POLIANDER (GRAUMANN) JOHANN. - Lutheran reformer, b. at Neustadt am Main in 1487, d. at Königsberg in 1541. He studied at Leipzig, where he became rector of the school of St. Thomas; during the Leipzig disputation between Luther and Eck (1519), he was the latter’s copyist. He attended the University of Wittenberg, where he embraced Luther’s ideas, which he cautiously disseminated as preacher at the cathedral of Würzburg in 1522-24.
Forced to abandon his office, after a brief stay in Nuremberg as chaplain of a convent of Poor Clares, he was summoned by Duke Albert of Prussia to Königsberg. Prussia thus became the field of action for his intense activity as a reformer, which he carried out through preaching and teaching (commentaries on the Old and New Testaments), and by writing religious hymns that became popular in the Lutheran Church. Thus, together with others, he issued the first collection of religious hymns published at Königsberg; he promoted both the new organization of the Church (visitations from 1531) and the reorganization of the schools (1530). Faithful to Luther, he fought sectarian tendencies, contributing decisively to the suppression in Prussia of the followers of the mystic Schwenckfeld (v.).