A History of the Reformation (Vol. 1 of 2)

by Thomas M. Lindsay

This Saxon Visitation was the model for similar ones made in almost every evangelical principality, and its reports serve to show what need there was for inquiry and reorganisation. The lands of Electoral Saxony were divided into four “circles,” and a commission of theologians and lawyers was appointed to undertake the duties in each circle. The Visitation of the one “circle” of Wittenberg, with its thirty-eight parishes, may be taken as an example of how the work was done, and what kinds of alterations were suggested. The commissioners or Visitors were Martin Luther and Justus Jonas, theologians, with Hans Metzsch, Benedict Pauli, and Johann v. Taubenheim, jurists. They began in October 1528, and spent two months over their task. It was a strictly business proceeding. There is no account of either Luther or Jonas preaching while on tour. The Visitors went about their work with great energy, holding conferences with the parish priests and with the representatives of the community. They questioned the priests about the religious condition of the people—whether there was any gross and open immorality, whether the people were regular in their attendance at church and in coining to the communion. They asked the people how the priests did their work among them—in the towns their conferences were with the Rath, and in the country districts [pg 407] and villages with the male heads of families. Their common work was to find out what was being done for the “cure of souls,” the instruction of the youth, and the care of the poor. By “cure of souls” (Seelsorge) they meant preaching, dispensation of the sacraments, catechetical instruction, and the pastoral visitation of the sick. It belonged to the theologians to estimate the capacities of the pastors, and to the jurists to estimate the available income, to look into all legal difficulties that might arise, and especially to clear the entanglements caused by the supposed jurisdiction of convents over many of the parishes.

This small district was made up of three outlying portions of the three dioceses of Brandenburg, Magdeburg, and Meissen. It had not been inspected within the memory of man, and the results of episcopal negligence were manifest. At Klebitz the peasants had driven away the parish clerk and put the village herd in his house. At Bülzig there was neither parsonage nor house for parish clerk, and the priest was non-resident. So at Danna; where the priest held a benefice at Coswig, and was, besides, a chaplain at Wittenberg, while the clerk lived at Zahna. The parsonages were all in a bad state of repair, and the local authorities could not be got to do anything. Roofs were leaking, walls were crumbling, it was believed that the next winter's frost would bring some down bodily. At Pratau the priest had built all himself—parsonage, out-houses, stable, and byre. All these things were duly noted to be reported upon. As for the priests, the complaints made against them were very few indeed. In one case the people said that their priest drank, and was continually seen in the public-house. Generally, however, the complaints, when there were any, were that the priest was too old for his work, or was so utterly uneducated that he could do little more than mumble the Mass. There was scanty evidence that the people understood very clearly the evangelical theology. Partaking the Lord's Supper in both “kinds,” or in one only, was the distinction recognised and appreciated between the new and the old teaching; [pg 408] and when they had the choice the people universally preferred the new. In one case the parishioners complained that their priest insisted on saying the Mass in Latin and not in German. In one case only did the Visitors find any objection taken to the evangelical service. This was at Meure, where the parish clerk's wife was reported to be an enemy of the new pastor because he recited the service in German. It turned out, however, that her real objection was that the pastor had displaced her husband. At Bleddin the peasants told the Visitors that their pastor, Christopher Richter, was a learned and pious man, who preached regularly on all the Sundays and festival days, and generally four times a week in various parts of the parish. It appeared, however, that their admiration for him did not compel them to attend his ministrations with very great regularity. The energetic pastors were all young men trained at Wittenberg. The older men, peasants' sons all of them, were scarcely better educated than their parishioners, and were quite unable to preach to them. The Visitors found very few parishes indeed where three, four, five or more persons were not named to them who never attended church or came to the Lord's Table; in some parishes men came regularly to the preaching who never would come to the Sacrament. What impressed the Visitors most was the ignorance, the besotted ignorance, of the people. They questioned them directly; found out whether they knew the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer; and then questioned them about the meanings of the words; and the answers were disappointing.

Luther came back from the Visitation in greatly depressed spirits, and expressed his feelings in his usual energetic language. He says in his introduction to his Small Catechism, a work he began as soon as he returned from the Visitation:

“In setting forth this Catechism or Christian doctrine in such a simple, concise, and easy form, I have been compelled and driven by the wretched and lamentable state of [pg 409]affairs which I discovered lately when I acted as a Visitor. Merciful God, what misery have I seen, the common people knowing nothing at all of Christian doctrine, especially in the villages! and unfortunately many pastors are well-nigh unskilled and incapable of teaching; and although all are called Christians and partake of the Holy Sacrament, they know neither the Lord's Prayer, nor the Creed, nor the Ten Commandments, but live like poor cattle and senseless swine, though, now that the gospel is come, they have learnt well enough how they may abuse their liberty. Oh, ye bishops, how will ye ever answer for it to Christ that ye have so shamefully neglected the people, and have not attended for an instant to your office? May all evil be averted from you! (Das euch alles unglück fliche). Ye forbid the taking of the Sacrament in one kind, and insist on your human laws, but never inquire whether they know the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, the Ten Commandments, or any of the words of God. Oh, woe be upon you for evermore!”

The Visitors found that few books were to be seen in the parsonages. They record one notable exception, the parsonage of Schmiedeberg, where the priest had a library of twelve volumes. It could not be expected that such uneducated men could preach to much edification; and one of the recommendations of the Visitors was that copies of Luther's Postils or short sermons on the Lessons for the Day should be sent to all the parishes, with orders that they should be read by the pastors to their congregations.

They did not find a trace anywhere of systematic pastoral visitation or catechising.

In their practical suggestions for ending the priestly inefficiency, the Visitors made simple and homely arrangements. To take one example,—at Liessnitz, the aged pastor Conrad was quite unable from age and ignorance to perform his duties; but he was a good, inoffensive old man. It was arranged that he was to have a coadjutor, who was to be boarded by the rich man of the parish and get the fees, while the old pastor kept the parsonage and the stipend, out of which he was to pay fourteen gulden annually to his coadjutor.

The Visitors found that schools did not exist in most of the villages, and they were disappointed with the condition [pg 410] of the schools they found in the smaller towns. It was proposed to make the parish clerks the village schoolmasters; but they were wholly incompetent, and the Visitors saw nothing for it but to suggest that the pastors must become the village schoolmasters. The parish clerks were ordered to teach the children to repeat the Small Catechism by rote, and the pastors to test them at a catechising on Sunday afternoons. In the towns, where the churches usually had a cantor or precentor, this official was asked to train the children to sing evangelical hymns.

In their inquiries about the care of the poor, the Visitors found that there was not much need for anything to be done in the villages; but the case was different in the towns. They found that in most of them there existed old foundations meant to benefit the poor, and they discovered all manner of misuses and misappropriations of the funds. Suggestions were made for the restoration of these funds to their destined uses.

This very condensed account of what took place in the Wittenberg “circle” shows how the work of the Visitors was done; a second and a third Visitation were needed in Electoral Saxony ere things were properly arranged; but in the end good work was accomplished. The Elector refused to take any of the confiscated convent lands and possessions for civil purposes, and these, together with the Church endowments, provided stipends for the pastors, salaries for the schoolmasters, and a settled provision for the poor.