Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts

With the establishment of the Reformation in a territory or an imperial city, the regional rulers and the city authorities had to provide their communities with various new systems in order to regulate the broad spectrum of church life. The integral parts of church orders are the regulation of church services, liturgies, rules of the agenda and forms of prayer, requirements for and types of employment for clergymen as well as church discipline and rules for excommunication. The deputy clergymen in the southwestern imperial cities who had a theological education (Johannes Brenz in Schwäbisch Hall, Johann Lachmann in Heilbronn or Ambrosius Blarer and Johannes Zwick in Konstanz) created new rules for church life which influenced the church orders of other cities and territories beyond the purview of the imperial city concerned.