The family of the Zwingles was ancient, respectable, and at this time in great esteem in the county of Tockenburg—a small district of lofty mountains and narrow valleys, covered with wood and pasturage. Ulric was the third son; he had five brothers and a sister. He was born on New Year's day, 1484, in an obscure village on the lake of Zurich, which, from its mountainous situation, was called Wildhaus, or the Wildhouse.
The father and sons were chiefly engaged with their flocks and herds—the chief riches of the district. And beyond the narrow sphere of Tockenburg, Ulric might never have stepped, had not the promising dispositions of his childhood determined his father to consecrate him to the church. Before he was ten years of age he was placed under the care of his uncle, the dean of Wesen. His uncle gave such an account of his abilities to his father, that with his sanction and assistance he studied successfully at Basle, Berne, Vienna, and then again at Basle. From the remarkable progress which he made in his studies and the promising dispositions he displayed, he was a great favorite with all his masters. While at Berne, the Dominicans had remarked the beautiful voice of the young mountaineer, and hearing of his precocious understanding, prevailed upon him to come and reside in their convent. When the father heard of this step, he strongly expressed his disapproval and ordered his son forthwith to leave Berne and proceed to Vienna. The unsuspecting youth thus escaped from those monastic walls within which Luther suffered so much, and from the moral effects of which he suffered all his life.
During Zwingle's second visit to Basle, he studied theology under the justly celebrated Thomas Wittenbach. From this able theologian, who did not conceal from his pupils the errors of the church of Rome, Zwingle seems to have learned, what Luther about the same time learned from Staupitz, the great doctrine of justification by faith. "The hour is not far distant," said Wittenbach, "in which the scholastic theology will be set aside, and the old doctrines of the church revived." He assured those earnest young men who flocked around him "that the death of Christ was the only ransom for their souls." The warm heart of Zwingle drank in the truth, and like his master and some of his fellow-students, eagerly rushed into the new field of conflict.*
Here too, he formed some of his warmest friendships which continued through life and which death itself could not destroy. Leo Juda, the son of an Alsatian priest, and Capito, were now the intimate friends of Ulric. Like the mountaineers in general, and like his compeer, Luther, Zwingle was a musician, and could play on several instruments: the lute, harp, violin, flute, dulcimer, and hunting horn, were familiar to him, and were often applied to in hours of heaviness, or as a relaxation from severer studies.