Reformation in Ptuj

A Contribution to the History of early modern Protestant Communities in the Slovenian Drava Region

Abstract

This article sheds light on the Reformation period and the early modern Protestant community in Ptuj, although the insight it provides is rather cursory due to the highly fragmented archival sources. Nonetheless, even the scant sources attest to the fact that the Ptuj community of the Augsburg Confession was not insignificant, at least not during the final decades of the sixteenth century. The community also managed to withstand the Counter-Reformation well into the first decades of the seventeenth century, despite Ptuj being the first Styrian town targeted by it in 1587. Furthermore, several town councillors and other town officials, as well as a number of students enrolled at Protestant universities, came from the community’s ranks. Concurrently, the community’s spiritual needs were provided for by the Lords of Stubenberg from Vurberk or, rather, at least by their final preacher Georg Lautenschlager.