The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess, Chapter Six: Wilhelm Friess in Strasbourg

This is the chapter that's going to get me into trouble. There are some things that prudent scholars of the sixteenth century do not engage in, and that includes attributing anonymous pamphlets to famous writers based on circumstantial evidence. What was I thinking?

The line of thought, from the basic evidence to the crime of wanton attribution, goes like this:

The early textual history of "Friess II" identifies 24 April 1574 as the first alleged date of the vision. Another passage found only in the earliest versions gives special significance to Strasbourg for the survivors of German's future devastation. Another passage attacking Lutheran clergy, the prophecy's attitude towards sacramental theology, and its situating of the source of salvation in the south - in Switzerland - point to an ideological home among the embattled Reformed community of Strasbourg in late spring of 1574. I argue that the demonic child-eating general from the northwest in "Friess II" was meant as a reference to Henry of Valois, king of Poland and until recently a leader of the French anti-Huguenot army and, upon the death of his brother, the presumed next king of France (where he reigned as Henry III).

The dating of "Friess II" is supported by the title page illustration of an early edition, whose eclipsed sun and moon, and conjunction and opposition involving Mars, Saturn, and Mercury, again points to 1574. The zodiacal iconography of Mars, Saturn, and Mercury is also featured prominently in the text of the prophecy. In the spring of 1574, eclipses and conjunctions and anthropomorphic planets took a notable form in Strasbourg with the completion of the cathedral's astronomical clock. The first solar and lunar eclipse on the clock's tables of eclipses are the same ones featured on the title woodcut (which is also the title illustration for The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess).

As it turns out, the laudatory verse that accompanies a broadside illustration of the new clock was written by Johann Fischart, one of the leading German writers and the most accomplished satirist of the later sixteenth century. Fischart was a native of Strasbourg and a Reformed sympathizer who had earlier written some intemperate things about sacramental theology, supported the Huguenots and the Reformed of the Netherlands, had passed through Flanders at the time "Friess I" was circulating there, was known to publish works anonymously, and had knowledge of astrological and prophetic pamphlets.

That's a pretty amazing coincidence, I told myself. Maybe somebody could argue that Fischart was the author of "Friess II." Maybe I could even say what the evidence would be and what the argument would look like, if someone wanted to make that argument.

In the end, I decided the best approach was not to sketch out what a hypothetical argument might look like, but to simply make the claim that Fischart was the author, and defend that claim as forthrightly as possible. I try not to be irresponsible about it: As with other uncertain points, I give the evidence for both sides (including the not inconsequential note that one expert on Fischart finds the idea entirely ridiculous), and I avoid making Fischart's authorship of "Friess II" essential to any of my other arguments, but this time I opted to take the underdog bet.