Marian Exiles - Frankfurt

Frankfurt

The first English exile group in Frankfurt arrived on 27 June 1554. With the help of a local magistrate, they secured the use of a vacant church building. They held their first service on 29 July using a reformed liturgy drawn up by William Whittingham. The congregation adopted a semi-presbyterian system where deacons were expected to preach.

At the request of local authorities in this Lutheran city, the English church order had been made to conform to the newly established French reformed church in Frankfurt. The French church included a number of Walloon weavers who had been brought to England by Protector Somerset. Since then they had been under the supervision of Valerand Poullain, formerly John Calvin's successor as minister of the French congregation in Strasbourg. In England, Poullain's congregation had as much autonomy as the London Stranger churches and, like them, based their church order on the models of Zwingli and Calvin.

Following this continental reformed precedent, the English exiles in Frankfurt offered themselves as the model church for all the English in exile and put out a call for ministers from the other congregations. However, they had gone further than many of their countrymen would follow, particularly those in Strasbourg and Zürich who wanted to retain use of the second (1552) Edwardian Book of Common Prayer. For that reason the English Church at Frankfurt became preoccupied with disputes over the use of the prayerbook and church order in general.

The chief members of the Frankfurt congregation during its existence were David Whitehead, Sandys, Nowell, Foxe, Bale, Horne, Whittingham, Knox, Aylmer, Bentham, Sampson, Kelke, Chambers, Isaac, both Knollyses, John and Christopher Hales, Richard Hilles, Bartholomew Traheron, Robert Crowley, Thomas Cole, William Turner, Robert Wisdome. An informal university established by the congregation had Horne teaching Hebrew, John Mullins (who came from Zurich after Knox left) teaching Greek, and Traheron teaching theology.

All records of the group were destroyed in World War II with the Frankfurt city archives, and only partial transcripts from prior scholarship remain. These records disclose that native Frankfurters distrusted the English and suspected they were being used by members of the nobility to diminish the privileges of the burghers. The English were also accused of unfair commercial practices and of competing with local artisans—accusations which led to detailed censuses of the immigrants.