Bullinger’s handwriting in a letter written in Latin on August 11, 1547 — Zurich, State Archives, E II 342, 175
Johannes Gast’s handwriting in a letter written in Early New High German on June 3, 1547 — Zurich, State Archives, E II 366, 194
The significance of Bullinger’s correspondence
Bullinger’s correspondence offers an enormous amount of information about public and church policy, the intrigues behind the events of his day, the social mood, the economy, the weather, harvests, famines, epidemics, celestial phenomena and contemporary prints, not to mention countless details of special interest to biographers and genealogists.
As a historical-linguistic corpus, this correspondence also provides deeper insight into the development of Early New High German and Latin in the sixteenth century.
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The aim of the Heinrich Bullinger Foundation
The aim of the Heinrich Bullinger Foundation is to make the culturally and historically important correspondence of the Zurich reformer Heinrich Bullinger accessible to a broader public and enable new historical and linguistic research. To this end, his correspondence, which comprises some 12,000 letters in all, have to be deciphered, translated, elucidated and placed in its cultural-historical context.
To date, 3,120 letters have already been published. Unfortunately, since the beginning of 2021 the financing of this editorial undertaking is no longer secured.
The Heinrich Bullinger Foundation was launched in December 2020 with the express purpose of making the publication of all the remaining letters possible.