Bullinger and Death

I have not been able to post on this blog for a while because of a death in the family. Bullinger, for his part was confronted by death regularly. He lived through several attacks of the plague. He saw the effects of a mini ice age (see a previous post). He witnessed those close to him (including his wife and some of his children) die before him.

One important article on Bullinger is that by Pamela Biel - “Heinrich Bullinger’s Death and Testament: A Well-planned Departure”, Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol XXII (no.1, 1991), pp3-14. The following is the abstract of this article:

“Heinrich Bullinger was as comprehensive and orderly in his death as he was during his life. His Testament, which represents only one of his several adieux, was left the members of the city-government, and it allowed no options as to the choice of his successor just as it left his successor no options as to those issues which would have pride of place on his agenda. Thus Bullinger in death usurped two principles he had championed in life: the right of the Council to place ministers and the right of the Zurich ministry to choose its own priorities. Those battles which Bullinger left his successor to fight - the purity of Biblical religion in Zurich, freedom of the press, the protection and right use of church property, to name three - were similar to those he had himself inherited from Zwingli, a fact which prompts one to ask the question of how complete the Reformation at Zurich was even in August of 1575.”