one undertakes the Christian work of improving the corrupted churches of these poor subjects now, God will grant us victory more quickly and allow the newly won Christians to remain with us.”Footnote ¹ Closely tied to the religious goals of this wartime program of reform, therefore, was the concrete political objective of spreading urban jurisdiction to areas formerly controlled by Catholic lords.

One of the most active promoters of rural evangelization during the Schmalkaldic War was Swabia's largest city, Augsburg. For several years before the war, the city council sought to expand its regional sphere of influence though the spread of religious reform. As part of this policy, in 1545 Augsburg's magistrates helped to guide the Reformation's introduction in two nearby imperial cities, Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren. Since 1538, the council had tried to install evangelical clergy in rural communities where it possessed tenuous claims to the right of reformation. This exporting of religious reform sought simultaneously to extend Augsburg's authority and to minister to the souls of those who had been “robbed of the Gospel's healthy teaching.”Footnote ² These efforts culminated during the Schmalkaldic War, when Augsburg's magistrates sent the preachers Johann Flinner to Füssen, Ulrich Lederle to Grimoldsried, Wolfgang Musculus to Wettenhausen, and other pastors to surrounding parishes. Their mission was “to remove from the churches all papal teachings; preaching; ceremonies; masses; vigils; blessings of salt, water, and candles; idolatrous images; and whatever other things there may be. In their place, preach the pure teaching of God's word in accordance with the Augsburg Confession.”Footnote ³

Despite this injunction to abide by the Augsburg Confession, most clerics and magistrates in Augsburg did not wish to spread reform modeled on the tenets of Wittenberg theology. Augsburg's churches technically observed the Augsburg Confession—the main statement of Wittenberg reform presented at the 1530 Imperial Diet of Augsburg—but they did so because the Schmalkaldic League required its members to profess allegiance to the Confession. Within their jurisdiction, the council and its preachers favored their own version of evangelical reform, whose liturgy, sacramental theology, and rejection of religious images stood closer to Zurich's reformation than to Wittenberg.Footnote ⁴ The most important area of theological divergence concerned the celebration of the Eucharist, which in Augsburg followed a formula that was neither Zwinglian nor Lutheran. The spread of this local version of reform sat at the heart of the council's territorial politics. Regional evangelization carried with it the potential to create an expanded sphere of religio-political hegemony.

Such gains did not come cheaply, however. In order to reform rural parishes, the council had to remove preachers from urban churches and send them outside the city. This left Augsburg's churches understaffed, since the council lacked the necessary number of evangelical clergy to pursue external evangelization while providing religious ministry for its burghers. During the 1530s and early 1540s, the solution for Augsburg's magistrates had been to import preachers from other cities, most notably from Strasbourg and the nearby imperial city of Memmingen. In the build-up to the Schmalkaldic War, Augsburg's council added a new source of clergy: the Swiss Confederation. Between 1545 and 1547, Augsburg received six preachers from Swiss cities. Four men came from Zurich, a reform center whose clergy had rejected compromise with Wittenberg. This presented additional difficulties, since the Zurichers' opposition to Wittenberg theology threatened to violate Augsburg's pledge to observe the Augsburg Confession. Because the Swiss had in effect separated themselves from the Empire, recourse to Zurich preachers also carried dangerous political overtones that alarmed Protestants and Catholics alike.

Augsburg's actions recall the concern during the first decades of the sixteenth century that some of southern Germany's cities might “turn Swiss.” Detailed by Thomas A. Brady in his 1985 study, “turning Swiss” implied a political movement away from the Empire toward independent self-rule on the model of the Swiss Confederation.Footnote ⁵ While Augsburg's procurement of Zurich preachers revealed a religious affinity with the Swiss, Peer Friess has shown that by the 1540s almost no Swabian city seriously considered removing itself politically from the Empire's jurisdiction.Footnote ⁶ Augsburg's magistrates remained committed to the idea of the Empire, even as their religious convictions led them to war with the Emperor. If Augsburg's council did not wish to “turn Swiss,” then, what motivations drove it to procure Swiss preachers, and why did officials in Zurich cooperate with Augsburg's requests? For Augsburg, Zurich offered a theologically attractive reform center with multiple preachers that could underwrite its efforts at regional evangelization. For Zurich, the lending of preachers to Augsburg provided a chance to promote the city's image among the Empire's Protestants while establishing closer ties of influence to a related church community. Both cities sought to strengthen their connections through the activity of individual pastors.

The manner in which this convergence of interests facilitated the transfer of Zurich preachers to Augsburg underscores the need to analyze the urban Reformation as a simultaneously regional and interregional event. While many scholars note the importance of external concerns for the course of urban reform, their emphasis remains chiefly on internal dynamics in individual communities.Footnote ⁷ Accordingly, most studies of the Reformation in cities treat reform as a primarily local affair. This approach has led to a greater understanding of the discourse that occurred within specific cities, but it fails to account adequately for the influence of outside agents on reform. It obscures the complex process of negotiation behind the transfer of preachers, a tendency that has caused historians to devote little attention to how flexible systems of support between cities shaped the urban Reformation. A wider view of reform is therefore necessary to understand why Swabia's largest city sought assistance from Zurich. Augsburg's attempts to evangelize its surrounding countryside reveal the fusion of religious and political motivations that propelled the urban Reformation, as well as the ways in which magistrates sought to use support from other cities to overcome obstacles to reform. The council's program of evangelization also sheds light on the process by which evangelical clerics moved between cities in the early Reformation, an understudied topic of central importance for the development of urban reform. The transfer of Zurich preachers to Augsburg demonstrates how the Reformation in southern Germany's cities did not result solely from local, internal dynamics, but often relied on systems of cooperation and dependency among cities that could stretch across regional boundaries.

The Transfer of Johann Haller

Augsburg first procured a Zurich preacher in fall 1545, less than one year before the start of the Schmalkaldic War. The timing coincided with attempts by Augsburg's council to establish religious reform under its guidance in Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren. This necessitated the transfer of preachers from Augsburg to both cities, which placed stress on Augsburg's already existing shortage of evangelical clergy. The council sought to address this problem in part by procuring a pastor from Zurich. Augsburg's city secretary Georg Frölich, a committed proponent of Augsburg's reformation whose personal religious convictions leaned toward Zurich theology, spearheaded the drive to recruit a Swiss preacher. Frölich corresponded regularly with Zurich's leading reformer Heinrich Bullinger,Footnote ⁸ a relationship that represented a wider desire within Augsburg's council to recruit preachers from reform centers influenced by either Bucerian or Zurich theology. During the summer of 1545, Frölich sent at least five letters to Bullinger asking the reformer to persuade Zurich's council to lend Augsburg a preacher. These initial efforts failed, mainly because the man whom Bullinger selected did not wish to leave Zurich, but in September Frölich traveled personally to the Confederation in the hopes of securing Swiss aid for the Schmalkaldic League. While he did not procure any military assistance, Zurich's magistrates did express their willingness to supply Augsburg with a preacher.Footnote ⁹ Shortly after Frölich's return, Augsburg's council wrote Zurich that “almighty God, through His merciful grace, has allowed the light of his divine Word to shine for several years now by the Germans. Many princes and cities have accepted this Word, which has made its cultivation and watering ever more necessary.” Such care required “pious, learned, and faithful gardeners, although our ungratefulness toward God means such men are currently lacking in many places.” Indeed, the council faced “a great deficit of preachers, not only for us but also for neighboring cities.” Since Augsburg's magistrates “identify before all others with [Zurich's] churches, we advance our friendly and earnest request that you send us as soon as possible a faithful Christian preacher, who can either serve in our churches or as a pastor in a smaller commune.”Footnote ¹⁰

Augsburg's letter emphasized the city's shortage of clergy as well as the sense of fraternity many councilors felt with Zurich's reformation. Prominent among these were Hans Welser—one of Augsburg's mayors who had been in personal correspondence with Bullinger since 1543Footnote ¹¹—and Jakob Herbrot—another mayor who had established a scholarship for students to study theology in Zurich.Footnote ¹² Along with Frölich, these men may well have influenced the language of the council's request, especially its identification “before all others with [Zurich's] churches.” While the letter likely incorporated the individual interests of specific magistrates, therefore, Augsburg's request for a Zurich preacher also reflected the wider regional ambitions of the council as a whole. Unlike other large Imperial cities such as Nuremberg and Ulm, Augsburg could not claim jurisdiction over a sizable hinterland. The city acted as an important political and economic orientation point for surrounding polities, but the council's lack of legal rights in the countryside meant it relied on forms of “indirect lordship” to exercise its political will in rural communities. During the second half of the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries, Augsburg's council sought to expand its indirect lordship into more direct rural jurisdiction.Footnote ¹³ These efforts brought it into conflict with its territorial neighbors, the Bishop of Augsburg and the Habsburg Margrave of Burgau, both of whom sought to protect their own rights in the eastern Swabian countryside.

Since both of these noblemen remained loyal to the Catholic Church, Augsburg's 1537 introduction of the Reformation expanded the areas of potential conflict from the political and legal to the religious arena as well. In 1538 and 1544, for example, Augsburg's council sought to reform the nearby villages Haunstetten and Mindelaltheim, in the process hoping to gain greater jurisdiction over both communities through ministering to the religious needs of the local inhabitants. This fusion of religious and political ambitions sat at the core of the council's external policy. Unfortunately for Augsburg, the German King Ferdinand successfully blocked both attempts at rural reform, primarily because Augsburg could not advance a persuasive claim to the ius reformandi in these villages.Footnote ¹⁴ Despite these failures, Augsburg's magistrates continued to search for ways to pursue reform outside the city walls. By suspending the existing power dynamics in eastern Swabia's rural communities, the start of the Schmalkaldic War gave Augsburg's magistrates new opportunities to evangelize territories where Ferdinand, the Bishop of Augsburg, or other Catholic lords might otherwise have thwarted their efforts.

Augsburg's attempts to expand its regional influence also focused on introducing its version of reform in Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren. The political potential of this move was voiced most forcefully by the Augsburg preacher Michael Keller, who argued the spread of Augsburg-style reform could create “fine, right-believing flank town(s) that, God willing, will not only stand beside the city of Augsburg in religious matters, but also in other Christian and neighborly affairs as well.”Footnote ¹⁵ This goal of establishing closely allied “flank towns” found expression in Augsburg's letter to Zurich. The council sought pastors both for Augsburg's churches and its neighboring cities, where it hoped the ministries of its preachers would strengthen Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren's ties of dependency to Augsburg. By spreading its style of reform, therefore, Augsburg's council sought both an extension of its jurisdiction in the countryside and an expansion of its religio-political sphere of influence. Caring for the religious needs of nearby communities often went hand in hand with establishing more dependent political and military relationships.Footnote ¹⁶

In response to Augsburg's request, Zurich's council expressed “a special desire and delight in your undertaking to spread the honor and love of God. Even though we currently have barely enough preachers, we have selected one preacher who speaks well and is well practiced in Christian teachings.”Footnote ¹⁷ This man was Johann Haller, a twenty-two-year-old protégé of Bullinger who had served Zurich since 1542. Haller, whose father fought and died with Ulrich Zwingli at the 1531 battle of Kappel, had studied in Tübingen, Marburg, and Leipzig before accepting a rural preachership from his hometown.Footnote ¹⁸ Despite his youth, his student experiences made him an appropriate choice for a city such as Augsburg that had allied with Lutheran powers yet continued to follow its own reform path. After some brief preparations, Zurich's council sent Haller to Augsburg on November 9 with the encouragement “to test and examine him for two months. … We ask that after two years, he be allowed to return to us; if we demand him back sooner, we ask he not be kept from us.” Zurich's council hoped Haller's activity would “promote God's honor and the good of the Christian churches” within Augsburg's jurisdiction.Footnote ¹⁹

Zurich's decision to lend Haller to Augsburg highlights one of the central ways in which evangelical clergy moved between cities. Since Haller was in the pay of Zurich's council, magistrates in both cities had to agree to his transfer. Once he arrived in the new city, Haller had to persuade local burghers, skeptical members of Augsburg's council, as well as the city's existing clergy that he was theologically worthy of appointment. The transfer of clergy between cities relied on cooperation and negotiation among multiple parties, a fact underscored by Zurich's request to have Haller back after two years. Zurich's magistrates could not force Augsburg to return their preacher. Implicit in their arrangement was a deep level of trust that each party would faithfully observe the agreement's tenets, which could be cut short if new needs arose. Haller's transfer, as well as that of other clerics, depended on flexible systems of support that shaped the Reformation's course in southern Germany's cities.

Haller arrived in Augsburg on November 19 and found housing with Frölich, who along with Welser and Herbrot received him warmly. The Zuricher nevertheless quickly encountered resistance from others in the city.Footnote ²⁰ Since the inception of Augsburg's reform movement in the mid-1520s, the council had employed preachers who defended a variety of theological positions. This diversity led to occasional feuds, especially concerning the nature of the Eucharist.Footnote ²¹ These tensions had subsided by the early 1540s, but in 1544-45, a new Eucharistic dispute between Bullinger and Martin Luther threatened to revive conflict in the city.Footnote ²² In this environment, Haller's procurement was potentially divisive, since installing one of Bullinger's colleagues could imply a show of support for Zurich's position. An important shift within Augsburg's council that occurred shortly before the renewed Eucharistic controversy heightened this impression. As a result of 1543 elections, a new leadership group came to power in the city that sought to strengthen Augsburg's religious ties to Swiss cities. This group included Welser and Herbrot, who as mayors helped to procure two preachers—Bernardino Occhino and Johann Herold—who had previously served in Swiss parishes.Footnote ²³ Despite the potential for conflict, the theological attraction to Zurich felt by several Augsburg magistrates led the council to seek a closer relationship through Haller's transfer.

This interest in religious ties to the Swiss Confederation coincided with Bullinger's desire to persuade the Empire's Protestant leaders of the orthodoxy of Zurich's church. Since the start of the Peasants' War, many authorities within the Empire saw a close connection between Zurich theology, social upheaval, and radical “sacramentarian heresies.”Footnote ²⁴ This stigma found new force in Luther's 1544 Short Confession Concerning the Holy Sacrament, where the Wittenberg reformer declared, “I completely condemn and denounce the fanatics and enemies of the sacrament: Karlstadt, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Schwenckfeld, and their successors in Zurich and wherever they are.”Footnote ²⁵ Luther's equation of Zurich's Eucharistic theology with dangerous heretical belief moved Bullinger to assure noblemen such as Philip of Hesse and Duke Ulrich of Württemberg that Scripture supported Zurich's view. Defending the orthodoxy of Zurich's reformation had been a key objective of Bullinger's church politics since his appointment as Antistes in 1532, especially in his correspondence with Philip.Footnote ²⁶ Faced with Luther's polemics, Bullinger sought to ensure “that our confession and response and indeed all our other writings are not prohibited in [Philip's] lands and that we who are innocent are not condemned, unheard, as heretics.”Footnote ²⁷ Bullinger also encouraged Philip to intervene with Prince-Elector John Frederick to prevent the banning of Zurich books in Saxon territories, which Philip did successfully.Footnote ²⁸ Lending a preacher to Augsburg offered Zurich's council and Bullinger an opportunity to promote their image within the Empire through the pious activity of a Zurich pastor. Haller's letters to Zurich emphasized this aspect of his mission, which explains part of the motivation for his transfer.Footnote ²⁹ Haller, Bullinger, and Zurich's council hoped his ministry would demonstrate to the Schmalkaldic League's members that the Zurichers were not heretics, but rather “honorable Christian men.” If successful, this could pave the way for closer religious ties between Zurich, Augsburg, and other south German cities, which in turn could increase the reach of Zurich's theological sphere of influence.

This convergence of interests between the councils in Augsburg and Zurich created an opportunity as well as a dilemma for Augsburg's leaders. While their procurement of Haller did not represent an attempt to introduce a Zwinglian reformation, it did expose the favorable disposition several councilors held toward Zurich theology. Indeed, for many in the Swabian city, a clear connection existed between the renewed Eucharistic dispute, the city's internal transfer of power, and the recruitment of a Zurich preacher. Shortly before Haller's arrival, Augsburg's city physician Gereon Sailer wrote Philip that “the Zurichers are nestling [nisten] within our midst through the work of their preacher Bullinger. My lords the council have even accepted a preacher from Zurich. Many others and I fear if this preacher does not behave according to the Concord, it will embitter Luther even more in this quarrel and endanger the entire Christian Alliance.”Footnote ³⁰ For those opposing the move, Haller's procurement had the potential not only to draw Augsburg closer to Zurich, but also to push it away from its current allies in the Schmalkaldic League.

Some of Augsburg's preachers joined Sailer in blaming Zurich for reviving the Eucharistic controversy. This included Augsburg's most prominent cleric, Wolfgang Musculus. As early as 1543, Musculus complained “the young, inexperienced apprentices [gesollen] in Zurich are behaving as if they desire a new discord.”Footnote ³¹ Musculus therefore received Haller coolly, expressing frustration that the council procured Haller without the approval of Augsburg's pastors.Footnote ³² Musculus was doubly skeptical of Haller, therefore, since his transfer implied a loss of control by Augsburg's current preachers over the theological orientation of Augsburg's church. On orders of the council, Musculus nonetheless organized a thorough examination for Haller that found the Zuricher acceptable in all but one respect. Haller refused to sign the Wittenberg Concord, a concern Sailer had voiced in his letter to Philip.Footnote ³³ The Concord, which marked a truce between Luther and reformers in the south German Imperial cities, established a uniform statement of belief on the Eucharist, but its tenets were ambiguous enough to allow for multiple interpretations. The compromise it struck reinterpreted the Augsburg Confession by asserting “through sacramental unity the bread is the body of Christ, that is, when the bread is presented, the body of Christ is truly present and presented at the same time as well.”Footnote ³⁴ Such a formula enabled the Augsburger within their church to eschew attempts to define the specific nature of Christ's presence in favor of emphasizing the mystery of the sacrament.Footnote ³⁵ This made it possible for Augsburg's council to maintain good relations with its Lutheran allies in the Schmalkaldic League while continuing to observe a form of the Eucharist that did not stress Christ's physical presence.

As a member of Zurich's clergy, Haller had no institutional requirement to accept the Concord or the Confession.Footnote ³⁶ Bullinger nonetheless encouraged Haller to observe the Concord's tenets in public and not to deviate from Augsburg's established liturgy, as long as he could do so in good conscience.Footnote ³⁷ Haller obeyed, although he refused to sign the Concord. The Zuricher explained he would celebrate the Eucharist with the understanding that “Christ purifies, justifies, feeds, and fills with joy. The pastor presents the holy symbol [Zeichen], testifying to and sealing the sacraments. Everything is fruitless, if faith does not unite us with Christ. This is the end goal.”Footnote ³⁸ This open rejection of the Concord's language and its potential political ramifications for Augsburg threatened to undermine Haller's ability to minister in the Swabian city. In mid-December, Haller's attitude even led to momentary conflict between Augsburg's council and its preachers.Footnote ³⁹

Ultimately, Augsburg's magistrates and their clergy proved flexible enough to accommodate Haller. His emphasis on the importance of faith in communion echoed earlier debates within the city about whether unbelievers should receive the sacrament,Footnote ⁴⁰ while his explanation of the Eucharist paralleled the understanding of several key council members, including Welser and Frölich. In a May 1545 letter to Bullinger, Welser expressed his belief that “the sacrament of Jesus Christ must be received spiritually in the power of faith. The sacramental bread can give or help in no other way than to reveal that this is the Lord's Supper, which He established to announce His death until He comes again.”Footnote ⁴¹ Given the similarity between this view and Haller's statement, it is not surprising that Augsburg's magistrates overlooked Haller's disagreement with the Concord. He also appears to have enjoyed popularity among the citizenry, and his initial sermons, which Haller delivered in St. Moritz, found an enthusiastic reception from councilors and common folk alike.Footnote ⁴² In a letter to Bullinger, Musculus informed the Antistes “Haller was more acceptable to me than poorly informed individuals claim. … The community has received him quite well, which the strong attendance at his sermons shows. He has also won the council's favor, as you will clearly see from its correspondence.”Footnote ⁴³ Indeed, Augsburg's magistrates assured Zurich “we and the Christian community are well pleased with what Herr Haller has preached here. Our other ministers have found no shortcomings in his teachings.”Footnote ⁴⁴

Haller's procurement from Zurich marked an attempt by several Augsburg magistrates to strengthen the council's program of religio-political expansion while creating new religious ties to Zurich. The preacher's importance appears in the terms of his appointment, which was not to a specific church, but “to preach in all and every place the council orders you.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Essentially, Haller operated as a free agent, allowing the council to move him from church to church to replace preachers when they departed for missions to other polities. This gave the council greater ability to regulate Haller's activity, since it could choose on a continual basis where the Zuricher should minister. He appears to have preached most frequently in St. Moritz, where his theology meshed well with the regular preacher Michael Keller. Haller's presence also gave Augsburg's council an inside connection to Zurich, which could advocate for military support or the transfer of new preachers. Accordingly, the installation of a Zurich preacher held political and religious advantages. Haller was not only popular, but also useful for Augsburg's council.

Despite the controversial nature of the transfer, therefore, Haller was critical to Augsburg's ability to minister religiously to surrounding communities. The council sought to mitigate potential theological conflict by brokering a compromise that could “silence the disagreement that has arisen among the preachers.”Footnote ⁴⁶ Haller's decision to follow the Augsburg liturgy and ultimately to distribute the Eucharist according to Augsburg's rite played a key role in overcoming this conflict.Footnote ⁴⁷ In spite of his private theological objections, Haller's willingness to abide openly by the Augsburg church order quieted many of the fears held by Musculus and others that Haller could cause them to lose control of their Church's religious orientation. In the end, all sides involved had to cooperate and compromise to make Haller's activity in the city feasible. Each party pursued its own interests, but it was only by finding common ground that the transfer of a Zurich pastor to Augsburg could work.

Haller, Augsburg, and the Schmalkaldic Diet of Frankfurt

While Augsburg's council and its preachers ultimately proved willing to accept Haller, the Zuricher's refusal to sign the Wittenberg Concord led to doubts within the Schmalkaldic League about Augsburg's religious orientation. These issues came to a head at the Schmalkaldic Diet of Frankfurt, which opened in early December 1545. The League's members gathered in Frankfurt to discuss numerous issues, including the extension of the alliance's treaty and the resolution of growing internal differences heightened by Hesse and Saxony's 1542 occupation of the north German duchy Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. Fearful that divisions within the League might lead to its dissolution, Augsburg's council saw the Diet of Frankfurt as an opportunity to strengthen the alliance by incorporating new members, most notably Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren.Footnote ⁴⁸ Shortly after the diet opened, however, Augsburg's delegates sent word that Haller's procurement had engendered mistrust among the other estates. On Christmas Eve 1545, the city's diplomats reported, “we have met with the Hessian councilors to discuss the slander that has arisen here surrounding the appointment of a Zurich preacher in Augsburg. Some in Frankfurt even mistakenly think two preachers have been installed.” For many League members, Augsburg's recruitment of a Zurich preacher called into question the sincerity of its pledges to observe the Concord and Confession. This was especially troubling in Augsburg's case, since alleged Zwinglian tendencies among its citizenry had prevented the city from joining the League until 1536. The Wittenberg Concord had resolved this problem, but the council's new ties to Zurich revived old suspicions. In order to avoid Saxony “bringing a formal complaint against the council, the Hessians decided to meet with us first to gather our report on the situation. The landgrave's aides emphasized that in these times we must avoid allowing this or similar misunderstandings to cause a breach in the alliance.”Footnote ⁴⁹

Augsburg's council responded on the same day, a reflection of the urgency with which it viewed the matter. It expressed concern “that the princely councilors from Saxony and Hesse have such an opinion of us that we would allow a preacher to be installed who teaches against the Augsburg Confession and the Christian concord.” Augsburg's delegates should “explain the matter to the princely councilors thus: For many years now we have had a shortage of learned preachers, not only for our own churches, but also for those of other honorable cities that, at our constant reminding, have recently accepted the word of God.” These cities were Kaufbeuren and Donauwörth, where Augsburg had recently sent preachers. This action “has led to a pressing need in our city, which we sought to alleviate by receiving one preacher, not two, from Zurich. He has preached in a Christian manner that has contradicted neither the Concord nor the Augsburg Confession. No one has complained about him.” If this explanation should fail, “and the councilors argue the place of origin is suspicious, namely Zurich, they should be informed we would have preferred to address our shortage elsewhere. Nevertheless, the situation depends not on the place but on the person and teachings. Otherwise, Christ Himself and the apostles would have been rejected for being Galilean.”Footnote ⁵⁰

Augsburg's response reflected its desire to maintain outward allegiance to the Schmalkaldic League's theological program. The city's magistrates knew well that the employment of a pastor who refused to sign the Concord threatened to undermine their truce with Wittenberg. This, in turn, had the potential to damage the League's already frayed cohesiveness, which could have left Augsburg without firm military support in case of war. To avoid this, the council emphasized the orthodox nature of Haller's preaching while linking his recruitment to the need to send pastors to other cities. This allusion to Augsburg's promotion of the Reformation in Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren may have been particularly strategic in the context of the Diet of Frankfurt. Augsburg and other Schmalkaldic powers had long coveted both cities as military outposts, and it was at Frankfurt that Augsburg received approval for Donauwörth and Kaufbeuren's admission to the League. By tying Haller's procurement to the support of ongoing reform efforts in these strategically important cities, Augsburg's magistrates defended their appointment of a Zurich preacher in religious and political terms. As added justification, they appealed to the example of Christ: since Jesus the Galilean had spread the true Word of God, one of His ministers should not be rejected simply because he came from Zurich.

The controversy over Haller typified wider tensions within the Schmalkaldic League, most notably a divide between the north German princes and the southern cities. In the face of oncoming war, it was precisely the divisive potential of Haller's appointment that caused the issue to pass quickly. Preoccupied with other matters and dependant on money from the south German cities to fund the League, Hesse and Saxony accepted Augsburg's explanation, although the landgrave warned “the preacher should adhere to the Concord, or at the very least deviate from it as little as possible. His character must be unimpeachable.”Footnote ⁵¹ Haller qualified. On January 2, 1546, Augsburg's council formally installed the young preacher. After a short trip to retrieve his family, he began to preach regularly in Augsburg in late February.Footnote ⁵² In the ensuing months, Swiss cities became a key source of preachers for Augsburg's council. This strategy remained politically and religiously charged, and for months after the Diet of Frankfurt, theologians in Wittenberg voiced skepticism about Augsburg's confessional orientation.Footnote ⁵³ Nevertheless, the council's ability to disarm the opposition to Haller's appointment meant procuring additional Zurich preachers remained a viable option. Once war erupted and Augsburg's program of regional evangelization entered its ultimate phase, Swiss assistance became indispensable to the city's reform efforts.

Swiss Preachers and the Schmalkaldic War

With the opening of the Schmalkaldic War in July 1546, Augsburg's council moved quickly to secure its military frontiers. On July 9, the city's troops occupied the episcopal city of Füssen, a crucial gateway to Habsburg Austria. Two weeks later they seized the Danube bridgehead outside Donauwörth, and by the end of August, eastern Swabia sat in Schmalkaldic hands. Through the evangelization of these occupied communities, Augsburg's council sought to solidify a new regional hegemony that could “bring [the territories] into possession in such a way that, if the main affair succeeds, no one will be able to drive us out again.”Footnote ⁵⁴ Memmingen and Ulm joined Augsburg in this endeavor, as each city attempted to use the war to extend its influence through the exporting of religious reform. Indeed, rivalry between Ulm and Augsburg for economic supremacy in eastern Swabia heightened Augsburg's desire to establish reform under its guidance in the countryside.Footnote ⁵⁵ When it received word that “the council in Ulm has sent its most prominent preacher Martin Frecht to reform Dillingen and other places,”Footnote ⁵⁶ therefore, Augsburg's magistrates acted to consolidate their own religio-political gains. After ordering its citizens who owned rights of jurisdictions in the countryside to introduce the Reformation in their villages,Footnote ⁵⁷ on September 1 the council wrote Constance, Strasbourg, Basel, and Zurich. It announced that “almighty God, through His and our enemies, has miraculously caused many ecclesiastical parishes and subjects to come under the authority of the Christian estates and cities. It is necessary before all else to care for the Church in these territories. We must work with all earnestness to further the kingdom of God.” This required sending evangelical pastors to the seized territories, but Augsburg's council “has a severe shortage of such individuals. We therefore ask you to supply us with several honorable, learned preachers to praise the Almighty and to support our common Christian cause. … We ask you to send these men here … so we can employ them in our city or in the surrounding countryside, as conditions warrant.”Footnote ⁵⁸

Augsburg's petition highlighted the council's expansionist goals as well as the dual motivation behind them. It also shows how the spread of Augsburg-style reform depended on the assistance of other towns. Augsburg's magistrates could not achieve the countryside's evangelization on their own, and their need for support led them to seek assistance from four closely related cities. Strasbourg had long served as an orientation point and source of preachers for Augsburg's reformation, while members of Augsburg's council—including Hans Welser—corresponded frequently with Constance's leading reformer Ambrosius Blarer.Footnote ⁵⁹ Like Augsburg, both cities favored their own version of evangelical reform despite official acceptance of the Augsburg Confession and membership in the Schmalkaldic League. They also possessed close ties to Basel and Zurich, the other recipients of Augsburg's petition.Footnote ⁶⁰ For its part, Basel's council supported a local reformation “that placed unity above doctrinal precision,”Footnote ⁶¹ and it alone among the Swiss cities endorsed the Wittenberg Concord.Footnote ⁶² Like Constance and Strasbourg, therefore, Basel's magisterial reformation displayed theological similarities to Augsburg, even though Basel remained neutral in the war.

Less immediately apparent is the reasoning behind Augsburg's inclusion of Zurich. The council knew well the controversial nature of employing a Zurich preacher, having installed Haller only six months earlier. As Musculus noted in a May 1546 letter to Blarer, the persistent “suspicion of the Augsburg church that has arisen among some Wittenbergers because of Haller's appointment” made the potential for conflict even clearer.Footnote ⁶³ The same connections that influenced Haller's procurement most likely shaped Augsburg's September 1 letter as well, although a commonality that Zurich shared with Basel and Strasbourg likely bolstered its appeal: all three cities had established traditions of training new pastors. Since 1543, Augsburg's mayors had endowed scholarships for numerous individuals to study theology in these three reform centers. Indeed, a few months before Augsburg received Haller, Bullinger had accepted a new student financed by Jakob Herbrot.Footnote ⁶⁴ This reputation for training pastors meant unlike most cities, Basel, Strasbourg, and Zurich could potentially supply several pastors to Augsburg. In Zurich's case, the current state of war made it less likely that theologians in Wittenberg would openly denounce Augsburg, because the princes and cities required each other's support to defeat the Emperor. Faced with the need to recruit multiple preachers, therefore, Augsburg's magistrates showed little hesitation in turning to the Swiss.

The four cities responded favorably to Augsburg's request. Strasbourg's magistrates, who had already “loaned preachers to the Palatinate as well as our friends in Ravensburg,” found themselves with “a shortage of preachers. We have already begun negotiations for new preachers, though, and if we receive any, we will send them to you.”Footnote ⁶⁵ Eventually, the council decided “to place Lienhart Kegel, [Pantaleon] Blasius, and Johan Scheid in the service of Augsburg's lords,”Footnote ⁶⁶ but the war intervened. On August 31-September 1, the first major battle occurred on the Danube at the Bavarian town of Ingolstadt. While Schmalkaldic forces inflicted damage on the Emperor's armies, they eventually withdrew to a position near Ulm. In the ensuing weeks, the two armies shadowed each other as Imperial troops methodically occupied the region north of the Danube. The Emperor's advance culminated in the capture of Donauwörth on October 9, which isolated eastern Swabia militarily.Footnote ⁶⁷ The closing of the Danube prevented Strasbourg from sending preachers to Augsburg, while Constance had no pastors to spare because of its own efforts to support reform in surrounding communities.Footnote ⁶⁸ The war's course did not stop the Swiss, however.Footnote ⁶⁹ Removed from direct military involvement, Zurich's council agreed “to send three well-learned and skillful preachers: Master Lorenz Meyger, Rudolf Schwyzer, and Hans Ruma.Footnote ⁷⁰ All are willing to please the general Christian estates and further the honor of God.”Footnote ⁷¹ Basel's magistrates sent Augsburg “the honorable and well-learned Sebastian Hässlin and Hieronymus Gunzius to encourage the spread of God's Word and honor.”Footnote ⁷²

Augsburg's council “listened to the new preachers in our churches and allowed them to have several conversations with our pastors concerning Christian teaching.”Footnote ⁷³ These discussions centered largely on the nature of the Eucharist, and the borrowed pastors reached an agreement with Augsburg's clerics that satisfied both Musculus and the local magistrates.Footnote ⁷⁴ The council instructed the Zurichers to preach twice weekly to the Catholic nuns who remained cloistered in the city's St. Katharina convent, while it placed Hässlin in the Franciscan church.Footnote ⁷⁵ Otherwise, as it had done with Haller, it commissioned the Swiss to “preach in all and every place the council orders you.”Footnote ⁷⁶ This allowed the council to send preachers to the surrounding countryside while maintaining spiritual care for its urban population, and Augsburg's pastors succeeded in establishing footholds in some rural parishes in the Margravate of Burgau's eastern half.Footnote ⁷⁷ In other locales, however, Augsburg's clerics encountered indifference from the laity and resistance from Catholic monasteries and convents. The preacher Johann Held's experience with the nuns of Edelstetten, who refused to allow Held to preach on any day except Sunday and maintained “that they had never erred, nor were they lacking in faith,” epitomized the obstacles that confronted Augsburg's ministers.Footnote ⁷⁸ After the fall of Donauwörth, the war also turned sour for Augsburg. Imperial troops secured the Danube bridgehead while food shortages and illness ravaged both armies. The conflict's indecisive nature frustrated Augsburg's magistrates, who on November 19 hoped “it will soon come to a battle, for the lack of food and approaching cold makes staying in the field for much longer impossible.”Footnote ⁷⁹ They were right. Three days later, weakened from months on the march and facing a surprise invasion in Saxony, Landgrave Philip and Prince-Elector John Frederick broke camp to return to their territories.Footnote ⁸⁰ Without the Schmalkaldic princes' armies to protect them, Swabia's Imperial cities lay open to the Emperor. Two months later, Augsburg's council capitulated.

Augsburg's defeat held major ramifications for the city's reform program. The difficulties presented by the Emperor's advance appeared as early as late October 1546, when the council returned one of Basel's preachers. Sebastian Hässlin was well suited for the city, explained Augsburg's magistrates, but Gunzius “has a somewhat small, quiet, and in our large churches unproductive voice. He is much better suited for work in the countryside,” although the current state of the war made his appointment to a rural church unfeasible. Instead, Augsburg wished “to return Herr Gunzius until after the war has ended and we see which parishes in the countryside remain ours.”Footnote ⁸¹ This decision reflected the mutual responsibilities city councils had toward borrowed clerics. Magistrates in Basel and Zurich entrusted their preachers' well-being to Augsburg's council, which meant it had a duty to protect the Swiss clerics. Placing Gunzius in a territory exposed to the Emperor's armies would have violated the trust of the Swiss magistrates, upon which Augsburg's current clerical supply depended. Gunzius's return to Basel, therefore, seemed to mark a growing recognition within Augsburg's leadership circles that the war had turned against them and an acknowledgement of their obligations to protect the new preachers under their authority.

As the final stages of the Danube campaign unfolded, magistrates in Basel and Zurich watched with concern for their loaned clerics. On December 14, Zurich's council wrote Augsburg, “since the course of events has changed so drastically for your city, we believe you may now be overburdened by caring for the three preachers.” The Zurichers asked that “they return to us, if your situation and needs allow, for we would very much like to use them here.”Footnote ⁸² Similar to Augsburg's treatment of Gunzius, Zurich's letter emphasized the reciprocal nature of preacher transfers. The Swiss magistrates expressed a desire to have their preachers back, but they balanced their wishes against the immediate needs of Augsburg. Tellingly, they did not ask for Haller's release. While they could offer no direct military assistance, therefore, Zurich's councilors sought to provide Augsburg as much clerical support as the two cities' situations allowed. This approach enabled Zurich to maintain a religious presence in Augsburg's churches. Augsburg's magistrates recognized this fact, replying “although events have gone quite badly, we cannot afford to be without servants of God's Word, much less the preaching of the holy Gospel. We hope with the grace and help of the Almighty to remain true to His Word.” They accordingly asked Zurich “to display patience until Almighty God redirects these difficult times to better ones.”Footnote ⁸³

Times got worse before they got better for Augsburg's council. When word of the city's surrender reached the Swiss Confederation, Zurich's magistrates wrote immediately, stating “it has come to our attention that you have reconciled with his majesty the Emperor. Since all kinds of soldiers will enter your city and be quartered there, we fear it could easily happen that our three preachers will come into harm's way.” Zurich entreated Augsburg's magistrates “to offer the three preachers, as well as Johann Haller, reasonable, loyal protection, so they suffer no violence or pain and are allowed to persist freely in the practice of their religion, as has been the case until now. If you cannot offer such comfort, we ask that you let all four preachers return home.”Footnote ⁸⁴

Zurich's letter, which arrived in Augsburg roughly two weeks after the city's surrender, reflected the catastrophic nature of the city's defeat. Augsburg's capitulation meant the effective collapse of its program of regional evangelization, as well as the possible repression of the city's magisterial reformation. Faced with military occupation and an uncertain religious future, Augsburg's council now confronted the potential loss of the four Zurich preachers. On February 8, it explained to Zurich that “thank God the situation has not yet become so burdensome that we will be robbed of the preaching of God's Word. Rather, as per our reconciliation with the Emperor, we hope through the grace of the Almighty to stay true to the Word and to safeguard our dear pastors.” Nevertheless, “since Almighty God has exacted his wrath on us in such a way that we have been captured by another, we wish to behave as loyally and as Christian as possible to his preachers. … Since the foreseen administration of the churches in the countryside has been cut short, we will allow Master Lorenz and Master Rudolf to return home until better days come again.”Footnote ⁸⁵

Augsburg's council returned Meyger and Schwyzer to Zurich on March 5.Footnote ⁸⁶ Meanwhile, on February 21 a regiment of Imperial troops under the command of Bernhard von Schaumburg occupied the city. The soldiers were quartered in the homes of Augsburg's burghers, while the council surrendered the keys to the city gates and swore a new oath of loyalty to Charles V. The arrival of the Emperor's troops also heralded the return of Catholicism and the Latin Mass to the city. Von Schaumburg ordered daily Mass said in his quarters, while some citizens did the same in their private dwellings. The presence of Imperial troops almost led to the staging of a Corpus Christi procession, which the council averted at the last minute by appealing to the maintenance of social order.Footnote ⁸⁷ This environment created difficulties for the remaining Zurich preachers, because their rejection of the Augsburg Confession made it unclear whether they were included in the protection Charles had promised to the Confession's adherents.Footnote ⁸⁸ The Emperor's orders to von Schaumburg that he prevent “the preachers from declaring anything to the common folk that could lead to disturbances or tumult” compounded this uncertainty.Footnote ⁸⁹ For his part, Haller recoiled against the council's demand to pray for the EmperorFootnote ⁹⁰ and expressed discontent about preaching in a city that had “subjugated itself to the Anti-Christ.”Footnote ⁹¹ In a March 1547 letter, he described Augsburg's evangelical church as “a ship without a mast … tossing about on the stormy sea.”Footnote ⁹² Two months later, Haller informed Bullinger that “we are sitting on the waters of Babylon. People here say the cathedral canons are letting their buildings be prepared. This is a sign that the Devil wants to enter here again with seven evil spirits.”Footnote ⁹³

It did not take long for Zurich to try to recall its two remaining preachers. On May 17, the council requested “both Haller and Ruma be returned to us, since your churches are well supplied with other preachers and pastors.”Footnote ⁹⁴ A week later, the ministers petitioned Augsburg's council personally for their release. After denying this request, Augsburg's magistrates explained to their counterparts in Zurich that “if these ministers depart from us during these difficult times, which are meant to test the steadfastness of those who love divine truth, it will lead to great suspicion among foreigners and our citizenry concerning our intentions. If we wish to stay true to pure teachings, we cannot allow the teachers of this truth to leave us.” Since “the Emperor has made it clear he does not wish to reform religion by the sword, but rather through a general Christian agreement, we ask you consider the damage that would be done to the Word of God if these two men left. We ask you allow them to stay here until we see for certain how the religious situation in our city will play out.”Footnote ⁹⁵

Zurich's council took less than a week to reply. It “was troubled more than a little by how easily the Imperial occupiers and soldiers in your city, who are undoubtedly opposed to our religion and have many unruly members among them, could inflict slander or suffering on our preachers against your will.”Footnote ⁹⁶ This was certainly true, as von Schaumburg and his subordinates kept a close eye on the Zurich preachers, even attending several of Haller's sermons. Soldiers in the street mocked Haller and the other pastors, while some of the occupiers reportedly threw rocks at Musculus's windows.Footnote ⁹⁷ This environment engendered great concern for the well-being of the preachers, but despite their worries, Zurich's magistrates agreed “since you have offered these men fatherly protection, we will allow them to remain a while longer in the service of your churches, provided you preserve both from the violence and rancor of foreigners and locals.”Footnote ⁹⁸ Augsburg's council sent a relieved thank you to Zurich, pledging “to behave toward the two preachers as if they were our own citizens, even as a father behaves toward his sons.”Footnote ⁹⁹

Zurich's decision to allow the two preachers to remain in Augsburg highlights the systems of cooperation and dependency that facilitated the transfer of preachers between cities. Zurich's desire to send pastors to Swabia made Augsburg's procurement of Swiss preachers possible. The ongoing support of Zurich's magistrates enabled Augsburg to retain these men against their individual wishes, but the continuation of this arrangement depended on Augsburg's ability to protect the loaned pastors. If Augsburg could meet this demand, Zurich's council was willing to let the preachers stay in order to maintain some influence on Augsburg's church and to aid its survival in dark times. The paternalistic attitude the councilors displayed toward these ministers, voiced most powerfully by Augsburg's pledge to care for Haller and Ruma “as a father for his sons,” characterized sixteenth-century notions of magisterial responsibility. At the same time, as the exchange between these two councils shows, the preacher's role as the proclaimer of God's Word set him apart from his fellow burghers. Ministers were simultaneously citizens in the council's employ and God's representatives in the community. This made their care vital to every member of society, because without pastors the community's spiritual nourishment was impossible. While preachers may have technically become citizens, therefore, their status as ministers of the church made them special actors both politically and religiously. In Augsburg, the sense of paternalism engendered by this status encouraged magistrates to maintain clerical ties to Zurich in order to sustain the city's evangelical church structure in a time of occupation by Imperial forces.