Christian Cyclopedia

Outcome of Anglo-Luth. negotiations in spring 1536 when effort was made to reach doctrinal formula acceptable to govt. of Henry VIII and the Ger. Luth. theologians. The Eng. representatives at the conf. were Edward Fox, Nicholas Heath, and R. Barnes.* The Germans were represented by Luther,* Melanchthon,* Bugenhagen,* Cruciger,* and others. The Wittenberg Articles, agreed on by the conferees, were largely an explication of the AC with considerable borrowing from Melanchthon's Loci communes and the Ap Melanchthon appears to have been chiefly responsible for the writing of the formula. It was never formally adopted in Eng., but it did become the basis for the Eng. Ten Articles of 1536 and later became a chief source for the Thirty-nine Articles, the formal conf. statement of the Ch. of Eng. See also Anglican Confessions; Lutheran Confessions, A 5.

G. Mentz. Die Wittenberger Artikel von 1536 (Leipzig, 1905); F. Pruser, England und die Schmalkaldener (Leipzig, 1929); E. G. Rupp, Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition (Cambridge, 1949). NST