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From:
Subject: [HWE] Jan Laski - was Jean a Lasco
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 08:26:37 -0700 (PDT)


Hello Listers,

I know, one day I can look forward to not going to the
pearly gates for some of my questions and musings.

I have always assumed that there are others out in the
world who follow the oft quoted line of "I may not
believe in what you say, but I will fight to the death
for your right to say it" or words to that effect.

And so, I continue my research as to the actual
historical facts of the 'Religious Reformation' of
Europe.

I say 'historical fact', as I strongly believe that
there is a great gulf between those touting a religious
idiology for fame and glory of, or for whoever, and
that of what was actually going on during that period
of human history.

A small digression. My interests in genealogy are 5th
to 14th century France. In researching, I have at times
gone back to some of the works of Quen (Dado) of Ruoen
or Gregory of Tours. If all our 'Dark Ages' history is
based on these two then we as a people better take a
deep breath.

Back to things Huguenot.

I mentioned in a recent post (see archives) that
something was amiss with the idea that Jean Calvin was
the be all and end all of the Reformation.

I suppose if you are a strong Calvinist, then I may
have just been crossed off your Christmas card list.

My post on Jean a Lasco has taken me to what appears to
be a reasonably historically correct source of
information. ( I do appologise right now for not saying
who did the pointing, it was via a direct email)

Part of the source can be found at
http://www.go-newfocus.co.uk/articles/jan_laski.htm

Discovering just who was this man who led the first
'Strangers Church' in England opened many 'doors' to
further research on just who was responsible in a major
way for the Huguenot / Wallon / Anglican reformation.

This section of the article is of interest I think ..
"Laski and Cranmer became very good friends and the
Archbishop insisted that Laski should lodge at his own
house. Cranmer then appointed his Polish friend as
Supervisor of the ‘Stranger Churches’ i.e. the churches
of the foreigners in London, on the generous salary of
£100 per annum. The ‘strangers’ were given the Austin
Friars building, which had featured so prominently in
the early years of the Reformation."

So now we know who appointed Laski as head of the
'Strangers Church'

Archbishop Cranmer was only one of the great reformers
of the time it would seem. From the following we find
quite a large group of 'thinkers'.

A 'who is who' of the reformation.. "Italian Peter
Martyr had become Regius Professor of Divinity at
Oxford (1548) and Martyr’s fellow- countryman,
Bernadino Ochino, had been given a prependary at
Canterbury. Both these men had been in Strasburg with
Franco-German Martin Bucer and arrived in England a
year before him. When Bucer arrived he had Italian
Hebrew scholar Emmanuel Tremellio with him. Bucer was
made Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge in 1549.
The Spanish Reformer and nobleman Francisco de Encinas
was already quartered at Cranmer’s home. Hooper had
brought Martin Micronius, the Belgian doctor from Basle
and Micronius’ fellow Flemings Gualter Delenus, the
Hebrew scholar and Jan Utenhoven, the Bible translator
were already awaiting Polish Laski’s leadership. The
Walloons Valerand Poullain and Francis Perussel, were
equally looking forward to Laski’s arrival. Melancthon
was the only church leader invited who declined to
come, complaining that he feared the Emperor’s troops
would arrest him on the way."

The last par of this article is the cause of even more
research. In part it says .. "Zanchy, no mean Reformer
himself and the man behind the teaching of the Church
of England on predestination and election, claimed that
Laski belonged to the very greatest of Continental
Reformers and his name should always be quoted with
that of Zwingli, Luther and Calvin."

All credit to Dr George M Ella of Mülheim for the
entire article found at the mentioned URL above.

So now I am off to discover more about this most
amazing reformer as well as some others that I had not
realised had so much to say in the way we practice or
believe today.

Zwingli seems to have been far more influential than
Calvin and yet Calvin recieves more publicity. As for
Zanchy, I do need to discover more on him.

And finally thank you to the subscriber who so kindly
emailed me. An email that has opened my mind to more
thoughts on the Reformation.

Kind Regards,
Peter Leroy

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