Between 1614 and 1616 three texts appeared in Germany announcing the existence of a secret brotherhood that held knowledge capable of reforming the world. The brotherhood was called the Rose Cross. No one knew who belonged to it, and perhaps it never existed in the form described. Yet these texts set off a wave of publications, hopes and controversies across Europe, and the Rosicrucian name has remained one of the most evocative in the history of esotericism ever since.
The Fama Fraternitatis
The first manifesto, the Fama Fraternitatis, was printed in Kassel in 1614, together with a satirical text of Italian origin on the general reformation of the world, taken from Traiano Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnaso. The manuscript of the Fama had been circulating for some years, however: in 1612 one Adam Haselmayer, in the Tyrol, had published a reply, and for his ideas he was sentenced to labour in the galleys.
The Fama tells the story of the brotherhood's founder, referred to only by the initials "C.R." and later identified as Christian Rosenkreutz.
The legend of Christian Rosenkreutz
According to the story, C.R. was a German nobleman from an impoverished family, educated in a monastery. As a young man he set out on a journey to the East: he visited Damascus, then a mysterious Arabian city called Damcar, where the sages welcomed him as if they had been expecting him, then Egypt and Fez in Morocco. There he learned mathematics, physics, magic and Kabbalah.
Back in Europe, he tried to share what he had learned with the learned, but was ridiculed. He then founded a small brotherhood of a few members, who pledged:
- to heal the sick free of charge;
- to wear no special dress, but follow the customs of the country they were in;
- to meet every year at a place called the "House of the Holy Spirit";
- each to choose a successor;
- to use the letters R.C. as their seal and mark;
- to keep the brotherhood secret for a hundred years.
The climax of the story is the discovery of C.R.'s tomb, 120 years after his death. The brothers found a seven-sided underground vault, lit by a mysterious light, with the founder's body intact and books and instruments. According to the dates given in the manifestos, Rosenkreutz was born in 1378 and lived 106 years; the tomb was reopened in 1604.
The Confessio Fraternitatis
The second manifesto, the Confessio Fraternitatis, appeared in 1615 in Latin. It takes up the themes of the Fama in a more apocalyptic tone: it announces that the end of times is near, that an age of light is about to begin, and invites people of good will to make contact with the brotherhood. It also contains a sharp polemic against the papacy, which clearly places the manifestos in a Protestant setting.
The Chemical Wedding
The third text, the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459, the "Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz", was printed in Strasbourg in 1616. It is of a different kind: not a manifesto but a first-person allegorical tale divided into seven days.
Rosenkreutz, now old, receives an invitation to a royal wedding. After various trials he reaches a castle and witnesses the wedding, the death and the resurrection of the royal couple, through a series of operations closely resembling alchemical ones. The text is rich in symbolic images and irony, and lends itself to alchemical, spiritual and theatrical readings.
Who wrote the manifestos
The name most closely tied to the manifestos is that of Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), a Lutheran theologian from Tübingen. In his autobiography Andreae acknowledged that he had written the Chemical Wedding in his youth, calling it a ludibrium, a game or literary fiction. His role in the Fama and the Confessio is more debated: scholars think of a collective effort born in a circle of friends in Tübingen, including Tobias Hess, who was interested in Paracelsianism and prophecy.
Later Andreae distanced himself from the Rosicrucian movement and proposed forms of Christian society for the reform of life and learning.
The echo across Europe
The response was enormous. Between 1614 and about 1620 hundreds of writings appeared for or against the Rosicrucians. Many authors wrote open letters to the brotherhood asking to be admitted, without receiving an answer. Among the best-known defenders were the English physician Robert Fludd and the German alchemist Michael Maier, who never claimed to belong to it but defended its ideas.
In 1623 posters appeared on the walls of Paris in which the "brothers of the Rose Cross" announced their invisible presence in the city. A curious panic followed, and a rumour even spread that the young Descartes, just back from Germany, was one of them.
Studio Esoterico Cornelio regards the manifestos as an example of how a myth, even one perhaps born as fiction, can become real through its impact: after 1614 several groups claimed the Rosicrucian name, and their ideal of spiritual knowledge in the service of humanity still inspires seekers.
In short
- The Rosicrucian manifestos are the Fama Fraternitatis (1614), the Confessio Fraternitatis (1615) and the Chemical Wedding (1616).
- They tell the legend of Christian Rosenkreutz, a traveller to the East and founder of a secret brotherhood.
- Johann Valentin Andreae admitted writing the Chemical Wedding as a youthful fiction; the other manifestos probably arose in a Tübingen circle.
- The texts drew hundreds of responses across Europe and influenced authors such as Fludd and Maier.