Abstract
On the twelfth of October, in the night around one o’clock, the honourable, respected and learned Lampertus Distelmeier, chancellor, was called mercifully by God almighty from this miserable vale of tears to him in his kingdom, and on the following sixteenth day of this month was buried, Christian and honourably.1
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Notes
‘Den 12. octobris ist der ehrnveste, achtbar und hochgelarte Lampertus Distelmeier canzler, in der nacht umb 1 uhr von Gott allmechtigen aus diesem trubseligen jammerthal zu sich in sein reich gnedigst abgefordert und des folgenden 16. tages hujus ganz christlich und ehrlich zur erden bestetiget worden.’ Peter von Gebhardt, ed., Die chronikalischen Nachrichten des ältesten Collner Burgerbuches 1542–1610, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte Berlins 5 (Berlin, 1930), p. 158. Distelmeier’s death is also recorded in the burial register of the St. Nicholas church on 13 October 1588 (EZAB, Beerdigungsregister S. Nikolai, Sig. 28/67) and in the chronicle of Peter Haffitz: ‘Am 12ten Octobris des Nachts urn 11 Uhr ist zu Berlin gestorben H. Lampertus Distelmeier, beider Rechten Dr., Churfurstl. Brandenburg. Canzler, ein hochgelahrter, wohlweiser, verstandiger und beredter Mann, desgleichen nicht bald zu finden gewesen, seines Alters 67 Jahr.’ Friedrich Holtze, ‘Chronik von Peter Hafft (Hafftiz)’, Schriften des Vereins fi.ir die Geschichte Berlins 31 (1894): 87.
For an overview of the literature on confessional formation and confessional-ization, see R. Po-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550–1750 (London, 1989), and the essays by Hans-Christoph Rublack and Johannes Wallmann in Die lutherische Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland, ed. Hans-Christoph Rublack (Gutersloh, 1992), pp. 13–32, 33–53. See also James M. Kittelson, ‘The Confessional Age: The Late Reformation in Germany’, in Reformation Europe: A Guide to Research, ed. Steven Ozment (St. Louis, 1982), pp. 361–81. On Lutheran orthodoxy, see Hans Leube, Die Re forrnideen in der deutschen lutherischen Kirche zur Zeit der Orthodoxie (Leipzig, 1924); idem, Orthodoxie und Pietismus: Gesammelte Studien, ed., Dietrich Blaufuf3 (Bielefeld, 1975); and Johannes Wallmann, Der Theologiebegriff bei Johann Gerhard und Georg Calixt, Beitrage zur historischen Theologie 30 (Tiibingen, 1961).
See Friedrich Holtze, ‘Lampert Distelmeier, kurbandenburgischer Kanzler’, Schriften des Vereins fur die Geschichte Berlins 32 (1895): 1–97; Julius Heidemann, ed., Ein Tagebuch des kurbrandenburgischen Kanzlers Lampert Distelmeier (Berlin, 1885); Neue Deutsche Biographie (Berlin, 1957), 3: 744–5.
Thomas Klein, Der Kampf um die zweite Reformation in Kursachsen 1586–1591 (Cologne and Graz, 1962), pp. 68–168; Helmar Junghans, ‘Kryptocalvinisten’, in TRE 20: 123–9.
The most detailed primary source on Saxon Calvinism is the manuscript of Urban Pierius, Geschichte der kurskchsischen Kirchen- und Schulreformation, ed. Thomas Klein (Marburg, 1970); on Schutz see fols 2a, 10a, 22a, 114a, 261a-262a. Pierius wrote his history between 1603 and 1608. See also Johann Andreas Gleich, Annales Ecclesiastici (Dresden and Leipzig, 1730), 1: 27–77, and Gustav Ludwig Zeif3ler, Geschichte der Sächsischen Oberhof prediger (Leipzig, 1856), pp. 12–15.
Pierius was released from prison and left Saxony in 1593; Krell was tried for treason and executed in Dresden in 1601. Cf. Pierius, Geschichte, fols 223a-340; Gustav Wustmann, ‘Geschichte der heimlichen Calvinisten (Kryptocalvinisten) in Leipzig, 1574 bis 1593’, Neujahrsbldtter der Bibliothek und des Archivs der Stadt Leipzig 1 (1905): 1–94.
Philipp Agricola, Deploratio vel Querirnonia/Klaglich Klaggedicht und/Larnentatio/Uber des Edlen und Ehrentvesten, Achtbaren und Hochgelarten/Herrn Larnperti Distelmeiers … Neben klarer beschreibung der darau ff begangenen und des 16 tages Octobris dieses lauffenden 88 jahrs gehaltener Sepultur … [Elegy or complaint/plaintive poem of sorrow and lamentation over the noble, honourable, distinguished and learned Herr Lampert Distelrneier … accompanied by a clear description of the burial on the 16th day o f October of this current 88th year…] (Berlin: im Grawen Kloster durch Nicolaum Voltzen, 1588). The pamphlet is reprinted in Friedrich Holtze, ‘Ein Leichenbegangnis zu Berlin im Jahre 1588’, Schriften des Vereins fiir die Geschichte Berlins 33 (1897): 1–13.
On the survival of traditional burial customs after the Reformation in England, see David Cressy, ‘Death and the Social Order: the Funerary Pre-ferences of Elizabethan Gentlemen’, Continuity and Change 5 (1989): 101–13.
`Si bona suscepimus’ was the most frequently mentioned Latin funeral hymn in the Protestant church ordinances of sixteenth-century Germany. See Bernard Vogler, ‘La legislation sur les sépultures dans l’Allemagne protestante au XVIe siecle’, Revue d’Histoire Modeme et Contemporaine 22 (1975): 199–201.
‘Den armen, zu ersten aber mehr/Hat man den Schülern forderst hehr/Gereichet geld, und allen gebn.’ Ibid., p. 13. On the poor and the dead, see Claude Dolan-Leclerc, ‘Cortege funebre et Société au XVIe siecle a Aix-en-Provence: La presence des pauvres’, in Le Sentiment de la Mort au Moyen-Age, ed. Claude Sutto (Québec, 1979), pp. 97–116, and Frank Rexroth, ‘Armut und Memoria im spatmittelalterlichen London’, in Memoria in der Gesellschaft des Mittelalters, ed. Dieter Geuenich and Otto Gerhard Oexle (Gottingen, 1994), pp. 336–60. On the decline of funeral almsgiving in seventeenth-century England, see Dan Beaver, “‘Sown in dishonour, raised in glory”: Death, Ritual and Social Organization in Northern Gloucestershire, 1590–1690’, Social History 17, 3 (1992): 389–419.
See Linda Woodbridge and Edward Berry, introduction to True Rites and Maimed Rites: Ritual and Anti-Ritual in Shakespeare and His Age (Urbana and Chicago, 1992), pp. 1–43.
Frau Rappolt is not identified further, suggesting that she was known to the pamphlet’s readership. Georg Rappolt was described as an ‘Electoral grain administrator’ (‘kurfurstliche Kornschof fer’) when he bought a house and property (the ‘Taube’sche Garten’) in Dresden in 1574. He sold the house and gardens in 1581. Cf. Georg Beutel, ‘Das Prinzliche Grundstuck an der Zinzendorfstrage’, Dresdener Geschichtsbldtter 3 (1894): 153–6. In the Dresden Ratsbuch 1557–98, SdAD, Rappolt appears in two transactions from 19 August 1564 (p. 190) and 29 December 1576 (pp. 338–9). The two entries under his name in the Dresden Hduserbucher, SdAD, from 1585 suggest that Rappolt bought and sold a house in this year. Pierius mentions that Frau Rappolt’s daughter (die Ficklerin’) was also involved in the Schiitz funeral (fol. 262).
‘Die Rappeltin ward leiden gut/Ein Jungen sie ins Angesicht schlug/Ein ander Jung aber war nicht faul/Zog ihr ein beschiessen strowisch ubers Maul.’ Ein Ehrlich BegrebniB, fol. A3”. For speculation on the meanings of excrement in early modern culture, see Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Filthy Rites’, in his Learning to Curse (New York, 1990), pp. 59–79.
On the unexpected participation of artisans and day-labourers at the lavish funeral of Filippo Strozzi in Florence in 1491, see Sharon T. Strocchia, Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore and London, 1992), pp. 194–8.
On popular attitudes toward denial of Christian burial (in this case to suicides) in early modern England, see Michael MacDonald, ‘Ophelia’s Maimed Rites’, Shakespeare Quarterly 37 (1986): 309–17.
Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France’, Past and Present 59 (1973): 51–91.
Although it may seem unnecessary to document the cleaning work of early modern women, a satirical engraving from sixteenth-century Germany does this quite succinctly. The illustration, titled ‘The Diaper Washer’, shows a weary man washing a baby’s nappies with a small paddle while a woman wearing a key ring and a large money purse holds a stick over him. The satirical role reversal affirms that this sort of work properly belongs firmly in the women’s realm. The engraving by Hans Leonard Schäuflein, Kunstsammlung der Veste Coburg, Inv. No. I 86, 222, is reproduced in Lyndal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals, in Reformation Augsburg (Oxford, 1989), p. 187.
K. Bucher, Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1910), p. 37. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie describes the role of women in preparing bodies for burial in his Montaillou: The Promised Land o f Error, trans. Barbara Bray (New York, 1979), pp. 223–25.
See Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, introduction to Death and the Regeneration of Life (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 15–38, and Maurice Bloch, ‘Death, Women and Power’, in Death and the Regeneration of Life, pp. 219–27. See also Maurice Bloch, Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 66–84.
See Detlef Doring, ‘Ein bisher unbekannter Bericht iiber den “Calvinistensturm” vom 19./20. 5. 1593 in Leipzig’, Archiv fu’ r Reformationsgeschichte 85 (1994): 205–25; Karl Czok, ‘Der “Calvinistensturm” 1592/93 in Leipzig - seine Hintergriinde und bildliche Darstellung’, Jahrbuch zur Geschichte der Stadt Leipzig 3 (1977): 123–44; and Wustrnann, ‘Geschichte der heimlichen Calvinisten’, pp. 1–94.
The incident is related by Pierius, Geschichte, fol. 262a, M. B. Lindau, Geschichte der Haupt- und Residenzstadt Dresden (Dresden, 1862), 1: 622, and Gustav Klemm, Chronik von Dresden (Dresden, 1837), 1: 253. Pierius follows his account of the attacks on the funerals of Schutz and Lossius with references to two similar incidents (fol. 263): in Schwalbach in 1594 a pastor denied Christian burial to Hieronyrnus Engelberger, the Calvinist former Superintendant of Herzberg; in 1597 the same pastor sought to deny honourable burial to Hans von Seidlitz, a former adviser of Christian I.
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© 2000 Craig M. Koslofsky
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Koslofsky, C.M. (2000). Honour and Violence: Funerals in the Confessional Age. In: The Reformation of the Dead. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286375_5
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