Forgotten Reformers: Martin Bucer

Most reformers are notable for their activities in just one city. For instance, Calvin in Geneva, or Zwingli in Zurich. But Martin Bucer -- aka Martin Butzer, or Martin Bucerus -- had a major impact on the reformation in two different countries: France and England.

When the Reformation started, Martin Bucer was attending theology school at the University of Heidelberg. In 1518, Martin Luther came to Heidelberg for the Heidelberg Disputation, an event in which Luther debated theology with local Catholic monks. Bucer was in the audience for the Heidelberg Disputation and found himself agreeing with Luther.

However, Bucer did not think that Luther's views were incompatible with Catholicism. While Luther and Karlstadt left the church and renounced their vows, Bucer remained a Catholic priest for a number of years.

However, Bucer finally left the Catholic Church in 1521, when religious authorities tried to prosecute the humanist scholar Johan Reuchlin, whom Bucer admired. Reuchlin is perhaps most notable as the teacher of another great reformer, Philipp Melancthon.

At this time, Bucer became associated with Franz von Sickingen, a German knight. Sickingen sympathized with the protestants and used his wealth and power to protect Bucer, Luther and other reformers. However, 1523, Franz von Sickingen became the leader of the Knight's Revolt, an unsuccessful rebellion of knights against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

With his primary benefactor wanted for treason, Bucer had to get out of Germany. So he went to Strasbourg, which was then a free imperial city.

The citizens of Strasbourg accepted Bucer and let him lead their reformation. Under his leadership, services were simplified, religious images were destroyed, and leading Catholics were expelled.

During this time, Bucer tried his hand at diplomacy and sought to unite the Lutheran churches of Germany with the Calvinist churches of Switzerland into a single Protestant church. The sticking point in these talks was always the doctrine of the Real Presence -- which Lutherans accepted and Calvinists rejected. All of these talks failed. As for Bucer's own views, they were closer to the Calvinists, despite his early influence by Luther.

In 1549, Bucer's time in Strasbourg ran out. Charles V conquered the city, imposed Catholicism, and expelled the Protestant reformers.

Bucer was given refuge in England, where radical Protestants were quickly gaining power under Edward VI. Archbishop Thomas Cramner invited Bucer to become a professor at Cambridge. While in England, Bucer influenced the Book of Common Prayer of 1552, the most radically Protestant prayer book in the history of the English church.

Bucer died in England, two years before Edward VI did. When Queen Mary restored Catholicism, she ordered Bucer's body to be dug up and burned.

Forgotten Reformers: Andreas Karlstadt

Everyone knows that Martin Luther had 95 theses and nailed them to the door of a church in Germany. But did you know that there was another reformer from the same city who had 151 theses? And who actually went to Rome and hand-delivered them to the Pope?

There was, and his name was Andreas Karlstadt.

Karlstadt attended theology grad school at the University of Wittenberg, and got his doctorate in 1510, two years before Luther did. Karlstadt stayed at Wittenberg and soon became chair of the theology department.

In 1515, Karlstadt decided to attend law school at Sapienza universty at Rome. This was during the Papacy of Leo X, the famously corrupt Pope who authorized the sale of indulgences in Germany and would later excommunicate Luther. While in Rome, Karlstadt witnessed Catholic church corruption first hand. This led him to write his 151 Theses in 1517 -- a year before Luther wrote his 95 theses. Since he was in Rome, he was able to present his theses directly to the power center of the Church.

Karlstadt returned to Germany and supported Martin Luther's movement. When Luther had to leave -- first to defend his ideas at the Diet of Worms, then to hide from Holy Roman Empire authorities in Wartburg Castle -- Karlstadt became the leader of the reformed church in Wittenberg.

At this time, Karlstadt began to drift towards a more radical view than Luther. Karlstadt rejected infant baptism (thus becoming an Anabaptist), a step that Luther was unwilling to take. Karlstadt also denied the Real Presence -- the belief that Christ was not physically present during Communion, another step that Luther was unwilling to take. Finally, Karlstadt invited the Zwickau Prophets to preach in Wittenberg. The Zwickau Prophets were three radical Anabaptists who, among other things, claimed to be receiving spiritual revelations and preached that the apocalypse was near.

When Luther returned to Wittenberg, he was outraged at this. He expelled the Zwickau Prophets and returned to a more moderate form of Protestantism.

As for Karlstadt, he left Wittenberg. For some years, he wandered Europe and served as pastor in several cities. However, no Protestant group today really traces their heritage to Karlstadt.

The Dulo Dynasty: Founders of Bulgaria

The Bulgars were originally a Turkic peoples of the Central Asian steppe. However, they did not have a polity of their own, but rather lived as distinct tribes who were aligned with other Turkish or Central Asian polities.

A Bulgar leader named Kubrat put an end to this. In A.D. 632, he unified the Bulgars and created a single Bulgar polity, which we now call Great Bulgaria. This was not where modern Bulgaria is; rather, it was in the Crimean peninsula and the areas just north and east of it. Kubrat was a member of the Dulo Clan, which had previously been just one of many ruling clans among the Bulgars. After him, the House of Dulo would rule over other Bulgars for centuries.

After Kubrat's death, Great Bulgaria disintegrated. There were two reasons. First, the Khazars invaded. Second, Kubrat had five sons, some of whom wanted to take their followers and establish their own polity.

One such son was Asparukh. Asparukh left the Bulgar homeland and invaded the Byzantine Empire. At the Battle of Ongal, Asparukh defeated the Byzantines and carved out a new Bulgar homeland in the Balkans. This is the area that 21st century maps simply call "Bulgaria"; historians sometimes call it "Danubian Bulgaria" to distinguish it from Great Bulgaria, or from other Bulgar polities that different sons of Kubrat founded elsewhere. This polity is also called the First Bulgarian Empire, because it was the first empire to exist in Bulgaria.


Asparukh's successor was Tervel. Tervel obtained Byzantine recognition of Bulgaria. Indeed, when the Arabs besieged Constantinople during the reign of Leo the Isaurian in A.D. 717, it was Tervel who sent a Bulgar force that helped defeat the Arabs.

The next notable Dulo ruler of Bulgaria was Krum. Krum is primarily notable for winning the 811 Battle of Pliska against the Byzantines. Pliska was one of the greatest victories the Bulgarians ever won against the Byzantine empire. The Byzantine emperor Nikephoros I (who had seized power from Empress Irene of Iconoclasm controversy fame) was slain in the battle. According to legend, Krum made a drinking cup from Nikephoros's skull. Nikephoros's son and successor, Staurakios, was wounded and paralyzed during the battle. This led to a period of instability in Byzantium, as a paralyzed emperor was seen as weak.

According to Andrew Yaphe, Krum was the greatest Bulgar to ever live. But I disagree with this claim; see below.

The next notable Dulo ruler of Bulgaria was Simeon the Great. Simeon, the only Bulgar ruler to be called The Great, is my pick for greatest Bulgar to ever live.

Simeon is notable for his cultural achievements; as an educated ruler, he promoted literature and religious scholarship. Simeon also made the Bulgarian Orthodox Church autocephalous, making it independent of the control of any other Orthodox Church. But Simeon is also notable for presiding over Bulgaria during the height of its military power.

Simeon was so powerful that the Byzantines allied with Hungary against him. This forced Simeon to fight a two-front war against his southern and northern neighbors. But Simeon not only defended Bulgaria from this double threat, he also invaded both of his rivals and captured the Byzantine city of Adrianople and the Hungarian city of Pest.

Simeon also extended Bulgar control to modern-day Serbia, Croatia, and even Albania.

So extensive were Simeon the Great's conquests that Bulgarians refer to his rule as the "Era of the Three Seas", because Bulgaria gained coastlines along the Adriatic, Agean, and Black seas. His reign is also known as the Golden Age of Bulgaria. Indeed, when I was in Bulgaria, I purchased a t-shirt with Simeon's portrait on it and "GOLDEN AGE" written above it in large letters.

Simeon's successor was Peter I. Peter I is notable because it was during his reign that the Bogomil Heresy emerged in Bulgaria. Bogomilism, named for its founder, a priest named Bogomil, was a dualistic and somewhat mystical heresy influenced by the earlier Anatolian heresy of Paulicianism. Bogomilism is perhaps most notable today for the fact that it influenced Catharism (a.k.a. Albigenisanism), a much more famous heresy in southern France.

When Peter I died, his succession was neither stable nor orderly. He left two sons, but real power was in the hands of a group of four brothers known as the Comitopuli. This is a Greek name for them; their actual family name is unknown.

Eventually, one of the Comitopuli became emperor, ending the Dulo dynasty and starting the short-lived Comitopuli dynasty. This ruler was Samuel I or Samueli I. He is most notable for losing a war to the Byzantine Emperor Basil II.

Basil II defeated Samueli's army at the Battle of Kleidion in 1014. Famously, Basil blinded 99 out of every 100 Bulgarian captives, then left the remaining captives with one eye and ordered them to march their blinded colleagues back to Bulgaria and inform every man, woman, and child in Bulgaria that Basil was now their master. According to legend, upon hearing the news of Kleidion, Samueli died of a heart attack. This is not true, but by the end of the decade the Comitopuli dynasty was over and Bulgaria was a Byzantine province. For this, Basil II earned his famous nickname, Basil the Bulgar-Slayer.

War of the Quadruple Alliance

Everyone knows about the War of the Spanish Succession, the 1701-1714 conflict that ended with the Treaty of Utrecht, one of the most famous treaties of all time.

But did you know that there was a direct sequel? There was, and it's called the War of the Quadruple Alliance. It lasted from 1717 to 1720.

Under the Treaty of Utrecht, the House of Bourbon, under the new Spanish king Philip V, was allowed to keep Spain, but at the cost of giving up a lot of formerly territory, including wide swaths of Italy. The War of the Quadruple Alliance was an attempt by Philip V to regain this land.

The war was planned by Philip V's chief minister, Cardinal Alberoni. Under Alberoni's plan, Spain invaded and occupied Sardinia and Sicily.

Britain and France allied to oppose these invasions. Austria, whose interests in Italy were clearly threatened, did not immediately intervene due to being at war with the Ottoman Empire, but after ending that war in the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz they joined the anti-Spanish alliance. The Netherlands also joined, forming the war's eponymous four-country coalition.

Cardinal Alberoni, knowing that four was greater than one, attempted to de-stabilize Spain's rivals using intrigue. Alberoni attempted to finance a new Jacobite rising in Britain (which had just recently been rocked by "The Fifteen", the appropriately-named Jacobite uprising of 1715), and Alberoni also supported the Cellamare Conspiracy, which attempted to assassinate the regent of France. (Louis XIV had died in 1715 and left a 5 year old son, so killing the regent would leave France without a capable ruler). Both of these failed.

Alberoni's military campaigns also failed. The allies destroyed the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape Passaro, defeated the Spanish on land at the Battle of Milazzo, and even temporarily captured the Spanish towns of Vigo (in Spain) and Pensacola (in Florida).

The war was ended by the Treaty of the Hague, which mostly returned Europe to the status quo ante. The most notable provision of the treaty was that Sicily was given to Austria. The House of Savoy, which had been given Sicily under the Treaty of Utrecht, was given Sardinia instead. From here, they would eventually unify Italy.

As for Cardinal Alberoni, he was expelled from Spain and banned from ever returning.