ALFELD, AGOSTINO. - Franciscan, from Alfeld (Hildesheim), d. in 1532 or later, one of the earliest opponents of Luther and one of the most effective Catholic controversialists of the time. In 1520 he was lecturer in Sacred Scripture at the convent in Leipzig, in 1523 guardian at Halle, and in 1526 provincial minister of Saxony. It was largely due to his efforts that the Franciscans remained steadfast in the Catholic faith.
As early as 1520 he published in Latin a defense of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, which provoked an initial polemical response from a pupil of Melanchthon, refuted by the Franciscan Giovanni Fritzhaus, and a second, more authoritative reply from Johannes Lonicer at the instigation and with the help of Luther, to which he himself responded by openly directing his work against Luther. At the same time, he published a defense of the Papacy in the vernacular for the people, provoking Luther’s indignant and violent tract On the Papacy in Rome against the most famous Romanist of Leipzig (1520). Another clash between A. and Luther arose over the question of the Eucharist and communion under both kinds; it was A.’s objections that prompted Luther to set forth his program in Latin: De captivitate babylonica. A. contested Luther’s attacks on Bishop Benno of Meissen, canonized in 1524, and Luther’s consolatory letter to the innovators of Halle for the killing of one of their preachers (1528), though some attribute this letter to Duke George of Saxony.