MURNER, THOMAS. - Anti-Lutheran theologian and polemicist, of the Conventual Friars Minor, b. at Oberchnheim (Obernai), in Alsace, on 24 Dec. 1475, d. there on 22 Aug. 1537. He preached in various Chapters of his religious province; on 25 Sept. 1505 he was licensed for the theological magisterium by the minister general Egidio Delphin.
In 1508, in close relations with the humanist Jakob Locher, he defended at Freiburg the necessity of a good classical education for religious. In the same city he took 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 Maximilian I. He was guardian at Speyer in 1510 and three years later at Strasbourg. He then taught for some time at Venice, then at Trier (law); in 1519 he was at Basel, where he took his doctorate in utroque.
Contradictions and accusations, including of heresy, were brought upon him by his didactic method of logic (Kraków, 1607) and of prosody (Freiburg, 1511-12), and later also of law (Trier, 1615-18), based on certain card games or chartiludia. 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 his own confreres (e.g., Johann Pauli), he made much use of satire. In 1522 he translated into German the Assertio septem Sacramentorum of Henry VIII, which had great resonance; the king wished to meet him and had 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 put himself at the head of the Catholic party against the Zwinglians at Lucerne, continuing the struggle for 4 years, cited before the tribunals by the Councils of Zurich, Lucerne and Bern. In 1529 he succeeded in reaching safety, first in the Palatinate, with the Elector Frederick II, then in his native city, in Alsace, where he lived in peace in his last years (1530-1537).
Of his vast and varied literary production, the following are to be remembered: Germania nova (s. l. 1502; new ed. by K. Schmidt, Geneva 1875), very rare, against Jakob Wimpfeling, in defense of the conventual Gymnasium of Strasbourg and of the Germanic character of Alsace; Honestorum poëmatum laudatio (Kraków 1507); De sillabarum quantitatibus (Frankfurt s. a.); Chartiludium logicae (Kraków 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 trans.); among the more substantial or famous apologetic writings: 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 poet and as polemicist, M., a sharp and versatile spirit, of very rich imagination, although sharing with Luther the necessity of reform for the Church in its various strata, immediately detached himself from him as soon as he came to know his spirit and method. He was the greatest defender of the Catholicity of Alsace (Strasbourg) and in Switzerland.
Bibliography3 works
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 im 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., of 1499); Regesta Ordinis, Cod. A, 3, f. 63 (Rome, conv. SS. Apostoli); Sbaralea, III, pp. 132-36; for further bibl. cf. Bibliographia Franciscana, VI, Rome 1946-47, p. 477.
Lorenzo Di Fonzo