The Correspondence of Wolfgang Capito, Vol. 2: 1524–1531 (review)

The second part of this excellent project takes us to the heart of Wolfgang Capito’s work as a reformer in Strasbourg. The years before 1524 had forced Capito to choose between the two lodestars of his career: his commitment to Erasmian humanism and his enthusiasm for church reform. It was not immediately apparent to Capito as he built his reputation that this parting of the ways would be necessary. As late as 1522 he was a trusted adviser to Albrecht of Mainz; in that year he visited Martin Luther in Wittenberg, a visit that seems to have been decisive in persuading him to abandon his previous support for Desiderius Erasmus on the key issue of free will. In 1523 Capito moved to Strasbourg as provost of the collegiate church of St. Thomas. His breach with Catholicism became manifest the following February when he was appointed parish priest of St. Peter’s. By taking a wife, Capito made a further irrevocable statement of his new allegiance.

Once these steps were taken, Capito became a key member of the powerful group of reformers committed to the establishment of a fully evangelized church in Strasbourg. This was a complex and protracted process, involving three interlocking issues: the public proclamation of reformed allegiance and the building of an institutional church in conformity with the new order, the creation of a Christian people educated in their new faith, and the resolution of the jurisdictional and financial issues resulting from the transfer of church property. Capito gave himself willingly to these tasks, lending his support to collective appeals to the city magistrates. He also wrote fluently in defense of evangelical positions: here his close connections to the Strasbourg printing industry, through his relative Wolfgang Köpfel, were a further asset. But Capito also contributed his share to the problems that beset the Strasbourg reformers.

In many respects Capito, a renowned Hebrew scholar and intellectual, was ill-fitted for the hurly-burly of a turbulent urban Reformation. His political antennae were often seriously deficient. Shortly after his arrival in Strasbourg his credulous support for the allegations of Hans Jakob Schütz, who claimed to have uncovered a plot against the reformers, damaged his credibility severely. His reluctance to join the condemnation of Anabaptists was a source of anxiety at a time when the growth of radicalism threatened the stability of the fledgling church. His encouragement of heterodox figures such as Caspar Schwenckfeld further strained the patience of his colleagues and may be the reason for his exclusion from the Strasbourg delegation to the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529. By 1530 his reputation was sufficiently tarnished that both Philipp Melanchthon and his old patron Albrecht of Mainz refused to meet him at the Diet of Augsburg. One cannot think these would have been happy times, even before plague claimed the life of his wife in 1531.

This second volume follows the sensible editorial practice of the first. Where correspondence is already published, the letter in question is generally presented here in summary form. Also included are all communications where Capito is involved in collective representations as one of the Strasbourg ministers. Alongside the pieces familiar from Olivier Millet’s finding list of Capito’s correspondence, this volume also includes a significant number of previous unknown letters, many of them discovered by Milton Kooistra in his investigation of the Strasbourg archives. This is, of course, one of the few projects of this nature that presents the letters only in English translation. These translations, by Erika Rummel, have an easy elegance that greatly increase the accessibility of the volume. Any student of the Reformation, or indeed of the sixteenth century, will find much of interest here. The contrast between the lofty high-mindedness of the ministerial exhortations and the hard-nosed financial negotiations for the surrender of Capito’s canonry is particularly enjoyable (Letter 248a...