Introduction of the Reformation in Herford

The introduction of the Reformation in Herford was different than in the surrounding territories due to the imperial immediacy of the city . In Herford no sovereign determined the denomination of the city. The Reformation also did not come overnight, but took place gradually.

From 1400 to 1517

The Herford church was already familiar with renewal movements such as the Devotio moderna, which had an impact from Holland to Westphalia, around 1400 . The brotherly lords, like the Augustinians, and their monastery printing shops also influenced church life, humanism and later the course of the Reformation.

In a city so shaped by the church as Herford, it may be surprising that disputes between the city and the clergy took place long before the Reformation. The resentment of the citizens resulted primarily from the commercial and tax privileges of the monastic communities. In addition, the administrative competencies between the city and Herford monastery - to which the imperial city owes its status - were never clearly separated. Alleged excesses of authority by the abbey led to new conflicts. For the refusal to meet a payment debt originally estimated at 17 Rhenish guilders vis-à-vis a publicly appointed notary, the city incurred 302,000 guilders in legal costs plus a church ban, since the notary was a clergyman.

Between posting the theses and evangelical sermon

The dissatisfaction with the secularization tendencies in the Roman Church, smoldering underground in Herford, was boosted and nourished here and elsewhere after 1517 by the news of the Wittenberg events.

A decisive contribution to the implementation of the Reformation in Herford was played by the Fraterherren ( Fraterhaus Herford ), who preached the Gospel in a new way as early as 1523 and founded the local Augustinian monastery on the site of the old Friedrichs-Gymnasium Herford . The connection between the Augustinian monastery in Herford and the one in Wittenberg resulted in the topicality with which the new beliefs were received and implemented in Herford. After all, it was the Herford Augustinian prior Gottschalk Kropp, who had completed his doctorate in theology in Wittenberg and was in constant contact with Martin Luther , who pushed the introduction of the new teaching in Herford since 1523. In 1525, German church hymns were sung in Herford Cathedral , initially tacitly tolerated by the city authorities . The Johanniskirche opened its doors in 1530 as the first church in the Ravensberger Land for Protestant sermons.

The introduction of the Reformation

Probably in the winter of 1529/1530 the Reformation was introduced in Herford through the decision of a citizens' assembly. At least this is what the reformer Johannes Bugenhagen reports in a letter to the preacher Cordatus in Zwickau . Herford is therefore one of the first cities in Westphalia in which the Reformation took hold.

Against the vain resistance of the Herford abbess, the gradual expropriation of church property took place , the climax of which was reached in the iconoclasm of 1531/32. On behalf of the city council, following the example of other cities, the church property began to be withdrawn and used again for schools, hospitals or church purposes. The church property passed into the possession of the city. This had become necessary, among other things, because some monasteries were orphaned by the events or their staff numbers were severely decimated.

In 1532, the Reformation was formally concluded with the publication and public acceptance of the Dreier Church Ordinance. Johann Dreier himself became a preacher at the cathedral in the same year. In the mid-1540s, Herford's old-believing party found itself in a hopeless position to preserve Catholicism .

literature

• Ludwig Hölscher : Reformation history of the city of Herford: In the appendix the Herford church order from 1532 . Gütersloh 1888 ( digitized ).
• Rainer Pape: Sancta Herfordia. History of Herford from the beginning to the present. Bussesche Verlagshandlung GmbH, Herford 1979, ISBN 3-87120-857-4
• 1200 years of Herford. Traces of history (= Herford research 2). Edited by Thomas Schuler and Theodor Helmert-Corvey, Maximilian Verlag, Herford 1989, ISBN 3-7869-0249-6

Coordinates: 52 ° 6 ′ 56.3 "  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 14.8"  E