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Basel, on the Rhine where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet, was a bustling hub of commerce and culture in the early 16th century. From all over Europe, students flocked to its university and writers brought their books to its presses. Chief among the intellectuals of Basel was the reformer Desiderius Erasmus. At Basel, in 1515-16, Erasmus produced his famous edition of the Greek New Testament, assisted by younger scholars such as Johannes Oecolampadius, a priest who was working for the Froben printing house, and Wolfgang Capito, preacher and theology professor.

Also in Basel were Margareta Rosenblatt—a military wife—and her daughter Wibrandis, who would play an important role in the lives of both Oecolampadius and Capito. The two Rosenblatts moved in university-educated circles, from which Wibrandis picked up German, Latin, and a husband, Ludwig Keller, whom she married in 1524 at the age of 20. Two years later Keller was dead, leaving her with a daughter also named Wibrandis.

Both Wibrandises returned to live with Grandmother Margareta, and for two more years they lived in poverty. Meanwhile, they became attracted to the evangelical teachings being proclaimed by Oecolampadius. The former printer's assistant was back in Basel as cathedral preacher after a stint as preacher in Augsburg (1518-20), two years in a monastery (1520-22), and several months as chaplain to the outlaw knight Franz von Sickingen. Capito, meanwhile, had left Basel in 1520 for a job with the Archbishop of Mainz, in which capacity he attempted to stall the case against Luther.

Erasmus, still in Basel, feared that the "evangelicals" were tearing the Church apart. He therefore took full advantage of the possibility for satire when the 45-year-old Oecolampadius married the 24-year-old widow Wibrandis Keller. Oecolampadius, Erasmus quipped, had married an attractive girl as his Lenten penance. In Oecolampadius's own account, Wibrandis was a bit too young, but she was a good Christian, of respectable family but not too rich, and had "several years' experience bearing the cross." He wrote to Capito the year after the wedding: "My wife is what I always wanted … She is not contentious, garrulous, or a gadabout, but looks after the household."

In 1529, Oecolampadius and a Protestant mob succeeded in destroying the images in Basel's churches and reforming the Lord's Supper according to Protestant doctrine. Meanwhile, similar changes had taken place in Strasbourg, where Capito had overcome his last qualms about the divisive potential of Protestantism and was working zealously alongside the ex-Dominican Martin Bucer. Throughout southern Germany and Switzerland, a like-minded group of theologians took control of the religious life of some of the region's most important city-states. They and their wives formed not only a theological but a social circle. Capito had married a local magistrate's daughter, Agnes, at the urging of Bucer. And in turn, Capito had urged Oecolampadius to take a wife. Both Elisabeth and Agnes corresponded with Wibrandis, as did Anna Zwingli.

This network of friendship would be sorely needed. The Reformation had triumphed in much of Switzerland, but the warlike "Forest Cantons" remained Catholic, and in 1531 civil war erupted. On Oct. 11 Zwingli was killed in battle at Kappel, and Basel's attempt to help Zurich and Bern resulted in a second defeat. Oecolampadius had defended the legitimacy of war, but he saw the military disasters as a sign that Christians should trust in God alone. Weak and discouraged, Oecolampadius died on Nov. 23, 1531. Bucer commented, "We have no greater theologian."

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