Predicature

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  • The predicature ( Middle Latin praedicare "preach") is an ecclesiastical office established by laypeople in the old church, which is supposed to help the preaching in worship to a higher rank.
  • The official or residence of the predicant is also called the predicature.
  • The activity of a Protestant clergyman, the ampt of proclamation , was also called a predicature.

Preacher and founder

The owners of the predicatures donated by private individuals or corporations since the beginning of the 15th century were called predicants or preachers . As priests, they sometimes had Mass duties, but their main task was preaching. Almost all of the preachers had attended university and had at least obtained a master's degree from the arts faculty . This meant that they were far better equipped for their work than the often poorly trained pastors , on whom they were generally only slightly dependent.

Especially in southwest Germany around 1500 almost every city had a predicature. But there were also predicatures in some villages, for example in Gemmingen im Kraichgau . Most of the preachers working in Kraichgau were won over to the Reformation through Luther's Heidelberg disputation .

Jakob Fugger (1459–1525), the rich , wanted to ensure a better sermon in Augsburg and created a predicature at the collegiate and parish church of St. Moritz . Well-known theologians who - like Johannes Eck - fought for the old church were appointed as preachers .

Almost all predicatures fell victim to secularization , but at the Ulm Minster, for example, the office of predicature, which has existed since 1398, still obliges its holder to preach particularly well today.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DRW: predicature
  2. ↑ Andreas Wagner: The wrong of religions in Sebastian Franck. On the social significance of the spiritualism of the radical Reformation . Digital dissertation FU Berlin, pp. 72–74.
  3. ↑ Gerhard Kiesow: From knights and preachers. The Lords of Gemmingen and the Reformation in Kraichgau . Verlag regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher 1997, pp. 38 and 52.
  4. ↑ Benjamin Scheller: Memoria at the turning point. The Jakob Fugger des Reichen foundations before and during the Reformation (approx. 1505–1555) (Foundation Stories Volume 3).