Andreas Karlstadt

Andreas Rudolph Bodenstein von Karlstadt, better known as Andreas Karlstadt or Andreas Bodenstein, was a German Protestant theologian, chancellor of the University of Wittenberg, a contemporary of Martin Luther and a reformer of the early Reformation who lived from 1486 to 1541. He became a close associate of Luther and one of the earliest Protestant reformers; after Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, concealed Luther at the Wartburg in 1521 and 1522, Karlstadt and Thomas Muntzer started the first iconoclastic movement in Wittenberg and preached theology viewed as Anabaptist, though neither regarded himself as an Anabaptist. Karlstadt operated largely as a church reformer in his own right, and after coming into conflict with Luther he switched his allegiance from the Lutheran to the Reformed camp, later became a radical reformer, and then returned again to the Reformed tradition, allying himself by the end of his life with Heinrich Bullinger in Switzerland and working in Basel, where he died. He travelled widely within the Holy Roman Empire, through German-speaking, French-speaking and Italian-speaking lands, and maintained his own distinct positions on many theological issues throughout much of his life despite coming closer to the Reformed tradition by the time of his death.