Johann Tetzel was really unlucky when it came to posthumous fame. The Saxon Dominican has gone down in history as a blatant, stupid, brazen indulgence seller who stole money from people with wild promises. In addition, the luminary of the reformer Martin Luther seemed all the brighter even during his lifetime. Since his death on August 11, 1519, 500 years ago, so many myths and prejudices have grown up around Tetzel that the person behind them is hardly recognizable.

It is not known exactly when he was born. It must have been around 1465 in Pirna, Saxony. What did he look like? You don't know that either. There was no need to paint him because he wasn't important enough for that. In any case, the well-known picture showing a fat Dominican with a forelock had nothing to do with reality.

And he wasn't the inventor of the well-known saying about the effective money in the box either. Since the late 1470s, indulgence preachers have been advertising indulgences with: "When the money rings in the box, the soul leaps to heaven." Behind this was the promise, which was common at the time, that payments for certain church purposes could accelerate the remission of penalties for confessed sins and shorten the time in purgatory after death.

But even if Tetzel was not the inventor of this dictum, he is still characterized today as an exception among the many indulgence commissioners, who was distinguished by his equally efficient and profit-oriented way of proclaiming grace. After all, the Dominican had extensive experience in the profession, a profound scientific education, a stable network of contacts and a high reputation at a time when the task of commissioner of indulgences was still associated with high social prestige.

When Johann Tetzel entered the service of the Teutonic Order in 1505, which was then proclaiming a crusade indulgence in the empire, he found his actual field of activity. He was a complete success as an indulgence commissioner. When Pope Leo X had the indulgence for the new construction of the Roman St. Peter's Church proclaimed throughout Europe, the Dominican was there again. In May 1516 Tetzel attracted the attention of the later reformer Luther for the first time. At that time Luther announced, "Now I want to make a hole in the drum". He then fully succeeded in doing so.

Martin Luther was a great success with his 95 theses, while Johann Tetzel was soon unable to leave the monastery in Leipzig. In the first background noise of the beginning Reformation he had no chance. Precisely because he was a serious opponent, Luther and the later reformers clung to him. Since it was more important to the Curia in Rome to appease Luther and to keep his sovereign Frederick the Wise happy, Rome dropped Tetzel and made him a pawn.

The preacher of indulgences died on August 11, 1519, after Luther sent a letter of comfort to him on his deathbed, assuring him that he was not to blame for this matter. After that, the Dominican more or less fell into oblivion. He actually only became part of the Protestant culture of remembrance a hundred years after his death. Because in the plays that were so popular at the time, Tetzel appeared as a greedy indulgence seller. After that, more and more historically untenable stories grew about him, which condensed into a myth: Tetzel, the bad guy of Reformation history.

Source: katholisch.de/artikel/22589-johann-tetzel-der-bad-guy-der-reformationsgeschichte

Translated by Google •

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Location: Jüterbog, Teltow-Fläming, Potsdam-Mittelmark, Brandenburg, Germany

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