Hans Tausen

Tausen's preaching was so revolutionary that he no longer felt safe within the Order of Saint John, so he discarded his religious habit and placed himself under the protection of the burgesses of Viborg.

In October 1526 King Frederick I, during his visit to Aalborg, took Hans Tausen under his protection, appointed him one of his chaplains, and charged him to continue for a time to preach the Holy Gospel to the citizens of Viborg, who were to be responsible for his safety, thus identifying himself with the new doctrines in direct contravention of the plain letter of his coronation oath.

But he was stronger as a preacher and an agitator than as a writer, the pamphlets which he now issued from the press of the German printer Hans Vingaard, who settled down at Viborg, being little more than adaptations of Luther's Opuscula.

King Frederick now recommended him to Copenhagen to preach at the church of St Nicholas, but here he found an able and intrepid opponent in Bishop Rønne.

Serious disturbances thereupon ensued; and the Protestants, getting the worst of the argument, silenced their gainsayers by insulting the bishops and priests in the streets and profaning and devastating the Catholic churches.

A Herredag, or Assembly of Nobles, was held at Copenhagen on 2 July 1530, ostensibly to mediate between the two conflicting confessions, but the king, from policy, and the nobility, from covetousness of the estates of the prelates, made no attempt to prevent the excesses of the Protestant rabble, openly encouraged by Tausen.