Sex, Blasphemy, and the Block: The Trial and Execution of Ludwig Hätzer
In early 1529, the Protestant authorities of Constance executed Ludwig Hätzer for disobedience and moral depravity. Although the court documents avoided any reference to his religious teachings, contemporaries speculated about the role that…
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Version 1.0 - published on 21 Apr 2025
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In early 1529, the Protestant authorities of Constance executed Ludwig Hätzer for disobedience and moral depravity. Although the court documents avoided any reference to his religious teachings, contemporaries speculated about the role that perceptions—that he was an Anabaptist who espoused heretical opinions—played in his conviction. This article uses Hätzer’s trial and execution as an opportunity to reflect on two topics of interest in studies of the early Reformation: the reluctance of reformers to level charges of heresy against each other, and their re-evaluation of human sexuality resulting from the rejection of clerical celibacy. Au début de 1529, les autorités protestantes de Constance ont exécuté Ludwig Hätzer pour désobéissance et dépravation morale. Bien que les documents juridiques évitent toute référence à ses enseignements religieux, ses contemporains ont multiplié les conjectures au sujet du rôle qu’a joué dans sa condamnation la conviction qu’il était un anabaptiste ayant des croyances hérétiques. Cet article examine le procès et l’exécution de Hätzer afin de réfléchir à deux questions importantes pour les études du début de la Réforme : la résistance des réformateurs à engager des accusations d’hérésies contre d’autres tenants de la Réforme, et leur reconsidération de la sexualité suite au rejet du celibate sacerdotal.
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Original publication: Dipple, Geoffrey. "Sex, Blasphemy, and the Block: The Trial and Execution of Ludwig Hätzer." Renaissance and Reformation 40 (4): 2018. 73-90. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v40i4.29269. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.
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