ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1530, a debate broke out in the imperial city of Nuremberg concerning the toleration of religious beliefs which deviated from the official Lutheran position adopted by the city. Frohlich’s assertion of religious freedom was extremely unusual and provocative in the religious and political context of the early sixteenth century – especially considering that it did not come from the quill of a persecuted Anabaptist or Spiritualist; on the contrary, it came from a representative of the urban authorities and a supporter of the council’s oversight over the Lutheran Church in the city. Spengler’s concept of confessional unity would determine Protestant confessional politics during the Reformation era and the confessional age. This freedom of worship would begin to gain gradual acceptance starting in the seventeenth century.
