Peucer studied mathematics, astronomy, and medicine at the University of Wittenberg since 1540. In 1543, he became a lodger in the house of one of the most famous professors in Wittenberg, the theologian and humanistPhilipp Melanchthon, whose daughter Magdalena he married in 1550. In 1554, he became professor of mathematics at Wittenberg, and in 1560 professor of medicine, leading the Wittenberg faculty in that field. Until 1574, he also served several times as Dean and Rector. In spite of his medical profession--in 1570, he became even personal physician to the Elector of Saxony--he was, after the death of Melanchthon, one of the leading Protestants in Saxony.
However, in 1574 Peucer was officially charged with Crypto-Calvinism in an inter-Lutheran fight for power and put in jail in the famed Königstein Fortress for 12 years. Released in 1586, he went to the Duchy of Anhalt, where he became Councillor and personal physician of the Prince of Anhalt. He died in the capital of Dessau in 1602.
However, in 1574Peucer was officially charged with Crypto-Calvinism in an inter-Lutheran fight for power and put in jail in the famed Königstein Fortress for 12 years.
This volume is comprised of fifteen revised conference papers from a colloquium held in conjunction with the millennium anniversary of the city of Bautzen and the 400th anniversary of Peucer's death in 2002.
As Peucer's 854-page statement is perhaps the major source for the study of a much larger phenomenon of political persecution in the context of Lutheran confessionalization, Hasse's reflections on the book will be fundamental to future research.
Peucer enjoyed the trust of the family, serving for several years as their personal physician, until his openness to Calvinism in his advice about foreign policy began to collide with August's own anti-Calvinism.
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