ABSTRACT
In late 1567, the Cologne city authorities came to the home of Johann Newkirchen. The city council had appointed a special commission to investigate the presence of “religious suspects” in the city. While the source of the city’s suspicions of the Newkirchens is a mystery, the investigation revealed that Newkirchen, a carpenter, lived in the parish of St. Albans, one of the older parts of the city, near the Rhine River. Investigators wanted to know how long he had lived in Cologne, where he went to church, and whether, when, and where he had received the sacrament of Holy Communion. Newkirchen said that although he had lived in the parish of St. Albans for several years, “for the past two or three years he had gone to church in St. Peter’s parish, heard preaching in St. Albans and St. Lupus, and received the Holy Sacrament in St Peter’s, as he had previously done in St. Albans.” He further asserted that he was not interested in religious innovation [newerung]. His wife held the same religious views.1
