Hermann Hamelmann

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Hermann Hamelmann, engraving by FW Brandshagen (1711)

Hermann Hamelmann (* 1526 in Osnabrück ; † June 26, 1595 in Oldenburg ) was a Lutheran theologian and historian. He is considered to be the reformer of Westphalia .

Life

The Neustädter Marienkirche was Hamelmann's place of activity in Bielefeld

Education and early years

Hamelmann was the son of the notary and canon Eberhard Hamelmann († after 1564) at the collegiate church of St. Johann . In Osnabrück he first attended the local collegiate school and then from 1538 to 1540 the cathedral school in Münster . Around 1541 he stayed in Emmerich and attended the humanistic grammar school in the imperial city of Dortmund . Because of the plague , he returned to Osnabrück, where he attended the city school for a short time. His education took place in a spirit of common in Munster and in the doctrine of Erasmus of Rotterdam ajar humanism . Against his father's wishes, he studied in Cologne , where he was matriculated on May 25, 1549, and then theology in Mainz . It was only during his studies that he came to the anti-Lutheran camp. He was ordained priest in Münster in 1550 and worked as vicar at the Servatius Church from 1550 to 1552 . Two years later he went to Kamen as a pastor .

Turning to Protestantism

A decisive change took place for Hamelmann in Kamen, which, however, had been prepared by his studies that went back to his time in Münster. On Trinity Sunday, 1553, he publicly confessed in a sermon that he had now recognized the truth while previously he was in error. The turn to Protestantism, initially in questions of practice and in criticizing abuses, already shows that Hamelmann would primarily turn to such questions in his further church activity. After publicly acknowledging the Reformation-influenced understanding of the Christian faith, Hamelmann was deposed as a Catholic pastor in Kamen. He used a subsequent stay in Wittenberg to exchange ideas with Philipp Melanchthon on questions of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper . He also studied in Leipzig and Magdeburg after spending the winter of 1553/54 in East Frisia . Here he got to know Count Christoph von Oldenburg , whose goodwill he won. Hamelmann returned to Westphalia and on August 2, 1554 became a preacher at the Neustädter Marienkirche in Bielefeld . However, when he preached here on Corpus Christi 1555 about the true use of the sacrament and its institution and strongly criticized the carrying around of the bread , the canons reported him to the Klevisch-Ravensberg government. Hamelmann then had to pass a disputation with the court preacher Bomgard and the chancellor Johann von Vlatten on August 14, 1555 in Düsseldorf in front of his opponents and was deposed on his return to Bielefeld. From 1556 to 1568 he was pastor at the Marienkirche in Lemgo , where he was also temporarily expelled from the city because of disputes with his sovereign. During this time he received his doctorate on June 1, 1558 in Rostock under the chairmanship of David Chyträus as a licentiate in theology. Called back to Lemgo, he disputed the iconoclast Arnold Rosenbergen in Vinnen in the Netherlands in 1566 and worked together with Matthias Flacius , Johannes Ligarius and Cyriakus Spangenberg in the winter of 1566/67 to build a Lutheran congregation in Antwerp . In 1568 Duke Julius von Braunschweig appointed him general superintendent of Gandersheim with the intention of carrying out the Reformation in his country . However, Hamelmann fell out with the Duke as early as 1572 because of his interference with the rights of the Gandersheimer Stift and resigned from his office. In 1571 he had already lost his position as superintendent and in 1572 also the canonical. Although he was called to Essen in the summer of 1571 , since the mood of the citizens was against him, he first returned to Gandersheim, where he lived as a private citizen for some time, until Nikolaus Selnecker recommended him to Oldenburg, where Count Johann VII tried to regulate the church.

Activity in Oldenburg

Together with Selnecker, during their stay in Oldenburg in the summer of 1573, Hamelmann laid down the main features of a church ordinance for the county of Oldenburg , to which Hamelmann remained active as the main pastor of the Lamberti Church and superintendent of the county until his death. The enforcement of the church order named after him in the county was one of his outstanding achievements, but was made more difficult by the fact that Hamelmann also wanted to enforce the concord formula in Oldenburg. This included certain doctrinal deviations from Luther , followed the milder Melanchthonian direction ( Philippism ) and was therefore controversial in Lutheran circles. Nevertheless, in 1577 he got the signatures of Count Johann VII and his Chancellor Johann von Hall , but by September 1577 had only brought together eighteen other signatures. Despite his best efforts, Hamelmann ultimately did not succeed in enforcing the concord formula in the Oldenburger Land and finally gave it up in favor of his efforts to enforce his church order.

Hamelmann's church ordinance aimed mainly at three questions: 1. the pure teaching of the law and the gospel and the understanding and use of baptism and the Lord's Supper 2. ceremonies for the preservation of the ministry of preaching 3. the preservation of Christian schools and studies and regulation for maintenance by preachers in churches and teachers in schools

Further obstacles to Hamelmann's church order were Hamelmann's dispute against the Anabaptists , who were particularly well represented in Jeverland , which came to Oldenburg in 1575 , where Reformed influences from neighboring East Frisia also made themselves felt. In 1576 Hamelmann then had to hold the Frisian Conversation in Jever in order to oblige the pastors of the country to the Oldenburg church order. Two of them had to leave their office and the country afterwards. Hamelmann ensured the enforcement of the church order in the country in particular through personal visitations, during which various aspects of the pastors' activities and the relationship between the community and the pastor were examined. This step was usually preceded by general church visits, which should include all parishes in the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. First of all, the church property was determined and registered, after which each parish should be checked according to a certain scheme. The results of the survey should be published twice a year, on the Sunday after Easter and on Michaelmas day , by means of a reading from the pulpit. For this purpose, the congregation was called to be ready for the visitation, even if one was not imminent. The logs of these visitations have largely been preserved and give evidence of the diligence with which Hamelmann devoted himself to this task, which was often hindered by the poor road conditions and the weather.

The Oldenburg Chronicle

Hamelmann was the author of the first printed "Oldenburg Chronicle" (Oldenburg Chronicon) . This task had already been assigned to him when he was called to Oldenburg. However, the work turned out to be difficult and unsatisfactory. Although Hamelmann soon got to work and finished the work in 1593, he received little thanks from the Oldenburg court, which initially prevented the printing from being printed out of dynastic interests. From Hamelmann's work it emerged that the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst had been divided more often in earlier times. However, Johann VII did not wish that the divisions could be proven, because he rightly feared that his brother, Count Anton II of Delmenhorst , would see this as proof of his claims to officially divide the two counties between himself. So he commissioned his adviser Anton Hering to change Hamelmann's work in the way he wanted. The chronicle was published in this falsified form in 1599, i.e. only after Hamelmann's death. It was not until 1940 that the original was published by Gustav Rüthning and the forgery was corrected.

further activities

Hamelmann also wrote numerous other writings that are important for church, regional and local history as well as genealogy to this day.

In 1564/1565 he published an extensive "directory of the well-known men" of Westphalia (Illustrium Westphaliae virorum libri 1–6) . In 1586/1587 his most important work, the “Reformation History of Westphalia and Lower Saxony ” (Historia ecclesiastica renati evangelii per inferiorem Saxoniam et Westphaliam) appeared . He also wrote genealogical registers of the large families in Westphalia and Lower Saxony that existed and died out at the time. He also made the first known attempt at interpreting the history of the Externsteine to this day .

After all, Hamelmann is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of the elementary school system through the enactment of the first Oldenburg church ordinance , which was also the school ordinance in 1573 .

In 2005 a film about Hamelmann's reformatory work was made in Bielefeld. As a template in a Latin class in 9th grade of served Helmholtz-Gymnasium -made Bielefeld translation of part of the on Latin -written autobiography.

Awards

  • The cities of Dortmund, Lemgo, Bielefeld and Oldenburg have named a street after Hermann Hamelmann.

Fonts (selection)

  • Hermanni Hamelmanni, SSTheol. Licent. & dum viveret Superint. Oldenburgici, Opera Genealogico-Historica, De Westphalia & Saxonia Inferiori: In quibus non solum Res gestae Seculi XVI. & Anteriorum temporum, tam Ecclesiasticae quam Politicae, fideliter & pari iudicio exhibentur Sed & totius Westphaliae provinciis, urbibus, incolis veteribus, viris literatis, Comitum familiis, ac imprimis de renata in praecipuis Westphalia principality & reliquae Saxoniae civitatibus & reliquae Saxoniae civitatibusii doctrina, accuratissima historia traditur. Partim ex Manuscriptis Auctoris, hactenus ineditis, ex augusta Guelpherbytana Bibliotheca communicatis, partim ex aliis eius separatim quondam publicatis opusculis, in unum volumen congesta. From Ernesto Casim. Wasserbach. ICto. Accessit Vita Hamelmanni, cum indice sufficientissimo , Lemgoviae, Typis & Sumptibus Henrici Wilh. Meyeri, Typographi Aulae Lippiacae. Anno MDCCXI (1711); Digitized by the Bavarian State Library (BSB)

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Streets in Germany , accessed on March 1, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Hamelmann, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lutheran theologian and historian
DATE OF BIRTH 1526
PLACE OF BIRTH Osnabrück
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1595
Place of death Oldenburg (Oldb)