ABSTRACT

At the centre of the Reformation campaign against the friars looms the figure of Johann Eberlin von Giinzburg. More than any of his fellows among the former Franciscans who opted for the Evangelicals, Eberlin was an implacable foe of the friars throughout much of his reforming career. Already in his early writings, which were published collectively under the title ‘The Fifteen Confederates,’ he devoted considerable attention specifically to the crimes perpetrated on Christendom by the mendicant orders. Many of the themes developed in this cycle of pamphlets reappear later, albeit often in noticeably modified forms, in the 1523 campaign against the friars. Therefore, Eberlin’s early writings form a necessary backdrop for the evolution of Reformation antifratern­ alism.