Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/641

 This momentous act had consequences greater, probably, than those who took part in it anticipated. The procedure in question was accepted at the Herredag at Odense in December, 1526, not without careful stipulations for the safeguarding of ecclesiastical liberties; and from this time forward no Danish Bishop sought papal confirmation. 4s other sees fell vacant they were filled in the same way, confirmation being given by the King; but in each case the Bishop elect remained uncon-secrated, such purely episcopal functions as were required being performed by one or other of the retired Bishops or those who, like the Bishop of Greenland, had never proceeded to their dioceses. Meanwhile Frederick was rapidly carried in the direction of further change. His son Christian, Duke of Schleswig, was already a convinced Lutheran; and in 1525 Albert of Brandenburg, the head of the Teutonic Order, renounced Catholicism and as Duke of Prussia became a suitor for the hand of Christian's daughter. The prospect of a strong Protestant alliance finally decided the question. Frederick, who had already shown Lutheran inclinations, from this time forward did his utmost to propagate the new views throughout his dominions. Naturally, not a few of his courtiers went with him; and in particular Mogens Gjce, the high steward of Denmark, became an ardent Reformer.

His son Christian had already shown the way in Schleswig and Holstein. A Lutheran preacher named Hermann Tast had been working at Husum since 1522, and under his influence and that of other German preachers whom Christian had brought in as his chaplains, the new views were spreading everywhere. Early in 1526 Christian attacked Bishop Munk of Ribe, telling him that he ought to provide his diocese with married priests who could preach the Gospel. The Bishop temperately replied that the Gospel was already preached, and that, with regard to the marriage of the clergy, "when the Holy Church throughout Christendom adopts it, we will do the same." From this time forward Christian took matters into his own hands, and drew up a new Lutheran order which he imposed on the duchies; four clergymen who would not accept it were deprived, and the Duke's chaplains ordained others in their places. At Flensburg in 1529, after a disputation between Tast and the Anabaptist Melchior Hofmann, the doctrines of the Sacramentaries and Anabaptists were abjured; and the system was complete when Bugenhagen gave them a Lutheran "Bishop" in 1541, and the Danish ritual came into use in 1542. In Denmark Christian's Reforming tendencies were the cause of his never being acknowledged by the Rigsraad as successor to the throne during his father's lifetime.

Frederick followed his son's lead by nominating Tausen and others as his chaplains, thus at once exempting them from episcopal control and giving them protection. The plan was of course not unknown before, but it was so effective that it caused the Bishops no little alarm. At the Herredag