TETZEL, JOHANN (c. 1460-1519), preacher and sales man of papal indulgences, the son of Hans Tetzel, a goldsmith of Leipzig, was born there about 1460. He matriculated at the uni versity in 1482, graduated B.A. in 1487, and in 1489 entered the Dominican convent at Leipzig. He found his vocation as a preacher of indulgences, combining the gifts of a revivalist orator with the shrewdness of an auctioneer. He began in 1502 in the service of the Cardinal-legate Raymond Peraudi ; and in the next few years he visited Freiberg (where he extracted 2,000 gulden in two days), Dresden, Pirna, Leipzig, Zwickau and Görlitz. Later on he was at Nuremberg, Ulm and Innsbruck. He was elected prior of the Dominicans in Glogau in 1505.
Fresh scope was given to his activity in 1517 by archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, who had agreed with Pope Leo X. to pay his first-fruits in cash, on condition that he were allowed to recoup himself by the sale of indulgences. Half the proceeds in his province were to go to him, half to Leo X. for building the basilica of St. Peter's at Rome. Tetzel was appointed general sub-com missioner for indulgences, and was accompanied by a clerk of the Fuggers from whom Albrecht had borrowed the money to pay his first-fruits. Tetzel's efforts irretrievably damaged the compli cated and abstruse Catholic doctrine on the subject of indulgences. "As soon as the coin clinks in the chest," he cried, "the soul is freed from purgatory." In June he was at Magdeburg, Halle and Naum
burg ; the elector of Saxony excluded him from his dominions, but Albrecht's brother, the elector Joachim of Brandenburg, en couraged him at Berlin in the hope of sharing the spoils, and by the connivance of Duke George of Saxony he was permitted to pur sue his operations within a few miles of the electoral territory at Wittenberg. Luther was thus roused to publish his momentous ninety-five theses on the subject of indulgences on Oct. 31, 1517.
Through the influence of Conrad Wimpina, rector of Frank furt, Tetzel was created D.D. of that university, and with Wim pina's assistance he drew up, in Jan. 1518, 1o6 theses in answer to Luther's. But the storm overwhelmed him : sober Catholics felt that his vulgar extravagances had prejudiced Catholic doc trine, and Miltitz, who was sent from Rome to deal with the situ ation, administered to him a severe castigation. He hid himself in the Dominican convent at Leipzig in fear of popular violence, and died there on July 4, 1519.