If constitutional questions prompted by the arrival of Dutch Reformed migrants could be confusing in imperial cities, they were even more so in Wesel, a territorial city in the duchy of Cleves: this is because although it had a Protestant majority,
Reichsunmittelbarkeit belonged to its Catholic prince. Before the Reformation, ecclesiastically the church had been part of the archdiocese of Cologne, though the duke held extensive ecclesiastical influence in his territories, including the power to conduct parochial visitations.
1 Despite the much-cited “Dux Cliviae est Papa in terris suis,” the archbishop retained considerable ecclesiastical authority in Cleves, and the two often cooperated. Franzen, Die Kölner Archidiakonate, 334; Goeters, “Der Katholische Hermann von Wied,” 21; Redlich, Staat und Kirche am Niederrhein, 83–93. From 1557 on, he even purchased patronage rights in Wesel from a local cloister. In practice, however, starting in 1552, Wesel’s city council mostly operated independently in church matters. Following Charles V’s loss in the Second Schmalkaldic War that March, Wesel’s government abandoned the Augsburg Interim. Within the year, the municipal government adopted a church ordinance that had been drafted in 1543 by the Archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied, in cooperation with Martin Bucer and Philip Melanchthon.
2 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 34–42. That work,
Einfältiges Bedenken (
Simple Consideration), was recognizably Protestant but theologically imprecise and liturgically traditional.
3 Franzen, Bischof und Reformation, 67–73, 118–20; Lurz, “Initiation im Einfältigen Bedenken.” That is, Wesel’s new church norms after the Augsburg Interim were more concerned with promoting liturgical harmony and ecclesiastical unity than clarifying doctrinal orthodoxy. At the same time, Wesel’s magistrates also adopted the Augsburg Confession as a way of symbolizing an alliance with evangelicals. At least for the moment, there was little interest or ability at the ducal court to challenge the magistrates’ jurisdiction to set church policy.
Only a few weeks later—just as at Frankfurt—English-, French-, and Dutch-speaking migrants arrived from England.
4 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 42–51. Wesel’s council’s terms were also standard: the newcomers had to conform to the local church and accept the council’s authority. English- and French-speakers were permitted to hold sermons in their language but were also required to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, baptisms, marriages, and funerals within the parishes.
5 The English held sermons in the former Augustinian friary. The French-language sermons were in the Heilig-Geist-Kapelle. On December 12, 1553, the council also required that immigrants approve the Augsburg Confession, though they did not indicate which version they meant. And, as at Frankfurt, the Peace of Augsburg put increased pressure on the city to concretize what it meant to be
Augburgischer Konfessionsverwandt. In August 1555, as peace negotiations in Augsburg were wrapping up, Wesel’s city council stiffened its policy: anyone who would not hold to the Augsburg Confession was ordered to leave the city within three days.
6 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 45. Even after the negotiations, some local pastors expressed frustration that the Reformed immigrants still did not conform to the 1530
invariata—especially on the Eucharist. In January 1556, news leaked out that the Walloon minister François Perrussel had administered the Eucharist in a Reformed manner. When summoned, he explained that many in his flock opposed clerical vestments and devotional candles and preferred that common table bread be used in the service. Angry magistrates again barred residency for anyone who would not celebrate the Lord’s Supper in their churches and accept the Augsburg Confession. The next August, a group of Reformed immigrants was again caught celebrating a secret communion. Magistrates again reissued their ban. In the face of these challenges, by 1557, city leaders clarified that only the
invariata—with its more direct statement that Christ’s body and blood were “truly present” in the Lord’s Supper—defined doctrinal orthodoxy in the city. In March, Perrussel and some of his supporters left Wesel for Frankfurt—only to arrive just as the pressure against anyone who deviated from the
invariata was ramping up there as well.
Over the next few years, three forces stood in a precarious tension in Wesel: liturgical compromise marked by
Einfältiges Bedenken, doctrinal standards defined by the 1530 Augsburg Confession, and political obedience to their Catholic duke. The city might have maintained this balance if it hadn’t been for the arrival of the Reformed migrants. Over and over, the duke fumed against “damned sectarianism” streaming in from the Low Countries, while the council issued repeated ordinances requiring that the migrants conform to the 1530 Augsburg Confession and the “Reformation of Hermann von Wied.” During the city elections in March 1561, representatives of the citizenry demanded that the magistrates finally resolve the problem. In response, city leaders asked the pastors to prepare a confession of faith—the Wesel Confession. The new document closely followed the Augsburg Confession of 1530, except that it also included a statement affirming the doctrine of ubiquity as well as an explicit rejection of the premise that Christ’s body was only spiritually present in the sacrament. All foreigners were required to sign or leave. Some Reformed refugees in Wesel signed the document. Others refused. Some who initially signed later retracted their names.
7 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 51–68.In the coming years, Wesel became embroiled in theological debates as local opponents of the Reformed migrants put increasing pressure on magistrates to crackdown on illegal immigration. The town descended into open yelling in the streets. By 1564, the matter had gotten out of hand. In May, representatives of the citizenry asked magistrates to find some means “that the disagreements might be laid aside and the strangers can be tolerated here.”
8 SAW A3/53 fol. 57r. That’s exactly what happened. The Wesel Confession quietly disappeared. Migrants still had to attend a local church and at least give lip service to the 1530
Augustana, but no one investigated too thoroughly. Meanwhile, the Reformed immigrants established two consistories—one Dutch speaking and one French speaking—that monitored behavior and belief among the Reformed migrants. A critical role of the elders was helping Reformed believers articulate their beliefs in ways that could plausibly conform to the Augsburg Confession. Elders also admonished more enthusiastic Reformed Protestants to temper their zeal and urged pastors to accommodate the preferences of at least some of the Reformed immigrants.
9 Spohnholz, “Multiconfessional Celebration.”After this, the city council surely knew that many of the new residents strayed from orthodoxy. But so long as the appearance of conformity was maintained, church attendance was robust and uneventful, peace was maintained, and their own political authority was respected, they mostly stayed out of people’s business. A
modus vivendi developed between the city and the duke as well. In 1565 a ducal edict effectively offered freedom of conscience to subjects who follow the Augsburg Confession. While the duke did not grant Protestants the right to open worship—though they had been worshipping openly for decades—in effect his order promised not to punish Protestants who were
Augsburger Konfessionsverwandten.
10 A similar creative interpretation of the Peace of Augsburg prevailed in neighboring Münsterland. Luebke, Hometown Religion, 39–40. According to prevailing interpretations, the Peace of Augsburg explicitly banned
Augsburger Konfessionsverwandten from Cleves. However, in its implementation, the duke interpreted the law as permitting
Augsburger Konfessionsverwandten as having freedom of conscience, but not freedom of worship. Certainly, as Antje Flüchter has argued, the duke’s inaction was a result of his penchant for confessional neutrality, but it was also inspired by the threat of Protestant magistrates in the territory to withhold tax payments.
11 Flüchter, Der Zölibat; Dünnwald, Konfessionsstreit und Verfassungskonflikt, 250–62; Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 101–4.Following the Diet of Augsburg of 1566, Duke Wilhelm had a series of debilitating strokes that dramatically decreased his ability to rule. More stridently Catholic figures—including delegates representing the duke of Alba in the Netherlands—became leading voices in setting religious policy for the duchy.
12 Keller, “Herzog Alba,” 592. The threatening presence of the duke of Alba’s armies in the region certainly encouraged the ducal government to ramp up pressure on Dutch Reformed.
13 Keller, “Herzog Alba,” 594–95; SAW A3/56 fols. 115v–116r. Between 1566 and 1572, ducal officials increasingly targeted anyone who had acted as a rebel against the king of Spain, or who was an Anabaptist, Sacramentarian, Calvinist, or sectarian.
14 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 72. However, although pressure against rebels and so-called “sectarians” intensified, in principle, the duke’s policy with regard to the
Augsburger Konfessionsverwandten remained remarkably consistent over many years. He never explicitly permitted non-Catholic worship, but he made no efforts to persecute those in Wesel who adhered to the Augsburg Confession.
15 Elector Palatine Friedrich III wrote to Duke Wilhelm on September 5, 1571, that he had heard that subjects of Cleves who confessed the Augsburg Confession had been threatened with banishment and confiscation of their property. Wilhelm responded that only “damned sectarians” were banned, not those who followed the Peace of Augsburg, who are free in their consciences. Keller, Die Gegenreformation, 1:158–59. It may be that Friedrich had falsely understood a rumor. More likely, the two princes had different understandings of who counted as Augsburger Religionsverwandten. And, so long as the city maintained the outward pretense that its churches adhered to the Augsburg Confession, even Reformed migrants found a degree of protection in Catholic Cleves.