Hermann of Wied

Hermann of Wied (German: Hermann von Wied) (14 January 1477 – 15 August 1552) was the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne from 1515 to 1546. In 1521, he supported a punishment for German reformer Martin Luther, but later opened up one of the Holy Roman Empire's most important archbishoprics to the Protestant Reformation. Biography The fourth son of Frederick, count of Wied (d. 1487), Hermann was educated for the Church, and became elector and archbishop in 1515. He supported the claims of Charles V, whom he crowned at Aachen in 1520. At first, his attitude towards the reformers and their teaching was hostile. At the Diet of Worms, he endeavored to have Luther declared an outlaw. A quarrel with the papacy turned, or helped to turn, his thoughts in the direction of church reform, but he hoped this would come from within rather than from without. He was initially a proponent of the Erasmian agenda of reform, which recognized certain corrupt and infelicitous religious practices but proposed no serious doctrinal change.