Restoring Christ's Church

John a Lasco and the Forma ac ratio

Michael S. Springer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754656012
• eBook ISBN: 9781317064626
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book examines the struggle for Protestant consensus and unity through the work of John a Lasco (1499-1560). It is only in recent years that scholars have begun to recognize the importance of Lasco as one of the leading figures of the European Reformation, and a pivotal figure between Lutheran and Reformed theologians. The Polish reformer was among the most dynamic church organizers of the sixteenth century, dedicated to healing the divisions among evangelicals and searching for the key to Protestant unity in the example of the Apostolic Church. It was to this end that he published the Forma ac ratio in 1555, a work that recorded the rites and practices of the London Strangers' Church (of which he had been the first superintendent) and to provide a model for uniting the disparate Protestant communities on the Continent. Although some recent works have focused on aspects of Lasco's early career in Germany and England, this is the first book to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Forma ac ratio, and the reformer's reasons for writing it. This study also puts Lasco's distinct model for Protestant churches into the wider European context and assesses his impact on the struggle for unity through an examination of his correspondence, the reaction to his writings, and his influence on Protestant congregations across Europe.

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

John a Lasco (1499–1560) was one of the most dynamic church organizers in the sixteenth century. Like Johannes Brenz, Martin Bucer and Johannes Bugenhagen, he spent much of his career establishing Protestant churches and instituting evangelical practices in the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire and beyond.¹ As superintendent, Lasco reformed the East Frisian territorial church and, later, he established and led the new London Strangers’ Church. In 1553, he returned to the continent and set up new exile congregations in Emden and Frankfurt. Finally, during the last three years of his life he helped establish a Calvinist church in his native Poland. In addition to these activities, Lasco also wrote and published works to aid new Protestant congregations such as his 1552 confession, the Compendium doctrinae, and his Emden catechism.² His most significant text, however, is the Forma ac ratio tota ecclesiastici ministerii in peregrinorum.³ He composed this ecclesiastical ordinance while superintendent of the London Strangers’ Church (1550–53) to provide a detailed account of the rites and ceremonies observed by his French and Dutch congregations. He later published the work in Frankfurt in 1555. When it appeared, it was one of the most comprehensive ordinances available to Protestants. It is this important text, which has until now received little scholarly attention, that is the focus of this book.

Lasco, like many Protestants during this period, began his career in the Roman Church. He was born to a Polish noble family in 1499. His father was wiowode in Sieradz and his uncle, who shared his name, served as chancellor to King Sigismund I and was archbishop of Poland from 1510 until his death in 1531.⁴ Under his powerful uncle’s guidance, Lasco was groomed for a clerical career. Between 1513 and 1519 he studied at the universities of Vienna, Bologna and Padua. After returning home he was appointed canon to the collegiate churches of Lezyca, Cracow and Plock, and was made coadjutor to the dean of Gneizno. He was ordained a priest two years later and quickly advanced to the office of dean in Gneizno. He was clearly on his way to a very promising career in the Roman Church. In 1524, while on a diplomatic trip to the French court with his older brother Jerome, Lasco met the notable humanist Erasmus. The brothers had stopped in Basel on their way to Paris and lodged for a short time with the scholar at the home of the printer Johannes Froben. After a short time, they continued on to France and Lasco studied briefly at the Sorbonne. He returned to Basel in 1525, however, and enrolled in Hebrew studies at the university.⁵ During this second meeting Lasco agreed to purchase Erasmus’s library with the stipulation that he would receive the books after the scholar’s death. The Dutch humanist died in 1536 and Lasco received 413 works from his estate the following year.⁶

The relationship forged with Erasmus during his two visits to Basel significantly influenced Lasco’s future ideas about ecclesiastical reform. The Dutch scholar introduced him to Christian humanism and impressed upon him the Bible’s importance for settling religious disputes. The Swiss historian Max Engammare has argued that the Polish reformer’s use of certain church fathers such as Theophylactos, Sedulius and Haymo of Auxerre in his writings after 1525 demonstrates Erasmus’s influence.⁷ A similar connection between the men can be seen in Lasco’s later works, especially in his orders for the churches in East Frisia and London, in which he echoes the humanist scholar’s concern for education and moral living. He shared Erasmus’s desire to reunite the dissenting factions within the universal Church which, as shall be seen later, was an important force behind the writing of the Forma ac ratio.⁸

The Polish reformer’s spiritual conversion to Protestantism occurred in the decade following Erasmus’s death. Lasco left his homeland in 1538 to continue his humanist studies.⁹ He first travelled to Wittenberg and met Philip Melanchthon, whom he later described as the man responsible for introducing him to the religious question – referring to the conflict that had erupted in Germany following the publication of Luther’s 95 theses.¹⁰ After a short time, he continued on to Frankfurt where he met the theologian Albert Hardenberg.¹¹ They matriculated together at the university in Mainz but moved to Louvain the following year, where Hardenberg was appointed to the faculty at the university. The Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli was especially influential in Louvain during this time and it was here that both men began showing signs of a spiritual conversion.¹² Hardenberg was arrested in Brussels for evangelical preaching in 1539 and the following year Lasco married Barbara, the daughter of a local merchant.¹³ The nuptials, however, should not be viewed as a sign of Lasco’s Protestantism. The German historian Henning Jürgens argues persuasively in the reformer’s biography that it is more accurate to describe him as an Erasmian reformer at the time of his marriage, rather than a Protestant, and that the wedding should be viewed in this context. It was not until the following year, 1541, that Lasco’s own writings reveal a clear shift to a decidedly Protestant position – meaning he agreed with others like Luther and Zwingli concerning reform of the Roman Church’s official doctrine.¹⁴

Lasco began his career as an evangelical reformer in East Frisia, a small territory in northwest Germany. He moved with his wife to Emden, the territorial capital, in December 1540. Countess Anna von Oldenburg offered him the superintendency of the Lutheran territorial church, which he accepted sometime before the end of 1542.¹⁵ Under his leadership, Lasco introduced important changes that took the congregations in a decidedly Reformed direction. Most notable among his measures was the removal of images from churches, the implementation of a Reformed Emden catechism, and changes to the ecclesiastical order that included a formal discipline, the office of deacons to care for the poor, and a weekly meeting of ministers, or coetus, to discuss doctrinal matters.¹⁶

During this same time, Lasco also participated in Archbishop Hermann von Wied’s reform movement in Cologne. Martin Bucer had invited him to help with the changes and in 1544 he travelled to the city to aid the ecclesiastical reorganization taking place there. Although his exact activities are unknown, the Polish reformer stayed with his friend Albert Hardenberg for three months before returning to Emden. He went back to Cologne for a short time the following year and was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Reichstag in Worms, presumably to defend the archbishop’s work.¹⁷ His experience with this reform movement had a significant impact on his own ideas about ecclesiastical discipline, which will be discussed at greater length in the following chapters.

Lasco lost his job in East Frisia on account of the Augsburg Interim and moved his family to London in 1550, where he was appointed superintendent to the Strangers’ Church for the growing number of French and Dutch Protestants seeking exile in England. The foreigners were granted considerable autonomy and Lasco played a key role in shaping the administration and rites observed by the new congregations. He began recording their practices in his future Forma ac ratio, but the work was interrupted by Edward VI’s untimely death in 1553. His successor, Mary I, closed the Strangers’ Church and Lasco returned to the German lands, where he finished the ordinance and the completed text finally appeared from a Frankfurt press in 1555.

As mentioned above, Lasco’s work was one of the most complete ordinances available to Protestants when it appeared. It contained more than 600 folio pages describing clerical offices and their election, the order of worship services, structure of ceremonies, what meaning they should convey to the laity, and liturgical elements such as the psalms to be sung and prayers to be spoken. In addition, it was a polemical work that defended the practices against Catholic, Lutheran and Anabaptist critics. The various editions and translations of the text that were published suggest that there was considerable interest in Lasco’s work. In 1554, one year before the Forma ac ratio appeared in Frankfurt, Marten Micron produced a Dutch summary of the order.¹⁸ A French edition appeared in 1556, followed by a complete Dutch translation the following year.¹⁹ In addition, a German edition of Micron’s summary was published in 1565 and there survives an English manuscript copy of the original text in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which is thought to have been written during the reign of Elizabeth I.²⁰The large number of surviving copies also point towards its significance among Lasco’s contemporaries. Of the original Latin edition printed in 1555, 41 copies currently remain. A French translation appeared the following year, of which 15 copies have survived.²¹

Although there was considerable interest among his contemporaries, modern historians have paid little attention to the work. Most studies have focused on other aspects of Lasco’s life and career. The nineteenth-century Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, was among the first modern scholars to attempt a study of Lasco. He published a collection of the reformer’s theological writings and letters in 1866 under the title Joannis a Lasco Opera tam edita quam inedita duobus voluminibus comprehensa.²² The London ordinance was included among the works and Kuyper’s text has become the principal source for modern studies of Lasco.²³ This collection was followed by Hermann Dalton’s 1881 biography, Johannes a Lasco: Beitrag zur Reformationsgeschichte Polens, Deutschlands und Englands, which was the first attempt to study the reformer’s career.²⁴ The author focused on the early part of his life – from his childhood in Poland until he moved to England in 1550 – and emphasized his relationship with humanist scholars and other reformers. Little attention was given to Lasco’s London ordinance, however, because the biography ended with his move to England. Dalton planned to continue his study of Lasco’s life after 1550 but this was never completed.²⁵ In 1955, the Polish historian Oscar Bartel published a biography covering the reformer’s entire life.²⁶ This work explored his activities in the communities where he lived and worked, and the Forma ac ratio was viewed within the context of the London church for whom it was written.²⁷ The ordinance’s treatment was limited in these biographical studies, however, and the question of its importance and impact beyond England remained unaddressed.

So why study the Forma ac ratio now? The most obvious reason is that the text’s role as a blueprint for churches and the reaction to it suggest that...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Conventions
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Christ’s True Church: The Protestant Search for Unity
• 3 John a Lasco and the London Strangers’ Church: The Origins and Development of the Forma ac ratio
• 4 Ecclesiastical Administration and the London Strangers’ Church
• 5 John a Lasco’s Public Ministry
• 6 Ecclesiastical Discipline in the Forma ac ratio
• 7 The Forma ac ratio in Europe
• 8 Conclusion: Lasco’s Legacy
• Bibliography
• Index