The Front-Runner of the Catholic Reformation

The Life and Works of Johann von Staupitz

Franz Posset

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351889308
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Johann von Staupitz is generally acknowledged as one of the most important influences on Martin Luther, convincing him of the sin-remitting grace of God. It was this revelation that was to spur Luther to formulate his theology of salvation by faith alone which was to lead to his break with the Catholic church. When Luther was brought to task by the church authorities for his heretical views it was Staupitz who was deputed to remonstrate with him, and it was Staupitz who sent a copy of his theses on indulgences to the Pope. Despite Luther's defection from Rome, he was to remain on good terms with the orthodox Staupitz who was consistently at the forefront of reformation within the Catholic Church. This book sheds light on the spiritual and theological beliefs of Staupitz, placing him in the midst of the late medieval reform efforts in the Augustianian order. It argues that as reformer, sermonizer, and friend of humanists Staupitz was a major player in the world of early sixteenth century theology who had a profound influence on the course of the Reformation.

Chapter One
The Augustinian Order and the Struggle for Reform in the Late Medieval Period

There is an inner unity which manifests itself in the Catholic Reformation of the late Middle Ages; it is well described by John C. Olin (who however did not have Staupitz in mind at all when he elaborated on the Catholic Reformation):

Two characteristics run like a double rhythm through the Catholic Reformation: (a) the preoccupation of the Catholic reformers with the reform of the individual, and (b) their concern for the restoration and renewal of the Church’s pastoral mission. Catholic reform, in short, had a marked personal and pastoral orientation.¹

The life and work of Johann von Staupitz must be seen not only in the wider context of the ‘observant movements’ of the late Middle Ages comprising monasteries and friaries, but also and specifically in connection with Order of ‘Friars Hermits of St Augustine’ that Staupitz joined as a young man. The Order’s name is something of a misnomer, because its members were not ‘hermits’ in the strict sense. In fact, by the beginning of the sixteenth century it was a powerful, mobile, international religious organization that numbered about 20000 friars, living in around 1000 friaries, grouped into 26 provinces. The early reform movement was concerned with the proper community life in those friaries. All private property, as well as the numerous dispensations from all kinds of tasks, were to be given up, although, from the beginnings of the Order, individual members had been able to possess private property and indeed friars responsible for alms collection were allowed to keep some of the income for themselves. In addition, common meals and worship were stressed as important for any reformed friary, as this had not always been the case in the past. Especially during times of pestilence in the fourteenth century, it had been recommended that not more than three friars live under one roof in order to reduce the possibility of infection – the effect that friars had to live outside the friary and return only for prayer or Mass. The reform movement sought the abolition of this rule which had come into existence during times of necessity and the observant friars wanted to return to the strict rules of the Order. Their efforts found official recognition in 1493.²

While much of the reform effort went into the renewal of life in the local friaries, the mendicants per se were (and still are) not bound by the monastic oath of loyalty to one locality (stabilitas loci) whereby a monk or nun entered a particular monastery and remained there until death. In contrast, mendicant friars were moved around to wherever they were needed. Their loyalty was not to the place where they made their profession (as is the case with monks), but to the rule of their mendicant Order as such, within which they could be assigned and reassigned according to need. This specific characteristic of the mendicants may help explain Staupitz’s (and others’) mobility from friary to friary, both as a student and as a leading officer in his Order. It also may account for his personnel politics in that it allowed him to transfer subordinates from place to place – a prerogative of which he made ample use, as we shall see.

The mendicant Orders had adapted the monastic life to the urbanized civilization that had developed in Europe during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They lived in friaries located within the cities, in contrast to the traditional monasteries of the Benedictines and Cistercians which were generally located in remote regions. To this day, the members of the mendicant Orders are mobile, ‘begging friars’; not ‘monks’ in the proper sense, such as the Benedictines or the Cistercians who live in solidly established and usually well-funded monasteries and adhere to the rule of permanent residence in one location.

It was in the mid-thirteenth century that the papacy had recognized the religious needs of the urban centres of Europe and entrusted the care of souls to the mendicant friars. The Augustinian hermits became Augustinian friars who kept the official name ‘Friars Hermits of St Augustine’ when they began to teach and preach the Word of God in the cities. They deserve more than honourable mention in any history of pastoral care.

The ‘observant movement’ of the Middle Ages affected not only the Augustinians, but also the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Within the Franciscan Order, there had been a long-term struggle, that still continued, between those who wanted to maintain complete adherence to the ideals of St Francis (the observants) and those who wanted to live a more relaxed religious life (the conventuals). In 1517, the Franciscan observants received their independence by papal decree and declared themselves the true Order of St Francis.³ Great religious figures between 1490 and 1520 were members of the ‘observant movement’ – for example, such as Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros of the Franciscan Order in Spain, and Girolamo Savonarola of the Dominican Order in Florence. They were not only concerned with reforms within their Orders, but also made their influence felt in the wider Church and in society. Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros wanted every student of the Bible to quench his thirst ‘at the fountainhead of the water that flows unto life everlasting and not to have to content himself with rivulets alone’.⁴ He was the chief editor of the Polyglot Bible which included both Testaments in the original languages, in six folio volumes, compiled between 1513 and 1517, and published in 1522.⁵ Friar Savonarola’s preaching and writings exercised great influence outside monastic walls, and were ‘virtual best-sellers’.⁶ He incurred, however, the wrath of Pope Alexander VI (d. 1503) and, after a short time in prison, died at the stake in 1498.⁷

The observant movements were of considerable importance for the religious history of the late Middle Ages in central Europe. This is not the place for a detailed review of the different non-Augustinian reform movements;⁸ however, it should be noted that Franciscans and Augustinians in German-speaking lands contributed decisively to the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran Catholic (later called ‘Protestant’) ‘Reformation’. Numerous Augustinians and several Franciscans became Lutheran preachers in the cities.⁹

The Augustinian observant movement which Staupitz joined is summed up in seven characteristics by Francis X. Martin, a historian of the Augustinian Order during the Renaissance:

1) It [the Augustinian observant movement] owed a great deal to the example of the Franciscan observants; 2) it was Italian in origin and of continuing influence; 3) it upheld the eremitical ideal as a main principle, and looked back in particular to the Hermits of St Augustine in Tuscany in the early middle ages as the link with St Augustine; 4) it was formally initiated in 1385 by the Augustinian prior general, the central authority of the Order in Rome, and was consistently supported by a succession of priors general up to the time of the Protestant Reformation and later; 5) the observants remained under the jurisdiction of the priors general, who became their protectors. Several of the priors general were observants; 6) the observant movement was not co-terminous with the Augustinian Order. It was encouraged, but not imposed, by the priors general. It depended on local support for its beginnings in different countries, but inevitably this was a matter of chance and opportunity; 7) the observants encouraged learning. This was a policy of the Augustinian Order since the late thirteenth century, and owed much to the example of the Dominicans.

To be an observant friar meant that one belonged to a reformed house or branch of the Order . . . . The reformers did not expound revolutionary policy. Their purpose was to observe strictly, yet as far as humanly possible, the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Rule of St Augustine, and the constitutions of the Order.¹⁰

The hermitage of Lecceto in Tuscany became the first centre of the reform among the Augustinians. According to legend, St Augustine himself had lived at Lecceto for some time. It was known as a place of spiritual renewal and mystical piety, and was associated also with St Catherine of Siena. The seal of the Lecceto friary showed three mountains, symbols of the mystical ascent to God, beneath which ran the motto ‘[Christ] by his cross and blood redeemed us’.¹¹ When the Augustinians decided in 1385 to promote officially the observant movement within their Order, they selected Lecceto as the first house of the observance. From there, the ‘observant movement’ spread throughout Italy. Usually, the reform-minded friars formed certain communities where they could pursue the ‘perfect community life’ (vita communis perfecta) or the ‘observance’ (observantia), which meant that they gave up any private property and participated, on a regular basis, in community activities such as communal prayers and meals in the dining hall. By 1404 the reforms reached Saxony, when the first observant friary was founded at Waldheim near Dresden. In 1419 reforms were begun at Ramsau, Bavaria, and Erfurt joined the reform movement in 1466. In the course of time such reformed friaries separated from the others and gathered in so-called ‘reform congregations’. As early as 1397 a general chapter meeting for observant friaries had taken place at Munich. It was in this Bavarian city where 100 years later, in the 1490s, Staupitz most likely entered the Augustinian Order, probably because the friary belonged to the observant movement. He definitely professed his religious vows at Munich. In the late fifteenth century a growing number of friaries in the province of Bavaria (including Ramsau, Kulmbach, Nuremberg, Mindelheim, Memmingen, Regensburg and Munich) belonged to the reformed Augustinians and fell under the direct supervision of their general in Rome. This growth and the direct connection to Rome may have been factors in Staupitz’s decision to join the friary at Munich, which was one of the most important at that time. Perhaps he imagined that in this group of reformed friaries he could make a career, possibly similar to that of the former prior of Munich, Johann Perger (= Berger, d. 1481), who had become auxiliary bishop of Freising and Brixen.¹²

Especially since the reform Council of Basel in 1434/35, efforts had been under way to reform the Augustinian Order from the top down to the local level. The general of the Order, Gerard de Rimini, was a participant in the Council of Basel and pushed for the reform of his Order. He found a collaborator at the Nuremberg Friary in Heinrich Zolter. The Order’s province of Saxony was reformed according to the wishes of the Council of Basel. Since 1459 there has been a separate Saxon/German congregation of observant friaries. (‘Congregation’ by that time definitely meant a unit of reformed friaries distinct from the Order’s provinces.) Staupitz belonged to the Saxon/German unit and eventually became its leader. The appearance of Augustinian observants in any region was almost always due to some young friar who had studied in Italy where he came into contact with the ‘observant movement’,¹³ and also with the humanist ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Foreword by Theo Bell
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Plates
• Introduction
• 1 The Augustinian Order and the Struggle for Reform in the Late Medieval Period
• 2 The Early Years: Sermonizer, Reformator, Friend of Humanists, and Concern for Pastoral Care (1460s–1512)
• 3 Prominent Preacher and Author (1512–17)
• 4 Coping with Challenges (1514–20)
• 5 'Standing up for the Evangelical Truth' (1520)
• 6 Imposed as Abbot upon the Benedictines at Salzburg (1522–24)
• 7 The 'Golden Treatise': Testament and Remembrance
• 8 Conclusion
• Staupitz's Works (in Chronological Order)
• Select Bibliography
• Index of Names