ABSTRACT
Let us briefly recapitulate the situation in 1520-22. After the Diet of Worms in 1521, Emperor Charles V withdrew from the complicated religious scene in order to deal with his great rival for supremacy in Europe, Francis I of France. The Edict of Worms which banned Luther was largely ignored, the region of influence of the prince-bishop of Salzburg being no exception. After the death of Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach in June 1519, Matthew Lang had become his successor at Salzburg; Lang had been coadjutor to Keutschach since 1512, and a cardinal since 1511. On 25 September 1519, Bishop Philip of Freising ordained him as a bishop. Encouraged by the Bavarian authorities, the new archbishop of Salzburg summoned a synod at Mu¨hldorf (the Salzburg enclave surrounded by Bavaria) for the spring of 1522, for the purpose of initiating reforms in order to counteract the ‘Lutheran sect’ (secta lutherana) in the entire ecclesiastical province of Salzburg. The synod began on 26 May 1522. In attendance were Cardinal Lang (being also the bishop of Gurk), the two Bavarian bishops of the Wittelsbach dynasty, Philip of Freising and Ernest of Passau, Bishop Berthold Pu¨rstinger of Salzburg-Chiemsee, several delegates from Brixen and Regensburg, and other prelates such as the humanist abbot of Aldersach, Bolfgangus Marius, who belonged to the entourage of the bishop of Passau. Staupitz was not part of this gathering. The synod had no real effects; because of its failure, Archbishop Lang perhaps made plans to recruit Staupitz, so that in the future the ecclesiastical reforms would be carried out expediently. Furthermore, Lang appears to have been pressured by Pope Leo X for some time to draw Staupitz to Salzburg, where he could be urged to distance himself from Luther; if Staupitz were to refuse, he ought to be imprisoned or punished in some other way (as we know from a letter of Erasmus of Rotterdam). The pope’s letter was given to Cardinal Lang in September or October 1520 in Cologne.1
