Reformation - 11

 

In these four Provinces, a small number of Augustinian houses closed as their members left the Catholic Church.

 

Other priories were forcibly closed and confiscated by local princes who followed Martin Luther.

 

Some priories that survived the initial Reformation shock wave later closed for shortage of members or because of the lack of strong leadership in what was a destabilising period for both church and state.

 

The priory at Erfurt, where Luther had joined the Order, remained operating, but under difficulty, until the friars were finally expelled in 1561 - thirty years after Luther had been resident there.

 

The Augustinian Province of Thuringia-Saxony, to which the Augustinian priories of Erfurt and Wittenberg were proximate, lost all but three of its twenty-four monasteries by 1550.

 

Although the Protestant Reformation was the initial impetus for this, poor leadership in its aftermath was another factor. One Provincial defected to Lutheranism in 1521, and his successor did likewise in 1523. Whether he had any successor was uncertain.

 

The Augustinian Rhenish-Swabian Province had fourteen houses taken by the Lutherans, and by 1543 had only fifty friars remaining. At this critical time, this province had two strong and outstanding Provincials, especially Johannes Hoffmeister from 1518 to 1542.

 

He took stong measures against any member who wavered from Catholic doctrine, fought local councils who attempted to confiscate Augustinian monasteries and took great care in the preparation and theological education of the reduced number of new members to the Order.

 

His writings not only inspired some adjacent Augustinian Provincials but also are attributed to the adherence of southern Germany to Catholicism.

 

He died before his fortieth birthday in 1547.  Even with all his effort, by 1543 the Rhenish-Swabian Province was reduced to only forty members.

 

(Continued on the next page.)