Hugo von Hohenlandenberg came from a Swiss noble family and became Bishop of Constance in 1496. His vast diocese included Zurich, and so Ulrich Zwingli, who began preaching through the Gospels at the Grossmünster on January 1, 1519, was under his authority. The bishop had at first been sympathetic to humanist reform.

When citizens of Zurich broke the Lenten fast in 1522, Hugo sent a deputation to the city and followed it with a pastoral letter against the new preaching.¹ Its central charge was simple:

That the gospellers teach a new doctrine, but that the old doctrine is the true.² Hugo von Hohenlandenbergpastoral letter, 1522, as summarized by Merle d’Aubigné

Zwingli answered him in the Archeteles, and the Bernese preacher Sebastian Meyer replied: “To be wrong for two thousand years,” said Meyer, “is not to be right for a single hour.” The gospel, he added, was older than the ordinances of the pope. In July 1522 Zwingli and his colleagues petitioned the bishop to permit the preaching of the gospel and the marriage of priests. Hugo refused.

At the First Zurich Disputation on January 29, 1523, the bishop’s representatives would not debate, and the city council ruled that Zwingli should go on preaching. Zurich then withdrew from the bishop’s jurisdiction. Hugo resigned in 1529, returned briefly to office, and died on January 7, 1532.

Catholic Opponents