WILSNACK: A town 67 miles n.w. of Berlin, at present unimportant, but from 1383 to 1552 one of the most noted places of pilgrimage in Germany, in the contest over which the varied tendencies of the theology of the fifteenth century came to light, while ecclesiastical, territorial, and financial interests clashed violently. In a strife between a certain Von. Below and the bishop of Havelberg the town and church of Wilsnack were reduced to ashes. The story goes that three sacred wafers were rescued from the ruins singed only on the edges, and in the middle of each was what looked like a drop of blood; that when these were taken to the neighboring

--church of Gross-Lüben a new wonder appeared, the wafers becoming luminous and fiery yet not being destroyed. The wonder drew pilgrims, and Bishop Dietrich II. (1370-85) conducted an investigation; new miracles resolved every doubt, and the pilgrimage, grew greater. The bishop began the erection of a new and stately church, for which Pope Urban VI. granted the customary bull, but without mentioning the " blood-wonder "; in the episcopal permission, however, the archbishop of Magdeburg duly exploited it. Bishop Johann Wopelitz of Havelberg secured for himself the rights of the place, obtained from Boniface IX. in 1395 a bull to incorporate the new church with the obligation to maintain a perpetual vicar there. He took a third of the income from the offerings of pilgrims and the sale of leaden models of the blood-bearing wafers. The pilgrimage became extensive and from all quarters; the place grew into a city. But opposition began to be heard, especially from Prague, and an investigation showed priestly contrivance. A synod at Prague of 1405 forbade pilgrimage to the place, and Huss wrote on the subject his De omni sanguine Christi glorifccato. In 1412 a synod at Magdeburg took up the matter, proposed to the bishop of Havelberg a series of questions which elicited a fundamental report charging fraud on the clergy, withholding credence from the discoverer of the miracle, and asserting that there was neither blood nor anything like it. Evasion was attempted at Havelberg by asserting that it was the sacrament and not the blood which was honored, but left the pilgrims to venerate the miracle; a fourth newly consecrated wafer was added to the three. The literary polemic continued, and was carried forward by Heinrich Tocke, professor of theology in Erfurt, a man of reformatory spirit; but his representations had no effect upon the Council of Basel, to which he accompanied the archbishop; but his plea was effective with the bishop of Havelberg so far that the latter forbade his clergy to spread questionable tales of miracles performed. An inspection of the wafers showed that they were practically consumed, only the form being left, with no signs of blood. Yet his zeal for reform broke against the varied interests involved; the archbishop turned the battle against the pilgrimage to the advantage of his diocese; the bishop of Havelberg enlisted in the aid of his financial interest in the affair the political interests of the local lord of the manor, whose ecclesiastical patronage was of value. In 1445 the new archbishop of Magdeburg, Count Friedrich von Beichlingen, took the position of Tocke, while Frederick

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II. took into his service in defense of the Wilsnack miracle Matthias Doring, the Franciscan provincial. The bishop of Havelberg evaded the attempts of the archbishop to treat with him personally, and the matter went to Rome for a decision at a time when the recognition of Frederick was needed for Pope Eugene IV., with the result of a guarded and evasive pronouncement to the effect that it was the sacrament which was honored, and not the bloody wafers. An attack had been made upon Tocke by Doring charging the former with being a Hussite; the Erfurt theologians disallowed thin, but it be came the question before a provincial synod. Fred erick complained to the archbishop of Magdeburg against Tocke and others, and then secured the re newal of the bull of Eugene IV. by Nicholas V. (1447), protecting the rights of Havelberg, the bishop of which now offered passive resistance to the archbishop. At a synod in 1451 the papal legate (Nicholas of Cusa) forbade the exhibition of alleged bloody wafers and of the leaden models, thus discouraging the pilgrimage. In turn the Havel bergerssecured the excommunication of the arch bishop, while bands plundered his territory. In 1453 Nicholas issued a bull relieving both sides from the censures to which they were subject, forbade them to occasion new strife, and awarded the archbishop damages for the brigandage committed; the result was on the whole favorable to Havelberg, the arch bishop being obstructed in his opposition to the Havelbergers, while the latter were in a manner protected. The literary assault continued, the Carthusian Jacob of Jueterbog and the Augustinian Johann von Dorsten of Erfurt leading. The object of at tack now was not the priestly trickery, but the mania for pilgrimage, which was likened to a plague. When the Reformation began, Wilsnack was still most popular as a goal of pilgrimage. No effective steps were taken till 1548, the ecclesiastical and civil powers being faithful to Rome. In that year Joa chim Ellefeld, an Evangelical preacher, was installed, but enjoined by the chapter to leave ceremonial un touched. But Johann Agricola urged Ellefeld to cast out the idolatry, and he entered the church and burned the wafers. In indignation the chapter had Ellefeld imprisoned. But it happened that the latter had not burned the freshly consecrated host, and he was set free by the elector on Nov. 11, 1552. The church from that time was Evangelical, though pilgrims from distant regions continued to visit the church for some decades. The bloody host of Wilsnack, however, furnished a pattern which other places employed.

(G. Kawerau.)

Bibliography: Dat ys dy Erfindunpe and 1Vunderwerke des hilliyen Sahramentes tho der 1Vilsnapk. Magdeburg, 1509, reprinted in P. Heitz and W. L. Schreiber, DriLCICe and Holzschnitte . , pp. 8-11, Strasburg, 1904; Historic inventionis et ostensionis vivifici sacramenti in lY'ilsnagk, Lübeck, 1520; I. Ludecus, Hist. von der Erfindung . . des vermeinten heiligen Elute zur Wilsnagk. Wittenberg, 1586; E. Breest, in Mdrkische Forschungen, xvi (1881), 133 sqq.; idem, in BfaObeburoer Geschichtsblatter, 1883, 43 sqq., 97 sqq.; idem, in Eltitter für Handel, Gewerbe, etc., 1882, pp. 167 sqq.; Wattenbach, in SEA, 1882, pp. 81)3 sqq.; B. fiennig, in Forsehungen zur brandenb. and preussischen Geschichte, xix (1906), 391 sqq.; KL, v. 1729 1734.