MURNER, THOMAS. – Theologian and anti-Lutheran polemicist, of the Friars Minor Conventual, b. at Oberchnheim (Obernai), in Alsace, on 24 December 1475, d. there on 22 August 1537. He preached in various Chapters of his religious province; on 25 September 1505 he was licensed for the theological magisterium by the Minister General Egidio Delphin.
In 1508, in close relations with the humanist Giacomo Locher, he defended at Freiburg the necessity of a sound classical education for religious. In the same city he received his doctorate in theology in 1509 (according to others, more probably as early as 1506). In 1505, for his literary merits, he had been crowned poet by the emperor Massimiliano I. He was guardian at Speyer in 1510 and three years later at Strasbourg. He then taught for some time in Venice, and subsequently at Trier (law); in 1519 he was in Basel, where he received his doctorate in utroque.
His method of teaching logic (Cracow, 1607), prosody (Freiburg, 1511–12), and later also law (Trier, 1615–18), based on certain card games or chartiludia, brought him contradictions and accusations, including accusations of heresy. But his greatest difficulties began in the years 1520–30, when he took an active part in the religious struggles, writing some thirty works against Luther and Zwingli. Like other apologists of the time, including some of his confrères (e.g., Giovanni Pauli), he made extensive use of satire. In 1522 he translated into German Henry VIII’s Assertio septem Sacramentorum, which aroused great interest; the king wished to meet him and received him as a guest in England the following year (1523). In 1524 he was sent by the bishop of Strasbourg to defend the rights of Catholics at the Diet of Nuremberg. Persecuted by the Lutherans, from 1525 he placed himself at the head of the Catholic party against the Zwinglians in Lucerne, continuing the struggle for four years, having been summoned before the courts by the Councils of Zurich, Lucerne, and Bern. In 1529 he managed to reach safety, first in the Palatinate, with the elector Federico II, and then in his native city in Alsace, where he lived peacefully through his final years (1530–1537).
Among his extensive and varied literary production, the following should be remembered: Germania nova (s. l. 1502; new ed. by K. Schmidt, Geneva 1875), extremely rare, against Giacomo Wimpfeling, in defense of the conventual Gymnasium of Strasbourg and the German character of Alsace; Honestorum poëmatum laudatio (Cracow 1507); De sillabarum quantitatibus (Frankfurt s. a.); Chartiludium logicae (Cracow 1507); Ludus studentium Friburgensium (Frankfurt 1511–12); Chartiludium iustitiae summariae (Strasbourg 1518). In defense of the Immaculate Conception, he wrote: De quatuor heresiarchis O. P. de observantia nuncupatorum (Berlin 1509, and German translation); among the more substantial or famous apologetic writings are: Von Doctor Martinus Luters Lehren und Predigen (Strasbourg 1520); Von dem Babstenthum (ibid. 1520, in defense of the papacy); Die gots heylige Mesz (Lucerne 1528); the most important satirical poem, against the mad “spirit” of the reformers; Von dem grossen Lutherischen Narren wie in doctor M. beschworen hat (Strasbourg 1523; new ed. by H. Kurz, Zurich 1848).
Judged variously, both as a poet and as a polemicist, M., an acute and versatile spirit endowed with an extraordinarily rich imagination, although he shared with Luther the necessity of reform for the Church in its various strata, immediately broke with him as soon as he came to know his spirit and method. He was the
greatest defender of the Catholic character of Alsace (Strasbourg) and of Switzerland.
Studies: W. Kawerau, Th. M. und die Kirche des Mittelalters, Halle 1890; id., Th. M. und die deutsche Reformation, ibid. 1891; G. Balke, Th. M. Die deutschen Dichtungen des Ulrich von Hutten, Stuttgart s. a.; Th. von Liebenau, Der Franziskaner Dr. Th. M., Freiburg in Br.
1913; id., Documenta annedam circa vitam Fr. Th. Murrieri, in Arch. Franc. hist., 5 (1912), pp. 727–36; 6 (1913), pp. 118–28; cf. ibid., 25 (1932), p. 296; P. Scherrer, Th. M. Verhältnis zum Humanismus, untersucht auf Grund seiner Reformation Politarum, Basel 1929; M. Sondheim, Th. M. als Astrolog., Strasbourg 1938; Fl. Landmann, Zur Charakteristik Thomas M.s., in Arch. f. Elsäss. Kirchengesch., 15 (1941–42), pp. 199–210; id., Eine unvollendete Jugendschrift Th. M.s. ibid., pp. 73–128 (on a Tract. de Immaculata Virginis Conceptione by M., from 1499); Regesta Ordinis, Cod. A, 3, f. 63 (Rome, conv. SS. Apostoli); Sbaralea, III, pp. 132–36; for additional bibliography cf. Bibliographia Franciscana, VI, Rome 1946–47, p. 477.
Lorenzo Di Fonzo