Melchior Rinck
Melchior Rinck , also Rink or Ring , (* around 1493, † around 1545) was a German theologian and humanist . Rinck was one of the most important Anabaptist leaders during the Reformation in central Germany .
Life
The Hessian farmer's son is mentioned in the sources for the first time in 1516 as a Bachelor of Arts and a young Leipzig humanist. Rinck was a student of Johann Lange and associated with Hermann Tulichius , among others .
Active as a writer from an early age, he praised his rural origins in his humanistic verses. His good language skills and the activity as a teacher for ancient Greek in Erfurt gave him the nickname Greck (the Greek). In Erfurt, Rinck probably met Thomas Müntzer for the first time , whose ideas influenced him. In 1523 he became a chaplain and schoolmaster in Hersfeld , where he tried to introduce the Reformation together with the city pastor Heinrich Fuchs. This led to both dismissal by the Hersfeld abbot Crato I. Supporters then plundered houses and properties of the Hersfeld abbey in the city area. Expelled by the city council with the help of the Hessian Landgrave Philipp for causing disturbances, he found a job as a pastor in Eckardtshausen near Eisenach in Thuringia through the mediation of Jacob Strauss . Here he married Anna Eckart.
In May 1525 he took part in the battle of Frankenhausen (May 15, 1525), but was able to escape persecution after the defeat. After the Peasants' War , he gained adherents in Thuringia and Hesse border area and settled, probably by Hans Denck , baptized . Rinck became the center of the Anabaptist movement around Eisenach and Hersfeld. Together with the Bavarian theologian and Baptist Hans Denck, he wrote polemic pamphlets, which in 1528 led to an interrogation at the University of Marburg and then to expulsion from the country.
After his return to Hesse, Rinck was imprisoned in Haina between April 1529 and 1531 and arrested again in the same year at an Anabaptist meeting in Vacha . In 1529, his wife and Lutheran father-in-law filed for divorce. His friend Georg Witzel tried in vain to persuade him to turn back. Landgrave Philipp von Hessen had him held in Bärbach , in the County of Katzenelnbogen , until his death. Only a few remains of his writings have come down to us.
literature
- Alfred Stern : Rink, Melchior . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, p. 646.
- Karl Friedrich Ulrichs : Melchior Rinck. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 8, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-053-0 , Sp. 369-371.
- Author collective: Biographical lexicon on German history. German Science Publishers, Berlin 1971.
- Erich Geldbach : The teaching of the Hessian Anabaptist leader Melchior Rinck. in: Yearbook of the Hessian Church History Association. 21/1970, pp. 119-135.
- Erich Geldbach : Towards a more ample biography of the Hessian Anabaptist leader Melchior Rinck. in: Mennonite Quarterly Review. 48/1974, pp. 371-384.
- Werner O. Packull : Rinck, Melchior in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie Vol. 29 (1998), pp. 215-218 (lit.!).
- Wolfgang Breul : From Humanism to Anabaptism. The study of the Hessian Anabaptist leader Melchior Rinck at the Leipzig artist faculty. in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 93. (2002), pp. 26–42.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Holger Th. Gräf: Hessischer Städteatlas - Bad Hersfeld , Delivery I, 2, (Ed.): Ursula Braasch-Schwersmann, Marburg 2007, Hessisches Landesamt für geschichtliche Landeskunde. P. 16
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rinck, Melchior |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rink, Melchior; Ring, Melchior |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German theologian and humanist, Anabaptist leader during the Reformation |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1493 |
| DATE OF DEATH | around 1545 |