Philip Melanchthon's Most Formative Year

Among the great figures of the Reformation, Philip Melanchthon is less well-known in the English-speaking world than Martin Luther, John Calvin, or William Tyndale. Germans and Lutherans assign him greater importance as one of the early developers of Reformation theology, the author of the Augsburg Confession, and a seismic influence on educational methods. But even as he has been lauded, Melanchthon is also a controversial figure and the subject of vitriol in his own time and ours.

Why so much antipathy toward the man who helped explain the doctrine of justification by faith alone? It derives from disagreements in the decade or so after Luther’s death. Melanchthon is faulted for making changes to his greatest theological writings and for his actions following the Schmalkaldic War, in which a theological compromise called the Leipzig Interim was forced upon the Lutheran churches of Saxony. [1] Melanchthon agreed to the compromise, hoping to maintain peace and leave an opening for gospel preaching, but his opponents in the Lutheran movement considered his actions treacherous.

In subsequent eras, Melanchthon has often been portrayed as spineless and doctrinally suspect. The past few decades have seen a change in this general narrative, with Melanchthon’s writings being reevaluated and found to be more orthodox than previously supposed. 

Still, Church historians attempt to determine why Melanchthon made those controversial decisions. Was he simply afraid of losing his life? Was he overly sympathetic to Calvinist beliefs? Or was there something in his personality or background that influenced him in old age?

I cannot provide hard answers, but I can tell you about one particular year when a young Philip Melanchthon experienced hell on earth. In 1504, at just seven years old, Melanchthon witnessed three violent events that would surely leave a mark on any youngster’s psyche: the siege of his town, the poisoning of his father, and the execution of five people by burning.

The Siege

Philip Melanchthon was born into a family of good standing in the town of Bretten in the Electoral Palatinate, now part of the province of Baden-Württemberg. Unlike the region of Electoral Saxony in which Wittenberg was located, the Palatinate was a historic heartland of the German-speaking peoples. The ancient Roman emperors and Holy Roman Emperors alike established power bases on the Rhine River, ensuring that it was a land of great cultural significance and wealth. It was also a land of vineyards, which helped the town of Bretten, despite its less than two thousand inhabitants, become a major crossroads for tradesmen. [2] Close proximity to the Elector’s court in Heidelberg enabled Philip’s father, George Schwartzerdt (Melanchthon is a Greek form of this Germanic surname), to enter the service of both Elector Philip (after whom Philip Melanchthon was named) and even Emperor Maximilian I as a skilled armorer.

As Philip’s father was often away on official business, the Schwarzerdt family—which in those years included siblings Philip (born 1497), Anna (born 1499), and George (born 1501)—lived in the home of Philip’s maternal grandfather, Johannes Reuter, who was serving as Bretten’s mayor. All of these official roles proved consequential when Bretten became the center of a dynastic dispute.

Elector Philip was a member of the powerful Wittselbach family, which was divided into two primary branches that did not much care for each other: the Palatinate branch and the Bavarian branch. The situation came to a head in 1504, when the Swabian League—a conglomeration of armed men allied with the Bavarian branch of the Wittselbach family—placed Bretten under siege. Philip’s family remained fiercely loyal to Elector Philip, and his grandfather Reuter helped produce a network of five hundred ramparts outside the town. Meanwhile, Philip’s father George left the service of the Emperor to secretly work for Elector Philip, providing the armor his troops would need. [3]

The fighting took a heavy toll on Bretten, with many of its citizens dying and its walls and buildings destroyed. The townspeople were also pressed into service to provide resources for an army of thirty thousand men, with the risk of disease high. Philip likely witnessed some of the violence first-hand. A dispute between mercenary fighters over their lack of pay led to a fight in the market square, and a bleeding soldier ran through the Reuter home, attempting to escape. Johannes Reuter was then confronted by men pressing weapons to his chest and demanding that he surrender the man. They only gave up their chase when it was clear their prey had disappeared.

Did these events provoke a horror of war in young Philip Melanchthon? He never mentioned them in adulthood, although he is supposed to have said that the war was merely an attempt for Elector Philip to grab more land. 

The Poisoning

Perhaps more influential than the siege itself was a related event that happened in 1504. While in the Elector’s service, Philip’s father unknowingly drank from a poisoned well. [4] The damage to his body was severe and he returned to Bretten a broken man. He would live for four more years, but as an invalid.

In contrast to the events of the siege, Philip Melanchthon did mention his father later in life, always in glowing terms. Despite his father’s secular vocation, Philip saw him as a man of great piety and a major spiritual influence. It was from his father that Melanchthon first gained an interest in astrology, believing the stars were a legitimate means of seeking out God’s will. 

The early death of Philip Melanchthon’s father led him to look to various scholars as father figures during his precipitous rise through the academic ranks, some of whom pointed him in the direction of his Reformation breakthrough. Did the loss of his father of the flesh affect Philip in other ways? It surely must have, but how is less certain.

The Executions

Toward the beginning of Clyde L. Manschreck’s biography of Melanchthon is a seemingly inconsequential detail: “In 1504 five Bretten citizens were convicted of devil-inspired witchcraft, and, in keeping with the biblical injunction not to let a sorceress live, they were put to death by fire.” [5]

We tend to think that witch burnings were common in the medieval world. In fact, it was only in the sixteenth century that witch burnings increased in frequency and they reached their apex in the seventeenth century. Prior to that, witch trials were rare in Germany, so it seems particularly significant that one was carried out in Philip’s town in 1504.

The town of Bretten was small, and Philip likely knew at least some of those executed. Given that his grandfather’s house was located on the market square, a typical location for executions, he certainly would have been aware of the event; he may even have witnessed it. Coming as it did in the same year when the town was consumed by the violence of siege warfare, these burnings must have seemed particularly horrific. It was possibly a case of neighbor turning against neighbor, blaming each other for things that had gone wrong. That was often what precipitated accusations of witchcraft.

Did the adult Philip fear the possibility of being burned at the stake with his friends, given that he witnessed such a thing in his childhood? Did it cause him to lose faith in his fellow man?

Once again, we cannot know the answers, but the questions are fascinating. If anything, the events of 1504 prove there is more to Philip Melanchthon than is often thought. Human motivations are a difficult thing to grasp so long after the fact. Even Melanchthon may have been ignorant of how the events of his childhood shaped him as a man. Let these events and this particular year of a controversial Reformational character remind you when you read about historic figures, we only know a small portion of the burden they bore.