Introduction

Biography

Martin was the son of Mar­tin Schall­ing, some­time pas­tor at Strass­burg (af­ter 1534, pas­tor at Weit­ers­weil­er, near Saar­brück­en).

He en­rolled in 1550 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wit­ten­berg, where he be­came a fa­vo­rite pu­pil of Phil­ipp Me­lanch­thon, and friend of Ni­ko­laus Sel­neck­er.

After earn­ing his MA degree, he con­tin­ued as a lec­tur­er in Wit­ten­berg for a short time, then be­came dia­co­nus in Re­gens­burg in 1554, and around 1558 dia­co­nus in Am­berg, Ob­er­pfalz.

In 1568, af­ter Elect­or Fried­rich III of the Pa­la­ti­nate made Cal­vin­is­tic ser­vic­es the or­der of the day, Schall­ing had to leave Am­berg. How­ev­er, Fried­rich’s son, Duke Lud­wig, re­mained a Lu­ther­an, and he let Schall­ing serve the Lu­ther­ans at Vil­seck, near Am­berg.

When Lud­wig became Re­gent of the Ob­er­pfalz, he re­called Schall­ing to Am­berg in 1576 as court preach­er and su­per­in­tend­ent. When Lud­wig be­came Elect­or of the Pfalz in 1576, he made Schall­ing Ge­ne­ral-Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Ob­er­pfalz, and court preach­er at Hei­del­berg.

But when the cler­gy of the Ob­er­pfalz were pressed to sign the For­mu­la of Con­cord, Schall­ing he­si­tat­ed, hold­ing that it dealt too harsh­ly with the fol­low­ers of Me­lanch­thon. For this, he was ban­ished from the court at Hei­del­berg. Af­ter be­ing con­fined to his house at Am­berg from 1580 to March 1583, he was fin­al­ly stripped of his offic­es.

Thereafter he stayed for some time at Alt­dorf, but was ap­point­ed in 1585 as pas­tor of St. Ma­ry’s Church in Nur­em­berg, where he re­mained un­til blind­ness made him re­tire.