Leo Jud

Who was Leo Jud?

Leo Jud, known to his contemporaries as Meister Leu, Swiss reformer, was born in 1482 in Guémar, Alsace, southwest of Strasbourg. Like his later colleague Heinrich Bullinger, Jud was the son of a priest. His father, Johannes Jud, was from Guémar and his mother, Elsa Hochsang, was from Solothurn. He studied at the Latin school in Sélestat with Martin Bucer and in 1499 he matriculated at the University of Basel, where he met Huldrych Zwingli. He began his studies in medicine but switched to theology under the influence of Thomas Wyttenbach. Leo Jud is one of the lesser-known leaders of the Swiss Reformed Church, but his influence was extensive.

Jud was ordained by the Church at Rome in 1507, and from 1507-1512 he was a deacon at Saint Theodore in Basel, then from 1512-1518 he served as the preacher at Saint Hippolyte in Alsace. In 1519 he became Zwingli’s associate at Einsiedeln, where his reform-minded tendencies showed through clearly.

The 1520s were a time of great productivity for Jud. On March 9, 1522 he participated in the Affair of the Sausages during Lent, a protest against the established food mandates of the church.