Wogel Catharine (1459-1539)

Vogel Catharine,  (or, as the name is written by Count Krasinski, Weygel,) wife of Melchior Vogel, a goldsmith, and Alderman of Cracow, was tried before the Ecclesiastical Court of that diocese, on a charge of apostasy from the Christian faith, and burnt to death, at the advanced age of eighty, in the market-place of that city, A.D. 1539.

When asked about her creed, she replied, "I believe in the existence of one God, who has created all the visible and invisible world, and who cannot be conceived by the human intellect." Lubieniecius speaks of her chiefly as protesting against the sacrifice of the mass (Hist. Ref. Pol. L. i. C. v. p. 17) ; and Budzinius, who calls her Zalaszowska, in the 4th Chapter of his manuscript "Commentaries," written in the Polish language, seems to have regarded her as the first Polish Antitrinitarian.

Lubieniecius further says, that he had found, in the Chronicle of Gornicki, a contemporaneous historian, that she was suspected of Judaism ; but this may have been, as Lubieniecius thinks, (ubi supra,) only because she denied, that the Son of God was begotten from eternity of the substance of the Father. Whatever may have been her opinions, she remained firm in the profession of them, notwithstanding the admonitions of her judges ; and suffered death with the most heroic courage. Her execution was chiefly occasioned by Gamrat, Bishop of Cracow, a favourite of Queen Bona, and a man of the most profligate character.

(Vidend. Lubieniecii Hist. Ref. Pol. L. i. C. v. p. 17. Count Valerian Krasinski's Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress and Decline of the Reformation in Poland. Lond. 1838, 8vo. Vol. I. Pt. ii. Chap. i. pp. 131, 132, and Ref.)

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