The first Polish city to feel its influence and to respond to it was
the important commercial city of Danzig. In less than a year from
the posting of Luther’s theses on the door of the castle church at
Wittenberg, Luther’s reform doctrines were preached and championed in
Danzig. The man who accepted them and began to preach them publicly was
James Knade, a monk and preacher at the Church of St. Peter and St.
Paul. Knade renounced his monastic vows, married Anna, the beautiful
step-daughter of James Rohboze, a wealthy burgher of Danzig, and,
fearlessly opposing Rome and Roman practices, advocated reforms in the
church. Being a popular preacher, liked and respected by the people
of the city, his activity was very dangerous to the Church of Rome.
He was, therefore, seized, by order of the bishop of Kuyavia, tried,
found guilty, and imprisoned. Shortly after his imprisonment, he was
released, but had to leave the city. He took refuge on the estate of a
country gentleman by the name of Krokow, near the city of Thorn, where,
protected by his patron, he continued his reform activity without
further interference.[48]
Suppressed for a time, the reform movement broke out again four years
later with accumulated force. The interval had given the people of
Danzig time to think, to form opinions, and to take sides either
for or against the Reformation. The year 1522, therefore, found the
majority of the people of Danzig in favor of the Reformation. Some,
however, wanted to carry it through conservatively, others by radical
action. The advocates of conservative reform were drawn from among
the well-to-do, and included the city council. The radicals came from
the plebeian class, and represented the wishes of the common people.
The conservatives favored the dogmatic aspect of the new reform
movement, and opposed changes in organization, forms, and practices.
The radicals, on the other hand, kept their eyes on the practical
aspects of the new ideas, and proposed to carry them out to their
logical limit.[49] The leader of the conservative reform party was
Dr. Alexander, a Franciscan friar, an eloquent preacher, thoroughly
educated and well balanced. The leader of the radical reform party was
James Hegge, at first preacher at various churches outside the city
wall, then prebendary of St. Mary’s, the largest and most beautiful
church in the city, and still later of St. Catherine’s. Hegge was
likewise an eloquent and popular preacher and a man of a very practical
turn of mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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