Friday, March 6, 2026

0:00It is the 6th of March, 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I'm Dan, band Forest. One of the highlights of my now yearly trips through Europe and the lands of the Reformation to go to gti-tours.org for more information is the day we spend in the ancient city of Augsburg, standing under the fountain for Caesar Augustus. Yes, the one from the Nativity Story. I tell the story of how this town was built as a major trade center by the emperor himself, and that he couldn't have known that he would be perhaps only the second most powerful man. From this city, Augsburg now in southern Germany over the Alps from Italy. You may have heard of the Augsburg Confession, 1530, the first Lutheran Confession of Faith, or the piece

1:01of Augsburg, 1555, the piece that legalized some churches of the Reformation. But today we had back a little earlier than that to the 1400s, and the rise of perhaps the richest man to ever live. Jacob Fuguer. He was Jacob Fuguer the second, better known as the rich, and he was born on this the 6th of March in 1459. His family, the Fugers, settled in Augsburg in the 1300s, and his grandfather and father used their business savvy and family connections to make their names in manufacturing. Jacob the second was the youngest boy and was sent as the custom was into church work, and in his case across the Alps into the Italian lands. His mother who would take over the family business when his father died encouraged him to study more than theology, and with a manufacturing family it made sense for him to learn trade, measures,

2:02and most importantly, Italian banking. This is the double entry bookkeeping system and all my former students say, oh no, not this again. Jacob would return to Augsburg not as a churchman, but to join his older brothers firm. The Fuguer bank would become one of the most successful business ventures in world history. Banking and trade had been important, but smaller trades in largely agricultural world of late medieval Europe. The introduction and expansion of overseas territories coupled with European wars opened a new world for financial opportunities, and Jacob figured his best bet would be in mining. If you want the short version, Jacob bet on copper on the verge of both the copper shortage and a demand in copper for shipbuilding weapons and the like. How rich did Jacob Fuguer get? We can estimate his wealth at something like $400 billion in current money. So how did this wealth affect the church and helped usher in

3:09the Reformation? He and his family helped the consolidation and emergence of the Habsburg dynasty, helping Charles V become Holy Roman Emperor. The Catholic Habsburgs are the family in opposition to the early Reformation. There was also the time when Pope Leo, the tenth he needed funds for his rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica and so he borrowed from the Fugers. Leo would need to raise church revenue to pay the bank back, and this would dovetail with another powerful man, Albert of Brandenburg, who would purchase the archbishopric of Mints with a loan from the Fugers. Albert would also need to raise revenue to pay the bank back. Both Leo and Albert promoted a suspect but popular medieval practice, the selling of indulgences. And so to pay back Jacob Fuguer and his family firm, special and often aggressively promoted indulgences became the story,

4:10especially in the German lands on the eve of the Reformation in 1517. On our tour in Augsburg, we walked from the Augustus fountain to the church of St. Anne, patron saint of miners, where the Reformation would eventually take hold, but the fingerprints of the Fugers remain. I tell this story in the goldsmith's chapel and then walk the group over to the very Catholic figure section of the otherwise now Protestant church, where Jacob is buried. He died in 1525, born on this day in 1459. Jacob Fuguer the rich was 66 years old. The last word for today comes from the daily lecture and Ephesians too. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Consequently you are no longer foreigners and strangers but fellow citizens with God's people

5:11and also members of his household. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 6th of March 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. This show is produced by man whose favorite Caesars include Augustus, Julius, Romero of Joker fame and Cardini who invented the salad he is. Christ for Gillespie the show is written and read by a man who knows how to put the umlauts over the right letters but never does yet. Hold the letter down and tap the number four. I'm Dan Van Vores you can catch us here every day and remember that the rumors of grace. Forgiveness and the redemption of all things are true.

6:13Everything is going to be okay. You