FRECHT, freHt, MARTIN: German Reformer; b. at Ulm 1494; d. at Tübingen Sept. 14, 1556. He was the son of a councilor and master of the shoemakers' gild. He matriculated at Heidelberg in 1513 for theology and philosophy, and was dean of the faculty of arts from 1523 to 1526, professor of theology after 1529, and rector of the university and provisor domus Dionysianæ in 1530-31. He ranked as one of the leading humanists and discovered in the monastery of Eberbach the Saxon chronicle of Widukind, which he published at Basel in 1532. He listened with enthusiasm to Luther's disputation at Heidelberg (April 26, 1518), and was a friend of Brenz, Isenmann, Löner, Butzer, Schnepf, Blaurer, Capito, and Œcolampadius, while in 1524 he became acquainted with Melanchthon. In 1531 he was recalled to Ulm to teach the Bible to the clergy, monks and students, and became pastor of the church at Ulm in 1533. His sensitive nature and his lack of practical experience in church work hindered him greatly, but he labored faithfully to promote the interests of his struggling church by synods and visitations. The conflicts with the enthusiasts, Anabaptists, Sebastian Frank, and Caspar Schwenckfeld (qq.v.) who lived in Ulm, and together with the evident need of an understanding between the Protestants of northern and southern Germany, impelled Frecht to join Butzer in approaching Luther. He was a colleague of Butzer in the conference with the South Germans at Constance (Dec. 15, 1534), and of Butzer and Blaurer in the disputation with Schwenckfeld at Tübingen (May 28, 1535), while he also attended the Wittenberg Concordia in 1536, the deliberations at Frankfort in 1539, the convention at Schmalkald in 1540 (where he secured the condemnation of Frank and Schwenckfeld), and the conferences at Worms in 1540, and Regensburg in 1541 and 1546. In 1543 he made peace between the ministers at Biberach, and three years later he was sent to Dillingen by the Schmalkald League to begin a reformistic propaganda in the diocese of Augsburg. The disastrous termination of the Schmalkald war, however, obliged him to return to Ulm, but the rejection of the Interim exasperated the emperor, and on Aug. 16, 1548, Frecht and other ministers of Ulm were imprisoned in the fortress of Kirchheim. He was released, though on hard terms, Mar. 3, 1549, and then went to Nuremberg, which he left for Blaubeuren, where he lived under the protection of Duke Ulrich of Württemberg. In 1551 Duke Christopher appointed him inspector of the theological seminary at Tübingen, where he lectured on Matthew and Genesis. In the following year he became professor of theology, and rector in 1555.

G. BOSSERT