Franz Baring

Franz Baring (born February 1, 1522 in Venlo , † 1589 in Lütau ), a born Dutchman, was the first Lutheran superintendent of Saxony-Lauenburg from 1565 to 1582 . Before that he was a preacher in Lüneburg, Holstein , Buxtehude and Hamburg . After the church visit of 1581/82 he was removed from office by Duke Franz II .

biography

Origin and family

Baring came from the Baring family and was the son of Petrus Baring (1483-1532 / 36) and Everharda N. († 1558). From 1544 he stayed in northern Germany, where he became the progenitor of two lines of the family. In his first marriage he was married to Magdalena Tuchters († 1552) from 1545, from this marriage there were three children. In his second marriage he married Margarita Burgstede in 1554, and there were seven children from this marriage. Some of his children died early.

youth

He grew up in Venlo until the family moved to Geldern in 1532 . After his father's death he was trained by a Freiherr von Egern and then attended the Latin school in Emmerich am Rhein . He was then a monk of the Carmelite monastery in Geldern and in 1540 at the age of 18 he was ordained as a " mass priest " in Cologne Cathedral .

Under the influence of the Reformation , Baring too was seized by Luther's thoughts; it is possible that Baring's transfer was based on the strong impression that Martin Bucer and Philipp Melanchthon had made on him personally, and that for this very reason he later remained very fond of Melanchthon. Around this time he went to the Lutheran leader Count Jodokus Bronkhorst and thus separated from his order. Baring was sent by Bronkhorst to accompany his son Wilhelm to the University of Rostock , where the two entered the matriculation in 1544 .

In 1545 he entered the service of the Lutheran Church. After a two-year transition position "to Elverstorff in Lüneburg", he was a preacher from 1547, first in Krempe and then in Buxtehude for five or six years. In Buxtehude, Baring came into contact with Johannes Aepinus , who was Lutheran superintendent there and was requested by the council to work out a new church ordinance for Buxtehude, as had already been done in 1539 for Hamburg, which Baring may have helped to draft.

Hamburg

Baring came into contact with Paul von Eitzen through Aepinus , who had worked with Aepinus at the Hamburg Cathedral since 1549 and had followed him as superintendent in 1555. Baring had a friendship based on religious equality with him throughout his life. After the two were later spatially separated, there was a trusting exchange of letters. Baring was appointed to the St. Petri Church in Hamburg as a deacon in 1558 and remained at Eitzen's side during church disputes. B. supported the positions of Melanchthon, especially in the dispute with Joachim Westphal , a supporter of Matthias Flacius .

Since Melanchthon consented to the Leipzig Interim in favor of the Catholics in 1548 and repeatedly yielded to the Reformed , the attacks of the Gnesiolutherans ("real Lutherans"), especially on the part of the Flacius, against the Praeceptor Germaniae became more and more excessive. In Hamburg, Eitzen was considered to be friends with Melanchthon and the main representative of Melanchthon's views. In fact, he was one of the many who at that time still saw Luther and Melanchthon as an inseparable unit, who thought and taught in a Lutheran way, especially about the Lord's Supper, but in Melanchthon's forms. Eitzen also always stood up for him when faced with insulting attacks on Melanchthon.

For Baring it was initially a blow that the position of the main pastor at his church was given to Johann Crusius or Crispinus (Krause) in 1560, "one of the strictest Lutherans"; Above all, however, that in 1562 Eitzen gave up the superintendent's position (which then fell to Joachim Westphal) and left Hamburg due to the violent disputes after Melanchthon's death. The Flacians reached Baring's farewell in the summer of 1563. Such dismissals of clergy by the prevailing theological tendency were very common at that time.

Lauenburg

Baring probably went from Hamburg to Holstein in 1564, in Eitzen's sphere of activity. After the Holstein Duke Franz I von Lauenburg asked Chancellor Adam Tratziger for a clergyman to carry out the church visit in 1564 , Baring was given this task on the recommendation of Tratzinger and Eitzen. It was a relief that Baring spoke Low German . Baring was then appointed the country's first superintendent ; at the same time he was appointed pastor of the city.

The administration of office turned out to be difficult in every respect for Baring in Lauenburg due to the prince's attitude in religious matters. Two of his drafts for a new church order submitted to the duke were not heeded by the latter because they were not commissioned by him. These designs were probably lost in the castle fire of 1616. Like the prince's attitude, the general state of the country made it difficult for Baring to exercise his office. During the visitation of 1564, morals and religious knowledge were found in deep decline, many superstitions, Catholic ceremonies and a disorder in all church relationships. Dukes and nobility as well as peasants and peasant bailiffs seized church property.

As early as 1565, Baring carried out ordinations in Lauenburg . Documents that could provide information about his effectiveness as superintendent fell victim to the castle fire. Some, if only scanty news, shows that Baring soon took action against some church abuses.

The pastor's office also involved some work when there was a lack of available helpers, for example he gave several sermons a week in the church and in the castle chapel and was responsible for organizing the church festivals. The preachers he ordained consulted him on difficult cases of marriage law, discipline, and disputes of their own. His tasks also included drafting a church ordinance or settling disputes with foreign authorities.

Baring owned the Bible in four languages, the works of various church fathers and writings by Luther, Melanchthon and Johannes Brenz .

Dismissal as superintendent and pastor in Lütau

Baring refused to sign the Concord Formula (FC), which was included in the Concord Book published in 1580 as the final Lutheran symbol, and also caused the Duke to reject it. After the death of Duke Franz I in 1581 there was also a change of church direction in Lauenburg under the rule of his son Franz II . In the same year Francis II ordered a general church visit to prepare a church ordinance and appointed Andreas Pouchenius to be the generalis visitor . The visitation began in November 1581. After its end, a conference in Ratzeburg took place in 1582, at which the Duke dismissed Baring as superintendent on August 17th. Baring then received the parish in Lütau .

Pouchenius later wrote the extensive Lauenburg church ordinance of 1585, according to which a copy of the concord formula should be available in every church and every clergyman should be committed to it. The reasons why Baring originally rejected the FC are not clear. It is certain that Baring's opponents sought Calvinism behind his rejection ; presumably it was guided by the same reasons as Eitzen. He stuck to his Lutheran attitude. Later in Lütau he was able to recognize the church ordinance of 1585 and thus the FC without surrendering a fundamental conviction, after they had become valid under church law.

As the imminent award of the Lütau parish shows, the parish in Lauenburg was only withdrawn because it could not be separated from the general superintendent. According to today's parlance, Baring was “relieved of his office” as pastor, but not “released from service”. With the new parish he was also awarded the honorary position of "Senior Ministerii" - the senior of the Ministry of Spirituality and thus spokesman for the regional clergy on certain occasions. Lütau was one of the oldest church villages in the area called Sadelbande at the time . Baring's two daughters, aged 17 and 20, and his 12-year-old son Franz accompanied him to Lütau.

When the church ordinance of 1585 appeared in print, the duke signed a printed copy himself and had it signed by his councilors and all the clergy in the country. In the middle of the first signatures of this book there is the following handwritten entry by Baring:

"Ego, Franciscus Baringius, Senior et pastor ecclesiae Lutoviensis in Inferiore Saxonia huic ecclesiasticae ordinationi subscripsi".

Franz Baring died in 1589 in the 68th year of his life, the date is unknown. A loose page in the church records from around or before 1627 contains the words: “Franciscus Baringius, Past. Lut. et minist. Senior… obiit 1589. “Perhaps an inscription on or in the crypt that was still present at that time was reproduced, which was present under the church and in which the pastor was buried. This crypt was broken into and robbed several times during the Thirty Years War . It is not known whether it was removed or only walled up when the church was rebuilt in 1845/46.

See also

• List of general superintendents, state superintendents and superintendents for Saxony-Lauenburg

literature

• Adolf Brecher :  Baring, Franz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 66.
• Adolf Baring : The Baring family, especially the Hanoverian line , in: German Roland book for gender studies , Dresden 1918, edited. from the “Roland” association in Dresden, pp. 7–243. About Franz Baring s. there pp. 27 ff., 43 ff., 186 ff., 223; on family history records from 1637, 1731, 1754 and 1840 s. P. 20 ff.
• Adolf Baring: Franz Baring, first state superintendent of Lauenburg , in: The Reformation in Lauenburg. Contributions to the church history of Lauenburg , Ratzeburg 1931, p. 91 ff. (Online at pkgodzik.de)
• Joh. Moller : Cimbria literata (published 1744) with reports on Franz Baring, P. v. Eitzen and Pouchenius (11; 57, 667 ff .; III 227 ff.)

• Hellwig: Chronicle of the city of Ratzeburg (1929).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pieter Lodewijk Muller:  Bronkhorst . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 354 f.
2. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
3. ↑ Presumably Elvestorf in Winsen or " Elstorf " in the Office Moisburg at Harburg. The fact that Baring was already a Protestant preacher here is confirmed by the fact that he was already married, his son was born here.
4. ↑ Quoted in: The Reformation in Lauenburg , 1931, p. 109 f.
5. ↑ Peter von Kobbe : History of the Duchy of Lauenburg III (1836), p. 292.
6. ^ Johann Friedrich Burmester : Contributions to the Church History of the Duchy of Lauenburg (1832), 2nd edition, obtained from P. em. Amann (1882), p. 14; F. Bertheau: The prehistory of the Lauenburg church order , in: Vaterländisches Archiv (or archive of the Association for the History of the Hzgt. Lauenburg ), Vol. 7, Issue 2, p. 11.
7. ↑ Baring: Die Familie ... , p. 158
8. ↑ D. Feddersen: Philippism and Lutheranism in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein in: Archive for Reformation History, Erg.-Bd. V, p. 92 ff. (1929). , Pp. 93, 96
9. ↑ Hellwig p. 21, Moller II 57
10. ↑ Excerpt from the Lauenburg Church Ordinance from 1585 online at pkgodzik.de
11. ↑ Quoted in: The Reformation in Lauenburg , 1931, p. 130

predecessor	Office	successor
	Superintendent in the Duchy of Saxony-Lauenburg 1564 - 1582	Gerhard Sagittarius