Johann Stumpf

He was educated there and at Strassburg and Heidelberg. In 1520 he was received as a cleric[?] or chaplain into the order of the Knights Hospitaller or of St John of Jerusalem[?], was sent in 1521 to the preceptory[?] of that order at Freiburg in Breisgau[?], ordained priest in Basel, and in 1522 placed in charge of the preceptory at Bubikon[?] (north of Rapperswil[?], in the canton of Zürich). But Stumpf soon went over to the Protestants, was present at the great Disputation[?] in Bern (1528), and took part in the first Kappel War[?] (1529).

He had carried over with him most of his parishioners whom he continued to care for, as the Protestant pastor at Bubikon, till 1543, then becoming pastor at Stammheim[?] (same canton) till 1561, when he retired to Zürich (of which he had been made a burgher in 1548), where he lived in retirement till his death in 1576.

In 1529 he married the first of his four wives, a daughter of Heinrich Brennwald[?] (1478-1551), who wrote a work (still in manuscripts) on Swiss history, and stimulated his son-in-law to undertake historical studies. Stumpf made wide researches, with this object, for many years, and undertook also several journeys, of which that in 1544 to Engelberg[?] and through the Valais seems to be the most important, perhaps because his original diary has been preserved to us. The fruit of his labours (completed at the end of 1546) was published in 1548 at Zürich in a huge folio of 934 pages (with many fine wood engravings, coats of arms, maps, &c.), under the title of Gemeiner loblicher Eydgnoschafft Stetten, Landen und Voelckeren Chronick wirdiger thaaten Beschreybung (an extract from it was published in 1554, under the name of Schwytzer Chronika, while new and greatly enlarged editions of the original work were issued in 1586 and 1606). The woodcuts are best in the first edition, and it remained till Scheuchzer's day (early 18th century) the chief authority on its subject.

Stumpf also published a monograph (very remarkable for the date) on the emperor Henry III (or IV?) (1556) and a set of laudatory verses (Lobspruche) as to each of the thirteen Swiss cantons.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.