Hans Tausen
Part of a series on |
Lutheranism |
---|
Hans Tausen (Tavsen) (1494 – 11 November 1561) nicknamed the “Danish Luther” was the leading Lutheran theologian of the
Background
Hans Tausen was born at Birkende on Funen in Denmark. Very little is known about his childhood and youth, but apparently he was a pupil at the grammar schools at Odense and Slagelse, finally settling down as a friar in the monastery of the Order of Saint John of Antvorskov near Slagelse. After studying at Rostock, where he got the degree of a Master of Arts and also after being ordained as a priest, he studied for a short time at the University of Copenhagen, and was then again sent abroad by his prior, visiting, among other places, the newly founded University of Leuven in Belgium and making the acquaintance of the Dutch humanists. He was already a good linguist, understanding both Latin and Hebrew. Subsequently, he translated the books of Moses from Hebrew.[2][3]
Career
In May 1523 Tausen went to
Tausen found a fellow-worker and reformer in Jørgen Sadolin (c. 1490– 1559), whose sister, Dorothea Jensdatter Sadolin (c. 1510–1537), he married, to the great scandal of the Roman Catholics. He was the first Danish priest to take a wife. He was also the first of the reformers who used the Danish language instead of Latin in the church services, the Even song he introduced at Viborg being of great beauty. Tausen was certainly the most practically gifted of all the new native teachers. But he was stronger as a preacher and an agitator than as a writer, the pamphlets which he now issued from the press of the German printer Hans Vingaard, who settled down at Viborg, being little more than adaptations of Luther's Opuscula. He continued to preach in the church of the Franciscan monastery, while Sadolin, whom he had consecrated a priest, officiated at the church of the Dominicans, who had already fled from the town. The Franciscans only yielded to violence persistently applied by the soldiers whom their opponents quartered upon them.[2][5]
In 1529 Tausen's mission at Viborg came to an end. King Frederick now recommended him to Copenhagen to preach at the church of St Nicholas, but here he found an able and intrepid opponent in
Memorials
- Hans Tausen's Church at Islands Brygge was inaugurated on 30 November 1924.
- A modern monument in memory of Hans Tausen was erected in 2004, this time in Viborg, in commemoration of the town's 475th year since its reformation. The monument was made by the Danish artist Bjørn Nørgaard.
Note
- public domain: Bain, Robert Nisbet (1911). "Tausen, Hans". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 456. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). . Encyclopedia Americana.
References
- ^ "Hans Tausen (1494-1561)". ribe1300.dk. Archived from the original on October 8, 2021. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
- ^ a b c d Bain 1911.
- ^ "Hans Tausen (1494-1561)" (PDF). The Scandinavian Reformers. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
- ^ Nikolaj Christensen (7 September 2009). "Hans Tausen (1494–1561)". Kristendom.dk. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
- ^ "Jörgen, Jensen – Sadonsk". Nordisk familjebok. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
- ^ "Hans Tausen". Den Store Danske. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
Other sources
- Engelstoft & Dahl (ed.): Dansk Biografisk Leksikon (The Danish Dictionary of Biography), Copenhagen 1942
- Suhr, Tausens Levnet (Ribe, 1836); Danmarks Riges Historie, vol. III (Copenhagen, 1897–1905).
- Dreyer, Rasmus HC: "Hans Tausen mellem Luther og Zwingli. Studier i Hans Tausens teologi og den tidlige danske reformation" (Odense: Syddansk University Press 2020)
- Deryer, Rasmus HC: An Apologia for Luther: The myth of the Danish Luther: Danish reformer Hans Tausen and 'A short answer' (1528/29). In: Peter Obitz (ed.): "The Myth of the Reformation", Göttingen 2013, p. 211–232.