Samuel Urlsperger

Samuel Urlsperger (August 31, 1685 – April 21, 1772 in Augsburg, Germany) was a German Lutheran theologian with pietistic orientations.

Urlsperger was born in the Swabian town of Kirchheim unter Teck in Württemberg. He came from a former prestigious and wealthy Hungarian family that, during the Thirty Years' War, was forced to emigrate like many other Protestants in Hungary and Styria due to religious persecution by the Habsburg authorities.

He attended the local town school and the gymnasium of Blaubeuren Abbey. Funded by the Dowager Duchess Magdalena Sibylla of Hesse-Darmstadt, Urlsperger completed his theological studies in Tübingen until 1707. He went on to study at the knight academy in Erlangen, at the University of Jena, and with August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) in Halle. A study trip led him to places like Leiden, Utrecht and to the Savoy Chapel in London, where he worked with Anton Wilhelm Böhme (1673–1722). Here he contacted the Anglican "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge", whose aspirations resembled the "Halle Pietism" of Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705). Back in Germany, he established the "English house for students from England" on the premises of the Francke Foundations in Halle.