ABSTRACT
It is not known how long Heinrich Heshusius taught at the University of Helmstedt. The surviving records indicate that in early 1591, after a period of several years of study and teaching at the university, he was asked by Lutheran Superintendent Polycarp Leyser (1552-1610) to become pastor and superintendent in Tonna in the district of Gotha. Tonna is located in Thuringia, about sixteen miles northwest of Erfurt, and during the Reformation period the area was under the control of the counts of Gleichen and the Ernestine branch of Electoral Saxony.1 Long a stronghold of Lutheran reform, the region had been comprehensively indoctrinated with Lutheran institutions, and further regulated in 1580 by Elector August and General Superintendent Jacob Andreae, who promulgated a comprehensive kirchenordnung there. It was Heshusius’s job to order religious life in Tonna based on the rubrics of Andreae’s kirchenordnung, and therefore his first opportunity to work as a pastor in the field. In addition to supervisory responsibilities, he would also preach regularly, organize worship services, administer the sacraments, build and preserve ecclesiastical structures (such as schools for the indoctrination of the young), shepherd local congregations, and see to the spiritual needs of the local nobility.
