CENTURIATORS OF MAGDEBURG. — This name is derived from the title of the work Ecclesiastica historia secundum singulas centurias per aliquot studiosis et pios viros in urbe Magdeburgica. In fact, it was the first general history of the Church compiled by Protestants, divided into periods of one hundred years, or Centuries, written, at least for the most part, in the city of Magdeburg, and to which learned men such as Flacio Illirico (v.), director and guiding spirit of the entire work, Giovanni Wigand, Matteo Judex, Basilio Faber, Andrea Corvino, Tommaso Holthuter, and others contributed. These “pious men” were profoundly anti-Catholic; suffice it to say that one of them, Judex, urged the political authorities to use the sword to exterminate the papists, ferocious assassins and executioners of souls. Flacio conceived the plan for this work as early as 1553, and the undertaking was carefully organized, with a great deal of material collected and entrusted to five directors, who had several collaborators under them; everything, however, was under the supreme direction of Flacio, who had no scruples about the means, whether licit or illicit.
Each Century contains 16 parts: 1) General survey. 2) Expansion of the Church. 3) Persecutions or peace of the Church. 4) Doctrine of the Church. 5) Heresies. 6) Worship and ceremonies. 7) Government. 8) Schisms and internal struggles. 9) Councils. 10) Illustrious men. 11) Heretics and leaders of sects. 12) Martyrs. 13) Miracles. 14) Political condition of the Jews. 15) Non-Christian religions. 16) Political changes. The related expenses were contributed to by the kings of Sweden and Denmark, the dukes of Saxony, the princes of Anhalt, and the cities of Augsburg, Nuremberg, etc.
The first three Centuries were printed at Basel in 1559; the others, up to the 13th, in the same city between 1560 and 1574, and in the latter year the 13th was printed, which Flacio, who died the following year, had been unable to complete. Giovanni Wigand wrote the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries, but they remained unpublished in the library of Wolfenbüttel. There were indeed authors, such as I. I. Hauke and I. I. Sember, who attempted to continue the work or produce another edition of it, but with little success because of the lack of esteem into which it had fallen. This lack of esteem was due in part to the criticisms made of it by eminent Catholic authors, such as s. Pietro Canisio, Cardinal Baronio with his Annales ecclesiastici, and the Bollandists with their monumental work; and in part to the character of the Centuries themselves. While some admire the grand plan that the authors intended to develop, or the alleged scientific method of collecting and examining documents of every kind, others condemn their serious and fatal defects. Among these must be counted the purpose of the Centuries, which were intended to be “a kind of cornucopia from which the evident proofs of all the deceptions and crimes of swindling and fraud of the Church were to emerge.” Serious and impartial criticism rejects such a one-sided history. Only the less erudite or more fanatical Protestants still find in this work an exceedingly rich arsenal of accusations, now disproved, against the Catholic Church, and repeat them as though they had never been refuted. One is painfully struck, for example, on reading that s. Bonifacio was the apostle of falsehood, that s. Gregorio VII was the most abominable monster on earth, that Alessandro III restored the worship of Baal, and so forth. One must also add the polemical tone of the entire work, which is marked by extreme anti-papal virulence; the facts and documents are grouped in a partisan spirit; histories, legends, and fables are heaped together indiscriminately; the lack of the calm, impartiality, and judgment necessary in a serious work of history is obvious to everyone. It is therefore unsurprising that serious and learned Protestant writers have by now rejected this work.
BIB.: O. Braunsberger, Canisi epistolae et acta, 8 vols., Fribourg in Br. 1896-1923; J. Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, V. Fribourg in Br. 1886, pp. 311-34; P. Tacchi Venturi, Storia d. C. d. G. in Italia, I. I. Rome 1930, pp. 152-57; C. Capasso, s. V. in Enc. It., IX (1931), p. 755 (with bibliography); E. Fueter, Storia della storiografia moderna, I, Italian translation, Naples 1944, p. 299 ff. Camillo Crivelli