Heinrich Bullinger: Epistolae ad Ambrosius Blarer

This text gathers Latin letters from Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) to Ambrosius Blarer (Blaurer, 1492–1564), the reformer of Constance, who after the fall of that city to Austria lived in exile, latterly at Winterthur. The collection runs to sixty-two sections and over sixteen thousand words. The opening letter asks eagerly for news of the execution and confession of a soothsaying woman, hopes that Christoph may obtain the duchy of Württemberg, and reports news from England, including John Hooper’s refusal to accept ceremonies at his consecration and the opposition of the bishop of London. Later letters, dated into the 1560s, discuss Schwenckfeld’s book on the church and Lutheran changes in Württemberg territories.

Bullinger and Blarer were among the closest friends of the Swiss and south German Reformation, and their correspondence, much of it in German, is one of the richest sources for the period. These Latin letters show the constant exchange of news, books and letters from third parties such as Wolfgang Musculus, and the two men’s shared concerns: the fate of the Reformed in Germany, the English Reformation, and the spread of Lutheran church order into formerly Zwinglian areas. Mixed passages in Swiss German give a vivid sense of informal communication between colleagues.