| The Reformation
| | Martin Luther (1483-1546) German Theology professor and reformer was one of several protesting the decay, which many thought permeated the Catholic Church.
It was Luther´s proposal to reform the church, which was behind the Reformation in Denmark , where reformers in Denmark´s big cities: Viborg, Haderslev, Copenhagen and above all, Malmo, led the transition to the reformed, Lutheran denomination. |
The Reformation Wave in Europe
In the late Middle Ages a wave of Reformation endeavours went through the Christian Europe. The German Theology professor Martin Luther (1483-1546) was just one of many, who protested the decay, which many found permeated the Catholic Church. Luther especially attacked the papal power, the sale of indulgences and the deed teachings, which meant that man could save himself through good deeds. Instead he propagated a church, which had the bible as the highest authority and where faith was the basis on which salvation was built.
Luther found that there was too much in the Catholic practising, which had no evidence in the bible: The worshipping of saints, the Mary cult, the monastery life and the celibacy of priests were among the examples, which must be removed from the church´s teachings. Han considered the royal power as a much better guarantor for a serious church than the papal power. It is therefore no wonder that many of the princes in Europe were attracted to the Lutheran teachings.
Martin Luther | 
Letter of indulgence |
Power Struggle in Denmark – The Count´s Feud
Denmark´s king after the dethronement of Christian 2.s in 1523, Frederik I., had given the growing Lutheranism his cautious support, even though he had promised the Catholic bishops in his strict coronation charter to fight all “heresy”. After the death of Frederik I.s in 1533 the bishops refused to recognize his son, Christian as the king. Mostly because he had openly embraced Lutheranism and had introduced it in the areas in Schleswig, with which his father had endowed him. The citizens of Malmo and Copenhagen wanted to reinstate Christian 2., but the bishops did not want that either, as he, as his cousin Christian, also was an eager follower of the teachings of Luther.
Divisions between the aristocracy and the middle classes led to a violent civil war, the so-called Count´s Feud, where the bourgeoisie and the Jutlandic peasants put Count Christoffer of Oldenburg (hence the name)in charge of Lubeck´s army against the Danish aristocracy. In this situation Sweden supported the Jutlandic aristocracy’s preferred heir to the throne Frederik´s son, Christian. And in 1534 Christian became the king of Denmark under the name Christian 3. In unison with the extremely professional general Johan Rantzau the king defeated the army from Lubeck and slaughtered the Jutlandic peasant army, led by Skipper Clement.
Frederik 1. | 
Christian 3. The Reformation King | 
Johan Rantzau | 
Oversæt |
The Reformation is Carried Through
The takeover meant partly that the aristocracy gained influence and partly that an opportunity had arisen to carry through the Reformation. But first the Catholic bishops had to be removed. In the parliament in Copenhagen the Catholic bishops were blamed for the chaotic conditions, which prevailed and for their direct opposition against having a Lutheran on the throne.
The result was that all bishops were discharged, there land was confiscated and their income went to the state. The next year the fate of the Catholic Church was sealed. A new church law was passed, which was in harmony with the Lutheran teachings, and in 1536 the Reformation was carried through in Denmark.
The road to the Reformation had been long and hard and the ideas of the Reformation had long since taken roots in Denmark as well as many of the surrounding countries.
The Church Ordinance |
Religious Self-Criticism
Even inside the Catholic Church in Denmark there had been criticism in the beginning of the 16th century of the disparity and the greed, which ruled the papal church. They wanted reforms and a leading figure in reform Catholicism was the Danish Carmelite monk and university teacher, Poul Helgesen. Helgesen was especially sceptical of the extensive religious swindle with the term sale of indulgences. However, he remained faithful to the Catholic Church.
Early Preachers
But there were far more radical and earlier critics of the Catholic Church than Poul Helgesen. An early centre of the dissemination of Lutheranism in Denmark was for example Haderslev in Southern Jutland. As early as 1525 a school for priest, where Lutheranism was the basis for the work of the new priests.
One of the most well-known and outstanding critics of the Catholic Church also started early. It was the St. John monk Hans Tavsen, who became the first priest, who fully implemented Lutheranism in his sermons and his work. First in Viborg, Jutland and later in Copenhagen.
One of the most powerful manifestations of the new Lutheran teachings was the Lord´s Day in 1527. Her it was stated that faith was voluntary and that an evangelical free church was allowed.
Hans Tavsen, the Danish Luther |
Malmo´s Reformers
Malmo became an early centre for Lutheranism and here the priest Claus Mortensen became a leading figure. He had preached the teachings of Luther in Copenhagen, but in 1527 he was asked by the mayor and mintmaster Jørgen Kock to return to Malmo, his native town. Mortensen started to preach in a little chapel outside Malmo, but drew such crowds that he moved his activities to Petri Church in the central part of town. A former monk, Hans Spandemager, joined up and Mortensen and Spandemager worked out the first evangelical Mass in Danish. This Mass was called “the Malmo Mass"
The Archbishop in Lund, Aage Jepsen Sparre, reacted strongly against both reformers and he succeeded in getting them banished from Malmo. In 1528 they moved to Haderslev.
After a time in Haderslev, Claus Mortensen and Hans Spandager returned to Malmo in the summer of 1529. But now they brought a protection letter from King Frederik I. This made them untouchable and the reform work was intensified. Three former Karmelite brothers Frans Vormordsen, Peder Laurentsen and Anders Ljung now participated in the reform work and they became leading figures in the Lutheran priest school, which was established in Malmo. (They were all former pupils of the reformed Catholic Poul Helgesen).
Jörgen Kock | 
Kock House | 
The Gravestone of C. Mortensen |
Malmo- A Lutheran Town 1529
The citizens of Malmo gradually became ati-Catholic and the Catholic parish priest was forced to resign at the end of September 1529. Claus Mortensen was then installed as a new vicar in town. One of his first acts was to carry out an iconoclasm in St. Petri Church. Pictures and statues, which did not correspond to the the “pure” Lutheran teachings, were thrown into the street and destroyed.
From now on Malmø was a Lutheran town. I.e. two years after Sweden´s transition to Lutheranism and seven years before the final victory of the Reformation in the rest of Denmark. The first Lutheran ordination in Denmark was carried out in St.Petri Church in Malmo 1531.
Petri Church in Malmo | 
Series pastorum |
The Malmo Book and the Chronicle – Two Sources on the Reformation
Peder Laurentsen wrote the so-called ”Malmo Book” in 1529, which provided a Lutheran explanation of the Reformation in Denmark. The title was ”The Cause and a True Explanation of the New Reformation”. The script is considered one of the most important works of the early Reformation. There is still one copy of the original edition in existence in the university library in Lund.
The view of the Catholic Church on the events are written down in ”Cronica seu brevis processus in causa expulsionis fratrum minoritarum de suis cenobiis provincie Dacie”, often called “the Chronicle of the Banishment of the Franciscans” from 1534.
The Mendicant Friars
The mendicant friars are the avant-garde of the established church. Some monastery orders was directly tied to the Holy See and the closed monastery societies were not as integrated in the surrounded society as for instance the parish churches. They were in short more vulnerable and they and the mendicant friars came under fire in the end of the 1520´s.
As early as 1527 there were complaints that the poor monks were persecuted and the King Frederik 1.at first issued a letter to the vassals to protect them. Later on, when the king sees an advantage in taking over the church´s property, he participates actively in the banishment of the mendicant friars.
Attack on the Monastery in Malmo
In Malmo there were heavy attacks on the activities of the monasteries led by Claus Mortensen. In the beginning it was verbal attacks from the pulpits, but after Mortensen had become the vicar in Malmo, they started to persecute the monks and they were violently driven out of their monasteries.
The reformers were backed up by the citizens of Malmo. There were two monasteries in the town. The Monastery of the Holy Spirit in the present Stortorget, and the Monastery of the Franciscans.
During the harvest of 1529 the Brothers of the Holy Spirit were driven away from their monastery and in May 1530 the Franciscans were driven away. This happened under quite dramatic circumstances. The Franciscans were locked up in the dining hall and then asked to get out of the monastery.
Attack on the Monastery in Ystad
In 1532 it was the Franciscans in Ystad, who were to be driven away. With a royal letter the mayor demanded that the monks were banished. When negotiations of this broke down the citizens of the town attacked. They interned the leaders of the monastery, banned the monks from performing church acts and finally drove the monks away.
The mendicant friars´ fate was sealed through a document in 1537:
”No mendicant friars are allowed to dwell in our kingdoms after this day, they must neither beg nor hear confessions. But those, who are old and fragile and are no good for any church posts can stay in the monastery and there they may earn their living for the sake of God. However they must leave off their gown and they must not blaspheme against the Gospel”.
The Archbishop Title Is Abolished
The archbishop seat in Lund as taken by Frands Vormordsen from Malmo. He was ordained as superintendent on September 2. 1537. Superintendent became the new title for the bishop in Lund. The introduction of the Reformation was thus finally done.
Preaching at the Centre
With the Lutheran teaching as a point of departure far greater attention was directed at the interpretation of the texts in the bible, i.e. the preaching. The sermon of the priest was not unknown in the Catholic Church, but in the Lutheran church the sermon became the main attraction. It can be said that the service space was moved from the altar to the pulpit.
A visible sign of this was that new and expensive pulpits were installed. There are a number of these still in existence and they can bee seen in the churches from the 16th and 17th centuries in the Sound region.
The Preaching | 
Lund´s Pulpit | 
Petri Pulpit | 
St. Mary Pulpit in Helsingborg |
|