MAETIN LUTHEE REFORMATION IN GERMANY MAETIN LUTHEE AND THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY UNTIL THE CLOSE OF THE DIET OF WORMS "S^ttC- BY THE LATE CHARLES BEARD, B.A., LL.D. EDITED BY J. FREDERICK SMITH LOXDOX KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1889 Ma •,„wb. HISTORM TO THOMAS AND ELIZABETH ASHTON IN MEMORY OF A LONG AND UNBROKEN FRIENDSHIP AND OF THE HAPPY YEARS OF WORK DURING WHICH THIS BOOK WAS PLANNED 238847 PREFACE Feom the author's Introduction, in which he describes the scope of his projected History of the Reformation in Ger- many, it will be seen that this volume is but a first instal- ment of a larger work. Happily the volume is, however, anything but an unfinished fragment. It was not only left by the writer ready for the press, but it brings its story down to the close of the first great period of the German Eeforma- tion. When the Diet of Worms broke up, German Pro- testantism had been finally and fully inaugurated, and its central figure, Martin Luther, had reached the summit of his heroism and his revolt. My editorial duties have been hardly more than to see through the press a singularly and characteristically perfect manuscript ; and they have been lightened by the faithful care with which Mrs. Beard and her son, Mr. Lewis Beard, B.A., have compared manuscript and proof. I have considered it needful, in order to guard against accidental error, to exercise a general supervision of the narrative, to compare quotations with the original passages, and to verify references. No alterations have been introduced into the text or the notes, except where an obvious lapsus calami had crept in, which, however, thanks to the author's extreme accuracy, has happened but very occasionally. Here and there in the notes a reference to books or articles published since the manuscript was finished has been added. For the title of the volume, the headings of the chapters and the pages, and the list of tlie ])rinci]ial authorities and editions used by the autlior, I am responsilile ; and for the Index, Mr. Lewis Beard. PREFACE From the list of authorities and from the notes it will be seen that Dr. Charles Beard kept pace to the very last with the latest research in a field which has been thoroughly upturned by the critical industry of such specialists as Seide- mann, Kostlin, Kolde, Knaake, Kawerau, and their fellow- labourers. And it may not be out of place to remark that Dr. Julius Kostlin's Life of Luther, with others that have followed it, placed all preceding lives of the Eeformer in the class of antiquated literature, in point of historical accuracy and thoroughness. Of the mingled feelings with which I have worked, all readers of the book will, I believe, share those of thank- fulness for what is here finished, and of regret for what has been lost in the volumes which remain unwritten. It is much to have the great story of the successful launching of the German Eeformation told by one who was so singularly quali- fied to tell it well. Would that his pen had been permitted to trace the further development of the movement, and to follow the lives of its prominent representatives until their work was done ! To his Hibbert Lectures the author prefixed a motto, taken from Lessing, and I cannot resist the temptation to append here a passage from Goethe, which, like that from Lessing, seems to me to breathe the spirit that inspired all Dr. Charles Beard's studies in this great period of history : — " Wir wissen gar nicht was wir Luthern und der Eeforma- tion im allgemeinen alles zu danken haben. Wir sind frei geworden voii den Fesseln geistiger Borniertheit, wir sind mfolge unserer fortwachsenden Kultur fiihig geworden, zur Quelle zuriickzukehren und das Christenthum in seiner Eein- heit zu fassen. Wir haben wieder den Mut, mit festen riissen auf Gottes Erde zu stehen und uns in unserer gottbe- gabten Menschennatur zu fiihlen . . . Wir werden alle nach und nach aus einem Christenthum des Wortes und Glaubens immer mehr zu einem Christenthum der Gesinnung und That kommen." — Gcsprdche mit Echcrmann. J. FEEDEEICK SMITH. Clifton, Bristol, July 1889. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction . . . . . . . 1 CHAPTER I Political Condition of the Empire .... 5 CHAPTEE II The Religious Life of Germany . . . ' . 24 * CHAPTEE HI The Renaissance in Germany . . . .62 CHAPTEE IV Luther's Life prior to his Revolt . . . .116 CHAPTEE V Luther's Ninety-five Theses ..... 200 ^ CHAPTEE VI The Year 1519 : Friends and Foes .... 259 CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAGE The Year 1520 : Luther's Appeal to the Nation . . 319 CHAPTER VIH i/0 i1 Luther and the Theology of Rome. . . . 379 'P^ CHAPTER IX The Diet op Worms ...... 406 INDEX ....... 459 PRIXCIPAL AUTHORITIES WITH THE ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS YOLUiAIE Luther's Collected "Works — 1. The Frankfurt and Erlangen edition. Erl. D. S. (a) German: vols. i.-xxvi, 2d ed. 1862-1885. vols, xxvii.-lxvii. 1st ed. 1853-1857. Erl. 0pp. (IS) Latin: a. Exegetica, vols, i.-xxviii. 1829-1886. Erl. Ep. Gal. (3. In Epist. Gal. vols, i.-iii. 1843-1844. Erl. 0pp. V. a. y. 0pp. Varii Argument i, vols, i.-vii. 1865- 1873. JVeimar ed. 2. The Weimar Critical Edition, in chronological order, now in course of publication, vols, i.-iv. vi. 1883- 1888. TValch. 3. The edition of J. G. Walch in 24 vols. 4to, Ilalk-, 1737-1753. Luther's Letters — De TFette. 1. Dr. Martin Luther's Briefe gesammelt von "W. i\I. L. De Wette, vols. i.-v. 1825-1828. vol. vi. edited by Seidemann, 185G. Seidemann. 2. Seidemann, Lutherbriefe, 1859. Burkhardt. 3. Dr. M. Luther's Briefwechsel, von C. A. H. Burk- hardt, 1866. Enders. 4. Dr.' Martin Luther's Briefwechsel, von E. L. Enders, vols, i.-ii. 1884-1887 (containing letters from and to Luther, with some others, of the years 1507-1520). Luther's Table Talk — T. T. 1. German: edited by Furstemann and Bindseil, vols, i.-iv. 1844-1848. Coll 2. Latin: D. Marthii Lutheri Colloquia edita al) II. E. Bindseil, vols, i.-iii. 1863-1866. xii PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES USED IN THIS VOLUME Album Academiae Vitebergensis, 1502-1540, ed. Forsteniann, 1841. Historia Joannis Cochlaei de Actis et Scriptis, M. Lutheri, etc., Coloniae, 1568. Corpus Eeformatorum, torn, i.-xxviii., sive Melanthonis Pli. Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. Bretschneider et Bindseil (Historia de vita et actis D. Martini Lutlieri conscripta a Pliilippo Melantlione being in torn. vi.). Erasmi Roterodami Opera Omnia, Lugd. Bat. 1703-1706, vols, i.-xi. Forsteniann — Neues Urkundenbuch zur Geschiclite der Evangelischen Kirchen-Reformation, vol. i. 1842. Neue Mittheilungen aus dem Gebiet liistoriscli-antiquariscben Forscbungen, des Thuringisch-Sacliiscben Vereins, etc., vols, i.-viii. 1834-1850. Herzog — Real-Encyklopaedie fiir protestantische Theologie und Kircbe, Isted. 1854-1868, 2d ed. 1877-1888. Ulrichi Hutteni equitis German! Opera Omnia, edidit Eduardus Bcicking, vols. i.-v. 1859-1861 ; U. H. Operum Supplementum, vols. i. ii. 1864-1870. Jlirgens — Lutber's Leben, von seiner Geburt bis zum Ablassstreite, 1483-1517, 3 vols. 1846-1847, von Karl Jlirgens. Kampschulte — Die Universitat Erfurt in ibrem Verbaltnisse zu dem Humanismus und der Reformation, vol. i. 1858, voL ii. 1860. Kolde — Martin Lutber, Eine Biograpbie, von Tbeodor Kolde, Liefe- rungen, 1-3, 1884 (brings tlie life down to end of Diet of Worms). Die deutscbe Augustiner-Congregation und Jobann von Stau- pitz, von T. Kolde, 1879. Lutber's Stellung zu Concil u. Kircbe bis zum 1521, von T. Kolde, 1876. Kostlin — Martin Lutber, sein Leben und seine Schriften, 2 vols. 1875; 2d and 3d ed. 1883. Lauterbacb's Tagebucb auf das Jabr 1538, ed. Seidemann, 1872. Liber Decanorum Facultatis Tbeologicae Academiae Vitebergensis, ed. by Forsteniann, 1838. Lingke— Dr. M. Lutber's merkwiirdige Reisegescbicbte, etc., von J. T. Lingke, 1769. Loscber — Vollstiindige Reformations -acta und Documenta ausgefertigt von V. E. Loscbern, vol. i. (tbe year 1517), vol. ii. (tbe year 1518), vol. iii. (tbe year 1519). Matbesius — Historien von D. M. Lutber's Anfang, etc., Niirnberg, 1567. Myconius — Frid. Myconii Hist. Reformationis, 1518-1542, ed. by Cyprian, 1715. PRLXCIPAL AUTHORITIES USED IX THIS VOLUME xiii Ratzeberger — Die liandscluiftliclie Gescliichte Ratzeberger's iiber Luther u. seine Zeit, berausgegeben von Xeiulecker, 1850. Riederer — (1) Beitrag zu den Reformationsnikunden, etc., 1762. (2) Nacbrichten zur Kircbengescbielitt- und Biicliergescbicbte, 8 vols, in 4, 1764-1767. Scbeurl — Christopb Scbeurl's Briefbuch, berausgegeben von F. v. So(K-n und J. K. F. Knaake, 2 vols. 1867-1872. Seckendorf — Commentarius bistoricus et apologeticus de Lutberanisniu, ed. 2da, Lips. 1694, folio. Seidemann, J. R. — Die Leipziger Disputation, 1843. Spalatin — G. Spalatini Annales Reformationis, apud Menckenii Scrip- tores rerum German. 1728-1729, vol. ii. Strobel — Beitrjige zur Literatur besonders des xvi. Jabrb. 4 pis. in 2 vols. 1784-1787. Neue Beitrage, etc., 5 vols. 1790-1794. Tentzel — Historiscbe Bericbt von Anfang, etc. der Reformation Lutberi, 2 vols. 1718. Tentzelii Supplementum Hist. Gotbanae, primum C. Mutiani Rufi Epistolas complectens, Jenae, 1701. UUmann — Reformatoren vor der Reformation, von Dr. Carl Ullmann, 2d ed. 2 vols. 1866. Weissenborn, J, C. H. — Acten der Erfurter Universitiit, pts. i. and ii. 1881-1884. N INTRODUCTION There are two points of view from which the Eeformation of the sixteenth century may be regarded. Looked at from the first, it appears to be what its name imports — an effort to reclaim the Christian Church from inveterate doctrinal and practical corruption to a more primitive conception of truth and a higher standard of purity. In the practical or disciplin- ary sense the Latin Church had made repeated efforts to reform itself Monasticism, both in its original foundation and in its repeated revivals, was such an effort. An organised and gene- ral attempt at reformation was the object of the Councils of Pisa, Constanz, and Basel at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The corruption of Christianity, in the forms in wliich it was commonly presented to the people, threw mystics back upon the ideas which lie at the basis of all religion, and gave rise to sects, which lived a hidden life, beneath the surface of mediaeval society. A disciplinary reformation was carried into effect by Ferdinand and Isabella, in Castile and Arragon, at the end of the fifteenth century, and was the object of the Fifth Lateran Council, held at Eome in 1512-1517. In Spain, in France, in Germany, in England the weaknesses of the existing system were strongly felt, and demands were made for reform, which Eome, then under the rule of profligate Popes, resisted or evaded. But this movement was taken out of the hands of the Church by Luther. Having fought his own way to what would now be called a Protestant conception of spiritual reli- gion, though without becoming conscious of his divergence from Catholic standards, he first attacked the abuses connected witli the sale of indulgences, and then was led on, step by step, to r. INTRODUCTION an assault upon the whole position of the Church. His doctrine of the jauthority of Scripture undermined that of the authority of the Church ; his theory of the priesthood of the believer, the whole sacerdotal and sacramental system. The result was, within certain territorial limits, the foundation of Churches which not only separated themselves from allegiance to the Pope, but established an administration of Christianity based upon ideas of religion other than those which obtained within the Catholic pale. The Protestant Eeformation was thus, in its essence, doctrinal ; it was the substitution of one series of conceptions of Christianity for another : and it reformed the practical abuses peculiar to Catholicism by destroying the system upon which they were an excrescence. But while, at the Diet of Augsburg, and on every similar occasion, the Catholic Church refused to make the sHghtest doctrinal concession to the dissi- dents, the demand for disciphnary reform was never silent within her borders : and the Council of Trent, which settled the Creed of the Church upon the old lines, in matters of administration, opened a new era. The necessity of recovering lost ground from a victorious Protestantism, the election to the Papal Chair of a series of austere Pontiffs, the foundation of the Society of Jesus and other orders animated by a spirit of stern and enthusiastic piety, produced the Counter-Eeformation. The doctrinal position of the Latin Church remained unchanged, but it was purged of its worst practical scandals. But this summary does not cover all the facts of the case, or indicate their wider relations. Wliy were the efforts of the Church to reform itself ineffectual ? It may be said that monasticism, in its attempt to lift humanity to an unreal and. impossible height of perfectness, always carries within itself the seeds of failure ; that reformation by General Councils broke down, because the moral energy of the few could not contend successfully against the selfishness and the worldliness of the many ; that mystic religion, almost always pure and good, can- not spread itself beyond the few souls which have a natural affinity for it. But the characteristic ideas of the Eeformation were older than Luther ; Wiclif had preached them in England, Hus in Bohemia : a series of Catholic theologians in Germany had attacked indulgences, and expounded justification by faith INTRODUCTION ill terms almost identical with those afterwards employed by the Saxon reformer. Why was no general effect produced ? The answer is, that the Eeforniation in^jts wider aspects is part of that^ greater moyemeiit o^the human mind, Jciio^n_as~ tiie Eenaissancfi ; a rebirth, due to the revived study of classi- cal literature and philosophy ; a rebellion against mediaeval systems of thought, which has issued in modern science and speculation. Without the fresh intellectual activity produced by this movement, and augmented in the fifteenth century b\' the invention of the art of printing. Luthej. miglitTiave_beei^_j^ ineffectual ^s Wiclif was. B^it Jjie time was ripe for c hange ; the seed was'^cas^ into the ground at the right inoinent.'"'~lNever- theless, the Lutheran soon separated itself from the purely Humanist movement, and has never since been fully reconciled with it: Lutheranism first, and Calvinism afterwards developed into a Protestant scholasticism, only less fatal to the unrestrictetl movement of the human mind than that of the Middle Ages. At^the same time, on other than Church ground, the tide of free speculation has steadily risen, nor, for the last hundred years, have the gradually decaying bulwarks of dogma been able to oppose any effectual resistance to it. From this point of view,[the Reformation was the manifestation of the spirit of the Eenaissance in the realm of religion ; and Kant, Niebuhr, Ewald, Darwin, are, each on his own line of affiliation, heirs of Luther. In the following pages I propose to tell the story of the German Reformation from the publication of the Ninety-five Theses in 1517 to the death of Melanchthon in 15G0. Even this, however, is a wider subject than I can pretend to treat with equal minuteness in all its parts ; the centre point of my narrative will be Saxony, and its principal personages, the Reformers of Wittenberg, with those whom an irresistil)le attraction drew within their orbit. I shall thus gTasp the advantage of a story alive with a single interest, and confined within manageable limits ; while at the same time opportu- nity will be given of illustrating the principles wliich animated the general movement of reform in Europe. But before I can begin this task, a large preparation must be made. I must attempt to describe the political condition of the Empire at tlie INTRODUCTION beginning of the sixteenth century ; to combine into a single picture the various elements of the religious life of Germany about the same period ; to follow the story of the revival of classical literature in Germany, and then to analyse the intel- lectual soil into which the germinal ideas of the Eeformation were cast ; and in the last place, to tell the story of Luther's life up to the moment of his rebellion against the Church, and to trace his characteristic ideas to their origin in his own inward pains and conflicts. These, then, will be the subjects of four introductory chapters. Should any reader complain that he is long held back from the main interest of the book, let him remember that^jio great and general movement of the human mind can be understood without careful analysis of the forces wliich have combined to produce it, and that every stage of intellectual progress presupposes another out of which it has been evolved. The development of human affairs is one con- tinuous web, in which no real breaks answer to the artificial periods into which we divide history. | CHAPTEE I POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIEE The political condition of Germany at the beginning of the sixteenth century was due to forces which, although they had been long in operation, had not yet wholly spent themselves. The Carolingian kingdom of the Franks, which had lieen invested with the succession to the Eoman Empire, and had renewed its Imperial character under Otho the Great, was slowly dissolving into a confederacy of States, spiritual and civil, of which the nominal head, in dignity the chief of earthly monarchs, had little power except such as his own hereditary possessions conferred upon him. We find ourselves at a point midway between the comparatively homogeneous kingdom of Charlemagne and the phantom Empire which in 1815 still gave a title to the royal house of Austria. And the disintegra- tion of Germany, at the moment wliicli we are considering, stood in strong contrast to processes of national consolidation which were going on over the rest of Europe. The task of uniting Italy was indeed left for the nineteenth century to accomplish ; but Spain had just been constituted by the union of Arragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella : England, gathering strength after the exhaustion caused by the Wars of the Eoses, was fast recovering a national consciousness : the breaking up of the Burgundian kingdom, and the absorption of Brittany in the dominions of the House of Valois, gave France a more solid power than it had ever before possessed. Ger- many alone showed an irresistible tendency to separate into fragments. Every year the centrifugal force grew stronger, 6 POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. the common bond of union weaker, Nothing ever occurred which arrested for more than a moment the fading of Imperial rights into imposing unreality : everything helped the Elector- ates, the Principalities, the Dukedoms, on their way to political independence. / I JThe theory of the Empire had, at no moment of medieval Hiistory, been fully carried into practice. According to it the Emperor was the head of the civil as the Pope of the spiritual order. They held the two swords which divided all the power of the world between them : another common metaphor described them as the sun and moon of the intellectual sky. The Emperor claimed more than a titular supremacy over other monarchs : he had inherited the privileges and pretensions of the successors of Augustus. But England and the kingdoms of the Spanish peninsula went on their way in practical inde- pendence of him, while he was brought into contact with the growing French kingdom which had its capital at Paris, chiefly on the frontier of Burgundy and Flanders. In Italy, on the contrary, he was always busy. There he was a living force. He went to Kome to be crowned. He was the titular king of the Romans, a monarch often distant and disregarded, but still the symbol of the power which had once made Pome the capital of the civilised earth. In all the throes of the Italian Pepublics he stood for the general as contrasted with the local order of things, for the State in opposition to the Church. Every now and then an Emperor made the attempt to convert his theoretical into a real supremacy over Italy, but could never long hold his. ground : and the chief result was to keep old claims alive in men's minds, and to prepare the way for a fresh assertion of them. But Guelph and Ghibelline were words that represented a very real opposition of political feel- ing ; and the dream that Dante dreamed of an Imperial mon- archy, which, in the exercise of its just rights, should heal the woes of Italy by giving it a well-ordered government, shows how strong a hold the idea of the Empire had upon men's minds. But before the beginning of the sixteenth century all this had faded away, and Italy had become only the battle- ground on which the rival ambitions of France and Germany contended for the mastery. THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY The struggle of the Empire for a territorial hold on Italy was, however, complicated with another, wider in extent and of deeper significance. The relations of the Empire with the Papacy were always peculiarly close. Pipin twice delivered Eome from the Lombards, and was rewarded with the title of Patrician. The coronation of Charles by Leo III (a.d. 800) is " the central event of the Middle Ages." -^ Charles's con- quests in Northern and North -Eastern Germany had been made in the name of Christianity : conversion or slaughter was the alternative practically offered to the Saxons. Almost for the first time in the history of Christianity, the civil and the spiritual power are manifestly and happily in accord : the Church is secure under the protection of the Prankish swords, the State borrows the authority, and uses the instruments of the Church. But the relation was changed when, in 962, Otho came down from the Alps with a victorious army, and was crowned Emperor at Ptome by John XII. This time it was the State imposing itself upon the Church. " The Pope owned himself a subject ; and the citizens swore for the future to elect no Pope without Otho's consent." ^ It was one of the moments at wliich the Papacy, both politically and morally, was at the lowest ebb ; and Popes, set up and deposed by rival factions, and each equally unworthy of rule, obeyed the Emperor's nod. A little more than a hundred years brings us from John XII to Gregory VII, and the same interval from Otho the Great to Henry IV. We pass from the Emperor receiving an oath of allegiance from the Pope, to the Emperor waiting in the snow, in the castle-yard of Canossa, till the Pope should be willing to see and to absolve a penitent. Even this, however, is hardly the lowest point of submission to which the spiritual reduced the temporal power ; that was reached when, before the porch of St. Mark's at Venice, Frederic Barbarossa humbly bowed before Alexander III. The first thing that Henry needed to help him in his contests with his rebellious subjects was the removal of the ban of excommunication, and that once extorted by submission, he flew back to Germany to continue the struggle with vassals and Pope alike. But in the person ^ Bryce, Holy Rovuin Empire, 3d ed. p. 50. - Ibid. p. 88. 8 POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. of Frederic the Empire, almost at its strongest, came into conflict with the Papacy, and deliberately confessed itself vanquished. It is not necessary in this connection to tell the story, how the edifice of Papal pretensions was gradually built up on the foundation of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, by astute and resolute Popes ; how it was strengthened by the enforcement of clerical celibacy and the influence of the mon- astic orders ; how fortified by men's belief in the unity of the Church and the need of a supreme court of appeal in rnatters political as well as spiritual ; and how it finally crumbled to pieces in the degradation of the captivity of Avignon, and the scandal of the Schism. To do so, would be to undertake the task of epitomising the history of mediaeval Europe. The main point we have at present to notice is that in the enforcement of Imperial claims, made real by able and powerful monarchs, reduced to a vanishing point under weak and irresolute ones, the opportunity was missed of consohdating Germany into a homogeneous kingdom. Wlien the Papacy of Gregory VII and Innocent III disappeared from the scene, to give place to that of men like Sixtus IV and Alexander VI, whose base ambition was bounded by the erection of Itahan principalities for their sons and nephews, Frederic III and Maximilian were struggling against the impotence of the Empire. And when in the person of Charles V the Empire seemed all at once to rise to its old predominance in Europe, it was only because tlie Emperor was the hereditary ruler of richer and more powerful States than had ever before been united under one sceptre. Germany, the ancient seat of Empire, was much more his weakness than his strength. To a considerable extent, the fact that the German mon- archy was not hereditary but elective, worked in the same direction. At first sight it might seem as if the periodical selection of the ablest man would tend to establish monarchy on a more stable basis than the chances of hereditary descent. In truth, the two principles were contending for the mastery, with the result, until the claims to Empire of the House of Hapsburg were finally recognised, of arraying two or three great families one agamst the other, and so giving the ever- watchful Pope his opportunity of interference and aggression. I I GROWING INDEPENDENCE OF THE STATES 9 A weak liereilitaiy monarch has at least this advantage over a chosen king who is otherwise no fitter for rule than himself, that his claim to the throne is unquestioned. So that whatever its other wrongs and sorrows, his kingdom escapes the miseries which arise out of a disputed succession. And while an here- ditary king receives his office from his ancestors with its privi- leges unimpaired, and is under no temptation to impair them, an elective monarch usually begins by buying his own election at the cost of parting with power, and goes on to secure in the same way the supremacy of his house. Then there is the tendency, only too prevailing at some periods of German history, for great feudatories to entrust supreme authority to hands which they know to be too weak to wield it, and thus to secure the growth of their own independence. Nor can anything show more clearly the change which had been fully eh'ected at the beginning of the sixteenth century than the willingness of the electors to bestow the Imperial crown on a prince who, like Charles V, might have fair ground to aspire to universal dominion. The long impotence of Frederic III, and the inability of Maximilian to carry the German States with him in his plans, either of internal organisation or foreign conquest, seem to have convinced them that their sectional independence was fully assured, and that however powerful the Emperor might be outside the Empire, he could do little to disturb the equili- brium into which it had gradually settled. The experience of the next two centuries amply justified this expectation. Ger- many came out of the Tliirty Years' War, the most desolating experience through which a nation ever passed, with her terri- torial arrangements almost unaltered. Until the new Empire effaced some at least of the old political landmarks, the reign- ing houses of the nineteenth century were the descendants of the Electors, Princes, Dukes who met Charles V at the Diet of Worms. We may mark two chief epochs in this growing inde- pendence of the States. The first is that of the Pragmatic Sanctions, by which in 1220 and 1232 Frederick II granted the bishops and nobles " legal sovereignty in their own towns and territories, except when the Emperor was present." ^ It is » Bryce, p. 212. lo POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. obvious that this was not so much a fresh Imperial grant as a necessary confirmation of rights which had been long growing up, and which it was easier to define than to deny. The second is the Golden Bull of 1356, in which Charles IV settled the Electoral College, to which the choice of the Emperor was thenceforth to be entrusted. Here again, the measure was one which rather defined old and customary than created new rights. The College was to consist of seven persons ; and seven persons are mentioned in a letter of Pope Urban IV, of the date of 1265, as having the right of choosing the King of the Eomans. These seven are the three great Archbishops of Mainz, Koln, and Trier ; while the other four must originally have been the Dukes of the chief tribes which composed the German nation : Franks, Swabians, Saxons, and Bavarians. Eetaining the ecclesiastical electors, among whom the Archbishop of Mainz was first in rank, Charles IV gave the four other places in the College to Bohemia, the Palatinate, Saxony, and Branden- burg. With subsequent changes and additions we have here nothing to do ; the order established by Charles IV remained unbroken till the Thirty Years' War. The result of this legis- lation was, in the first instance, the introduction of order into the discharge of an important national function ; but it also invested the seven electors with something of the sacrosanct character which belonged to the Empire, and at the same time largely recognised their independence within their own domin- ions. It established the principle of hereditary succession in the lay electorates ; gave all the electors the right of coining money and levying taxes ; confirmed the authority and inde- pendence of their courts of justice; and placed their persons under the protection of the law of treason. It was another important step in the process which converted Germany from a monarchy into a confederation of States. A peculiar element was, however, introduced into the politi- cal development of Germany by the fact that so many of the feudatories, who were always struggling towards a larger measure of independence, were ecclesiastical. A glance at the map ^ shows that at the beginning of the sixteenth century ^ See Spruner-Menke, jSawdfti!Z«s/M?v vcueren Zeit. Map 43: Deutschlandim die Geschichte des Mittelalters und dcr Zeitraum der Eeformation. THE POWER OF THE CHURCH one-fourth, perhaps one-third of the country was in the hands of the Church. On the extreme north-east had once been the wide domains of the Teutonic Knights, which, having been seized in 1466 by the kingdom of Poland, afterwards fell in great part to the House of Brandenburg. But on the north- west still stretched in continuous line the dioceses of Bremen, Utrecht, Miinster, and Paderborn. The bishopric of Liege occupied a not inconsiderable portion of the Netherlands, while those of Metz and Strassburg covered the French frontier. The great electoral archbishoprics of Koln, Trier, and ]\Iainz ran along the course of the Rhine. In Central Germany, Hildesheim, Halterstadt, Magdeburg, Wlirzburg, and Bamberg were all ecclesiastical States, while Salzburg and Trent carried the line of clerical fortresses down to the confines of Italy. Wherever the Diet met, three out of the seven electors, who made up the first line of the political hierarchy, were ecclesias- tics, while the great bishops successfully held their own with the crowd of minor potentates. This state of things had its origin in the circumstances under which the power of the Prankish kings was first acquired and consolidated. Ecclesi- astical went hand in hand with civil organisation. Under Charles Martel and his successors, Boniface, who had received episcopal consecration from Gregory II, at once gave form and order to the Church in Germany, and united it in the firmest bonds of obedience to the Papacy. When Charlemagne pushed the confines of his kingdom into the barbarous regions of the north-east, his subjection of the Saxons was a victory of Christianity over heathenism, and the newly-acquired territory was at once divided into dioceses. Otho pursued the same policy : he confirmed the conquests which his father had made on the Elbe and the Saale by the erection of bishoprics, and when he carried his own victorious arms beyond the former river, he founded the dioceses which he afterwards united under the primacy of Magdeburg.-^ It is not difficult to see how, in these outposts of civilisation, the bishops, who were usually the best representatives of law and order in a time of recurring confusion, gradually arrogated to themselves rights and powers usually associated with sovereignty, and how the Emperor ' Ranke, Deutsche GeschicUe im Zeitalter der Reformation, 3d ed. vol. i. p. 18. 12 POLITICAL CONDITIOX OF THE EMPIRE chap. found it convenient to play them off against the turbulent lay potentates by whom they were surrounded. But a distinct step in the process of converting the prelates into ci\al rulers of their dioceses was taken by Otlio the Great, who set the example, followed by many of his successors, of endowing the sees with large tracts of land, to be held as fiefs of the Empire. Nor need we doubt that this process, so conducive both to the honour and profit of the Church, was accelerated by the arts by which ambitious and unscrupulous ecclesiastics have always been wont to prey upon the weaknesses of kings. It is difficult to sum up in a few sentences the complex effect upon German politics of the existence and gTadually consolidating power of these ecclesiastical States. One result was that the struggle between kings and popes for the right of investiture was especially severe in Germany. At first, the bishops were faithful liegemen and submissive subjects of the Emperor. He nominated them ; he invested them with their fiefs ; he received from- them an oath of obedience ; where need was, he deposed them. But as, with the growing power of the Pope, the distinction between the temporal and the spiritual elements of episcopal life was more clearly seen, and the in- dependence of the latter more \dgorously asserted ; as strong pontiffs made claims which weak emperors only feebly resisted, a new loyalty began to dispute supremacy with the old. Nothing is now easier than to see that the status of the bishops was a double one : that as officers of the Church they natur- ally looked to its head, as feudatories of the Empire, to the Emperor, and that the problem was the old one in a mediaeval form, that of rendering to Csesar the things that be Caesar's, and to God the things that be God's. But the prize was a great one, and each of the contending parties claimed the whole of it. Could the Pope have sustained his contention, he would have been practically sovereign of a large part of Germany, and that the richest and most civilised ; while the Emperor in holding his own was fighting for the integrity of his dominions and the possibihty of effectual rule. Canossa was not the last act of the struggle, but only one of its most dramatic episodes ; it really came to an end in the Concordat of Worms, concluded in 1122, between Calixtus II and Henry I THE RIGHT OF INVESTITURE 13 V, and confirmed in the subsequent year by the Fh'st Lateran Council. Like the similar agreements formally or informally made in other parts of Europe, it was a compromise. Epis- copal elections were to be free and canonical ; investiture of spiritual powers, by ring and pastoral staff, belonged to the Pope, of lands and temporal jurisdiction, by the sceptre, to the Emperor. The double character of the ecclesiastical States was fully recognised, and they were left, free from an over- powering Papal dictation, to play their part in the development of the Empire.^ The termination of the struggle of the investitures by no means shut out the Papacy from effectual interference with the affairs of the Church in Germany. Most, however, of the grievances under which it groaned, and which constantly swelled the national cry for reform, were ecclesiastical rather than political, and will be enumerated in another connection. At the same time, what the Emperor lost by the settle- ment of the controversy, the Pope gained. The former could no longer fill the great sees with creatures of his own will ; the latter found that, however they were filled, archbishops and bishops naturally looked to Eome for the inspiration of their policy. But in truth, neither Emperor nor Pope, but the great nobility of Germany reaped the chief advantage of the change. When chapters had it in their power to confer a principality upon one of themselves, it became important that their choice should be properly limited and directed. Presently the usage was established, that all canons and other cathedral dignitaries must be of noble birth ; a single class seized upon all the richest and most desirable preferments ; the commonalty was left to find what indemnification it could in the monastic orders. One result of this great social change was that the richest sees, the widest dioceses, became the appanages of princely and noble houses ; and that whatever political influence the bishops had, went in the same direction as that of their lay kinsmen, and tended to the independence of the Pope and the disintegration of the Empire. But another was that in Germany the Church lost that democratic character ^ Gieseler, Lchrhuch dcr Kirchm- 64, 65. Milman, Uistory of Lalui geschichte, 3(1 ed. vol. ii. pt. ii. [tp. Christianity, 2d eil. vol. iii. p. 215. 14 POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. which had been throughout the Middle Ages one of its chief glories. Elsewhere it was possible for men of humble birth to rise by genius and piety to the highest ecclesiastical station. A butcher's son might become a cardinal ; a fisherman's boy fill the chair of St. Peter. But in Germany cathedral chapters asked quarterings of nobility of candidates for a stall, and bishoprics and archbishoprics were reserved for sons of great houses. Perhaps in a country where, more almost than in any other, loyalty has always taken a personal form, the resulting alienation of the people from the Church was less than might have been expected ; but the fact remains that the bishops took their natural place with the princes, mingled in their intrigues, and furthered their policy. Still, throughout the whole of these slow changes, a peculiar connection of the Empire with the Papacy was officially recognised. One con- trast of a vivid kind will illustrate this. In England, that a legate should land upon its shores was an offence against the law. Wolsey's legatine authority was treacherously, but still legally avenged, not only upon him but upon the whole English clergy. In Germany, whenever the Emperor opened a Diet, a Papal legate stood as a matter of course by his side.^ A powerful influence on the development of the independ- ence of the German principalities was exercised by the revived study of the Eoman or civil law. The memory of that law had indeed never perished ; and it had lain, unseen, at the basis of many institutions ; but it was in the twelfth century that it began to be studied with eager zeal in the universities of Italy. Hence it spread as a recognised branch of education to Paris, to Orleans, to Oxford, to the universities of Germany ; everywhere professors were surrounded by crowds of students, and a knowledge of the Pandects, and of the comments upon them, came to be regarded as the necessary equipment for what we should now call public life. There was even a superstitious reverence for it : it was regarded as the essence of ancient wisdom ; it was pure reason reduced to writing ; it was a system of jurisprudence always and everywhere applicable, from whose decisions there could be no appeal. At first, the ^ Ranke, vol. i. p. 46. I RE VIVED INFL UENCE OF ROMAN LAW 15 influence of the study was favourable to Imperial claims in Italy and elsewhere. The civil law assumed the shape in which it has come down to modern times, under the later Empire, at a time when Eoman society had long learned to submit itself to an absolute master, and the traditions of republican liberty and self-government were all but forgotten. " Absolutism," it has been well said, " is the civilian's creed : " ^ an absolutism, too, which presupposes a servile basis of society. But when the civil law had made its way into Germany, when, by the exactness of its prescriptions, the logical colierence of its structure, the facility with which it could be quoted and applied, it had overborne the hereditary customs, the undigested codes which it found in possession of the field ; when the jurists, who were full of it, came by their superior fitness for such functions to be the trusted servants of princes, and formed a kind of legal bureaucracy, it became an instrument for consolidating the powers of the local rulers, and in like manner for diminishing that of the Emperor. Logically, perhaps, the jurist who filled an important post in Saxony or Brandenburg was bound by his system to make much of the Emperor, who stood theoretically in the place of Augustus or Justinian ; but his own employer was nearer to him, and represented the monarchical principle with a more practical force. And as Imperial Italy had been cultivated by slaves, the same influence which magnified the uncontrolled prerogative of the prince, tended gradually to depress the peasant into the serf. The enumeration of the electorates, spiritual and temporal, of the princely houses of the second rank, and of the great bishoprics, by no means exhausts the elements of the German political system. There were noble families of less considera- tion, but each independent in its own territory, making war and concluding peace in accordance with ancestral custom, and exercising right of life and death over its own subjects. Some of these, by fortunate marriages or chance of inheritance, were slowly consolidating their power ; others, in obedience to the unwritten law, which placed all sons of great houses on the same footing, were being weakened by subdivision of territory. Below tliese 1 Bryce, p. 256. i6 POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. again were the free knights, who also claimed an independence, which now seems strangely inconsistent with the first principles of organised society. Perched on their rocky eyries, often so placed as to command the chief channels of trade, and owning no superior but the Emperor, usually distant, and without the means of enforcing his will upon rebellious subjects, they made war upon one another in pursuance of ancestral feuds, or swooped down upon the merchants of the free cities, whom they at once despised and plundered. It had been counted an advance in civilisation when the right of private war was at once recognised and limited : when one of these petty poten- tates was compelled to send a letter of feud to an enemy, and to give him notice of intended attack, it was an improvement upon the time when every man's hand was against every other, and the reign of turbulence and bloodshed never ceased. Such was Gotz von Berlichingen, the hero of Goethe's earliest drama, who lived to take part in the Peasants' War of 1525 ; such, Franz von Sickingen, who in the last years of Maximilian became a power in Germany, making himself a terror at home and concluding alliances abroad. In the attempts to reorganise the Empire, which occupied so much thought and effort at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, it is instructive to note how the first thing desired was the establishment of peace in the land, unmolested intercourse between city and city, protection against robbery and violence, the succour of- the weak from the lawlessly strong. It came at last, but not in the way that was expected. The invention of gunpowder was the first great agent in introducing order into Germany, for cannon made mediaeval castles useless. But the territorial disintegration of Germany had introduced a new and beneficial element into the national life, by allowing the rise and growth of the free cities. These were of two classes : those which stood in immediate connection with the Empire, and were practically independent republics ; and those which, while owning some dependence upon spiritual or tem- poral princes, had yet conquered for themselves a large measure of self-government. The local distribution of the former, which is curiously unequal, depended upon the cu'cumstances which attended the dissolution of the old tribal dukedoms. Wherever THE FREE CITIES some powerful house was able to seize upon the inheritance, free cities were few: wherever the contrary was the case, they sprang up in abundance. In Swabia and on the Ehine there were more than a hundred : Franconia, on the contrary, counted only Niirnberg and five smaller cities : Westphalia, Dortmund and Herford : while in Bavaria, Eegensburg stood alone. To the second class of partly dependent cities belonged, among many others, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Erfurt, Wiirzburg, and Bamberg, all under Episcopal patron- age ; Dantzig and Konigsberg in the territory of the Teutonic order, and such as are now known as the chief towns of Brandenburg, Hesse, Saxony, and Austria. In these the degree of autonomy varied, but in the more independent of them life was practically the same as in the Imperial free cities. These were self-governed, under constitutions in which the aristocratic and the democratic elements mingled in various proportions : they provided for their own defence : they were republics, in the midst of States where the personal will of the ruler counted for more and more. At Frankfurt the Emperor was chosen; at Aachen he was crowned. At Augsburg, Worms, Speier, Niirnberg, Eegensburg, Constanz, diets were held which have left a permanent mark on German history. Koln, Basel, Erfurt, were the seats of famous universities. Niirnberg was at once the Venice and the Florence of Ger- many, the emporium of trade and the home of art : Augsburg was a centre of European finance. In these cities the refined and luxurious civilisation, to which the princes were indifferent, and on which the knights waged predatory war, found expres- sion in the pursuit of letters and the cultivation of the arts of life. There, too, the Imperial feeling, which was elsewhere slowly dying out of the land, retained much of its force. The cities held, so to speak, directly of the Empire, to which they looked for protection against powerful and lawless neighbours, and they felt that their liberties and privileges were bound up with the maintenance of the general order. Some of them stood on terms of special friendship with this or that Emperor : Maximilian was jocosely called the Burgomaster of Augsburg. In them, too, as we might naturally expect, religious life put on a freer aspect. In the Middle Ages they were the chosen c 1 8 POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. home of the secret sects, which worked beneath the surface of society ; and when the Eeformation came, they accepted the new ideas eagerly, yet, for the most part, after a fashion of their own. Such were the heterogeneous elements of which the Empire was composed, when in the reign of Maxunilian, which ex- tended from 1493 to 1519, strenuous attempts were made to arrest the progress of political disintegration. The fifty- three years during which his father Frederic III had worn the Imperial crown (1440-1493) had reduced the estimation of the Empire both in and out of Germany to the lowest. For twenty-five years — nearly half of his long reign — he never appeared in the Empire at all, or interfered in its affairs except by letter ; and when he came it was as a fugitive, glad to accept the hospitality, now of a great monastic house, now of a free city. He spent the larger part of his life in his hereditary dominions, letting things go as they would in the greater monarchy of which he was the titular head. Wliat- ever disorder arose in the Empire, whatever infringements were made upon his own dignity or the rights of any confederate State, he had no power, even if he had the will, to interfere: had his character entitled him to higher respect, his poverty and helplessness would have condemned him to contempt. He was kind-hearted ; was not without a slow, sarcastic good sense, took an interest in the science of the day. Perhaps as a ruler his best quality was a quiet persistence, which forbad him to give up any right, and helped him to endure misfortune with patience : but no man was ever less in his place upon a throne, no monarch could look back upon a longer career of failure. His one stroke of luck was in marrying his son Maximilian to Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and in procuring his election (1486) as King of the Komans. By this act, if he did nothing to consolidate the Empire, he at least founded the fortunes of his own house, and made it possible that, in a few years more, it should aspire to universal dominion. Maximilian was full of schemes of conquest. Brilliant, versatile, drawing men's eyes upon himself by shining personal qualities, exciting larger expectations than his solid abilities PROJECTS OF IMPERIAL REFORM enabled him to gi'atify ; gracious to literary men, whose imaginations he touched, and with an ambition to distinguish himself in authorship, he plunged into the mid -stream of European politics, aspiring much more to extend the bound- aries of the Empire than to consolidate its power or to remedy its grievances. Of the inheritance of Mary of Burgundy, Louis XI had seized on Provence: but Maximilian still held — as guardian of his infant son — the richest part, Flanders and Holland, which, with his hereditary dominions in Austria, which he had rescued from the grasp of Hungary, gave him an independent foothold outside the Empire. He had many projects. He wanted to be crowned at Rome, like his father, and others of his predecessors, more illustrious. He dreamed of a crusade to push back the Turks, of which, as Emperor, he would be the natural leader. He desired to reassert the claims of the Empire over Milan, and once and for ever, to expel the French from that fair and fertile duchy. Mary of Burgundy died after a brief union, leaving a son and a daughter to share her rich inheritance : and then Maximilian planned a marriage with Anne of Brittany, the heiress of the last great feudal appanage, not united to the Crown of France. But this, like most of his schemes, ended in failure : Charles VIII carried off the prize, and France, with but trifling excep- tions, was thenceforth a homogeneous kingdom. Indeed nothing that this brilliant and adventurous politician ever put his hand to was greatly successful. He was not crowned at Eome ; he led no crusade against the Turks : under his rule the Swiss Confederacy broke away from the Empire. Poland, in his father's time, had absorbed a large part of the domain of the Teutonic Knights, and he did nothing to recover it; the Slavonian monarchies pressed hard upon the Eastern frontier of Germany ; he waged futile war on Venice ; he was obliged to accept Louis XII as Imperial feudatory in Milan. It was partly liis own fault, but partly too, that he and his Ger- man subjects were intent on different and irreconcilable objects. Projects of internal reorganisation and reform had long occupied men's minds in Germany. High hopes had been entertained of Albert II, in whom the House of Hapsburg, after a long interval, reascended the throne: but he reigned 20 POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. only two years, and was succeeded by Frederic III. Even under that dreary rule of incapacity, an attempt had been made to introduce a better state of things, by Nicholas of Cues, better known as Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, a very re- markable man, who felt, on almost every side, the wrongs and weaknesses of his age, and endeavoured to remove them. His ideas of reform were the same as were in part reduced to practice some decades later : frequent Diets, an improved repre- sentation of the estates ; the division of the Empire into circles, each under a head, appointed by, and responsible to the Emperor ; a better administration of justice, troops to enforce the solemn sentences of Imperial authority, and money, raised by general taxation, to pay them.^ But Nicholas of Cues died in 1464, and it was reserved for another great churchman, Berthold, Elector Archbishop of Mainz, to attempt to embody ideas similar to his in the constitution of the Empire. The story of many Diets, of schemes carried but partially into effect, of compromises between the Emperor and the estates, cannot be here told, even in the briefest way. What the reformers wanted was a better internal organisation of the Empire ; what Maximilian desired was to have the Empire, in men and money, at his back in his adventurous schemes of conquest. Neither party accomplished much : the supplies which Maximilian received were ludicrously small : the reforms to which he unwillingly submitted were never fully carried out : his wars ended in failure, and the disintegration of the Empire was hardly checked. It wiU, however, be necessary to note what the proposed reforms were, and to explain why they came to so little. First, there was a loud demand for the cessation of civil war, and the proclamation "of peace in the land. Next, it was required that an Imperial court of justice should be constituted, and perma- nently settled in one place, so as to be easy of access to all complainants. Thirdly, men asked that some kind of " Eeichs- regiment" or Imperial Council should be established, which should represent the Emperor in his frequent absences, and take measures for the general good. Both the last demands were displeasing to Maximilian ; to such a court of justice as ' Kanke, vol. i. p. 79 d scq. THE FAILURE OF ALL REFORMS has been mentioned, he preferred one attached to his person, and presided over by his own servants ; and he justly thought that it would be difficult to prevent the " Eeichsregiment" from encroaching on his Imperial prerogatives. I cannot enumerate the various forms taken by either proposal ; it is enough to say that both were finally adopted. But the success of the whole plan hinged upon the raising of the money necessary to carry it out. Judges must be paid. Troops must be levied, if order was to be enforced within the Empire, or the Em- peror supported in his warlike projects beyond its bounds. But in whatever form the attempt was made it failed. Taxes could not be collected, even though an appeal was made to the faith- ful to aid in a crusade against the Turks. When the States were required to furnish soldiers for the Imperial army, in a fixed ratio to population, the command was quietly disobeyed. Except in isolated instances, and these chiefly among the cities. Imperial feeling was dead. Princes cared for their own aggran- disement ; burghers for their civic republics ; the Empire was little more than the shadow of a great name, and Maximilian an Austrian prince, fighting for Austrian or Burgundian pur- poses. Here and there a humanist, like Wimpheling, fresh from the study of Greek and Roman history, was impassioned for his country's greatness ; here and there a statesman, like Berthold of Mainz, thought it possible to compass a much- needed reform on these lines. But how completely the idea of a German Emperor of a German Empire had faded from men's minds was shown when, on Maximilian's death, more than one Elector shamelessly sold his vote to Francis I. This, then, was the Germany on which Martin Luther opened his eyes in 1483, and in the midst of which he was brought up. The Empire was still an object of popular pride ; the idea prevailed that to Germany belonged a primacy among European nations, of which the Emperor was a visible symbol. But Imperial institutions were rather a vague tradition of the past than the basis on which political life really rested ; and what loyalty men felt was much more to their immediate ruler, or to the civic republic in which they lived, than to a distant and for the most part invisible monarch, whose political activity was manifested more beyond the limits of the Empire 22 POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE chap. than within them. Even as an European power, the Empire was shrinking both in territory and in influence. The fall of Charles the Bold, and the division of the Burgundian lands, brought it face to face with France, which by tlie acquisition of Dauphine in 1457, and of Provence in 1486, drew nearer to Switzerland, and gained an access to Italy. Beyond the Alps, neither Frederic III nor Maximilian had any real hold ; after 1500 the Swiss Confederation must be looked upon as practi- cally independent ; Poland had absorbed territory in the far North-East which had once been under German rule. Behind the Slavonian kingdom, however, was a danger greater than itself. The Turks, who had taken possession of Constan- tinople in 1453, were continually pushing their arms west- wards ; and before many years have passed wiU be found thundering at the gates of Vienna. To the Emperor, if his primacy among monarchs meant anything, belonged the task of defending Europe against the Mussulman ; over all the Empire the dread of the Turk perpetually hung, while the House of Hapsburg, whose hereditary dominions were first threatened, felt the common fear with peculiar vividness. An appeal for aid against the Turk was the one thing that stirred the ima- gination and quickened the loyalty of Germans ; something of the old crusading feeling was still left, and hatred of the infidel mingled in men's minds with instincts of self-defence. Within the Empire, local dynasties were waxing and wan- ing ; lay and clerical interests alternately gaining and losing ground, without any change in the growing incapacity of the central power. In the last decade of the fifteenth century, private wars were still waged, no permanent Imperial court had been organised ; even if the ban of the Empire had been pronounced against an offender, there were no means of en- forcing it. A powerful potentate might indeed find it to his interest to put down a robber knight, and in so doing to repre- sent himself as the instrument of Imperial authority, as a few years afterwards the Elector Palatine united with Philip of Hesse and the Archbishop of Trier to suppress Franz von Sickingen ; otherwise men were reluctant to make themselves the executants of an Imperial justice, which might afterwards be invoked against themselves. I have already spoken of the I EFFECTS OF CHANGES IN MILITARY ART 23 effect of the invention of gunpowder, and especially of cannon ; another revolution in the art of war, which was taking place, worked in the same direction. The feudal militia, the mail- clad knight with his attendants, was being gradually super- seded by a trained infantry. War became a profession ; there were bands of lanzknechts ready to sell their services to the highest bidder, and generals like George Frundsberg, who on many stricken fields had acquired a knowledge of tactics. Already the Swiss are showing in Italy what can be accom- plished by foot soldiery, not only brave, but well armed, well drilled, well manoeuvred ; and in the next generation the Spaniards will better the lesson. Under these circumstances the robber knight becomes an anachronism ; he cannot keep the field against the new troops, and his stronghold is battered about his ears. In all matters military, Europe is passing into a new era. It is obvious that this is a soil in which a new social movement may readily take root, and where it can easily be protected from outward harm, till it is strong enough to protect itself. If Frederic of Saxony chooses to throw the shield of his authority over Luther, who is to execute the sentence of the Empire ? If the city of Niirnberg puts down the Mass, and instals the new preachers \k the churches, what Catholic power can interfere without setting the Empire in a flame ? Charles V was never wanting in will to suppress the Eeformation ; but sometimes the divisions of Germany and his own lack of Imperial power, sometimes his scl^mes of universal empire, sometimes the dread of the Turk drew him away ; and when at last he addressed himself to the task, he found that he was not strong enough to accomplish it.^ ^ For the facts of this chapter I Catholic prepossession. For the reijpi desire to refer, in addition to the of Maximilian I am much indebted to works already mentioned, to J. Jans- an Essay in the 51st volume of the sen, Gcschichtc des Deutschen Volkes "Prenssische Jahrbiicher," by Hans seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, v. Spielberg, Maximilian I. tend das 7th ed. vol. i., a very able and Deutsche Reich. learned work, though coloured by CHAPTEE II THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY At the end of the fifteenth century the unity of the Church imposed upon the mind of the believer with more than the weight of a law of nature. For this was often broken by miracle : that was always majestically the same. It seemed as if it had been so always and everywhere ; the remembrance of ancient heresy and schism had faded away ; the Greek Church was distant and had hardly any point of contact with western life ; the Bohemian Church, the existence of which a bitter experience had compelled Germany to recognise, was the exception that proved ,the rule. Elsewhere, all over Europe, insular as well as continental, the same ecclesiastical organisation professed obedience to the same head : worship was conducted according to the same rites in the same sacred language, and one form of doctrine asked for universal assent. The Church was the bond which to some extent united rival kingdoms and contending dynasties into one commonwealth : religion gave the type of the common as distinguished from the national life : do what he would, the Pope could not narrow himself to be merely the head of an Italian State ; a kind of European presidency was involved .in the very conception of his office. The universality of the great monastic orders tended in the same direction : wherever the Cistercian, the Dominican, the Franciscan went, he found himself equally at home, and the provincial organisation of each order culminated in the ecclesiastical capital of Europe. Since the suppression of the Albigensian heresy in the thirteenth century, the Church CHAP. II THE SUPREMACY OF THE CHURCH 25 had been generally successful, both in imposing an external uniformity upon Christendom, and in converting to her own uses forces which might otherwise have wasted themselves in rebellion and schism. Whatever elements of sectarian life existed were hidden from common view. And when a reformer threatened to arise, impatient of old dulness, and thrilling with a sense of grievance, the Church was adroit in casting her nets about him, and compelling him to work witliin her pale, and in obedience to her prescriptions. This vast and imposing unity was organised on well-defined principles. The power of the Papacy, which varied from little more than an honorary presidency over the Church to a spiritual supremacy, claiming the largest rights and exercising the amplest privileges, rested partly on documents, which an un- critical age rashly accepted as genuine, partly on a body of precedents, which had been slowly accumulated by a succession of astute and ambitious Pontiffs. But the influence of the Church as a whole made itself felt in Europe, because it was interwoven with every web of national and individual life. From the time when the northern tribes descended uj)on the Eoman Empire, submerging and threatening to destroy the old society, the Church had been the great restraining, organising, civilising force. In Italy, in Gaul, in Spain, it had converted the barbarians, taught them, supplied to them the desire and . the forms of settled life. In Germany, Prankish conquest and Christian organisation had gone hand in hand. The civil and the religious elements of society were everywhere inextricably intertwined. Tlie bishop stood side by side with the earl, the primate was inferior only to the king. Literature, edu- cation, all but the simpler arts of life were chiefly clerical. It is impossible to say how much agriculture owes to the monks who went out into the silent wilderness to plant and to till : or architecture to the monastic builders of cathedrals and convents. It is true that these great services to society were not rendered without some corresponding loss. Even in the age of Augustine and of Jerome, Christianity had begun to dissociate itself from classical literature. The first of these great men bewailed the hours which he had lost with Homer : the second received angelic chastisement because he was more a 26 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. Ciceronian than a Christian : before long it was possible for Gregory the Great to rebuke a bishop for wasting his time upon grammatical studies. So the rich inheritance of the past was gradually abandoned: ancient philosophy fell into the same neglect as ancient poetry and history: whatever had the mark of Pagan- ism upon it was condemned as unworthy of Christian attention. But although some ages may achieve a more brilliant intellectual result than others, the activity of the human mind varies much less than is commonly taken for granted, and there are no idle centuries. The period before the rise of vernacular literature in Europe — when Christianity, having cut itself off from the old Greek tradition, had driven science to take refuge among the Moors in Spain — was one of intense philosophical activity. Nothing strikes the student more than the way in which metaphysical discussions, wliich now interest only a chosen few, formed the staple of the higher education, and attracted to medieval universities crowds of eager disciples. But philosophy too suffered the universal impress of the Church. It was not an independent speculation on the nature of things, an attempt to conceive of the universe as a reasoned whole, so much as a conversion of Christian teaching into a logical form, and a representation of it, therefore, as universal and self-consistent truth. The aim of the schoolmen was to show that Christianity was identical with the results of sound knowledge and right- thinking : in other words, to make religion philosophical and philosophy religious. Beginning with the threefold material afforded by Scripture, tradition, and the Fathers, all accepted, though as having different degrees of certitude, on the authority of the Church, they built up, with the assistance of the Aristo- telian logic, a vast system of belief, into which was incorpor- ated, as time went on, whatever popular prejudices grew into faiths, and gradually hardened into doctrines. The method was eminently one that lent itself to processes of development. And the result was not only that the theological teaching of the Church assumed, both in its larger outline and lesser details, a reasoned form, which added to the weight of its in- fluence, but that all speculation was conducted with a distinct reference to ecclesiastical authority, and on lines which the Church had sanctioned. The Church was supreme, not in the 11 THE CHURCH SOLE MEDIUM OF SALVATION 27 domain of theology alone. It imposed itself, with almost equal force, upon every part of the intellectual activity of Europe. L^ The theological system, whicli thus presented itself to the mind of Europe in the strength of long prescription, Ijoldly claimed an indefeasible authority. The Church was an inter- preter of the mind and will of God, from whose decision there was no appeal. Her bishops and priests were the successors of the Apostles : it was a common phrase to call the Pope the Vicegerent of Christ. There was no competing authority : the Bible was known only through the medium of the Church, which vouched for it and interpreted it. If a man would be religious, this was the only way open to him, unless indeed an imperious intellectual necessity drove him into paths of secret heresy. And the doctrine of the Church was that sacraments were the chief, and certainly the indispensable nourishment of the religious life, and that they could be administered only by a duly ordained body of priests. It is not necessary at this moment to give accurate definitions of the word " sacrament " and the word " priest " : they stand for co-ordinated ideas, and the out- come of the system which they denote is, that what some would caU a way of communication, others a wall of hindrance, is built between the soul and God. For grace, spiritual life, the satis- faction of religious needs, as well as for the ruder substitutes for these things, with which commoner natures are content, the believer is dependent upon the Church in the person of her servants. Apart from the Church, he has no access to God ; she can at any moment thrust him into the outer darkness. And when we consider how these intermediaries between God and the soul, once set up, tend to multiply, how Mary takes the place of Christ, and the intercession of saints becomes use- ful and almost necessary ; when we recollect how the exter- nality of sacraments impresses itself upon the whole practical system of which they form a part, giving virtue to relics, merit to pilgrimages, worth to crosses, and scapularies, and medals, it is clear how a network of belief and observance is woven round the disciple, through which it is almost impossible that he should break. Nor is this hold of the Church upon him confined to this world : she keeps the keys of the vast treasury of supererogatory merit, and can bind and loose in purgatory as 28 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. on earth. So that for all good, the believer was the suppliant of the Church. She led him, she fed him, she imposed her laws upon him ; she rewarded him upon her own terms. He accepted her word for everything ; she was the perpetual, the all-powerful mediator between heaven and earth. Without her there was no access to God ; no spiritual life now, no salvation hereafter. And the Church was omnipresent. In the cities the most conspicuous, the most ornate, the stateliest building was the cathedral, upon whose yet unfinished splendour the efforts of many generations had been expended, and where religious rites were performed with a perfection of impressive beauty to which every art contributed. Kound it were grouped many churches more, parochial and conventual, each stately and splendid in its degree, and each offering its special attraction to the wor- shipper. In every village and hamlet rose a more modest edifice, yet in its modesty surpassing the secular buildings which surrounded it ; often the memorial of the liberal piety of some great house, or the monument of a bitter sorrow or an inexpiable sin. The greater or lesser monasteries stood apart, each in its own domain the home of a community, which, if rarely learned and often lax in morals, usually diffused about it material prosperity and an atmosphere of social goodwill. Distinct from the parochial clergy, and not always on the best terms with them, the friars, black, white, and gray, were at home in every parish, and did not suffer the claims of the Church, as represented in their own persons, to be long unheard or unheeded. The universities were in the hands of the clergy : in diets, parliaments, estates the bishops and mitred abbots sat with the great nobles ; ecclesiastics, as almost the sole possessors of the necessary learnmg, were judges, ministers, diplomatists. More than any other single person the Pope was the pivot of international pohcy in Europe, while there was certainly no country in which he did not constantly make his influence felt. The Church was the characteristic, the inspiring, the formative element of mediaeval life. If any man evaded her friendliness it was only to encounter her hostility. To live apart from her on terms of bare neutrality was impossible. II WEALTH AND IMMORALITY OF THE CHURCH 29 The wealth of the Church was enormous, and nowhere greater than in Germany. The recollection of how ecclesi- astical property in England had accumulated, at the time of the Reformation, under the restrictions of a severe act of mort- main will help us to conceive what it must have been where no such legislation was in force. Wealth, held by the dead hand, escapes most of the usual chances of division and dispersion, while it is constantly increased by the goodwill or the fears of the pious. The splendour to which this wealth ministered was in part public property; only a stern reformer here and there objected to the jewelled croziers, the embroidered vestments, the domestic pomp, the lavish hospitality of bishops, while the lands of the Church were usually administered in a liberal and kindly way. All this, it is true, was the reverse of apostolic, but until the Bible was released from its imprisonment in the ancient tongues, and given to the people by the printers, there was no prunitive model with which to compare it. And in Germany, as has been already stated, the wealth of the Church combined with its political power to give it a position of peculiar injfluence. The three ecclesiastical electorates, as well as the greater bishoprics, filled an important place in the political hierarchy. Not only the prelates themselves, but the chapters by whom they were elected were of noble birth, sharing the prejudices and devoted to the interests of the order to which they belonged. Almost every conceivable force worked together to lower the spiritual character of the great German bishops. That some of them cared for learning, and patronised men of letters, is hardly a fact on the other side ; it is equally true of Cardinal Albert of Mainz and of Leo X. A bishop really zealous for godliness was a much rarer thing. It was long since the occupant of the Fisherman's Chair had conciliated any moral respect. The public and private vices of Popes were matters of notoriety ; only self-seeking and self-indulgence were expected of them ; all Popes alike, even those whose offences against decency and morality were least flagrant, were recognised as obstacles to necessary reform. Perhaps the exile at Avignon, whicli lasted from 1305 to 1370, may be taken as the epoch at which the Papacy most deci- sively drew public contempt upon itself; there had been evil 30 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. Pontiffs before, but none that had so dragged their office in the mire of poHtical subservience. And from this decline in general esteem, made more marked by the scandals of the Schism, the Papacy never recovered till the Counter-Eeformation placed a line of Popes in the Chair, who, whatever else they were, were austere and ascetic men. Two causes combined to make the Popes of the Preformation period, from Sixtus IV to Paul III, a by- word in the history of Christianity. One was the absorp- tion of Papal energies in the task of building up a temporal dominion in Italy, varied, as in the case of Alexander VI, by the desire of the Pope to carve out independent principalities for his own children ; the second, the paganising influence of the new culture upon minds empty of faith in either God or man. I do not mean that these were the sole or even the most ef&cient causes of Papal sin and shamelessness ; but that, superadded upon others that had been long at work, they gave to sin a peculiar blackness, to shamelessness an unapproachable audacity. There is something frightful in the contrast between the theoretical sanctity of the Papal office and the very prac- tical worldliness and wickedness of the men who filled it. Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII are names that are inscribed in the book of human infamy as a page by themselves. The annals of no secular State can show such a succession of rulers, profligate, self-seek- ing, cruel, dead to all higher responsibilities of government ; a succession — except for the few months during which Adrian VI tried to cleanse the Augean stable — without a break. A mediae- val story tells how a Jew, going to Eome, was converted to Christianity by the sight of the wickedness that he saw there. No system, he thought, that did not enjoy the direct protection of heaven could live under the weight of such abominations.^ In like manner, that the Popes of the Eenaissance did not of themselves pull down the Church, of which they were the head and representatives, is the strongest possible testimony to the tenacity of its hold upon the habits, the affections, the super- stitions of the people. Popes of the great order, such as Gregory VII, Alexander ^ This story forms the subject of the caccio's Decamerone. It is also told second novel, of the first day, of Boo- by H. Bebel in his Facctioc. II SYSTEM OF ECCLESIASTICAL JURISPRUDENCE 31 III, Inuocent III, had made it their aim to establish a European supremacy ; they had entered upon wide schemes of policy ; they had bearded emperors and kings ; they had attempted to turn the currents of national development. But wlien tlie Papacy fell from its high estate, its interference with the affairs of tlie various European kingdoms was of. a pettier, yet perhaps more irritating kind. It revived old, and invented new claims to a universal supervision of the Church, every one of which had for its object partly the centralisation of ecclesiastical govern- ment, but much more the exaction of tribute and the extension of patronage. This was particularly the work of the fourteenth century, during the greater part of which the Popes in exile at Avignon were politically the creatures of the French monarchy. The basis of these Papal claims was the Canon Law, which about the year 1140 had been collected by Gratian, an Italian monk, into his Decretum, a book which in form and arrange- ment was an imitation of the Pandects. But in the course of the next century this was added to and developed, under the direction of successive Popes, until it became a regular system of ecclesiastical jurisprudence, founded upon the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, and comprising all the judgments which the Supreme Pontiffs had given in favour of their own jurisdiction, all the bulls which they had issued in extension of their own claims. The mendicant orders, which depended directly upon the Pope, spread the doctrine of his supremacy through Europe ; and Thomas Aquinas, the great Dogmatist of the Church, who was a Dominican, laid it down in terms at once ample and precise. The climax of all was that Boniface VIII ^ solemnly declared that to believe in the subjection of every human creature to the Pope was a thing necessary to salvation. Upon this broad basis of principle was erected a very comprehensive and well com- pacted edifice of practice. In the first place, jurisdiction over clerics belonged only to clerics, and by final appeal to Piome. This was the theory : that in every country of Europe it was more or less successfully resisted, and criminal clerks brought under the cognisance of ^ The words of the Pope are " Sub- necessitate salutis," quoted by Jlauren- esse Romano Pontifici, omni humanae brecher, Studicn unci Hkizzen zur Ge- creaturae declaramus, dicimus, defnii- schichte dcr Ileformationszeit, p. 293, mus, et pronunciamus omnino esse de etc. 32 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. the civil magistrates, need not be said. But there were offences which were supposed to belong to the ecclesiastical courts by right, whether committed by clerks or lajTuen, and contentions which could be finally decided only by Eome. Among the former were adultery, fornication, bigamy, heresy, blasphemy, perjury, usury ; among the latter all legal questions relating to marriage. Upon these the Pope assumed to legislate in a variety of minute and often arbitrary edicts. Side by side, however, with the enacting, ran the dispensing power — the authority that decreed the law could absolve from its obligation ; and dispensations were a matter of influence bought or backed with money. A costly dispensation was necessary to enable a powerful monarch to marry a distant kinswoman, or to break an oath wliich he had sworn to his subjects or an ally ; a cheap one, if a pious merchant wanted to eat meat in Lent, or a humble parish priest to retain in his house the wife who went by a less honoured name. The Papal official was ready in either case, and the tariff regulated on strictly commercial principles. In the same category with the traffic in dispensations must be placed the sale of indulgences, of which I shall speak more at length in another connection. Neither the abuse nor the pro- test against it was new in 1517 ; among others, John XXIII had flooded Europe with these commodities ; and John Wessel, in the generation before Luther, had assailed the theological theory on which this base commerce was founded. Then there was taxation of a more direct kind : the tithes, the Peter's pence, the contributions raised in support of a crusade against the infidels, but often spent on other objects; the annates, the year's income of a benefice, demanded of each fresh incumbent ; the pall money, which metropolitans were expected to pay in exchange for the tippet of white wool, which was the symbol of their jurisdiction. More burdensome on the one hand, more profitable on the other, w^ere perhaps the encroachments which the Popes were perpetually making on the patronage of national churches. Appeals as to disputed elections of bishops were carried to Rome ; every episcopal election was supposed to need Papal confirmation ; how easy to set aside a disagreeable nomina- tion, and to fill the place with a favoured candidate ! Little by little the Popes assumed the right of direct patronage ; by II PAPAL EXACTIONS AND ABUSES 33 means of what were called provisions, reservations, and the hke, they appropriated to themselves the best sees, the richest pre- bends ; while princes often found it the easiest way of infringing the rights of chapters in their own interests to strike a bar<'ain with Eome. The history of mediaeval England is full of this struggle, in which victory now inclines to this side, now to that, according as the monarch is sufficiently self-denying and patriotic to take part with Ms people against the Pope. But at the best, the result was that much of the richest preferment in England, and still more in Germany, was in the hands of Italian ecclesiastics, and that the wealth of the national church was devoted to keep up the shameless luxury of Eome. These exactions and abuses, of which the above is only a feeble and general outline, were nowhere more grievous than in Germany, nowhere more bitterly felt. Germany was the milch cow of the Papacy, which it at once despised and drained dry. The Emperor Maximilian, always at his wit's end for money, ruefully declared that the Eoman Curia drew from Germany a revenue an hundred -fold greater than his own.-^ At Constanz, at Basel, these abuses had been repre- sented in the strongest terms, but without obtaining any effi- cient redress. The only result had been concordats, which, while appearing to remedy some of the most objectionable usages, had legalised and confirmed the rest. At the beginning of the sixteenth century formal remonstrances were constantly made by Germany to the Papal See. The Diet hardly met without taking into consideration the grievances of the ecclesi- astical system. Those which assembled at Augsburg in 1500, in 1510, and again in 1518, all uttered the same complaint. Even at the famous Diet of Worms in 1521, which may be said to have been held in the interests of the Papacy, gravamina against the Pope and the clergy were lodged with the young Emperor, with a request that he would use his influence for their redress. By this time the general feeling of wrong was rising to fever heat. In Ulrich von Hutteu's dialogue, Vadis- ciis, seu Trias Romana,^ published in 1520, in wliich he discharges all his hatred of Eome in one lightning flash of ^ Rauke, vol. i. p. 43. Bocking, vol. iv. p. H5 ct acq. Sue - Ulr. Hutten's 0/)cra Omnia, ed. especially p. 157 cl scq. D 34 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. epigrammatic invective, there is manifest a strong feeling of irritation against the quick-witted and insolent Italians, who did not care to conceal their contempt of the nation which they plundered. More and more the protest against the admin- istrative system of Eome grew to be a matter of German patriotism, quite independent of nascent doctrinal differences, until at the Diet of Niirnberg in 1522-1523, the Legate Chiere- gati, asking why the Edict of Worms had not been enforced against Luther, was answered by the production of one hundred gravamina, a long and heavy bill of indictment against the Church, which it was demanded should be tried by a national council, to be held within a year, in a German city, under the presidency, not of the Pope but of the Emperor.-^ Abuses of every kind, dispensations, indulgences, patronage, jurisdiction, spiritual pains and penalties, are here enumerated with cumulative effect. And the document, drawn up, it must be remembered, by representatives of Catholic States, only one or two of which were beginning to be affected by the breath of Lutheran reform, leaves upon the mind the impression of a system full of sordid corruption, and worked for the conscious purpose of extracting money from a superstitious and subser\ient people. Another constant complaint was of the immorality of the clergy. Nor is this merely to be taken of offences against the law of clerical celibacy ; that was a thing confessed. All mediaeval literature from the time of Gregory VII, when the obligation of abstinence from marriage began to be rigorously enforced on the parochial clergy, down to the Eeformation, is full of this subject. It is treated in every variety of tone ; it is made the topic of grave rebuke and fiery invective ; it fur- nishes plentiful material for satire ; it is woven into the stuff of popular novels ; it embodies itself in proverbs ; it gives rise to decrees of synods and councils innumerable. In Germany, at the end of the fifteenth century, it seemed as if the contest against invincible propensities of human nature had been given up in despair ; from such a prelate, for instance, as Albert of Mainz no one would have expected chastity, and no one thought the worse of him for not practising it ; while parish priests every- ^ Marheineke, Gcscliichte der tcutschen gi-avamina will be found in Walch, vol. Eeformation, 2d ed. vol. i. p. 430. The xv. p. 2560 ct scq. CLERICAL IMMORALITY where openly kept women in their houses, who were wives in all but the name, and the mothers of children whose recogni- tion involved no shame. The fine which was inflicted on such a breach of ecclesiastical discipline, naturally converted itself into a yearly payment for a dispensation ; and the laity openly declared that they felt themselves more secure with such a clergy than with one to whom no similar indulgence was shown. But there is no safe middle way between such a rigid self-control as the Catholic clergy, at least in Protestant countries, have in modern times imposed upon themselves, and the legal- isation of marriage. A mistress cannot take the place of a wife ; nor is it easy to say whether man or woman is more demoralised by a connection which can be terminated at the will or caprice of either, and while it lasts is stigmatised by public opinion. Stress has usually been laid on the degrada- tion brought upon the occupant of a sacred office by this shock- ing state of things ; Luther, with his usual keen insight into human nature, saw the other side strongly. A woman, he said, who sinned with a priest was a lost creature, despair robbed her of all hope of recovery. There was no worse sort of womenfolk than the parson's maid.^ The whole system of the Eoman Catholic Cliurch is one the character of which depends largely upon the men by whom it is administered. It places enormous power in the hands of the hierarchy. The direction of the conscience, the control over the sacraments, the exercise of the Church's teaching and dispensing authority, the wielding of the sword of discipline, the power of binding and loosing not only on earth but in heaven, are functions which may conceivably be in the hands of a priesthood so wise, so holy, so self-controlled as to be used for the eternal welfare of the community which they govern. It is indeed a spiritual despotism which is thus set up ; but a spiritual, like a political despotism, if it cannot call out certain free and generous virtues in those who are subject to it, may yet produce solid fruits of good government. But aU despot- isms, whether administered by one man or by a privileged class, are fatally dependent upon the character of the despot. ^ Erl. ed. vol. xxviii. p. 195: lichen Stand des Papstes und der "Wider den falsch genannten geist- Bischofe." 1522. 36 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. From an Augustus there may be a rapid descent to a Caligula ; a Marcus Aurelius may be followed by a Commodus : nor is the deposit of unlimited power less dangerous to a sacerdotal order than to a single monarch. The Catholic Church strove in vain, throughout the Middle Ages, agamst the corruptions which inevitably attended the power and the wealth which were poured in upon her. It might almost seem as if, by a kind of divine Nemesis, she became less able to do her supernatural work the more firmly she fixed her claims in the minds of men, and the larger were the resources which she accumulated. All Europe groaned under the exactions, if it did not feel the shame of the Papacy of the Eenaissance. And when the im- purity of the clerical life shocked the moral sense of Germany, the impression was deepened by the recollection that these priests, whose ignorance and incapacity dragged the people down to their own level, owed their benefices to every kind of irregularity and corruption, and that the Empire was made to contribute to foreign luxury and prodigality the funds that ought to have supported its own religious establishments. Nothing, however, could be a greater mistake than to suppose that the Latin Church, as a whole, was ignorant of its own weaknesses and corruption, or that it made no steady efforts to remedy them. The history of these attempts is too instructive in relation to the main subject of this book to be wholly passed over in this place, although the treatment of it must necessarily be brief and imperfect. They are of two kinds. The first are in the nature of a revival of religious life : attempts to put new flesh upon the dry bones of the valley of vision, and to breathe new breath into them. The second proceed upon the assumption that, apart from this, which is a strictly prophetic work, what is needed can be accomplished by fresh laws and more stringent regula- tions. The establishment of the mendicant orders is an example of the one ; the efforts of conciliar reform at Constanz and at Basel a type of the other. But it is a singular and convincing proof of the decadence of the Papal Church, that the first of these methods, which alone carried in it the seed of possible success, was also the earlier in date. There was a great out- break of the monastic spirit in the first half of the thirteenth II CATHOLIC EFFORTS OF REFORM yj century, which witnessed the foundation of the three great mendicant orders, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Augus- tinians. But from that time, until the Counter-Reformation called into being the Society of Jesus, the annals of monasticism are comparatively barren. Old orders were indeed reformed, some unimportant monastic communities came into existence, but there was no overpowering rush of enthusiasm for the ascetic life such as drove crowds of eager and devoted adherents to the side of Dominic or of Francis. On the other hand, a General Council was held on the very eve of the Reformation. It was a failure, as all the rest had been ; if the spirit was baffled by the inveterate diseases of the Church, how should the letter prevail ? Catholic efforts of revival all took, with more or less rigidity, the monastic form, and their successive failure is due to the inherent weaknesses of monasticism. It sets before men an unnatural and impossible ideal. It substitutes for the social and domestic virtues, upon which the world rests, an ascetic and self-regarding type of holiness. It is the attempt " to wind ourselves too high for sinful men beneath the sky," and so is peculiarly exposed to reaction, laxity, corruption. The story of all monastic orders, truly told, is one of perpetual striving after a holiness which hungers and thirsts after self-denial, and finds no self-maceration too hard ; then of slow falling away into formality, idleness, self-indulgence, open vice : and a period once more of enthusiastic reform, and repentant return to the old ideal. Never were orders more bound down to poverty and humility, either by the spirit of their founders or the letter of their statutes, than the Dominicans and the Franciscans ; yet, like other older communities, they heaped up boundless wealth, they aimed -at ecclesiastical power, they laid hold of the universities, they mounted the Papal Chair ; in a word, they changed themselves into something quite different from what they were intended to be. It could not be otherwise. The overbent bow breaks, the pendulum violently drawn to one side swings violently back to the other. None of these monastic reformers introduced — their defenders will say that they could not introduce — a fresh principle of faith into the corruption of the times ; yet, in default of such a principle, the successive 38 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. movements of reform fell under the law of reaction and extinc- tion. Nor let it be alleged that this necessity of failure attends upon monastic reform only because it sets before itself too high an object. The fault of its ideal is not that it is too lofty, but that it is unnatural. It attempts to develop certain noble instincts of humanity at the cost of suppressing others, which equally have their root in the constitution of man, and to exalt individual holiness, while disparaging social and domestic virtue. But the event has shown often enough, and will show again should the occasion arise, that human society repudiates the monastic conception of goodness as being in essential contrariety to the principles on which it is itself built up. Many such efforts of monastic reform were made in Germany in the fifteenth century. The two great Councils of Constanz and of Basel could not be quite without effect in this direction. The first movement spread from the Congregation of Eegular Canons at Windesheim, near ZwoUe, which stood in close connection with the Brethren of the Common Life, of whom we shall hear more presently. John Busch was the reformer. Its second centre was the Benedictine convent of Bursfeld, round which grouped themselves seventy -five others in Saxony, Thuringia, Westphalia, and the Ehineland. Dederich Coelde accomplished a similar work for the Franciscans ; Andreas Proles for the Augustinians. The general movement of reform was promoted by that Cardinal Nicholas of Cues, of whom we have already heard in the region of politics. He appeared in G-ermany in 1451 in the character of a Papal legate, charged with the task of ecclesiastical and, in especial, of monastic reform. He travelled through the whole land, everywhere exhorting to the strict observance of conventual rules, estab- lishing provincial synods, and leaving visitors behind him to see to the continuance of his work. But it is instructive to note that none of these movements of reform is successful in extending itself over a whole order. They limit themselves to the establishment of special congregations within the larger body, having a greater or less cohesion of their own, and bound to a stricter observance of the common rule. It seems as if the time were past at which it was possible for a great wave of enthusiasm to sweep over a monastic community, and THE COUNCILS OF PISA AND CONSTANZ 39 to cany every member of it, even the lax and the vicious, to a higher level of life. The reformation of the Church in root and branch was the object set before each of the great Councils which were held suc- cessively at Pisa, at Constanz, and at Basel. That of Pisa was called in 1409 by the College of Cardinals, for the purpose of putting an end to the Schism which affected Europe with pious horror. That purpose it altogether failed to accomplish ; it deposed indeed the rival Popes, and elevated Alexander V to the Papal See in their room ; but when Alexander died, after a few months' reign, and John XXIII was elected, there were three Popes instead of two, and the last state of things was worse than the first. Another General Council was summoned to meet at Constanz in 1414. The cry for reform was raised aU over Europe ; the old grievances remained without a remedy, while in John XXIII the Church had a Shepherd all whose care was for the wolves. The University of Paris, with its Chancellor, John Gerson, headed the party of reform : the Emperor Sigismund took the same side ; deputies came together from all parts of Europe. The Council set before itself a threefold object — the reunion of the Church under one Pope ; its reformation in its head and in its members ; the extirpation of all heretical doctrine. The first was attained in the election of Martin V ; the sincerity of the Council in regard to the last was vindicated by the condemnation of John Hus and Jerome of Prague. But the second came to nothing. When once the Council had given itself and the Church a new head in a generally acknowledged Pope, it found that it had lost at once its initiative and its authority. Martin Vs first measure was to confirm all the regulations which had obtained in the Papal Chancery, and with them, therefore, the whole series of practical abuses of which the Church so bitterly complained ; his next step, to break the force of the general league for reform, by concluding separate concordats with the Transalpine nations. These were unsatisfactory, almost trivial documents ; that with Germany, published May 2nd, 1418, was limited in its operation to five years. Cardinals were to be created only in moderate numbers. The I'ope placed some restriction on himself in regard to provisions and reservations. Annates 40 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. were to be paid on the old valuations ; and any valuation which seemed excessive was to be revised. In the matter of com- mendams, dispensations, the issue of indulgences, promises were made, for the keeping of which no guarantee was offered, while in each case it was left to the Pope to decide upon the necessity of exception to his own rule. The accept- ance of this concordat by the German nation, while it seemed to take away a part of the burthen of Papal exaction, really bound the rest more firmly on its back ; and at the end of five years everything was as it had been.^ Proceedings, similar in kind, though not in detail, followed the Council of Basel, which sat with various interruptions and changes of fortune from 1431 to 1449. Again the conciliar method of reform was found to be impossible, and each nation was left to make its own bargain with Eome. For a brief period it seemed as if Germany, under the leadership of Albert II, was about to seize and to maintain her ecclesiastical liberties. The Diet of Mainz, held in March 1439, solemnly accepted and confirmed the reforming decrees of Basel, which asserted the superiority of General Councils over the Pope, pro\ided for the organisation of provincial and diocesan synods, abolished reservations, annates, and the like brood of Papal exactions, enjoined freedom of election to bishoprics and lesser benefices, and restricted appeals to Eome.^ But the state of things thus brought about was of short duration. Albert 11 was succeeded by Frederic III : Nicholas V, a Pope whose authority was neither impugned by a Council nor shared by an Antipope, followed Eugenius IV. The Emperor in his capacity as an Austrian prince, and the electors as territorial sovereigns, were all open to the temptation of bartering away the common liberties for private concessions of patronage. The price was duly paid to each, and in February 1448 was concluded the Concordat of Vienna,, which, going back to the ground occupied by the agreement of Constanz, sacrificed almost everything that had been claimed at Mainz. Wlierever the Concordat of Vienna differed from the Concordat of Mainz, it was in favour of the Pope. Again the apparent limitation of some rights ^ Milman, vol. v\. p. 68 ; Gieseler, of the Eeformation, vol. i. pp. 405, vol. ii. pt. 4, p. 38 note; Creighton, 406. History of the Papacy during the period " Creighton, vol. ii. p. 200. II ABORTIVE COUNCIL AT PISA 41 only confirmed their substantial validity. And presently the German princes found out that it was an easier and more certain way of pro\dding for their ecclesiastical proteges to keep up friendly relations with the Pope, than to trust in the goodwill of chapters.^ One more attempt at conciliar reform must be mentioned, less on account of its intrinsic importance than because it was made at the very moment when the storm of the Keformation was about to break on the Papacy. The story may be very briefly told. Ecclesiastical affairs in Germany, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, were conducted on the footing of the Concordat of Vienna, with what result of national dissatis- faction we have seen. Eemonstrances, covering always the same familiar ground of grievance, were constantly made, and as con- stantly disregarded. At last, in the pontificate of Julius II, Maximilian braced himself for decisive action. He was irritated by the Pope's abandonment of him in his war with Venice. Men said that for a moment he entertained the wild project of making himself Pope in succession to Julius. He asked the distinguished humanist and patriot Wimpheling to draw up, on behalf of the German nation, a list of gravamina against the Papacy,^ and in conjunction with Loui^ XII called a General Council at Pisa. The invitations to the Council bore the signatures of three cardinals, while six more were under- stood to approve it. The objects of the Council were the familiar ones: pacification of all Christian peoples, common war against the Turks, extirpation of heresies, and the necessary reformation of the Church. A few ecclesiastics, chiefly French, assembled at Pisa, Init the Council was only a poor shadow of the great assemblies which a century before had drawn upon themselves the atten- tion of Europe. Maximilian himself, with characteristic changefulness, showed no interest in it. When Julius called together the Fifth Lateran Council to meet in Rome in April 1512, he was universally felt to have checkmated his opponents. It sat, first under the presidency of Julius II then under that of Leo X, from 1512 to 1517, and for the reform of tlie 1 Creighton, vol. ii. p. 282 ; Gieseler, - Winiplieling's ten gravamina will vol. ii. pt. 4, p. 101 ; Mauienbiecher, be found in Gieseler, vol. ii. pt. 4, p. St. u. Sk. pp. 330-336. 185 note. 42 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. notorious evils and scandals of the Church, accomplished nothing. Fra Egidio da Viterbo, the General of the Augus- tinians, a man of high character and zealous piety, preached a sermon to the Council, in which he laid down the necessity of radical reform : Pico della Mirandola addressed a memorandum to the Pope, in which he made the sensible remark, that if there were any real desire for reform, the old laws of the Church would suffice, without enacting new ones. But beyond the passing of certain perfunctory regulations, which nobody could ever sup- pose were intended to be carried into practice, nothing was done. The real achievement of the Council was of quite another kind. It procured the abolition of the document known as the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, in which, in 1438, Charles VII had embodied the decrees of the Council of Basel, and which from that time forward had been the charter of the liberties of the Galilean Church. In so doing it renewed and confirmed the Bull, Unam Sandam, in which Boniface VIII had declared the salvation of men to depend on their submis- sion to the Papal See. Wlien the Council separated in 1517 it might have seemed that the Pope was finally triumphant over all national opposition, and that the demand for any reform, save such as was of his own initiation, had been vic- toriously repelled. Yet it was in 1517 that Luther published the Ninety-five Theses.^ A grave injustice would be done to the religious life of Germany if it were forgotten that it was the country of the " Friends of God " and the " Brethren of the Common Life," of Gerhard Groot and Johann Tauler, of the TJieologia Ger- manica and the Imitation of Christ. It is true that all these, except the last, are manifestations of the fourteenth, not of the fifteenth century; but they had been worked into the stuff of the national mind, and must be counted as permanent factors in its development. In a preliminary sketch like this, it is not possible to tell in detail the story of the mystical sects which lived and worked below the surface of German Catholicism ; to describe the precise character of each, and to determine their mutual relations ; to decide to what extent one ^ For the Lateran Council see lischen Reformation, bk. i. chap. iii. Maurenbrecher, Gcschichtc der Katho- vol. i. pp. 89-118. II THE CATHOLIC MYSTICS 43 slid iuto pautheism, and another lapsed into immorality. Nor again is it fair to pass on whatever credit attaches to these manifestations to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century, and to regard them as premonitory, though ineffective eftbrts of the spirit of reform. Such as they were, for good or e\dl, they sprang naturally out of Catholicism, and were a part of its life : the Latin Church cannot be justly judged unless Tauler be set by the side of Alexander Borgia, Gerhard Groot by Torquemada. We accomplish nothing in the history of reli- gion by establishing sharp contrasts, which have no counterpart in the reality of things, and overlooking the slow and gradual developments which make the transition from one age to another. Each stage of human progress grows out of one immediately preceding. Even Luther, in all the strength of his brilliant originality, his self-centred will, is the child of liis country and liis time. It is the peculiarity of mysticism to be neither Catholic nor Protestant. It aims to soar into a region above that in which ecclesiastical and theological diversities arise. Its method is the direct apprehension of God by the soul, as form, colour, sound, are apprehended by the senses. Mysticism does not argue ; it cannot appeal to any external authority ; it broods, it meditates, it listens for the Divme voice. ^Vlien that voice is heard, all others are necessarily silent — Church, Bible, opinions of men. Naturally, the awe of the presence of God, the joyful confidence which results from the consciousness of being taught and led by God, overshadow less lofty emotions; these things are sufficient in their own intensity, and do not suffer minor matters of belief to obtrude themselves. Mysti- cism penetrates to the ultimate ground of religion, the soul that enjoys God needs and can ask no more. So the works of the mystics are the world's great books of devotion, used by every sect and belonging to none ; it would be impossible to say from internal evidence whether the Theologia Germanica was written before or after the Pteformation, and the Imitation of Christ, with some change of phrase, is used in the worship of the Pteligion of Humanity. Another aspect of the same fact is that mystics arise in every Church, and form none. The mystic's attitude to religion is a matter of natural endowment ; 44 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. he has nothing that he can impart to a soul of different mould from his own ; he does not reason, he affirms, and affirmation persuades only where it wakes an echo. Even Ms affirmations are often indistinct, perhaps self- contradictory ; the divine realities which he contemplates are too vast, too splendid, too many-sided to be confined within limits of human words ; he looks at them, now in this aspect, now in that, and his reports, each true to the vision of the moment, cannot he identical with one another. No great religious movement, therefore, proceeds from mysticism ; what enthusiasm it evokes is retired, restrained, self-centred. But it is a thread of gold running through the coarser ecclesiastical stuff of the ages, that in which all nobler and sweeter spirits become conscious of common accord. I pass over some of the philosophical aspects of mysticism, as illustrated by the great names of Eckhart and Eysbroeck, to call attention to two of its most nnportant practical manifesta- tions — the "Friends of God," upon whom Tauler and the Theologia Germanica are to be affiliated, and the " Brethren of the Common Life," who produced Thomas a Kempis and the Imitation of Christ. The former were a secret association of men and women who, in the second half of the fourteenth century, had their chief centres of action upon the Upper Ehine. They were of very various rank and degrees of education. They did not form any visible sect, and do not appear to have felt the temptation to nonconformity. Their object was to deepen and purify the spiritual life of their members, a purpose for which the devotional forms of the Church were accepted by them as adequate. But as they did not desire to draw upon themselves the notice of the Inquisition, they designedly threw an air of secrecy over their proceedings, and in the Church history of the time come and go in a mysterious fashion, which up to a quite recent period concealed their true character. Their leader is usually supposed to have been Nicholas of Basel, the layman who, in a well-known narrative,^ now be- lieved to have been written by himself, appears as coming to Tauler, rebuking him for his Pharisaic self-sufficiency, and condemning him to a two years' abstinence from preaching. There are others of the Friends of God whose names deserve ^ YiCiQ Life aiid Sermons of Dr. John Tauler, ed. Susanna "Winkwortb, p. 1 etseq. II THE BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LIFE 45 mention, but in comparison with Tauler, a great preacher in Strassburg, whose sermons still find readers, they are but dim figures moving across a confused and ill-lighted stage. To this school of thought may be unhesitatingly referred the Thcoloqia Germanica. Wlien Luther first discovered and printed it, he thought and spoke of it as Tauler's,^ although it declares itself in its preface to be the work of a God's Friend, a priest in the House of the Teutonic Knights at Frankfort. To this origin its contents answer with absolute accuracy. It is the exposition of a pure and profound religious faith, unalloyed by any local or temporary dogmatic element. It is a book for every century, for it bears the distinguishing mark of none. The " Brethren of the Common Life " belong more to the practical order of things. Their founder, Gerhard Groot, a native of Deventer, was born in 1340, studied first in Aachen and Koln, then in Paris, and returned home to enter upon what promised to be a course of rapid promotion in the Church. How the wealthy and worldly ecclesiastic was transformed into an ascetic is a story not to be told here ; it does not essentially differ from that of other similar conversions. The intellectual turning-point of Groot's life lay in his inter- course with Johann Eysbroeck, the well-known mystic, who was the Prior of a House of Augustinian Canons at Groenendal, near Brussels. Taking deacon's orders, Groot was for some years a successful preacher, till, silenced by authority, he con- tented himself with gathering round him a few young men, who rather threw their resources together and lived a common life than bound themselves by vows or strove to reduce existence to a fixed uniformity. They copied and bound books, and presently began to devote themselves to the education of the young. Groot died at a comparatively early age ; and it was under his successor, Florentius Eadewins, that the community assumed a more fixed form. But it was the loosest of monastic orders, if indeed monastic it can be called. There was no irrevocable self-dedication. There was no cloistered seclusion. The Brother -houses, as they were called, — there were also female communities of the same kind, — were bodies of friends who agreed to live together, to have but one purse, and to ^ Dr. M. Luther s Briefc, ed. De Wette, vol. i. p. 46. 46 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. occupy themselves in the same tasks. Connected with these were one or two houses of Eegiilar Canons, that for instance at Windesheim, of which I have akeady spoken, which furnished opportunity for gratifying the more strictly monastic aspira- tions of some of the Brethren. An air of simple piety, of sanctified good sense, seems to breathe through these com- munities during the comparatively short period in which they flourished ; nor was the tradition of the founder lost or impaired by his successors. Of one of their characteristic occupations, the copying of books, the community was deprived by the invention of printing ; the products of the presses of Mainz, of Ulm, of Niirnberg, slowly came to be preferred to their beautiful MSS., many of which still enrich the libraries of Holland. The latest research seems to show that the merits of the Brothers of the Common Life, in regard to education, have been misapprehended, perhaps exaggerated. No improve- ments in the art of teaching can be directly traced to them. But scholars were received into the Brother-houses for educa- tion : the celebrated schools at Deventer and at Zwolle owed much to teachers who belonged to the order, and they must have the credit of having brought to the work of education an earnestness which was ethical not less than religious. Some of the greatest teachers of Germany in the fifteenth century stood in more or less close connection with the schools of the Brethren : nor from the theological point of \aew can it be forgotten that two of their pupils were Thomas a Kempis and John Wessel.-^ Educated opinion is more and more settling down to the conviction that the ancient tradition, which makes Thomas Haemerken the author of the Imitation of Christ, is well founded. Born at Kempen, a little town near Koln, in 1380, he became a pupil of the Brethren in the school at Deventer in his thirteenth year, and from that time, till he died at ninety-one, was content in their pious companionsliip. Under the advice of riorentius, he entered the monastery of St. Agnes, near Zwolle, one of the houses of Eegular Canons in close connection with ^ See an article by Hirsclie, Brikler 2d ed. vol. ii. pp. 678 sqq. ; also Ull- des Gemeinsamen Lehetis, in Herzog's mann, Reforiiiatoren vor der Ee/orma- Encyklopddic fiir Thcol. und Kirche, Hon, 2d ed. vol. ii. bk. iii. THOMAS A KEMPIS 47 the Brotherhood, and there passed his long and innocent life in the peaceful occupation of copying books, writing tlie bio- graphies of the great men of his order, and composing treatises of mystic devotion. The chief of them is that famous book, which has been translated into every European language, which has passed through innumerable editions, and, next to the Bible, has perhaps counted more readers than any other, the Imitation of Christ. That it should have met with so much acceptance at the hands of other than Catholic readers, is a striking testimony to the depth and sincerity of its religious feeling ; for the odour of incense is upon it, and its ideal of human perfectness is distinctly monastic. Indeed it is justly liable to the charge of being only a manual of sacred selfishness ; the domestic and social virtues are entirely over- looked by it ; it points the way to the salvation of the solitary soul. But within these limitations its devoutness is so direct, so pure, so profound ; its vision of divine realities so unclouded, its insight into human nature so deep and clear, as quite to obscure and overbear for the pious soul the difficulties of the form into which it is thrown. Its religiousness is mystical only in the best sense of that often-abused word ; the soul is indeed invited to look straight into the face of its Divine Lord, but there are no affected obscurities of thought, no needless indis- tinctness of phrase ; all is simple, straightforward, practical. To those who can study it in the original, the epigrammatic force, the subtle melody, the apt terms of expression double the charm. It was one of the merits of Gerhard Zerbolt, a younger contemporary of Florentius, to have advocated the reading of the Bible and the use of hymns and prayers in the vernacular tongue, and so to have prepared the way for the severance of Germany from the Papacy. But in the Imitation we are still in communion with the whole Latin Church ; the language of Augustine and of Jerome, moulded indeed by centuries of monastic use, is upon our lips ; we have not passed from the universality of mediaeval to the national separations of modern Christianity. It was only twelve years after Thomas ii Kempis died that Luther was born. John Wessel, also a pupil at Zwolle, illustrates a very differ- ent school of thought, which did its part in moukUng religious 48 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. opinion in Germany in the fifteenth century. With John Pupper of Goch (1400-1475), John of Wesel (1410 ?-1481), Wessel is counted as one of the " Eeformers before the Eeformation," who to a considerable extent anticipated the peculiarities of Lutheran teaching. John of Goch was the founder and director of a priory of Canonesses near Mecheln ; John of Wesel, a teacher at the University of Erfurt, about the middle of the century, afterwards a popular preacher at Mainz and at Worms, who was tried for heresy, recanted, and died in prison. Wessel ran a more distinguished course ; born at Groningen, he studied at many universities, Koln, Louvain, Paris, Heidelberg ; ac- quired so large a reputation for learning as to be decorated with the pompous title of Lux Muncli ; was the friend of Cardinal Bessarion, and Francesco della Eovere, afterwards Pope Sixtus IV ; was connected with the classical revival in Ger- many as the teacher of Eudolf Agricola and Eeuchlin, and died at his birthplace uncondemned in 1489. All these men, though not willing to be accounted heretics, stand on the verge of heresy. They assert the sole authority of Scripture in matters of faith. They attack indulgences from both the doctrinal and the practical side. Wessel formulates a doctrine of justifica- tion by faith, though always faith that worketh by love. At the same time it is a mistake to speak of any of them as if they actually stood in the line of Luther's intellectual ancestry. It cannot be proved that he learned anything from them. John of Goch was a recluse, whose writings were first published in the sixteenth century with the express purpose of showing how Lutheran men had been before Luther. Of the two books by John of Wesel which still svirvive, one was first published in the sixteenth, the other not till the eighteenth century. To the third edition of John Wessel's Farrago rerum theologicarum, published in 1522, Luther prefixed a preface, in which he declares the almost verbal identity of his own doctrine with that of Wessel. But while so saying, he denies the existence of any actual link between himself and his predecessors. " Sic pugnavi ut me solum esse putans " (" I fought as thinking myself alone ")} The coincidences between Luther's thought ^ Seckendorf, CoimncnfMrius historicits et apologeticus de Luther anismo, 2cl. ed. bk. i. sec. 54, § cxxxiii. p. 226. HUSSITE INFLUENCE 49 and that of the men of whom I have been speaking were many and striking ; but their teaching is nevertheless best regarded as only one of the numerous elements which were mingling and seething together in that Germany of the fifteenth out of which the Germany of the sixteenth century was evolved.'^ Luther's relation to Hus was the same as to Wessel, one of unconscious agreement . At the disputation with Eck at Leipzig in 1 5 1 9, on being pressed to say whether he acknowledged the authority of the Council of Constanz and the justice of Hus's sentence, he was bold enough to declare his opinion that not all the doctrines condemned by the Council were heretical But it was not till 1520, when he had read some of Hus's books, and received congratulatory messages from Bohemia, that he found out that he had all the while been a Hussite without knowing it.^ I find it difficult, however, to determine how much of Hus's thought had been working in the German mind during the century that had elapsed since his condemna- tion. It was necessarily below the surface, for Hus was a convicted heretic, and to sympathise with him was to share his offence. Bohemia, though politically a part of the Empire, was separated from Germany by differences of race and speech ; nor were the victories of Ziska or the ravages of Procopius likely to procure friends for their faith. Still, as Luther himself said in 1520, there had always been a murmur of John Hus in many parts of the land,^ and that, too, continually on the increase. About 1430 a Saxon priest, John Drandorf, was burned near Worms for Hussite heresy. In Bavaria, in Swabia, in Eranconia, even in Prussia, there were distinct traces of the same tendency. The city council of Bamberg at one time thought it necessary to exact from all the citizens an oath against Hussite doctrine. About 1446 we hear of one Erederick Miiller, who, near Eothenburg on the Tauber, always a centre of political and religious enthusiasm, taught the Hussite doc- trines, and gathered many adherents, of whom 130 were after- ^ For a full account of these men and Staupitz ; breviter sunius omnes Hus- their theology, see Ulhnann, Rcforiiia- sitae iguorantes ; deniiiue Paulus et toren vor der Reformation. Augustinus ad verbum sunt Hussitffi. 2 Briefc, ed. De Wette. To Spalatin, Vide monstra, quic-so, in f|uae venimus Feb. 1520: "Ego imprudens hucusque sine duce et doctore Bolicniico." omnia Johannis Hussen docui et tenui ; ^ Erl. ed. vol. xxiv. p. 28 : "Von den docuit eadem imprudentia et Johannes neuen Eckischen Bullen und Liigen." 50 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. wards compelled to abjure their errors at Wlirzburg. It seems possible to trace a direct connection between certain disciples of Hus, who had been expelled from Saxony by the Bishop of Meissen, and Zwickau, whence proceeded the first fanatical opposition to the Eeformation of Wittenberg. Probably Hus- site sympathies, wherever they manifested themselves, took the social revolutionary rather than the theological form ; a theory which would make Hus the precursor quite as much of the Peasants' War as of the Pieformation.-^ There is always a little difticulty in separating zeal for reform from heretical tendency; the preacher who, in the heat of moral conviction, denounces practical abuses is rarely able to restrain himself from attacking the corruptions of theory from which they spring. But throughout this period there were theologians, of more or less orthodox reputation, who felt the vices and weaknesses of their age, and were zealous in trying to remedy them. Such was Felix Hemmerlin (-f-1464), who in the first half of the century held high preferment in Solothurn and Zurich, an ecclesiastic learned, liberal, full of the energy of moral reform. He had taken part in both Councils of Constanz and of Basel, on the reforming side, and was equally active with tongue and with pen. But his name will hardly be found inscribed in good Catholic annals ; for that he was too direct and outspoken in his attack upon the Papal system of oppres- sion and plunder ; he ended his days in the imprisonment of the cloister, to which he had been judicially condemned. A name less suspected is that of Heynlin von Stein (■f-1496), who lived and worked at Basel, where he divided his attention between the Latin Fathers on the one hand, and Cicero and Aristotle on the other. He seems to have stood haK-way between the old and the new tendencies of thought ; was at once a humanist and a scholastic, and made his influence felt in the pulpit no less than in the professor's chair.^ The man, however, who above all others deserves the name of a Catholic reformer, is Geiler von Kaisersberg (1445-1510), whose eloquence for thirty -two years rang through all the 1 Janssen, vol. ii. bk. iii. § 1 ; Ranke, ^ Ranke, vol. i. pp. 192-195 ; Hagen, vol. i. pp. 218, 219; vol. ii. p. 16; vol. i. p. 100 et seq. ; Maurenbrecher, Hagen, Deutschland's literarisehe und Gcsch. dcr Kath. Reformat, vol. ii. p. religiose Verhditnisse im Reformations- 169. zeitalter, vol. i. p. 169. GEILER VON KAISERSBERG Pihiiieland, from the cathedral pulpit of Strassburg. Born at Schaffhausen, he received his education at the universities of Freiburg and of Basel. His learning was that of the time ; he was well acquainted with Latin, and especially with patristic literature, but he knew no Greek and no Hebrew. It was soon seen that the bent of his genius lay in the direction of preaching : there was a contest between Wlirzburg and Strass- burg for his services, which at last Strassburg obtained. There the office of preacher in the cathedral was created and endowed for him ; and for the long period above mentioned, he preached every Sunday and feast day, and daily through Lent. Many of his sermons still survive, though for the most part in the form in which they were written down by his hearers. Their ultimate object was moral, to rebuke vice and to recommend virtue ; and to this end he used the plainest speech. Neither clergy nor laity escaped the edge of his invective. On one occasion, indeed, the fearless preacher came into direct collision with the authorities of the city, whom he had charged with conniving at many abuses and corruptions. But it speaks well for both parties that Geiler, called to account, formulated his accusations in more temperate, but still distinct terms ; and that the magistrates recognised that ethical instruction and rebuke belonged to the preacher's office. The form of Geiler's sermons was often peculiar. He made a plentiful use of allegory, both in his interpretation of Scripture and in the general treatment of his subject. He was accustomed to preach long series of sermons on books written by other men ; and, in this way, illustrated the Sliip of Fools, by his friend Sebastian Brant. But while many of the works thus turned into homilies were grave theological treatises, he would preach, if the fancy took him, or if he thought he saw a prospect of useful impression, on popular ballads, ^sop's fables, current proverbs. The division of his sermons was often amusingly artificial ; he was fond of acrostics, as, for instance, he divided a sermon on St. Aurilea into seven heads, the subjects of which were suggested by the seven letters of the word. Natur- ally he made a free use of anecdote ; painted typical characters in the plainest colours ; introduced dialogues into the sub- stance of his sermons. There was no mistaking his meaning ; 52 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. he lashed the vices and follies of his time with the whip of a sharp invective, which went straight to its mark. He would allegorise anything. A lion at a fair suggested to him the Devil seeking what he might devour ; while from Proverbs XXX. 26 he preached a sermon upon the hare as a type of the Christian, in which he pursued him through every stage of his career, till at last he is roasted and served before the king on a golden dish. But with all this he was an honest, outspoken man, zealous for righteousness, and doing his duty fearlessly in spite of indifference and opposition. The way in which Geiler made himself a centre of reform in the Ehineland, by acquiring an ascendency over its pre- lates, is very remarkable. There was that in the real re- ligiousness, the transparent honesty of the man which made him very attractive to some at least of the well-born and wealthy ecclesiastics, with whom his of&ce at Strassburg brought him into contact. His first convert was a bishop of Strassburg itself, Albert of Bavaria, who invited him to preach before his provincial synod, and took his advice in the reformation of monasteries : the next. Count Frederic of Zollern, who afterwards became Bishop of Augsburg, whither he persuaded Geiler for a time to follow him. Christopher von Utenheim, afterwards Bishop of Basel, was another of the young men upon whom his charm worked ; and at a later period William von Honstein, who succeeded Albert as Bishop of Strassburg ; and Philip von Daun, who in 1508 became Elector -archbishop of Koln. It follows naturally from all this that Geiler laboured strictly within the lines of the Church. He does not seem to have felt a moment's tempta- tion to be heterodox. His mind was all given to the practical objects of preaching; he has left behind him no theological treatise. He was a devoted partisan of Mary apd her immaculate conception : he bowed to the authority of the Papal See, and had nothing but condemnation for heretics and schismatics. But he was at once anxious to raise the intellec- tual status of the clergy, which he felt to be disgracefully low, and eager in rebuking their moral laxity. His exertions, however, chiefly took a disciplinary direction, and did not contemplate radical changes of any kind. He thought that a II EFFECT OF THE ART OF PRINTING 53 fresh spirit breathed into the okl form would suffice, and that devoted bishops and pious priests would create the Church anew. Still it is characteristic both of the man and the times that he often despaired of success, and meditated retire- ment into a convent.^ It is necessary to mention in this connection the liCH'ct upon German religion of the invention of the art of printing. It spread with wonderful rapidity from Mainz all over Germany: in the latter half of the fifteenth century it may even be said that the literature of Europe was in the hands of German printers, who set up their presses in every considerable city. The new art, which was perfected almost as soon as born, fell in with the rising tide of humane learning, and was carried by it to a condition of marvellous prosperity. Mainz soon had five printers, Ulm six, Basel sixteen, Augsburg twenty, Koln twenty -one, Niirnberg twenty -five. Of the printers in Niirnberg in 1470, Antony Koburger was the most famous. He had twenty - four presses, worked by above a hundred journeymen. At Basel the name of Johann Froben is in- separably connected with that of Erasmus, whose edition of the Greek New Testament he printed in 1516. The Frank- fort fair became the centre of an active book trade. Nor was the Church slow to avail herself of the assistance of the new art. The first book printed at Mainz was the Latin Bible, and before the century was out ninety-seven editions of the Vulgate had been printed, of which twenty -six were from German presses, while of thirty-two more, which give no in- dication of place, some, if not all, must certainly be assigned to Germany.^ But besides these there were issued from the press no fewer than fourteen German Bibles, without reckon- ing others in Low German dialects.^ Of annotated Bibles, as well as of editions of portions of Scripture, this enumeration takes no account. Psalters, books of popular devotion, collec- tions of sermons, manuals of confession, were multiplied in large editions. The great glory of the Koburger press at ^ ForGeiler,seeDaclieux,C/»ire/or/H«- du XVI' silde, vol. i. pp. 335-461. teur Catholique a la fin du XV siedc, "- Herzog, 1st ed. vol. xvii. p. 438 Jean Geiler de Kaysersherg. Also, Cli. (2cl ed. vol. viii. p. 450). ^QhmxAt, HistoireLitUrairede V Alsace, =* W. Grimm, Geschichte dcr Luther- a la fin du XV' et au commencement ischen Biheliibersetzung, p. 2. 54 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. Niirnberg was the splendid German Bible of 148 3, which Michael Wohlgemuth adorned with more than one hundred woodcuts. In many places printing presses were set up in ecclesiastical precincts : witness that of Schweynheim and Pannartz in the Benedictine Monastery at Sabiaco, and Caxton's in the Almonry at Westminster. The Brethren of the Common Life forsook their copying of MSS. to establish a press at Eostock, one of the earliest in North Germany. But it is curious to note that the ecclesiastical censorship of books was a twin birth with the art of printing. Archbishop Berthold of Mainz, of whose patriotic efforts to breathe a new life into the Imperial con- stitution of Germany I have already spoken, issued in 1486 an order that every book before being printed should be sub- mitted to censors appointed by himself, who should see that it contained nothing contrary to the faith, a regulation which the Papal See in 1501 made universally binding.-^ Eestrictions of this kind would hardly conciliate, those whose livelihood depended on the production and circulation of books, nor need we wonder that Cochlaeus in 1522 should complain that the Church did not receive fair play from the new art, and that the printers and booksellers were all on the side of Luther.^ The end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century was in Germany a period of great popular excitability in regard to religion. It seemed as if there were a fire of en- thusiasm always waiting to be kindled ; as if any chance spark always spread into a broad blaze. Such, for instance, was the sudden devotion in 1475 to what was called the Holy Blood of Wilsnack. This was a little Brandenburg village on the Lower Elbe, where a miracle of a bleeding wafer — a not un- common mediaeval type of marvel — was said to have taken place. All Central Germany seemed to have been simultane- ously stricken by the desire to make a pilgrimage to this obscure spot. The contagion was especially active among children and young people. They passed through the land, bearing crosses and banners, singing their Kyrie Eleison, and ^ Maurenbreclier, Kath. Ref. vol. i. scriptis Martini Lxdhcri, etc. Coloniae, p. 80. 1568, p. 82. Conf. generally Janssen, 2 Historia Jo. Cochlaei de actis et vol. i. pp. 12-21. 1 1 RELIGIO US EXCITEMENT AMONGST THE PEOPLE 5 5 cariyiug away with tlieni in their enthusiasm all whom they met. Tales were told of peasants who left their waggons and horses in the road to join them ; of women who ran away from house and children. They hardly knew whither they were going or why ; some had never heard of the Holy Blood ; others thought they saw a red cross in the air, which showed them their way. The clergy, a somewhat unusual case, did not make use of the movement for their own purposes, but they were quite powerless to restrain it ; the people hardly knew whether it were God's work or the devil's ; but all agreed that there was something supernatural about it.^ A still more curious excitement was that which in tlie following year, 1476, drew crowds of pilgrims to Niklashausen, a little Franconian village near Eothenburg, on the Tauber. The hero of the tale was one Hans Boheini, a musician, who was accustomed to attend village merry-makings with l:)agpipe and drum. To him, according to his own story, appeared the Virgin Mary, clad in white, bidding him burn his drum, and preach to the people the things that should be. He was a simple enthusiast, fully possessed with a belief in his own mission ; if he was supported by others from interested motives, as, for instance, the village priest, who soon reaped a rich har- vest from the preaching of his parishioner, no suspicion of insincerity attaches to himself His sermons were more than half political, touching with a vigorous hand the wrongs and sorrows of the time ; tradition says that Hussite teachers had formed him ; it is certain that his preaching contained some of the twelve demands which, half a century afterwards, were made the occasion of the Peasants' War. He spared neither Pope, nor Emperor, nor Princes ; while he pitied the oppressions of the people, he held up before their eyes a new ideal of society. The luxury of the rich, the corruption of the priest- hood, were among his constant themes ; a time was coming at wliich the shaveling would be glad to hide his crown with the palm of his hand ; at which priests and lords should work for a daily wage, and no man possess more than another. As in addition to all this, he preached that nowhere could the Virgin be so acceptably approached as at Niklashausen, where she ^ Gothein, PoUtische uiul religiose Volksbcwcgungen vor dcr Rcformalion, p. 8. 56 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. had appeared to her servant, pilgrims flocked to the little church, which soon grew rich out of their liberality. Every day arrived a fresh throng, to be addressed by the " Holy Youth," as they called the piper, to carry away if possible some fragment of his dress as a relic, and to cast into the bonfire which he kindled their gauds and vanities. The whole country was astir ; everywhere pilgrims found hospitality among those who were moved by the same enthusiasm as themselves ; round Niklashausen itself a town of booths and huts was growing up. To what lengths the fanaticism might have gone, whether the Church might not at last have accepted the piper as a saint and Niklashausen as a sacred shrine, cannot now be conjectured : the Bishop of Wiirzburg sent over a party of lanzknechts, who carried away Boheim a prisoner. His followers were greatly moved, and to the number of many thousands beleaguered Wiirzburg, demanding the release of their prophet. But there was no solid military strength in this undisciplined crowd ; a single charge of cavalry dispersed them in wild confusion. The Bishop was merciful, and took no savage revenge on his rebellious subjects ; two only of the ringleaders were beheaded, the piper himself committed to the flames. He died the death of a martyr, singing hymns to his patroness, the Virgin, till the smoke choked his voice. He was the Savonarola of the Franconian peasants.-^ Natural causes combined to deepen and extend this religious excitability. The last ten years of the century included several of abnormal scarcity ; and pestilence followed in the track of famine. For three years, of which 1502 was the worst, the plague raged, till in the cities on the Ehine and in Swabia half the inhabitants perished. This too was the period at which a new and dreadful scourge of humanity, syphilis, first made its appearance in Germany. We hear of it in 1494 in Augsburg, in 1497 in Nlirnberg. In 1505 Nordlingen could hardly pay its contribution to the Swabian league, so great were its charges arising from the "mala Francosa." Sufferers from this horrible disease had their special place of pilgrimage, to which they resorted for cure or protection — a church of the Virgin at Grimmenthal, in the ^ Gothein, p. 10 ct scq. ; Ullmami, uhi supra, vol. i. Beilage i. p. 349 et scq. II DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT 57 county of Henneberg.^ It falls in with all this that the latter part of the fifteenth century should be a time when new saints came up, and new j)ractices of piety were adopted. The long and still undecided struggle between the Franciscans, who defended the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and the Dominicans, who opposed its erection into an article of faith, had first done much to elevate the Virgin to a position of supremacy among saints, and next to draw the attention of the faithful to her parents. St. Anna and St. Joachim are favourite objects of devotion at this time. Chapels were dedicated to St. Anna, brotherhoods were founded in her honour. Both St. Anna and St. Joachim were miners' saints. Annaberg, founded in 1496, and Joachimsthal, about the same time, were both mining towns.^ This too, or a little earlier, was the time at which the Ave Maria first acquired its prominent place in worship ; at which the Eosary came into fashion ; at which the Holy Coat of Trier became a popular relic. Luther, writing to the clergy assembled at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, enumerates these things, and asks, "Were not all these things new, ten, twenty, forty years ago ?" ^ From saints to witches is a not unnatural transition. Tlie belief in the supernatural, which sees nothing incredible in the habitual interference with the order of nature on the part of beneficent beings, finds its counterpart in a similar belief in the interference of beings not beneficent. It was an old popular superstition that the devil made compacts with men, and still more with women ; and the Inquisition had long treated witchcraft as a crime that had a clear and close con- nection with heresy. But this belief now suddenly gained strength and coherence. In 1484 Innocent VIII issued a buU, which at the same time took the theory of witchcraft under Papal protection, and handed over the offence to the In- quisition to be dealt with. This was followed in 1487 by the publication of the famous Malleus Maleficarum, the work of the Dominican Inquisitor, Jacob Sprenger : a book which reduced witchcraft and its detection to a science. It was issued with 1 Gothein, p. 76. ^ Erl. ed. vol. xxiv. p. 376 : Fcrmah- 2 Kawerau,C'as/;cr GiiCfeZ, p. 16; Aug- nungan die Oeistlichen, versammlct gusti, Denhivilrdigkeiten cms dcr Christ- avf dem Reichstag zu Augsburg, 1530. lichen Archdologie, vol. vi. p. 361. S8 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. a letter of recommendation from Maximilian, then King of the Eomans, and quickly passed through several editions. From that time Germany appeared to be seized with an epidemic of witchcraft ; the infection spread through Catholic and Protestant countries alike, and before the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the rage abated, thousands of poor wretches had been burned, and, saddest of all, chiefly on their own confession. What more convincing proof of the virulence of an intellectual contagion than that it should affect persecutor and victim alike ? ^ In the year 1501 there was a fresh outbreak of epidemic superstition in the so-called cross miracles. It began in the Low Countries, in a village near Maestricht. On the head- dress of a young married woman was seen a golden cross, round which were smaller similar crosses, and a number of indefinite spots, in which a pious fancy discerned the similitude of lances and nails. The appearance continued when the head-dress was changed: presently other crosses were seen elsewhere ; the clergy took the matter up, and before long the dioceses of Utrecht and Liege everywhere swarmed with these grotesque miracles. The Bishop of Liege drew up a report to the Emperor, which naturally found a wide circulation in pamphlet form. Other pamphlets written for the people, and adorned with illustrative woodcuts, widely extended the area of mii-acle. Soon the epidemic spread to other parts of Germany, and the frightful pestilence of 1502 helped to give it intensity. The crosses were seen everywhere ; on the clothes of men and women ; on the robes of officiating priests : sometimes the miracle took another form, and marks which recalled the sacred stigmata came out on hands and feet and side.^ But wherever the cross miracles made their appearance, they were the signal for religious processions and pilgrimages. Most of these were naturally local ; but it is a curious coin- cidence that just at this time a passion for pilgrimages seized 1 Roskoft", Gcschichte des Teufcls, vol. die Kinder als auf andere Leute. Unter ii. p. 213 ct scq. dem alien liabe icli eines gesehen in - Albert Diirer says : " Das grbsste der Gestalt, wie ich es weiter unter ge- Wunderding das ich all' meiu Tage maclithabe. DaswarderMagddesEyver, gesehen halse, ist im Jahre 1503 ge- der in Pirkheimer's Hinterhaus -wohnte, schehen, wo auf viele Leute Kreuze ins Leinenhemd gefallen." Thausing, gefallen sind : ins besoudere mehr auf Diirer s Bricfe, Tagehucli, etc. p. 155. II PAPAL JUBILEES AND INDULGENCES 59 upon the lower classes of the Italian people. Men took vows of pilgrimage for seven years ; they appeared north of the Alps in troops, each with a wooden cross in his hand ; in no place did they remain more than a day and a night ; they fasted once in the week, and for the rest were content with the simple food provided by the hospitality of the peasants. Among the chief places of pilgrimage were always the three holy cities of Germany, Trier, Aachen, and Koln. When- ever in their wanderings they came to a church, they went in and prayed, prone upon the pavement, with their arms stretched out crosswise. All these various manifestations were accom- panied by the usual signs of religious exaltation. Popular preachers found their opportunity ; all great or startling events were supposed to have been foretold by these marvels ; they were interpreted as pointing the way to a crusade against the Turks, which one party of pilgrims is said to have actually undertaken. Only in one place does the movement appear to have been used for purposes of social revolution ; in South Germany a miller, who had painted his body with the mira- culous crosses, and declared that he heard divine voices, gathered a number of people about him. But his pretensions, to which for a moment the Emperor Maximilian had listened, were burned up in the fire of martyrdom, which unljelieving authority was not slow to kindle.^ The year 1500 was a year of jubilee. But several causes concurred to lessen the usual throng of pilgrims to Eome ; the plague raged in the sacred city, and Northern Italy was a seat of war. Under these circumstances the happy idea occurred to the Curia of carrying the jubilee to the northern nations. So far as Germany was concerned, the execution of the plan was confided to Cardinal Eaymond Perrand, Bishop of Gurk, a Frenchman, of pleasing manners and proved diplomatic ability, who ten years before had visited it on a similar errand. To conciliate the support of the temporal princes, it was agreed that two -thirds of the proceeds of the sale of indulgences should be left in their hands, though only for the purpose of a crusade against the Turks ; while tlie other third, together with the indirect income sure to accrue from the presence of 1 Gothein, p. 88 d scq. 6o THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF GERMANY chap. a Legate, should be paid to the Pope. The indulgence offered was of the amplest kind. It freed not only from the temporal punishment, but from the actual guilt of sin. It extended not only to the living, but to the dead : liberation from purgatory was on sale in all German cities. I cannot in this connection speak of the political interests involved in Cardinal Eaymond's relation to Emperor and Diet ; it is enough to say that his mission defines the official form in which indulgences were presented to the G-erman people, by a direct representative of the Eoman See, only a few years before the decisive collision between Tetzel and Luther. Centres of pilgrimage were pre- scribed, each of which for the time took the place and assumed the sanctity of Eome. In these, seven churches were set apart, borrowing the names of as many basilicas in the sacred city, a visit to which was necessary to the efficacy of the in- dulgence. There was a solemn entry of the Legate, to which the local authorities usually lent their best splendour, a sermon by some bishop or other chosen preacher, a legatine benediction, and then a great cross set up in the market-place, with beating of drums, and blowing of trumpets, and a brisk trade, without too close an inquiry into the character of buyers. Wliat the religious and theological tone of Cardinal Eaymond's mission was, we know with accuracy from the writings of Johann von Paltz, who was appointed to preach the indulgence in Thuringia, Meissen, and the Mark. He was an Augustinian monk of that convent at Erfurt which was afterwards Luther's, and already a popular religious author. In 1490 he had published his Himmlisclu Fundgriibe, a little book of practical piety, and which in 1502 appeared in a Latin form, for the benefit of trained theologians, under the title Coelifodina. It was, how- ever, in his Supplementum Coclifodinae, published two years afterwards, that he laid down his theory of indulgences, and undertook their defence. He was no vulgar plunderer of the people, under the mask of religion : his books are full of a sincere, if somewhat material piety, and he found a logical basis for his views in the Catholic doctrine of justification. But the theory of indulgences had never before been stated in so absolute a form, never had the power of the Pope to absolve from sin and to release from purgatory been so boldly II CARDINAL RA YMOND'S MISSION 6i stated. The mission, in which Cardinal Raymond won golden opinions from all sorts of men, lasted till the sunnner of 1504: Niirnberg, Koln, Mainz, Erfurt, Leipzig, Liibeck, were in succession his headquarters, and in all he was more or less successful. But perhaps, after all, the most memorable thing that he did was to consecrate in 1502 the Castle Church at "Wittenberg, to the door of which, fifteen years later, Luther affixed his Ninety-five Theses against indulgences.^ 1 Gotliein, ji. 105 et seq. For Paltz, of Paltz's books, very justly identifies see Kolde, Die Deutsche Augustinercon- the Augustinian order with the theory grcgation und Joh. v. Staiqnt-, p. 175 ct and practice of indulgences, iibi supra, seq. Cochlaens, partly on the strength p. 6. CHAPTER III THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY We are not iu this place concerned with the inquiry into the obscure and slowly-working causes which produced the move- ment of the human mind known as the Eenaissance. One period imperceptibly grows into another : each age necessarily holds in itself the germ of its successor. The two facts as to the Eenaissance which we have chiefly to bear in mind are, that the movement, beginning in Italy, spread thence to the other countries of Europe, and that it was largely influenced by the revived study of Latin, and still more of Greek litera- ture. In the fourteenth century Latin was, side by side with Italian, a living language in Italy : it was the dialect of religion, of diplomacy, and to a large extent of literature : Petrarch relied for immortality more on his Africa than on his Canzoni : Dante wrote indifferently in either tongue. In the moulding hands of the Church it had assumed a new form, without ceasing to be itself The Latin of the Vulgate, if not Ciceronian, is a flexible, a majestic, an expressive tongue : and though the cadences of mediseval hjmins are widely different from those of Virgil, they hardly yield to them in sonorous sweetness. When, therefore, it began to be thought once more that there was nothing inconsistent with the pro- fession of a Cliristian in reading Latin orators and poets, as well as Latin Fathers, Italy seemed only to be reclaiming a neglected heritage. It is true that her scholars had much to learn and unlearn before they could even approach the standard of Ciceronian purity of speech : not till successive cHAr. Ill THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 63 generations had applied themselves to the task did they real- ise how much the ages of faith had forgotten. Btit as they slowly toiled, they awoke to the fact that men had left behind them a very different world from that which the Church had formed and inspired, and the old classical spirit began to glow within them once more. Latin literature, however, is largely imitative : one of its chief functions has been to transmit and diffuse the spirit of Greece. The Italian Eenaissance, therefore, did not assume its proper character until the fall of Constantinople drove Greek teachers westward, and the charm of Hellas again began to work. Plato, and still more Aristotle, had dominated those philosophical studies in which the Middle Ages took so much dehght ; but men now went back from imperfect translations and jejune commentaries to the originals, finding that the masters of Greek thought were fit for better things than the mere provision of an intellectual framework for scholastic Christianity. Philosophical speculation again took an inde- pendent flight, and the idea of science slowly possessed itself of men's minds. As manuscripts of epic, and drama, and history were imported and transcribed ; as the initial difficulties of a copious and flexible language were slowly mastered, a new world seemed to open, full of attraction and delight, yet utterly unlike anything that was realised in Christian Europe : a world in which men stood in happy communion with nature, whose enjoyments they freely tasted, whose secrets they fear- lessly explored, and where existence was always free, various, poignant, full. It was as if there were a possibility of going back to the fresh youth of humanity, in which strength and beauty were the natural expressions of life, when renunciation was not yet a virtue, nor self-maceration the secret of peace. Above all, the intellectual contagion wMch the Greek spirit always carries with it, began to operate, and without quite knowing whither they tended, men went out in quest of a new goal of thought and life. Nevertheless the Italian Eenaissance cannot be called jircj- ductive. It spent itself in acquiring a mastery of the new instruments of thought, and having acquired it, did very little with them. The process was a longer and more diflicult one 64 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. than we, with all the materials of classical erudition amassed and arranged, now find it easy to conceive : grammars had to be constructed, dictionaries to be compiled, texts to be settled, commentaries to be made, the life of the ancients to be studied as well as their languages, a knowledge of their history to be added to a knowledge of their thought. The labours of many generations were needed to complete the task, nor, if we in- clude in it the functions of criticism, is it completed yet. The work of the Eenaissance may perhaps be defined to be the reconciliation of the ancient with the mediaeval spirit, and their fusion into modern thought and life ; and the great Italian scholars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were concerned with this only in its earliest stages. It is no disparagement of their labours to admit that they did not fully understand either their scope or their worth. While they were writing prose which should contain no phrase unused by Cicero, while they were polisliing verses to imitate the cadences of Ovid, they were not so much accomplishing any immediate result of importance as paving the way for better work by a succeeding generation. These school exercises are hopelessly forgotten : if the scholars of the Eenaissance have left behind them anything with life in it, it is the vernacular prose and verse of which they thought little. The century which is peculiarly their own is almost a blank in the history of Italian literature : we pass at a bound from Petrarch, Dante, Boccac- cio to Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto. If they were not even great scholars, it was because they could not be : the idea and the possibility of great scholarship have been slowly evolved since they became silent. But they laid the foundations of modern erudition, and strong foundp.tions are always buried out of sight. The revival of letters in Italy neither led to any activity of theological thought nor produced any religious reformation. Lorenzo Valla is the only humanist whose name can be men- tioned in this connection. He exposed the fiction of the Donation of Constantine, he criticised the Latin of the Vulgate, he expressed doubts as to the authenticity of the Apostles' Creed, his Notes on the New Testament are the beginning of modern Biblical criticism. But it is characteristic of the class Ill ITALIAN HUMANISM 65 and the time to which he belonged that he should escape from the clutches of the Inquisition only by a cynical pro- fession of conformity with the Church, and owe to the purity of his Latinity the lucrative office of secretary to Pope Nicholas V. Open rebellion against the Church was a thing of much later date, and belongs to the time when the rever- beration of the German Eeformation had made itself heard in Italy : the earlier humanists conformed and disbelieved. The idea that the new learning could be used to clear the founda- tions of Christian theory, or to reform the abuses of the Church, seems never to have occurred to them : nor can I find that in Italy the Eenaissance retarded for a moment the swift progress of ecclesiastical corruption. In one way indeed it accelerated it. The frank naturalness of the classic life, with which the humanists were making themselves acquainted, was infinitely attractive to men already prone to dislike and dis- believe in ascetic virtue : nor when Zion ran riot was stern self-restraint to be expected of Olympus. It would not be too much to say that many of the humanists were not only Pagan in practice, but veiled a Pagan creed by a very trans- parent pretence of orthodox belief Such men as Gemistus Pletho and Marsilio Picino were avowed Platonists ; others did not take life seriously enough to care even to varnish their self-indulgence with a philosophical theory. The fact is, that in Italy the Church broke down more conspicuously than in any other country. Like the acolyte, she was too near the altar to have any reverence for it left. In Pome all ecclesi- astical traffic centred ; thither men came to weave their intrigues, and to compass their purposes of greed : there the wealth of every national church was spent in luxury and vice. For the time the fire of monastic piety had ceased to burn, except in a few hearts here and there: and there was no other to take its place. The impulse given by the Eenais- sance to art and archaeology determined the direction of educated taste; what humanists and their patrons cared for was a new manuscript of a classic poet, a freshly-disinterred piece of ancient sculpture, a medal with an apt legend, a por- celain dish glowing with a novel adaptation of an old myth. But Christian antiquity lay in the dust of neglect. It was F 66 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. left to Basel and to Alcala to print the New Testament in Greek. Only when the treasures of classical literature seemed to be exhausted did editions of the Fathers sparingly issue from the presses of Italy. And tliis incapacity for religious thought, almost for serious thought of any kind, continued to be the bane of Italian humanism. It went on polishing Ciceronian phrases, weaving imitative verses, long after the learning which it taught the graver northern nations had been applied by them to shake the foundations of mediaeval Christianity ; till at last it failed to perform even its own limited function with success, and leadership in erudition passed to France and to Holland. Germany, in the fourteenth century, had already five uni- versities : Prag, founded in 1348, Vienna in 1365, Heidel- berg in 1385, Koln in 1388, and Erfurt in 1392.^ To these were added, in 1409 Leipzig, and in 1419 Eostock. All belonged to the strictly mediaeval order of things, and were dedicated to the old learning. Theology, in its combination with the scholastic philosophy, medicine, the civil and the canon law, were the subjects of study. The method was as dry as the matter of teaching was limited and jejune ; the creative period of mediaeval philosophy was passed, and no great teacher like EosceHn or Abelard attracted round his desk crowds of disciples to listen to the exposition of living speculation. The student plodded his way through a rigidly- prescribed course of lectures and disputations, which gave him a degree, and qualified him for the exercise of a profession : at independent research, studies that did not pay, men laughed. Between 1440 and 1450 ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini, after- wards Pope Pius II, was at Vienna, where he filled the office of Imperial secretary. Himself a child of the Italian Renais- sance, at once polished by its intellectual culture and tainted by its moral laxity, he found himself at the court of Frederic III among a half - barbarous generation, who looked down with scorn on his unpractical zeal for literature. Though not ^ Negotiations with the schismatic actually opened for teaching till 1392. Pope Clement VII for the foundation Kanipschulte, Die Universitdt Erfurt in of the Ufliversity of Erfurt were begun ihrem VcrJidltnisse zu dem Humanismus in 1378, and the Bull was published in und der Reformation, voL i. p. 6. 1379. But the university was not Ill COURSE OF STUDY AT UNIVERSITIES 67 what we should now call a poet, he had received his laurel crown at Frankfurt from the Emperor, and till he entered the Sacred College was wont to sign his letters " ^neas Sylvius Poeta." But the men who taught and studied at the Uni- versity of Vienna would have nothing to do with polite litera- ture ; poetry, they said, neither clothed nor fed them ; " only Justinian and Hippocrates filled the purse." ^ At Koln, which was throughout its history a conservative university, the same state of things existed half a century later, when in other parts of Germany the new light had long been shining. A letter of Conrad Celtes, a well-known humanist, gives a dreary account, both of what was studied and what was neglected. Formal dialectics were alone valued. " No one teaches the Latin grammar; no one studies the orators. Mathematics, astronomy, natural history, are unknown. Poetry is ridiculed : men draw back in horror from the books of Ovid and Cicero, as Jews from swine's flesh." ^ What was true of Vienna and of Koln could hardly be conspicuously untrue of all the older German universities in the first half of the fifteenth century. It may be worth while to describe somewhat more minutely the course of study at one of these universities. Knowledge was originally regarded as comprised in the three sciences of theology, medicine, and law, and in the seven liberal arts, pro- ficiency in which was a necessary preliminary to graduation in any science. Each of the sciences was in itself a faculty : the arts, taken collectively, made a fourth. The seven were, how- ever, again divided into two parts — the lesser or trivium, grammar, rhetoric, and music; the greater or quadrivium, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. At a some- what later period, when the works of Aristotle began to exercise an influence upon education, a different arrangement prevailed: at the University of Erfurt, for instance, in the fifteenth century, the seven liberal arts were taken to be grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, mathematics, physics, meta- physics, and morals. Take these words in the large sense which modern thought puts upon them, and you have tlie 1 Mn. Sylvii Piccol. Opera Ovinia, ^ Quoted by Hagen, vol. i. p. 374. Basel 1551, p. 619, conf. pp. 719, 937. 68 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. materials of almost a complete education. But in reality they each stood for a dull and monotonous study of wretched text- books, and generally for the cultivation of a power of disputa- tion, conducted under the limitations of the most formal logic, as remote as it well could be from sound knowledge or . original thought. Greek was an unknown tongue : only a very few of the Latin classics received a perfunctory attention : Boethius was preferred to Cicero, and the Moral Sentences ascribed to Cato to either.^ Eules couched in barbarous Latin verse were committed to memory. Aristotle was known only in incorrect Latin translations, which many of the taught, and some of the teachers probably, supposed to be the originals. Matters were not mended when the student, having passed through the preliminary course of arts, advanced to the study of the sciences. Theology meant an acquaintance with the Sentences of Peter Lombard, or, in other cases, with the Summa of Thomas Aquinas : in medicine, Galen was an au- thority from which there was no appeal. On every side the student was fenced round by traditions and prejudices, through which it was impossible to break. In truth, he had no means of knowing that there was a wider and fau'er world beyond. Till the classical revival came, every decade made the yoke of prescription heavier, and each generation of students, therefore, a feebler copy of the last." Intercourse, political and religious, between Germany and Italy was always more or less active ; and whatever intel- lectual forces powerfully moved the latter were sure, sooner or later, to influence the former too. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the great Councils of Constanz and Basel brought the two nations together on German ground, not, we may be certain, without some effectual contact of the intel- lectual kind. Poggio Bracciolini, the Florentine humanist, attended the first, making it the opportunity of a search through the convent libraries of Germany and Switzerland for MSS. of the classics. One result of the second was to bring 1 The real author of the work was Schmidt, if6i supra, vol. i. p. 318 a Christian theologian of the seventh note. or eighth century. There are Ger- - Erhard, Geschichte des Wiederauf- man texts of those distichs which go bliihens ivissenschaftliclier Bildung in back as far as the thirteenth century. Deutschland, vol. i. p. 107 et seq. THE REFORM OF EDUCATION 69 yEneas Sylvius to Vienna, where he naturally gathered round him a body of friends, likeminded with himself in devotion to literary culture. But it was in the latter half of this century that the new learning touched and awoke Germany. The transition was sudden from the state of things which I have indicated to one of eager pursuit of classical learning, of joyful and sustained intellectual activity, of ardent desire to share the treasure of erudition which Italy held out to Europe. It was about 1455 that Gutenberg issued from his press at Mainz the first book printed from movable types, since known as the Mazarin Bible. This date marks the turning- point : the invention of printing urged on the new day with startling rapidity. Eeuchlin was born in the same year ; Erasmus, the flower of German humanism, only twelve years later. Nor can there be more striking evidence of the awaken- ing of the national mind than the fact that in the half century between 1456 and 1506 nine new universities were founded: Greifswald in 1456 ; a little later, Freiburg; Basel in 1460 ; Ingolstadt and Trier in 1472 ; Tubingen and Mainz in 1477 ; Wittenberg in 1502; and Frankfurt on the Oder in 1506. I do not mean that all or any of these were established in the express interest of the new learning : some of them were strongholds of reaction, while older bodies like Erfurt and Heidelberg welcomed the fresh light. But they could not help becoming centres of intellectual activity, into which the fresh light found its way, and from which it radiated. The new period is often reckoned from the date of Eudolf Agricola's visit to Italy, which was about 1476. A story, which has been handed down from one author to another without sufficient critical examination, tells how Thomas ^ Kempis, who with the Brethren of the Common Life was engaged in teaching, advised six of his best pupils to repair to Italy, to embrace there opportunities of instruction which Germany could not offer.^ These were Eudolf Lange, Count Moritz von Spiegelberg, Eudolf Agricola, Alexander Hegius, Antonius Liber, and Ludwig Dringenberg. But the newest research not only seems to show, by comparison of dates, that See article by Hirsche, above quoted, in Herzog, Encyk. fur Thcol. etc. Rfl.^ vol. IK nii fi7S Knn (2(1 ed.) vol. ii. pp. 678 sqq. 70 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. the basis on which this story rests is uncertain, but casts doubts on the supposed obligations of German schools at this period to the Brotherhood founded by Gerhard Groot. That there were good schools at Deventer, at Mlinster, at other places in Westphalia, and on the Lower Rhine, which played an important part in the development of education is certain : as well as that in some of them the Brethren taught, while in others they took a lively and practical interest. What now seems to be at least doubtful is, that these can rightly be called the Brethren's schools, and that certain improvements in the art of education, which were there introduced, can be directly traced to their influence. Perhaps it was easier for the new learning to make its way into schools which were under the direction of a single teacher, than into universities necessarily more influenced by tradition, where the old teach- ing resisted innovation with the tenacity of a vested interest. Of the six men just mentioned, at least five took an active part in such schools. Eudolf Lange (1438-1519), a dignified churchman at Mlinster, not only established the Cathedral school of that city on a fresh footing, but made liimself the centre of an educational propaganda in the towns round about. Count Moritz von Spiegelberg (1420-1493), who became Canon of Koln and Provost of Emmerich, invited Antonius Liber, who at different periods of his life taught at Kempen and Alkmar, to establish a school at Emmerich also. Alexander Hegius taught in the school at Deventer, to which belongs the honour of having trained the young Erasmus. But the most celebrated of this group of school- masters was Ludwig Dringenberg (•f-1490), who was the head of a school at Schlettstadt in Alsace, which, founded in 1450, soon numbered 900 pupils, and was the centre from which the new learning spread itself along the Upper Rhine. It was from these schools to the universities that the contagion of learning spread : the more dignified bodies, standing in closer relations with the Church, and full of medii^val traditions, were slow to move. Lange and Spiegelberg, whether advised by Thomas a Kempis or not, resolved to cross the Alps. But before doing so, Lange spent some time at the University of Erfurt, where. Ill JACOB WIMPHELING 71 from the yecar 1460 onwards, were teaching Peter Luder and Jacobus Publicius Ptufus, both professors of the new learning, and the last a Florentine by birth. A little later came to Erfurt a young nobleman of the Ehineland, Johannes von Dalberg (1445-1503), also attracted by the new teachers, who, breaking through old prescriptions, professed " poetry " and " oratory." Then followed the journey to Italy, where Lange, Spiegelberg, Dalberg, and Agricola all met. I have already spoken of the ecclesiastical preferment enjoyed by the two first : Dalberg became Prince Bishop of Worms, and, at the invitation of Philip, Elector Palatine, Chancellor of the Univer- sity of Heidelberg. There he did what he could to introduce the new learning into that already famous institution, laying the foundations of its library, and engaging in its services the best scholarship of the day. It was at his persuasion that Agricola (1443-1485) came to the fair city on the Neckar, and, not so much teaching as diffusing literary culture round about him, spent there the last years of his too brief life. These elder German humanists stand in marked contrast to the Italian scholars at whose feet they sat. They were grave men, taking life and learning in earnest, good Catholics, who wished to reform the abuses of the Church, without impugnmg her authority or touching her doctrine, and sincerely anxious to use their erudition in the service of religion. They poured the new wine into the old bottles, for the most part not surviving to see the completed work of fermentation. Agricola died in 1485, when Luther was only just born ; Lange, whose honour- able life was prolonged till 1519, is said to have welcomed the first outbreak of revolt. Closely connected with Dalberg and the scholars of the Ehineland was Jacob Wimpheling (1450-1528), who, with Geiler von Kaisersberg, already mentioned in another connec- tion, and Sebastian Brant, may be taken to represent the older humanists of Alsace, Born at Schlettstadt, he naturally received his education in Dringenberg's school, then in its first activity, and afterwards visited in turn tlie universities of Freiburg, Erfurt, Heidelberg. He was a scholar and nothing more : no gleam of genius irradiates anything he has left behind, in prose or verse ; his best claims to remembrance are 72 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. liis genuine devotion to learning and a zeal for education, which he manifested in more ways than one. During the whole of a long life, he was the undisputed head of a society of humanists upon the Upper Ehine, some of whom probably equalled him in learning, while they surpassed him in liberality of spirit. He is an excellent type of the scholar who, feeling bitterly the shame and scandal of ecclesiastical abuses, is anxious for their reform ; while, at the same time, unimpeachably and even zealously orthodox. The Immaculate Conception had no more passionate champion than Wimjjheling, who, himself in orders, lived in that clerical circle of which Geiler is, in the eyes of posterity, the most conspicuous figure. It is characteristic of him that, humanist as he was, he had not disengaged himself from patristic and mediaeval prejudices as to the reading of heathen books. He enunciated the strange paradox that while such poets as 0\dd, Juvenal, TibuUus, Catullus, Propertius ought to be altogether excluded from schools, Virgil, Lucan, the Odes of Horace, and some plays of Plautus and Terence, might be taught to children, though unfit for young men, and especially for priests. He refused in 1503 to read Virgil with a pupil who came to him for that purpose, propos- ing to substitute Sallust. But, a few years later, in the heat of a controversy with Locher, a humanist of Wiirtem- berg, he went much further, abjuring all Pagan poets, and recommending in their stead, Prudentius, Sedulius, Baptista Mantuanus. ISTo wonder that when the quarrel between the monks and the poets burst into flame, one of the "obscure men " qualified Wimpheling as " medius Eeuchlinista " (" half a Eeuchlinist "). ^ There is a fine spirit of patriotism about some of these old German humanists, which we miss in the contemporary scholars of Italy. Side by side with the new interest in classical antiquity grew up in their minds a desire to investi- gate the history of their own country, and to revive the half- forgotten glories of Barbarossa, of Otho the Great, of Charle- magne. The politics that find expression in the literature of the period are Imperial ; partly the personality of Maximilian 1 Hutten's Opera, ed. Booking, pheling, see Schmidt, Histoire Litt. de Supplement, vol. i. p. 285. For Wim- V Alsace, etc. vol. i. pp. 1-190. Ill PATRIOTIC SPIRIT OF GERMAN HUMANISTS 73 was attractive to men of letters : partly there was a genuine longing for a strong government, which should allay internal dissension and make the nation feared and respected al)road. These first historical researches were very crude and uncritical, nor, in that stage of knowledge, could they be otherwise ; but they testify to a certain breadth of spirit which distinguishes the German from the Italian revival. In this connection Wimpheling deserves to be again named ; he published an Epitome Rerum Germanicarum, as well as a catalogue of the bishops of Strassburg ; while in an earlier work, the Germania, he laboured to prove that, from the days of Augustus, Alsace had always been German, and always a part of the Empire. But another scholar of the Ehineland, Trithemius (14G2- 1516), better represents the historical studies of the time. He was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Spanheim, near Kreutznach, which, under the influence of a sudden impulse such as made Luther a monk, he had entered when quite a youth. He spent the greater part of his life in literary labours. He is said to have collected a library of 2000 volumes — then an enormous number — in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The catalogue of his works, not all of which have emerged from the obscurity of manuscript, is a long one. His books De illiistrihus Scriptorihus Gernianiac and De Scrijotorihis Ecclcsiasticis are an early contribution to the history of literature. He partly wrote, partly edited chronicles, some of general interest, others relat- ing to particular monasteries, which may be found in the great collections of documents relating to early German history. That in addition to all this he was the author of such books of piety as befitted a Benedictine abbot is not surprising; more characteristic is his devotion to certain occult studies, in which he was the precursor of a man perhaps better known than himself — Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. A good, pious, learned man, with no tendency to revolt against tlie Church, and probably too much absorbed in his beloved books to discern the coming storm. The war between the Elector Palatine and Bavaria, which he himself chronicled, compelled him to leave Spanheim in 1504, and when he returned lie found that he could not resume his interrupted rule. He took refuge in a monastery near Wiirzburg, where again he was 74 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. chosen abbot, and again found occupation in writing the history of the house. Here he died in 1516.^ Standing in a certain contrast to these grave churchmen were a class of wandering humanists, the Knights Errant of the Eevival, who cared less for the Church than they did for erudition. These men passed restlessly from city to city, from university to university, always finding friends, and alw^ays leaving behind them a fresh interest in the new learning. But they formed few permanent ties, and in a certain indifference to moral restraints, a frank enjoyment of natural delights, stood much nearer the Italian humanists than the serious scholars of whom I have hitherto sj)oken. Of these, Conrad Celtes (1459-1508) may be taken as the type. He began his career characteristically enough, by running away from home ; he studied at many universities ; he made the journey to Italy, incumbent upon all rising German scholars. But during the whole of his comparatively short life he settled nowhere for long. His travels extended from Padua to Krakau, from Hungary, some say, to Iceland. Ingolstadt and Vienna were probably the places which had the best right to claim him as a resident ; in the university of the latter city the Emperor Maximilian founded a college for the study of poetry and oratory, of which he was the head. His restlessness, however, was not wholly without a purpose ; he had conceived a great work, Gcrmania Illustrata, in which, in the spirit of patriotism characteristic of the German humanist, he intended to teU the story of his native land, and to describe its physical features. This never came to the birth ; but apart from Celtes's Latin poems, which are more voluminous than valuable, his travels resulted in the discovery of certain literary monuments, which cannot be dissociated from his reputa- tion. Among these is a poem in which an unknown author, who takes the name of Ligurinus, describes in ten books the deeds of Frederic I, and the better-known works of Hroswitha, the nun of Gandersheim, who, in the tenth century, wrote so- called comedies in the hope of supplanting the dangerously seductive plays of Terence. Another discovery made by Celtes was the curious incised tablet, called from Conrad Peutinger, to whom he gave it, the Tabula Peutingeriana, a map of the 1 Erhard, vol. iii. pp. 379-394. 1 1 1 HUMANISM AT A UGSBURG AND NURNBERG 75 roads of the Eoman Empire in the age of Theodosius the (Jreat. The Ligurinus and the Hrosivitha Celtes pubHshed in his hfe- time ; the Tabula Pcutingeriana was first printed in a complete form in 1598. All these things give an impression of Celtes as more a man of letters than a mere scholar ; he had a keen interest in the history and antiquities of his own country ; to theology he stood quite neutral, except that we find him on one occasion, when suffering from a serious illness, having recourse, not to the physicians, but to a favourite Virgin. In his Latin poems he successfully imitated the obscenity of Catullus ; but there the resemblance ends.-^ But literature was successfully cultivated by other than professional scholars. There was a class of men, especially in the free cities of the Empire, wealthy, of what among citizens was accounted patrician race, who to the functions of administra- tion and diplomacy added a discerning patronage of art and letters, and in some cases a careful cultivation of the latter. Such was Conrad Peutinger of Augsburg (1465-1547), who, born eighteen years before Luther, survived him by a year, and saw almost the whole of the humanistic and religious movement of his time. He had studied in Italy, where he had earned the friendship of Politian, and whence he returned to pass a long life in the service of his native city and to form a great col- lection of classical and German antiquities.^ But the character- istic figure of this kind is Willibald Pirckheimer of Nlirnberg (1470-1530). The two great free cities Augsburg and Nlirnberg were at this time in the zenith of their prosperity. The former, the residence of the Fuggers, the Eothschilds of the sixteenth century, was the centre of German finance, while through the latter, the trade of the East, not yet diverted by Vasco de Gama's discovery, passed from Venice to Central Europe. And as countless works of art, on canvas, in metal, in wood, in stone, still remain to testify, the burghers of Ntirnberg used their wealth nobly. To compare any other city, in relation to artistic achievement, with Florence, seems an abuse of words ; yet if any deserves the distinction, it is the Nlirnberg of Michael Wohlgemuth and Peter Vischer,of Adam Kraft and Albert 1 )iirer. Here, then, Willibald Pirckheimer passed the greater part of 1 ErharJ, vol. ii. pp. 1-146. 2 Erhard, vol. iii. p. 394 cl scq. 76 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. his life in the service of the republic ; representing her upon many embassies, commanding her troops in Maximilian's war against the Swiss confederates. He too had studied long in Italy, and was master of the erudition of his time. His literary activity, notwithstanding his political avocations, was both great and varied : he translated Greek classics and Greek Fathers into Latin ; he wrote a history of the Swiss war, in wdiich he had been himself engaged ; he conformed to a literary fashion of the age in an ii-onical panegyric on his frequent companion, the gout. It followed from his position, his wealth, his literary cultivation, that he should be in the closest personal relations with the scholars of his time ; he was a frequent correspondent of Eeuchlin, Erasmus, Hutten ; Conrad Celtes called the old patrician house at Nlirnberg, where Pirckheimer and his father had dwelt, his " diversorium literarium." His portrait by his life-long friend Albert Diirer is well known to all students of the period ; a stately burgher, of commanding presence, with vigorous intellect and strong passions \asibly impressed on every feature. He stands half-way, as it w^ere, between humanism and the Eeformation. When the strife between Eeuchlin and the theologians of Koln broke out, he was, in a silently acknowledged way, head of the Eeuchlinist party, and crowned the controversy with an " Apologia pro Eeuchhno." His name was one of those included in the bull which Leo X fulminated against Luther ; an honour which he owed to Eck, against whom he had pubhshed a bitter satirical attack. But his sisters Charitas and Clara Pirckheimer were successive Abbesses of the St. Clara convent in Niirnberg ; the first a very noble woman, of great literary accomplishment, and the best type of Catholic piety. And Pirckheimer never heartily threw in his lot with a rehgious movement which disturbed and aimed to uproot much that was justly endeared to him both on the domestic and the ethical side. ^Vlien he died in 1530 he was hardly at one with either the new Church or the -old.^ ^ For Pirckheimer vide Erhard, vol. him in the forefront of its picture. I iii. pp. 1, 61, ct scq. But Hagen's may also refer to the rare volume, Dcutschland/s litcrarischc und religiose Viri illicstris Bilihaldi Pirckheitneri VerhdUnisse im Rcformatio'iiszeitalter, a etc. etc. opera, politica, historica, philo- work of great value and suggestiveness, Jogica et epistolica, ed. Goldast. Franco- is written "mit besonderer Riicksicht furti, 1610. auf Willibald Pirckheimer," and puts THE HUMANISTS OF ERFURT 77 Further north, Erfurt was tlie centre point of a remarkable body of humanists, who were destined to play a very important part in the coming struggle between the modern and the ancient learning. The Thuringian University had always from the time of its foundation manifested a certain liberality of spirit ; it was there, about the middle of the fifteenth century, that the first avowed professors of " poetry," Luder and Publicius, had taught. At the end of it, they had not unworthy suc- cessors in Maternus, Pistoris, and Nicholas von Marschalk, men who, without altogether breaking with the past, had a genuine love of the classical languages and literature. To Marschalk, who removed to Wittenberg in 1502, is due the introduction of the study of Greek into Erfurt ; his edition of Priscian on Syntax, there printed, was the first product of the German Greek press. Ptound Maternus gathered a group of young men, who, between 1500 and 1520, gave Erfurt a kind of primacy among German universities. Among them were Johann Jager, better known as Crotus Eubianus, a man of a biting wit, of whom we shall hear more presently ; George Eberbach, and his two sons, Heinrich and Peter, the latter of whom latinised his name into Petrejus ; Euricius Cordus, a 'Latin poet, who poured out his soul in countless epigrams, and was an ardent adherent of Luther's ; ^ Johann Lang, the last Prior of the Augustinian Convent in which Luther took refuge, and among the first of the Protestant preachers of Erfurt ; Spalatin, the chaplain and historiographer of Frederic the Wise ; and a man who was destined to be the foremost scholar of a younger generation, Joachim Camerarius, the bosom friend and corre- spondent of Melanchthon. Here too came Hermann von dem Busche, one of the wandering humanists, who, in the excite- ment caused by his lectures, is said to have swept away the old mediaeval text-books ; and here Ulrich von Hutten, also a restless spirit, knitted many congenial, friendships. But the head of the society has yet to be named, as well as the poet, who, of his followers, achieved the greatest contemporary fame. It was about 1506 that the Erfurt " poets " transferred their allegiance from Maternus to Mutian. Conrad Muth, usually ^ Vide Euricius Cordus : nine hiographische Skizzc aics dcr Reformationszcit I'OJi C. Krausc. Hanau, 1863. 78 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. known as Mutianus Eiifus, is one of the most remarkable, and at the same time one of the most engaging figures of the age. Born at Homburg in 1471, he was a schoolfellow of Erasmus, under Alexander Hegius at Deventer ; then studied in Erfurt, and finally turned his steps to Italy, where we hear of him as in intimate intercourse with Baptista Mantuanus and Pico della Mirandola. He came back to Germany in 1502, when he took service for a few months at the Court of the Landgrave of Hesse. But he soon exchanged his chances of worldly pro- motion for a scantily-endowed canonry at Gotha, in the enjoy- ment of which he passed the rest of his life. Once at least he refused substantial preferment ; when, on the death of Henning Gode in 1521, the Elector Erederic offered him the vacant Provostship of the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg, he quietly passed it on to Justus Jonas. He was content with his books and his friends, to whom an income more than sufdcient for his personal wants enabled him to offer a modest hospitality. Over the entrance of his house at Gotha stood inscribed in golden letters, " Beata tranquillitas ;" while, a little farther on, the words "Bonis cuncta pateant" seemed to invite the guest to ask himself whether he was worthy of access to the shrine. Hither, all through the years in which humanism flourished at Erfurt, flocked troops of young men, to sit at the feet of one whom they considered to be master of all learning, sacred and profane. They were all the more welcome that their host had no pleasure in the company of his clerical colleagues, who did not understand him, and whom he understood only to despise. There was everything about Mutian to attract the young. Of undoubted learning, and with a mind always busy with the absorbing questions of the day, he yet wrote nothing. He collected books, he read, he talked. His only remains are letters to his familiar friends, of which, strange to say, some are still in manuscript, while all need careful editing and loving commentary. His method was essentially esoteric : he had secrets to impart to those whom he trusted, and at the same time convictions which he concealed from the vulgar. His opinions on conformity were such as might be expected from his turn of mind ; he had no sympathy with protest or rebellion ; the wise man, he thought, discerned the truths MUTIANUS RUFUS y^ hidden beneath familiar phrases, and discerning, held his peace. Though he retained his Church preferment, and per- formed with more or less regularity the duties of his othce, he was at heart neither Catholic nor Protestant, but only a scholar, who loved and sought for the truth. He had gi-asped the idea that Christianity is older than the nativity of Christ, and that the true Son of God is that Divine Wisdom of whicli the Jews had no monopoly.^ " Wlio," he said, " is our Saviour ? Eighteousness, peace, and joy. That is the Christ who has come down from heaven." ^ Again, "The clear commandment of God, which enlightens the eyes of the mind, has two heads, that thou love God, and man as thyself. This law, pleasant to heaven and to men, makes us partakers of heavenly things. This is the natural law, not graven on tables of stone like that of Moses, not cut in brass like the Eoman, not written on parchment or paper, but by the highest teacher poured into our hearts. Who with due piety partakes of this notable and wholesome Eucharist, accomplishes a Divine action. , . . For the true body of Christ is peace and concord, and there can be no nobler sacrifice than mutual love." ^ He had his inter- pretations of Scripture too, which if not critical, were at least bold, and evinced that theological courage which the young admire and love. Naturally his followers, when they made the pilgrimage to Gotha, and received the welcome of his gracious presence, felt as if they were admitted to an inner shrine of wisdom, from which the common herd was jealously shut out. They were not men who cared much for theology, and he was to them saint as well as sage, a leader as well as a teacher. He gave them the impression of being too wise, too lofty, too detached to do the work which naturally fell upon themselves. He was as little capable of Erasmus's incessant literary activity as of Luther's fiery energy and persistency of will. Yet little ^ Si Christus est via Veritas et vita, tus, verus Dei Alius, quam, ut Paulus quid tot seculorum homines ante nativi- inquit, sapientia Dei, quae non solum tatem illius egeiunt ? Erraveruntue, aiiuit Judaeisin angusta Syriaeiegionc, crebris et densis ignorantiae tenebris sed Graecis et Italis et Germanis, quau- obsepti, an salutis et veri participes quam vario ritu religiouis observarcn- fuerant ? Ego praejudieio quodam te tur. Tentzel, Supplemcntum Hist. adjuvabo. Nou incepit Christi religio Gothan. primum, pp. 37, 8. cum illius incaruatione, sed fuit ante - Tentzel, p. 20. omnia secula, ut prima Christi nativi- •* Ibid. p. 57. tas. Quid enim aliud est verus Chris- 8o THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. as he is now known, his is the only name which some at least of his contemporaries would have put beside theirs. After Mutian, who was the undisputed head of the school, its most distinguished member was Eoban Hess, or, as he de- lighted to call himself, on the principle that every poet ought to have three names, Helius Eobanus Hessus. His real name was Eoban Koch, Eoban being a Thuringian saint, a follower of St. Boniface. But he called himself Helius, be- cause he was born on Sunday, and Hessus, as being a native of Hesse. While his companions, whatever the form of their literary efforts, all rejoiced in the name " poet," he was one in very sober earnest : the author of many volumes of Latin verse, in many metres, and on many subjects. He thought himself, and his friends thought him, the greatest poet of the age. In one of his earliest poems he declared that by his verse he had conferred the same immortality upon Erfurt as the Iliad upon Troy, and the Thebais on Thebes. He executed a religious imitation of Ovid's Heroides, and trans- lated not only the Iliad and Theocritus, but the Psalms and Ecclesiastes into Latin verse. Odes, epistles, pastorals, elegies, epigrams, flowed incessantly from a pen which was always forcible, often eloquent, and sometimes incorrect. There is almost an element of pathos in Eoban's calm reliance — no matter what temporary troubles beset him — on an immortality of fame : his contemporaries called him king, and he assumed the title in good faith : he did not know that he was working in a material that ensured his speedy oblivion. Always in difficulties, always ready to forget them in copious potations, always making large demands upon the admiration and bene- volence of his friends ; he lectured at Erfurt, then became rector of the new gymnasium at Nlirnberg, returned to Erfurt again, and finally went home to Ms native Hesse, to die at Marburg in 1540. He was one of the humanists who cor- dially welcomed Luther, and the verses in which he celebrated the hero of the Eeformation are aU that now possess a living interest. But the doctrine of justification by faith apparently did not help him to self-control : his double allegiance, to wine and song, remained unshaken to the last. Mutian, on the contrary, not only never left the Catholic Church, but returned Ill SERVICE OF LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE 8i more and more, as he grew older, into the ways of conventual piety. There is no reason to suppose that he sympathised with Luther's dogmatic system, and while his instincts were all in the direction of outward conformity, old age, poverty, neglect, the troubles of the times, would lead him to seek for rehgious consolation at the accustomed sources. His last words, however, simple and touching as they are, are hardly the confessions of a repentant freethinker. Calling for a pen the day before he died, he wrote, " The peasant knows many things of wliich the philosopher is ignorant. But Christ, who is our life, has died for us, and this I most firmly believe." He died at Gotha in 1526.i This enumeration of a few comparatively celebrated names will, however, give a very inadequate idea of the literary activity of Germany at the end of the fifteenth and the begin- ning of the sixteenth century. The list might be almost indefinitely extended to show that every considerable city had one or more resident scholars, eager in the cultivation and diffusion of the new learning. These men collected the books which the Italian and German press plentifully poured forth, and made them the subjects of comment in a lively literary correspondence, which filled the same place in the life of scholars as reviews and magazines do now. In many districts men of letters were united in social bonds more or less close. Conrad Celtes formed a Ehenish and subsequently a Danubian society, each of which had for its object the cultivation of literature and art. This association quickened individual energy ; men who exchanged the results of their studies felt that they were not alone, but working in the line of a great movement, while, if controversy arose, and sometimes deepened into quarrel, the resulting clash of words was at least better than stagnation. At the same time, this, like the correspond- ing period in Italy, was not fertile in works of literary excellence. With few exceptions, the productions of the ^ For Mutian and Hess, vide Kamp- Vlrich von Hutten (2(1 ed.), pp. 30-37, schulte, Universitdt Erfurt, bk. i. chaps. 546-549 ; Hagen, vol. i. p. 323 d seq. ii. iii. pp. 49-119. Conf. for Mutian, For Hess, Dr. Carl Krause's excellent Tentzel, Supplementuvi Historiae Goth- biography has been consulted, Jfelius anae primuyn 0. Mutiani Rufi Episto- Eubanus Eessus, sein Lcbcn uvd seine las comjdcctens (Jenae, 1701); Strauss, Wcrke. 82 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. humanists in prose and verse have the air of school exercises, more or less perfectly performed, of which the manner is more important than the matter. This is especially the case with the poetry : even if modern Latin verse had otherwise any chance of remembrance, none that was written in Germany at this time, except perhaps that of Eoban Hess, could by possi- bility claim it. Among the elder scholars there was very little knowledge of Greek : it is often enumerated among the ac- quirements of men whose acquaintance with it did not extend much beyond the alphabet. Even the Latin classics were read in a quite uncritical way, with little discrimination of varying age and worth, while the imitation of them, which was often the scholar's highest aim, was only superficial. In what claimed to be original compositions, nothing can be more wearisome than the perpetual repetition of the tritest mytho- logical allusions, almost always inapposite, and often intro- duced in connections where they are at once irreverent and ludicrous. In fact, Germany was only just beginning to spell out the first words of its classical lesson, and that without an idea of the magnitude and complexity of the task that lay before it. But the great thing was, that everywhere in the intellectual world there were light, air, movement ; and that the stagnation into which mediajval science had settled was effectually disturbed. At this point something may be said of a kind of literature which formed a transition between the humanists and the com- mon people. For a time the classical revival in Germany was unfavourable to the continuous development of a vernacular literature, which had already shown considerable promise ; to write in the people's language was for the most part left to such as had not appropriated the treasures, or did not feel the responsibilities of scholarship. But there was a popular satirical literature which formed part of the assault upon medisevalism, and in its way was sufficiently effective, making the clergy, from the Pope downwards, the object of special attack, and remorselessly holding up their moral weaknesses to ridicule and contempt. And akin to this was the literary movement which I am about to mention. Its earliest mani- festation was in Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff, or Ship of Fools, ,11 BRANT'S '^NARRENSCHIFF" 83 a poetic satire, written in the dialect of Strassburg, which, first published in 1494, went through many editions, and has been translated into the chief languages of Europe. Brant (1457- 1521) was a grave and religious humanist, the friend of Wim- pheling and Geiler, who, at first a professor of law at Basel, came to Strassburg in 1500, and there spent the remaining years of his life as city secretary. He was a sound Catholic, if not a very good poet; while he deplores the abuses of the Church, he has not an idea of reforming them, except in an orthodox way. The Shii^ of Fools is perhaps more strictly allegorical than satirical : Brant's leading idea is that the sinner is always a fool ; he lashes with steady invective the innumerable ways in which his contemporaries despise the divine law ; but there is no lightness in his satiric touch, and his object is much more to instruct and reform than to amuse. The book, nevertheless, was immensely popular, and in 1497 was translated into Latin by a Swabian scholar, Jacob Locher, whose literary name was Philomusus. More deeply imbued with the spirit of popular satire were the Facetiae and the Triumphus Veneris of Heinrich Bebel (1470-1518?), one of the earliest teachers at the University of Tubingen : the first, a collection of anecdotes, of which it is difEicult to say whether the obscenity or the irreverence is more remarkable ; the second a poem, in six books, in which the whole world, clerical as well as lay, is represented as prostrate at the feet of the Cyprian goddess. Brant's poem may possibly have given a hint for Erasmus's Encomiitm Moriae, the first dated edition of which appeared at Strassburg in 1511, but which may have been written a year or two earlier. But his more legitimate successor was Thomas Murner (1475-1537), also an Alsatian, a Franciscan monk, who afterwards took up the cudgels with great goodwill against Luther. His Narrenheschiuorung, or Conspiracy of Fools, and his Schelmenzunft, or Guild of Rascals, which appeared at Frankfurt about 1512, are written in the same metre and dialect as the Ship of Fools, and, with much more satiric power than Brant possessed, give a sunilar picture of society and reprove the same vices.^ ^ For Brant vide Schmidt, vol. i. 1839. For Mnrner, Schmidt, vul. ii. pp. 189-333 ; also Das Narrensehiff von pp. 209-315 ; 15ebel, Hagen, vol. 1. p. Dr. Sebastian Brant, ed. A. W. Strobel, 381 c« seq. 84 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. Upon the background, then, afforded by these facts, I have now to try to delineate the figures of three great men : John Eeuchlin (1455-1522), Desiderius Erasmus (1467?-1536), and UMch von Hutten (1488-1523). It is in them and in their fate that the characteristics of German intellectual and religious life, in the period immediately before the Eeformation, are most clearly seen. John Eeuchlin, the greatest of the elder generation of German humanists, whose name, by a curious perversity of fate, became the watchword of a party with whose aims he only half sympathised, was born at Pforzheim, in Baden, in 1455. Of his parents little is known ; but from the fact that he was sent to the Latin school of his native place, and thence, when only fifteen years old, to the University of Freiburg, it may be concluded that they occupied a more honourable station than his enemies were afterwards anxious to make out. At Freiburg he did not remain long. Eeturning home, his pleasant voice attracted the attention of the Margrave of Baden, who chose him to go to Paris as the companion of his son, who was destined to the service of the Church. Here, in what had once been the chosen home of scholastic philosophy, he plunged into the studies of the time, making the acquaintance of two cele- brated men of whom I have already spoken — Heynlin von Stein, who, though a German by birth, had been in 1469 rector of the university ; and Eudolf Agricola, the typical northern scholar of his day. But soon, for some unknown reason, Eeuchlin removed to Basel, where he in due course took the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts; Already, however, the eager thirst for knowledge w-hich was his distinguishing characteristic throughout life had manifested itself. In Basel was a Greek, Andronicus Contoblacas, who, though he gave no public lectures, was willing to teach his native language to any who wished to learn it. Eeuchlin was his pupil — the first German who learned Greek from a Greek on German soil. Soon we find him at Paris again, continuing his Greek studies, under George HermonjTiius, a native of Sparta. But he had chosen the law as his profession ; and in order to prepare him- self thoroughly for it, betook himself first to the University of Orleans, and next to that of Poitiers. Here, in 1481, he JOHN REUCHLIN 85 received his doctor's diploma, which was the witness that his education was complete, and returned to Germany, hoping to find work in the new University of Tubingen. The result was other, perhaps better, than he expected ; he was taken into the service of Eberhard with the Beard, the Count of Wurtember^T, who was also its first Duke, a wise and resolute prince, who, if not himself learned, loved and cherished learning. Before long Eeuchlin found himself on the way to Italy, in the suite of his patron. Florence was visited, where the young scholar enjoyed the conversation of the men of letters whom the Medici had attracted to their court ; then Eome, where Sixtus IV was Pope. Here it was that he was brought into contact with John Argyropulos, a boastful and ill-tempered Greek, who had already taught his native language in Italy for half a century. The story goes that Argyropulos somewhat contemp- tuously gave Eeuchlin, on his first introduction to him, a passage of Thucydides to read and translate, and was so struck by his success in performing the task as to exclaim, half in admiration, half in sorrow, that in his person Greece had now fled beyond the Alps. This was, however, only one of three journeys which Eeuchlin made to Eome. But whatever the business that took him there, his eagerness for learning was the same. He was ready to sit at the feet of any who could unfold the secrets of classical or Hebrew antiquity. Of Hermolaus Barbaras, who grrecised his name into Capnio, he learned something of textual criticism ; Pico della Mirandola initiated him into the mysteries of the Cabbala ; Mutian had heard a story in Bologna that he had given a Jew ten gold pieces for the explanation of a single Hebrew phrase. His was the pure love of learning for its own sake. With all this, he was not a professional scholar, but a lawyer and a statesman. He passed the best years of his life in the service of the Dukes of Wiirtemberg. He became one of the judges who arbitrated in the quarrels of the Swa- bian League. Once, indeed, when political troubles, to which no more minute allusion need here be made, distracted liis adopted country, he spent a year or two at Heidelberg, in the fellowship of that Ehenish literary society which Conrad Celtes had founded, and over wliich liishop John von Dal- 86 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. berg then presided. But he did not teach in the university, and when the occasion offered returned to his practical work. Still, if no priest, there was about him all the gravity of the German as distinguished from the Italian humanist. He threw the whole energy of his mind, especially in later life, into a certain kind of theology. His only heresy was that of the scholar, who is suspected of wandering in forbidden paths as soon as he passes out of sight of the vulgar. He did not scruple, for instance, to point out errors in the Vul- gate, appealing from it to the Hebrew original, and, when reproved, nobly replying, " I revere St. Jerome as an angel ; I respect De Lyra as a master, but I adore truth as a God." So, too, his Cabbalistic studies brought him into a certain kind of disrepute. Greek, as the language of schismatics, was abhorred of monkish theologians, how much more Hebrew, the tongue of an accursed race ? Otherwise he stood high in general esteem. The Emperor ennobled him, giving him a grant of arms. Men spoke well of him as a lawyer and a diplomatist. All scholars, both in Italy and in Germany, were his friends, looking upon him as a light of modern erudition. A little later Ulrich von Hutten coupled him with Erasmus as " the two eyes of Germany," " to whom we owe it that this nation has ceased to be barbarous." Eeuchlin's contributions to the humanist literature of the time were neither large nor particularly valuable. At the very beginning of his career he had been the author of a Latin dictionary, afterwards he wrote two comedies in Latin, on one of which, Sergius, Hieronymus Emser lectured at Erfurt in 1504^; nor was he, in truth, an elegant Latinist. The more graceful qualities of scholarship he did not possess. His knowledge of Greek was certainly superior to that of any of his coevals, but he put it to little use. This was partly due to his diplomatic and judicial avocations, but partly also to that devotion to the Hebrew language and literature which was his distinguishing characteristic. There is a tradition that his thoughts were turned in this direction at an early period of his life ; but his serious study of Hebrew began with an acquaintance which he formed in 1492 with Jehiel Loans, ^ Kampschulte, vol. i. p. 66. Ill REUCHLIN'S HEBREW STUDIES 87 the Jewish physician of the Emperor Frederic III. From that time Hebrew was his favourite occupation. Not satisfied with its grammatical study and its application to the interpretation of the Old- Testament, he plunged into that strange weltering sea of Cabbalistic speculation, from which, in common with some of his contemporaries, he believed that the purest pearls of truth were to be drawn. His first book of this kind, De Verbo Mirijico, dates from 1494, and is dedicated to John von Dalberg. Then in 1506 he published a Hebrew grammar, which, if not absolutely the earliest of its kind, is the first that deserves the name. Nor were his troubles with the theolo- gians of Koln able to wean him from these cherished studies ; in 1517 he dedicated to Leo X a work in three books, De arte Cabbalisticd. Perhaps his truest title to fame is that he was the restorer of Oriental learning in Northern Europe. He performed, though in a less perfect way, for the Old Testament, the task which Erasmus executed for the New ; he took men's minds back from the Vulgate to the original text. So far as the Jews themselves were concerned, he was not altogether exempt from the prejudices of his age ; but in nothing did he more decisively show himself the true scholar than in not permitting those prejudices to shut him out from the purest sources of Hebrew learning. Nor would it be right to allow Eeuchlin's Cabbalistic fancies to weigh against the general sobriety of his scholarship ; his was an age which had not yet formulated canons of criticism, and he could plead worthy companionship in his learned delusions. Wieland has well said of him, that " to Oriental literature he uttered the word of power. Come forth ! And the dead came forth wound round with Eabbinical grave-clothes, and with the napkin of the Cabbala about his head. The second word, the word reserved for the successors of Eeuchlin to speak, was far easier, Loose him, and let him go." ^ Erasmus was only twelve years younger than Eeuchlin. But owing in part to the rapid movement of the times, in ^ Geiger, p. 195. All earlier lives added Joh. Reuchliii's Briefwechscl, of Reuchlin, that of Mai (1687), and edited by Geiger, for the Literarischer that of Meyerhoff (1830), have been Vercin of Stuttgart in 1875. Conf. superseded by L. Geiger's excellent Erhard, vol. ii. i>p. 147-460 ; Strauss, work, Johann ReucJilin, sein Leben unci U. v. UiMcn, p. \i\ et scq. seine Werke, 1871. To this may be THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY part to the genius of the man, we seem, in speaking of him, to enter upon a new epoch of literary development. The German humanist, painfully appropriating the classical in- heritance, and learning with difficulty to think new thoughts and write a new language, is transformed into the accomplished man of letters who uses Latin with the easy force of a ver- nacular tongue, and wields an European influence. Erasmus was born at Eotterdam in or about the year 1467. His real name was Gerhard, which, under the belief that it meant " beloved," he latinised into Desiderius and then incor- rectly grsecised into Erasmus. The illegitimate son of one who, resisting the desire of his parents that he should enter the monastic life, was afterwards forced by a shameful trick into the cloister, Erasmus began life with a grievance against mon- asticism which he never forgot. It was made more bitter by his own history. He was half-cajoled, half-forced into the Augustinian house of Steyn, a step which was no sooner taken than repented of. Already, however, his destiny was fixed. He had been a pupil of Alexander Hegius in his well-known school at Deventer, where his proficiency had excited the admiration of the patriarch of German humanism, Eudolf Agricola. From that time forth nothing could quench his inborn thirst for learning. The six years which he passed at Steyn were spent in the study of the classics, though probably the Latin poets and orators only. But in 1491 an unexpected deliverance came. The Bishop of Cambrai, intending to go to Eome, wanted some young scholar as secretary and companion, and for that purpose, with due permission of superiors, took Erasmus out of his convent. The Italian journey, for some reason or other, was never made, but Erasmus was ffee. Monk and priest as he was, he never returned to the monastic life, which as long as he lived continued to be the object of his deepest dislike, and the mark for his sharpest shafts of satire. From Cambrai Erasmus made his way to the University of Paris : thence, again, after certain episodes, which it is not necessary to recount, in 1497, to England. He had formed the acquaintance of William, Lord Mountjoy, who assured him of a welcome across the Channel, and told him of men who at Oxford were engaged in the study of Greek. It was the dream of Ill DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 89 Erasmus's life to learn Greek in Italy : but how was a poor scholar, dependent upon private teaching and an ill -paid pension, to make the expensive journey across the Alps ? Oxford was the next best resource, and to Oxford he went. The journey was full of consequences both to Erasmus himself and through him to European religion. For the next eighteen or nineteen years of his life he constantly revisits England. The Greek that he learns at Oxford he teaches at Cambridge. He studies with Grocyn and Linacre : he knits the closest friendship with Colet and More. One of his chief patrons is William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who presents him with the Kentish living of Aldington, and to whom in return he dedicates in 1516 his magnificent edition of St. Jerome. He is presented to Henry VIII — then a boy of nine years old, who asks for a tribute of verses, afterwards duly paid. He makes a vivid contribution to English history, in accounts written long afterwards of pilgrimages paid to two of our great national shrines, that of Our Lady of Walsingham, and the still more famous one of St. Thomas of Canterbury, at the very time when faith began to wane, and the axe of reform was hanging over them, ready to fall. In the midst of his English activity he found time and means for the visit to Italy, so necessary to the reputation as well as to the erudition of a scholar, making the acquaintance of learned men, and superintending at Venice the production of a new edition of his Adages, by the famous press of Aldus. But he came back to England again, in the hope, which proved delusive, of patronage and employment from the young Henry VIII, in whose love of learning all humanists put their trust. A scholar who was born in Holland, who had studied at Paris, who had paid repeated visits to England, and who had made the indispensable journey to Italy, had already laid the foundation of an international reputation. But while Erasmus was one of the students who were constantly increasing their store of scholar- ship, and to whom everything seemed to ofi'er additional materials of erudition, he was also a man of letters, and to some extent a man of the world. Educated Europe had, at that time, but one language, and it was possible, as at no period before or since, for a great writer to make his appeal to readers of every nation. 90 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. And Latin, which he wrote with unexampled force and ease, was ahnost Erasmus's native tongue. His voluminous works contain no word of any other. How far he spoke English with More, or German with Hutten, or Italian with Aldus, we have no means of knowing ; probably Latin was almost as much the medium of daily intercourse as it undoubtedly was of familiar correspondence. His Latin was not Ciceronian: indeed his openly-expressed contempt for the pedantic imitation of Cicero brought him in later life into literary trouble; but it was something much better, a language recalled from the lethargy of learning into which it was rapidly falling, to be once more the living vehicle of thought. His Colloquies, originally written to teach the use of Latin as a spoken language to the son of his Basel printer, Eroben, but in which he embodied many of his most character- istic opinions on men and things, are an admirable example of the way in which a classical language may, in the hands of a master, become plastic to new methods and applications. And his voluminous correspondence, which of itself might almost have been the outcome of a busy lifetime, and gives, to those who have patience to master its contents, a vivid and various picture of the literary life of contemporary Europe, has little of the ceremonial cumbrousness which usually deforms Latin letters, and is almost as modern in form as it is in spirit. The weapon of style, thus edged and polished, Erasmus used with the skill of an accomplished man of letters. He was not deficient, as we shall presently see, in the graver labours of scholarship ; but he also took the public into his confidence. His writings were popular, to an extent which an age in which literature is not necessarily learned finds it difficult to understand. His Adages, a collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, with explanations and discursive commentary, were reprinted again and again, always growing in bulk, until they finally occupy the whole of a folio volume in the last edition of his works. They are good reading for scholars still, but only scholars read them. In the early years of the sixteenth century they were read by every one who could read at all. The Encomium Moriae, which he wrote at More's house on his return from Italy in 1510, and dedicated to his host, was more popular still. /Editions of it appeared in rapid succession: i \ HI ERASMUS AND RELIGIOUS REFORM 91 Holbein illustrated it with his pencil : a French version was published in 1517. Tried by modern standards, its wit seems laboured, and its leading idea too long drawn out, but contemporary readers did not think so ; and, in conjunction with the Adages, it told a curious world what the first scholar of his day thought of kings and nobles, monks and nuns, and the social system of which these were the pillars. What is now strangest is, perhaps, not that almost every one who could read laughed with Erasmus at established institutions (and the Colloquies only deepened the impression which the Adages and the Praise of Folly had made), but that he kept on friendly and familiar terms with cardinals, princes, and statesmen. The greatest names in the Church (Leo X and Cardinal Wolsey, the Archbishop of Mainz and the Archbishop of Canterbury) are found in the list of his correspondents. In 1514 he was made a member of the council formed for the young prince who, in a few years more, was to be Charles V. It seemed as if the universal admiration for his learning and literary power gave him a place among the potentates of the world, and with it absolute liberty to say what he would. Such a monarchy as his, in the realm of letters, Europe has never since seen : the possibility of it passed away with the disuse of Latin as the universal language of educated men. But Erasmus was animated also with a serious religious purpose, for which sufficient credit has hardly been given him. He is usually represented as a man who to great learning, a singular command of his pen, and a biting wit, united a timid and time-serving nature, which held him back from hearty sympathy with the Lutheran revolt, and ended by making him its avowed enemy." Wliat elements of truth there may be in this conception of him will appear as the facts of the case unfold themselves ; undoubtedly there is a huge preponderance of error. I have already stated that on his first visit to Oxford he became the friend of John Colet, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, and the founder of the famous school of the same name. It may be doubted whether there is evidence to support the theory of a recent writer^ that Colet, Erasmus, and More '^ Y.^Q&hohvn, The Oxford Reformers fellow -ivork of John Cold, Erasmus, of 1498 : being a history of the and Thomas More, 1867. 92 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. entered at this time into an unwritten agreement to work together for the reform of the Church, and that Colet's was the leading and inspiring mind of the three. But two things are indisputable — first, that a firm friendship united them all while they lived, and that from the time of his first stay at Oxford Erasmus cherished theological purposes of a very serious and quite distinctive kind. What his general views of Chris- tianity were first came out in his Encliiridion Militis Christiani, a little book of practical piety, which, written in 1501, was proljably published soon afterwards. But there is this peculiarity about it, that as its author republished it in 1518, with a letter ^ in its defence, it may be taken to represent his matured as well as his earlier opinions. Its tone can best be described as simply and strongly ethical. He alludes to what would be called the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, but does not state, much less define, them. The characteristic superstitions of Catholicism he passes quietly by, placing them in contrast with purely religious aspirations. " Do you there- fore forbid, some will say, the worship of the saints in whom God is honoured ? Truly, I do not condemn those who do these things with a certain simplicity of superstition. ... I will commend them for seeking protection of their life from St. Eoch, if they will consecrate that life to Christ. I will praise them still more, if they will ask only that with hatred of vice love of virtue also may be increased." ^ Again, " In a visible temple you bend the knee of the body ; it is of no avail if in the temple of the heart you stand erect against God. You adore the wood of the Cross ; better follow the mystery of the Cross. You fast and abstain from the things that do not defile a man, and do not withliold yourself from obscene words, which pollute both your own conscience and another's. ... Is it much that with your body you visit Jerusalem while within you is Sodom, is Egypt, is Babylon ? It is but little to have trodden in the foot- steps of Christ wdth the feet of the flesh, but a very great thing to follow them in heart and soul." ^ In short, the end 1 Ep. cccxxix. Paulo Volzio, vol. - Erasmi 0pp. vol. v. p. 27 b, c. iii. p. 337. I quote from the Leydeu ^ Erasmi 0pp. vol. v. p. 37 K, p. 38 a. edition of the works of Erasmus, 1703. ERASMUS'S METHOD OF REFORM 93 of all human stri^'ing is Christ, and Christ is no empty word, but only love, simplicity, patience, purity ; in brief, whatever He taught.-^ This was hardly Catholicism, certainly not the Catholicism accepted in universities and current in con- vents ; but it was just as little Protestantism. A Lutheran of a few years later would have pronounced the Enchiridion pagan in grain, and traced its inspiration rather to Epictetus than to Paul. But whether first moved by Colet or not, Erasnnis had a special object in view, and a definite theory of Churcli reforma- tion. Like all the older German humanists, he deeply felt the practical abuses of the Church, which indeed he had done more than any other man in Europe to hold up to contempt and ridicule. But he looked much farther afield for a remedy than to the disciplinary activity of Popes or the reforming zeal of Councils. Owing perhaps to the fact that he was not brought into contact with it till the bent of his mind had settled itself, and his opinions in some degree become fixed, he had no sympathy with the scholastic theology, which he placed with monasticism in the category of things to be hated and despised. He had him- self gone behind the Schoolmen, to the Fathers and the Apostles for his faith, and he saw in the rising tide of learning the opportunity of putting before the eyes of Christendom the primitive in fair contrast with the existing Church. He made up his mind to give the world for the first time the Greek text of the New Testament. This was to be followed by critical editions of the chief Greek and Latin Fathers. Without open revolt against the Church, without other attack upon her corruptions than such as he had been making through- out his literary life, he thought that the desired end must surely come. The leaven of scientific culture would slowly leaven the whole inert lump. The charm of Christianity, thus revealed in its first pure beauty, would be all - pre- vailing ; men would see how simple a thing it was and yet how powerful in the production of a strong and happy life. It was a scholar's conception of reform, and one that was soon interrupted and set aside by ruder and more drastic methods. Yet it may be questioned whether, after ^ Erasmi Ojijh vol. v. p. 25 a. 94 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. all, the slow way is not in the long run the surest, and whether any other agent of human progress can permanently be substituted for culture. The Eeformation of the sixteenth century was Luther's work ; but if any fresh Eeformation is come or coming now, it can only be based upon the principles of Erasmus. The first step towards the realisation of this project was the publication in 1505 of Lorenzo Valla's Annotations nfon the New Testament, with a prefatory letter addressed to Christopher Fischer.-^ This work is less remarkable in itself than as being the first beginning of modern textual criticism of the New Testament ; Erasmus expressly claims for Valla, that his emendations were founded upon the collation of certain ancient and correct MSS. But he did not print the book without foreseeing the storm of opposition which it was likely to raise. The objections to which he addresses himself in his letter to Fischer are of the most childish kind, but not on that account less generally entertained or less difficult to overcome. Jerome's Latin was practically regarded as the original text of Scripture, and any attempt to amend it by reference to the Greek and still more to the Hebrew, was regarded as a laying of profane hands upon the ark of God, which no cogency of argument could justify. Then for ten years the matter apparently slept, but only apparently, for Erasmus was gathering materials for two of the great achievements of his life, his Greek New Testament and his edition of Jerome, both of which came to the birth in 1516. But even after this long delay, the first was hurried if not premature. The volume of Cardinal Ximenes's Complutensian Polyglot, which contained the New Testament, was in type as early as January 1514, though the completed work did not receive the Papal licence till 1520. And Johann Froben, the printer of Basel, not desiring that the honour of first printing the New Testament in Greek should belong to Spain, made an offer to Erasmus to undertake the task. It was accepted ; the work was pushed on with a rapidity fatal to exact workmanship, and in February 1516 the book was published with a preface by the printer,' and a dedication from Erasmus's own pen to Leo X. It is a beautifully-printed folio ^ Erasmi 0pp. vol. iii. p. 96 : Ep. ciii. EJ^ASA/C'S'S ''NOVUM TESTAMENTUAf 95 volume, coutainiiig the complete text of the New Testament in Greek, followed by copious annotations.^ The defects of the edition, arising from the haste with which it had been prepared, are numerous and on the surface. It is full of small typographical errors. A quaint mistake upon the title-page called into existence a hitherto unknown Father of the Church, A^ulgarius. Erasmus's declaration to Leo, " that he had consulted many codices, in both languages, and those not of any kind that might chance, but the oldest and most correct," ^ is hardly borne out by the scanty list of not very valuable manuscripts that were alone at his disposal. He had no manuscript authority at all for the last six verses of the Apocalypse, and supplied the gap by his own retranslation from the Latin, a proceeding the traces of which are still visible on what is called the Eeceived Text. But having once established their priority, editor and printer set diligently to work to repair their mistakes. In the lifetime of Erasmus four more editions were issued, in 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535, each of which was an improvement upon the last, except that in deference to ignorant clamour the verse 1 John v. 7, which had been omitted from the editions of 151G and 1522, as supported by no MS., was inserted in that of 1527. The book had a large sale: of the first two editions put together 3300 copies were printed, and we may conclude that the others were in like proportion.^ The Greek Testament of Erasmus is at once the completest homage and the most signal service which the classical revival rendered to theology. It was a scholar's work, and executed in the true spirit of scholarship. Its object was to place within reach of all who could read Greek — a number that ^ The fiill title of this great work is : veram Theologiam, lege, cognosce, ac " Novum Instrumentum omne, diligen- deinde iudica. Neque statiin offendere, ter ab Erasmo Roterodamo recognitum si quid mutatum off'enderis, sed expende et emendatum, no solum ad graecam num in melius mutatum sit. Apud veritatem, verum etiam ad multorum inclytam Germaniae Basileam. [Here utriusq ; linguae codicum eorumq ; follows the printer's mark] Cum privi- veterum simul et emendatorum fidem, legio Maximiliani Caesaris Augusti, ne postremo ad probatissimorum autor- quis alius in sacra Romani imperii um citationem, emendationem et in- ditione, intra quatuor annos excudat, terpretationem, })raecipue Origenis, aut alibi excusum importet." Chrysostomi, Cyrilli, Vulgarii, Hier- ^ Novum Instrumentum, 1516, aa onymi, Cypriani, Ambrosii, Hilarii, 2 b. Augustini, una cum Annotationibus, ^ gee Scrivener, Introdiiction to th^ quae lectorem doceant, quid qua ratione Criticism of the Neio Testament, 2d ed. mutatum sit. Quisquis igitur amas p. 380 et seq. 96 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. increased every day — the earliest documents of Cliristianity in the least adulterated form. It was one of the first examples of what we now call a critical edition ; most of the classical authors had been printed from any single manuscript which the editor had at his command ; for the moment it was thought sufficient that the insecurity of a single written copy should be ex- changed for the safety which the multiplying power of the press seemed to offer. But Erasmus recognised not only the fact that the Greek original must be preferable to any version, however venerable and authoritative, but that the text had come down to modern times with many variations. To com- pare such manuscripts as he could collect, and to choose what readings appeared to him most likely to be correct, was the first tentative beginning of that complicated science of textual criticism which now claims to be able to trace error through the mazes of many centuries, and to place its finger on the indubitable reading of the Post-Apostolic age. After all, the procedure of Erasmus was unscientific rather in its necessary incompleteness than in its method, and in doing all that was possible to him, he performed a ser^dce for theology which cannot be over-estimated. But perhaps a more remarkable thing, at least in relation to the generally received ideas as to his character, is the glow of enthusiasm in which he did his work. In a Paradcsis or Exhortation to the Study of the Christian Philosophy, prefixed to the first edition of the Novum Instrunientum, he says : " For I utterly dissent from those who are unwilling that the sacred Scriptures should be read by the unlearned, translated into their vulgar tongue, as though Christ had taught such subtleties that they can scarcely be under- stood even by a few theologians, or as though the strength of the Christian religion consisted in men's ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it may be safer to conceal, but Christ wished His mysteries to be published as openly as possible. I wish that even the weakest woman should read the Gospel — should read the Epistles of Paul. And I wish that these were trans- lated into all languages, so that they might be read and under- stood, not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks and Saracens. To make them understood is surely the first step. It may be that they might be ridiculed by many, but some Ill ERASMUS AS A AT INTERPRETER 97 would take them to heart. I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum them to the time of his shuttle, that the traveller should beguile with their stories the tedium of his journey." ^ The whole document breathes the same spirit. No more impassioned eulogy of the Scriptures, and of the bene- fits to be derived from their study, was ever written. From the free intercourse, now made possible between Christ and the mind of his disciples, Erasmus expects everything for the practical life. " This kind of philosophy," he says, " lies rather in the affections than in syllogisms ; it is a life rather than a disputation, an inspiration rather than an erudition, a trans- formation rather than an argument. To be learned lies within the reach of few, but every one may be a Christian, every one may be pious, yea, I will add boldly, every one may be a theologian." ^ Erasmus's labours on the New Testament were, however, by no means confined to the emendations of the text. His Anno- tations were an important part of the original edition, and the whole work may be said to have been crowned by the Para- phmses, which came gradually into being between 1517 and 1524. But although, in these works, he rendered important services to Biblical criticism, he did not take up so clear and scholarly a position in regard to the theory of interpretation as Luther did afterwards. He could not get rid of a respect for those mystical senses of Scripture in which mediaeval interpre- ters so greatly delighted, and by help of which they were able to deduce any doctrine from almost any passage. He says in his Enchiridion that if you take it only in its literal sense, the story of Adam is not better worth reading than that of Prometheus. He advises the choice of those interpreters of Scripture " who depart as far as possible from the letter." " What does it matter whether you read the Books of Kings or Judges or Livy's History, if in neither you look to the Allegory?"^ "The letter," he says, in the preface to the Annotations, " is the least part of all ; but on this, as on a 1 I have availed myself of Mr. " JVov. Inst. 1516, acta 4 d. Seebohm's excellent translation of this ^ Erasmi 0pp. {Eiichiridim), vol. v. passage : Oxford Reformers, p. 256; Nov. p. 29 B, c, D ; ibid. 8 u. Iiist. 1516, aaa 4 b. H THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY foundation, rests the mystical sense." ^ At the same time, it may be questioned whether from this unpromising beginning he did not make a nearer approach to scientific rationalism than Luther, who started from a sounder principle. All Biblical students know the story of his omission, from his first two editions, of the verse 1 John v. 7, and his subsequent insertion of it in the third, though not without a protest, when a Greek MS. containing the words had been brought under his notice.^ This critical instance is a fair sample of his pro- cedure. He admits lapses of memory and failures of judgment in the Apostles ; Christ alone is called the Truth, and is wholly free from error.^ He thinks that the Gospel of Mark is an abridgment of that of Matthew,^ and calls attention to the fact that Luke is not an eye-witness of the events which he relates.^ He repeats Jerome's opinion that Clement of Eome was very likely the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,^ and casts doubt on the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse.^ From others of his works it would be easy to cite passages in which he subjects even the most sacred mysteries of the faith to free handling. He was much more Scriptural than Athanasius in his assertions as to the Trinity.^ He resolved the torturing flames of hell into " the perpetual anguish of mind which accompanies habitual sin." ^ Melanchthon declared that the whole Eucharistic controversy had its origin in him.^*' It is plain that we have here all modern rationalism in germ. ^ Nov. Inst. 1516, p. 227. ^ Note to Apoc, suh fine: Ojyp. vol. 2 His note on the passage {Ojjp. vol. vi. p. 1124 f. vi. p. 1080 d) is, however, couched in * Adversus monachos quosdam His- terms which show how little he was panos : 0pp. vol. ix. p. 1023 et seq. : convinced. " Verumtamen, ne quid couf. vol. ix. pp. 1040 B, 1050 D. dissimulem, repertus est apud Anglos ^ Enchiridion : Op]}, vol. v. p. 56 c. Graecus codex unus,inquo habetur quod " Nee alia est flamma, in qua cruciatur in vulgatis deest. ... Ex hoc igitur dives ille coniessator evangelicus. Nee codice Britannico reposuimus, quod in alia supplicia inferorum, de quibus nostris dicebatur deesse, ne cui sit ansa multa scripsere Poetae, quam perpetua calumniandi. Tametsi, suspicor codi- mentis anxietas, quae peccandi consue- cem ilium ad nostros esse correctum." tudinem comitatur. Tollat igitur qui ^ Note to Matthew ii. 7; Ojjp. vol. velit futuri seculi tarn diversa praemia; vi. -p. 13 E. habet annexum sibi virtus propter quod ■* Note to Mark i. 1 : 0pp. vol. vi. abunde debeat expeti ; habet adjunctum p. 151 E ; Luke i. 2 : 0pp. vol. vi. p. peccatum, cujus causa debeat horreri." 217 c. '"^ Letter of Melanchthon toCamera- ^ Note to Luke i. 4, 5: Q/j/j. vol. rius : Aldancth. 0pp.: Corpus Reforma- vi. p. 218 D. torum, vol. i. p. 1083 ; conf. Letter to. * Note to Hebrews xiii. 18 : OjJp. Aquila, ihid. vol. iv. p. 970. vol. vi. pp. 1023, 1024. Ill THE CLIMAX OF ERASMUS'S LIFE 99 This was the climax of Erasmus's life. Nothing that the author of the Adages and the Praise of Folly could do couhl add to his literary reputation. In Germany, in Holland, in England, and only in a less degree in France, in Italy, in Spain, he was recognised as the first scholar of his day. All men of erudition, all men of literary accomplishment, all princes and prelates who cared, or wished to seem to care about learning, were his correspondents. His journey to Basel in 1514 was a kind of triumphal progress ; the scholars of Alsace and the Ehineland met him, and feasted him as their acknowledged head. In the publication of his Jerome in 1516 he began that series of editions of the Greek and Latin Fathers which were necessary to complete the picture of primeval antiquity, which he desired to place before the eyes of Christendom. He was no mere scholar who had found in ecclesiastical literature a fit field for his powers, but an ardent theologian, eager for the reformation of the Church in doctrine and discipline, and with distinct ideas of his own as to the way of bringing it about. He thought that if he poured the new wine of culture into the old bottles of tradition, there could be but one result, even if long delayed. But he was not a man of combat. He was incapable of dashing himself like a forlorn hope against the serried battalions of ecclesiastical ignorance and bigotry. Always ailing, he did not feel that vigorous physical impulse which is necessary to aggressive heroism. Something of the scorn which often accompanies the conscious- ness of superior culture was in him ; he disliked rough and ready ways, and preferred refined mockery to indignant invec- tive. It must be added that he was not independent of patrons, perhaps did not wish to be. The profits of authorship in those days went to printers and booksellers, and a scholar who did not teach like Hegius, or had not a profession like Eeuchlin or Brant, was necessarily dependent upon the liberality of the great. There was held to be nothing deroga- tory in the acceptance of such liberality, and Erasmus was proud to show the gold medals, the chased goblets, which he had received from Electors and Cardinals. But the feeling that the eyes of all the magnates with whom he desired to stand well were fixed upon him, added to his natural timidity. THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY Church reformers of Luther's type do not live on terms of friendly intimacy with Popes and Cardinals and Archbishops. Still to all appearance, in 1516, Erasmus was master of the situation. Beyond the little world of which Wittenberg was the centre, Luther, still an Augustinian monk, was unknown. It meant much that the first of northern scholars had openly declared for reform, and in books that were read all over Europe had preached a Christianity from which almost every element of mediasval superstition had dropped away. But it is rarely, if ever, given to scholarship to touch the popular heart, and for the last twenty years of his life it was the fate of Erasmus to see the sceptre of theological supremacy passing from liis hands into those of a younger and more resolute rival, and to watch the triumphant progress of a reform with which he felt less sympathy from day to day.^ Another prominent figure of the German revival was Ulrich von Hutten. He was so much younger than Eeuchlin and Erasmus, and played so large a part in the early years of the Reformation, as to relieve me now from the necessity of doing more than endeavouring to bring his strange, yet on the whole attractive personality before the reader's eye. He was one of a numerous knightly family settled in mid Germany where Hesse and Franconia meet. Steckelberg, the castle where he was born in 1488, which, half a century earlier, had had an evil reputation as a robbers' nest, was not far from Eulda, the great Benedictine Abbey, which traced its origin back to Boniface. The Huttens were a tough and energetic race ; no fewer than thirty of them fought in Maximilian's armies ; others were high in the service of the Princes and Prelates who had divided Franconia among them. Ulrich's father, also Ulrich, had abandoned the predatory pursuits of his ancestors, but he was proud of his knightly independence, ready to take part in any blood feud, and full of contempt for the peaceful arts of life. Why he destined liis eldest son and namesake to the cloister we are not told ; possibly in pursuance of some vow, or because the boy was from the first of a sickly ^ The life of Erasmus still needs Drummond's Erasmus, his Life and careful critical examination. But I may Character, and to F. Seebohni, The acknowledge my obligations to R. B. Oxford Reformers of 1498. ULRICH VON HUTTEN constitution. Whatever may have been the reason, Ilutten was sent in his eleventh year to Fulda, first to be educated, and then to be received into the house, one of the oldest and greatest in Germany. Here he remained till 1505, when, able to bear the restraint no longer and aided by his friend Crotus Eubianus, then studying at Erfurt, he made his escape. He had taken no vows, and his father, who seems to have had more than a common share of brutal obstinacy, let him go. The lad, only seventeen years old, was upon the world with no other provision than some knowledge of Latin, and a talent for making verses — and a very hard world he found it. In none of the German humanists was the passion for movement stronger than in Hutten. Something may be due to the fact that he never had a home ; but from this time till his death he is a wanderer — misery, as is her wont, making him acquainted with strange bedfellows. With what funds he began his university life, and why he and Crotus chose re- actionary Koln as their place of study, we cannot tell ; but they did not remain there long : in the summer of 1506 they are at Erfurt ; in the winter of the same year Hutten seeks the University of Frankfurt on the Oder, then newly founded. Here he seems to have taken the degree of Bachelor, but neither now nor in his subsequent legal studies in Italy did he proceed farther on the academic path. Some, at least, of the younger humanists despised the distinctions which the universities had to offer, but which were to be earned only by the old methods, against which their whole lives were a pro- test ; and all the spirit of the newer humanism was embodied in Hutten. In the winter session of 1507-1508 we find his name on the register of the University of Leipzig ; then, in the late summer of 1509, he appears on the inhospitable shores of the Baltic, first at Greifswald, then at Eostock, ragged, without resources, completely broken down in health. Wliether he had already contracted the terrible and shameful disease which clung to him through life, and has infected his memory, it is difficult to say : nothing can be more pitiful than the account which he gives of his own misery. Yet there is a wonderful spring of recovery in him : a little rest, a THE. JRENAISSANCE IN GERMANY little kindness bring him out of the depths : in some strange way he acquires a marvellous mastery of Latin, and pours forth verses which win him reputation and friends. He is still only twenty-one : surely the possibility of greatness is yet before him. From Eostock he went to Wittenberg ; next to Vienna, and in the spring of 1512 to Italy. Then came what might have been the chance of liis life. Eeturning homewards in 1513, he fell under the notice of an old family friend who had in vain interposed some years before at the crisis of his fate at Fvilda, Eitelwolf von Stein. He was a fine specimen of the enlightened statesman, who loved literature and honoured men of letters. It was at his instigation that Joachim I., Margrave of Brandenburg, had founded the Uni- versity of Frankfurt on the Oder in 1506. Wlien in March 1514, Albert of Brandenburg, already Archbishop of Magde- burg and Administrator of Halberstadt, was chosen Elector Archbishop of Mainz, he brought Eitelwolf von Stein with him as his minister. Men began to entertain the highest hopes for literature in the PJiineland. Frankfurt on the Oder had been a disappointment : founded in the interests of the new learning, the reaction had early taken possession of it. But the University of Mainz, established by a former arch- bishop, Diether von Isenburg, was to make up for all. It was Eitelwolfs desire to attract thither the best scholars of the time ; and the electoral court, presided over by a young and splendid archbishop, was to become the centre point of German culture. For a little while Hutten shared this bril- liant dream : work was already found for him, and a permanent place promised, when a single day brought him — as he was trying to repair his shattered health at Ems — the double news, that Eitelwolf was dead, and that his cousin Hans von Hutten had been foully murdered by Duke Ulrich of Wlirtemberg. The story of this crime, romantic as it is, cannot be told here. The whole clan of Huttens cried for vengeance, and Ulrich was their mouthpiece in elegy, oration, dialogue. He went back to Italy in 1515, and was still there when the struggle between Eeuchlin and the theologians of Koln reached its crisis in the Ujnstolae Obscurorum Virorum. He is not YOUNG GERMANY 103 thirty : still a wanderer, and to be so for the few years tliat are left him. He has not achieved much, though in many ways he has shown what metal he is made of; and Lucian, whom he has learned to know in Italy, has taught him the art of brilliant and incisive dialogue. His travels have brought him into contact with most learned men on either side the Alps ; he has conversed with Eeuchlin and Erasmus ; he has some little acquaintance with courts, and the ways of the great. Eome, as it was in the pontificate of Julius II and Leo X, he has seen with his own eyes ; and in Latin epigrams, which the sight could not but provoke from a man of mocking wit and ready pen, he has begun the war which he was after- wards to wage with such savage earnestness. There is some- thing of the Ishmael about him ; he will strike in any direction, so the passion moves him ; and till he is fired by enthusiasm for Luther — and even that is more than half political — he is not swayed by deep or lasting moral impulse. But he believes in the new learning with all his heart, and, like most of his fellow-humanists, he is a passionate patriot. And there is such an inexhaustible spring of vitality in him, that, sickly, the butt of fortune, experienced in misery, he is yet able to exclaim, " Learning tlourislies, men's minds awaken, in such an age it is a delight to live." ^ So great an intellectual innovation as that which I have described could not be made without exciting much opposition and raising many controversies. The old scholasticism, though growing stiff and obsolete, and not illustrated by any teacher of original power, held firm possession of the universities, where it still dictated the method of instruction and prescribed the way to honour. It had the Church, and particularly the aU-powerful mendicant orders, at its back — in a word, aU the forces of intellectual and religious conservatism. Against this must be reckoned the young mental life of the nation, which all ^ Ranke, vol. i. p. 218. — For Hiitten Eduardus Booking, 5 vols., Leipzig, see D. F. Strauss, Ulrich von Hnttr.n, 1859-1861, is a magnificent specimen 2d ed. Hutten has been exceptionally of both German editorship and Ger- fortunate : Strauss's biograpliy is all man typography. Two sujtplementary that such a work ought to be, and he volumes (1864-1869), to which I shall has found an editor in Ed. Biicking have occasion to refer presently, contain who leaves nothing to be desired, ih^ Ejiistolac Ohsmroruvi Virorum,vii\.h. Ulrichi Hutteni, cqiiUis Gcrmani, Opera a large mass of illustrative literature. quae reperiri potuerant omnia. Edidit ro4 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. poured itself into the fresh moulds. There was an enthusiasm for the new learning to which the advocates of the old could show nothing similar. Almost everywhere the battle raged more or less fiercely. Many of the older humanists were devout sons of the Church and never ceased to be her defenders ; what suspicion of heresy they fell into was unwittingly incurred. Others went on their way, careless of ecclesiastical approval or censure, and when struck were prompt to strike again. Every uni- versity had its humanists, by friends and enemies alike called " poets," who, believing in literary culture, mocked at both the via Thomae and the via Scoti, and strove to substitute the classics for the schoolmen. They were denounced as teachers who desired to corrupt the purity of youth by the study of obscene pagan poets ; .as heretics who denied the all-sufficient authority of the Church ; and, on the other hand, retorted upon their monkish adversaries with the charge of purblind obscur- antism, of ludicrous ignorance of even their own books, of bad logic and worse Latin. Gradually the two parties of the old and the new learning separated themselves, and took up hostile posi- tions : it was well known to which of the two any distinguished churchman or scholar belonged, and it seemed as if each were only waiting for the signal to engage in pitched battle. There was a preliminary skirmish in 1505 and the succeeding years. Jacob Wimpheling, who always prided himself on the soundness of his orthodoxy, published in 1505 a little book of moral theology, De Integritate, in which, in strict conformity with historical fact, he asserted that St. Augustine was no monk, and knew nothing of the rule which went by his name. Nothing could be more irritating to the Augustinians ; they rushed into the fray, supported by their fellow-mendicants, the Dominicans and the Franciscans ; even the Benedictines took the same side. "Wimpheling, in a second pamphlet, defended his first assertion ; but his opponents, perhaps feeling that they were stronger in authority than in argument, soon appealed to the Pope, and the case was cited to Eome. It does not seem ever to have come to formal trial: in 1514 Leo X, with whom the Emperor Maximilian had used his good offices, pronounced in favour of the old scholar, and imposed silence on his assailants. But by this time the main battle between humanists and PFEFFERKORN AND REUCHLIN [05 niouks was ragiug, and in the dust that was raised about Eeuchlin, Wimpheling was lost to sight.^ In the autumn of 1509 Eeuchlin, a man of fifty-five, was living in Stuttgart. He >liad resigned his judicial offices, and in- tended to pass the rest of his days in literary repose. To him came on a strange errand John Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew, who seems to have felt in no common degree the rage against his former associates which sometimes takes possession of a rene- gade. Pfefferkorn, full of the idea that the only way to con- vert Jews into Christians was to deprive them of their books, had sought out the Emperor Maximilian, then busy in Italy with his war against Venice, and had obtained from him a mandate, dated from headquarters at Padua, requiring all the Jews of the Empire to deliver up such of their books as were in any way directed against the Christian religion. Of their noxious character Pfefferkorn himself was to be the judge, and now came to the greatest Christian Hebraist of the age to assist him in his crusade against his people's literature. All the evidence seems to show that he was an ignorant fanatic, who did not know what he was doing ; but he may have been misled by the fact that Pteuchlin was the official legal adviser of the Dominican order in Germany, w;hicli, there as elsewhere, exercised the powers of the Inquisition. Be this as it may, Eeuchlin put his visitor off by pointing out some technical errors in the mandate, which his legal knowledge had enabled him to detect, and probably hoped that he should hear no more of him. But Pfefferkorn's bigotry was of the persistent kind ; he went to Frankfurt, the seat of a numerous and wealthy Jewish colony, and actually procured the confiscation by the city council of many of their books. He had already achieved a similar success in several of the cities on the Ehine, when the Archbishop of Mainz interposed, not so much for want of sympathy for Pfefferkorn as because he resented his un- authorised activity in his diocese. But the unwearied man conferred with the Archbishop, made a fresh journey to the Emperor, and returned with a new mandate, requiring tlie Primate to call together certain learned theologians, and, with / their consent, to confirm the confiscation of the Jews' books. / ^ Schmidt, vol. i. pp. 49 d scq., 83. io6 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. This conference does not seem to have taken place ; on the contrary, the affair dragged itself along for some months, till in the summer of 1510 we find Eeuchlin, in obedience to a third Imperial command, preparing a report on the whole subject. He executed his task, as a scholar should, in entire independence of what he knew the Emperor and Primate alike wished of him. Jewish books he divided into seven classes, of which only one, that of works directly vituperative of Christianity, he condemned to be burned. All the rest he pronounced, on one ground or other, worthy of preservation. But he did more than this : he defended the right of the Jews to freedom of conscience, both as citizens of the Empire and as having undertaken no obligations to Christianity ; and he advocated no harsher method of conversion than the establish- ment' of professorships of Hebrew in the universities. Of other reports which were sent in at the same time from the universities of Mainz, Koln, Erfurt, and Heidelberg, the two first inclined to the side of Pfefferkorn, the two last to that of Eeuchlin, although, on the lofty ground of scientific toleration, the old Hebraist stood alone. The end was that Maximilian, to whom the reports were sent, announced in January 1511 his intention of conferring upon the matter with the Estates of the Empire. But, in fact, nothing was done ; the books of the Jews were returned to them, and so far as they were concerned, the muttering storm of persecution died away into silence. The question which was now to tlivide Germany into two hostile camps was not whether the Jews were to be allowed to read their books in peace, but whether Eeuchlin was a heretic, and could be made to pay the ^penalty of heresy. Pfefferkorn, to whom we cannot deny a certain savage sincerity of bigotry, must have been deeply disappointed with the result. In his rage he turned upon Eeuchlin, "holding the mirror up to nature," in a pamphletT^called ^cr Hcund- spicgd. To this Eeuchlin replied ^ in another, Dcr Angmspiegd. Mirror and SiKctades alike were written in the vulgar tonguer and both, as was the custom in those days, were much more vigorous than polished in their invective ; the pity was to see 1 Easter, 1511. Ill REU CHUN'S CASE AT ROME 107 one of the greatest scholars of the age descend into the arena of controversy, and there contend on equal terms with a wretched pretender to learning. But the debate might have prolonged itself without substantial harm 'Had. not the Dominicans of Koln, with the chief Inquisitor of Germany, Jacob Hoogstraten, at their head, intervened in the fray. They asserted their right, not only to examine the Augenspiegel, to ascertain if it contained heretical doctrine, but to bring its author in person to trial. The step was a bold one. It was a declaration of war by the old learning against the new. The first blow was struck against one whom all the younger scholars delighted toj honour, and it was proclaimed that the war was to be wage with the old and cruel weapons of persecution. It is not necessary for our present purpose to tell the story of the Eeuchlin case in all its details. First, the theologians of Koln, who had themselves condemned the Augenspiegel, submitted it to the judgment of other universities. Louvain, Mainz, even Erfurt, notwithstanding the efforts of Mutian and his friends, censured it, while Paris, the mother of univer- sities, urged by the personal authority of Louis XII, followed the example. Next, as soon as the theological faculty in Koln had spoken, Hoogstraten cited Eeuchlin before the tribunal of the Inquisition in Mainz. Again the Archbishop, in all likelihood secretly irritated by the presumption of the Dominicans, interposed, and Eeuchlin appealed to Eome. The third stage of the affair was, that Leo X referred the case to the Bishop of Speier, who, with the help of certain assessors, was to hear and decide it. But before the tribunal at Speier had given its decision, the theologians of Koln so far took matters into their own hands as in February 1514 to burn the Augenspiegel publicly, an impotent exhibition of spite, as it turned out, for in a few weeks more, Eeuchlin was formally acquitted (29th March 1514), and his persecutor condemned in costs. It was now Hoogstraten's turn to appeal, and he went to Eome confident in a full purse and- the support of the mendicant orders. That influence, before which even the Tope bent, was sufficient to prevent Eeuchlin's acquittal, but it could not procure his condemnation. Leo, whose love for learning was much more sincere than his zeal for orthodoxy, io8 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY chap. looked with an eye of kindness upon the persecuted scholar.^ Maximilian, who at first had done all that Pfefferkorn asked of him, now, with characteristic instability, took the other side. He was supported by electors, princes, bishops, abbots, and no fewer than fifty-three cities of Swabia, who bore witness both to the soundness of Eeuchlin's doctrine and the purity of his life. On the other hand, his grandson, soon to be Charles V — also true to himself — lent his influence to the cause of Hoogstraten. In July 1516 a theological commission, which had been appointed to examine the case, reported in Eeuch- lin's favour, and the two cardinals who officiated as judges might have been expected to confirm the decision, when the Pope stopped the case by a mandatum cle super sedendo, imposing silence on both parties. He would not condemn Eeuchlin ; he dared not incur the open enmity of the fr^4rs. It is at this point that the general interest of the controversy ceases, but a few words more will bring us to the end of the suit, which may then be dismissed from our story. The theologians of Koln were still carrying on the war in books and pamphlets, when Pranz von Sickingen, in his character of a general reformer of abuses, took up Eeuchlin's case, probably at the instigation of Ulrich von Hutten. He addressed a letter to Hoogstraten, requiring the Dominicans to write to Eome to announce their retirement from the case, to cease all persecu- tion of Eeuchlin, and to pay the costs in which they had been condemned at Speier. Should they fail to comply with these conditions, he signified his intention of ravaging the diocese of Koln with fire and sword. It was impossible to argue with a master of legions ; Sickingen's conditions were accepted, the costs paid, and Hoogstraten laid down his office of Inquisitor. But the Church always waits for her opportunity, and never fails to seize it. Within a few months a favourable occasion presented itself. The letter to Eome was declared to have been written under compulsion. Leo X, who by this time had been enlightened by events at Wittenberg, issued, in June 1520, 1 Franciscus Poggiiis Florentinus habere potui. Homini fit injuria. Cui nuper ad Summuni Pontiflcem oravit : Pontifex post multa respondit : Noli Pater Sancte, Ego sumam iiiihi parteis curare, Poggi, nou feremus ut quicquam Reuchlini et volo stare loco ipsius. malipatiaturhicvir. PaulGeraeanderto Legi suas lucubrationes omneis quas ^&Txc\i\va.:IllustrmmVirorumEpistolae. Ill '' EPISTOLAE OBSCURORUM VIRORUIiP' 109 a brief, quashing the judgment given at Speier: Eeuchlin was con- demned, and Hoogstraten restored to his functions and dignities.-^ The progress of this contest was watched with the liveliest interest by the humanists of Germany on the one side, by the monkish theologians on the other. It was felt to be decisive as between the old learning and the new. The object of the Dominican attack was an old and famous scholar, of orthodoxy hitherto unimpeached, second only to Erasmus in width of reputation, and superior even to him in being master of three languages. If Eeuchlin could be silenced and put to shame by the Inquisition, what hope for meaner men ? The trial was the subject of constant conversation and correspondence among the humanists, and every stage of it was eagerly discussed. Wherever letters were a matter of interest, two parties were formed ; Eeuchlinist was synonymous with Poet ; " Salve Eeuchlinista " was a common form of salutation among the friends of learning. Presently the idea suggested itself that some public expression of opinion might assist the persecuted scholar, and in 1514 a collection of letters addressed to him by various distinguished men was published, Clarorum Virorum Epistolac ad Joanncin ReuMin? This gave rise in the subse- quent year to one of the most successful pasquinades recorded in literary history, the Ej)istolae Ohscurormn Virorum} If Eeuchlin had been addressed by his friends, why not his ^ For the stor}' of the Reuchlin suit venies mox seqiienti." This list, which see Geiger, p. 205 ct seq.; Strauss, U. v. contains forty-three names, is headed by Eutten, p. 141 ct scq. Most of the " D. Erasmus Roterodamus, vir seculi documents in the case are printed nostri doctissimus, qui Capnionem suis either by Hermann von der Hardt, divinis operibus undique purgat ac de- Historia Literaria Reformationis, pt. fendit." Curiously the only English ii., or in the supplementary volumes of name is that of Bishop Fisher, " Rev- Bbcking's edition of Hiitten's works. erend. D.N. Joannes Episcopus Rotten- - The full title of the book is: "Clar- sis." The letter of Joh. Cochlearilig- orum Virorum Epistolae, Latinae, Grse- neus {Ej). Ohsc. Vir. pt. ii. No. 59) cae, et Hebraicae, variis temporibus mis- contains a burlesque list of the .same sae ad Joannem Reuchlin Phorcensem, kind, as does also the Carmen rithvii- LL.Doctorem." Tubingen, March 1514. cede Magistri Philijijn Schlauraff (pt. In May 1519 a second edition was ii. No. 9). Their opponents are, in printed at Hagenau, entitled " lUus- modern German literature, the"Dun- trium Virorum Epistolae, Hebraicae, kelmanner," the "Finsterlinge,"eachof Grsecae, et Latinae, ad Joannem Reuch- which terms is rather a play upon the lin Phorcensem, TOum nostra aetate doc- word "obscuri" than atranslation of it. tissimum, diversis temporibus missae, ^ The full title of the first edition of quibus jampridem additus est liber thefirst part is: "Epistolae Obscurorum secundus, nunquam antea editus. Virorum ad vencrabilem virum Magis- Reuchlinistarum exercitum pagina in- trum Ortuiuum Gratium Daventrieu- THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY opponents by theirs ? It was felt, however, that it would hardly be prudent to choose Hoogstraten as the recipient of these letters ; inquisitors, however stupid and ignorant, are dangerous people to laugh at. The selected butt, therefore, was Ortuinus Gratius, professor of polite literature at Koln, who had been a pupil of Alexander Hegius at Deventer, and was supposed by his friends to be as good a poet as any of the profane ones. To him, therefore, were addressed the forty-one letters of a little volume, which appeared in the autumn of 1515. The writers, who bear feigned and grotesque names, and who write the choicest bad Latin (yet, it must be supposed, not much worse Latin than the monks themselves), address to Ortuinus, from all parts of Germany, the most ridiculous questions, ask for news of the Eeuchlin prosecution, complain of the treatment which they receive from the poets, are made to display, as if unconsciously, both an astounding ignorance and a revolting coarseness of life and conversation. The squib was a success ; a second and a third edition were published in 1 5 1 6, to the last of which an appendix of seven fresh letters was added ; while in 1517 a second part, containing sixty-two more letters (afterwards again enlarged by eight), completed the work. By this time Keuchliu's trial at Eome was in a state of suspended animation, and the effect of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum was to summon the theologians of Koln before a new tribunal, which unanimously condemned them. All Germany, except the monks and their friends, laughed and applauded ; nor did it lessen the laughter and applause when in ]\Iarch 1517 Leo forbad all good Christians to possess or read the book, on pain of excommunication.^ The Ujnstolac Obscurorum Virorum is one of the few satires that has not lost its salt by lapse of time. It is indeed quite untranslatable ; much of its peculiar humour depends upon the vileness of the Latin in which it is clothed. But it is so sem, Coloniae Agrippinae bonas literas ^ A copy of this brief was incor- docentem : variis et locis et temporibus porated with the Lamentationes Ohscur- missae, ac demum in volumen coactae." orum Virorum, in which Ortuinus It bore on the colophon the imprint of Gratius ineffectually endeavoured to Aldus Manutius at Venice, " annoque borrow his opponents' weapons of supra." Koln, Hagenau, and Mainz satire. It will be found in the supple- have all been mentioned as the place ment to Bocking's edition of Hutten's where the book was really printed. works, vol. i. p. 335, WHO WROTE THE EPISTLES? complete and consistent a presentation of the intellectual con- dition of a period and a class, the characters are made to reveal themselves with so charming an unconsciousness, the incidents, if often coarse, are so genuinely amusing as to make it still a laughter-moving book. How far, taking the necessary exaggerations of satire into account, is it a fair picture ? It cannot have been grossly unfair, if we may believe Erasnms and More, that monks both in Brabant and in England took the book seriously as a genuine tribute of respect to Ortuinus, and a blow on the right side, and were only undeceived by the universal laughter.^ Its Latinity answers to what we know of the state of scholarship before the revival of learning, while its accusations against monkish morality only add another note to the accordant testimony of all literature from the thirteenth century downwards. But in truth no vigorous counter-plea was ever urged. The cause was suffered to go by default. The Koln theologians were angry enough ; so angry that they even attempted to fight their adversaries with their own weapons. But their shafts of satire were both weak and aimless, and they found Papal censures their best resource. The controversy, such as it was, soon died away in the noise of the more serious collision between Luther and the Papacy. Who was the author of these letters ? General surmise soon fixed upon Ulrich von Hutten and his friend Johann Jiiger, better known as Crotus Eubianus, one of the Erfurt humanists who owned Mutian as their chief. And with certain modifica- tions, recent research has come to the same conclusion. Hutten, however, was in Italy when the Upistolae were published : and in August and September 1516 wrote two letters^ to the English scholar, Ptichard Crocus, then in Leipzig, which have been taken to prove, on the one hand, that he had no share in the authorship of the book, on the other that he was guilty of a deliberate attempt to conceal the fact that he had. In the first he says that he has heard that the Letters have been published in Germany ; in the second, a few days later in date, he mentions that he has now received a copy, and hears that he is suspected of having written them. But in neither ^ Erasmi 0pp. vol. iii. : Ep. - Hutteni 0pp. ed. Bocking, vol. i. dcccclxxix. p. 1110 c. Appendix : Ep. pp. 124, 125. Ixxx vii. p. 1575 a. THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY of them is there anything inconsistent with the supposition that he knew of the book beforehand, and had been admitted to the secret councils of its authors. But whether he had to do with the first part of the Letters or not, there can be no doubt of the presence of his hand in the second. Many of them are dated from Eome, and show a minute acquaintance with details of life in the Holy City, which could belong only to a resident. We hear of him as reading similar letters to his friends at Bologna, while, in a letter to Erasmus in July 1517, he distinctly identifies himself with those upon whom the Papal Brief inflicted the penalty of excommunication.^ To Crotus, however, as the original conceiver of the plan of the Letters and probably their editor, many converging lines of evidence point. Long afterwards, in 1532, when he had taken refuge in the ancient Church, he was made the object of a violent attack by an anonymous writer, once supposed to be Justus Jonas, but now more probably identified with Justus Menius, both of whom were zealous Lutherans, and both students at Erfurt. In this document^ the fact that Crotus was the chief author of the Einstolac Ohscurorum Virorum, and that Hutten was his coadjutor, is spoken of as universally known ; and Crotus is even reminded of the way in which he had been wont to go about, making notes on his tablets of any- thing that might serve his purpose. Further than this into the question of authorship it is not necessary to go. Eoban Hess, Petrejus, and possibly some other of the Erfurt humanists may have had a share in the book, but no one can now say what, or how great. Its spirit is that of Crotus, a humorist, who, if he had a serious purpose underneath his laughter, loved the laughter itself better. Had Hutten inspired it, the satire would have had a sharper edge, a more definite moral. The creator of the Ohscure Men loves his puppets while he smiles at their antic ways ; no seriousness, as from a dissolving world, broods over him, and he changes sides at last, in all likelihood, conscious of no broken allegiance. The Letters of the Ohscure 3Ien were not the only literary ^ Tuiim Huttenum amare ne desine, quid enim tumidius, quid imbecillius ? rumpantur ut ilia obscuris viris, qui Huttcni Opj). ed. Bocking, vol. i. p. 147. jam, qua nos excommunicamur, ingen- - Huttcni Opp. ed. Bbckiiig, vol. ii. teiQ circumferunt buUam, bene buUam, p. 456. ERASMUS AND THE EPISTLES "3 form taken by the joy of the German humanists in the victory which they had won. In 1517 Pirckheimer prefixed to his translation of Lucian's dialogue, TJie Fisherman, an Apologia •pro Bcuchlino ; while Hutten wrote a TriumpJms Capnionis,^ a poem of more than a tliousand hexameters, which he published under a feigned name in 1518. Erasmus joined in the fray after his own fashion. As undisputed head of the religious^' humanists it is his business to take sides with Eeuchlin, and he is not wanting. He acts, it is true, in an independent way ; he does not march in line with the army of the Eeuchlinists ; as one of the " obscure men " says, " Erasmus est homo pro se."^ The two men met at Frankfurt in April 1514: Erasmus was on his way to Basel, Eeuchlin had just left Speier, where judgment had been given in his favour. The elder scholar placed in the hands of the younger a brief statement of his case, with a request that he would bring it under the notice of the English humanists ; the result being expressions of hearty sympathy on the part of both Fisher and More.^ But Erasmus did much more than this. We find liim writing, within a few weeks, to Leo X, to Cardinal Grimanus, to Cardinal Eaphael of St. George, pleading the cause of his friend, in the warmest terms."* But with the publication of the Epistolac Ohscuroruiii Viroriun a change comes over him. At first he is said to have enjoyed them like other people ; two of them, one ascribed to Crotus, another to Hutten, he was reported to have committed to memory, and often recited upon festive occasions.^ But pre- sently he began to think them too personal ; they might get him into trouble with great men with whom he was anxious to stand well ; his own theological position was not altogether safe, and it was imprudent to provoke Inquisitors too far. In August 1517 he wrote a letter to Caesarius,^ which Pfeffer- ^ Hutlcni 0pp. ed. Biicking, vol. iii. etiam scribens ad Papain." Epp. Obsc. p. 413. Fir. pt. ii. Ep. 59. ^ Tunc quaesivi ab aliis an etiam ^ Erasmi 0pp. vol. iii. p. 1524 : Erasmus Roterodamus esset cum eis. App. Ep. v. Respondit mihi quidam Kaufmannus * Erasmi 0pp. vol. iii. pp. 141, dicens: ' Erasmus est homo pro se. Sod 144, 149: Epp. cxyL\ii. clxviii. cl.vxiv. certum est quod nunquam erit amicus ^ Justus Menius ? Hutteni 0pp. ed. illonim theologorum et fratrum, et quod Blickiug, vol. ii. p. 460. ipse mauifeste in dictis et scriptis suis •* Erasmi 0pp. vol. iii. App. p. defendit et excusat Johanuem Reuchlin, 1622: ^^;. clx. I 114 THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY korn and his friends did not fail to publish, complaining of the introduction of his own name into the second part of the Letters, and finding fault with the personal character of their satire. He himself, he said, had lashed folly ; but he had never touched any man's reputation. Again in 1519 he attempted to mediate with Hoogstraten,-", writing him a letter, which, while it breathed the spirit of Christian moderation, did nothing to conciliate the Inquisitor, and drew down on himself the remonstrances of the humanists.^ By this time Luther has appeared upon the scene, and Erasmus, too keen-sighted not to see the connection between Eeuchlin's case and his own, re- doubles his caution, " What have I to do," he asks again and again, in various phrase, " with the cause of Eeuchlin and of Luther?" He hardly knows Eeuchlin; he says he has only seen him once or twice. The Cabbala and the Talmud are things he does not care about.^ To the Pope and Cardinals he assumes an apologetic tone ; he is anxious to separate himself from audacious innovators and reckless reformers. Yet this cowardly and selfish mood passed away in its turn, and in the third edition of his Colloquies, published in 1522, was found a dialogue called the Apotheosis of Beuchlin. The great Hebrew scholar was dead, and this was the elegant and touching tribute which Erasmus laid upon his grave.* > Whether any result of reform, or what, would have followed upon this collision between the Eenaissance and the Papacy it is impossible now to say. Luther intervened, and gave the current of the times a new direction. Many of the Erfurt humanists threw in their lot with him ; Hutten was, for the ^ Erasmi Ojip. vol. iii. p. 484 : Ep. * It is entitled " De incomparabili cccclii. heroe Job. Reuclilin in divorum nu- " Hutteni cum Erasmo expostulatio, merum relate." A Franciscan monk 0pp. vol. ii. p. 192. sees in a vision Reuclilin conducted 3 Primum illud praefandum est, mihi into heaven, under the especial escort of neque cum Reuchlini negotio, neque St. Jerome. The interlocutors in the cum Lutheri causa quicquam unquam dialogue expi'ess their intention of count- ! fuisse. Cabbala et Thalmud, quicquid ing him among the saints, and the whole hocest, meoanimonunquamarrisit. . . . winds up with a collect in his honour. Primum enim, quid rei bonis studiis " Amator humani generis Deus, qui I cum fidei negotio ? deinde, quid mihi donum linguarum, quo quondam Apos- i cum causa Capnionis ac Lutheri ? Ep. tolos tuos ad Evangelii praedicationem cccclxxvii., to the Archbishop of per Spiritum tuum Sanctum coelitus Mainz : 0pp. vol. iii. pp. 514 A, 516 F. instruxeras, per electum famulum tuum Conf. Ep. cccxvii., to Wolsey, vol. Job. Reuchlinemmundoreuovasti,"etc. iii. p. 322 B, F. Erasmi 0pp. vol. i. p. 692. Ill RE FORM A TION NO T RENAISSANCE ! 115 brief remuant of his life, his hot partisan ; Melauchthoii, tlie most ilkistrious of the rising scholars of Germany, became his friend and helper. But Eeuchlin, Erasmus, Mutian, Crotus, all died in the ancient communion, having lived long enough to learn what the new Church had to offer them, and to reject it. The dividing line of the age in Germany was no longer between Monks and Humanists, but between Papalists and Eeformers. CHAPTEE IV Luther's life peior to his revolt from rome Martin Luther was born at Eisleben on the lOtli of November 1483.1 His father was Hans Luther; his mother Margarette, whose maiden name was Ziegler,^ came of an okl and honour- able family, residing in the neighbourhood of Eisenach. The child was born between ten and eleven o'clock at night, and was baptized on the lltli of November in the Church of St. Peter at Eisleben, receiving the name of the saint of the day, Martin. ^ There is a dispute, incapable of precise settlement, as to the year of Luther's birth. Such chronological indications as have, with great care, been collected from his works, point in some cases to 1483, in some to 1484, in some may be interpreted either way. It looks as if Luther himself, and Melanchthon with him ("anno puto esse 1484": Corix Ref. vol. iv. p. 1053), had been for some time uncertain upon the point, though they finally settled down upon 1483. Melanchthon in his Historia de vita Lutheri thus gives the testimony of Luther's family. He is speaking of his mother : ' ' Haec mihi aliquoties interroganti de tempore, quo filius natus est, respondit, diem et horam se certo meminisse, sed de anno dubitare. Adfirmabat autem natum esse die decimo Novembris, nocte post horam undecimam, ac uomen Martini attributum infanti, quod dies proximus, quo infans per baptismum Ecclesiae Dei insertus est, Martino dicatus fuisset. Sed frater ejus Jacobus, vir honestus et integer, opinionem familiae de aetate fratris banc fuisse dicebat, natum esse anno a natali Christi 1483 " {Corp. Rcf. vol. vi. p. 156). There were, however, astrological reasons, which might induce either friend or foe to substitute 1484 for 1483, and which probably weighed with Melanchthon in the opinion above quoted. Oonf. Kostlin, Studicn u. Kritiken, 1873, p. 135 etscq.; Seidemann, ibid. 1874, p. 309 et seq.; Kostlin, ibid. 1874, p. B15 et seq. - U]) to a quite recent period it was supposed that the maiden name of Luther's mother was Lindemann. So the modern biographers, Jiirgens, Meurer, Kostlin (1st ed.) But Knaake (St. u. Kr. 1881, p. 684 ct seq.) seems to have established that her name was Ziegler, and Kostlin (3d ed.) has accepted his conclusions. The error^ seems to have arisen out of a confusion ' with Luther's grandmother, on the father's side, whose name was Margar- ette Lindemann. CHAP. IV LUTHER'S ANCESTORS 117 Hans Luther was a native of Mohra, a village which lies south of Eisenach, about half-way to Schmalkalden, and not far from Salzungen. Here the Luthers occupied and still occupy a respectable station, as peasants, tilling their own land. The Eeformer's testimony to the condition of his ancestors is explicit. " I am a peasant's son ; my father, grandfather, fore- fathers, have been right peasants." ^ Attempts have been made to affiliate the Luthers of ]\Iohra upon a noble family of the same or a similar name, which had been long settled in the neighbourhood of Fulda. There is, however, no evidence to support the affiliation, except the name itself, not, in its various forms, an uncommon one, and some alleged resemblance of armorial bearings, which does not stand the test of strict examination. Another tradition, less intrinsically improbable, though not supported by adequate evidence, connects the Luthers of Mohra with one Fabian Luther von der Heede (Heide) who in 1413 was ennobled, with a grant of arms, by the Emperor Sigismund. But it is difficult to see how, in the comparatively short period of fifty years, his alleged descendants at Mohra should have forgotten their nobility, and settled down into the condition of peasants. It is at once safest, and most in accord with the probabilities of the case, to abide by the Eeformer's own statement.- The Luthers still remain in Mohra, ^ T. T. ( Tischreden, ed. Forstemann) origin to the family pride of those who vol. iv. p. 578 ; Coll. (Colloquia, ed. wished to be considered his descendants. Bindseil) vol. ii. p. 153. Conf. vol. A white rose is said to have formed part iii. p. 177. of the shield ; while there is no doubt - Vide GescMchtliche Notizen iibcr that Lutlier adopted as his device a Martin Luthers Vorfahren, von K. white field-rose in full bloom, with a Luther. He makes Fabian one of the heart in the midst of it, and on the old Luthers of Fulda, and represents heart a cross (see his description of this his coat of arms, not as having been device in a letter to L. Spengler, De granted for the first time, but only W. vol. iv. p. 80). It is engraved improved and augmented. Conf. more than once by Juncker, Das Gul- Kostlin, St. u. Kr. 1871, p. 15. dene u. Silhcrne EhrengcddcMniss D. Melanchthon's phrase (Corp. Ref. vol. Martini Lutheri, pp. 223, 230_, 552, who vi. p. 156) is "vetus familia et late adds the legend, " Des Christen Herz propagata mediocrium hominum." As auf Rosen gelit, Wenn's mitten unter to the armorial bearings the allegation dem Kreutzsteht." It will also be found is that Jacob Luther, the Reformer's on the frontispiece of J. A. Fabricius's brother, used the coat of arms granted Ccntifolium Luthcranum. That tliis by the Emperor Sigismund to Fabian, device was adopted by Luther as early and that Martin Luther's children after- as 1520 appears from the fact that it wards adopted it. These are facts forms part of the illuminated page with which it must be left to heralds to which, according to custom, Crotus investigate. It is at least possible that Rubianus began the record of his the Fabian-Luther coat of arms owes its Rectorship of Erfurt University in the 1 1 8 L UTHER 'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS RE VOL T chap. where it is said that the type of countenance which the art of Cranach has made familiar to all newer time is yet to be seen. In 1536, according to a tax register of Salzungen, there were five Luther families in the village, all belonging to the class of yeomen, and living on well -stocked farms. The same number appear in 1862 ; before 1880 two seem to have died out.^ This tenacity of local and family life speaks well for the race. They were able to hold their own ; and if the rural archives are to be trusted, did not always wait for the inter- vention of the law to seize it." The name was variously spelled — Luder, Liider, Ludher, Luther, and Luthar. In the register of the University of Erfurt we find two forms, Martinus Ludher and Martinus Luder. At Wittenberg the Eeformer was matriculated as Martinus Liider. In the list of the Deans of the Faculty of Theology in the same University his name is given indifferently as Luder and Liider. It is not till the summer session of 1517 that the form Luther makes its appearance. On the other hand, the earliest letter of Luther's which has come down to us, that addressed to John Braun, on the 2 2d April 1507, is signed " Frater Martinus Lutherus," though in 1516 and 1517 the form Luder occurs again. The Eeformer was not consistent in the explanations which he gave of the origin of his name. Sometimes he derived it from Lothair (Chlothar), more frequently from " Lauter." The meaning he put upon the word may be gathered from the fact that when his old friend and physician Eatzeberger wished him to stand godfather to his daughter he Michaelmas of that year. His own Fabian Luther's was Heintz, of whom a device, a hand holding a horn (his name characteristic story is told. He was was Jager), appears in the centre of the commandant of the fortress of Ziegen- page, and is surrounded by the arms of hain in Hesse. ' ' ^Yllen the Imperial the leaders of this revolt. The date is troops had taken the Landgrave significant ; in 1520 the Reformers and prisoner, they came before the fortress the humanists had not parted company, with the threat that unless Heintz and the devices at each corner of the Luther would give it up, they would page are those of Luther, Erasmus, bring the captive Landgrave and hang Reuchlin, and Mutian. This very him before his eyes. Whereupon he interesting page is engraved by Weis- answered, ' If the Landgrave is yours, s&nhovn, Aden der Erf iLrter Universitdt, this fortress is mine; do with him as pt. ii. p. 316. you will ; I shall do with it as I will.' " ^ Kostlin, St. u. Kr. 1871, p. 18 ; Plainly a man not unworthy to be an Kostlin, M. Luther, vol. i. p. 20. ancestor of j\Iartin Luther. K. Luther, ^ Vide Mohra, cler Stammort Dr. 3L Notizen, p. 27. Luthers v. J. C. Ortmann. A son of HIS BIRTHPLACE 119 called her Clara, " because," he said, " ' Laitter ' and ' Klar ' are cousins." Sometimes he signed himself " IMartinus Eleutherius," with an evident allusion to iXevdepo^, and at least once, in an access of humility, " M. Luther, Christi lutum." The last two signatures are evident playing upon words : the Eeformer's other utterances may be taken as sober, if not very certain et}Tiiologies.^ But how came Martin Luther to be born in Eisleben ? The old story was that Margaret Luther had gone there to attend a fair, and had been suddenly taken in labour. But against this two considerations are decisive: first, that Eisleben is fourteen German miles from Mohra, and next that there is no trace of any fair that was wont to be held there on or about the 10th of November. Another tradition is that Hans Luther had found it expedient to quit Mohra, to escape the consequences of a homicide, which he had half- in voluntarily committed. The story, in its earliest form, goes "^v back to 1537, when we find the first mention of it in the letters of George Witzel,- a well-known convert from Pro- f testantism, and a bitter enemy of Luther and the Eeformation. It was not till a much later period that it took root at Mohra, where the field in which the deed was committed is now shown to the curious. But the fact cannot be said to be vouched for by adequate evidence ; and it is easy to find a more probable cause for the migration. Not far from Mohra were deposits of copper ore, which had been worked from an early period. Hans Luther at JMansfeld was a miner, and so ^ Weissenborn, Aden, pt. ii. p. 219 ; many attempts have been made to get Forstemann, Album Academiae Vite- the number of the beast 666 out of iergensis, p. 28 ; Forstemann, Liber Be- Martin Luther. For some of them see canorum Facxdt. Theo. Acad. Vitebcrg. Ortmann, Mohra, p. 90. pp. 4, 12, 13, 20 ; De W. VoL i. pp. 3, - G. Wicelii, Epjx Lib. iv. 1537. 73, 75, 76, vol. iii. p. 222 ; Ortmann, " Sed si ita commodet caussae publicae, p. 77 ; Erh 0pp. JExeg. vol. x. p. 89 possim ego patrem Lutlicri tui homi- (Enarrationes in Genesin). "Meum cidam dicere." The book is not paged, cognomen proprium est Lyder; Saxonice but this passage occurs in a letter in Ludcr, id est Lauthcr. Adversarii the 4th book. It is entitled Contra Lotheret Luther fecerunt." Coll. vol. Ftircs alicnae Epistolac, ctcosdcm Crim- ii. p. 254. Luther was preceded at inatores alienae Famae, and was AVTitten Erfurt by a namesake Peter Luder, one from Eisleben in 1535, where Witzel of the earliest of the German humanists, at that time was preaching. May not He appears in the matriculation list of the story represent some local gossip Michaelmas 1460. Weissenborn, yide«, of a place where the Luthers must pt. i. p. 281 ; Kampschultc, Erfurt, have been well known ? Ortmann, vol. i. p. 31. It need not be said that p. 114. 1 20 L UTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS RE VOL T chap. probably the Luthers in Mohra too sought the liidden treasures of the earth, as well as tilled its surface. What more likely than that it should be necessary for one of the family to seek liis fortune at a distance, and that Hans Luther was attracted first to Eisleben and afterwards to Mansfeld by the mining industry which had recently received a great impulse in that neighbourhood ? ^ "We may conjecture from the shortness of his stay at Eisleben that the venture there was unsuccessful ; at Mansfeld, after a few years' hard work, he laid the founda- tions of a modest prosperity.^ The struggle was, however, for some tune, a very hard one. " My father," says Luther, " was a poor miner; my mother carried all her wood upon her back."^ Presently things mended, and Hans Luther became the proprietor of two furnaces, paying royalty for the one which he dug and smelted to the Counts of Mans- feld. The family was large ; besides Martin, the eldest, there were at least three sons and as many daughters. Two of the sons died of the plague before 1507;* the third, Jacob, and the husbands of the daughters we shall meet again. Both Hans Luther and his wife were persons of great strength and uprightness of character. Melanchthon says of the former " that for his integrity he was greatly beloved by all good men " ; of the latter, " that while there were in her the other virtues which become an honourable matron, yet in her .were especially conspicuous modesty, the fear of God, prayerfulness ; and other honourable women looked up to her as an example of virtue." ^ Luther himself always alludes to his parents in the most tender and respectful terms, acknowledging the deep ^ If Hans Luther were the eldest son, the funeral sermon for Luther preached this would be all the more likely. His at Eisleben, 20th February 1546, says son says (Erl. 0pp. Exeg. vol. xi. p. that his parents lived six mouths in 167, Enarrationcs in Gcnesin), "In that town before i-emoving to Mansfeld. mundo autem quando multi filii sunt, Walch, vol. xxi. p. 305. jure civili minimus natu haeres est ^ Coll. vol. iii. p. 160. domus paternae," and this law of in- * Tentz&l, Historischer BericM,Yo\.i. heritance certainly prevailed in some p. 147. parts of Saxony, Kostlin, St. u. Kr. ^ Corp. Ref. voL vi. p. 156. Spal- 1871, p. 29. Conf. Ortmann, p. 112 ; atin (apud Mencken: Scripitorcs rerum Ratzeberger, Handschriftlicht Gcsch- Germanicarum 'praedpue Saxonicarum, ichtc, p. 41. vol. ii. p. 611) was, in 1522, greatly ' Melanchthon {Corp. Ref. vol. vi. struck with the resemblance, both in p. 156) distinctly represents both bearing and feature, which Luther parents as living at Eisleben at the exhibited to his mother, time of the child's birth. Coelius, in PARENTAL DISCIPLINE obligation under which he lay to them. He adopted their names into his marriage service — " Hans, wilt du Grethe habeii ? " He wrote to Melanchthon on occasion of his father's deatli, " Therefore, in my sadness, I do not write now at length, because it is both right and pious that I, as a son, should lament such a parent, by whom the Father of Mercies begot me, and who, by his sweat, has nourished and formed me into what I am." ^ Presently Hans Luther made money, was personally known to the Counts of Mansfeld whose ore he worked ; and finally became a member of the City Council. ^^^len he died, his property, for the friendly division of which among his children a document in the Eeformer's own hand provided, was estimated at 1250 gulden.^ With all this, the rule in Hans Luther's house was a hard one. He and his wife firmly believed and acted upon the maxim, tliat to spare the rod was to spoil the child. Martin Luther cordially approved of this theory of education in after years, even though he may have found it a little harsh in its application to himself ; many passages in favour of a judicious parental severity may be quoted from his writings. At the same time it was his opinion that " the apple should be with the rod." On one occasion, he says, his father beat him so severely that it was long before they made friends again. On another, his mother was the executioner, and thrashed him till the blood flowed, all on account of a nut ; " so that," said he, "the severe and harsh life which I led with them was the reason that I afterwards took refuge in the cloister, and became a monk." " They meant it," he added, " heartily well, but they could not discern dispositions, according to which corrections should be tempered." Things were no better at school. There he was one day beaten fifteen times in a single morning. Such schools as that of which he himself had wretched experience he calls " prisons," " hells," " purgatories." The masters were tyrants and jailors, knowing only one method, that of brutal severity. The children were genuine ^ DeWette, vol. iv. p. 33. 1592. A gulden, according to Kostlin - Ratzeberger, p. 42 ; Erl. vol. xxvii. {M. L. vol. i. p. 26), was equivalent, p. 76: Erkldrung etlicher Artikel in in the first halfof the sixteenth century. seinemSermonv.d.heiligen Sacrament; to from fifteen to twenty marks of Corp. Ref. vol. vi. p. 156 ; Walch, vol. xxi. present German money. 1 22 L UTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS RE VOL T chap. /' martyrs." And, after all, little was learned. In one emphatic passage he speaks of the "hell and purgatory of schools where we were inwardly tortured with Casualibus d temporalibus, and yet with all the beating, trembling fear, and wretchedness, learned absolutely nothing." " Is it not a misery," he says in another place, " that a boy must study twenty years or more, for the sole purpose of learning as much bad Latin as will enable him to become a parson, and to read mass ? " One pleasant recollection of the Mansfeld schooldays alone survives. In 1544, two years before he died, Luther wrote, in a Bible belonging to his brother-in-law, Nicholas Oemler, these words, " To my good old friend, Nicholas Oemler, who, more than once, carried me, when a little child, in his arms to and from school, when neither of us knew that one brother-in-law was carrying another." ^ Of the school at Mansfeld we know very little. Mathesius calls it a " Latin " school, and says that Luther there learned " industriously and quickly his Ten Commandments, Child's Belief, Our Father, with Donatus's Child's Grammar, Cisio Janus, and Christian Hymns." ^ Almost all schools, in those days, were directly or indirectly under the control of the clergy. The masters were men who had taken minor orders, and were looking forward to rising in the Church. The revival of letters had yet hardly penetrated the Universities, and was far enough from touching the school of such an unimportant place as Mansfeld. The methods and objects of education were alike clerical. In the letter which, in 1524,^ Luther addressed "to the Councillors of aU German cities, that they should set up and maintain Christian schools," he complained that the decay of the monastic life was bringing with it a decay of education ; common people did not see the necessity of teaching children who were not to be priests, monks, and nuns. Against the learning of the Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Paternoster, and Christian Hymns, as the foundation of a religious training, there is nothing to be said ; but that the ^ T. T. vol. iv. pp. 76, 129, 130, class sie chnstUche Schulen aufrichtcn 542 ; Erl. 0pp. Execj. vol. viii. p. 198 U7id halten sollen) ; De W. vol. v. p. {Enarrationcs in Gencsin) ; Deutsche 709. Schriften, vol. xxii. pp. 191, 196 {An - Mathesius, p. 3 A. die Eathsherren aller Stddte, etc., ^ Erl. D. S. vol. xxii. p. 168 et seq. IV FIRST SCHOOL AND CHILDHOOD 123 secular education of a clever boy, up to the age of fourteen, should have ; been confined to Donatus and Cisio Janus, is very significant of the low ebb to which letters had fallen. Donatus was a Eoman grammarian of the fourth century, the teacher of Jerome, and the author of a Latin Grammar, which fixed itself firmly, and almost to the exclusion of any other in mediaeval use. Its vogue may be inferred from the fact that it was engraved on wooden blocks before the invention of printing, and was one of the first books to be committed to the press. At the same time it had gradually suffered mutilation and corruption, and when learned by rote, without any intelligent explanation, can hardly have been satisfying or stimulating food to a youthful mind. " Cisio Janus " was far worse. It was a " memoria technica " of the tenth or eleventh century, containing in barbarous verses an ecclesiastical calendar. The following are the two first Knes : — *' Cisio Janus Epy sibi vindicat ; Oc Fell Mar An Prisca Fab Ag Vincenti Pan Pol Car nobile hunen." Without expounding its precise method, it will be enough to say that Janus stands for January ; Cisio for the Feast of the Circumcision ; Epy for Epiphany, and so on. Stones for bread tliis, chaff thrice winnowed for grain ! ^ In the almost total absence of direct evidence it is difficult to reconstruct Luther's childhood. Yet the attempt must be made at least to describe the circumstances in which he lived, and which must have had a share in the formation of his character. Thuringia had been the scene of Boniface's labours, and had been won by him at once to Christianity and to civil- isation. Tradition declared that the Chapel at Mohra had, with many more, been founded by him. Well - endowed convents were plentiful in the land, and other ecclesiastical ^ Grafenhahii, GeschicMe dcr Kins- Luther's care in liis last days. Two sicken I'hilologic, vol. iv. p. 106 ; days before he died he concluded au Jiirgen's Luther's Lcbcn, vol. i. p. 172. agreement between the Counts of Mans- The schoolhouse at Mansfeld (at least feld which settled, among other disputed so far as its ground floor is concerned) matters, the constitution and endow- still exists, and in 1839 was permitted ment of the school. Dc W. vol. v. by Royal decree to call itself the i>. 792. Krumhaar, Lzdher's Vaterhaus " Luther's Schule." A more important in Mansfeld. matter is that it was the object of 124 L UTHER '5 LIFE PRIOR TO HIS RE VOL T chap. corporations were wealtliy and powerful. I have already pointed out that the last years of the fifteenth century were a period of great religious excitement in Germany, that new saints and new devotions came up, and that the disputes as to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin had the effect of enthroning her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anna, in the affections of the faithful. But these new saints, however heartily adopted, did not displace from popular esteem and affection older objects of reverence, such as St. Elizabeth of Marburg, who, besides being the very type of mediasval holi- ness, was of the race of native princes, and had a gracious humanity about her which drew all hearts. Still it would be a mistake to suppose that Thuringia was simply and happily orthodox. The Flagellants had swept in a storm of pious passion through the land. The doctrines of Wiclif and of Hus had worked below the surface of society. Of a sect, called the Brothers of the Cross, ninety-one were in 1414 burned at Sangerhausen.-^ On the other hand, there was an obstinate but half-unconscious adhesion to old Paganism, which lasted far into Christian times. In 1462 a Bishop of Halberstadt thought it necessary to issue an edict against the worship of " the good Lubbe," who, near Schochwitz, not far from Mans- feld, was honoured with oblations of the bones of animals. And Pastor Coelius in the funeral sermon for Luther, which he preached at Eisleben in 1546, alludes to the worship near Mansfeld of " the good Lutze," as well as of the " Weidenstock " — which the people called " Gedut." ^ Closely connected with this were other superstitions, some of which claimed a Christian origin. Every one knows how large a part good and bad angels played in Luther's life, and how, to the entire exclusion of the idea of natural law, he ascribed to their influence all human misfortunes and deliverances. But only readers of the TahU Talk can have any conception of the wild absurdity of the stories of demoniacal action and possession to which he gave unquestioning credence. This was a survival ^ Bensen, Gcschichte des Baucrn- vol. vi. pp. 1, 25. An enormous mass of kriegs in Ost Franken, p. 42. [Giese- animal bones was removed from the ler, iT. (r. vol. ii. pt. iii. p. 276 c/! sc^.] so-called Knockenberg, near Schocli- - Fiirstemann, N'ciie Mittheilungen, witz, early in the present century, vol. iii. pp. 1, 130 ; vol. v. pp. 2, 110 ; Walch, vol. xxi. p. 308. DEMONOLOGY from his childish years. He borrowed his demonology from the Catholic Church, and shared in the popular superstitions, which she nQtj)nly did not discourage but absolutely fostered. The mining people had strange faiths of their own, in which Luther had his part. " The devil," he said, " often deceives miners into the belief that they see a great mass of ore, where in reality there is notliing." ^ But more than this, Luther's childhood was a time at which the idea of witchcraft had suddenly gathered strength. It was in 1484, the year after he was born, that Innocent VIII issued a buU, which at once took the theory of witchcraft under Papal protection, and handed over the offence to be dealt with by the Inquisition ; and tliis was followed in 1487 by the publication of the famous Malleus Malejicarum, of which I have before spoken. Luther never emancipated himself from the opinions of his childhood in this matter ; nor did he escape the contagion of the universal madness. He teUs a story of the way in which his mother was plagued by a witch, and caps it with many more, in which he manifests a like unquestioning belief He even thought that he was bewitched himself." He had no pity for such offenders, his only remedy was the fire. It meant something that Luther, though the grandchild of a peasant, was brought up as a citizen's son. Mausfeld, under the protection of its Counts, whose castle overtopped the town, was one of the places in which men lived a quiet, self-controlled, ci\ic life. There was not indeed that full and varied play of political activity which is to be noted in such free cities as Augsburg and Niirnberg — prosperous communities, able to hold their own against powerful adversaries, and counting for something in the organisation of the Empire. But Mans- feld, too, had its Council, of which in time Hans Luther came to be a member ; its mining industry gave it a fair share of wealth ; it does not seem to have been vexed with private feud or public war. Its clergy did not pretend to obey the law of celibacy, but at the same time were not guilty of graver offences against the social order. It must be confessed, however, that an ordinance of the magistracy of Mansfeld is 1 T. T. vol. iii. p. 30. Vide the whole section xxiv. of the Table Talk " Vom Teufel und seiuen Werken." - T. T. vol. iii. pp. 96, 97. 126 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. extant wliich classes the " parsons' maids " with other " public common women," and enjoins upon them to wear their mantles on their heads in the street. A reminiscence of Luther's seems to show the existence of an almost puritanical discipline. " When I was a boy all games were forbidden, so that card-makers, pipers, and actors were not admitted to the sacrament, and those who had played games, or danced, or been present at shows and plays, made it a matter of confession." And there certainly existed in the minds of the burghers — below the surface of pious observance — a distrust of monks and priests, which found expression in common rhymes and proverbial say- ings. One will serve as a sample : — "Wer will haben rein sein Haus, Der behalt Pfaffen unci Moncbe draus." ^ There can be no doubt that Hans Luther shared to a consider- able extent in this feeling. He was a thoroughly pious man, acting up to his own ideas of truth and right, but decidedly unwilling to put his conscience into ecclesiastical keeping. It is true that when in 1497 two new altars, dedicated to various saints, were consecrated in the Church of St. George at Mansfeld, and sixty days' indulgence was offered to those who heard mass at them, Hans Luther is named, with some of his colleagues in the magistracy, as having availed himself of the privilege.^ But this act of official piety is not inconsistent with his usual attitude to the Church. He^ sternly set his face against his son's becoming a monk, though he appears to have accepted him as a Reformer without difficulty. All Martin ILuther's recollections of his father point in the same direction. On one occasion, when he was very ill, and in supposed danger of death, his confessor asked him whether he would not leave something to the Church. "^, his children stood in more need of it." Again, when Count Gunther of Mansfeld died without making any bequests to the Church, Martin, whose mind was already taking an ecclesiastical turn, was astonished 1 Jiirgens, vol. i. p. 136 ; T. T. vol. que raptus alienarum conjugum impud- i. p. 279, vol. ii. p. 407. "Me puero entissime committerent ; adeo crevit memini sacerdotes non fuisse suspectos nostra memoria petulantia sacrificul- de adulterio et fornicatione, tainetsi onmi," Erl. 0pp. Exeg. vol. ix. p. cohabitarent mulierculis, donee postea 260 (Enarrationes in Ge7iesin). incestus, adulteria, fornicationes, deni- - Kostlin, M. L. vol. i. p. 29. CATHOLIC INFLUENCES 127 to fiud that his father heartily commended the omission. The old man's own death, which took place in 1530, while Luther was at Coburg, waiting for news from the Diet of Augsburg, wliich he was not permitted to attend, was very characteristic. He had received from his son, not long before, a letter of exhortation and comfort, and the minister in attend- ance asked him, after the fashion of the day, whether he abode by the faith which it set before him. " Yea, if I did not, I should act Hke a rogue," was all his answer. Evidently there was much of rugged simplicity, of strong sense, of sturdy moral steadfastness in the man.^ Men who looked back from a time when their minds had free access to all sources of Christian instruction to a youth trained under Catholic influences, were apt to exaggerate the darkness from which they had emerged. Mathesius, for instance, says that he never remembered in his youth — he was a Catholic till he was twenty-five — hearing from the pulpit anything about the Commandments, the Creed, the Paternoster, or Baptism.^ Legends of the saints in plenty he had read, but he recollected neither written nor printed expositions of the faith for the use of children. Luther seems to have looked at his childish days with a kinder and perhaps a more accurate eye. " I was baptized," he says, " in the house of the Pope, I was catechised, I learned the Scriptures." He mentions with hearty commendation the " fine hymns " that were sung, enumerating those peculiar to different seasons of the Church's year, and only complaining that " there were no preachers to tell us what they all meant." The pictures in the churches had his life-long approval, he valued them for their suggestiveness to the young and ignorant, and brushed aside the hint that they encouraged idolatry. So, too, with the childish plays which were acted : all school amusements naturally took a rehgious shape. Still, while recalling these things with pleasure, and acknowledging his obligations to them, he confesses that the impression of Christ left upon him from his childhood was a terrifying one, and goes on to say that the ^ Erl. D.S. vol. xliv. p. 235 {Preclig- vol. iii. p. 550 ; Coll. vol. iii. p. ten ueber etzliche Kapitel des Ev. 168. Matthai) ; Ratzeberger, p. 42 ; De W. - Mathesius, p. 63 B. 128 L UTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS RE VOL T chap. natural result was a recourse to Mary and her saints. The truth seems to be, that while the Church made a constant appeal to the soul through the senses, there was little attempt to reach and inform the mind. But there is no evidence to show that Luther, quick-witted as he was, felt this at the time. It was the judgment which his maturer passed upon his childish years.^ In 1497, Luther, when in his fourteenth year, was sent to school at Magdeburg, in company of John Keinecke, a comrade whose friendship lasted through life. He says himself that he went to the school of the " Nullbruder.'" The phrase is a quite unusual one, and no one knows certainly who they were. The latest and probably the best-grounded opinion identifies them with the Brethren of the Common Life, who had at that time a settlement at Magdeburg, and who made teaching one of their regular occupations. If this is so, a link of singular interest is established between Luther and the order which was founded by Gerhard Groot, and illustrated by the name of Thomas a Kempis. Magdeburg must have produced a con- siderable impression upon the boy's mind. It was the first large town that he had seen. The change from such places as Mansfeld and Eisleben to a cathedral city of 40,000 inhabit- ants cannot but have been great. Magdeburg was a commercial city, one of the Hanse towns, with trade and manufactures, just then flourishing in great prosperity. But it was also an ecclesiastical place, subject, under the Emperor, to the Arch- bishop only. That prelate was Ernest of Saxony, the brother of the Elector Frederick, who was afterwards to exercise so large an influence on Luther's fate. Chosen to fiU the See at the age of twelve, he held it from 1476 to 1513. He was a man who, as might be expected from his high birth, loved show, and magnified his office as a Prince Bishop ; but he was earnest in the performance of his duties, a friend of learned men, kind to the poor, just and merciful as a ruler, and anxious to raise the standard of morality among his clergy. It is not un- reasonable to conjecture that Magdeburg, under such an Arch- ^ Erl. 0pp. Exeg. vol. xviii. p. 230 ' tag zu Augsburg) ; ihid. vol. v. p. 23 {Enarrationcs Psalmorum) ; D. S. vol. (Hauspostille) ; ihid. vol. vi. p. 241 xxiv. p. 375 {Vermalmung an die {Haiispostille). Geistlichen, versammlet auf dem Reichs- THE YEAR AT MAGDEBURG 129 bishop, and with the pomp and circumstance of its cathedral services, may have presented the Church and her demands in a fa\'Ourable light to Luther's mind. "W^iat we know of his life during the single year that he spent at Magdeburg can be told in very few words. He was a poor scholar, and as such sang and begged " panem propter Deum " from door to door. He had done it at Mansfeld. There is a story which he often told in later life, of a peasant at whose door he and some other lads were singing, who frightened them away by his gruff voice, though all the while he had sausages in his hand which he intended to give them. He was no worse off than others of his class, nor ashamed of belonging to it. Mathesius, his first biographer, who knew him well, says that this kind of mendicancy was practised by the children of " honourable and well-to-do people." At the same time he was not without frienxls ; in a letter written in 1522 to Glaus Storm, Burgomaster of Magdeburg, he speaks of having seen him at the house of Dr. Paul Mosshauer. Here, too, it is possible that he met Wenceslaus Link, who followed him into the Augustinian order, then to Wittenberg, and finally into rebellion against the Papacy. Beyond this, two anecdotes of the year at JMagdeburg fill up the scanty canvas. One, told by the physician Ptatzeberger, is that Luther, lying sick of a fever, and left alone in the house, crept on hands and feet to where a great jug of cold water stood, drank plentifully, went to sleep, and woke convalescent. The other relates to a Prince William of Anhalt Bernburg, who had embraced the monastic life and become a Franciscan. Luther saw him in the streets of Magdeburg, clad in the garments of the order, pale, wasted, bearing about with him the semblance of approaching death, carrying on his shoulders a heavy sack that bowed him to the ground, and collecting alms from door to door. The sight made a deep impression upon the susceptible boy, on whom, possibly, some passing shadow of the cloister was beginning to rest. No more striking example of eccle- siastical holiness could well present itself to him, and of other holiness than the ecclesiastical he had as yet no concei)tion.^ ^ De W. vol. i. p. 390, vol. ii. p. p. 157; T. T. vol. ii. p. 164 ; MatTies- 212 ; Melanchthon, Corp. Ref. vol. vi. ius, p. 3 A ; Jiirgens, vol. i. p. 266 ; K I30 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. From Magdeburg Luther was sent in 1498 to Eisenach, a pleasant Thuringian town, lying in the shadow of the hills, upon which, almost within sight, rises the Wartburg. Here he had kinsfolk on the mother's side, and Mohra, his father's old home, was not far off. There were three parish churches at Eisenach, to each of which a school was attached ; it was in that of St. George that Luther was a scholar. Its master was John Trebonius, a man of whom we hear nothing in the general history of the revival of letters in Germany, and who probably, therefore, had not abandoned the old methods of teaching. But that he knew what true education was, a characteristic anecdote survives to tell. He was wont, on entering the school, to walk bareheaded to his seat, out of respect to the latent capacities of his boys, " of some of whom," he said, " God might make rulers, chancellors, doctors, magistrates." It was a Latin school, and the study of that language, as it was then taught, was Luther's chief occupation; in grammar, in the art of writing prose and verse, he easily, according to Melanchthon, surpassed his companions. The poverty at home still continued. The boy, who had a fine alto voice, and seems to have cultivated at an early age the art which he afterwards loved so much, sang from door to door, and received the alms that were given to the poor scholars. But in so doing he attracted the notice and awakened the compassion of a lady, the wife of Conrad Gotta, who took him into her own house, and admitted him to her table. The Gotta house, gray and bent with age, still stands at Eisenach, Seckendorf, CommentariiLS de Luther- land, suffering much hardship, and anismo, vol. i. ]). 113 ; Eatzeberger, p. often contracting very undesirable 41 ; Erl. Opj). Exeg. vol. x. p. 259 habits as they went. The older scholars {Enarrationes in Genesin) ; D.S. vol. were called " Bachauten," the younger, xvii. p. 414 {Vermischte Predigten) ; who, to borrow a word from a very ibid. Yo\. xxxi. p. 239 {Verantivortung different system, "fagged" for them, des aufgclegten Aufruhrs von Herzog "Schiitzen." A typical account of Gcorg). In his letter to Cardinal this kind of life may be found in the Cajetan, 1518 (De W. vol. i. p. 162), autobiography of Thomas Platter, the Luther speaks of " dulcissiraus frater son of a peasant in the valley of Visp mens, Magister Wenceslaus Lincus, qui (1499-1582), who, after roving all over ab ineunte aetate pari mecum studio Germany in search of an education, adolevit." The wandering scholars of ended his days as city schoolmaster this age in Germany were a rough and at Basel. Couf. " Thomas und Felix hardy race. They migrated in bands Platter, Zivci Lebensbildcr mis der Zcit from school to school, sometimes der Reformation. Ed. Heman, 1882." through the length and breadth of the IV FRAU COTTA OF EISENACH 131 and pilgrims are invited to view the room in which the choir- boy from Mansfeld slept. ^ The Cottas were a noble family, originally, it is said, of Italian origin. More than one of them, during the years that followed Luther's schooldays, were Burgomasters of Eisenach. Long afterwards a Henry Cotta studied at Wittenberg, and boarded at the table of Luther, then grown famous. Wliat relation he was to Frau Ursula, who died in 1511, it is not easy to determine with certainty ; Luther writes about him, under the date of 1541, to his relatives Frederick and Bona- ventura Cotta in Eisenach. But there are other traces of his kindly relations with the family. Frau Cotta's maiden name was Schwalbe, and there was a " Schwalbische Collegium," a corporation of Franciscan monks, founded by St. Elizabeth, and settled on the road between Eisenach and the Wartburg, with the members of which he was on the friendliest terms. One Caspar Schwalbe is mentioned more than once in his letters ; of Henry Schwalbe he speaks as " mine host," and as on terms of the closest intimacy with " these Franciscans." j^t is im - possib le to e stimate too highly the effect upon the rough miner's son of intercourse with a family of gentle birth and good breeding. It was his first glimpse of a social life thaV^lad^ny pretension to being refined. Nor can it be doubted that it made a deep impression upon him. He calls Eisenach " liis dear town." In his translation of the Bible he affixes to Proverbs xxxi. 10 the well-known description of a virtuous woman, " Nothing on earth is dearer than woman's love, to whosesoever lot it may fall." " And this," he is reported in the TahU Talk to have said, " my hostess at Eisenach rightly said, when I went there to school." ^ 1 De "W. vol. i. p. 390 ; Jiirgens, nielit die Gesellen, die fur der Thur vol. i. p. 273. Luther also speaks of pancm propter Dcum sagen, und den one "Wigaud as having been his school- Brodreigen singen ; du hijrest grosser master. Ho may have been a teacher Fursten und Herren .singen. Ich bin under Trebonius. De W. vol. i. p. auch ein solcher Partekeuhengst gewest, 29 ; vol. iii. p. 112 ; Seckendorf, vol. und hab das Brod fur den Hausern i. pp. 20, 21 ; Ratzeberger, p. 43 ; genommen, sonderlich zu Eisenach, in ^lelanchthon, Corp. Rcf. vol. i. p. 157 ; meiner lieben Stadt." Lingke, Dr. M. Luther's merhivilrdige - De W. vol. vi. p. 290 ; Corj}. Rcf. llcisegeschichte, pp. 6, 7. Luther him- vol. xxvii. p. 627 ; Erl. D.S. vol. Ixiv. self says (Erl. D.S. xvii. p. 414, p. lir '" ' ' . - - Vermischte Predigtcn), "Verachte mir p. 75. self says (Erl. D.S. xvii. p. 414, p. 113 {Randglosscn) ; T. T. vol. iv. ;hte 132 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. In one sense Eisenach may be supposed to have continued and deepened tiie hnpressions of Magdeburg. Besides its three churches it had no fewer than nine convents. The memory of St. EHzabeth, who had inhabited the Wartburg, hung about the place. Whatever we hear of Luther at this period of his life, connects hun with the Franciscan order. His earliest extant letter, dated 2 2d April 1507, is to John Braun, the vicar of St. Mary's Church at Eisenach, and contains a very cordial message to the members of the " Schwalbische Collegium." It is hardly possible to doubt that Fran Cotta was a devout friend and disciple of the order with which her family was so closely connected. Another story of this time points in the same direction. John Hilten, a Fran- ciscan monk of Eisenach, who, breaking through the bonds of conventual orthodoxy, had written against the abuses of Papal power, the neglect of Scripture, and the irreligious lives of monks, was, when Luther was at school there, held in strict durance, and died in prison about 1502. Melanchthon, in his Apology for the Confession of Augsb^crg, long afterwards claimed Hilten as a friend and forerunner of the Keformation, noting that before his death he had prophesied that in 1516 would arise a monk who would destroy monkery. In a note on this passage Luther professes to have heard Henry Schwalbe speak of Hilten with compassion, " as of one that lay bound." But it is not likely that more than a vague rumour of the prisoner would reach the boy's ears, or that he would become acquainted with the prophecy which his friends were wilKng to think had been fulfilled in himself.^ In 1501 Martin Luther, then in his eighteenth year, pro- ceeded to the University of Erfurt, where, at the beginning of the summer semester, he matriculated under the Eectorate of Jodocus Trutvetter of Eisenach. The entry in the matricu- lation book, " Martinus Ludher ex Mansfeldt," is the first contemporary record of him which survives. At Michaelmas 1 Jiirgens, vol. i. p. 295 ; De Wette, gorum, p. 3. Another form of Hilten's vol. i. p. 3; Corp. Rcf. vol. xxvii. p. 627; prophecy given by Ratzeberger, p. 45, T. T. vol. iii. p. 252. For lives of is "Sub Leone exoritur Heremita, qui Hilten vide ErharJ, Gcscliiclite clcs reformabit fidem Romanam." Theiuter- Wicderaufbluhens, etc. , vol. iii. p. 455 ; pretation, of course, is of Leo X, and M. Adami Vitae Germanorum Theolo- Luther, as an Augustinian or Hermit. ERFURT 133 1502 he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Philosopliy, bemg the thii'tieth among fifty-seven candidates ; at Epiphany 1505 he became Master, the second among seventeen competitors. The press of poverty at home seems now to have been relaxed, and he was dependent npon his father only for a maintenance.^ Convenience of access was probably the chief reason why Erfurt was chosen as the scene of Luther's fiu-ther studies. The town was happily situated, lying in the midst of a fruitful country, and, serving as an entrepot of trade between Upper and Lower Germany, it had acquired political importance as a place where Diets and Synods were held. Technically, it belonged to the See of Mainz ; a city seal of the twelfth century bore the inscription, " Erfordia est fidelis filia Moguntinae sedis." But the tie was not a very close one. The burghers of Erfurt, balancing themselves between the Archbishop of Mainz, on the one hand, and the Landgrave of Thuringia (to whose rights the Saxon electors had succeeded), on the other, not only developed a prosperous and independent civic life, but claimed for their town the rank of a free Imperial city. In any case, they were practically their own masters, acquired terri- tory, made peace and war on their own accomit; nor was it till, in the first years of the sixteenth century, they had encumbered themselves with a hopeless load of debt, that the rival claims of Mainz and Saxony again came into play. But in 1501 there were no outward signs of coming embarrassment, and the wealth of Erfurt made a deep impression upon Luther's mmd. He often, in after years, contrasted it with sandy and sterile Wittenberg. The amenity of its situation was such that if it were burned down, he thought, another city would immediately arise in its place. He recalled the word of one Seljastian Wemmann, who, preaching at Erfurt a little before his own time, declared that "God tried other cities with scarcity, Erfurt with abundance." Naturally, a part of the wealth of Erfurt had been spent upon ecclesiastical foundations. The town still abounds with churches; in 1501 it had convents of almost every order. Without being a place upon which the seal of religious enthusiasm was deeply impressed, life in 415 (Vcmiischle ^ Weissenborn, ^c {Andenchristlichen Add Dculschrr ii. pp. 145, 144; Erl. Op})., var. arg.. Nation). vol. V. p. 520 (Con/utatio rationis 142 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. rest, he was proud of his University. In comparison with it he thought all others but boys' schools {Scliutzschulcn). In after years he lamented its decay. " What majesty and splen- dour there was," he said, " when masters were admitted to their degrees with torch processions and all honour. I hold that no temporal, no worldly rejoicing was ever like it. And what pomp and show there was when doctors were made, when they rode round the city with special garments and ornaments, all of which is gone and fallen into disuse. But I would that it were still observed." ^ j It is at this point that a story must be told, which, more ' than any other incident in Luther's early life, has excited almost fierce controversy. Mathesius, after having alluded to the time which Luther was wont to spend in the University library, says,^ " Once, as he was looking at the books, one after another, in order that he might learn to know the good ones, he came upon the Latin Bible, which he had never before seen in his life, and there remarked with great astonishment that there was in it much more text, more epistles and gospels than were expounded in the ordinary homilies, and from the pulpits of the churches. And as he looks about him in the Old Testament, he comes upon the story of Samuel and his mother Hannah, which he quickly reads through with hearty delight and joy ; and because all this was new to him, he begins from the bottom of his heart to wish that our faithful God would at some time or other give him also such a book of his own, a wish and sigh which was richly fulfilled." This story is confirmed by Luther himself. He is reported in the TaUe Talk to have said, " Thirty years ago Bibles were unknown. Nobody named the Prophets, and they were thought impossible to understand. When I was twenty years old I had never seen a Bible. I thought that there were no Gospels or Epistles, save such as were in the lessons. At last I found a Bible in the Liugke, Eeiscgesch. p. 11 ; Coll. dates it 22d Feb. 1538 (Lauterbacli, p. vol. iii. p. 170 ; T. T. vol. iv. p. 595 ; 36). An illustrative passage is found Huttcni 0pp. ed. Booking, vol. i. p. in the Latin Table Talk [Coll. vol. ii. 340; DeW. vol. iv. p. 188; Mathesius, p. 240), "Magnae fuerunt tenebrae, et p. 4 A ; T. T. vol. iv. pp. 544, 545. D. Carolostat promotus est in Doctorem - Mathesius, p. 3 B. The story is now qui nunquani vidit (v. r. viderat) traced back to Lauterbach's Tagehuch, Bibliam, et ego solus in monasterio a diary of Luther's conversation. He Erphordiae legi Bibliam." IV THE BIBLE IN THE UNIVERSITY 143 library, and often read it, to the very great astonishment of Dr. Staupitz." In further corroboration may be quoted what Mathesius says of hunseK : " I have in my youth seen an ungerman German Bible, without doubt translated from the Latin ; it was dark and obscure. For at that tune learned men set almost no store by the Bible. My father had a German book of homilies {Postillc) in which, besides the Sunday's Gospels, some passages of the Old Testament were expounded ; out of it I have often read to him with pleasure. ' How gladly,' said my fether, ' should I see a complete GernTaii Bibirr"'''^ " ■"^^ Against these positive statements has been set the improb- ability of the case. The first printed book was the Latin Bible, and between its issue and the year 1500 there were no fewer than ninety -seven editions. Of German Bibles, prior to 1518, there are fourteen, without reckoning others in Low German dialects. In the remains of the University library, still preserved at Erfurt, there are two Latin Bibles, either of which may, from its date, be the one which, if this story be true, Luther read. But there also still exists there the library of the Amplonian College, a corporation within the University founded in 1412, which is curiously interesting as a collection of books formed for the use of students before the invention of the art of printmg. According to the statutes of the College, the study of theology is to begin with the Bible ; men are to endeavour to understand it in the literal and in the moral sense, with help of Nicholas De Lyra's commentary. And haK the theological books of the Amplonian library are exegetical. Couple with this the fact that, however overlaid with tradition, however postponed to patristic commentary, the Bible indisputably lay at the basis of all theological instruc- tion and speculation, and it may well be asked whether the story, which has played so great a part in controversy between Protestants and Catholics, is not inherently incredible.- At the same time the positive testimony to its truth is clear and explicit, and cannot be justly invalidated by any 1 Coll. vol. iii. p. 270 ; T. T. vol. W. Grimm, Kurzgefasste GescUcUe dcr iii. p. 229 ; Mathesius, p. 160 A. Luthcrischen Bibelubersctzung, p. 2; - Herzog, Eeal-Encyklojiddie, 1st ed. Weissenborn, Amplonivs Jiatingk de vol. xvii. p. 438 ; 2d ed. p. 543 sq. ; Berka, und seine Stiftung, p. 22. 144 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. presumption of improbability. From the early currency buried, lay then the Scripture, although we were so right hun^i } and thirsty after it, and there was no one to give us anything And yet there was so much trouble, cost, danger, toil, spin upon it!" While what the defenders of the old theol(ij\ thought of the matter, is plain from the anecdote followiny " Dr. Usingen, an Augustinian monk, who was my teacher ii the convent at Erfurt, once said to me, when he saw that \ valued the Bible so highly, and wiUingly read the Scriptures ' Eh, Brother Martin, what is the Bible ? You should reai the old teachers ; they have sucked the juice of truth out ( ) the Bible ; the Bible is the cause of all uproar.' " On th( whole, perhaps, the story is not quite as incredible as it ha; been represented to be.^ The possession of a Master's degree gave Luther the righ of lecturing in philosophy, though there is no positive evideini 1 De W. vol. ili. p. 228 ; T. T. vol. 375 {Ver7nahnunrj an die Gcistlklu. i. p. 29 ; Conf. Erl. D.S. vol. xxiv. p. zu Aucjshurg). THE AUGUSTINIAN MONK M5 that he ever exercised it. On the contrary, he seems to have applied hiiuself dihgently to the study of jurisprudence,' probably under the direction of Henning Gode, a distinguished lawyer, who was afterwards one of the earliest ornaments of the University of Wittenberg. His father's plan for him was that he should become a lawyer, and, if possible, secure his social position by a rich and honourable marriage. We know that he was, with this purpose in view, in possession of a Corpus Juris, which was then a costly book ; and he had read something of Accursius, a jurist, whose commentary was frequently bound up with it. But his legal studies, which cannot have been long pursued, came to a sudden end. On ^St. Alexius' Day, 17th July 1505,^ he presented hhnself at the'-gate of the Augustinian Convent at Erfurt, begging for admittance as_a novice. It was a turning-point, not only in his owiilife, but in the history of European Christianity.- The external circumstances of the change are certified to us by contemporary testimony, and may be disengaged without difficulty from some slight accretions of tradition, which have ^gathered about them. Luther, possibly to avoid an epidemic which had been devastating Erfurt, had been on a visit to his parents, when, on his return, near the village of Stotterheim, he was overtaken by a violent thunderstorm. Believing him- self to be in imminent danger, he cried out, " Help, dear St. , Anna, I will become a monk ! " The story that a young friend was killed by lightning at his side has no foundation ; on the \ other hand, both Melanchthon and Mathesius record that \some close companion had not long before met with a violent ideath. He liimself says that he repented of his vow, though /he clave to it. A fortnight afterwards he invited his most , intimate friends to his lodgings, took part with them for the last time in the music which he loved, and asked for their escort to the monastery. Then, saying good-bye to them with \ the words " To-day ye see me, but never again," he left them Mn tears. " I never thought," he continues, " to come out of the convent ; I was clean dead to the world, until (Jotl deemed 1 Tlie CoUoiiuia (vol. iii. p. 187) seem ^ QoU. vol. iii. ]>. 185 ; Erl. 0pp. Lot. to give the 16th of July as St. Alexius' vol. xi. p. 169 {Enurrationes in Qenc- Day. I find it, however, allotted in the sin). Roman Breviary to the 1 7th. 146 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT ch that the time had come, and Tetzel with his indulgences drove me." His father, who, as we have seen, was not ecclesiasticallyj inclined, and whose plans for his son were thus suddenly' frustrated, was gravely displeased. Hans Luther had been accustomed to address his son, from the date of his Master's degree, with the ceremonious and honourable " you " ; now he reverted to the sterner and less respectful " thou." Nor was his anger quite laid to rest till the Monk became the' Keformer.-^ The inner history of this change is far less easy to narrate. We have no direct contemporary evidence on which to rely :, while Luther's own reminiscences, on which we chiefly depend,; are necessarily coloured by his later experiences and feelings. Of one thing we may be sure, that if the change of purposei culminated in a moment of sudden and sharp crisis, that crisis had been long prepared by slowly -working causes. The-un- ecclesiastical tone of Hans Luther's house cannot have affected his^soTiiiO any great extent. From an early age he had been little at home. All the influences oTThis education had been more or less directly religious. At Magdeburg, at Eisenach,,- at Erfurt, his teachers had been priests, and he had breathed; the atmosphere of the Church. "We may infer from the deep' impression made upon him by the severity of his parents that the house at Mansfeld rather repelled than attracted him ; in one place he even gives their hardness, which at the same time he qualifies as " well meant," as one of the forces tliat drove him into the cloister. ^'There is not the slightest reason to suppose that he took, till long afterwards, any but the ordinary Catholic view of life. And according to that, through the monastery was the only way to peace, to such perfectness as can be attained upon earth, to sure reconciliation with God. Whoever elected to remain in the world voluntarily confronted a thousand dangers, and could not expect to go far on the way of sanctity. The coarse license of the students' life may 1 Coll. vol. iii. p. 188. Luther's deiitia, quando te redeuntem a paren- conversion was soon and inevitably tibus coeleste fulmen veluti alteram compared with that of Paul. Crotus Paulum ante oppidum Erffurdianum in Rubianus writes to him in 1519 {Hut- terram prostravit atque intra Augus- Uni 0pp. ed. Booking, vol. i. p. 311), tiniana septa compulit e nostro consor- "Nam ista facio, non sine numine cio, tristissimo tuo discessu." divum ; ad haec respexit divina provi- THE GENESIS OF HIS CONVERSION 147 well have revolted liim. "Erfurt," he said, in after years, "had been nothing better than a brothel and beer -house." When once the inextinguishable thirst for holiness was awakened in any soul, it had no possible recourse except to the life of the monk, guarded from temptation, ordered by discipline, consciously and wholly devoted to self-purification.^ Under the surface of " the active and cheerful young fello^v,"-^who loved music and bodily exercises, and poured all the energy of a strong and vivid nature into the life of the place, lay a deep and copious spring of religious passion. We must recollect that we have to do with one of the brightest and strongest spirits of which the history of religion makes mention ; and that the Luther of the Diet of Worms lay un- developed in the choir-boy of Eisenach, the student of Erfurt. And his spiritual struggles began early. The "Anfechtungen," the temptations, the conflicts, the despairs, which play so large a part in his life, and, to the last, never left him, were facts of his earlier years also. They were not temptations of the flesh, insident to a hot youth ; they were concerned with the terrorn ofjthe divine wrath, and the abandonment of the soul by God Now, or a little later, wholly unnerved and occupied by a single thought or passion, he fell into something like trances. Naturally his distress took the form of the fear of divine judgment : the pure desire for holiness, the horror of sin for sin's sake, is not the first trouble of the saint, but his final achievement, and when it comes, breathes peace rather than insph'es terror. But to Luther the Father retreated beliind the Son : and the Son was an awful figure, sitting upon the rainbow to judge the earth, and moved to compassion, if at all, by the tender pleadings of His mother. And how to placate the judge ? How conjure away the cloud of divine anger that overhung and darkened his life ? " Oh, when wilt tliou, only once, be pious, and do enough to get for thyself a gracious God ? " This and such as this, he says, were the thoughts that drove him into monkery. Fastings and prayers, rigid self-discipline, all mortifications of the flesh, a complete self- abandonment to wise and pious direction, were the only metliod of perfectness which he knew ; and it lay hidden in his soul 1 T. T. vol. iv. p. 129 ; Coll. vol. iii. p. 101. 148 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. to try it. Then, at the moment when his own physical weakness, the violent death of his comrade, the plague that had raged or was still raging at Erfurt, had brought out all these thoughts into strong relief, came the thunderstorm at Stotterheim. It is very possible that he stood in no real danger ; " nothing," he said long afterwards, " is more unquiet and harder to lay to rest than a fearful heart, which grows pale at every thunderclap, yea, even at the rustling of a leaf." But at this instant of terror he took a resolution which he did not dare to break. He exchanged the Corpus Juris for the Bible, and, turning his back upon the honourable profession and wealthy marriage of which his father dreamed, entered upon the way of perfectness.-^ The order into which Luther thus entered was founded in the first half of the thirteenth century.^ At that epoch Innocent IV and his successor Alexander IV drew together certain scattered monastic communities of Italy, and formed them into a single order, bearing the name and obeying the rule of Augustine. Some of these conununities pretended to trace their origin to the great Bishop of Hippo himself, and to find their rule in his writings ; but we are here upon traditional rather than historical ground. The monastic life is as old as St. Augustine, and the rule that bears his name has so little that is distinctive .in it as to have been adopted by more orders than one. At the same time, the Augustinian order cannot be said to have had a history till its various elements were welded by Innocent IV into a whole. The result was to add another brigade to that Papal army of which the Dominicans and the Franciscans were already^ the right ^ Erl. Comment, in Ep. ad Galatas, his father (1521), which formed the vol. i. p. 260 ; D. S. vol. xix. p. 152 preface to his book on monastic vows : {VermiscJite Prcdigten) ; iUd.Yol. xxiv. in German, De W. vol. ii. p. 100; in p. 375 ( Vcr7nahnung an die Geistlichen Latin, and more authentic, De W. vol. zit Augsburg) ; ibid. vol. xl. p. 164 vi. p. 25. Conf. Coll. vol. iii. p. 187 ; {Auslcgung des 110 Psahns) ; ibid. vol. Tentzel, vol. i. p. 146, note. xliv. p. 72 {Predigten %iebcr etzUche - For the history of the German Kapitel des Ev. Matth. ) ; ibid. 0pp. Augustinians and the life of Staupitz, Lat. vol. X. p. 180 {Enarrationes in vide Kolde, Die Deutsche Augustiner- 1 Genesin), For the story of Luther's Congregation imd Johann von Staupitz. \ conversion, vide Melanchthon, Corp. They were Augustinian hermits, and ■ Ref. vol. vi. p. 158 ; Ratzeberger, not to be confounded with the Augus- p. 45 ; Mathesius, p. 4 B. His own tiuian Canons, account will be found in the letter to THE AUGUSTINIAN ORDER 149 and left wings. The " Hermits," as they h)ved to call them- selves, who had hitherto lived in independence of mutual or any other control, were formed into an order, organised on a European basis, divided into provinces, given a distinctive dress, subjected to a common rule, endowed with peculiar privileges. They were a preaching order, as the remains of some of their churches still bear witness. They were mendi- cants, and followed the example of other monastic beggars in soon amassing property. The double right of hearmg con- fessions and of burying the dead in their churches placed them in a position of independence as regards the parochial clergy. At a very early period they directed their attention to the Universities, and, in 1261, one of their number already occupied a professor's chair at Paris. There was a close connection at Tlibingen between the Augustinian convent and the infant University. We shall see presently that the University of Wittenberg, in its first years, was almost \vholly under Augustinian direction. In each province one monastery was a stiidmiii gcncrale, a college in which theo- I'lyy was taught by competent professors with the assistance of a Library : for Thuringia and Saxony, for instance, at Magde- burg and Erfurt. But the Augustinian Order neither has the individuality nor rises to the historical importance of the Dominican or the Franciscan. Its great apostate is its chief illustration. The name of Augustine has given rise to the idea that some tradition of Augustinian doctrme, such as was after- 1 wards preached by Luther, may have survived in the order I that bore it. The name of Andreas Proles, who held a very t prominent position in the order throughout the latter half of [ the fifteenth century, has been cited as that of a forerunner of» i the Eeformer ; tradition brings them together in Magdel)urg, j and asserts that Proles predicted a fall of the Papacy, whicli he [ was himself too old to see. But there can hardly have been i anything in common between the dignified churchman and the ! choir-boy who was receiving a charitable education, while the alleged prophecy rests upon late and untrustworthy testimony. It is a well -authenticated fact that Proles condemned the action of his brother Augustinian, John Zacharia, at the ISO LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. Council of Constanz/ but his protest seems to have been much more in the interests of fair play than in those of free; theological thought. And the activity of Proles as a reformeij was practical, not doctrinal. Like every other monastic order j the Augustmian had its recurring periods of laxity, out oil which successive Eeformers strove to recall it. In Germany i and in part in Italy too, this drew after it a breach in the I organisation of the order. Convents, called of " the Observ-| ance," in which the desire for a stricter obedience to the rule hadi manifested itself, banded themselves together, and slowly, and! amid many obstacles, coalesced into a Congregation, an ordeii within an order, withdrawn from the Provincial jurisdiction] and subject to a Vicar, elected by themselves, who, in his turn,' was responsible only to the General. It would be impossiblcj to tell in this place how Proles, with the help of Duke Williamj of Saxony, thus established on a firm basis the German oij Saxon Congregation of Observant Augustinians, over which he; presided as Vicar from 1461 to 1503. We need only notej that it was to this severer branch of the order that the! convent at Erfurt belonged. At the same time, the whole j order was at once of unimpeachable orthodoxy and thoroughly loyal to the Papacy. It was a common boast that till Lutheii arose, it had never incurred a suspicion of heresy. In thei matter of indulgences, in particular, it stood upon the common ground of the Church, as the works of John von Paltz, whc; graduated at Erfurt in 1483, and afterwards taught in thei Augustinian convent there, remain to testify. He not onl};' preached the Jubilee Indulgence of 1500, under Cardinal^ Eaymond, but developed his theory in popular books, both' Latin and German, which had a large circulation.'^ No distinction was at first made between the brilliant, young Master of Arts and the other novices. He exchanged his baptismal name for that of Augustine.^ He was compelled ^ This tradition came through Stan- approved the change : "Ego inbaptismc, pitz to Luther. De W. vol. ii. p. nominatus sum Martinus, postea in 493. Conf. Erl. D.S. vol. xxiv. p. 27 monasterio Augustinus. Quid possiti {Von den neuen Eckischen Bullen fieri turpius aut magis sacrileguni; imd Lugen) ; ibid. vol. Ixiv. p. 80 quam abjicere nomen baptismi proptei {Naclilesc). indutum cucuUum." Erl. 0pp. Lat. ^ Vide antea, p. 60. vol. ix. p. 9 {Enarrationes in Genesin). ^ He does not seem to have heartily In his extant correspondence, which iv IN THE ERFURT CONVENT 151 to share the eoninioii labours of the monastery ; he scrubbed and swept with the rest, and when his turn came, took his hag- upon his back, and perambulated Erfurt and the villages round about, collecting alms.^ There was no disposition on the part of the older monks to excuse him from any of the labours which they had themselves gone through. He was put under the care of the Master of the Novices, of whom he speaks with much respect as " a really excellent man, and, without doubt, under the damned cowl, a true Christian," but whose name we do not know. All that is recorded of his intercourse with his pupil may be told in very few words. He placed in Luther's hands, during the year of his novitiate, a MS. of Athanasius de Trinitate, which he had himself copied. He gave him instructions how and when to speak to women. On one occasion when Luther was in deep distress of spirit, he said to liim, in words which made a profound and lasting impression on his mind, " Do you not know that the Lord has commanded us to hope ? " But the influence of this nameless teacher was not that which most powerfully turned the current of the young man's life. Presently the couA'ent was ^dsited in its turn by the Vicar, John von Staupitz. Whether he had heard of Luther before, or whether now for the first time he remarked the bright-eyed novice and asked his history, we do not know. At all events, with the discernment of a true leader of men, lie at once perceived his promise, and saw the way to draw it out. He asked the Prior Winand von Dieden- hofen to relieve Luther from his servile labours and to send him back to his studies. It was characteristic of Staupitz that in the new constitutions which he had given to the Congre- gation in 1504, the study of the Scriptures was prescribed. He now enforced his regulation in Luther's case, bidding him lay the Bible at the base of his theological studies, and to become, in the language of the day, a good " textualis et begins with the year 1507, there are covering' the whole ground between one only two letters signed Augustinus. convent and another, whither, at stated And as these have also ilartinus intervals, the monks j)roceede(l to iwr- Lutherus, it is a question whether, form religious oHices, and to collect even here, we ought not to read Angus- alms. This, in the language of the tinianus. monastery, was called " teniiiniren." ^ The Augustinians, like other orders, Kohle, A tiff. C'onfj. y. 47; T. T. vol. had a series of country stations, often iii. p. 336 ; Cull. vol. i. p. 122. 152 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap, localis." The monks gave him a Bible, bound, we are told, in red leather, and he eagerly followed the Vicar's counsel. He impressed the Biblical phrases on his memory ; he learned on what page, and in what connection each stood ; often he medi- tated a whole day on a single saying. Perhaps the fact that at this time " he did not think much of De Lyra" indicates that the uiapression made upon hun by the text was so deep and vivid as to obscure the comment. But he was alone in his devotion to the Scriptures. " I only," he said long afterwards, " read the Bible in the monastery at Erfurt." ^ The name of Staupitz is that which is chiefly associated with Luther's during what may be called his transition period ; and, before going farther, it will be necessary to dwell for a little while on his history and character. He was a man of gentle birth and noble presence, a member of an ancient family settled in the neighbourhood of Meissen, highly esteemed at the courts of the Saxon princes, and one of Frederick's chief advisers in the foundation of the University of Wittenberg. We first hear of Mm m 1497, when, already Master of Arts and Reader in Theology, he entered the Augustinian convent at Tubingen, of which he was soon elected Prior. At Tiibingen he took his theological degrees, proceeding Doctor of Holy Scripture in July 1500. Hence he was soon transferred to Munich, where he agam occupied the position of Prior, until in 1503 he removed to Wittenberg, where he took a professor- ship in the infant University, and was the first Dean of the Theological Faculty.^ In the same" year followed his election as Vicar of the Augustinian Congregation, in succession to Andreas Proles, a capacity in which he procured an entire revision of its statutes. It was as visitor of the convents within his Province that he first fell in with Luther, whose strik- ing personality must in some way have attracted his notice. But from this time he never lost sight of him. It was Staupitz who procured him liberty of study, who was his guide through the spiritual darkness in which he soon became involved, who 1 Ratzeberger, PI). 47, 48 ; Veil. Bav. vol. iv. p. 112 {Eaarr. in Gcncsin) ; apud Seckendorf, vol. i. p. 21 ; Coll ibid. vol. xix. p. 100 {Enarr. Ps. li.); vol. ii. pp. 1, 240 ; T. T. vol. ii. p. 291; Kolde, Aug. Cong. p. 224. De "\V. vol. iv. p. 427. Conf. Lauterbach. - Forstenianii, Album Acad. Vitc- Tagebuch, pp. 84, 197 ; Erl. 0]}]}. Led. berg. p. i. IV JOHN VON STAUPITZ 153 called liiiu to Wittenberg to take part in the teaching of the University. But the precise history of their intellectual relations is not easy to trace. At first, no doubt, the intiuence was all in one direction. The novice, the peasant's son, must have looked up with unfeigned reverence to the stately church- man, whose noble birth enhanced the dignity of his high office. But, with one unimportant and doubtful exception, Staupitz \vrote nothing till 1515 ; ^ and as by that time the force of genius had asserted itself in opposition to inequality of station, it is unsafe to assume that what he was then he had been when he first took Luther by the hand. All seems to show that he was one of those evangelical souls which may be born and grow within, as well as beyond, the Catholic Pale, a nature on which the corruptions and the formalities of the Church alike sat lightly, but which was apt to penetrate beneath them into the secret places of faith. Though hardly to be reckoned among the Mystics, or claiming a place in their succession, he had a side of relation to them ; the essence of religious affection and aspiration was nearer to him than the form ; while under any form he was quick to detect the essence. It is thus that w^e can best explain the fact that though never gi\ing up his friendly intercourse with Luther, he did not follow him into open opposition. In 1522, after a painful period of indecision, he transferred himself from the Augus- tmian to the Benedictine Order, and died, two years after, Abbot of the Monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg. It need hardly be said that a friendship between two such men, under such circumstances, was subject to many strains, and it is to the credit of both that the strand never wholly parted. 'J'o Luther his old teacher is always "my dear Dr. Staupitz." He constantly and fully acknowledges his great obligations to him. As late as 1542 he writes of temptations "in which I also was fast held, and in which, if Dr. Staupitz — or much rather, God through Dr. Staupitz's means — had not helped me out, I should have been drowned, and in hell, long ago." In 1529 he requests the \dsitors of the Saxon Church to secure to Magdalena Staupitz, who had been a nun at Nimptsch, a ^ In 1868 Knaake commenceil the Staupitz's works, Init it lias so far got publication of a collected edition of only to one small volnnie. 154 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. cottage belonging to the convent at Grimma, for her life, " in token of honour and gratitude to her brother, Dr. John Staupitz;" and in 1531 he appeals on behalf of the same lady to the Elector John. And in an affecting letter written by Staupitz to Luther, only a few months before his own death, and as the superscription bears " post longa silentia," he says, " My most constant love to thee, a love passing the love of women, is always unbroken." ^ Luther's reading, however, was not confined to the Bible. As I have already mentioned, the monastery at Erfurt was a " studium generale " of the order, in wliich theology and philosophy were carefully taught, and there was an active intellectual life. L^singen, one of the foremost representatives of scholastic theology at Erfurt, was, as we have seen, one of the brotherhood. John Xathin and John von Paltz were professors of Holy Scripture. ]\Ielanchthon mentions Augus- tine as one of the authors whom Luther chiefly studied about this time. " At the same tune," he says, " he did not abandon the scholastics. Gabriel (Biel) and Cameracensis (Peter d'Ailly) he could repeat by heart, almost word for word. He read much and long the writings of Occam.^ His acumen he preferred to Thomas (Aquinas) and Scotus. He also read Gerson diligently." Traces of these and similar studies are to be found not unfrequently in his writings. In a conversation on the merits of the scholastics which he had with Amsdorf in 1538 he says, " I still keep the books which then tormented me." Nor was this strong phrase idly used. In his peculiar trouble these books not only gave him no help, but brought his difficulties more ^dvidly home to him. "V^Hien he read Gabriel Biel on the Canon of the Mass, " his heart bled." Bonaventura, with his speculative theology, " all but drove hiiu ^ De W. vol. V. p. 513 ; vol. ii. p. so highly exhorts me, for Dr. Staupitz's 408; vol. vi. p. 101. Conf. vol. iii. p. sake, whom (if I would not be a 470. Y>wx\i\\.2iX(S.t, Bricfwcchsd Lxdhtr' s, damned ungrateful Papal ass) I must p. 195 ; Kolde, Aug. Cong. p. 446. praise as ha\T[ng been at first my father In 1545, the year before Luther's death, in this doctrine, and as having borne one Margaretha Staupitz, who signs me in Christ, " etc. Burkhardt, pp. 464, herself " a forsaken widow," appeals to 465. him as "her especial good friend," - "Vuilhelmus Occam, Scholastic- and the result was a letter next day to orum doctorum sine dubio princeps theElector John Frederick, recommend- et ingeniosissimus : " Erl. Oirp. v. a. ing her case. It contains the following vol. iv. p. 188 [Res2)onsio Lutheriana characteristic passage: "As she thus ad condemnationem, etc.) ADMISSION TO THE PRIESTHOOD 155 mad." On the other hand, he thought that 8t. Bernard surpassed in his preaching all other doctors, even Augustine, " for there he teaches Christ admirably, but when he comes to disputation, he is quite unequal to himself." To Augustine he returned again and again, " finding there," says Melanchthon, " many clear statements, confirming that teaching and comfort of faith which had been kindled in his own breast." Now, probably, as throughout life, Luther's intellectual method was eminently subjective. He worked out his conclusions in the secret depths of his own soul, with much toil and conflict; and then assunilated from without, from Scripture and Fathers, whatever was in accordance with them. He was the willing- disciple of Paul and Augustine : he could not conceal his con- tempt for James and Jerome.-^ Luther w^as an inmate of the convent at Erfurt from July 1505 to October or November 1508. This period is cut in two by Ms admission to the priesthood on 2d May 1507. It is not impossible to reconstruct his mental history, with some degree of probability, through what were the three most important years of his development ; but in the absence of dates the story cannot be divided into what took place before, and what after his ordi- nation. The narrative, therefore, of that event must precede the attempt to describe the gradual change in Luther's mind. Hans Luther had utterly disapproved of his son's entrance upon the monastic life, and had shown his displeasure in an emphatic way. But in May 1507 he was in a softer mood. Two other sons died of the plague. The world was prospering with him. If the father were not wholly dead within him, he must have longed for a sight of the face on which he had once looked so complacently, and which now, for almost two years, had been buried in the living grave of the cloister. He was urged to give his consent to his son's ordination,- and to 1 Kokle, Awj. Cong. p. 246 ; Mel- bled at tlio Diet of Aujjslmij,' ir)30," anchthon, Corp. Ref. vol. vi. p. 159; Luther says: " ily bishop, when he for St. Bernard, Erl. D.S. vol. xlvi. made nie a priest, and ^'avc the p. 243 ; conf. ihid. vol. xlvii. p. 38 ; chalice into my hand, spoke thus, for Gerson, Coll. vol. ii. p. 297; T. T. ' Accipe potestatem .sacrihcandi \m vol. iv. p. 393; Lauterbach, p. 18; vivis et mortuis.' That the eartli did Coll. vol. iii. pp. 134, 270. not swallow us botii up wa.s unjust, - The officiating,' bishop at Luther's and God's all too great patience." Erl. ordination was John von Lasphe. In D. S. vol. x.xiv. p. 37b. his "Admonition to the clergy 156 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. grace the occasion, as was customary, by his presence ; and after much resistance he half unwillingly consented. When the day came on which Martin's first mass was to be celebrated, he rode to the monastery with an escort of twenty horsemen, and made his son a present of as. many florins. At the subsequent feast, however, the storm broke out. Luther, at once rejoicing in the reconciliation, and willing to justify him- self, asked his father why he had shown himself so obstinately angry. " "V^nlereupon he spoke up before all doctors, masters, and other gentlemen: — 'Ye learned ones, have ye not read in Scripture, that a man should honour his father and his mother ? ' AVlien I heard that I w^as terrified, and so dumbfoundered that I could answer nothing." Whether the learned ones answered anything we are not told. Luther says that their stock reply was, " It is better to obey God than man." But the honours of the day in disputation appear to have rested with the old miner of Mansfeld, who, pressed with the thunderstorm and the divine call, would only reply, " Would to God that it may not turn out to have been a devil's spectre ! " When in 1521 Luther dedicated to his father his work on Monastic Vows, he tells the story. " He fortified his heart," he said, " as well as he could against his father and his father's word ; but hardly ever in his life had he heard speech of man that more powerfully impressed and abided with him." But he was still in the midst of his religious exaltation, and resolved to work out his salva- tion on the path which he had chosen. The new leaven was at work in him ; but the time of full operation was not yet.^ From the moment of his entrance into the convent Luther applied himself with great zeal to the monastic method of perfectness. What he desired above all other things was acceptance with God. The divine justice terrified him ; God turned to him only an angry face. It is useless to attempt to distinguish in his case between a pure attraction to holiness and the terror of God's judgments ; the two motives were subtly intermingled, and each reinforced the other. He had fled to the cloister to avoid temptation, to put himself in the way of spiritual discipline, and now flung himself into the experiment with all the ardour of his nature. " I was a monk in earnest," ^ Vol. Bav. cqmd. Tentzel, vol. i. p. 146 ; Ratzeberger, p. 48 ; De W. vol. vi. p. 26. IV RELIGIOUS LIFE IN THE CONVENT •57 he said ; " I li\ed hardly and chastely ; I would not have takeiT a farthing without the knowledge of my prior ; I prayed industriously day and night." This is only one of many simi- lar declarations. In fastings, watchings, prayers, — he says in another place, — he surpassed those who afterwards so bitterly hated and persecuted hun. Often, for the space of three days, neither bit nor drop passed his lips ; fasting became almost a habit with him. " True it is I was a pious monk, and so strictly observed the rules of my order that I can say, if ever a monk got to heaven by monkery, so should I also have got there ; and to this all my comrades in the cloister, who have known me, will bear witness. For if it had lasted longer, I should have tortured myself to death with watching, praying, reading, and other work." -^ For a time this method was successful. He seemed to have begun another life, to have been lifted into a purer air. It was part of the monastic theory, that profession was equiva- lent to rebaptism ; that the new-made monk "was like an innocent child, fresh from the baptismal font " ; even that the monk acquired by Iris self-maceration a stock of superliuous merits, which could be transferred for a consideration to the laity. But then the thought stole in, that for perfect obedience, no effort, no watchfulness could be a sufficient guarantee. God was unchanged, the diiine justice had not lost its awful aspect ; how be sure that its inexorable demands were satisfied ? Luther's, experience in the monastery coincided, he says, with Paul's teaching. " I have seen many who, with the most ardent desire, and the best conscience, did everything to lay their consciences to rest : wore hair shirts, fasted, prayed, afflicted and wearied their bodies with various discipline, which, even had they been iron, would have destroyed them at last ; and nevertlieless became more fearful the more they toiled." At the moment of his severest self- discipline, he shrank with 1 Erl. D.S. vol. xlviii. pp. 306, 317 vigorous physical frame. Even wlien {Auslegung des Ev. Johannis) ; Up. ad he \vas(iuite well, he would go, lie says, Gal. vol. i. p. 107 ; D. S. vol. xxxi. for four clays together almost without p. 273 {Kleine Antwort auf Hcrzog food or drink, and at other times was Georgs mihcsies Buck), Coll. vol. ill. p. content with a little bread and a 185. Melanchthon, in after life, often herring for his day's sustenance. Corp. wondered at his abstemiousness, which lief. vol. i. p. 158. contrasted strangely with his large and 158 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. horror from the presumptuous thought, that the Holy Spirit was with him ; he could not assure himself that God was pleased with his effort, or listened to his prayer. What certainty had he that these things were acceptable to God at all ? The toil was never ending, still beginning, and a single slip was at any moment fatal. The same was even more the case with the ceremonial obedience demanded of the priest. The minutest directions were given for the celebration of mass, and a chance word, an incorrect gesture, even an uncertain into- nation were all sins. " To have sacrificed with an unconsecrated chalice is a sin, to have celebrated in vestments not yet conse- crated is a sin, to have celebrated without the maniple or any other part of the vestments is a sin, to have called the boy, or to have spoken between the words of the Canon is a sin, even to have stammered or hesitated in the words of the Canon is a sin, to have touched the sacred relics is a sin," and so on, through a still longer catalogue of ceremonial offences. The minute prescriptions of the rule as to dress and behaviour gave rise to innvmierable possibilities of transgression ; and an anxious conscience found perpetual opportunities of self-torment. Nor was confession a sure resource, or absolution a certain comfort. How be sure that every sin, great and small, had been made known to the director ? What guarantee that the contrition was of that absolute quality which deserved the absolution and made it valid ? The form of absolution made it in part dependent upon " the good works which thou hast done and wilt do for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ ; " how be certain as to the sufiicient purity of the motive ? Take what pains he would, there was always some loophole left. He seemed to have undertaken an impossible task under the eye of an inexorable taskmaster.-^ 1 Erl. D. S. vol. xxxi. p. 279 brmich der Mcsse) ; Ep. ad Gal. vol. [Klcine Antivort auf Eerzog Gcorgs i. p. 225 ; T. T. vol. ii. p. 303. " If ndhestes Buck) ; O-pp- La-t- vol. xi. any one then had asked me, at what p. 241 [Enarr. in Gcncsin) ; Ep. ad cost I was willing to buy peace with Gal. vol. ii. p. 301 ; D. S. vol. xlix. Christ, and those magnificent glories pp. 168, 314 (Auslcgung dcs Ev. Joh.) ; which now we have through the Word OiJp. Lat. vol. xix. p. 102 [Enarr. and the Spirit of God, I should have Psalmi. Ii.) ; 0pp. v. a. vol. v. p. 372 humbly fallen to the earth, and willingly {Responsio ad Catharinum) ; D. S. vol. poured forth my life, and asked only xlviii. p. 203 {Auslegting des Ev. to have my conscience set free." 02^p. Joh.); vol. xxviii. p. 65 {Torn 3Iiss- Za<. vol. xx. p. 281 (£narr. Ps. cxxxii.) IV THE NATURE OF HIS RELIGIOUS TROUBLES 159 Let us understand once for all that the spiritual troubles wliich beset him were not those temptations of the Hesh wliieh Protestants suppose to play so large a part in a life voluntarily vowed to chastity.^ He mentions it as an accustomed device of the evil one, to leave passion unaroused in the tirst years of profession, that the after sti'uggie might be the fiercer. But he was not himself greatly troubled in this way, " althougli the more he macerated himself the more he burned." lu liis commentary on the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians he has described his case with an accuracy that leaves nothing to be desired. " When I was a monk I was wont to think that it was all over with my salvation if ever I felt the concupiscence of the flesh, that is, evil affection, lust, anger, hatred, envy, and the like, towards any brother. I tried many things. I confessed daily. But I profited nothing. Because the concupiscence of the flesh always returned, there- fore I could not be quiet, but was perpetually tortured with these thoughts : ' This and that sin hast thou committed, also thou labourest under env}'', impatience, and the like. In vain, J therefore, hast thou entered the holy order, and all thy good / works are useless.' If at that time I had rightly understood the words of Paul, ' the flesh lusteth against the spirit,' and ' these are contrary the one to the other,' I should not have so aflaicted myself ; but as I am wont to do now, I should have reflected, ' Martin, thou wilt never be altogether without sin, because thou art yet in the flesh, and therefore wilt feel its struggle, according to that word of Paul, ' the flesh striveth against the spirit.' Despair not, therefore, but resist tliat thou fulfil not its desire; and then thou art not uiidcM' the law.' " 2 All this worked upon an awe of sacred things and a vivid perception of their tremendous reality which perhaps more than anything else made Luther what he was. It was not merely that he was a sincere and unquestioning believer ; he saw and felt the grandeur of God ; and the feeling of the Infinite and Eternal took entire possession of him. lint he 1 "To Dr. Staupitz have I often 2 grl. Opp. v. a. vol. vi. p. 361 (/>« confessed, not about women, but the real votis inoiiaslicis) ; Ep. ad Gal. vol. knots " (sondern die rechteu Knoten). iii. p. 20 sq. ; Coll. vol. ii. p. 352. r. T. vol. iii. p. 135. i6o LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. was not drawn to God : he stood afar off, and was filled with terror. When celebrating his first mass, he was so overcome with fear that he would have fled from the altar had not the prior prevented him. Once, when taking part in a Corpus Christi procession at Eisleben, in which Staupitz carried the Host, he was seized with sudden terror, the sweat broke out upon him, and he thought that he should faint out of sheer anguish. " Ah,"_wisely said his friend and Superior, " your thoughts are not Christ ; Christ does not terrify but console." Cochlaeus has a story, which, although plainly told in an unfriendly spirit, is too like many others better vouched for to be rejected as improbable. Mass was being celebrated in the convent church, and the Gospel was read of the casting out of the deaf and dumb devil, when Luther, suddenly falling to the ground, cried out, " It is not I, it is not I.". ^ All his life he was subject to being, as it were, carried out of him- self by some absorbing thought, or strong religious emotion. Melanchthon relates how he once saw hini, in the midst of a doctrinal disputation, throw himself upon a bed in the next room, and repeat over and over again, mixed with words of prayer, the sentence, " He has concluded all under sin, that he might have mercy upon all." But nothing of this kind is more striking than his own confession. " And I also know a man who declared that he had often gone through these pains, certainly for a very small space of time, yet so great and so hellish as neither tongue can tell, nor pen write, nor one who has not experienced them can believe, so that if they had gone on to the end, or lasted for half, yea, for the tenth part of an hour, he would have perished utterly, and all his bones would have been reduced to ashes." No wonder that, under such circumstances, he persuaded himself that he had defiled his baptismal garment. No wonder that he could not bear to look upon picture or image of Christ. No wonder that he turned away from a God whom it was impossible to placate, to implore the intercession of human -hearted saints. " St, Anna," he says, " was my idol." He had a special devo- 1 Cochlaeus, p. 2. Diingerslieim von was Professor of Holy Writ in the Ochsenfahrt also alludes to this story convent at Erfurt. Seidemann, LvXher- as early as 1530, basing it on the hriefe, p. 12. authority of Dr. John Nathin, who IV HOW HE FOUND PEACE i6l tion to the Virgin. He chose twenty -one saints, three of whom, in turn, he invoked at his daily mass, and so completed the cycle every week. But it was all in vain. " When I was ^ the most devout, I went a doubter to the altar, a doubter I came away from it ; if I had confessed my penitence, I still doubted, had I not, I was in despair." " I had almost died of despau-," he says in another place, " if Staupitz had not rescued me." ^ The precise steps of the process by which Luther's soul at last emerged into light and peace are past recovery. We see him struggling in the slough of despond, sometimes fancy- ing that he had reached firmer ground, sometimes falling into deeper mire, with now this hand, now that, held out to help him. We have heard how the Master of the Novices reminded him that God had commanded His children to hope. A name- less old man, mentioned by Melanchthon, referred him to the article of the Creed, " I beKeve in the forgiveness of sins," and told him — an interpretation greatly strengthened by a passage in a sermon of St. Bernard's — that he was to put faith in it, not only as a general fact, but as one applicable to his own case. But his chief helper was Staupitz. The counsel of his Vicar seems to have been at once so tender and so judicious as irresistibly to suggest the conclusion that he had been in a similar plight himself and had passed through the same valley of the shadow. At first, indeed, when Luther went to hun in confession, he repelled hini with,^ " Master Martin, I under- stand you not." " Then thought I," says Luther, " no one has struggles and temptations, but only thou. Then was I as a dead body. At last Dr. Staupitz addressed me at table, when I was so sorrowful and beaten down, and said, ' Brother Martin, why art thou so sorrowful?' Then said I, 'What will become of me ? ' Said he, ' Do you not know that such -- temptations are good and needful for you, else will no good come of you ? ' " This seems to have l)een the beginning of better things. Staupitz strove to call away Luther's mind from ^ Erl. 0pp. Lat. vol. vi. pp.T58, 296 (Hauspostillc) ; ibid. vol. ix. p. 291 {Enarr. in Genesin) ; Coll. vol. iii. pp. iKirchcnposlille) ; ibid. xliv. p. 127 169, 184 ; T. T. vol. i. p. 409 ; vol. ii. \Prcdigten ueber etzliclic Ka]). des Ev. p. 164 ; ^lelanchtlion, Corp. licf. vol. MattJUii). vi. p. 158; "Weimar, vol. i. p. 557 -A slightly different account is (Resolutiones) ; Erl. D.S. vol. iv. p. 69 given, De ^Y. vol. iv. p. 187. K i62 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. coaatant^self- questioning and petty scrupulosity. Probably he was the confessor who said to him, after a recapitulation of many small offences, " Thou art a fool, God is not angry with thee, it is thou who art angry with God." Once Luther wrote to him, " Oh, my sins, my sins, my sins ! " and received for an answer, " Thou wilt be without sins, and yet hast no true sins. Christ is the forgiveness of genuine sins, murder of parents, public blasphemy, contempt of God, adultery — these are true sins." Perhaps it is to this that Luther alludes in a letter to Spalatin, written as late as 1544. "Thus was my Staupitz wont formerly to console me in my sorrow. Thou wishest, he said, to be a sham sinner, and to have Christ as a sham Saviour. Thou must accustom thyself to the thought that thou art a real sinner, and that Christ is a real Saviour ; the doings of God are neither unreal nor absurd ; He is not jesting with us in sending His Son and delivering Him up for us." -^ But this appeal to what may be called the common sense of conscience would have availed little without some means of putting conscience to rest, and setting the Godward will in happy motion. A phrase which Staupitz is said to have often used paints the situation vividly. " The law of God says to us men, ' Here is a high mountain, thou must over it.' Then says the flesh and presumption, ' I will over.' Where- upon conscience, ' Thou canst not.' ' Then I will let it alone,' answers last of all despair." Wliat outlet from this difficulty ? Another word of Staupitz's supplies the answer. " More than a thousand times," he was wont to say, " I have vowed to God that I would be more righteous, but I have never performed what I vowed. From this time forth I will never again make any such vow, because experience has taught me that I cannot perform it. Unless, therefore, God is appeased and propitious to me for Christ's sake, and will give me a last hour, desired and happy, when I must depart out of this miserable life, I cannot stand with all my vows and good works." But if the work of pleasing God had been done, if the divine justice had been satisfied by another, then 1 Melanchthon, Corp. Eef. vol. vi. p. 159 ; T. T. vol. iii. pp. 135, 136 ; vol. ii. p. 23 ; De W. vol. v. p. 680. IV JUS TIFICA TION BY FAITH 1 63 for the first time the will, having shaken ojff the burthen that had so long weighed upon and benumbed it, might joyfully enter upon the path of obedience. Only believe and the terror vanishes, the fetters are struck off The very sense of liberation is new hope and fresh life. The root of true peni- tence is seen to be in the love of that very divine justice which once showed itself so terrible. It was in this form of the doctrine of justification by faith alone that Luther first found a way of egress from his troubles. Once having received the idea from Staupitz, he began to discern it every- where — in the New Testament, in the works of Augustine, even in phrases scattered through the Fathers and Schoolmen. We should make a mistake in supposing that he developed the doctrine at this time into anything like philosophical complete- ness,^ or that he was at all conscious of having made a discovery in Scripture of which the Church might possibly not approve. It is not likely that the purely intellectual side of the matter was that most prominent in his mind. He had been bound, and he was free ; wretched, and he was happy ; entangled in a net of scrupulosity, and he was able to rejoice in " the exceeding broad commands " of God. It was only at a later period that he began to find out the irreconcilability of this central doctrine w4th much in the system of the Church to which he still clung : the immediate result was that as the one took firmer possession , of him the other gradually faded out of his life. We are yet a long way even from Luther's first modified revolt against Eome and the excesses of the indulgence.^ It is a part of the same fact that Staupitz discouraged Luther from trying to plumb the deep things of faith. As is * See a remarkable passage in the prove tliat Luther has here made a preface to the first volume of his mi.stake; and, of course, it is possible collected works, dated March 1545 (Erl. that, writing a year before his death of Opp. V. a. vol. i. p. 22), in which he what took place twenty-si.\ years before, expressly says that it was not till 1519, his memory had failed him ; but it is after his negotiations with Miltitz, that, also true that all his other statements applying himself a second time to the as to this particular point are undated, interpretation of the Psalms, he found and it is iudisputalilu tliat he advanced out the Pauline signification of the to the position, wliidi he finally took up, Ehrase "justice of God," and appre- only slowly, and with much hesitation, ended what was meant by "the just - T. T. vol. ii. p. 48 ; Erl. Ep. ad shall live by faith." Kostlin {Luther's Gal. vol. iii. p. 21 ; D.S. vol. xlviii. Theoloyic, vol. i. p. 49) tries hard to p. 201 {Auslcguwj dcs Ev. Joh.) i64 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. almost always the case with such mmds in such circumstances, speculations upon " fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," laid their fascination upon him, and ministered to his distress. ' " Why, say men under temptation of Satan, listen to the Gospel, when all depends upon predestination ? Then Staupitz consoled me with these words, ' Wliy torturest thou thyself with these speculations ? Look at the wounds of Christ, and His blood shed for thee; from them will predestination shine forth.' ", " In predestination," said Luther himself, " we forget God, then the Laudate ceases and the Blasphemate begins. For in Christ all treasures are hidden ; and out of Christ all are shut up." There is not only no attempt here to form a system, but there is the tacit acknowledgment that the formation of a system is inexpedient, if not impossible. It is a simple looking to Christ ; a belief that He has already done for the soul all that can or need be done, without definition, without theory, with- out rounding off of conceptions, or reconciliation of difficulties. The point of view is essentially mystic, and , the mystic ceases where the dogmatist begins.-^ "^"^^ So far, and for many years more, Staupitz and Luther / walked hand in hand; and Staupitz, as we have seen, never I, left the Catholic Church, and died at last in her high places. \ And we may confidently affirm that nothing that Luther had yet thought or said at all touched his allegiance to Eome : the conflict and the victory had all been within himself. He began to preach, though unwillingly, and with much fear, being compelled to do so by Staupitz ; he even heard a few con- fessions. It is fair to conclude, from what we know of his after life, though there is no direct evidence on the subject, that what peace he attained to was not unbroken, that his doubts and difficulties recurred, and that periods of gloom \^ alternated with times of happy confidence. But the great ^ inSLpiration of his life had now taken possession of him, and he was never really unfaithful to it. He bought a Hebrew dictionary, as if to study the Old Testament in the original. ' He probably did not make much progress with the language ; Greek in any case was a later acquisition. According to his own account, he remained a loyal and devoted subject of the ^ Erl. 0pp. Lat. vol. vi. p. 296 {Enarr. in Gcncsin); Coll. vol. i. p. 80. IV FROM ERFURT TO WITTENBERG 165 Pope. He calls himself " a most mad Papist" ; " so drunken, so drowned in the Papal dogmas as to . be ready to slay, if I could, or to consent and co-operate with the slayers of all who detracted from the obedience due to the Pope by a single syllable." But at the very moment that he says " ex animo, I held none but the common opinions of Pope and Councils and Universities," he goes on, " Although many of these things appeared to me absurd, and quite alien from Christ, I refrained my thoughts for more than the ten years of wliich Solomon speaks." One day he found in the convent library a book which bore the abhorred name of John Hus, and opened it, curious to see what the arch -heretic would say. "There I truly found so much that I was amazed that a man who could write so Christianly and so powerfully should have been burned. But because his name was so cruelly condemned, that I thought the walls would become black, and the sun lose liis shining for whoever thought well of Hus — I shut the book and went away with a wounded heart, comforting myself, however, with such thoughts as these, — Perhaps he wrote thus before he became a heretic ; — for I did not then know the histoiy of the Council of Constanz." But if the leaven of freedom was already working, it was in secret. Men augured great things of him. John Nathin — we have the fact on the authority of a bitter opponent — spoke of him as another Paul, miraculously converted by the direct interposition of Christ. No shadow of suspicion rested upon the orthodoxy of his faith or the purity of his character ; and a great ecclesiastical career seemed to open before him.-^ In the autumn of 1508 Luther was invited by Staupitz to remove to the Augustinian convent at Wittenberg, and to become a teacher in the University founded in that town sLx years before by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. It was not only a momentous but an unexpected turn in his life. In one of his earliest extant letters he apologises to his friend John Braun of Eisenach for having left Erfurt too suddenly to say good-bye. His work began with the winter half-year of ^ Ratzeberger, p. 47 note; Coll. vol. opera siui) ; ibid. vol. v. p. 400 {Con- in. p. 109 ; De W. vol. ii. p. 203 ; futatio rationis Laloinianae) ; D. S. Erl. Ep. ad Gal. vol. i. p. 107 ; 0]ip., vol. Ixv. p. 81 {Nachlese); Seidemann, V. a., vol. i. p. 16 [Praefatio M. L. in Lulherhricfe, p. 11. 1 66 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. 1508-1509. He was to teach philosophy, which " he would only too willingly," he said, "exchange for theology." But he had now found the place in which he was to spend all the rest of his days, and the circumstances in the midst of which he was to do liis life's work.-^ Wittenberg, a town which lies close to the Elbe, though not actually upon it, was the ancient capital of Electoral Saxony. In the way of situation or of natural beauty, it has nothing to recommend it. It stands in the midst of sandy heaths, wliich stretch in flat and monotonous barrenness for many miles around it. No hills break the level line of the horizon, nor is there any rural richness in the landscape to make up I for the lack of more striking beauty. After it became famous as a seat of learning, its name was fancifully declared to be; equivalent to " Hill of "Wisdom " ; but it was really derived from ' the white sandhills which form the banks of the Elbe. Even^ now it consists of little more than one street, perhaps three- quarters of a mile in length, extending from what was once the Elster Gate — outside of which Luther burned the Pope's buU — at one end, to the Castle and the Castle Church at, the other. Not far from the Elster Gate, on the left-hand; side, is the Augustinian convent ; a little beyond it Melanch- thon's house; then the street expands into a square or market- place, surrounded by handsome old houses, and ha^dng the Eathhaus in the midst. Looking from this square, now adorned with statues of Luther and Melanchthon, the visitor sees the twin towers of the Parish Church rising from another open space, to which access is gained by a covered way, passing through which he finds himself before a worn and Ijattered edifice, bearing frequent marks of alternate ruin and repair, and by its side a Chapel of Corpus Christi, also datmg from the ages of faith. From the market-place the main Kne of street again leads to what remains of the Castle, the facade of which, flanked by two massive and truncated towers, looks out upon the open country. Attached to this is the Castle Church, a building which has fared far worse in the frequent wars of Germany than its parochial sister. Some of its monuments, the graves of Luther and Melanchthon, and the 1 De W. vol. i. p. 6. IV WITTENBERG IN ijoS 167 brouze effigies of Electors Frederick and John, are happily intact ; but there is very little in the existing church upon which the li\dng eyes of the Reformer can have rested. This, with one or two side streets of little importance, and some stately burgher houses, to which recollections of the Eeforma- tion still cling, makes up the Wittenberg of to-day. Its University was incorporated with that of Halle in 1817, and a seminary for Protestant preachers only imperfectly supplies its place. The careless traveller, if ever he sought it out in its sandy solitude, would look upon it as a very ordinary North German town of the third class ; its architecture is not particu- larly interesting, and all that remains to it is an air of old- world respectability, which does not reach to splendour. It requires an effort to recollect that in the first half of the sixteenth century it could put forward a better clami to be the mtellectual centre of Europe than Paris or Bologna or Oxford. In 1508, however, Wittenberg was little better than a poverty-stricken village. It had been a favourite residence of the Ascanian dynasty of Saxon princes which died out in 1422. Many of them were buried in the Franciscan Church, while the Castle Church, originally built in 1306, had been refounded between thirty and forty years later, by Eudolph I., as a place of worship and interment for himself and his descendants. But when the House of Wettin succeeded to the Electoral dignity, Wittenberg ceased to be an object of preference ; the Castle was allowed to fall into decay, and the town had no longer anything to distinguish it from others of like unimportance, until, in 1502, Frederick the Wise took the first steps towards making it the seat of a university. Christopher Scheurl, a young jurist of Mirnberg, who, in 1507, was invited to become Professor of Law at Wittenberg, had previously, in 1505, delivered before the University of Bologna, in which he was pursuing his studies, a fiowery oration in praise of Germany in general, and the Saxon princes in particular. In this he declared, among other things, that Frederick had found Wittenberg a city of brick, and had left it a city of marble. But unless this was a conscious oratorical flourish, Scheurl must have been wofully disappointed 1 68 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. when he arrived at Wittenberg. Myconius, describing it as it was, not long afterwards, says, " Up to this time Wittenberg was a poor insignificant town ; little, old, ugly, low, wooden houses, more like an old village than a town." Even in 1513 it counted only three hundred and fifty-six rateable houses. Luther must have found it a strong contrast to wealthy, busy, luxurious Erfurt. He says that it was on the further verge of civilisation, a traveller that went a little way on would be in the midst of barbarism. The people were rude in manners, careless of learning, unsusceptible to Gospel teaching. Saxony had the reputation of being the most drunken part of Germany, Wittenberg of being the most drunken town in Saxony. Scheurl told the same tale when he arrived at the city of his hopes ; " the people," he said, " were above measure drunken, rude, and given to revelling." Presently all this was idealised by enthusiastic children of the Eeform ; Wittenberg became another Zion, and an etymology, more pious than scientific, which Luther himself did not disdain to countenance, discovered an identity in name between the villages round Jerusalem and those in the neighbourhood of the Saxon city. But a first impression, though long obliterated, often returns to mind, and Luther found a rude and unmalleable element in Wittenberg to the very last.^ To understand the circumstances under which the new University was founded, we must take up at a remoter point the history of the Saxon House of Wettin. In the middle years of the fifteenth century it was represented by the Elec- tor Frederick and his brother William, Landgrave of Thuringia. The latter died without issue ; Frederick was the father of two boys, Ernest and Albert, who are memorable in German history as having been, in their childhood, stolen by Kimz von Kaufungen, though safely restored, after a day or two's fright, to their parents. These lads were the progenitors respectively of what are known as the Ernestine and Alber- tine lines of Saxon princes. The territories of the House fell ^ Stier, Wittenberg im Mittdalter, dem Wciscn, p. 3 ; Myconius, Hist. Ref. p. 14 ; Stier, Die Schlosskirche zu p. 27; Mathesius, p. 206 B ; Coll. vol. Wittcnherg, p. 4 ; Von Soden, Bcitrdge iii. pp. 101, 102 ; T. T. vol. i. pp. 16, zur Geschichte dcr Eefor/natioji, -p. 10; 65; vol. iv. p. 672; Erl. D.S. vol. Scheurl, Brief buck, vol. i. p. 44; xxviii. p. 140 (Tom Missbrauch der Schmidt, Wittenberg unter K. Friedrich Messe) ; Kostlin, M. L. p. 91. IV THE ELECTOR FREDERICK 169 into three main divisions : Electoral Saxony, of which Witten- berg may be taken as the capital ; the Misnian laud, of which Meissen, Dresden, and Leipzig were the chief towns ; and the fairer and more fertile Thuringia, in which stood Eisenach, Weimar, Jena. Over these the princes ruled, some- times conjointly, sometimes in pursuance of formal family divisions, the head of the Ernestine branch always, in virtue of his seniority, retaining the electoral dignity and territory. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Frederick, surnamed the Wise, was Elector of Saxony. His brother John, who afterwards succeeded him in the Electorate, reigned by his side, in complete fraternal amity, over the Thuringian territory, which they held in common. The Misnian land, perhaps the richest portion of the whole inheritance, had for its ruler Duke George, sometimes called the Bearded, the son of the little Albert whom Kunz von Kaufungen stole. But a close friend- ship united the two branches of the House, and the obliga- tions of kindred were fully acknowledged.^ In 1502 Frederick was thirty -seven years of age, a popular ruler in Saxony, and gradually making his way to recognition as the ablest and, after the Emperor, the most powerful of German princes. He had been educated at the chapter school of Grunma, where he learned to read, and, in a somewhat imperfect way, to speak Latin and French. The connection of the whole family with the Church was unusually close. Of Frederick's younger brothers one, Albert, was Elector and Archbishop of Mainz ; another, Ernest, Arch- bishop of Magdeburg and Administrator of Halberstadt. Frederick himself was full of the piety of his age. The last years of the fifteenth century were, in Germany, years of an increased fervour of religious faith and practice, in which he bore his part. In 1493, accompanied by Duke Christian of l>avaria and a large retinue, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, receiving there the honour of knighthood, and bringing l)ack a plentiful store of relics. In the same spirit lie rebuilt and re-endowed the Castle Church of Wittenberg, which was completed in 1499, and solemnly consecrated in 1502, by the Cardinal Legate Raymond, Bishop of (hirk. ^ Bottiger-Flathe, Gcschichte von Sachscn, vol. i. ]>. 385 scq. I70 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. This building, which, in accordance with its purpose as a private chapel of the Electoral family, consisted only of a ■ vaulted choir, unsupported by pillars and without transepts, he designed to make the religious centre-point of his dominions, and with that view enriched it with an extraordinary collec- , tion of relics. The number, according to a contemporary list, amounted to 5005, and among them was everything that a fanciful and childish superstition could suggest as worthy of ; reverence. Once a year, on the Monday after Misericordias, \ these were solemnly exposed to the view of pilgrims, who were ) attracted in great numbers to the show by large promises of i indulgences. Ten thousand masses were solemnised in the i church every year. It was calculated that a pilgrim who ( knew how to make the most of his opportunities could obtain j indulgence for 1443 years. Cardinal Eaymond himself ! offered a hundred days' indulgence for every Paternoster said ; on Frederick's behalf.^ ; Nothing, therefore, could be farther from Frederick's | thought in founding a university than that it should become j in any sense a centre of action against the Church. Not only was his orthodoxy beyond reproach, but his procedure shows | that he was not conscious of any dissatisfaction with | existing methods of thought or teaching. His principal ad- ! visers in the matter were Staupitz and Martin Pollich of Mellerstadt, or Mellrichstadt, the physician who had attended him to the Holy Land. Had it not been for Luther's subse- quent rebellion, Staupitz would never have been known except as a Vicar of the Augustinian Congregation, who was ; zealous for conventual observance, and touched by the old ; Catholic mysticism of Germany. Pollich, who was already ; Doctor of Medicine and of Philosophy, and who, after the ; University was founded, added to these a third degree in Divinity, was a man of many-sided culture, one of the older generation of humanists, and known to be opposed to some of the absurd extravagances of the scholastic theology. Frederick's chief motive seems to have been a desire to provide higher 1 Spalatin, Friedrich dcr Weise, p. kirche, p. 8 ; Schmidt, uM siipra, p. 22. For a curious account of Frede- 15 ; Cor]}. Eef. vol. i. p. 219 ; Kostlin, rick's pilgrimage see the same work, M. L. vol. i. p. 93. Beilage, vol. i. p. 76 ; Stier, Schloss- IV THE UNIVERSITY OF WITTENBERG 171 teaching within his own dominions, a duty which it was said that the Diet of Worms in 1495 had declared to be incum- bent on every Elector. Leipzig, where a university had existed since 1409, was in the part of Saxony which, by a partition made in 1485, had fallen to the Albertine line. Erfurt, as we have seen, was an almost free city, leaning more upon the Archbishops of Mainz than upon the Electors of Saxony. No site for the new institution, therefore, seemed to be so fit as Wittenberg. Connected with the Castle Church was a well-endowed Chapter or Stift, to the members of which might be entrusted definite duties of teaching. It was in all Ukelihood Staupitz who suggested that the Augustinian con- vent could be turned to the same account. The Franciscans, who also were established in Wittenberg, held altogether aloof^ It was no vmusual thing that a new university should be thus closely connected with the Church, or that the funds for its endowment should be provided by a kind of half seculari- sation of ecclesiastical revenues. Education of every kind was so completely in the hands of the clergy, that the application of Church lands and tithes to the support of university teaching was not looked upon as diverting them from their original purpose. Vienna, Heidelberg, Koln, Erfurt, as weU as later foundations, Basel, Greifswald, Ingolstadt, and Eostock, were all provided with an income in the same way. At the same time Wittenberg was one of the first German universities which was based, not upon a Papal bull, but upon an Imperial charter. In the document, dated July 6th, 1502, which gave permission to teach and grant degrees in aU faculties, Maxi- milian declares the protection of all sciences to belong to the head of the Empire, whose duty it is " to provide for the happy progress of knowledge, good arts, and liberal studies, that they, drawn from the fountain of DiN-ine Wisdom, may mgike our subjects more apt to the administration of the common-weal, to foresight in the provision of things necessary to life." Nevertheless, there was no intention of dispensing with the blessing of the Church. Cardinal Eaymond, in an instrument which alludes to the Imperial charter already ^ Lcischer, Reformations- Adn, vol. i. p. 87. 172 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. granted, confirmed the foundation of the University, and, in virtue of the plenary powers entrusted to him by Pope Alexander VI, especially established in it the privilege of granting degrees in Theology and Canon Law. But this did not satisfy the pious scruples of Frederick, and a bull issued by Pope Julius II on the 20th of June 1507 once more confirmed all that had already been done, and gave the highest ecclesiastical sanction to the endowment of the University out of the property of the Church.^ This was chiefly effected by a union between the Univer- sity and the College of All Saints which had its seat in the Castle Church. Its head was converted into a Dean ; under him were an Archdeacon and Canon, each of whom enjoyed a separate prebend or benefice, and each had to undertake fixed teaching duties in the University. They were in all twelve : three Theologians, four Jurists, five Masters of Arts who had received a philosophical training. Other endowments followed upon this ; both Frederick and his brother and successor John kept an open hand to the University which they had founded. In 1508 the statutes by which it was to be governed were enacted ; they had been drawn up by Scheurl, who received ten gvilden as his re- muneration. They did not proceed from the University itself; they were a code of laws enacted by the Elector, upon the advice of his councillors, and imposed by him upon the new institution. They established the University as a corporation, with a Eector at its head, divided into four faculties, each of which was presided over by a Dean. There were no " nations " ; unconscious of the coming concourse from all parts of Europe, the founders thought only of a High School for Electoral Saxony and Thuringia. Wliat was peculiar was the institution of four " studii generahs Eeformatores," the Eector and three others, who were to stand at the head of everything in the Elector's place, and to whom he gave "supreme and absolute power of every kind." But this office seems to have fallen into decay before twenty years had passed ; probably ^ Muther, Die JFittcnbcrger Univer- len dcr Universitdt zuJVittenherg, vol. sitdts-und FacuUdtsstatuten vom Jahre i. cli. i. 1508 (Prolegomena); Grohmann, Anna- THE UNIVERSITY OF WITTENBERG 173 the dignity of those who held it was overshadowed by the solid authority of Luther and Melanchthon. The connection of the University with established religion was drawn very close ; the Castle Church was its church ; its pulpit the place where its exercises were read ; its door the board to which academical notices were affixed. The University was solemnly consecrated to God and His immaculate Mother. Augustine was adopted as the patron saint of the whole institution ; Paul of the theological, Ivo of the legal, Cosmas and Damian of the medical, Catharine of the arts faculty. In some of these names it is possible to discern a secret omen of what was coming.^ Four hundred and sixteen students matriculated in 1502, under the rectorate of Martin PoUich. In 1503 this number fell to 390; in 1504 to 271; in 1505 to 127. In 1506 a pestilence compelled the removal of the University to Herzberg, and it was not till 1508 that the number of matri- culations again rose to 179. In May 1507 Christopher Scheurl was elected Piector. Among the records of an office which he is pompously said to have filled " with the utmost dignity, magnificence, humanity and the general good-will," we find that he forbad members of the University to frequent taverns for the purpose of drinking ; and imposed a penalty of half a gulden upon the wearing of arms. But we possess a more valuable relic of Scheurl's year of office than this, in a list of lectures for the year 1507, which he published with an appropriate preface. In this he describes Wittenberg as a place of a wonderful mildness of air ; free, by God's grace, from every epidemic ; full of kindly citizens. A year's board may be had for eight gold gulden ; and, by the munificence of the Princes, degrees are conferred gratis.' By favour of the Supreme Pontiff and the Emperor, Wittenberg possesses all the privileges which are enjoyed by Bologna, Padua, Pavia, Perugia, Paris, Lei^jzig. Finally, the good man breaks abnost into a rhapsody : " If only you will believe me, who have myself been educated in Italy, and have travelled over almost the whole of it, so many, and so variously learned men ^ Muther, «'n supra; Scliniidt, p. 13 5), this privilc^'c was f,'raiitetl only for scq.; Grohmanii, vol. i. p. 103. three years. It had apparently ceased ^ According to Grohmann (vol. i. p. before Luther's jjraduatiou, vide p. 184. 174 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. neither Padua possesses, nor Bologna herself, the mother of studies." The ensuing programme of lectures, however, hardly hears out the boast. In theology there are five professors, of whom three are known to us by name, Staupitz, Pollich, and Trutvetter. In canon law there are seven, of whom Scheurl himself is one ; in Imperial law three, Scheurl's name appearing again. There are four teachers of medicine, among whom Pollich is once more enumerated. Amsdorf, whom we shall learn to know as the most devoted of Lutherans, heads a list of nine philosophical teachers, of whom the second is a man even more famous in the history of the Eeformation, Carlstadt. How little the University was yet emancipated from old methods of teaching may be inferred from the fact that the former is announced as lecturing " in via Scoti," the latter " in \ia S. Thomae." "When we come to polite letters, we find that Balthazar Phacchus proposes to read Virgil's Eneid, Valerius Maximus, and Sallust's Jugur- thine "War ; Scheurl, Suetonius ; George Sybutus, Silius Italicus, and a poem of his own on the site of "Wittenberg. And that is all. There is no Greek, no Hebrew, no history, and only such physics as philosophy and medicine can provide between them. A list of five extraordinary lecturers in philosophy, and as many " in litteris secularibus " — the sub- jects of whose instruction are not given — closes the meagre programme.^ The transference of Luther from Erfurt to Wittenberg was part of a general policy. Frederick and his adviser Stau- pitz did their best to attract teachers from the older to the younger university. Marschalk, whom we have already learned to know as one of the elder humanists of Erfurt, joined the new institution in the year of its foundation, and remained at Wittenberg till brighter prospects drew him, first to Branden- burg, and then to Eostock. In 1507 he was followed by Jodocus Trutvetter of Eisenach, Luther's old teacher, a man who stood in the highest esteem as a lecturer on philosophy. He was at once elected Eector, and made Archdeacon of the College of All Saints on the new foundation. He remained 1 Forstemann, Alh. Acad. Fit. p. 1 Liter atur hes. dcs XVI. Jahrhunderts, seq., 21 ; Strobel, Neice Bcytrdge zur vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 57. THE SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSITY 175 till 1510, when he was chosen Archdeacon of the Cathedral at Erfurt, and decided, to the displeasure of the Elector, to go back to his old academical allegiance. About the same time Henning Gode, the chief law teacher at Erfurt, left it in consequence of the riots of 1509-1510, and entered himself at Wittenberg. He was received with open arms, was made Provost of the College of All Saints, a post which he held till his death, and lectured upon canon law. He was one of the last representatives of old opinions at Wittenberg, a man of great legal learning and deserved influence, who was chosen by Frederick to accompany him to the election and coronation of Charles V, and who lies buried with his master and the great Reformers in the church over which he presided, the last of its Catholic Provosts. We know that Trutvetter had been Luther's teacher ; it is not impossible that during the few months in which he studied law, the future Eeformer had been the pupil of Gode. At all events, he found well-known Erfurt faces in Wittenberg, and could not have felt wholly strange there from the first.^ On the whole, the intellectual atnios];)here of the Witten- berg to which Luther came in 1508 is fairly clear to us. The teachers whose names we know belong to the class of men upon whom the new learning had begun to make an impres- sion, though it had yet done little to wean their minds from traditional methods of thought. The more pronounced human- ism of Mutian, of Eoban Hess, of Crotus, of Petreius, develops itself at Erfurt in almost entire independence of such influ- ences as prevail at Wittenberg. Hermann von dem Busche delivers an oration at the opening of the University, and enters his name upon its books, but we hear no more of him ; and it is not till 1510 that Ulrich von Hutten, in the course of his wanderings, pays it a passing visit. Staupitz, Trutvetter, Scheurl, Gode, Pollich, had none of them broken with the past, either consciously or unconsciously ; all we can say of them is, that they were men not incapable of movement and willing to turn their faces towards new light. Carlstadt, afterwards so 1 Kampschulte, vol. i. p. 53 ; Er- Plitt, Jml. Trutvetter, pp. 36, 41 ; hard, vol. iii. p. 411 ; Forstemaiin, Stier, Schlosskirche zu IV. pp. 58, Album Acad. Vit. vol. i. pp. 20, 31 ; 60. [76 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT furious an innovator, makes his first appearance at Witten- berg as a hard and dry scholastic, lecturing " in via S. Thomae," and not reading the Bible, till he had been for eight years a : Doctor of Theology. Amsdorf writes to Spalatin in 1518 that he had then hardly begun to read genuine books of theology, and should not have done so, had not " Martin with his own money bought him Augustine and sent it to his house." " Led by his advice, his requests, his earnest persuasions, I have left the studies which I liked : I have left logic, I have left the logical theologians, I have left philosophy — but with the utmost regret : so little delight did I take in Augustine, Jerome, and all doctors of that kind, whom I thought to be mere gram- marians, for indeed they were and are still unknown to me. Of a truth, I thought that the highest wisdom was , hidden in Scotus and Gabriel (Biel) and their like." It was ; the life of Erfurt over again, before the new humanism had ' laid hold of it.^ All we know of Luther's first academical work at Witten- berg is, that he read lectures on Aristotle's Dialectics and Physics, meanwhile not neglecting his private study of the Scriptures. Among the many things in this period of his ! life which are hidden from us, is the mood in which he entered I upon his new career. It was, at least in part, one of depres- sion and humiliation. He probably came to Wittenberg as an act of monastic obedience. He certainly did not look upon his removal from Erfurt as a promotion. There was a custom, half solemn, half burlesque, at the German universities of the time, which was called a " deposition." The new student, the " Bachant," fresh from the hardships and coarseness of his school, or possibly his wandering in search of instruction, was received at a meeting of his fellows, presided over by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts. A speech was made to him (one delivered by Luther himself on such an occasion is pre- served in the Table Talk), in which he was jocosely and yet seriously admonished to lay aside all his evil ways, and to ■ conform himself to the decencies of academical life, and a I 1 Liber Decanorutn Fac. Theol. Strauss, U. v. Hutten, p. 54 ; Theol. 'ii Acad. Viteh. ed. Foistemann, p. 1 ; St. u. Krit. 1878, p. 698. I Album, p. 2 ; Coll. vol. ii. p. 214 ; DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY 177 series of comic ceremonies was closed by pouring a glass of wine upon his head. Luther afterwards said that when he went from Erfurt to Wittenberg he was " deponiert." His meaning can only be that his entry upon what turned out to be the solemn business of his life was accompanied by experiences tliat were not wholly pleasant, though what these were it is impossible now to say. His real work in Wittenberg did not begin till after his return from Eome in 1512.-^ The events of Luther's life between October 1508, when he tirst went to Wittenberg, and October 1512, when he took his doctor's degree, are involved in some obscurity. To throw upon them what light is possible, I must describe the com- plicated process by which, in tlie German universities of that day, a student attained the rank of Doctor in Theology. Having passed through the philosophical curriculum, which was the indispensable preliminary to graduation in any special faculty, he became in the first place " Baccalaureus Biblicus," or " tanquam ad Biblia," and was empowered in that capacity to expound the Scriptures. At this stage he remained for a year, or if a monk, only for six months, at the end of which he might be admitted " Sententiarius." The meaning of this was tliat he was now entitled to lecture on the first two books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The next step was to become " Sententiarius Formatus," by which was conferred upon him the right of expounding the whole work of the master of the Sentences. Then the candidate proceeded ad liccntiam magistrandi, or the condition of a Licentiate, upon which fol- lowed, without further delay, the final admission to the degree of ^Master or Doctor of Theology. Now Luther, as we have seen, had taken his degrees in philosophy at Erfurt. On St. Luke's Day, 1508, we find his name, " Fr. Martinus Luder de Mansfelt," in the list of students matriculated at Wittenberg, the third of six, who are described as Augustinians. The degree of Baccalaureus Biblicus followed on the 9 th of March 1509, the entry in the Dean's book being accompanied by this remark : " But being called to Erfurt, he has not yet ^ Melanchthon, Corp. Eef. vol. vi. Mutlier, Azcs dem Univcrsitiita - u. \\ 160 ; Coll. vol. ii. pp. 16, 240 ; T. Gdchrtenlebm im ZeitalUr dcr Rcfor- T. vol. ii. p. 70; vol. iv, p. 547; mation, p. 20. 178 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. satisfied the Faculty." To tliis is added iu Luther's own handwriting, evidently of a later date : " Nor will he do. Because at that time, being poor and under obedience, he had nothing. Erfurt therefore will pay." ^ Why Luther thus went back to Erfurt at the very begm- ning of his career at Wittenberg we do not know ; nor, as the Erfurt registers for those years are lost, are we able to ascer- tain his academical position there. Kolde, who has made minute and fruitful research into the history of the Augus- tinian order in Germany, asserts that during Luther's second stay at Erfurt he was occupied in negotiations with the German protector of the order, the Archbishop of Magde- burg, or rather with his deputy, Adolph von Anhalt, Provost of the Cathedral of Halle ; a statement which, though hardly supported by adequate evidence, sufficiently tallies with the fact that in 1511-1512 he was sent to Eome on Augustinian business. And it is certainly true that he took his doctor's degree in Wittenberg in October 1512. But where, and how, did he pass through the stages of graduation intermediate between bachelor and doctor ? Two still extant letters of Luther's, one of June 1514, addressed to the Prior and Fathers of his old convent, the other of December in the same year, to the Theological Faculty of the University of Erfurt, throw a little light upon this dark place. It seems that he was accused of unfaithfulness to his academical obligations in having, contrary to the statutes which he had sworn to ob- serve, proceeded to the degree of Doctor in Theology elsewhere than at Erfurt. We need not go into the details of his de- fence. It comes out that, in a somewhat strange way, his graduation had been divided between the two universities. ; The first and last steps were taken at Wittenberg, the inter- mediate ones at Erfurt. We are stiU left without information as to Luther's abrupt abandonment of Wittenberg immediately after his first settlement there, or the reasons of his return. But it is perhaps open to us to conclude that there was a friendly rivalry between the two universities for the services ^ Jiirgens, vol. ii. p. 213 ; Lib. Dec. is March 1508, but this is evidently a p. 144 ; Statute De promotionibus, mistake for 1509. Conf. Kostlin, Album, p. 28 ; Lib. Dec. p. 4. The Theol St. v.. Krit. 1874, p. 320 iiute. date here actually given by Fbrstemann ,-1 I HIS JOURNEY TO ROME 179 of a man, who, though yet untried, was thought likely to acUl lustre to either.^ It has long been thought that Luther's journey to Eonie,- wliich in part filled up this interval, and which I suppose to have taken place in the winter of 1511-1512, had something to do with Augustinian politics. So early a biographer as Coch- laeus represents him as having been sent thither by certain en)nvents who differed in opinion with the Vicar, and who selected Imu as their advocate, because he was " sharp of mind, and bold and vehement in contradiction." When, how- ever, we recollect that the Vicar in question was Staupitz, and that Luther was then and for some years afterwards, not only an admiring friend, but a willing instrument in his hands, the statement of Coclilaeus becomes hardly credible. And recent ^ Kolde, Martin Luther, vol. i. p. 74, who refers to Seidemaiin, Luther- brief e, p. 11; De W. vol. i. p. 12; vol. vi. p. 4. Couf. Thcol. St. «. Krit. 1874, p. 319 et scq. - Tliat Luther's journey to Rome was made in the autumn and winter months may be fairly inferred from allusions in his Table Talk to pome- granates {Coll. vol. i. p. 374 ; T. T. vol. iv. p. 677) and to grapes {T. T. vol. i. p. 181). But wasit in 1510-1511 or in 1511-1512 ? If we could regard it as absolutely settled that the object of his journey was precisely the affair of the Augustinian order mentioned in the text, it would be decisive in favour of the latter date, as Staupitz did not publish the bull till September 1510, and some months must be allowed for opposition to ripen. But there is no- thing in Melanchthon's phrase [Cori). Bef. vol. vi. p. 160) that Luther went to Rome, propter monachoruni contro- versias, or the corresponding though inaccurate account of Cochlaeus, to determine the occasion with absolute certainty. Luther's own testimony, 80 far as it is accessible to us, either in his writings or in the Tabic Talk, is chiefly though not quite uuiforndy in favour of 1510. In one place (Erl. D. S. vol. xxvi. p. 146) he says, " A7mo I)omini (if I am right) 1510, I was ill Rome"; and again {ibid. vol. xxxii. ]|. 424) he speaks of passing through .Milan in the same year. Passages from the Table Talk may be cited in a similar sense. On the other liand, Melanchthon {Corp. Ref. vol. vi. p. 160) appears to fix 1511-1512 as the date; while ^lathesius (p. 6 A), profess- ing to quote from a ilS. in Luther's own hand, distinctly says 1510. But two considerations seem to make it necessary to adopt the later date. One is, that in the letter which in Decemljer 1514 Luther addressed to the Dean and Doctors of the Theolo- gical Faculty at Erfurt (De W. vol. vi. p. 5) lie speaks of himself as having been one of them "for nearly a year and a half." The other is, that while it is all but certain that Luther saw Pope Julius II in Rome {Coll. vol. i. p. 165 ; T. T. vol. iv. p. 687 ; Mathesius p. 6 A), that Pontiff was absent from the city from September 1510 to the end of June 1511. It is more likely that Luther, WTiting many years afterwartls, or in loose talk loosely reported, should make a mis- take, than that the chronological in- dications above given should lead us astray. It may be mentioned that Kostlin, after at first accepting the earlier, has settled finally upon the later date. Vide Thcol. St. u. Krit. (KiJstlin) 1871, p. 47 ct scq. ; ibid. (KiJstlin) 1874, ]>. 321 el scq. ; ibid. (Huddensicg) 1879, p. 335 ct scq.; Zritschriftfiir Kirchcngeschichte ( Kolde) vol. ii. p. 460 ct scq. ; ibid. (Bricger) vol. iii. p. 197 ct seq. i8o LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. researches into Augustinian history hay^^placed the matter . in its true light. Staupitz, in his ^xiety to extend the j principles and practice of the Congregation of the Observance ■ over the whole of the Augustinian order in Germany, had procured a Papal Bull, by which the office of Vicar of the Congregation, and that of Saxon Provincial, were united iu the same person, with the result of practically welding into one the two bodies over which they presided. More than ' this, he had prevailed upon the General of the order, before the ' bull was pubhshed, to confer both offices on hhnself. To this, ■ strange to say, objection was made, not by the laxer, but ^ by the severer communities ; and seven convents, with that of ! Niirnberg at their head, appealed to Eome. It is not necessary to follow the matter into its details, which are indeed only imper- ; fectly known. In the autumn of 1511, if our chronological' data be correct, Luther, in all probability accompanied by; another Augustinian, John von Mecheln, set out for the Holy: City, returning in the spring of the following year. It is I hardly pjsedfnl to say that his mission was to suppoi^t^tfee j policy of Staupitz at headquarters. It is difficult to decide; whether Erfurt or Wittenberg was the starting-point of the: journey. "We only know that on September 10th, 1510, Luther* was in Erfurt, and that on May 8th, 1512, he was again in' Wittenberg.-^ The travellers were expected to proceed on foot, trusting for shelter and food by the way to monastic hospitahty.' Luther took with him ten gold gulden ; but this was not for travelling expenses, but to pay an advocate in the Papal courts. Various local legends exist, wliich, if they could be trusted, would help to fix his route: it seems most likely that he took his way through Switzerland, while it is certain that ^ Coclil. p. 3; Kolde, Staupitz, was, on the 25th February 1512, sent p. 233 seq., p. 241 ; M. Luther, vol. by Staupitz from Salzburg to Kbln.. i. p. 75 ; Kolde, Analecta Lutherana, The Wittenberg Lib. Dec, p. 10, re- pp. 3, 4 ; conf. Erl. Op}}. Lat. vol. iv. cords the fact that the same J. v.' p. 13 {Enarr. in Gciiesin) ; Zeitschrift Lleeheln was admitted to the degret fiir K. G. (vol. ii. p. 460 et scq.) It of D.D. on 16th Sept. 1511, and tc was a rule of the order, strictly en- the Theological Faculty on the 4th o forced, that two brothers should always October. This seems to be decisive a; travel together. AVe know that John to the date of Luther's journey, if w< von Mecheln, an Augustinian monk, assume that John v. MechelnVas hi: who had just returned from Rome, companion. HIS JOURNEY TO ROME on his return he stopped at Augsburg. Of the (hiratiou of the journey we may form an estimate from the fact that in 1505 Nicholas Besler, also an Augustinian monk, took six weeks to get from Munich to Eome. Some few incidents of travel, some general impressions received by the way, survive in Luther's TahU Talk and elsewhere. He felt the beauty and the fertility of Italy ; especially the fruitful plain of Lom- bardy, watered by its mighty river, and lying between two great mountain chains, struck him with admiration. He mentions the size of the grapes, the healthful properties of the pomegranates, the richness which the olives distilled from the rocks. He was much impressed by the magnificence of some of the monasteries that sheltered him ; their fasts, he said, were more luxurious than feasts in Germany. Yet the Italians were sober in comparison with his own countrymen, thougli at the same time arrogant, deceitful, capable of the basest crimes, full of lusts, natural and unnatural. He was enthusiastic about the splendour, the efficiency, the cleanliness of their hospitals and foundling asylums, commemorating especially those at Florence. Milan, through which he passed on his return, afforded him a surprise ; he was refused permission to say his mass there, on the ground that he was not Ambrosian, and so appears to have found out, for the first time, that the universality and identity of Catholic ritual had its exceptions. He may be supposed to have entered Eome by the Flaminian Gate — the Porto del Popolo — and tradition houses him liard by, in the Augustinian convent to which the well-known Cliuieli of St. Maria del Popolo was attached.^ Notices of Eome are scattered pretty al)un(liintly Ihrougli Luther's Tabic Talk. But it is clearly necessary to discriminate between Ms mood at the time and the light which after- experience threw upon his recollections. Nothing that he saw in Italy detracted from the feeling of high-wrought enthusiasm with wliich he approached the Holy City. Twice at Erfurt he had made a general confession, a process which he desired 1 M. Dresser, Narratio hrcvis de iii. p. 35; T. 7'. '.vol. i. y\>. Ml, 182; profectione M. LiUheri in urbcm Ho- vol. iv. p. 679 ; Lauterl.iidi, pp. 87, viam; Thcol. Ht. u. Krit. 1882, p. 104,165; Erl. D.S. vol. xxxii. p. 424 550 ; SeiJemann, Lutherbriefe, p. 64 ; (A'urzcs Bckcnnttiiss vom hcilujcii Ha- Coll. vol. i. pp. 121, 195, 376; vol. cramcnt). 1 82 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. to repeat and make more efficacious at Eome. So it was with great expectation of spiritual good that, when first the domes and towers of the city burst upon liis sight, he fell to the ground, exclaiming, " Hail, holy Rome ! " And this appears to have been his habitual mood during the few weeks that he remained there. It is quite a mistake to suppose that the seed of Protestant rebellion, which undoubtedly lay hid in his heart, had yet begun to germinate. There was nothing in his spiritual experiences at Erfurt which had produced in hun any conscious dissatisfaction with Catholic doctrine and practice. " I was," he said in 1530, "like a mad saint in Eome; ran through all churches and holes ; believed everything that is lied and stunk there. I have also said more masses than one at Eome ; and while there was heartily sorry that my father and mother were yet living, so willingly would I have released them from purgatory by my masses and other excellent works and prayers. There is a saying at Eome, ' Happy the mother whose son reads a mass on the Saturday of St. John ! ' How ; willingly would I have made my mother happy ! But it was j too thronged, and I could not get to the altar." Yet there j were interruptions to this mood of exaltation. The confessors | to whom he opened his conscience were very ignorant men. ' And wdien he was painfully toiling on his knees up the. Santa Scala, a voice seemed to repeat to him in tones of thunder words which had followed him from Erfurt to Wit- tenberg, and from Wittenberg to Eome, " The just shall live ; by faith." The old doubt, whether through pilgrimage and penance really lay the way to peace, returned with irresist- . ible force, and he left the labour and the prayer incomplete.^ '"^ Naturally the external aspects of the Eternal City made a deep impression on Luther's quick and receptive mind. " At the peril of his life," he says, he investigated the ruins of classical Eome, then less pillaged and destroyed than modern eyes have seen them. He enumerates the great round of the 1 CoU. vol. i. p. 165 ; vol. iii. p. 169 ; ad Eomanos . . . explicatio, Jenae, T. T. vol. iv. p. 687 ; Lauterbach, ]i. 1595. He relates it in his preface on 9 note ; Erl. D.S. vol. xl. p. 284 [Aus- the authority of the Reformer's son legung dcs 117. Psalms). The character- Paul, who had heard it from his father . istic storv of the Santa Scala is pre- in the year 1544. Kostlin, jl/. Z. vol. served by G. Mylius, Ej^. D. Pauli i. p. 781. IV HIS JOURNEY TO ROME 183 Coliseum, the Pantheon, with its single eye open to the heavens, the Catacomb of St. Calixtus with its Papal Crypt, the lieight of the Tarpeian rock, the Franciscan convent on the Capitol, as ha\dng fixed themselves in his memory. He saw the stately processions in which the Pope passed from church to church. So far as we know, he was not successful in his mission, but he found the procedure of the Papal courts of law one of the few things to be praised in Rome. The police he characterises as severe and yet not efficacious. He saw and heard much, the full significance of which he did not recognise till long afterwards, but which he knew how to describe in \dvid phrase, and to use as the barb of the sharpest invective. Not for a thousand gulden, he was wont to say, would he sell Ms personal knowledge of Eome. Stories of the superhuman wickedness of Alexander VI were still gomg about the streets while he was there, and he could see for hunself how Julius II was bathing Italy with blood. He found Cardinals held in repute as saints whose one merit it was to abstain from unnatural vices. Men said openly, that if there were a hell Eome was built over it, to which others added, that before long it must break through. In the public services of the Church there was hardly a pretence of reverence. He heard it told as a good story, that for the words of consecra- tion men jestingly substituted " Panis es, panis manebis, vinum es, vinimi manebis." Indecent haste in celebrating the mysteries was a common thing : " Before I got to the Gospel my neighbour priest had finished liis mass, and was calling to me ' Passa, Passa,' come away, come away." " Everything is laughed at in Eome," he says in another place, " and whoever is grieved I thereby is a Bon Christian, that is, a fool." And yet it would / be too much to assume that he left Eome disenchanted. Such a mood as that which bid him hail the Holy City with prostrate reverence, would hardly within a month be changed to another, and a quite opposite. The charm of sacred sites, the splendour of ceremonies, the magic of historical association, the awe of faith tlironed in her central seat would still work powerfully mthin him. Only upon reflection would moral repulsion awaken, till as time went on, and oppositions of feeling grew more definite, the spell ceased to operate, and 1 84 LUTHER'S LIFE PRIOR TO HIS REVOLT chap. Piome revealed herself to him as no longer the city of saints and martyrs, but the throne of Antichrist, and the sink of all iniquity. But it would be to anticipate the result of processes wMch were hardly begun, if we were to suppose that in 1 5 1 2 Luther turned his back upon Rome, in deep disgust, and with \ half-developed designs of rebellion.-^ With the autumn of 1512 we are again in clear daylight, and on firm chronological ground. Luther has come back to AVittenberg and taken up his abode in the Augustinian convent. The Prior is his old friend Wenceslaus Link, who was at school with him at Magdeburg, and whose course has hitherto run on parallel lines with his own ; he himself fills the office of Sub-Prior. It is very probable that during his first brief stay at Wittenberg trial had been made of his preaching powers. No church in connection with the Augus- tinian convent had yet been built ; the lines for one had indeed been marked out, but the walls hardly rose above the ground. " In the midst of these foundations," says Myconius, " stood an old chapel, built of wood and daubed over with clay, very ruinous, and propped on all sides. It was, as I myself have seen, about thirty feet long and twenty broad. . . . On the south wall was a pulpit of old roughly hewn boards." " For all the world," he goes on to say with pardonable enthusiasm, " it had the look which the painters give to the stable in Bethlehem, where Christ was born." It was in this humble place that Luther first established his fame as an orator ; here, we must suppose, that the Elector heard him, greatly approving both the matter and the manner of his preaching. For when it was a question of his taking his doctor's degi'ee, and so wholly devoting himself to theology, it was Frederick who provided the necessary funds.^ Long afterwards Luther used to point out the pear tree in the convent garden under 1 Coll. vol. i. pp. 162, 163; vol. iii. - The receipt -wliieh Luther gave p. 169 ; T. y. vol. iii. p. 185 ; vol. iv. to Frederick's chamberlains for the p. 688 ; Lauterbach, p. 64 ; Mathesius, fift}^ gulden required for this purpose, p. 6 A ; Erl. 0pp. Lat. vol. iv. p. 264 fortunately survives to contradict a {Enarr. in Genesin) ; ibid. D.S. vol. scandalous story, which Cochlaeus, p. 4, xxiii. p. 10 ( Vorrede auf den Untcrricht rather insinuates than openly affirms. der Visitatorn) ; ibid. vol. xxvii. p. 90 De W. vol. i. p. 11 ; conf. vol. vi. p. ( Von dem Papsthum zu Rom) ; ibid. Yo\. 3; Burkhardt, Luther's Bvieficcchsel, xxxi. pp. 327, 328 ( Von der Winkel- p. 1. viesse) ; Kolde, Staupitz, p. 241. IV AT WITTENBERG 1312-131-/ 185 which Staupitz urged the desirability of his graduation, and at last imposed it upon him, in the name of his monastic obedience. He pleaded his youth, his fragile health, his dread of the responsibility of the pulpit. He was only in his twenty- ninth year ; at Paris Doctors of Theology were made only after ten years' study ; at Erfurt, not till they were fifty years of age. " Master Staupitz," he said, " it is a matter of life and death to me. I shall not survive it a quarter of a year." JUit Staupitz knew with whom he had to deal, and parried the pleading with a joke. " Do you not know," he said, " that our Lord God has many great matters to settle ? So that He is in great need of wise and prudent people to help Him with their advice. Wherefore, even if you die, you must be His counsellor." Luther yielded, but against his will. He always seemed to think that he had been compelled into his vocation. " I was dragged by the hair of my head," he said once, " to the office of teaching and preaching, but had I known then ! what I know now, ten horses should hardly have drawn me into it." The final steps were taken between St. Trancis' Day, the 4th of October 1512, and the 22nd of the same, month, when he was formally admitted into the Senate of the Theological Faculty. He was evidently quite unconscious of having given any offence at Erfurt, for he invited liis old comrades of the Augustinian convent to join in tlie festivities of his graduation.^ The five years between 1512 and 1517, between Lutlier's fuU resumption of work at Wittenberg and the publication of the Ninety-five Theses against indulgences, form a period of great importance in the growth of his mind. They were years of much intellectual and practical activity. He was lecturing in the University. He was preaching in the parish churcli at Wittenberg, often four times a day, in place of tlie stated minister, who was a man in infirm health. He was pursuing his Biblical researches with great ardour, adding meanwhile to his slender store of attainments in Hebrew, and perliai)S in * Myconius, Hi^l. Ref. p. 24; Me- Lauterbach, pp. 103, 160; Erl. D. S. lanch. Corp. Rcf. vol. vi. \). 160; vol. xxxix. p. 2f)Q (Anslcgun.Z?>7 seq. ; Neuc Untersiichunrjcn {Verlhcidi- seq.;con(. Luther' sXCV Thesennnd ihrc gungder Symbolik),\i.Zii\seq.; Canones dorjmenhistorischcn Voraitssetzumjcn, v. et Decrcla Coiicilii Tridentini, scHS. xxi. Bratko. For Paltz's theory, KolJe, c. ix. p. 115, sess. xxv. c. xxi. p. 204. StattpUz, p. 171 scq. LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES lived, stories wliich contained an element of legend gathered round his name, until at last, in the minds of uncritical Pro- testant historians, he became the typical indulgence-monger upon whom any well-worn anecdote might be fathered. Oi late, when Catholic Germany has made vigorous efforts to dis- credit what it calls the Luther legend, Tetzel has been re- habilitated as uncritically as he had formerly been assailed and we are gravely assured by a recent biographer, that with i little less piety and humility he might have been a Luther, or transplanted to Italian soil and the turmoil of Florence, i Savonarola.^ The facts of the case, however, lie upon th( surface, and the historian, whose judgment is not warped b! dogmatic prepossession, has little difficulty in forming a clea: conception of the man. He was a native of Leipzig, bori; probably early in the second half of the fifteenth century, anti educated, not without credit to himself, at the university o. his native town. Such learning as he had appears to havi been of the old-fashioned kind ; no breath of the new scholai! ship, so far as we know, passed over him. His natural apti tudes, which were those of a popular preacher, took him int. the Dommican order ; and from the beginning of the centur we find him everywhere busy as a preacher of indulgence; His first appearance in that capacity was in connection wit the Jubilee indulgence of 1500 ; next we find him recon mending an indulgence which Julius II had proclaimed f( the benefit of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, then hai* pressed by Sclavonic foes. From that time his destiny wf fixed. He was a recognised agent for this kind of cleric work, and we do not hear of him in connection with any othe In 1508-1509 he is preaching in the Church of St. Peter Gorlitz, collecting money to cover it with a copper roof ] 1510 he sells indulgences and " Butterbriefe " — Papal permi sions to eat butter on fast days — for the benefit of a brid; over the Elbe at Torgau. Everywhere successful, he gain( the same kind of reputation as is enjoyed in some Protesta' churches by a preacher of charity sermons whose eloquence affirmed by large collections. Arid as Saxony and the count round about had been the scene of his triumphs, it was qui ^ Grone, Tetzel %md Luther, p. 4. JOHN TETZEL natural that the Archbishop of Mainz shoukl choose liiin as the agent for the indulgence which was at once to rebuiUl the Basilica of St. Peter and to reimburse the Fuggers. Myconius, who in these years was a Franciscan monk at Annaberg, and saw what he described, gives a lively picture of the ceremonial observed in the first promulgation of an indul- gence — a ceremonial which is believed to owe its form to Cardinal Eaymond Perrand.^ " So highly honoured," he says, " was the indulgence, that when the Connnissary was brought into a town, the Bull was borne aloft on a velvet or golden cusluon, and all priests, monks, councillors, schoolmasters, scholars, men, women, virgins, and cliildren marched in pro- cession with banners and tapers and singing. Then all bells were rung, all organs played ; the Commissary was escorted to the churches, a red cross set up in the midst, and the I'ope's banner displayed : sumina, God Himself could not be better received, or held in greater honour." It often happened that advantage was taken of saints' days and church festivals, so that people, streaming together, half for amusement, half for devotion, found the indulgence preacher at work in the midst of the fair. For this rough work Tetzel was admirably fitted. He had a commanding person, a sonorous voice, a ready tongue ; and if the nature of his occupation gave no oppor- tunity for the display of finer qualities, he could at least bring home his lesson to the hearts of his audience, and wile the money from their pockets. There is no proof that he aimed at anything higher. No m an could preach indulgences for seventeen years in North-Eastern Germany at the begiimiiig of the sixteeiitli century and keep much fineness of spiritual ^^irchr' Either the work must drag the preacher down to its dWSTevel, or the preacher forsake the work in unspeakable disgust: Such undoubted fragments of Tetzel's preaching as have descended to us answer to this estimate of his powers and temptations. He accepted the theory of indulgences in all good faith, and, with the instincts of a man who rejoiced in liis ability to sway a great audience at his will, only too probaltly fell into the snare of adapting his statement of it to their coarse and crude conceptions. - ' Myconius, p. 15. - See Note A, p. 256, infra. LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES The traffic in indulgences seems first to have attracted Luther's attention in the sunnner of 1516. A sermon on the subject, which he preached on the Tenth Sunday after Trinity in that year, is still extant ; and he returned to the attack in another, which, dated on " the day before the dedication " of the Castle Church, must be assigned to the 31st of October. A third allusion to the topic, which was evidently filling his mind more and more, occurs in a sermon preached on St. "^ Matthias' Day, February 24, 1517. All these show a some- what doubtful and perplexed state of mind. He does not deny the value of indulgences or the right of the Pope to issue them ; but he cannot bring them, especially as he hears they are bemg preached, into accord with the spiritual theory of salvation to which he had worked his own way. Mean- oathile Tetzel was drawing closer to the confines of Saxony, and strange things came to Luther's ears. Burghers of Wittenberg went to Zerbst or Jiiterbogk to buy these rehgious wares, and, coming back, advanced their letter of indulgence against his authority in the confessional. Jlumour, true or false, brought starthng echoes of Tetzel's preaching ; he had declared that if any one had sinned in the grossest way agamst the Mother of God, forgiveness was to be bought at a price ; he had set him- self up against St. Peter, saying that he had delivered more souls with the indulgence than the Apostle with liis preaching ; he had asserted that the red cross of the indulgence, with the Pope's arms, erected in the churches, was as powerful as the Cross of Christ ; he had told the people that when money was paid into the chest for the release of a soul m purgatory it mounted upwards to heaven so soon as the coin rang upon the bottom. There may have been an element of exaggeration in all this ; such stories commonly lose nothing in the telling : but men talked of them and beheved them, and Luther shared their belief. By friends and strangers, in conversation and in writing, he was asked his opinion of these strange novelties, and found when he held his peace that hot and bitter words were spoken of the authority of the Papal chair. " No one," he said, " would bell the cat." Tetzel was a Dominican, and the Dominicans wielded the terrible power of the Inquisition. He himself was " but a young Doctor, just out of the smithy, eager PUBLICATION OF THE THESES 213 and lusty in Holy Scripture," and he had already run the risk of ill-will from the Elector by preaching against the indulgences, which attracted men to the church which he had founded and enriched with so many relics. So the advantage of silence and the necessity of speech contended together in his mind till, while he was musing, the fire burned, and at last he spake with his tongue. The 1st of November, All Saints' Day, was that of the dedication of the Castle Church, , on which its treasures were wont to be displayed to the faithful, and its indulgences were chiefly to be earned. But the door of the church was also the " blackboard " of the University, on which all notices of disputations and other high academic functions were displayed. Hither, then, went Luther, accompanied by ^ John Agricola, on the afternoon of the 31st October 1517, and nailed to the door his Ninety -five Theses. We need not wonder that, interpreted by subsequent events, this bold act made a deep impression upon the imagination of the sole witness of it ; long afterwards Agricola was wont to speak of the little " half sheet of paper " which so shook the world.^ The form which Luther's action took was strictly academic ; nor, as we have seen, were these Theses the first that he had propounded. Such disputations were regarded in the uni- versities of the Middle Ages partly as recognised means of j defining and elucidating truth, partly as a kind of mental i gymnastic, apt to train and quicken the faculties of the dis- I putants. It was not understood that a man was always ready j to adopt in sober earnest propositions which he was willing to I defend in the academic arena ; and in like manner, a rising disputant might attack orthodox positions without endangering his reputation for orthodoxy. At the same time, the element of serious conviction involved in formal disputation varied greatly ; and such an encounter as that in 1519, between Eck on the one hand, Luther and Carlstadt on the other, was no mimic fight, but a duel to the death. How serious the announcement of this disputation was (though in fact no dis- putants appeared), may be inferred from the terms in wliicli it 1 Weimar ed. vol. i. pp. 66, 94, Joh. Jlf/ricola, p. 16 ; Forstcinnnn, 138 ; Erl. D. S. vol. xxvi. p. 69 Aciies Urkiimknburh, p. 301 ; Corp. ( Wider Hans Wurst) ; Myconius, ]i. Rcf. vol. xxv. p. 777. 21; De W. vol. i. p. 113; Kawerau, 214 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. was made. " Tor love and desire of elucidating the truth, these following Theses will be disputed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Eeverend Father, Martm Luther, Master of Arts and Doctor of Theology, and Ordinary Lecturer on the same, in that place. Wherefore he asks, that whosoever can- not verbally and in presence debate with us should, absent, do the same in writing. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen." And the form of Luther's action accurately repre- sented the state of his mind. The Church, he said, in effect, to his diocesan, Scultetus, Bishop of Brandenburg, had put forth no authoritative doctrine of indulgences, and the subject was therefore legitimately open to disputation. " These," he wrote in liis first letter to Leo X, " are disputations, not doctrines, not dogmas ; and, in accordance with custom, put somewhat obscurely and enigmatically." He was quite convinced that he had only to bring the excesses of the indulgence-mongers under the notice of the proper authorities to have them condemned. He was the furthest possible from charging upon the doctrine or practice of the Church the scandals of Tetzel's preaching and traffic. Nor indeed did he imagine that the blows of his hammer would echo far beyond the quiet precincts of the church and university of Wittenberg. Early in 1518 he writes to Scheurl, who had expressed astonishment that the Theses had not been sent to a friend like himself, that he had not intended to make them known outside a limited circle of friends and neighbours. To Lang, at Erfurt, they were indeed sent on the 11th of November, with the characteristic words, " If the work be of God, who shall hinder it ? If not of God, who shall further it ? Not my will, nor theirs, nor ours, but thine be done, Holy Father, which art in heaven, Amen." But it was impossible that the fire once kindled should not spread : in a fortnight the Theses had run through all Germany, in a month through all Christendom, " as if," says Myconius, " the angels had been the messengers." ^ This momentous step was not taken without due notice ' given to the authorities of the Church. In the letter which Luther wrote to Leo X on the 30th of May 1518, he says 1 Weimar ed. vol. 1, p. 233 ; Erl. Wurst) ; Myconius, p. 23 ; De W. D. S. vol. xxvi. p. 71 {Wider Hans vol. i. pp. 73, 95, 113, 121. V LUTHER'S LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP 215 that he had previously warned some "great ones" of what lie was about to do, being kindly received by some and laughed at by others ; while Myconius reports that he wrote to four bishops, those, namely, of Meissen, Frankfurt, Zeitz, and Merse- burg. Luther's own more precise account is that he wrote to his own diocesan, the Bishop of Brandenburg, " in whom," he says, " he had a very gracious bishop," and to the Elector Arch- bishop, in whose name the traffic in indulgences was being carried on. Of these letters, only that to the Primate is now extant, and its date "Vigil of All Saints, 1517," bespeaks for it the character of a solemn declaration of the writer's feeling and conviction. It is humble, some critics have thought almost abject in tone ; though perhaps not more so than might be expected, when it is remembered that the writer was a little- known monk, " a peasant, and a peasant's son," and the receiver, not only Primate of Germany, Elector and Archchancellor of the Empire, but by birth a member of a reigning house. But this only brings out into stronger contrast the clearness with which Luther states, and the firmness with which he defends his position. It is, he says, in the exercise of the loyalty which he owes to the Archbishop that he speaks. Then, hav- ing told the tale of the strange and horrible things wliich Tetzel was alleged to have preached, he breaks out : " Good God, thus are the souls entrusted to your charge, most excel- lent Father, instructed unto death ! " He could be silent no longer. No gift that a bishop has to dispense can make a man secure of salvation. The Apostle enjoins upon us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and the just shall hardly be saved. Indulgences can do nothing for men's souls in the way of salvation or holiness, but only remit external penalties, such as were formerly canonically imposed. Works of piety and charity are infinitely better than indulgences, yet these elbow those out of the way, " although it is the chief and only office of bishops that the people should learn the gospel and charity of Christ. How great therefore is the horror, how great the danger of a bishop, if, with a silent gospel, he suffers only the noise of indulgences among his peoj>le, and cares for them more than for the gospel?" Then, by this time emboldened by the righteous indignation which had 2i6 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES him, he ventures to impugn the Instruction which the Archbishop had given to his Commissaries, although he is careful to say that, while issued in his name, it cannot have been with his knowledge and consent. And finally, after imploring the Archbishop to restrain the excesses of the preachers, " lest some one should arise to confute both preachers and instruction, to the deepest reproach of your most Illustrious Sublimity — a thing which I should vehemently regret to see done, yet which I fear will be done, unless measures be promptly taken," — he asks him to look at his Theses, in order that he may see how undefined and uncertain a thing is that doctrine of Indulgences, of which the preachers dream as absolutely fixed and sure.^ No answer was given to this letter. In the eyes of the Elector Archbishop, the professions of submissive humility with which it began would count for nothing against the offence committed in the earnest and lofty rebuke into which its concluding sentences rose. We know, however, what Albert thought of it, and to what action it roused him, from a docu- ment under his own hand. He had entrusted the administra- tion of his northern dioceses of Magdeburg and Halberstadt to a council, composed of members of both chapters, which sat at Halle, and this body had hastened to inform him of the action of " the audacious monk at Wittenberg," sending him at the same time the documents of the case. In a long letter, dated at Aschaffenburg on the 13 th of December, the Archbishop acknowledges the receipt of their report, and tells them, first, that he has referred the matter to the University of Mainz for its advice ; next, that he has instituted a process of inhibi- tion agamst Luther ; and thirdly, that he has sent all the papers to Eome for the judgment and action of the Holy See. These steps are to be made known to Luther by Tetzel, as the Archbishop's Commissary, whom at the same time he further appoints to preach the indulgence in Prussia and the Mark of ^ Erl. Ojrp. V. a. vol. i. p. 16 ; " Quas ego indulgentias atque adeo D. S. vol. xxvi. p. 71 ( Wider Hans potius indulgentiarum illarum miniS' Wurst) ; De W. vol. i. pp. 67, 120 ; tros neqiie nunc defendo, et tunc cum Myconius, p. 22. Cardinal Sadolet decretae illae atque publicatae suut, (quoted by Janssen, vol. ii. p. 76. note) recorder me contradixisse." says of the indulgences in question, V HIS UNCONSCIOUSNESS OF HERESY 217 Brandenburg. So far, then, lie seems to take Tetzel and his past conduct unreservedly under his episcopal protection. ])Ut he goes on to mention and approve a complaint which has been made by Rome of the expense which Tetzel and his sub- ordinates have incurred — their pay alone amounting to up- wards of 3 gvdden a month — and lays upon them his strongest commands to lessen it ; while at the same time he blames the sub-commissaries for having indulged, both in preaching and in the inns which they frequented, in unseemly speech and behaviour, " to the injury of the holy business." With some directions as to the opening of the boxes, and the rendering of a strict account of their contents to himself, this singular letter ends. The Ai'chbishop tacitly admits that there is some ground for Luther's complaints, but he does not on that account intend to put an end to a lucrative traffic. On the contrary, he contents himself with a rebuke, directly of Tetzel's subordinates, indirectly of Tetzel himself, and proposes to extend the trade into Prussia and the Mark. Still this lofty indifference to Luther's remonstrance is only half real ; his reference of it to the Pope shows at once that it has touched him to the quick, and that, great prelate as he is, he is anxious to transfer the responsibility of dealing with it to stronger hands than his own.^ The Ninety-five Theses are so important a document in the' history of the Eeformation as to tempt the critic to see in them a larger and more definite element of ecclesiastical and theologi- cal revolt than they really contain. The seed of rebellion is indeed there ; but there is no prevision in Luther's mind of what it may grow to. As we have already seen, the result of his long and bitter struggle in the cell at Erfurt had been ay thorouglily spiritual conception of salvation, which, if as yet theologically indefinite, commanded his entire mental adhesion, and had gained complete possession of his soul. His years of quiet teaching at Wittenberg had only confirmed this conviction, negatively, his revolt against Aristotle and the Schoolmen, pcjsi- tively. The influence of the Theologia Gcrmanica had worked in the same direction. But although this belief was vital to him, and, as the event proved, too strong for his allegiance to the > Korner, Tdzel, p. 148. LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES Church when the two came into decisive collision, he had not yet realised the fact that he could not hold it and still be a loyal and submissive Catholic. So far as we know, he had incurred no suspicion of heresy. He held high office in his order, and held it acceptably. He had not said or done anything to (forfeit the confidence of Staupitz. vHe taught and preached at Wittenberg under the protection of a Prince whose reputation for orthodox piety stood high. Even now the point of difference with the Church, which Tetzel's preaching revealed to him, was not in regard to the theory of justification, or any other matter i of defined doctrine as to which he might be called upon to ■ submit himself to the voice of authority. The controversy ! went deeper than any dogma, how fundamental soever ; for it ' was between a profoundly spiritual and a coarsely materiaT' conception of religion. A man who had fought his way to the thought that the essential thing was a strong spiritual affection, filling and transforming the whole nature — that without this, nothing else availed, that with this, nothing else was neces- sary, could not but be impatient with the rough and common machinery both of the theory and the practice of the indul- gence-mongers. Still he lays the blame on Tetzel and his tribe. He takes advantage of the fact that the Church has authorita- • tively laid down no doctrine of indulgences, to acquit the ' ^Archbishop and the Pope. He is sure that he has only to put the matter in the right light, to secure the suppression of the abuse. But whether this is so, or not, he must speak. Un- consciously, perhaps, to himself, his loyalty to the truth is strmiger than his loyalty to the Church, and he cannot, silently ^and without protest, see the Gospel degraded and dragged' itirthe mire. -^ ^ It answers to this that the Theses do not, in strict logical order, and with due subordination of parts, state and defend a theory. They strike the reader as having been thrown together, somewhat in haste, and in obedience to an over- mastering moral impulse, rather than as the outcome of care-' fully digested thought, and deliberate theological intention. Two currents of feeling, not always in complete accord, run through them ; now of righteous wrath at the depravation ol spiritual religion implied in the indulgence preacliing, and; CONFLICTING FEELING IN THE THESES 219 again of umvilliiigness tn be cut oft' from Papal authority, if only duly limited and rightly exercised. And as these currents meet and mingle, not without some opposition and conunotion, we seem to see the tides of passionate con\iction in Luther's soul ebb and flow, bearing him at one moment into the audacity of rebellion, and at the next, carrying him back into the obedience of conformity. For instance, the 1st Thesis begins by declar- ing, that in the intention of Christ, the whole life of the faithful disciple was to be an act of repentance : the 4th lays down, that punishment remains so long as hatred of one's self remains : the 5 til sets the axe to the root of indulgences, by asserting that the Pope neither can nor will remit any punishments, save such as he has imposed by his own will or in accordance with the Canons : the 6 th limits the power of the I'ope in remitting guilt to the declaration and approval of the fact that it has been remitted by God. But the tide turns with the 7th: "God forgives no man his sins without in all things subjecting him to His priestly Vicar." It is, however, only fair to say that the theses which can be interpreted into even a partial recognition of Papal power in the remission of penalties and the forgiveness of sins, are much less numerous and much less sharply expressed than those which impugn it. And even of these, most seem to contemplate an ideal Pontiff, who, Luther chooses to assume, would think and act only as a wise and good Pope should. On the other hand, such propositions as the following are absolutely destruc- tive of ceremonial religion. Thesis 23: "If remission of all penalties of every kind can be given to any, it certainly can only be to the very perfect, that is, to the very few." Thesis 30: "No one is sure of the reality of his own contrition, much less of his having attained full forgiveness." Thesis 31: "As rare as the true penitent is the man who truly obtains indulgence, that is, very rare indeed." Thesis 36: " Every Christian who is truly repentant has a i)lenary remission of punishment and guilt due to him, even with- out letters of pardon." Thesis 37: "Every true Christian, living or dead, has from God a full share of all the wealth of Clirist and the Church, even without letters of pardon." Thesis :' : "It is very difticult for even the most learned theologians LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES at the same time publicly to extol the amplitude of pardons and the reality of contrition." And yet, with a sudden return of feeling, such as we have before seen, the 38th Thesis runs: " The remission and participation of the Pope is in no wise to be despised, since, as I have said, it is the declaration of the divine remission." The series of propositions from the 42d onwards are very trenchant in their contrast of the material with the spii'itual. Thesis 42 : " Christians are to be taught that it is not the mind of the Pope, that buymg of pardons is in any way to be compared with works of mercy." Thesis 43 : " Christians are to be taught that whoever gives to the poor, or lends to the needy, has done better than if he had bought pardons." Thesis 44 : " Because by the work of charity, charity is increased, and the man becomes better ; but by pardons, he does not become better, but only freer from punishment." Thesis 45 : " Christians are to be taught that whoever, having seen a poor man and passed him by, gives money for pardons, acquires for himself not the indulgences of the Pope, but the indignation of God." Thesis 47 : " Christians are to be taught that buying, of pardons is free, not prescribed." Thesis 48: "Christians are to be taught that, in giving of pardons, the Pope desires more, as he needs more, their pious prayers for hmiself than their ready money." Thesis 49 : " Christians are to be taught that the pardons of the Pope are useful if they do not put their trust in them, but most hurtful if thereby they lose the fear; of God." Thesis 50 : " Christians are to be taught that if the Pope knew of the exactions of the preachers of indulgences, he would choose that the Basilica of St. Peter should lie in ashes, \ rather than be built up of the skin, the flesh, and the bones of \ his sheep." Other and later propositions go still farther in re- \ bellion. The 8 2d Thesis asks why the Pope, who can release souls from purgatory for money, does not, for very charity, and the supreme necessity of souls, empty the place of fiery trial : the 86 th, accusing the Pope of being richer than the richest Croesus, why he does not build a Basilica for St, Peter out oj his own money rather than that of the faithful poor ? With questions like these, it is difficult to reconcile any formal pro- fession of allegiance to a supreme Pontiff, either actual or ideal THE THESES AT WITTENBERG Th e Ninety-five Th eses^jce. aot, dicrcforc, a uiunil'eiilo ul" the Reformatio Ti i^f. it wa-f flpsfinHd to be. The word faith does not occur in them. They make no appeal to the authority of Scripture, as opposed and superior to that of tlie Church or the Pope. Their attack upon sacerdotal religion is ordy feeble and indirect. At the same time they breathe the spirit of the coming change, if they do little to anticipate its form. N,ot_j)nly are they a public declaration of rebellion more decisive than any that had been made for centuries past, but they are the protest, even if somewhat inarticulate and confu sed, of spiritual insight. Here is one who has clearly discerned that reconciliation with God is an inward personal process, consummated in the strength of a divine affection, and therefore essentially independent alike of human intervention and ecclesiastical forms. He has not yet, it is true, worked Ms thought clear, else he would see that the possibility of placing the soul face to face with God, and interfusing it with a divine strength, carries with it the needlessness of priests and sacraments and an authoritative Church. But the great antithesis, which it was Luther's life work to present to the world, between a rehgion which clothes itself in sacramental forms and a religion which casts them aside, already lies half hidden, half expressed, in these Theses. As to the reception in Wittenberg of Luther's audacious act, we are largely left to scattered hints and indications. He himself was in a strangely mixed mood. Writing to Staupitz in May 1518, he speaks of himself as a lover of retirement, one who was more willingly a spectator of the great game of human affairs than an actor in it, a man, infirm in health, whom his enemies by force or fraud could deprive of only a few hours' life. Who was he, he said many years afterwards, a wretched despised monk, more like a corpse than a man, that he should set himself up against the Pope's majesty ? Desire of fame did not move him ; God, in answer to liis prayers, liad wonderfully set him free from ambition ; so that he relied not on himself, but on the goodness of his cause, and the Word of God. But whatever his reluctance to descend into the arena, the step once taken, he was serene and joyful. At a later time he told the story, how the I'rior and Sub-Prior of his LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES convent came to him, moved by the growing clamour, an; begged him not to put his order to shame. The affair of ttj Dominicans, burned at Bern in 1509 for inventing miracL' to disprove the Immaculate Conception of Mary, was still fres in men's memories ; the same powerful order had just suffere ■defeat at the hands of Eeuchlin and the humanists ; wh; more likely than that they should avenge themselves, and " be the turn of the Augustinians to burn ? " To which Lutb; answered, " Dear Fathers, if the matter is not begun in God name it will soon fall to the ground, but if it is, let Him tal' charge of it." It must have been about this time that, ridii to Kemberg with his colleague the jurist Hieronymus Schu] he was asked by his companion, " Wliat are you about writing against the Pope ? It wiU not be borne," and a' swered, in the true heroic tone, " What if it ifnuBt be borne : His theological friends at Wittenberg, Carlstadt, Amsdorf, ai the rest, came only gradually to his side, being divided, pro ably at first between uneasy astonishment at his boldness ai, the habit of submission to his intellectual ascendency. Th; had accepted his theory of grace and works, and, a little moj. slowly than himself, were beginning to discern to what decisis: ness of revolt against the Church it might lead them. T|i Elector already appears in that attitude of benevolent neutrali' from which he never wholly departed. He cannot ha: regarded with satisfaction what was virtually an attack, n- only upon his own cherished convictions, but upon 1. favourite foundation : but he makes no sign ; and on the oth • hand, Luther is anxious to have it widely known that Frederi : has not been cognisant of his onslaught on the authority I the Archbishop. In the theological world outside, much loud] • expressed astonishment and contempt divided men's miu! with scant sympathy. Mathesius tells the story of a I. Fleck, a monk of Steinlausig, near Bitterfeld, who, when ; read the Theses, cried out for joy, " Ho, ho, he is come : :■ whom we have waited ; he will do it," and thereupon wrote i letter of encouragement to Luther. Not all friends, howevr, were equally confident. A pendant to this is the anecdote f one Albert Cranz of Hamburg, who said on the same occasi' , " Thou speakest the truth, good brother, but thou wilt efP t TETZELS REPL V !23 nothiug : go, tliorefore, into thy cell and pray, ' Lonl, Imve mercy upon me.' " Kich mood is true to facts of hunian nature ; but it is in the former, which was happily Luther's, that victories of reform are won.^ It was not to be expected that Tetzel should sit quietly down under Luther's attack. The force of the onslaught may be measured by the fact that for the time at least it put an end to the Dominican's activity in the sale of indulgences. In December 1517 we hear of him at Halle, where he procures certificates, still extant, from both lay and ecclesiastical authorities, to prove that in that city at least he had not uttered the revolting proposition as to the Virgin, ascribed to him by common report. Thence, apparently supposing tliat only as a Doctor of Theology he could adequately answer Luther, he went to Frankfurt on the Oder for the purpose of taking that degree. The university of that city, wliich had been founded in 1506 as a centre of the new learning, had fallen altogether into Dominican hands, and was in the north of Germany, as Koln in the west, a seat of reaction. One of its leading teachers was Conrad Wimpina, a stout representar tive of the scholastic method, who at Leipzig had alreadyX been Tetzel's teacher. Under Wimpina's inspiration, many said with his help, Tetzel prepared a series of 106 Antitlieses, followed by a second set of 50, in which he took the field of disputation against Luther. The first of tliese appeared in print at the end of the year, when Tetzel made the first step towards the coveted degree; on the 20th of January 1518 a great assembly of 300 Dominican monks was lield ; on the 21st the 156 Theses were offered for disputation, and Tetzel solemnly declared Doctor of Theology. Tlie dialectic encounter was in this case not a mere friendly tournament : a real opponent presented himself in the person of John Knipstrow, a young Franciscan monk who, for learning's sake, liail come to the university from his Silesian monastery, and now ve- hemently defended the cause of Luther. With him, however, > Erl. D. S. vol. xli. n. 37 {Auslc- Walcli, vol. xiv. \>. 470; Dc "W-'vol. gung desllS. Psalrm); vol. xxvi. \i. 71 i. pi>. 76, 108, 118; T. T. vol. ii. |). {IVidcr Hans Wurst) ; Ojyp. ImI. vol. 421 ; Lautcrlmch, p. 18; Matht'.siu.s, iii. p. 2S0 {Enarralioncs in Gencsin) ; y. 13 A; Tcntzcl, vol. i. p. 269; vol. IX. p. 91 (EnarrcUio Psalmi 127.) ; Lp. v. a. snd Inhalts horen lessen." The "con- vol. i. pp. 16, 17. 226 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. unpublished Resolutiones, submitting it to his episcopal cen- sure. The answer was brought by a dignified churchman, the Abbot of Lehnin, who was also the bearer of a request from the bishop, that Luther would for a time postpone the publica- tion of the book, and meanwhile would not sell the German sermon. To this request the Eeformer, touched by the con- descension of the bishop, gave a ready assent, and all further action was for a time deferred. But the inward fire was still burning, and the more Luther meditated on indulgences the more difficult of reconciliation with spiritual religion did he find them. In the public eye it was necessary to walk with caution; but, writing to Spalatin on the 15th February, he reveals his whole mind. He can see nothing in indulgences but a deluding of souls ; they are utterly useless, except to: snorers and slothful in the way of Christ. Compared with the exercise of charity, they are naught ; he cannot doubt that one who passes by a poor man to buy them deserves the anger oi God.^ These occupations were broken in upon by a journey tc Heidelberg, which Luther undertook in the months of Aprij "aiid May. The occasion was the triennial assembly of the Augustinian Congregation, held for the election of officers anc; the transaction of other necessary business. Some of LutherV friends doubted whether he ought to go ; the indulgence mongers were breathing out threats against him, talking o lighting a heretic's faggot within a month ; nor did Luthe- liimself, who relied upon the offered protection of the Electoi and had made up his mind to go to Heidelberg in any case think that these menaces were altogether idle words. Frede rick's permission for the journey was given in a letter t Staupitz, which shows how highly he esteemed his Professoi and how unwilling he was that he should be long detaine from his work at Wittenberg; and when on the 11th of Apr Luther set out, it was in company of an escort provided by th Elector, and furnished with a strongly- worded letter of con' ^ Weimar ed. vol. i. pp. 266, 317, (to Spalatin, A\Tongly dated Nov. 151 325, 335, 687 ; Erl. 02)p. v. a. vol. vide Enders, Luther's Briefivcchsel, v( vii. p. 488 ; T. T. vol. ii. p. 367, vol. i, p. 177) ; conf. vol. i. pp. 92, %. iii. p. 315 ; De W. vol. 1. pp. 89, 71 i fl HEIDELBERG THESES 227 mendatiou.^ The first part of the toilsome road, as far as Coburg, he accomplished on foot : " a sin," he pleasantly writes po Spalatin, " which, inasmuch as his contrition is perfect, and a most ample satisfaction has been imposed upon him, needs no remission of indulgences." From Coburg he made his way to Wiirzburg, where he was most hospitably received by the Bishop, Lorenz von Bibra, a prelate, who, if he had not died in the subsequent year, might, men thought, have publicly associated himself with the cause of reform.^ Here, however, lie met John Lang, the Prior of his old convent at Erfurt, and )ther brethren of the order, on their way to Heidelberg, and, joining himself to them, pleasantly accomplished the rest of :he journey.^ The chief business of the Assembly was despatched by the re-election of Staupitz as Vicar, and the replacing of Luther by Lang, in the minor office of District Vicar. But according to he custom of the order, the occasion was taken to hold a dis- putation, which was under the presidency of Luther. He jrepared forty Theses — twenty-eight theological, twelve philo- ophical, which were to be defended against all comers by his riend and scholar Leonard Beyer. The theological theses he called " Paradoxa," proposing for inquiry, whether they were ' well or ill derived from the divine Paul, Christ's most chosen /■essel and organ ; and, in the second place, from St. Augustine, lis most faithful interpreter." There is no mention of indul- gences here ; he seems to regard that controversy as a quite mimportant thing compared with the " Theology of the Cross/^ vhich he sets forth in bold and striking phrase. His theme — he theme which he had elaborated in his cell at Erfurt, and lad since at "Wittenberg been throwing into a completer logical orm — is the utter impotence of man to do good works, and his ole reliance upon Christ for salvation. The tendency of the * In a letter to Spalatin of May 18, ^ Ju.st before his death lie wrote to uther says of Jacob Simler, who had the Elector Frederick, reconiniemlin^' een the tutor of the Pfalzgraf Wolf- Luther to his special care, "Eur Liebe ang, " Non potuit satis conimcndare wolle je den fruinnn-n Mann, Doctor [agister Jacobus literas Principis nos- Martinus, iiicht wcgziehen Jasseii, denn ri pro me datas, dicens sua Nechar- ihni geschehe Unrecht," Spalatin, F. na lingua, ' ihr hibt by Gott einen d. /r. p. 161. ystlichen Credenz,'" De W. vol. i. ' Dc W. vol. i. i)p. 98, 105, 106; .111. Koldc, Sta\ipitz, p. 314 110k. 228 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. whole may easily be inferred from the 26th Thesis: "The Law says, ' Do this,' and it is never done. Grace says, ' Be- lieve on Him,' and all things are done already." The twelve philosophical Theses, on the other hand, are chiefly remarkable in their pronounced rebellion against the authority of Aristotle, as rivals to whom Plato and Anaxagoras are set up. The chief interest of the disputation, however, must have been upon the theological side. The Lutheran doctrine of salvation could ^not be _more vividly stated than in these theses, presented by an Augustinian monk to the brethren of his order, at the ' momehT of laying down an important office, which he had filled to the general satisfaction.^ Tlie disputation went off amid much applause and mutual congratulation. The Pfalzgraf Wolfgang, who received the ' Saxon Augustinians with princely hospitality, and exhibited to them all the treasures of the Castle, wrote to Frederick that Luther had won for himself no little praise, and worthily upheld the credit of Wittenberg. One only of the Heidelberg , doctors, the youngest of them all, had cried out amid general: laughter, " that if the peasants heard these things they would ; certainly stone him." More remarkable still was the concourse of young men, afterwards to be Luther's most vigorous heu- tenants in the army of reformation, who then, for the first time, looked upon his face, and caught the inspiration of his presence. There was John Brenz, then in his nineteenth year, a student at Heidelberg; afterwards famous as thei Reformer of Swabia, and, if possible, more uncompromising than Luther himself in his defence of the Real Presence in the; Eucharist. In all likelihood there was Erhard Schnepf, a few' years older than Brenz, who was to play a great part in intro- ducing the reform into Wiirtemberg, and who survived to shart LQ the unhappy controversies which followed the death oi Luther. There was Theobald Billican, afterwards Pastor o Nordlingen, who finally abjured Lutheranism, and in the last years of his life taught Canon Law at Heidelberg, Historj' and Ehetoric at Marburg. Better known than any of then there was Martin Butzer, or Bucer, the would-be mediate between the German and the Swiss Reformers, who ended hi, ^ The Heidelberg Theses will be found in Weimar ed. vol. i. p. 353. BREACH WITH OLDER TEACHERS 229 days as professor of the reformed theology at Cambridge. In letter to Beatus llheiianus, full of admiring enthusiasm, Bucer has left behind his impressions of Luther, derived partly from his public appearance at the disputation, partly from a private interview that followed it. " What Erasnms only insinuated," thought Bucer, " Luther openly and freely taught." The contrast in all probability suggested itself to many young and ardent minds ; the time was quickly becoming ripe for clear and decisive speech.^ To awaken the enthusiasm of the young, never averse to change, is, however, another and an easier thing than to win the approval of the old, w^hose convictions and sympathies are all with the past. On his way home, Luther travelled in the same vehicle with Bartholomew Arnoldi von Usingen, one of Ms old teachers at Erfurt. But he was not successful in presenting his new ^dews to him, and left him, he says, thoughtful and wondering." Nor did he make more way with Trutvetter, who had written to him to express dissatis- faction with his general philosophical and theological attitude. On his way through Erfurt, Luther knocked at his old master's door ; but not being able to see him, addressed to him a letter, in which he gives an account of himself, as a scholar to a teacher, beloved and respected. But the gulf between them was too wide to be bridged over. Trutvetter was a convinced disciple of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, and not likely to acknowledge the futility of the studies to which his life had Ijeen devoted. And Luther, without departing from the tone ii almost submissive respect, is not disposed to concede one inch of the position which he had taken up. He asserts that he whole University of Wittenberg, with the exception of a ingle licentiate, is with him in his doctrine of grace and works ; he declares that the Elector and the Bishop of Bran- lenburg take the same view ; " many other prelates and all ntelligent citizens now avow with, one mouth, that before they lad never known or heard Christ and the Gospel." But he is lot content with the adduction of these authorities. " I ibsolutely believe," he goes on to say, " that it is impossible to * De W. vol. i. p. Ill ; Tentzel, vol. Bucer* .s letter to Beatu.s Rbenanus will p. 330 ; Hartmanii, Joh. Brenz, p. 5. be fouml in Gerdes, vol. i. Aiip. p. 175. 230 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. reform the Church, unless the canons, the decretals, the schol- astic^theology, philosophy and logic, as they are now treated, are utterly. xooted- up, and other studies put in their place. And in that opinion I go so far as daily to pray God that this may happen at once, in order that the pure study of the Scnptures and the Fathers may be restored. I may seem to you to be no logician, nor, perhaps, am I ; but one thing I know, that in the defence of this opinion I fear no man's logic." ' ^^^itli-fe}«s, though we liear of no open rupture, the breach miist "liave been complete. From the old he turned with renewed "expectation to the young. "My chief hope," he writes to Spalatin on the 18th of May, "is, that as Christ, rejected by the Jews, passed over to the Gentiles, so now too his true theology, which these obstinate old men reject, may transfer' itself to the young." He had come back from Heidelberg full of cheerful energy ; his friends thought him looking better and stouter. He had found an audience for his opinions outside the Wittenberg circle ; and in proportion as he was compelled; to break with a passing generation, felt himself in accord with, one that was coming. In the same letter to Spalatin he begS; that provision may be made for the teaching of Greek anc Hebrew at the University. That sentence is the couriei announcing the speedy arrival of Melanchthon.-^ On his return to Wittenberg Luther applied himself t( the task of finishing his Resolutiones Disputationum delndulgm- tiarum Virtute, the work in which he expounded and defendec his Mnety-five Theses. On the 2 2d of May he sent the MS to his ordinary, the Bishop of Brandenburg; on the 30th ti Staupitz, as the officer of his order to whom he was immed lately responsible. What he asked of Staupitz, however, wa to transmit the Resolutiones to the Pope, together with a lettei in which he submissively placed himself and his doctrine a the disposal of the Holy See. In the meantime, the printin. of the book went on, but was not completed, until, on the 21s'; of August, its author was able to send a copy to Spalatin, n' doubt for the Elector's use. In these letters, especially i' that to the Bishop of Brandenburg, Luther still adheres to hi position that the Theses are matters for disputation only, an 1 De W. vol. i. pp. 108, 112. Lingke, p. 37 seq. i RESOLUTIONES DE IXDULCEXTIIS 231 are not to be taken as deliberate and irrevocable expressions of opinion. " Among them," lie says, " are some things of which I doubt ; of some I am ignorant ; some I deny ; while I piirtin- aciously assert none, and submit all to Holy Church and its judgment." So to Leo also he expresses himself in terms of the most submissive humility. " Wherefore, most blessed Father, I offer myself prostrate at the feet of your Blessecbiess, with all that I am and have ; quicken, slay, call, recall, approve, reprove, as may seem to you good. I will acknowledge your voice as the voice of Christ, residing and speaking in you. If I have deserved death, I will not refuse to die." And again to Spalatin : " I may err in disputation : I will never be a heretic. But ! desir e to detine notliing ; still more, not to be led captive By^he opinions of men." ^ — inTie book itself hardly answered to the modesty of these assertions, and proved to be a bold restatement and defence of the Theses, the last words may to some extent furnish the reason. Luther was^ able to assert, with truth, that the doctrine of indulgences had never been formally defined by competent authority, and therefore to take up the technically impregnable position, that in attacking it, he was not rebelling against ChurclLjor-Pope. Whether, in his ownlnind, he really , separated Leo from former Popes, of whom he spoke in terms of just severity, or was able to persuade himself that the Pontiff who had issued the indulgence could be brought to recognise its abuses, it is difficult to say. There is no lack of speaking out in the Ecsolutioncs. The form of disputation is a transparent mask of the writer's fixed and vehemently held opinions. And the implications of the book are, perhaps, in some respects, more remarkable than its direct statements. It adopts, as if by instinct, the Scriptural method. It does wot anywhere lay down the principle that the Bible is the ultimate authority on matters of faith, but it assumes it in illustrating every position by an abundant citation of texts. It brushes aside scholastic authorities, even of such high distinction as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura, with the apostolic word, j" Prove all things: hold fa.st that which is good."- Still more J De \\\ vol. i. pp. 112, 114, 115, - Weimar cd. vol. i. p. 56S (Rcsolu- 119, 122, 133. tioncs). 232 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES cm remarkable is the way in which, as by an inward necessity his nature, Luther penetrates to the spiritual reality unde lying a disputed point. It is the first public revelation, exce / to some extent in the Theses themselves, of the pecuUar pow which made him what he was. He_canngt rest in words, I symbols, or figures of speech. Beneath these he~musF find~tJ , \ actual relations of the hiunan soul to God, which they invol and are intended to express. Many things in this treatise must have struck harsMy ( the ears of Leo and his courtiers ; as, for instance, the assertic of ^ the superiority of an Ecumenical Council to the Pope ; t] declaration that the Pope, " who is but a man like other;; Cannot of himself decree an article of faith ; the contempt ca" on pilgrimages in search of indulgences ; the slighting way • which rehcs are spoken of If the Archbishop of Mainz r&i. the book, which is not Likely, he could hardly be pleased wi! its sharp criticism of his " Summary Instruction " to the mdi gence-mongers. The theory of the heavenly treasure \vi undermined by a denial of the supererogatory merits of t s saints : " no single saint has in this life completely fulfilled t ; commands of God," and consequently none has anything ) spare for others. Sometimes, no doubt unconsciously, ■! strikes a rationalistic note. " Even if St. Thomas, the blessl Bonaventura, Alexander Hales, are illustrious men, with th' disciples Antoninus, Peter Paludanus, Augustine of Ancoi, besides the Canonists, who follow them all, it is right to pre," to them, in the first place, truth, in the second, the author: > of the Pope and the Church." But perhaps the boldest, and, i that respect, the most notable passage of all, is the followii', \ in which he at first laments the iU success of the Later i \ Council : " Although there are in the Church both very learr 1 and very holy men, it is nevertheless the infehcity of our a , that even they, being what they are, cannot succour the Chur . How little at this day learning and pious zeal can do, Is been sufl&ciently proved by the unhappy issue of the efforts f those most wise and holy men, who, under Julius II, appi i themselves to the reformation of the Church by a courl caUed together for that purpose. Everywhere there are exceU* t and erudite bishops, whom I know ; but the example of the 1 ^ V A TTITUDE OF LEO X 233 imposes silence on the many. For, as the prophet Amos says (v. 13), 'Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an e\-il time.' Now, at last, we have a most excellent Pontiff, Leo X, whose intej^rity and learning are a deliglit in all good men's ears. But what can tliat most benign of men do alone, in so great a confusion of affairs, worthy as he is to reign in better times, or that the times of his reign slioultl be better ? In this age we are wortliy only of such pontiffs as Julius II, Alexander VI, or other such atrocious Mezentii as poets have invented. For Rome herself, yea, Rome most of all, now laughs at good men ; in what part of the Christian world do men more freely make a mock of the best Bishops than in Rome, that true Babylon ? But enough of this. ... It is better tliat truth should be spoken by fools, by children, by drunkards, than never spoken at aU." Language like this was a distinct step in advance. "VVliat was to come of it, probably Lutlier^ never asked himself ; he was under a moral necessity of speech, and he spoke, leaving the issue to time and God. But it was no longer a mere dispute as to indulgences and their abuse: obscure, and almost alone, he had challenged the wliole Rnpal system.^ The controversy with Tetzel did not trouble him much ; he had better work on hand before long, and worthier foemen. In May 1518, the Dominican publi.slied a Refutation of the sermon on Irululgcncc aiul Grace: to which, in the following month, Luther replied by a Defence} on neither of which is it necessary to delay. Already the first mutterings of that controversy with Eck, which culminated in the Disputation of Leipzig, were beginning to l)e heard. A more important matter was that the Pope had taken up the case. There were those about Leo X, Dominicans especially, who were, after a fashion, zealous for the purity of the faith, and eager to main- tain the authority of tlie Pope ; but it is difficult to beheve that the Supreme Pontiff himself cared much about the theo- logical aspects of the question. He probably felt as a monarch might who suddenly saw an important source of revenue in ' Weimar ed. vol. i. pp. 573, 583, Ixjscher, vol. i. p. 484 ; Luthcr'n in 689, 697, 606, 611, 613 {kesolutiones). Weimar cd. vol. i. p. 380. ' Tetzel's pamphlet will be found in 234 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. danger of drying up, and did not know how to replace it ; but he was no theologian, and, but for the accident of his position hardly a Churchman. "Since God has given us the Papacy let us enjoy it," was his characteristic exclamation on hearing of his election ; and all he desired was peace and quietness tc taste the full sweetness of his position, and money to spend or the pursuits that he loved. He was a true child of tht ^ Eenaissance ; the Head of the Church as a result of familj ambition ; and for all that a Pagan in grain. If his life die not emulate the outrageous licence of some of his predecessors it was equally free from any taint of asceticism ; his pohc} was, like that of any other Italian potentate, frankly selfisl and worldly, and he was as devoted to the interests of tht /IVIedici as Maximilian to those of his own branch of Hapsburgs What he really cared for was art : the last MS. of a Greel poet brought from Constantinople ; the newest statue dug ui from the ruins of Eome ; the basilica which Michael Angel was slowly rearing by the side of the Vatican ; the frescoe' glories which were growing under Eaphael's brush. The poei was no worse to him for being lascivious, and the indecency c the statue only made it piquant ; the laymen of the Eenaissanc were above moral prejudices, and if Churchmen were obhged t put on a demurer outside, it only added to the secret savour ( '^ the delight. Naturally Leo had not in him the stuff of whic persecutors are made ; he was too anxious to live not to I willing to let live ; and he escaped the last indignity of con pelling men to believe, out of an unbelieving heart. H would do any one a kindness which did not cost him au effort ; he liked to see people happy about him ; but he hs V no conception of the serious thought, the sustamed effort, tl moral restraint which are necessary for good government ; ai when he was gone the Eoman people forgot his bonhomie : the recollection of the prodigality which had emptied tl treasury of the Church. Possibly, if he had been of hard metal, or possessed a keener insight, he might have burned c the Eeformation in the pyre of one resolute heretic ; but ] either did not see his opportunity or let it slip. He h; favoured Eeuchlin as long as the mendicant orders would 1 him ; and now the story went, that he had said that " Brotl V PRIERIAS'S DIALOGUE 235 Martin was a very clever fellow, and tliat all the quarrel came of monks' envy.' ^ It was, however, necessary to do somethinj^ in answer to the appeal of the Archbishop of Mainz, and Leo's first step was, in February 1518, to refer the case to the Provisional General of the Augustinian Order, Gabriel Venetus, then newly appointed. " If he acted," said the Pope, " witli promptitude, it would not be difficult to extinguish the ilame that had been kindled . . . If, on the contrary, he delayed, and the evil took head, he feared, that when they wanted to apply a remedy to the contlagi'ation, they would be unable to do it." - What steps the Augustinian General took in answer to this request, if indeed any, is matter of controversy ; in the meanwhile a champion of the Holy See came forward, in the person of Silvester Mazzolini, usually, from his birthplace Prierio, called Prierias. Like all Luther's other antagonists at this time, he was a Dominican, a censor of books, an hiquisitor and judge in matters of faith, who held the dignified office of Maijista' Sacri Palatii, instructor, that is, of the I\apal houseliold. Already a man advanced in years, and holding an official position very near the seat of authority, he despised an adver- sary whose obscurity was only equalled by his audacity. Tearing himself away from his favourite study of Thomas Aquinas, he composed, in three days, a treatise, in the form of a dialogue between himself and Luther, in wliich, taking up the Ninety-five Theses in succession, he flattered himself tliat he demonstrated the heresy of their author. The only interest of the Dialogue, however, lies in four fundamental principles which he laid down at the beginning. In these was e.\- pres.sed in uncompromising terms the doctrine of the Church which found favour with the Poman Curia. The Universal Church was virtually the Poman Church and the Supreme Pontiff. Representatively, the Poman Church is the College of Cardinals, virtually the Pope himself Tliis Church, in matters of faith and morals, cannot err, nor can the Pope, " speaking in the exercise of his office, and doing what in him lies to appre- ' Mattco Bandcllo, quoted by Oicsc- l>elii.ssimo ingi-KHo, c cho cotesto oratio ler {Kirchengrschichtc, vol. iii. pt. 1, iiividit; fratesclie." p. 38 note), "Che Fra Martiiio fosse iin - Gieseler, vol. iii. pt. 1, p. 38 iioU. t 236 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. hend the truth." " Whoever," says the Third Proposition, " does not lean upon the doctrine of the Eoman Church and the Eoman Pontiff as an infallible rule of faith, from which even the Sacred Scriptures derive their force and authority, is a heretic." Wliat the Roman Church does, as well as what it says, constitutes a custom and acquires the force of law. Prom all of which follows the obvious corollary, " Wlio, in the matter of indulgences, says that the Ptoman Church cannot do what it actually does, is a heretic." A qiiocl erat demonstrandum wliich _must have been infinitely satisfactory to the mind of the Master )M the Sacred Palace.-^ \/\rt To prove to Luther that his Theses were not in accordance with the doctrine of St. Thomas — a fact which he already knew quite well — was hardly the way to comdnce him of Ms error. At first he effectually marked his contempt for the character of the attack by pubhshing in Germany two editions of the Dicdogue without comment or answer ; then, as these were eagerly bought up, he issued about the end of August a third edition, accompanied by a Responsio, which he had written, as he told Spalatin, in two days. But it is significant that his answer is entitled, Of the Foiuer of the Pope, as if, while Prierias's attack upon the Theses might well be passed by in silence, his fundamental propositions were worth refuta- tion. The treatise, however, hardly answers to its title ; it takes up Prierias's objections to the Theses one by one, and answers them in true dialectical fashion. At first, indeed, he brushes aside the four fundamental propositions, laying down others which are sufficiently subversive of them. He quotes Paul, " Prove all things : hold fast that which is good ; " he cites Augustine for the principle, that only the Canonical books can be regarded as wholly free from error. Again and again in the course of his argument he repudiates the authority of St. Thomas, to which liis adversary appeals as all -sufficient. He lays it down that it is possible for either Pope or Council to err. Then he breaks out, " I deny and hold of no account ' your fundamental principles, in which you have distinguished an essential, a representative, a virtual Church. For they are your own, that is, laid down without Scripture or any authority. 1 For Prierias's Dialogus, vide Erl. 0pp. v. a. vol. i. p. 341 seq. V HIS SERMOX OX EXCOMAfUXICA TIOX 237 I do not know the Church virtually, except in Christ : repre- sentatively, except in a Council, Else, if whatever the virtual Church, that is the Pope, does, is to be accounted the act of the Church, what monstrous things in the Church shall we have to number among things well done ? What of the horrid efifusion of Christian blood by Julius II ? What of the tyranny of Boniface VIII, hated by the whole world and reprobated in all chronicles, of whom the saying is current, ' He came in like a fox, he reigned like a lion, he died like a dog ? ' " Writing like this could not but widen the breach ; it was of little use to appeal to the Pope in terms of luimble sub- mission, and at the same time to run full tilt against theories of Papal authority which the Church was doing its best to elevate into articles of faitli. Gerson and D'Ailly were long dead, the age of great Councils past ; it was an anachronism to set up the Church against the Pope. For those who were not prepared to accept the opinions and actions of the Supreme Pontiff and his subservient advisers, it was every day more plain that only one alternative was open, revolt and schism.^ Another utterance of Luther's about this time, apparently made without any reference to his controversy with Eoane, lessened the chances of reconciliation. One Sunday in Ma'jL he preached a sermon in Wittenberg on the Force of Kxcom- n munication. The occasion of it was purely local ; there had been some trouble with the officials of the Bishop of Branden- burg, of what precise kind we do not know. The sermon made a great noise and excited much criticism ; so that Luther proposed to make the doctrines which he had advanced a sub- ject of disputation, and only abandoned the idea at the request of the Bishop. In the meantime the matter grew in pa.ssing from mouth to mouth ; the story got to the Diet which was being held at Augsburg, and was told, with additions much to Luther's di.sadvantage ; on a visit which he paid to Dresden, he was confronted and reproached with it. The result was that he made up his mind to print what he could recollect of it ; if the exact words were gone, he could at least recall the sense. The Scrmo de Virtutc Excommunicatioms was there- * Weimar ed. vol. i. pp. 647, 656 (Ad dialogum S. PricralU Eesponsio) ; De W. vol. i. p. 135. 238 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. fore published between the 21st and 31st of August. The issue vindicated Luther from the charge of having spoken unworthily of Church authorities ; but only at the cost of proving him a more hopeless rebel than before. "Excom- munication," he said, " is only the deprivation of communion ; the placing of a man outside the communion of the faithful. This communion of the faithful is twofold : one, internal and spiritual ; the other, external and corporal. Spiritual com- munion is the one faith, hope, charity towards God. Corporal communion is participation in the same sacraments, that is, in the signs of faith, hope, charity." The obvious conclusion from this is, first, that so far as spiritual communion is concerned, only God can take it away or restore it ; and that the only true excommunication is that which a man inflicts on him- self by his own sin ; and next, that Church excommunication is only the deprivation of external communion, that is of the sacraments, burial, public prayer, and the like. " From which ^ things," he goes on, " it is abundantly evident that, so long as faith, hope, and charity remain, true communion and partici- pation in all the goods of the Church remain also." This is spiritual, but hardly Catholic doctrine. It not only took out of the hands of the Pope all the terror implied in the power of the keys, but indicated the chief line of fissure between the mediicval Church and that which was yet unborn.^ In the meantime the formal proceedings against Luther were taking shape. Mario di Perusco, a Papal Procurator-fiscal, was ordered to draw up an indictment for heresy against him, and Hieronymus Ghinucci and Prierias were named as judges. The former was auditor of the Papal Camera, a man concerned with legal and financial matters, not supposed to possess any special knowledge of theology ; the latter had already decisively \ taken up the position of a partisan.^ A citation was issued, ordering Luther to appear in Eome, and to plead to the in- dictment within sixty days. This he received at Wittenberg on the 7 th of August. At once he wrote to Spalatin, begging 1 De W. vol. i. pp. 130, 134, 138. {Hid. Cone. Trid. lib. i. cap. vii.) says Conf. letter of Spalatin to Luther, that opportunity was given to Luther Enders, vol. i. p. 233 ; Weimar ed. vol. to object to Prierias, "ob commissam 1. p. 639. prius inter eos contentionem." The text 2 It is fair to state that Pallavicini of the citation has not come down to us. HIS CITATION TO AUGSBURG 239 him to use his influence with the Elector and liis minister, Degeuhard Pfeffinger, both of whom were attending the Diet at Augsburg, that they might prevail with the Pope to permit his cause to be heard before commissaries in Germany. A few days later he wrote again, suggesting that if the Elector should refuse him a safe conduct through his dominions, it would be a sufficient excuse for not going to Rome. Frederick behaved on this occasion as he behaved all tlirougli. To the Cardinal della Eovere, who, as an old friend, liad written to remonstrate with him on his protection of so notorious a lieretic,^ he answered, in effect, that he had no sympathy witli heretics and heresy ; and that all he desired was that Luther should have a fair trial, to which, he understood, he was quite willing to submit liimself. This was indeed the avowed object of his diplomacy, which was, after a few weeks, successful. There was a good deal of writing to and fro, and no doubt much anxious talk, of which no record now remains. It is worth mentioning that the University of Wittenberg addressed two letters, one to the Pope himself, one to his Saxon cham- berlain, Charles von Miltitz ; the former excusing Luther from going to Rome on the ground of his infirm health, the latter testifying not only to his character but to his orthodoxy. But before these were written, the desired result had been reached. On the 23d of August the Pope wrote to the Elector, bidding him produce Lutlier, whom he describes as " a son of iniquity," before Cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg, to be judged by the Holy See.2 Luther accordingly set out from Wittenberg on or about the 26th of September with a heavy heart. He might well have thought that this was the crisis of his fate. Friends warned him not to trust himself out of Wittenberg ; Count Albert of Mansfeld sent him word that there was a plot to take him off; Staupitz wrote to him from Salzburg, telling him that, so far as he could see, "nothing remained for liini but a cross," and begging him "to come and live and die with him," abandoning, it must be supposed, the work to which he * The Cardinal's letter, which is - Weimar ed. vol. ii. pp. 23, 2.'), lost, was dated April 3 ; the Elector's 30, 38 {AcUi Amjuslnnu) ; Do W. vol. reply, August 5: Erl. 0pp. v. a. vol. i. ])p. 131, 132; Erl. Upp. v. a. vol. il p. 351. ii. pp. 352, 361. 240 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. had set liis hand. His health was not good ; the " tempta- tions," which were a continually recurring element of his mental history, chose this occasion of assault. " The citation," he writes to Staupitz, " and the threats aimed at me, move me not at all. I suffer, as you know, incomparably worse things, which compel me to regard as trifles these temporal and momentary thunders." He was filled with melancholy fore- bodings. " Now," he thought, " I must die " ; he saw in imagination the heretic's pyre already prepared ; " what a scandal I shall be to my dear parents," was a word often upon his lips. Travelling on foot, as was his wont, he arrived at Weimar, where the Elector was holding his court, on the 2 8th : there said mass, and preached ; and proceeded on his way, with a letter of recommendation and twenty gulden, the gift of Frederick, in his pocket.-^ At Nurnberg, he was hospitably received by his old friend Link, who lent him a good cowl, and with another Augustinian monk, Leonard Beyer, accom- panied him to Augsburg. Before he got there, however, on the 7tli of October, fatigue and illness compelled him to take to a vehicle. But his spirit was undaunted, however weak and weary his body. A Carmelite monk at Weimar, John Kestner, had warned him that the Italians were a learned folk, and that if he could not hold his own with them, they would certainly burn him. "Nettles might do," was the cheerful answer, " fire, dear friend, would be too hot. The affair is Christ's ; if he sustains it, it is already sustained ; if not, I can- not sustain it for him, and he must bear the shame." So, in a fragment of a letter written from Niirnberg, to whom we do not know, he says, " I have found some men so pusillanimous ' in my cause, as to have begun to tempt me not to go to Augs- burg. But I persevere with a fixed mind. The will of the Lord be done. Even at Augsburg, even in the midst of his enemies, Jesus Christ reigns." ^ 1 A further evidence of the Elector's Niirnberg at the time, and the request, personal interest in Luther's journey is fell to the ground. Letter from afforded by the fact that he wi-ote to Frederick to Tucher, Sept. 27, 1518, i Anton Tucher of Niirnberg, requesting quoted by Kostlin, TJicol, Shid. «.■ that the Senate of that city would Kritiken, 1882, p. 692. allow Scheurl to go to Augsburg to - DeW. vol. i. pp. 129, 137; Enders, act as Luther's friend and adviser, vol. i. pp. 234, 238 ; Coll. vol. ii. p. 175 Scheurl was, however, absent from Myconius, p. 31 ; Lingke, p. 47. THE DIET OF AUGSBURG The Diet which had been hekl at Augsburg in the autumn of 1518, and which was just separating into its component elements, was the last over which Maximilian presided. All j unconscious, however, that his end was near, he was busier than ever in weaving schemes for the aggrandisement of tl oo^ ne Austro-Burgundian House. The romantic maiTiage which in his youth he had contracted with Mary, the daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, though it had brought little profit to himself personally, had laid the founda- tion of a fortune of unexampled brilliancy for his family. She had died after a few years' marriage, leaving two infant children, Philip and Margaret ; Lewis XI had seized whatever of the inheritance he could lay his hands upon ; and as Philip grew to manhood, it was made clear that the Burgundian States considered their allegiance to be due not to the father, but to he son. But again the House of Austria made one of the jreat marriages, upon which, rather than upon successful wars, ts fortune was founded ; Philip, by liis union with Joan,^ the i aughter and heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, saw efore him the dazzling prospect of subjecting to one sceptre lot only Naples and the Netherlands, but almost all the Spanish Peninsula, with its rich outlook upon the new world. But once more the prospect was overclouded. The rooted nelancholy of the bride, a fatal inheritance which she was to ransmit to so many of her descendants, deepened into mad- less ; the bridegroom was fickle and careless, a standing )utrage to the gravity of Spanish manners and the pride of Spanish patriotism. He died in 1506, and when, ten years .fterwards, Ferdinand followed him, his son Charles, already in ight of his mad mother King of Castile, saw the whole vast oheritance fall mto his hands. But what of the Empire ? If it were possible that Charles Joan became heiress of .Spain only 1498, after the l>irth of licr son Miguel. 1 consequence of a series of family Had this child livid, he would have lisfortunts, and after her marriage united the renin.suiar Kingdoms, nntl ith Philip. She was the second so have altered the course of .suhso<|uent aughter and third child of her i)arents. European hi.story ; but he ilied before was married in 1496. In Uctober he was two years old, and the vii.st died her only brother Juan. Her inheritance 8ubsc(|uently fell to Joan r sister Isabella, married to King and her son Charles V. liaumgarten, uel of Portugal, then became the Karl V. vol. i. pii. 9, 10. ; she, however, died in August 242 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. should succeed his grandfather on the highest of earthly thrones, the House of Hapsburg would reach a pinnacle ol greatness to find a parallel to which it would be necessary to go back to the reign of Charlemagne. There were, however many difficulties in the way, some of them almost insurmount- able. One, and not the least, was that Maximilian himsel: was not technically Emperor, but only Emperor-elect ; he hac never been crowned at Eome or elsewhere ; and it seemed tc be a political solecism to place one King of the Eomans besid( another.^ Nothing daunted, the old man nevertheless set t( work to weave a web of intrigue which should enclose all th( electors ; and was, in fact, successful in bringing over to tht interests of his house all but Frederick of Saxony^, and Eicharc von Greiffenklau, Archbishop of Trier. Into the details o these tortuous and discreditable negotiations it is not necessar; to go ; for the death of Maximilian, only a few weeks after th Diet had broken up, compelled the entire reweaving of the wel But the facts already stated will sufficiently show two tilings first, that Maximilian, apparently on the point of attain in the great object of his life, was more than usually anxious t conciliate the Church ; and next, that the directors of mingled ecclesiastical and Imperial policy were unwilling t: offend an Elector so powerful, both from position and characte as Frederick. It was indeed while the Diet was still sittin that the Pope announced his intention of sending to the lattt the Golden Eose, afterwards actually conveyed by IMiltitz ; mark of grace usually bestowed upon the potentate who at tl roment stood highest in Papal favour. [ The choice of a legate was made with special reference both the political and the theological exigences of the cas. He was Thomas de Vio, a Dominican monk, who had bee General of his order, and had just been admitted to the Sacn College under the title of Cardinal of St. SLxtus. Histoi however, knows liim best as Cajetan, a name which he tO' from his birthplace, Gaeta. He was a real theologian of t ^ Forinstance, in Pope Leo's instruc- the Bishop of Liege, alluded to belt tions to Cajetan, Maximilian is spoken he stj-les himself " Maximilianus, d of as "ill Imperatorem electum " ina faveute cdementia, electus Koi • (Loscher, vol. ii. p. 310). In the noruni semper Augustus. " Kap}), A' /■' Emperor's answer to the memorial of NachUse, vol. ii. p. 418. CARDINAL CAJETAN 243 Dominican sort.^ Devoted to Thomas Aquinas, from whom lie lad taken his monastic name, he had written a connneutary m the Summa, which he considered as the quintessence of theological wisdom. But this was not all ; he had made liis ,vay to distinction by adopting and defending tlie opinions on l*apal authority which were then fashionable at liome : he lad played a part in this sense at the Lateran Council ; and lad, at the moment of which we are speaking, recently pub- ished a treatise on Indulgences. Indeed, througli all his subsequent life — he died in 1534 — he mingled in tlie con- roversies of the day, always on the Papal side and from his Dominican point of view, yet not without showing a certain ndependence of opinion and speculation. In 1518 he was ust fifty ; a man who loved pomp and splendour, and was apt o magnify the dignity of his office. Luther was not named n his instructions. He was to stir up the Emperor, as well is Christian, King of Denmark, to a crusade against the Turks, vhich was to be made under the auspices of the Pope, and n the strength of united Christendom; and if he could, to econcile Bohemia, which, under the influence of the enemy of iiankind, had fallen away into lieresy, with Mother Church. >till, the interests of the true faith occupy so large a place in he injmictions which Leo gave to Cajetau as to make it im- )ossible not to believe, when we read in one place of " the >arts adjacent to Bohemia" as also infected with heresy, that >oth Pope and Legate had a secret outlook towards Saxony." The ceremonial part of his mission was no doubt greatly Cajetan's mind. He invested Maximilian with a cap and word which the Pope had blessed. He brought with liim to Jermany a red hat for Albert of Mainz. In the political bject of his mission he was hardly as successful. It fell in xactly with the wishes of the old Emperor, still, in spite of a housand disappointments, full of .schemes, and always rest- ssly reaching after a success that never came. He had been rying all liis life to induce the Princes and free cities of Ger- Pallavicini (bk. i. chap. 9) calls Conf. Zeitschrifl fUr KirchengejifhkhU, ajetan " Theoloj»u.«i ejus aetatis spec- vol. v. p. 618; Zcilncliri/t fUr die his- itissimus ac facile princeps." torische T/irologie, \8^^, p. 431 d sfq, •^ The Pone's instructions to Cajetan (C. F. .Fiiger, C'ljetnn's Kampf tjcijcii die ill be founa in Loscher, vol. ii. p. 310. Lutherische Lehrrrform). 244 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. many to raise troops and to pay taxes for Imperial purposes, in accordance with a generally adopted assessment. Nothing- could have pleased his adventurous spirit better, nothing would more completely accord with liis dynastic policy, than to place himself at the head not only of the Empire but of Europe in a crusade against the common enemy of Christen- dom. But the States of Germany had their minds fixed on quite different objects. They were full of wrath and distrust against Pope, Curia, and all that was involved in the word Eome. The crusade against the Turks was, they thought, only a device to get hold of German money ; the real Turks, against whom it was necessary to contend, were in Italy. They had contributed to a Turkish war before, not once but many times, and nothing had come of it. The Princes, in' their unwillingness to trust Emperor and Pope with the pro- ceeds of taxation, even took up a position which was new in; the history of the Empire )i they could do nothing, they said, without consulting their subjects ; a declaration which, in itS; implied denial of the plenary powers of the Diet, was one stef; more towards the autonomy of the separate States. On the; other hand, the old accusations against Eoman abuse and ex-; tortion were showered on the Legate. The Prince Bishop o:! Liege, Erardus de Marca, presented a memorial to Empero]; and Princes, in which he recited the accustomed grievance! in the strongest terms. The Concordat between Eome am; the Empire had been only too favourable to the Church; bu} even the Concordat was infringed at almost every point. A| the event proved, it would have availed nothing, had Maxi; milian at this last moment thrown himself on the side of th| national aspirations, and at the head of a united Empire de^ manded of the Pope redress of grievances, and some effectual reform. He was not without a dim perception of Luther' j importance — perhaps as much as an aged Emperor was likel to have in the case of a poor Augustinian friar. " What : your monk about ? " he is said to have asked Pfeffiinger ; Augsburg. "Truly his Theses are not to be despised; he wi play a game with the parsons : tell your Elector to take goc care of him, he will be wanted some day." There is even story, which, however, rests on insufficient evidence, that 1 L UTHER AT A UGSBURG 245 vrote to the old humanist and patriot WimpheHng, to ask vhat at tliis juncture he should do with Luther. But if he it all saw and approved the better course, he followed the vorse ; he wrote to the Pope from Augsburg, on the 5th of August, a letter of general adliesion, in which he mentioned liuther only to condemn him ; and for the sake of the dynastic )bjects, which always held the first place in the mind of a iapsburg, sacrificed the chance of at once reforming the hurch and uniting the Empire.^ There was no Augustinian convent in Augsburg, but liuther on his arrival was hospitably entertained by the Car- nelites, whose Prior, John Prosch, had been a student at (Vittenberg. He was indeed far from friendless. Apart from he populace, who were eager to gaze at him " as the Hero- tratus of so great a conflagration," some of the chief citizens if Augsburg were ready to advise and assist him, among whom 7ere Conrad Peutinger, the well-known humanist, and a canon, hristopher Langemantel, and Dr. John Auer, a lawyer and a Qember of the city council. Two of Frederick's trusted ad- isers, Dr. Riihel and Philip von Feilitsch, gave him help and ountenance, and a message which he despatched, we do not aiow exactly whither, soon brought Staupitz to his side. A * ear all but a few days had elapsed since he had publislied he Ninety-five Theses, and every week had brought him fresh riends, every month had made him more the representatije of he religious aspirations of the German people. It was in ompUance with these advisers that he did not attempt to see he Cardinal at once. So far into the lion's mouth he had entured without any other safe-conduct than was implied in he promises which Cajetan had made to Frederick ; but efore going further it was thought desirable that he should eceive a formal pledge of safety from the Emperor, and Maxi- ailian was hunting at some little distance from Augsburg. n the meantime he received two official visits from an Italian iplomatist. Urban di Serralonga, who had in 1517 represented lie Marquis of Montferrat at the court of Saxony, and had De W. vol. i. p. 140 ; Kapp, i. p. 94 ; Erl. 0pp. v. a. vol. ii. n, 349 ; 7«n. r.2. 2 52 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap I shovild deserve to hear the voice of the Bride, for this i; certainly to hear the voice of the Bridegroom." Last of all, Ik begged the Cardinal to refer the case to the Pope, in ordei that it might be finally and authoritatively determined. "1 desire only," he went on, " to hear and obey the Church. Foi I know not what my recantation of doubtful and undetermin^ matters would effect — except I fear that it might rightly b( objected to me, that I know not either what I have asserted: or what I have withdrawn." To this letter no answer was vouchsafed. No answer was indeed to be expected. Profuse as were its expressions of submission, it still fell far short oJ the unconditional retractation which the Cardinal demanded: Next day Luther wrote again. He had done all, he said, that became an obedient son of the Church. Notwithstanding the distance, his poverty, the infirmity of his health, he had come to Augsburg to give an account of himself. The Legate hac bid him begone, unless he were willing to recant ; what, anc how far he could recant, he had already signified in writing Now he could stay no longer ; he had no means of his own and had already sufficiently burthened his Carmelite hosts. The only thing left him, then, was to make a solemn appea! not merely from^the Legate, but from the Pope himself imper- fectly informed, to the Pope who should be better instructed. Wliat answer he expected to this it is not easy to conjecture but he waited in Augsburg two days more, and on Wednesday night rode secretly away, through a postern -gate, which Langemantel opened for him, leaving Leonard Beyer to lodge his appeal with the Cardinal. He evidently thought that he was in danger of liberty or life; for only half equipped for such a journey he rode for his first stage to Monheim, eight Germar miles on the way to Niirnberg. Wlien, on his arrival, he attempted to dismount in the stable, he was too worn out tc stand, and fell at once into the straw. He arrived at Witten- berg on the 31st, exactly a year after the publication of the Theses." On his way home Luther received, at Niirnberg, fron 1 "A sanctissimo Domino Nostro 166; Myconius, p. 33; Erl. 0pp. \.^ Leone X male informato, ad melius vol. ii. p. 419 ; Deutsche Schriften inforniandum." vol. Ixiv. p. 364 {Nachlese), " De W. vol. i. pp. 161, 163, 164, V FREDERICK'S ATTITUDE 253 Spalatiii a copy of a Papal Brief addressed to Cajetan, drawn up aud signed in due form, and dated August 23d, in which he found himself treated as an already convicted heretic, whom the Legate, unless in case of complete repentance and recanta- tion, was ordered to arrest and send to Eome. The authen- ticity of this Brief, which we know in no other way than that ahove stated, will be discussed elsewhere.^ Luther's first thought was to treat it as spurious. Possibly, on reflection, he changed his mind ; it answered to the vague apprehensions that had tilled the air at Augsburg ; and, at all events, until repu- diated by the Curia, it was a document of which good argu- mentative use might fairly be made in the controversy. His first business, on reaching home, was to prepare a report of all that had happened at Augsburg, with illustrative papers, among wliich this Brief, accompanied by an indignant commentary, took its place. His own mood was that heroic one to which past difficulties and dangers seem of small account. " I am full of joy and peace," he whites to Spalatin, " so that I wonder that this trial of mine should have seemed anything great to many and great men." Still his position was doubtful and perplexing. He could not conceal from himself that he was practically a rebel against the authority of the Pope ; would Frederick, as a good, a peace-loving, an orthodox prince, throw the shield of his protection over him ? No one could suppose that he would be safe except upon Saxon soil ; would he be told to betake hmiself elsewhere ? ^ The answer to these questions soon came. Cajetan wrote to the Elector a letter, which, though dated October 25th, was not delivered till November lOtli, in which he gave his own account of the transactions at Augsburg, and asked that Frederick should consult for liis own honour and conscience by either sending Luther to Kome or at all events by expelling him from Saxony. This letter the Elector at once loyally sent to Luther, who immediately replied, not only controverting tlie Cardinal's account of the facts, but reasserting his own jwsi- tion. He again asked that his errors might be pointed out and proved to be erroneous ; he pleaded that he might not be > This brief will be found Erl. Omh v. a. vol. ii. p. S.I^. Sec Note B at the end of the chapter, j.. 257. -' De ^\ . vol. i. \\ 1'5<3. 254 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap. sent to certain death at Rome, " where not even the chief Pontiff himself lives in safety " ; he painted the misery and danger of banishment from Saxony. Still he is sincerely anxious that his errors and offences, whatever they may be, shall not inflict a stain upon the fair fame of the Elector, whom the world may unjustly regard as his abettor, and in that view he is willing to sacrifice himself. " Wherefore," he says, " lest in my name any evil should befall your illustrious Lordship, which is of all things what I least wish, lo, I leave your territory, to betake myself whither a merciful God may will, and trusting myself in every event to His divine pleasure. For there is nothing I desire less than that any man, and least of all your illustrious Lordship, should on my account be led into any odium or peril." For a little while his fate and the fate of the Reformation trembled in the balance. He thought he would go to France, where the University of Paris, true to its old traditions, had lately protested against the abridgment, by the Lateran Council, of the liberties of the Galilean Church. Once, on the very point of departure, he assembled his friends for a farewell meal, when a letter came from Spalatin, which changed his purpose. On another occasion there was a momentary foreshadowing of that scheme of a friendly arrest and concealment which was actually carried into effect after the Diet of "Worms. But the Elector's better genius prevailed, and he wrote to Cajetan on the 8th of December, enclosmg Luther's letter, and at the same time distinctly refusing to withdraw his protection from a man who was not yet proved to be a heretic. Had Luther been so convicted, he would have known how to do his duty as a Christian prince, without external exhortation or admonition ; as it was, he would not run the risk of wrecking his University. The situation, in its political aspect, was practically the same as before the audience at Augsburg.-^ In the meantime, however, Luther had made another step in advance. Dissatisfied with the appeal ad Papam melius in- formandum which he had lodged with Cajetan at Augsburg, he replaced it by one to a future General Council, to be lawfully 1 De W. vol. i. pp. 187, 189, 195. ander's MS. quoted by Seidemaun, Enders, vol. i. pp. 268, 309, 310. Oben- Thcol. Stud. u. Krit. 1878, p. 705. HIS APPEAL TO A GENERAL COUNCIL 255 sailed aud held in a safe place, where he should himself liave free coming and going. This he formally completed, in that shapel of Corpus Christi, which still stands in the churchyard it Wittenberg, on the 28th of November, in the presence of a [lotary and witnesses. To some extent this appeal must be taken as the logical consequence of the Brief of the 23d of A-ugust, which Luther had now resolved to treat as a genuine locument. If the Pope could thus condenni him unheard, ivhat advantage in appealing to liim better instructed ? But it would perhaps be too much to infer from this appeal that Luther had adopted any distinct theory of the infallibility of councils, or the precise relation in which they stood to \ 'ope ind Church. There is evidence to show that he was not un- icquainted with the conflict of opinion on this subject, which lad existed since the breaking up of the Council of Basel, and hat he spnpathised with the freer tendency, still represented ay the University of Paris. Indeed his appeal to a General ouncil was drawn up on the lines of one which that body had nade, on the 27th of March 1517, against the abrogation by he Lateran Council of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, and n some cases actually adopted its phraseology. But the fact hat it may fairly be doubted whether he would have sub- nitted to the adverse judgment of a council, even had it ulfilled all the conditions which he had laid down, shows that n regard to this important subject his mind was in a state of ransition. Not, however, that he was steadily thinking the natter out from point to point, and so able at any given noment to express himself without inconsistency. The living ^erm of his theology, which was perpetually demanding room "or growth and expansion, was essentially subjective, the con- iciousness of an inward change wrought in himself by forces the eality of which it was impossible to question, and which in heir very nature could not Ije subordinated to any others. Umost from month to month he discerns new applications of his great principle : but the process of change is half uncon- cious, and he has not yet reduced his convictions to logical brm, or a.scertained their relations to one another. The chief hing with him at this moment is that he cannot expect fair rial from a Pope ; and he appeals to a free council. P»ut he L UTHER 'S XIX E T \ '-FI \ 'E THESES has already laid it down that councils can en\ The questioi of an absolute basis of authority is plainly still in the futm-e.-^ The Acta Augustaim, in which Luther told his Augsbm. story, were published on the 11th of December, \erj muel against the Elector's will He had interposed to forbid tb printing when it was too late ; all he could do was to hav» one passage scored through and made illegible, which has sinc< exercised much ingenuity of conjectui'e.- So in Hke manner and about the same time, the Appeal made its escape fron the printing press. Is it fair to conjecture that if the injunc: tion not to publish had been very seriously intended, it would at such a moment as this, have been rigorously obeyed ? Thi; whole policy of these days may be summed up in one phrase to combine a decent Hberty of action for Luther with the leas, possible responsibility for Frederick. However this may be the case, stated fully and without passion, was now before tht; world. And the Catholic Church completed it by a nev' Decretal, in which Leo X, addressing Cajetan, reaffirmed thi; doctrine of Indulgences, in opposition to all recent ca^aLlers.' i 1 Weimar ed. vol. ii. p. 34 ; Losclier, ^ Dg w. vol. i. pp. 149, 160, 169' vol. i. p. 554. 174, 195, 198 ; vol. vi. p. 8. Erl. Opp - Vide 2*ote B, at the end of the v. a. vol. ii. p. 428. chapter. XOTE (A) TO Page 211. I:!f order to form the estimate given in the text, I have studied more or les assiduouslv five monographs on Tetzel. The earliest in date is that of Voge (•2d. ed.^, 1727. This is Protestant, The next is that of Grone (2d. ed.), 1860- a Catholic rehabilitation. To this succeeds a Protestant reply by Komer, 1880 answered again by Hermann (2d. ed.), 1SS3. To these 'may be added .' pamphlet, GoschicJitsqiuIhn iibcr dai AUassprediger Tetul, by Kayser, 1877. Apart from the view of Tetzel's character, and the common admission tha stories have been told of him which belong to the indulgence-monger in genera (one as old as Boccaccio), the controversy revolves round one or two principa points. (1) Was Tetzel, at some date which it is impossible to fix, condemuec at Innsbruck to be drowned in the Inn for the crime of adultery, rescued b;. the intercession of Frederick the Wise, and his punishment commuted to im prisonment for life at Leipzig, whence he escaped to preach the indulgences c 1517 '. The strongest evidence for this story, which plainly was in genera, circulation (Mathesius, p. 10 A), is derived from a statement made by Luther ii| 1541. In the book Wider Hans TFurst (Erl. Deutsche Schriften,"' vol. xxvi p. 6S), in which he gives an account of the beginning of the controversy, h sjwaks of " a pi-eaching monk, bj- name Johannes Detzel, a great shouter, whon Duke Frederick had formerly liberated from the sack at Innsbruck, for Maxi AVTES 257 ilian had condemned him to be drowned in the Inn (you may well sui>i>ose on count of his great virtue). And Duke PVederick caused him to remember that, uen he began to abuse us Wittenbergers ; also he freely confessed it." This is piece of positive testimony not easy to get over, except on the supi>osition that ither would stick at no calumny that would blacken an opponent's character, a the other hand, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to lit in the story with liat we know of Tetzel's life. (2) Did Tetzel declare in his preaching, that if ly one had violated the Mother of God the indulgence which he ollered would 'ail to wipe away the sin ? Such was indisputably the report in his own life- me ; the shocking accusation plays a part both in Luther's Theses and Tetzel's ntitheses. Luther, in his Rcsolutioncs (Weimar ed. vol. i. p. 622), which may ; taken to express his deliberate opinion, says that although it was asserted by any men of name that it had been so preachetl in many places, he himself marvelled rather than believed. " He adds, however, that it was not wonderful lat the people should have understood some such thing when they heard great id horrible sins treated as of no account, in comparison with the magnitude of le indulgence. On the other hand, it is evident that two certificates, one from imporal, the other from ecclesiastical authorities at Halle (first published by idemann, Erluu/crungcn, p. 1), to the effect that they had never heard Tetzel se the incriminated phrase, nor had been told of his using it by others, are good ily as negative and partial evidence. That Tetzel, however, asked for these rtificates shows that he was ashamed of the accusation and anxious to deny it. robably the fairest thing is to \vithdraw the sentence from history as not fully athenticated, with the double remark that the report could hardly have ecome current unless there had been a strong element of probability in it, and lat it is difficult to limit the excess to which a popular preacher addressing an fnorant audience on such a subject might easily be led. (3) There is an ndoubted Catholic witness against Tetzel. A letter is extant from Miltitz, the apal Chamberlain, who in 1519 was sent to Saxony to compose the Lutheran iificulty, to Degenhard Pfeffinger, in which, after an interview with Tetzel in be presence of the Dominican Provincial, he declares him guilty of having made purse for himself out of the indulgence, and says that he has two children, "he force of this authoritative accusation is hardly evaded by the Catholic pologists, who accuse Miltitz of the common German vice of drunkenness, and arrate with some gusto that he was at last drowned in the Rhine or Main Komer, p. 121). NOTE (B) TO Paoes 253, 256. In the Acta Augustaiui — the collection of documents relative to the hearing n Augsburg, which Luther published early in December lf)18 — is found a Brief ^dressed by Leo X to Cardinal Cajetan, dated August 23, 1518, and signed ■Jacobus Sadoletus." It is, if genuine, an important document, reciting the .ppointment of the Bishop of Ascoli as judge in Luther's case, but going on to ay, that as the said Luther had abused the Papal benignity by publishing other leretical books, Cajetan should, with help of the secular arm, take him into ustody, until, in pursuance of further instructions, he should present him before he Pope in Rome. If, indeed, Luther voluntarily repented, the power of recon- nling him to the Holy See was given to the Legate, who was at the same time irmed with all the terrors of the Church against the favourers and abettors of Lhe heretic, no matter of what rank (Weimar ed. vol. ii. p. 23, Acta AuguMana). This Brief is not known to history in any other way than as publi.shed by Luther. When at Niiniberg, on his way home from Augsburg, about the end Df October, he received a copy of it from Snalatin. His first impulse was to creat it a.s unauthentic. "It is incredible," he writes to Snalatin (Dc W. vol. i. |p. 166), " that a mon.ster of such a kind should have proceeded from the Supremo [I'ontitf, above all, from Leo X." On further consideration he seems to have bhanged his opinion, for he published it in the Acta Au{fus(ana with brief liut (indignant comment. It is not without significance, however, first, that the Elector objected to the publication of the Ada at all, and next, that, when his S 258 LUTHER'S NINETY-FIVE THESES chap.^ objection came too late, the first lines of Luther's comment on the Brief were, ii the first edition, scored out with a pen, and in all subsequent ones omitted More than one attempt has been made to read them, with the probable result that in the obliterated passage Luther accused Ghinucci of having, with Cajetan' connivance, forged the Brief (conf. Weimar ed. vol. ii. p. 1 scq.). Ranke, in the supplementary volume of his German History in the Age offh Ilefor.mation, was the first to point out the difficulties in the way of accepting this Brief as genuine. The Papal citation reached Luther on the 7th of August it gave him sixty days to appear in Rome. But if this Brief is to be relied upon wdthin sixteen days, and in his absence, Luther had been already condemned "dictum Martinum haereticum per praedictum auditorem jam declaratum. Such a proceeding is so contrary, not only to every principle of justice, but to al legal forms, especially in a Court noted, like the Roman Curia, for its dilatoriness as to be incredible. But it is still further inconsistent with the letter whicl on the 25th of October, Cajetan wrote to the Elector. \\x it he distinctly say that Luther's case is not yet decided (Enders, vol. i. p. 271) " Illud sciat Illus trissima Dominatio Vestra, nequaquam hoc tam grave et pestilens negotium poss diu haerere, nam Romae prosequentur causam, quando ego lavi manus meas, e ad Sanctissimum Dominum, Dominum nostrum, hujuscemodi fraudes scripsi. It is worth noting that Pallavicini [Hist. Com. Trid. lib. i. cap. ix. § 3 accepts the Brief as genuine. It is true that he gives Luther himself as hi authority : on the other hand, his statement of the contents of the documen shows that he finds in it nothing improbable or incredible 'per se. On the whok however, it is certainly safer to treat the Brief as not authentic. (Conf. Kolde Luther s Stellung zu Concil tmd Kirche, Anhang, p. 1, in which he defend the authenticity of the Brief. Also Waltz, Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte, vo' ii. p. 623, who takes the other side.) This is probably the best place to mentio a strange document, which has recently been brought to light by Kolde {Zei schriftfilr Kirchengeschichte, vol. ii. p. 472). It comes from a MS. volume a Munich, containing records of the Augustinian Order in Germany ; and is onl a copy, of which the original has not yet been found. It is a letter date August 25, 1518 (two days later, therefore, than the Brief above discussed), froi Gabriel Venetus, the General of the Augustinians, to Gerhard Hecker, the Saxo Provincial, in which he requires him to seize Luther, and to keep him ironed, i the straitest custody. I quote the exact words, " Iccirco mandamus sub paen privationis omnium tuorum graduum, dignitatum, et officiorum, ut praefatui fratrem IMartinum Luther his acceptis capi et incarcerari cures, faciasque in vii culis, compedibus, et manicis ferreis ad instantiani summi domini nostri Leon Decimi sub arta custodia detineri : Cum vero is de congi-egatione ilia sit quae a obedientia nostra se exemptam putat, ut nullus tergiversandi sibi relinquatur locu , damns propterea tibi in ea parte omnem nostram autoritatem significamusqr S. D. N. Papam communicasse tibi autoritatem, apostolicam, amplissimam a hominem hunc incarcerandum, vinciendum, detinendumque non obstantibi quibuscunque in contrarium facientibus " (p. 477). In view of the strict disciplii that was enforced within the monastic orders, and the rough treatment <' personal rights and liberties often shrouded in conventual silence and seclusioi. it can hardly be said that this document should be rejected as containing matti 2)er se incredible. Perhaps, however, till the original is forthcoming, it ougl not to be admitted as historical evidence. Waltz (ubi supra) boldly pronounci it a forgery, adducing one or two internal difficulties, which are not, however, ' any great importance. On the other hand, Kolde returns to the charge in tl. 3d appendix of his book on Staupitz, and certainly scores a point in referring! a letter from Staupitz to the Elector, dated October 15, 1518 (p. 443), and ■' another of Luther's (De W. vol. i. p. 182), both of which allude to current repo in accord with the General's alleged letter. Luther's words are — he is speakir of the time when he was in Augsburg — " Taceo quod rumor circumferebatu permissum esse a Reverendo Patre Generali, me capiendum et in vincula, ni revocarem, conjiciendum." CHAPTER VI THE YEAR 1519: FRIENDS AND FOES N"0TWITHSTANDING the distraction of mind which was the necessary result of the controversies in which Luther found limseK ever more deeply involved, his thoughts, during tlie feax 1518, of which we have just told the story, were often )ccupied with the welfare and development of the University. ^"0 provision had yet been made at "Wittenberg for teaching^ jither Greek or Hebrew, languages equally essential to the tudent, whether education be regarded from the humanist or he purely theological point of view. This want was largely supplied by the arrival of a teacher, who, though still very ^"oung, was looked upon as the rising hope of German scholar- jhip, Philip Melanchthon. At first he undertook to lecture in 30th languages, until after a little while a Hebrew teacher was bund in the person of John Boschenstein, who in 1521 was iucceeded by Matthew Aurogallus, Luther's colleague in the ranslation of the Old Testament. Wittenberg soon knew ;hat it had acquired in Melanchthon not only an accomplished icholar but a great systematising theologian ; while lie took lis place at Luther's side as the friend and lieutenant witliout vhose help the Reformation would have been other than it was. Philip Schwartzerd was born on the 16th of February L497 at Bretten, then a village of the Palatinate, but now ncluded in the Grand Duchy of Baden. He was thus fourteen ^ears younger than Luther. His father, George Scliwartzerd, vas an armourer, a native of Heidelljerg, who stood liigh in he favour of the princes of the land, and had had tlic honour 26o THE YEAR ijig : FRIENDS AND FOES chai of making a suit of armour for tlie Emperor Maximilian. Hi mother was Barbara Eeuter, the daughter of John Eeuter, citizen of good standing, whose wife Elizabeth was the sister c - /the great scholar, John Eeuchlin. Three daughters and tw sons, of whom Pliilip was the eldest, were the offspring of thi: marriage. The household was at once a pious and a happy cm George Schwartzerd was a master of his craft ; there was d lack of worldly wealth, and the spirit of old Catholic devotio pervaded the family. More than one domestic traditio survives to show that a moral feeling, which had much ( ancient simplicity and seriousness in it, regulated the relatior between parents and children. But in 1507 the home Wc' broken up by the death of the father. In 1504, when we was raging between Bavaria and the Palatinate, he had bee' sent, in the pursuit of his calling, to Monheim, and there, was thought, had drunk of a poisoned well. From that tiK his health gradually failed, until, three years afterwards, 1 succumbed to his malady. John Eeuter, who would otherwij have been the stay of the family, had died eleven days befor; and his widow, Elizabeth Eeuchlin, went back to her nati"\; place, Pforzheim, taking with her, for purposes of educatio: her three grandsons, John Eeuter and Philip and Geon Schwartzerd.^ Philip's education had already begun at Bretten, whe he was sent to the common school at a very early ag His grandfather, however, dissatisfied with the master, aij possibly discerning the rare promise of the boy, had appH( to his brother-in-law Eeuchlin for a tutor, and at his recor mendation had placed Philip in the hands of John linger, native of Pforzheim, who, besides being learned in theology ai medicine, had a competent knowledge of the classical language By his searching and severe method Philip was thorough furnished with the rudiments of Latin scholarship. The less(\ usually consisted of twenty or thirty lines taken from Baptis. 1 In 1557 Melanclitlion -writes, "Ante naufragiumfacturumesse. Saepemirat sexaginta annos mens pater mihi des- sum, cur mihi nato in collibus Rht' cribi yeviOXia curavit a Palatini matlie- vicinis praedLxerit pericula in Arct matico viro ingeniosa Hasfurto, amico Oceauo. Nee volui eo accedere vocal suo. In ea praedictione diserte scriptum in Britanniam et in Daniam." Co:. est, itinera me ad Boream periculosa Ecf. vol. ix. p. 189. habiturum esse, et me in mari Baltico PHILIP MELANCHTHON 261 ^antiuinus, the Italian poet, whose fame for a time ahuost ap- )roached that of the older and greater IMantuan ; and the boy was •equired to define accurately the meaning of every word, and ts relation to the sentence in which it stood. " As often as I nade mistakes, he beat me," said Melanchthon long afterwards, ' and so made me a grammarian. Very often I was thrashed wo or tlrree times in a lesson ; he loved me as a son, and I n turn him as a father ; and I hope that before long we shall neet in the life eternal," ^ We must not conclude from these ;astigations that the boy was slow or unwilling to learn : blows, is Luther too found out, were then looked upon as an essential )art of the schoDlmaster's method. Indeed, everything points a singular precocity in the lad ; we are told that when vandering scholars came to Bretten his grandfather would set lim to dispute with them, wliich he did to the admiration of he bystanders and the shame of the discomfited antagonists. Che scene is not difficult to reproduce in imagination : the boy, prave and instructed beyond his years, the wondering relatives, he neighbours gathering round in friendly admiration, and the ough " Bachanten " quite willing to purchase a night's hospi- ality from the Burgomaster of Bretten at the price of a dialectical lefeat from his grandson. At Pforzheim I'hilip attended the school of George Simler, in excellent scholar, wlio had been a pupil of Dringenberg's at 5chlettstadt, and who afterwards studied in the University of \^oln. Simler had some knowledge of Greek, which he mparted to liis favourite pupils, Melanchthon among the rest, 't was now that the boy fell directly under the influence of lis great uncle, Reuclilin, then, next to Erasmus, tlie first of ^ jerman scholars, and in his knowledge of Hebrew superior even o the Master of Kotterdam. Coming to Pforzheim to visit his iister, Reuchlin noticed him, took pleasure in his progress, gave lim books, and, by way of jocose encouragement, put his own loctor's cap on his head. Philip, on the other hand, deliglited he heart of the old scholar by preparing for one of his visits . representation of his Latin comedy, the Scrghis, by liimself ind his schoolmates. It was upon this occasion that Peuchlin, Waltz, Dida MelanOumis, ZciUch. fiir K. O. vol. iv. p. 327, Conf. Corp. lef. vol. jxv. p. 448. 262 THE YEAR i^ig : FRIENDS AND FOES cha whose own name Hermolaus Barbarus had grcEcised int Capnio, translated Schwartzerd into Melanchthon, a name (; happy omen, and one that has gained an undying renown. N attempt was ever made to furnish Luther with a classic; appellation ; and the conjunction of his name with that { Melanchthon may serve to keep in recollection the fact th; the humanist element so powerful in the one was all bi absent in the other.^ In October 1509 Melanchthon, not yet thirteen years age, matriculated in the University of Heidelberg, wher something less than two years afterwards, he proceeded BacheL of Arts. In after years he did not think much of the instru tion which he received there. The days when Dalberg, Eudc Agricola, and Conrad Celtes had endeavoured to make Heidc' berg a seat of the newer learning, in opposition to the obscura tism of Koln, had passed, and the old scholastic methods we in full vogue. Nothing was taught to the studious youth, sa: Melanchthon, but " that garrulous dialectic, and a litt physics." He read Latin literature diligently, but witho, much distinction between the ancient authors and their mode; imitators, and so, as he complains, missed in the unconscio: formation of his style the classic grace and precision. Frc' the first, astronomy, which was then little better than astrolof , exercised a strong attraction upon him, and his curiosity w partly gratified by the lectures of one Conrad, a Swiss, w had studied at Kbln. When we are told that he drew up himself the notice of Wimpheling, and conceived a stro; admiration for Geiler, it is easy to forget that he was onljj. boy, of great capacity, indeed, and with unusual stores of i,- formation, upon whom, for his great uncle's sake, the scholfi of an elder generation looked with kindness. He did not st ' long at Heidelberg. When in 1512, at the age of fifteen, ■ applied for the degree of Master of Arts, and was told that '• was too young to receive it, he shook the dust off his feet agaii-' his father's native city, and, under the pretext that the air t' the place was injurious to his health, removed to Tubingen.^ , 1 According to Carl Schmidt, Mel- ^ Corp. Ref. vol. iii. p. 673 ; ^ • anchthon wrote his name as we have iv. p. 715 ; vol. x. p. 469 ; vol. xx . given it till 1531 ; afterwards, for 765. euphony's sake, Melanthon. I I PHILIP MELANCHTHON 263 The University of Tiibingen, which had been fomnled in L477 by Duke Eberhard with the Beard, was still largely )ervaded by the old scholastic spirit, though the new learning lad its eager representatives. The one name in its list of Drofessors which has a claim to a place in the annals of the jerman Renaissance is that of Bebel, the author of the Facetiae ind the Triumphus Veneris, both books in which the popular ind anti-ascetic elements of the movement were vividly reflected. But if the names of Brassicanus, Stadianus, Simler, StolHer, and ;heir fellows are now forgotten, except by a few exact students )f the period, there was enough in their lectures to stimulate md occupy a bright lad of fifteen, who already aimed at making all knowledge his pro\ance. A friendship with Oeko- lampadius, whom, though twice his own age, he found a student it Tubingen, seems to have exercised considerable influence over liim. Together they read Hesiod, whose Works ntul Days filled him with fresh astronomical curiosity, and sent him to Stofller's lectures. He also mentions Rudolf Agricola's work on dialectics, ;hen recently published, as having given him a new view of ;hat study. It not only impelled him to read the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, but helped him to gain a clear in- sight into their merits. He threw himself into the prevalent Nominalism of the place in the study of Occam. His know- ledge of Greek enabled him to learn something of Aristotle at first hand. He attended lectures on medicine, and read Galen for himself. Under two now forgotten teachers he studied jurisprudence and the Canon Law. He added theology to the List of his intellectual acquirements, though rather for the sake of universality than from any goodwill to a science which was taught only in a dull scholastic way, and little dreaming that in after life he was to win his own gi-eenest laurels as a theo- logian. And the reward of this assiduous and varied study was that in January 1514 he was admitted Master of Arts, the first among eleven competitors for the degree.^ It is curious to note how the boy of seventeen plunges at once into the labours of the literary life. Thomas Anshclm, a well-known printer, had an office at Tiibingen, and Melanch- ' CoTj). n-f. vol. i. pp. 26, 321, 1083 ; vol. iv. pp. 716, 720 ; vol, xii. p. 243 ; vol. xxiv. p. 118. 264 THE YEAR 1319: FRIENDS AND FOES cha thon became his corrector of the press. In this capacity h edited the chronicle of Nauclerus, not merely purging it ( typographical errors, but correcting, adding, rearranging, i occasion required.-^ Wlien in March 1514 the Clarorw Virorum Upistolae issued from Anshelm's press, to the sue cour of Eeuchlin, then sorely beset by Pfefferkorn and th theologians of Koln, the prefatory letter was written b Melanchthon. In 1515 we find him producing an edition c Terence, which claims the merit of being the first — a curiou commentary on the Latin scholarship of the age — so printe^ as to indicate the metrical structure. But it would be a tediou task to enumerate the prefaces, the dissertations, the Lati epigrams, the Greek odes which flowed from Melanchthon facile pen. Like his later productions they indicate th' workman rather than the artist ; they show the foundations c learning rather than the beginnings of taste. But, in com: bination, perhaps, with their author's relationship to Eeuchlii they drew upon him the attention of learned Germany in quite extraordinary way. The young scholar of Tubingen wa talked of even in Ptome, where literary cardinals asked whs he was doing. Wliat compliment could be higher than to b mentioned in terms of praise by Erasmus ? The great schola: in his Annotations on the New Testament, introduced an a' but rapturous allusion to the learning and literary merits c one whom he describes as " almost a boy." The student wl not find the compliment there now ; it appeared in the fin: edition of 1516, but it was withdrawn when Melanchtho' went to join Luther at Wittenberg.^ The next two years Melanchthon passed at Tiibingei 1 This statement rests on the au- ^ " At deum immortalem, quam no thority of Veit Winsheim, who makes spem de se praebet, admodum etiai it ill a funeral oration which he pro- adolescens, ac pene puer, Philippi nounced at Melauchthon's funeral (C. ille Melanchthon, utraque literatui it. vol. X. p. 188). It is, however, now pene ex aequo suspiciendus ! Quo doubted, on the strength of certain inventionis acumen ! Quae sermon typographical indications, whether puritas ! quanta reconditarum rerui Nauclerus's Chronicle was among the memorial Quam varia lectio ! Quai, books for which Melanchthon corrected verecunda regiaeque prorsus indol the press: and the theory has been festivitas." Erasmi Annotationes, advanced that there is a confusion here Thess. ii. 7 (first edition of 1516 with the Chronicle of Carlo, which, at fol. 555. a later period of his life, he undoubtedly Corp. Ref. vol. i. p. 9 ; vol. x. ] edited ( Vide Spiess, Forschungcn zur 192. Clar. Fir. Epp. (Paul Gereandi Deuischen Geschichte, vol. xxvi. p. 138). to Reuchlin), fol. B iii. PHILIP MELANCHTHON 265 engaged partly in teaching, partly in literary occupations of the kind which we have described. But he was growing tired of a place where, he said, " it was a capital offence to touch polite literature." " It was no better than a prison to him : among boys, he felt as if he were becoming a boy again." While he was in this mood, Eeuchlin received a letter from the Elector Frederick, stating that he intended to establish chairs of Greek and Hebrew in the University of Wittenberg, and asking for a recommendation of fit teachers. Eeuchlin answered that he was too old and Wittenberg too far off to accept the Elector's invitation in his own person, but that he put forward in his place his "dear cousin. Master Philip Schwartzerd," whom he had already refused to the University of Ingolstadt. There was no need of further negotiation : Melanchthou put liimself absolutely at his uncle's disposal. " Have no doubt at all about the matter," wrote Eeuchlin to the Elector on the 25th of July, " I know no German who is before liim, except Erasmus Eoterodamus, who is a Dutchman. He indeed surpasses us all in Latin." On the other hand, the old scholar's delight in thus opening his young kinsman's way to honourable work and possible fame is quite touching. He addresses liim as "my Philip, my work, and my consola- tion." He exhorts him in Scripture phrase, " Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house into a land that I wiU show thee : and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a blessing." Whether Tubingen at large knew what it was losing we cannot tell ; Simler, ]\Ie- lanchthon's old schoolmaster, who was now a professor there, said, that whatever learned men there were in the university, they were not learned enough to appreciate the erudition of their departing colleague. With this testimony Melanchthou, in August, set out for Augsburg, where Maximilian was then holding his last Diet. Having there made the acquaintance of Frfidmckr^nd liis— chTtpiainSpalatin, he went next to Xiirn- berg, where he was the guest of Scheurl and Pirckheimer, and finally, by way of Leipzig, arrived at Wittenljerg on the 25th of Augu.st. Everywhere he met with the friendliest reception from scholars ; at Leipzig, the professors tried to detain him 266 THE YEAR isig : FRIENDS AND FOES chap among themselves, telling him that the hundred gulden a yea promised him at Wittenberg was too small a stipend. Bu Melanchthon would listen neither to these blandishments no to a renewed invitation which reached him from Ingolstadt he had set his heart upon Wittenberg, and to Wittenberg hi loyally gave his life.^ He was duly inscribed in the matriculation book of th( University on the 26 th of August, and three days afterward delivered his inaugural address, " de corrigendis adolescentiai studiis," to a large and delighted audience. His persona^ appearance was hardly prepossessing ; if Albert Diirer am Lukas Cranach are to be trusted, a towering brow and ai aquiline nose gave an impression of strength which the lowe part of the face did not confirm : he had a slight stammer, b; carried one shoulder higher than the other, and embarrassmen' showed itself in twitching eyebrows and nervous gesticulations' But there was no doubt of the effect which he producec Luther wrote to both Spalatin and Lange in the warmest term, of the new Professor. So long as he can have him, he declare i that he wants no other teacher of Greek. On the other hanc Melanchthon plunged into his work not only with the industr that was characteristic of him, but with the eagerness of ne^ expectations and a fresh start in life. He sends to Spalatin long list of publications which are to appear within the yea: He not only lectures on Greek, on physics, on the expositio of the New Testament, but until a Hebrew teacher appears o the scene on that language also. He sends for a copy of tli Hebrew Bible from Leipzig ; in conjunction with Luther h procures the invitation to Wittenberg of the printer Melchic Letter, who has a fount of Greek types. The effect of ti; new impulse given by Melanchthon to the studies of the plac: was soon seen; in May 1519 Luther writes that student were pouring in like a flood.^ J It must not be forgotten that Melanchthon went to Wittei berg as a humanist. So far as he had studied theology it ha' rather repelled than attracted him. His relationship 11 1 Cori-). Ref. vol. i. pp. 31, 680. ^ jny^y^ ^cad. Vitah. p. 73; GoT' Reuclilin's Bricfwechsel, ed. Geiger, pp. Ref. vol. i. p. 43 ; vol. x. pp. 299, 53 } 289, 294, 302, 303. Corp. Ref. vol. i. vol. xi. p. 15 ; De Wette, vol. i. p; p. 41 ; vol. X. p. 299. 135, 141, 257, 278, 279 ; vol. vi. p. l; PHILIP MELANCHTHON 267 Eeuchlin, and the part which, though so young, he Imd taken in his quarrel with the theologians of Koln, had procured him a place in the Letters of the Obscure Men. In blaster Philip Schlauraff's Carmen Rithmicalc, in whicli that worthy describes his adventures among the humanists of Germany, we read : " Then I went to Tubingen, where many companions live who make new books, and vilipend the theologians. xVmong wliom the most violent of all, as I found out, is Philip Melanchtlion ; wherefore I made a vow to God, that if I could see him dead I would go on pilgrimage to St. James." Nor did Melanchthon to the last lose his interest in pure literature ; we shall find liim by and by deeply lamenting that at Wittenberg theology pushed it aside. His contributions to an accurate knowledge of classical languages and literature were incessant, and justly earned for him tlie title of " Praeceptor Germaniae." But he could not resist, perhaps did not wish to resist, the fascination of Luther, with whom he was soon united in a close and tender friendship. Before he has been at Wittenberg many months he seriously thinks of leaving it again should Luther be com- pelled to go away; while in June 1519 we find him accom- panying his friend to that disputation at Leipzig wliich did so much to define and confirm his rebellion against the Pope. But the price which he paid for his adhesion to the Pieform was the loss of Picuchlin's friendship. Of any correspondence which may have taken place between them after Melanchthon's settlement at Wittenberg only one letter remains, in which the younger man declined to follow the fortunes of the elder at the University of Ingolstadt. This seems to have been the occa- sion of avowed alienation between them ; Eeuchlin asked Melanchthon not to write to him again, and bequeathed liis library, which he had promised to his nephew, to liis native town of Pforzheim. It was the act of an old, a broken, a dis- appointed man, who had been the mark of a persecution which he felt to be undeserved, and saw the age leaving him V)ehind. But it was not worthy of Melanchthon that when lieucidin died, he .should have passed by in silence an event which ouglit to have touched him nearly. When, in 1523, he alluded, in a letter to Spalatin, to tlie fate of his uncle's library, it wa.s to depreciate its value ; and he added the cold comment, " I never 268 THE YEAR 15 ig: FRIENDS AND FOES chap. promised myself any but common benefits from Eeuchlin, although there was an old friendship between our families, and he seemed to love me very heartily." Without going so far as to say that Melanchthon was disloyal to his friends, there was in him at times a certain querulous self-regard which was at least inconsistent with generous judgment.^ ^ It would be difficult to overestimate the importance, at this /moment, of the direction and impulse given to the studies of Wittenberg by a man who knew Greek as thoroughly as in / those days it was possible to know it. Up to this time the' influence of the new learning had hardly made itself directly felt at the Saxon University. The fresh breath of inspiration had come wholly from the theological side, out of the fiery soul and vivid personality of Luther. Now, under Melanchthon, Luther himself widened and deepened his knowledge of Greek, for the first time seriously applying himself to the original text of the New Testament, and making it the basis of his exegesis. \/But as I have already pointed out, he was no humanist at heart, though for a little while he and the humanists found them- selves in the same camp; while Melanchthon cared for the / classical languages and literature for their own sake, Luther in their cultivation never ceased to have a theological end in view. Presently, when the emotions which had arisen out of the new situation had in some degree spent themselves, a certain difference of feeling between the two friends began to J manifest itself Luther wished to withdraw Melanchthon from; lecturing on Greek, which he qualified as " childish," to employ him in teaching theology, while Melanchthon was loud in his com- plaints of the neglect of classical studies in the University, and the absorption by theology of all interest and industry. Theo- logian Melanchthon was, and continued to be to the last years of his life, almost in his own despite, and certainly to the destruction of his peace. But the humanist never died out ol him ; if he had been left to the bent of his own desires, he would have been simply the greatest scholar of his generation, tht successor of Erasmus rather than the helpmeet of Luther." | 1 Corp. Ref. vol. i. pp. 141, 149, ^ -phe chief authority for Melanch; 363, 646 ; E})}). Obsc. Fir. ed. Bockiug, thon's early life is, besides the funera , vol. i. p. 201 ; Scheurl, Bricfbuch, vol. orations delivered after his death, col ii. p. 91. lected in Corp. Rcf. vol. x. p. 177 e KARL VON MILTITZ 269 The situation in regard to the Pope and the Elector in which Luther found himself at the beginning of the year 1510 was plainly one that could not last. The interview with Cajetan had come to nothing ; the Cardinal liad demanded unconditional recantation, Luther had asked for fair and formal trial, and neither would accept the other's point of ^'iew. The Elector, himself sincerely orthodox, had no desire to shield heretics ; but could Luther be justly treated as a heretic until liis heresy was proved ? He still considered himself a true son of the Church, whose protest was only against manifest corruptions and distortions of her doctrine ; while behind him was slowly gathering a great force of popular opinion, perhaps more decisively anti-Roman than himself On the other hand, the Pope was not willing to put pressure on the Elector, whose age and character gave him great influence in that contention for the succession to the Empire in which the Holy See took so deep an interest. Frederick was never- theless the next point of attack, if that can be called attack which took the form of blandishment. Even before Cajetan's interview with Luther, Leo had announced his intention of sending to the Elector the Golden Eose, not only the most isignal mark of pontifical favour, but one which Frederick had dong coveted; and in November 1518 the bearer, Charles von jMiltitz, was already on his way to Germany. The relation of his mission to that of Cajetan is by no means clear ; he is indeed ordered to submit himself, in all that concerned it, to the Legate ; but, as we shall see, he interpreted his instructions in his own way. Probably he was sent with general orders to do what he could, under difficult and complicated circum- stances, and suffered them to mould his proceedings into a form not contemplated at Pome. The ambassador was well chosen. He was one of the twenty-four children of Sigismund von Miltitz, a Saxon noble- man, whose home was in the neighbourhood of Meissen. scq., and various allusions in his own Joaohinii Camerarii.' A valuol edition works, to which reference ha.s been of this work is that editetl with notis made, the biof^-apliy written by his by G. Tli. Strobe), 1777, to wliosr friend Camerariu.'* (first published in McluTichthomana, 1771, I may also 1566). 'Do Phiiippi Melanchthonis refer. An elaborate modern life of ortu, totius vitae curriculo, et morte Melanchthon is that by Dr. Carl . . narratio diligens et accurata Schmidt, Elberfeld, 1861. 270 THE YEAR 1319: FRIENDS AND FOES chap. Born about 1490, he was educated at Koln, and though only in minor orders, was soon preferred to canonries at Mainz, Trier, and Meissen. He chose, however, to push his fortunes at Eome, where, at an early age, he became Papal Chamber- lain, a function with which he united that of agent for the Saxon Courts, acting sometimes for Elector Frederick, some- times for Duke George. His clerical character seems to have sat very lightly upon him — a fact which did him no injury with Leo. He was an active and enterprising man of business, like too many of his countrymen willing to drink deeply, and not sufficiently on his guard against the treacherous frankness oi the wine cup. In short, for the agency of the sumptuous and- unyielding churchman, unwilling to bate a jot of his Thomist orthodoxy, was to be substituted that of a cleric who was alsc: a man of the world, knowing how to make concessions ii necessary, and by apparent concession to secure the real object in dispute. But the Holy See in no way drew back from itt position of uncompromising hostility to Luther. In letters tc the Elector, to his minister Degenhard Pfeffinger, and to th( Burgomaster and Council of Wittenberg, Leo described him a; " the son of perdition," " the son of Satan," whose actions Lac been instigated by the devil, and whose impudence waf damnable. The mailed hand was not indistinctly seen beneatl the velvet glove. Miltitz set out from Italy some time in November 1518 at the beginning of December the rumour of his coming waf' widely spread among those whom it concerned. He wa; plainly expected as a messenger of Papal anger : Scheurl wrotr to Staupitz, " Miltitz has brought the Piose, and with it brief; by no means rosy, but cruel, horrid, dire." Luther heard tha Miltitz's object was to obtain possession of his person, and t( deliver him up to the Pope. The envoy's intention had been in the first instance, to confer with Cajetan ; but finding tha the Legate had gone into Austria, he resolved to spend a fev weeks with his old friend Degenhard Pfeffinger, at his paterna' estate in Bavaria, and in talk with him to ascertain how th' land lay. What he heard in Germany seems not only to havi surprised him but to have changed his tactics. Luther was ui infirm old man, as he had supposed, but in the prime of lif MILTITZ'S MJSSIOX 271 and full of energy ; wherever he went he found three friends of the rebellious monk for one champion of the Pope. His [iltered mood is manifest in a two days' talk whicli he had with Scheurl in Niirnberg about the middle of December, which the latter reported to Luther. .He had left behind him lit Augsburg, he said, the Golden Hose and his bag of minatory briefs until he saw in what mood Luther and the Elector were. JTlie Pope was by no means as hostile to Luther as might be [supposed ; he had heard some of the stories about Tetzel with i^reat indignation, and was not at all pleased witli Prierias and liis share in the controversy. All was yet capable of amicable irrangement ; learned discussion of the points at issue he did not so much deprecate as appeal to the vulgar. Nothing for many years had so moved the Papal See, which was sincerely anxious for an accommodation. Pfeffinger, who accompanied Miltitz, added his word fi-om the politician's point of view ; if Luther would only give way, a bishopric or some other high ecclesiastical dignity might easily be found for him. Nor, indeed, was the faithful Scheurl unmoved by the blandishments of the Nuncio ; he wrote to Luther counsels of prudence : " Your conscience moves you," he says, " to obey Scripture rather than the Pope ; but it .seems to many that it has been given to the Pope to declare the sense of Scripture ; and all things are to be done circumspectly, prudently. ... If the princes fail you, what will you effect ? You have sufficiently shown what you can do ; Piome fears you. It has always been the part of a wise man to yield to occasion ; other tilings should be kept for a more convenient season. I agree with the sentiment, it is better to yield with gain than to prevail with loss. These things, Eeverend Father, I have written sincerely ; I ask that tliey should be faithfully interpreted by a friend." More brieily, but in the same sense, Scheurl wntte to Spalatin. He plainly thought that the time for mutual concession and accommodation had come.^ From Niirnberg Miltitz travelled with Pfeflinger into Saxony, where, in the la.st days of December, he had interviews, first with Spalatin, and then with the Elector. The result • Scheurl, BrU/hich, vol. ii. pp. 63, cd. 0pp. v. a. vol. i. p. 21 ; De Wctte, 71-74; Loscher, vol. ii. p. 566 ; Eri. vol. i. j>p. 191, '216. 272 THE YEAR 1519 : FRIENDS AND FOES chai seems to have been a conviction on his part that it was neces sary as far as possible to disavow and discredit Tetzel. H' sent at once to the indulgence-monger, who was living i] monastic retirement at Leipzig, to come to him at Altenburc Tetzel, in a long and abject letter, excused himself. He coul(. not, he said, leave Leipzig except at the peril of his life, "fo Martin Luther, the Augustinian, has so raised up and movei the mighty against me, not only in all German lands but i; the kingdoms of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland, that I am no where safe." Miltitz took no notice either of his letter or one which Hermann Eab, the Dominican Provincial in Saxonj wrote to him on Tetzel's behalf; but about the middle c' January went to Leipzig and summoned the monk before hirr The result of the investigation — we do not know whether i; assumed the shape of a formal trial — was highly unsatisfactorj' Miltitz reports in a letter to Pfefiinger that he is fully coii' vinced of Tetzel's mendacity and roguery ; that he must b held guilty of having embezzled a part of the proceeds of tb indulgence ; and that he had two children, a piece of inteU:; gence to which he subjoins a significant " and so on." Wit very few words more we may dismiss Tetzel from our stor; Ashamed and broken, he retired from the presence of th Nuncio to hide his confusion in the convent of his order, an died about six months afterwards, at the very crisis of Luther disputation with Eck. Not, however, without kindly wore from his old opponent, who wrote him a letter of consolatic on his deathbed. The letter has perished, but Emser, wb alleged that he had seen it, reports that Luther bade Tetzi " be comforted, that the affair had not been begun on b account, but that the child had had quite another father." this was so, it meant that by that time Luther was beginniu to see that his whole theological system was anti-Papal, aw that Tetzel's coarse presentation of Eoman doctrine had bee only the occasion, not the cause, of the strife.-^ On or about the 6th of January, Miltitz met Luther :' Spalatin's house at Altenburg, Fabian von Peilitsch, a trusts 1 Spalatin ap. Mencken, vol. ii. p. De Wette, vol. i. pp. 223-231 ; Said 593 ; Korner, Tetzel, pp. 117, 120 ; mann, Die Leipziger Disputation, Erl. ed. 0pp. v. a. vol. i. p. 21 ; conf. 56 note. HIS CONCESSIOXS TO MILTITZ 273 ouncillor of the Elector's, being also present. The interview ras friendly on both sides. If the Nuncio made the same incompromising demand for a recantation as tlie Cardinal lad done, it was soon withdrawn: a document, drawn 11 ji l»y iUther himself, apparently while the negotiations were in irogress, shows that he was never less inclined than at this foment to extenuate or to forgive the share of the Pope and he Elector of Mainz in Tetzel's mission and the scandal which t had caused. But when Miltitz abated something of his high iretensions, Luther showed no reluctance to meet him half-way. Lt last, after more than one interview, tliey came to an agree- aent upon two articles. Both parties were to be forbidden to •reach, write, or act further in the matter in dispute. Miltitz fas to report to the Pope what he had learned ; and to •rocure the reference of Luther's case to some erudite bishop, fho should indicate the points of doctrine in which he had one astray. "And then," adds Luther, " provided I am nstructed of my error, I will willingly recant the same, and 10 further impugn the honour and power of the holy Poman 'hurch." The meeting was closed by a dinner, and IMiltitz took eave of the heretic, whom he hoped he had reduced to silence, fith the kiss of peace. But if at the moment he had con- inced Luther of his sincerity, the impression soon wore off", iefore many days had passed the Eeformer contemptuously ualified liis flattering speeches as " Italitates," and compared is kiss to the salutation of Judas.^ Soon after the interview at Altenburg followed negotiations s to the choice of a bishop who should act as judge in the ase. Luther, appealed to by Miltitz, mentioned three : first, iichard von Greiffenklau, Elector Archbishop of Trier ; ne.xt, latthew Lang, Archbishop of Salzljurg ; and finally, tlie Count 'alatine, Bishop of Freisingen and Naumburg. But there were ' De Wette, vol. i. jip. 209, 21C, 231 ; only two. In favour of this view it is ol. vi. p. 9. There are two letters to be said that the shorter letter is rom Lutner to the Elector, in which undouljtedly the more formal. If we e gives a report of his negotiations adoj)t the common opinion, we must rith Miltitz, a longer and a shorter, conclude that, if for some unknown oth undated (De Wctte, vol. i. pp. reason the actual treaty was conlincil 07, 209). The longer, in which four to the two articles, the four were not rticles of agreement arc mentioned, is the less considered binding njion tho ssumed by all the critics to be earlier parties, and were in fact acted ui>ou. 1 date than the shorter, which recounts 274 THE YEAR 1519: FRIENDS AND FOES cha other articles of the agreement, perhaps more onerous tht those which he had formally reported to the Elector, which 1 had yet to fulfil. He was to publish a paper m the Germf^ language ^ which should make his orthodoxy manifest to tl unlearned, and he was to write a submissive letter to the Poj; The first, which was issued at the end of February, was short but very significant document, referring to six points belief: the Intercession of Saints, Purgatory, Indulgences, tl Commands of Holy Church, Good Works, and the Church Eome. The saints are to be honoured and invoked, though is more Christian to ask them for spiritual than for physic aid. Purgatory is to be firmly believed : though what t" pain is, and whether it effects amendment as well as sat; faction, neither he, Luther, nor any one else knows. 1. indulgences it is enough for a common man to know tb; they are a release from satisfaction for sin, and a less thi:; than good works, which we are commanded to perform. Goi command is to be esteemed above the Church's comman cursing, swearing, neglecting to help a neighbour, are woiji things than to eat flesh on Friday. Both commands, Got'i and the Church's, are to be kept, yet distinguished with t; greatest care. No one can be holy and do good, unless Gdi: grace make him holy ; by good works no man becomes ho , but good works are performed only by one who is holy, -n evil tree cannot bear good fruit. There is no doubt that i) Eoman Church is honoured by God above all others; :, unhappily, things at Eome might be better than they are, tl: is no reason for separation from her. But as to what tJ precise power and superiority of the Eoman Church is, » learned men contend. We should have regard to unity, a! not withstand Papal injunctions ; and in all things, givi,' credence to no hypocrite, follow the Holy Eoman See. /I we can say of this document is, that if it is no recantation t is at least marvellously like one. Such papers have bci written a hundred times by men, who, feeling themsel'S carried away by a current of heretical thought, have grealf 1 " Dr. Martinus Luther's Unterricht werden." 1519. Weimar ed. vol. i. auf etliehe Artikel, die ihni von seinen p. 66. Abgonueru aufgelegt uud zugemessen i LUTHER'S LETTER TO LEO .V 275 iesired to attach themselves to some fixed moorings of orthodoxy, and often, too, at the very moment at which they were about to abandon themselves to the force of the stream wliich bears them onward. In a similar spirit is conceived the letter to Leo X, dated ^larch :)d.^ It begins with expres- sions of the most profound submission to the Holy See. It is a gi-eat grief to Luther that his attempt to protect the honour of the Church has brought such evil suspicion upon him. But what is to be done ? His writings are too widely spread abroad to be recalled. " It is they," he breaks out, " most Blessed Father, they whom I haAC resisted, who have brought tliis injury, I might almost say, this infamy, upon the Boman Church among us in Germany ; wlio, speaking most foolisldy in the name of your Blessedness, have furthered only the worst avarice, and have made sanctification contaminate and abomin- able with the opprobrium of Egypt. And as if that were not Q\\\ enough, they blame me, who have contended with such monsters, to your Blessedness, as the author of their own temerity." He goes on to say tliat he has not, nor has ever had, the wish to touch the power of Church or Pope ; he Vtelieves the might of the Church to be above aU other might, Christ only excepted. Provided that his adversaries also are silent, he will say no more about indulgences ; his only object lias been that the Eoman Church, the mother of all, should not be polluted by the foulness of an alien avarice, nor the people be led into the error of believing tliat inchdgences are better than charity. If he can do more than this, he will be most ready to do it. When we recollect that six weeks before this letter was written Luther had expressed to ScheurF the distrust wliich he felt of the new decretal, which he had not yet seen, and his resolu- tion to resist it, if, as he expects, it is i.ssued out of the plenitude of Papal authority, without adduction of Scripture or Canons, and that his promise of submission and silence was broken at Eck's provocation almost as soon as made, it is ea.sy to accuse him of conscious and deliberate insincerity. Yet might not this be a mistake arising out of an imperfect insight into the complexity and changefulness of human motives ? A rigid » De W'ctte, vol. i. p. 233. ' Ibid. vol. i. p. 211. 276 THE YEAR 1519 : FRIENDS AND FOES chai consistency is the virtue, if it be a virtue, only of small mind: A great soul, open to the impact of many waves of impulst balances long before it enters upon an irrevocable course (■ action, and for a while turns a different face to observers wli approach it from different sides. Motives are not always c equal weight ; they vary according to the quarter from whic they come and the mood on which they operate. We mu.' take into account that Luther's theological principles wei only slowly developed out of his own spiritual necessities ; thf it was long before he discovered what were their logical const; quences ; that it was a terrible thing for a man to put hin self into open opposition to a Church that had been visibl unbroken for centuries ; that he was surrounded by friends las clear-sighted, less strong-willed than himself, who besougb him not to throw away this chance of peace ; that he looked t. the Elector, whose fate was in part involved with his owi: with grateful respect ; that he might well think that he W£; doing the Church a service in exposing corruptions that struc; at her best strength. I have no doubt that Luther was pe:, fectly sincere in his promise to be silent, and perfectly sincei' too in his inability to keep silence. His fate was too stroi for him. The whole set of his nature, his inmost thoughts, h deepest convictions, irresistibly impelled him in the directic of rebellion, and if for a while more superficial feelings he! hmi back, or an effort of will arrested liis progress, the strai could not last. But the apparent changefulness, which profoundly true to the mood and circumstances of the hour, no proof of insincerity.^ The provocation which induced Luther to break the tru( which Miltitz had so laboriously negotiated had long been pr paring, and took its origin in the Ninety-five Theses. One the rising theologians of the day was John Maier, who, fro the fact that he was born in the Bavarian village of that nam was commonly known as Eck. He was three years young' than Luther, having been born in 1486, and was, like Luthc 1 The documents which refer to are, however, in a confused conditic; Miltitz's mission are printed by Loscher, out of which Seidemann, in his ind vol. ii. pp. 552-569; vol. iii. p. 6 et pensable pamphlet, ZarZiwiMZiife/' seq^., and by Tentzel, Histurisclic Chronologische Untersuchung, Dresdf Bcricht, vol. ii. p. 53 ct seq. They 1844, has done much to rescue them. JOHN ECK 277 a peasant and a peasant's son." At tlie age of nine he was idopted by his uncle, Martin Maier, the parish priest of tlottenburg on the Neckar, and by him indoctrinated jnto tlie earning of the day with such astonishing success that beftjre le was twelve he was able to enter the University of Heidel- lerg. It is not necessary to follow the details of his university •areer there, and at Tubingen, Kiiln, and Freilnirg ; everywhere le seems to have manifested an astonishing capacity of acquir- ing knowledge. But he liad no corresponding power of dis- inguishing the traditional from the scientific, the false from he true, which, in an age when canons of certainty are rapidly changing, is necessary, if erudition is to be more than in empty form of words. He was on terms of friendly inter- ourse with humanists, without having imbibed the spirit of humanism, and only waited for the moment at which the new learning and the old should come into decisive collision to :hrow in his lot with the latter. His strong point was dis- putation. He delighted in these academical exercises, for ^vhich an imposing presence, a retentive memory, a large com- mand of words, a loud voice, and an unblushing front eminently fitted him. Like the knight-en-ant of an earlier :ime lie woiihl go far to meet an opponent worthy of liis steel, nor, if the lists were fairly measured out and the conditions 3f combat honourably observed, did it greatly matter to him which side he took. One of the moral problems of the day was the lawfulness of taking interest on money — a practice which the Church qualified as usury. The doctrine was emi- nently inconvenient to the great financiers, whose operations were beginning to foreshadow the all-powerful exchanges of modem times; and in 1515 Eck travelled to IJologna, ])aid find recommended by the Fuggers, to defend in public (hsputa- tion the lawfulness of five per cent. This was tlie first of the many great dialectical tournaments in which lie played a principal part, a prelude to his more serious encounter at Leipzig with Carlstadt and Luther in 1519. He leaves upon the mind the impression of a professional gladiator rather than of a serious theological controversialist. He is strident, arro- gant, overlxjaring ; his instincts are tliose of self-display ; he fights more for victory than for truth. Tn 1517 he was 278 THE YEAR 1519: FRIENDS AND FOES ch^ settled at Ingolstadt as Vice- Chancellor of the University ai Professor of Theology ; he was in priest's orders and held canonry in the Cathedral Church of Eichstadt. But he hi not yet developed any opposition to the men of Wittenbei He was the friend and correspondent of Scheurl, and throus, his introduction had exchanged amicable letters with Luth and Carlstadt. He evidently looked upon them as belongi) with himself to the party of what may be called the the logical humanists.^ A man who bore a superficial likeness to Eck,^ whic; however, veiled an essential dissimilarity, was Andrew Bode stein, usually, from his Franconian birthplace, called Carlstai His age, his parentage, his early training are wrapped in c scurity ; it is conjectured rather than known that he was soij years older than Luther, and that he had studied in forei;. universities. But he was already Baccalaurms BiUicus wh;. in 1504 he was invited to the new University of Wittenbe:;, where we find him in 1507 lecturing in via S. ThoTny Then and for some years afterwards he was a pure scholast', writing books in exposition of his philosophical views, ajl without any conscious outlook to the coming change. !i 1510 he took the degTee of Doctor in Divinity ; and when, !i the same year, Trutvetter went back to Erfurt, he was c- pointed to succeed him, not only as Professor of Theology, I : in the Archdeaconry of the Collegiate Church, to which t; revenues of the parish of Orlamiinde were attached. Alrea*' Carlstadt showed signs of that strangely mixed character whii led him into so many distresses and perplexities, and mg;) him a constant centre of unrest to others. His learning yi undoubted ; Scheurl ^ speaks of him as " great as a philosopi;, greater as a theologian, greatest of all as a Thomist," and •- clares that Wittenberg, had it more Carlstadts, might comp 3 on equal terms with Paris. But with all his gifts he had 1 ' irritable self- consciousness which shows itself sometimes 1 vanity, sometimes in instability, sometimes in desire for re] - 1 Wiedemann, Johann Eck, pp. 1- disputator acemmus, amicus m'^, 139. Scheurl, Briefbuch, vol. ii. pp. qiiem in plerisque animi dotibus 'i 12, 13, 33. judicavi similem." 2 Scheurl writes to Carlstadt {B.B. » Quoted by Erbkam, p. 177. vol. ii. p. 13): "Eckius Ingolstadiensis, CARLSTADT 279 ation, sometimes in contentiousness. Self-manifestation was L necessity to him ; a Thomist, he expounded Scotus to the Franciscans of "Wittenberg ; and he had conceived the great dea of uniting theology with jurisprudence in one science. Se had quarrelled with his colleagues of the chapter on a [uestion of income, which he refused to submit to the decision )f the university court ; in 1515 he abandoned his duties to nake a pilgrimage to Eome, whence he was only recalled by .he Elector's stern warning that in case of his continued ab- sence his income would be sequestrated. On the other hand, ;here was an eager sincerity in the man which urged liim to Tive practical expression to the convictions of the moment, as tvell as a clear-sightedness which now and then enabled him :o deduce, from principles which they held in common, con- clusions which escaped liis more famous contemporaries. The fact that he so constantly recovered the respect and iniiuence which he often temporarily forfeited, testifies to the existence of a certain basal moral soundness in him ; but he was born in a troubled time, and he lacked the steady balance of char- acter wliich alone could have enabled liim to withstand and rule the storm. ^ When Carlstadt returned from Eome in 1516 he foimd Luther's the prevailing influence at Wittenberg, and, still strong in his scholastic preferences, set himself to oppose it. ' Carlstadt and Peter Lupinus," says Luther,- " were, in the beginning of the Gospel, my most violent opponents ; but when I convinced them with disputations, and overcame them with the writings of St. Augustine, and they themselves had read him, they were hotter in the matter than I." There was a little preliminary skirmish between Lutlier and Carlstadt as to the genuineness of ^Vugustine, Dc vcrd et falsd PoniitciUid, which the latter asserted and the former denied ; but on tlie 2Gth of April 1517, the day on which the rich store of relics in the Ca.stle Church was solemnly displayed, we find Carlstadt proposing for tlisputation a series of 152 Theses, "concerning nature, law, and grace against the Schoolmen," of wliicli Luther * Album Acad. VUrb. p. 16 ; Lib. C. F. Jiigcr, Andreas Bodenatein von Ike. pp. 8, 9 ; Strolwl, Nnu Bcitratje, Carlstndt. vol. ill. pt. 2, p. 66. For Carlstadt .see ' T. T. vol. iii. p. 345. 28o THE YEAR 151 g: FRIENDS AND FOES ch . writes to Scheurl in great exultation. Erom this time Luth- and Carlstadt appear as allied forces ; Luther mentions 1 terms of high praise to Spalatin Carlstadt's edition of Augi - tine's De Spirit lo et Literd, and when Eck throws down ti gauntlet, after the publication of tlie Ninety-five Theses, its Carlstadt who rushes forward to take it up. But in Carlstf} the scholastic and the mystic were always strangely hlentU with the orthodox reformer ; and throughout the whole of ] 5 troubled- life intellectual and spiritual forces, not easily to ; reconciled, contended for the mastery of him.^ In the year 1518 it happened that Eck paid a visit ) Gabriel von Eyb, Bishop of Eichstadt and Chancellor of t) University of Ingolstadt. The conversation between thd turned on Luther's Ninety-five Theses ; and the Bishop ask 1 his Canon to give him his opinion of them in writing. T;; result was that Eck selected eighteen propositions out of t:; Theses as worthy of animadversion, and sent them to t; Bishop with a running commentary. But the docume, which Eck called Ohelisci, was not printed ; Eck himself sajj that he kept no copy of it, and it was through one or t';) private hands that it reached Luther. He had, howev:, received it by the 24th of March, on which date he speaks f it, not without surprise and regret, in a letter to Sylvi; Egranus. In all probability he at once composed his answ , Asterisci Zutheri advcrsus Obcliscos Eckii, in which he t- amined Eck's criticisms one by one. But whether this v>\ printed in a separate form then or afterwards, is uncertain ; ; is known to us only from the copy contained in the fi; volume of the Wittenberg edition of Luther's collected wor',. Most likely he contented himself with sending it to Link, fn.i whom he had received the Ohelisci; and, notwithstandi ; the imputation of Hussite heresy, which Eck twice threw c; against him, looked upon the affair, perhaps with some passi; shade of annoyance, as one of those interchanges of opinii which might well take place between opponents who wish! still to be friends. But if Luther shunned, Carlstadt was eaf;' for the fray. In May and June he published a double ser;i of 406 Theses, in which he attacked not only Eck but Tetz. 1 De Wette, vol. i. pp. 34, 55, 89 ; Riederer's Nachrichten, vol. iv. p. 63. CARLSTADT'S THESES AGAINST ECK 281 There was something of tlie professional disputant in Carlstailt too ; it was intolerable to him tliat a chalk-nj^'e, direct or in- lireet, should not be accepted.^ These Theses miuht well be passed over with cursory nientit)n, as only a preliminary step in a controversy which soon v'lt'W to larger issues, were it not that they contain the first specific declaration made by the theologians of the lieform of the supreme and final authority of Scripture. In the preface wliich Carlstadt prefixed to one series of the Tlieses, the posi- tion which he takes up is made sufficiently clear. " Let opinions," he says, "remain opinions, and be nothing but opinions, and not burthens upon Christian backs. Let us not make the opinions of modern theologians equal to articles of taith and the decrees of Christ and Paul." And again, " at last, O theologians, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, open your 3yes, and passing by the opinions of the Schoolmen, passing by ill puerile disputations, approach the fountains of the Scripture themselves."- Of the Theses, it may be sufficient to quote the 1 2th : ^ " The text of the Bible is above not one only or many loctors of the Church, but even the authority of the whole I'hurch." But this was followed by many others, not indeed 50 decisively expressed, but all tending in the same direction. Two years later Carlstadt returned to the subject in an im- portant work, Dc Canonicis Scripturis, which will demand our dose attention. At the same time these Tlieses were a dis- :inctly forward step in the process of revolt against Kome, ivhich is all the more important as having been maile by mother than Luther. It was the first time that the great issumption of Protestantism had been clearly stated. Before Carlstadt's Conclusioncs had appeared, Eck, who had leard of their preparation, endeavoured to ward off the blow jy a letter of excuse. His Obclisri, he said, liad been written n obedience to his ecclesiastiail superior, and were not ntended for publication ; under these circumstances he might Eck, quoted by Wiedemnnn, p. MS. of tho OMLici to Lutlior's fri«'n.wher, vol. ii. pp. «J«J, 07. Jck was preacher, communicated the ' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 80. 282 THE YEAR i^ig: FRIENDS AND FOES ch . possibly have expressed himself in too strong language ; ; certainly had not intended to offend Luther ; why should th - not endeavour to convince one another in private cor:- spondence ? But the spirit of the theological gladiator was t > strong in Carlstadt to permit him to accept this overture I peace, and the Condusiones were published. Another attenu was made to stay the impending quarrel, this time by Luth , who wrote to Eck, stating that Carlstadt had acted without j knowledge or consent, and begging, that though he must 3 answered, he should be answered as mildly and moderately 3 possible. But Eck's Defence was hardly conceived in the spi t of this counsel ; Carlstadt published a rejoinder ; and the C( - troversy, as is the wont of such debates, gradually became mi 3 bitter. Eck was particularly annoyed by a satirical wooddt which Carlstadt published, and which was afterwards follo\^l by explanatory letterpress. It represented two carriages, ce of which, surmounted by a crucifix and inscribed w;a appropriate mottoes, was supposed to be taking the way;0 heaven, while the other, decorated with maxims of the scl:,- astic theology, was faring in an opposite direction. So ,e dispute went on during those summer months of 1518, in whh Luther, summoned to Eome, was negotiating an audience wh Cajetan in Augsburg. In Eck's Defence, however, occurreca challenge to Carlstadt to hold a public disputation at see University, to be agreed upon, on all the matters in questi' ; an invitation which the latter, regarding with apprehension's he did, his opponent's skill in the dialectical tourney, thou it himself bound in honour to accept. In October Luther was.n Augsburg, and there meeting Eck, arranged with him the ],3- liminaries of a formal disputation between him and Carlst;;t More than one University was proposed and rejected as le scene of the duel; at last, subject to the approval of Dee George and the other authorities, ecclesiastical and academi,il Leipzig was chosen.-^ To Leipzig, therefore, both Luther and Eck made respeciil application. The first negotiations were, however, unsuccesi'il 1 Loscher, vol. ii. p. 64 ; Eck's Seidemaiin, Leipz. Bis}}, p. 22 et !■ . Defensio, quoted by Wiedemann, p. 78 ; Loscher, vol. ii. p. 158. De Wette, vol. i. pp. 125, 171, 216 ; THE DISPUTATION AT LEir/.IG The theological faculty of the University was unwilling tn interfere in so delicate and difficult a matter. It repu'scnted to Duke George, to whom P>k had made a personal appeal, that it had already been consulted by the Archbishop of Main/, and had advised him to refer the dispute between Lutht-r and Tetzel to a synod ; that the proposed disputation might annov the Elector, and breed ill-feeling between him and the I )uke ; and that the subject of debate, which was plainly Luther's teaching, had already been taken in hand by commissaries ol" the Pope. Before, however, Eck could have received the un- favourable reply of the Leipzig faculty, he took the field in twelve Theses, which he printed and sent with a letter to Matthew Lang, the Cardinal Archbishop of Salzburg. " In the University of Leipzig Eck will debate the propositions stated below against D. Bodenstein of Carlstadt, Archdeacon and Doctor of Wittenberg." But though Carlstadt was thus the nominal, the Theses themselves left no doubt as to the identity of the real opponent. Indeed, if other proof were wanting it would be supplied by the fact that in Eck's letter to the Arch- bishop of Salzburg, in which he gives an account of the dispute, he speaks of Carlstadt as " Luther's champion." And Luther at once took up the glove. He published Eck's Theses with counter Theses of his own and a letter to Carlstadt, in which he altogether abandoned the part of mediator which he had up to that moment played, and assailed his opponent with reproaches that were little less than abusive. And as the University of Leipzig would have nothing to do with the debate, he invited Carlstadt to join with him in persuading Duke George to provide place and opportunity for it. This pamphlet, under the title Disputatio D. Johannis Eccii d P. Martini LiUheri in studio Lijisicnsi futura, Luther sent to Spalatin on the 7th of February 1519. Eck's reply wa.s a republication of his Theses, now made thirteen in number by the addition of one on the subject of free-will, and avowedly directed contra J/. Lnthrrum. Carlstadt rejoined by sending to l-xk.with a letter, dated April 26th, in wliich even the pret^^nce of courtesy was thrown a.side, seventeen Tiieses, which he pro|tos('(l to defend at Leipzig, and Luther followed with a DUjnitntin d cxcusatio F. Martini Luther adversus criminaiioncs D. Juhannis 284 THE YEAR ijig: FRIENDS AND FOES ch.a Eccii, iu which he too enlarged his twelve theses to thirteen. Th. with Eck's last pamphlet, he sent to John Lange on the 16th May. The conditions of the combat were thus finally settled, bi what and where were the lists in which it was to be fought out For many reasons Eck had acted prudently in preferrir Leipzig to Erfurt as the place of disputation. The Universil was a well-known seat of orthodoxy. The occasion of i foundation in 1409 was the dissension which arose in tl University of Prag between the Bohemian and the Germs students ; its founder, Frederick the Warlike, had won h chief military fame in the Hussite wars, and it had assume from the first an attitude of opposition to ecclesiastical innov; tion. It did not cordially welcome the new learning ; i distinguished humanist would stay long at Leipzig ; somethii in the academical air impelled them to seek more congeni abodes. Its theological professors enjoyed rich canonries ; Meissen, Zeitz, and Merseburg, often taking refuge in the:; pleasant places from the irksome duties of teaching, whici they left to unendowed Masters and Bachelors. Not evf^ from their own scholastic point of view did they understai' their business. " There was not a professor at Leipzig," sa ; Luther,^ " who understood a single chapter of the Gospel, ■ the Bible, or even of Aristotle." These were the divines wl looked unfavourably upon Eck's and Luther's request for disputation ; they had no desire to give unnecessary pubhci' to the new doctrines, and shunned the labour and exciteme:! which the debate would bring upon them. In this attitu( they were supported by the Chancellor of the University, tl Bishop of Merseburg, Prince Adolphus of Anhalt ; not on for various good reasons which seemed to him sufficient, b in pursuance of express instructions from the Pope, he forbai the disputation to be held. But the University, a wider boi than the Theological Faculty, and in this instance not of oi mind with it, successfully appealed to the Duke against tl, decision. In a highly characteristic letter ^ Duke Geor. complained to the Bishop of his theologians ; they did not wa ■ 1 Seklemann, L. D. App. 7, p. 113 ; "- De AVette, vol. i. p. 101. De Wette, vol. i. p. 249 ; Lcisclier, ^ Seidemaun, L. D. App. H, P- 1 vol. iil. p. 284 ; AVeimar ed. vol. ii. et scq. p. 153. THE DISPUTA TION A T LEIPZIG 285 he disputation, he said, because it would interrupt them in heir sloth and their boozing; it would be quite anotlier thing if here were a prospect of its bringing in money, or a good (hinier. 3e thought his University had been a " universale studium," vhere, mlvA fide Catholicd, anything might be fairly debated : f without harm to any one disputations had been held at L,eipzig on the Trinity, the Eucharist, and other articles of the 'aith, why not on the ascent of the soul to hea\en as soon as he money rings at the bottom of the box ? He besought tlie 3ishop, therefore, to withdraw his protection from these people vho called themselves theologians, and yet were ashamed of )ringing their knowledge to the light, " that we poor laymen nay be instructed wherein we do right, and wherein we are leceived by false interpreters of Scripture." The Bishop was till obdurate ; perhaps, in face of the Papal attitude, could not »e otherwise. Whereupon George took the matter into his wn hands : " if he is Bishop of Merseburg, he is not ruler of he land " ; and formally approved of the disputation being leld on the 27th of June. There was still some difficulty as Luther's admission to a debate, which in all the negotiations, ip to almost the latest point, had been assumed to be between .'arlstadt and Eck. But already, in the general opinion, Carl- tadt was beginning to take the second place in what promised 3 be a solemn, and perhaps decisive, encounter of opposing lieological prmciples. On the 19th of February Eck had rritten to Luther, " Although Carlstadt is your champion, you re the real leader, you who have scattered broadcast through 11 Germany these doctrines, which, to my poor and slender idgment, appear false and erroneou.s. Wlierefore it is riglit liat you also should come to Leipzig, and either defend your wn, or impugn my Theses. . . . For you see by the scliedule f dispute that I have laid down propositions, not so much gainst Bodenstein, as against your doctrines." This, though late, was so manifestly a true statement of the case, that .uther's claim to be all(jwed to intervene in the debate C(Hdd ardly be denied. After some difficulties and delays it was llowed ; though not formally, till the disputants had actually rrived in Leipzig, and the disputation was about to begin.' Bottigcr, Oeach. Scuhacns, vol. i. p. 313; Scidemann, L. D. App. IMS, p. 112, 126 ; Endere, vol. i. p. 429. 286 THE YEAR 1519 : FRIENDS AND FOES ci' Duke George, sometimes called the Bearded, at this ti the head of the younger or Albertine line of the Saxon prini was the son of that Albert whom Kunz von Kaufuni;: stole, and of Sidonia, daughter of George Podiebrad, Kin*: Bohemia.-^ Born in 1471, he succeeded his father in the jj 1500 as Duke of that part of Saxony which we may desc:) as the Meissen, Dresden, Leipzig land. He was origin; .; intended for the Church, and in that view had receive: better education than commonly fell to the lot of princes ; 1 corresponded with Erasmus and Sadolet ; he took a dis' personal interest in the University of Leipzig, which he \ grieved to see overshadowed by the rising fame of Wittenbif His morals were pure ; his religious feeling genuine ; if so e times hard and arbitrary in his procedure, he had a high i;} of the duties of a ruler, and tried to govern his land justly m mercifully. Though a sincere Catholic, and deliberately 'e ferring the doctrinal system of the Church to that introdi j^ by Luther, he was deeply persuaded of the necessity of refcjr and was among the foremost in urging the subject upon 11 attention of Imperial Diets. But the reform he waiii was disciplinary not doctrinal ; nor did he at all see that 1 way to the former lay through the latter. Perhaps the tinoic his Catholicism became deeper as he grew old and was ur and more involved in opposition to the innovators of Witc berg ; but there was an earlier time at which his aims 1 theirs had not been so far apart. A story was current orne in mind that not all who defended the mcient Church against the attacks of the lieformers were Idind levotees of superstition, or dull advocates of abuse and license. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is not so powerfully juttressed by scriptural argimients as to make its denial an act of utellectual suicide : while, if the tree is to be known by its fruits, t must be admitted to be one that is peculiarly susceptilde of noral perversion. Duke George, both as a man and as a ruler, kvas not dissimilar in character to his cousin, the Elector Frederick, and the two obeyed the same order of motives. Liut they looked at religion frcnn different points of view. During the first six montlis of 1519, through which tlie legotiations for the Leipzig disputation had l)een prolonged, Luther had been actively engaged in both academical and iterary work. Besides scattered sermons which have been ^reserved, his chief productions at this time were his Gvnnan ExjyosUion of the LonVs Prayer for Simple Lcen Matliesius, p. 199 A; Zwingli, 0?;;;. vol. ii. pp. 74. ctscq., iM et seq. vol. vii. p. 81 ; De Wette, vol. i. pp. A PERIOD OF MENTAL GROWTH 289 Wliile he was engaged in these labours, and actively shar- ig in every detail of university management, the negotiations ith Miltitz still dragged on, thougli, in view of the coming isputation, they had lost much of their importance. Ten days fter his letter to Leo X, Luther wrote to the Elector, declaring lat he had seriously and joyfully intended that " the game lould come to an end," and in that view had passed hy with- Lit notice Sylvester Prierias's Reply ; but that now Eck had, uldenly and without warning, attacked him, and not him lone, but the whole Lhiiversity of Witteulierg ; and that it was ot fair his moutli should be closed while another was allowed speak. After this it mattered very little that in ]\Iay [iltitz summoned Luther to Coblenz to submit himself to the Igment of the Archbishop of Trier in the presence of ajetan. The affair had gone too far for that. Luther replied a letter which, under the forms of courtesy, veiled something ke a defiance, and turned all his attention to the impending )ntroversy with Eck. It was one of the busiest periods of a ngularly busy life ; probably it was at this time that, as he mself tells the story, he could not find leisure to recite his dly hours, and was accustomed to bring up his arrears of escribed devotion once a week. The energy which thus )ured itself forth was apparently inexhaustible ; no wonder lat he made upon Germany the impression of a portent, and at his enemies feared as much as his friends admired him.^ The months preceding the opening of the disputation at 3ipzig were for Luther a period of marked mental growth and lange, especially in regard to his relation to the Papacy. His Uision with Cajetan, the difficulties of his positicjn towards e Elector, the soft speeches of Mdtitz, reinforced as they ere by the solicitations of his friends, no doubt taught him luch ; but it was the function of YitV, a function uncousciously ' De Wettc, vol. i. pp. 237, 270, 274, recantation, ordera liim to como to 3 ; Coll. vol. iiL p. 279. liome at once to make his subnii.ssion, There i.s extant a letter from Leo to iiromisinR that he shall find there a ther, dated March 29tli, first pub- pious and kind father. So far xs it is liied hy Loscher, though in an incom- possible to jud^;e, this docunu-nt never l;tc fonn, in which the I'opc, stating reached Luther. If it came through tit he had received Miltitz's report, the hands of Miltitz, ho may liavo I making the most of what it con- thought it inexpedient to forward it to ned as to Luther's repentance and its destination. Endurs, vol. i. p. 402. 290 THE YEAR isig: FRIENDS AND FOES cha exercised, to excite him to research into the historical found; tions of the Papacy. In Luther's Resohdiones on the Ninetji five Theses he had, in his exposition of Thesis 22, let fall tl remark, that in the time of St. Gregory the Eoman was nc above other Churches. Upon this unguarded expression Ed^ who had a keen eye for a disputable proposition, had fastens and had made it the occasion of the last of the thirteen Thesi which he issued in reply to Carlstadt on the 29th of Decembi' 1518. It ran, " That the Eoman Church was not superior other Churches before the time of Sylvester we deny : but \\x. who possesses both the chair and the faith of Peter we hai always recognised as Peter's successor and the general vicar '■ Christ." There was nothing in Carlstadt's Theses which slioiv have called out this ; it was meant to be a direct challenge " Luther, and was at once recognised as such. Nor did Luth' hesitate to accept it. Before the Vth of February he had pr; pared thirteen counter Theses, of which the last was, "Th: the Eoman Church is superior to all others is proved by til most frigid decrees of the Eoman Pontiffs, issued during tli last 400 years ; in opposition to which stand the approvti history of 1100 years, the text of Holy Scripture, and tl decree of the Mcene Council, which is the most sacred of all No issue could be more clearly joined ; but it was upon a ne| and perilous field, chosen, not by Luther, but by an artf adversary. The doctrine of indulgences had never been define by authority ; in regard to it it was possible to make little | differences, to slip out of a doubtful position, to hide concessii' in a cloud of words. But in more ways than one the prima; of the Eoman See was the key of the position.^ Luther's friends were seriously alarmed at the new tuj the controversy had taken. Carlstadt did not like it. Spalat who had the Elector on one side and Luther on the other, ^^ in an agony of apprehension. It was just at this moment, t(, that Dtingersheim von Ochsenfahrt, a professor of theology} Leipzig, and a clumsy champion of the old learning, wrote ' Luther the first of a series of long letters, proving the prima ' of the Pope by the well-worn arguments and reference to t ; ancient authorities. Luther's answers were brief, but J ' ^ Weimar ed. vol. i. p. 571 ; vol. ii. pp. 161, 185. THE POPE ANTICHRIST? 291 1 [courteous ; he referred his correspondent to the approaching putation at Leipzig ; he pointed out to him that their mdards of historical truth were not the same ; he declared at he rested upon the words of the Gospel, and found in the riptures the test by which the statements of the Fathers re to be tried. In truth, under the sting of these various 3i})ulses, ami urged by an inner necessity of his own mmd, ] ' is diligently studying the subject with a view to the coming dntest. It is, he thinks, as if the Lord were leading him. le more he reads, the more he comes into contact with the tual pretensions of the Papacy, the graver grows his mood. early as the end of February we find him gi-eatly struck \x\\ a satirical dialogue — once attributed to Erasmus and to jutten, but now known to be the production of neither — in licli in the other world Julius II is made to tell the story Papal wars and wickedness to Peter, who keeps locked ainst him the gate of Paradise.^ It is now that, notwith- jhnding his smooth negotiations with Miltitz, he writes to linge that he has played with Eome hitherto, but will play longer ; it is now that he tells Spalatin, whom he alternately jjothes and alarms, that if the Pope be not Anticln-ist, he is at list Antichrist's apostle. At last he sees whither his prin- (oles have been leading liim "aTTTTTeTima "My Spalatin," he vites about the end of ^lay, " the truth of Scripture and the (Jmrch cannot be handled unless this beast be attacked. Do therefore hope that I shall be quiet and safe, unless you 3 willing that I should give up theology altogether. Let my i ends therefore think me mad. The affair will not reach an d (if it is from God) unless, as His disciples and acquaint- ces deserted Christ, so also all my friends desert me, and tilth be left alone — truth, which will save itself by its own ijht hand, not mine, nor yours, nor any man's. Ami tliis ' De Wette, voL i. p. 230. This several editions, and was translated lof^ip, entitled " F. A. F. Poetao into German and French. Hocking lj;,'ii lit)ellu.s de obitu .Tulii Pontificis pvcs it among the " Dialogi I'Hcudo- hximi unuodomini .MDXIII," will be Huttenici." Era,smu» wa.s gravely find in Uuttfni 0pp. cd. Bucking, annoyeegan at seven a.m. witli a Latin speech, addressed by Simon Pistoris, Professor of Jurisprudence, to the assembled University with all guests and strangers. Then a procession, in which a Leipzig Master walked with each Master from Wittenberg, was formed to St. Thomas's church, where a solenni mass, De Sando Spiritu, was sung, written by the Cantor George Khau, in twelve parts, a thing unknown before. The assembly ne.xt adjourned to the Pleissenburg, tlie Duke's castle, on the out- skirts of the town, over which a guard of seventy-six armed citizens kept watch and ward during the disputation. Here a spacious hall, hung with costly tapestry, had been made ready for the encounter, with seats for the Duke and his distingui.shed guests, ample accommodation ft>r the reporters and the learned audience, and two desks for the disputants, that allotted to Eck adorned by a picture of St. George, that to the Witten- bergers by one of St. ^Martin. lUit there were still more solemn preliminaries to go through. I'eter Schade, usually known as Mosellanus, the only humanist of the University, and on that account more favourable to Luther than any of Ills colleagues, delivered a Latin speech of nearly an hour's length, "on the method of disputation, especially in matters theological," at the end of which the Vcni Sinutr t'^pirUus was thrice sung, with orchestral accompaniment, all the company meanwhile devoutly kneeling. Last keep ' The terms of the contract will be found in Si-iilcmann, L. D. App. 2S, y. 137. 296 THE YEAR 13 ig -. FRIENDS AND FOES ch|.. the memory of the scene alive. One, written by Mosellanus a well-known Saxon nobleman, Julius Pflug, contains vivid p - traits of the three chief actors. " Martin," he says,^ " is of mid e height, of spare body, spent alike with cares and study, that whoever looks at him can almost count his bones ; s,l in the prime of life, with strength undiminished, and a hiti and clear voice. His Scriptural knowledge and learning e admirable, and he can give chapter and verse for his ques- tions." He has a competent knowledge of Greek and Hebri r, and a great store of matter. " In his private life and manns he is obliging and facile ; nothing stoic, nothing supercihoi : he plays the man of all occasions. He is festive, jocul, alert, always with a cheerful face, no matter how horrible s adversary's threats : you would with difficulty believe tha;a man could accomplish such arduous things without dive assistance. What people generally blame in him is that e is somewhat too bold in reprehension and more biting a speech than is either safe in one who introduces religi(.s novelties or decorous in a theologian." " I am not certai;" adds Mosellanus, "whether he does not share this defect Wib all late-taught men." Carlstadt is of smaller stature, wit] a dark and adust complexion. His voice is indistinct and v- pleasant : his memory is less retentive, and he more easily gi;S way to anger. Eck is tall, of figure solid and square, wit! a voice so full as to be sufficient not only for a tragedian, It for a crier, yet rough rather than distinct. His countenanij his eyes, his whole appearance are such as to suggest « butcher or the soldier more than the theologian. He haja remarkable memory, not mated with an equal intellect. \ quick apprehension, a discerning judgment, without which J other gifts are futile, the man has not. He brings forwana great mass of arguments, Scripture texts, dicta of the Fathi i; which he throws down before his audience, without nu i caring whether they are appropriate or cogent, and trusts this display of undigested learning to produce an effect \\p the less thoughtful. With this he has an incredible audacij', which he conceals with admirable cunning. If ever by ov ■ boldness he feels that he has fallen into the enemy's snare, e 1 Losclier, vol. iii. p. 247. ^i CARLSTADT AND ECK AT UiirZlG 297 gradually turns the disputation in another direction. Some- imes he adopts his adversary's view, though ex])res,sed in )ther words, and with wonderful skill charj^es his own ab- jurdity on liis opponent ; so that he niijjht seem to \\c alile to ampiish a very Socrates. So far, in eft'ect, jMo.selhinus, who, hough he has his preferences, which he does not hesitate to ivow, writes with the vividness of an eye-witness and tlie liscernment of a man of sense. We may pass over with little remark the duel between C'arlstadt and Eck. By common consent it turned u]H)n Divine Grace and human freewill — -whether any sliare in the •roduction of good works could be assigned to the latter, and f so, under what conditions and to what extent ? Carlstadt ook the Augustinian, Eck the semi -Pelagian view ; intel- ectually the debate was chiefly remarkable as showing how nearly it is possible for disputants upon such a subject to approach, without conceding to either the honours of victory, or eeling the fact of agreement. To minds unaccustomed to the lice distinctions of scholastic logic it seems to be a reductio ad ibsurdujn of cUsputation to declare, as did Eck, that though jvery good work of man is from God, it is Mum scd non totcd- tcr. Perhaps the interruptions of the debate were ni(»re nteresting than the debate itself. On the evening of the 2Sth f June Eck broke into the course of the disputation with a complaint of the way in whicli his adversary was conducting it. arlstadt had made written notes of the arguments which he ntended to use, and in order to secure accuracy in his quota- ions had brought with him the books from which they were aken, a proceeding which, in Eck's opinion, de])rived him of he advantage wliich lie might fairly expect to derive from his nore retentive memory and his superior self-contidence. The I-)uke and his councillors, on being apiHjaled to, decided in avour of Eck's protest, and Carlstadt was ordered to leave his x)oks and i)apers at home ; but the sentence at once degraded he disputation from a .scientific attempt to thresh out theo- ogiciil truth into a contest in which the victory remained to he loudest lungs and the most unabashed audacity. The LiMchcr, vol. iii. pp. 360, 372, 389, 649 ; De Wctte, vol. i. pp. 315, 341, 425. » Ibid. vol. i. p. 297. 300 THE YEAR isig: FRIENDS AND FOES chap 12 th and 13tli of July; after wliicli Carlstadt returned to tin field for a day or two. On the 1 6th the disputation wa;; brought to an end by an "Encomium Theologicae Disputationis' by John Lange/ after which George Ehau and the city piper agam made their appearance, the one intoning the " Te Deun Laudamus," the others " blowing their best and noblest." Tin fact was that Duke George had received notice of the speedy arrival in Leipzig of the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, an( needed the free use of the Pleissenburg for his entertainment The only question left for decision was who the judges shoulc' be to whom the official reports were to be submitted. All tb^ parties to the disputation agreed in the selection of th; Universities of Paris and of Erfurt,- Eck stipulating that u the case of the latter the Augustinians, as possibly prejudicei' in Luther's favour, should have no voice. Two propositions made by Luther, first, that Dominicans and Franciscans als. should be excluded, and next, that all Masters in the univer; sities named, and not merely the graduates of the theologica; faculty, should be invited to take part in the decision, wer: referred to Duke George, and by him rejected. But they ar noteworthy as showing the kind of public opinion to which h wished to appeal.^ It was a drawn battle, as almost all such battles must bi Luther, not long afterwards, pronounced it " a loss of time, nc an inquiry into truth." ^ Probably the arguments on each sid did little more than strengthen those who heard them in the:; antecedent prejudices. The Leipzig doctors, who dozed awa the long mornings amid the hum of learned eloquence, an needed to be awakened when the clock struck the hour ( dinner, were not likely to be very accessible to the rhetoric (. the Wittenbergers, who, on the other hand, addressed then selves with better hope of result to their young rector, Dul^ Barnim, and the audience of students which they had brougl with them. Duke George, who attended with great regularitv was only confirmed in dislike of Luther and his doctrine 1 Kot Luther's friend of that name, 413, 607. De Wette, vol. i. P- 32": but a Silesian scholar. vol. vi. p. 18. Seidemann, L. D. Al - Eek and Carlstadt agreed upon 28, p. 137. Erfurt onlv. ■• De Wette, vol. i. p. 291. 3 LiJscher, vol. iii. pp. 280, 412, f MEANING OF THE DISPUTATJOX FOR LUTHER 301 in eye-witness, Sebastian Froschel, tells us that when Luther eclared that some of John Hus's doctrines were Christian and vangelical, Duke George put his arms akimbo, and said in a oice loud enough to be heard all over the hall, " Pest take hat ! " He was not prepared for innovation. We seem to ear the voice of the practical statesman in opposition to tliat f the speculative theologian when he said to Luther, " After 11, human right or divine right, the Pope is and remains the ope." The general feeling in Leipzig was almost unanimous I favour of Eck ; he was courted, feasted, invited to preacli, -resented with robes of honour, treated, in a word, as the hampion of the faith. The Duke once invited Luther, lelanchthon, and Carlstadt to dinner ; and one or two other ersous extended to them a like hospitality. The city sent liem an honorary present of wine, an attention which the lanuers of the time rendered imperatively necessary. Fros- hel tells the story that when Luther entered by chance the )ominican Church, the monks, in hot haste, took the Host rom the altar and locked it up out of sight and reach of the angerous heretic. Under these circumstances it was not onderful that he should wish to get away as soon as possible rom the unfriendly city. He left Leipzig for Wittenberg on he 15th of July, a day before the conclusion of Carlstadt's econd debate with Eck. Eck remained, sunning himself in he popularity which he had ac(piired, a week or ten days Duger, and then travelled in the train of Duke George to Lnnaberg.^ To Luther at least the Leipzig disputation was something audi more than the dialectical tournament whicli Eck had esired to provoke, and in which he so gi'eatly delighted. Mie necessity of precisely fonnulating his opinions on several questions which the Papal champions regarded as vital, and gain of defending them against the attack of a keen and icrtinacious di.sputant, helped to show him wliat his position eally was. It was not that he interpreted tlie mintl of .'hri.stian antiquity more critically than Ids opponent, but that le had read it in a sense altogether irreconcilable with the {oman claims. It was not merely that he denied tlie divine * Lb8chcr, vol. iii. p. 280 ; Do Wctte, vol. i. pp. 290-302. 302 THE YEAR 1319 : FRIENDS AND FOES chap. authority of the successor of St. Peter, but that he set up against it another authority, to which it could not but bow. All through the disputation Luther makes his appeal to Scripture, as the test by which Fathers, Popes, Schoolmen, even Councils must ultunately be tried. He has not drawn out his theory in logical form ; he has not settled for hunself the relation between the authority of the Bible and that which the Church lawfully and undoubtedly possesses; he is as far as possible from seeing that the authority of the Bible is with him only an assumption, beneath which lie sleeping many questions which will one day demand settlement. He does not know that unconsciously, and under cover of the Bible, he is in large part resting upon his own masculine judgment, his own keen spiritual insight. What is, however, increasingly clear to him is, that he has broken with Ptome. He cannot remain in the fold of the Church and at the same time make light of indulgences, deny the divine right of Papal authority, and maintain the fallibility of Councils. Eck's instinct as a disputant was unerring ; he had gained his end when he exhibited Luther as taking sides with Hus against the Fathers of Constanz. Their ways now parted decisively; Eck went to Ptome to ask for the Bull of Excommunication, Luther to Wittenberg to inveigh against the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and to appeal to the nobles of the German nation.-^ Under what seemed to be the extinguished ashes of the Leipzig disputation soon began to glow embers of petty and unprofitable controversy. Eck, who from this time forward assumed the character of an official champion of Pioman 1 Losclier (vol. iii. p. 214 ct seq. ) tio7ies to Spalatin (De Wette, vol. i. p. gives seven reports of the Leipzig Dis- 290), and Luther and Carlstadt's joint putation. (1) That addressed by letter to the Elector (De Wette, vol. i. Melanchthon to Oekolampadius ; (2) by p. 307). Seidemann's Leij^ziger Disjni- Eck to Hoogstraten ; (3) by Cellarius tatioii is a model of careful research, to Capito ; (4) by Luther to Spalatin ; and its Appendices give important (5) by Amsdorf to Spalatin ; (6) by documents in their original form. A Mosellanus to Julius Pllug ; (7) of which paper by R. Albert in the Zcitschriftfiir one Rubens is the author. He also die Historische Theologie for 187S,Y).382 gives the naive narrative of Sebastian c/! .s-cg-., "Aus welcheni Grunde disputierte Froschel, published forty - seven years John Eck gegen M. Luther in Leipzig later in the preface of his book On the 1519?" makes careful reference to all Kingdom of Christ. To these may be the original authorities, but does not added Luther's dedication of his Resolu- seem to add anything to Seidemann. VI CONTROVERSIES WITH ECK AND EMSER 303 orthodoxy and authority against Lutheran revolt, wrote to the Elector Frederick, explaining and excusing the part which he had taken. The Elector replied by placing the letter in the hands of Luther and Carlstadt, who were not slow in self- vindication. There was a dispute as to the manner in which the debate had been conducted, especially as to whether the chief combatants had not received unfair help from their adher- ents. IVIelanchthon, immediately on his return to Wittenljerg, wrote an account of the whole affair to Oekolampadius, which soon found its way into print. This Eck resented as a breach of the compact as to the publication of the official notes, although he had himself sent a similar report to Hoogstraten, with the view of influencing the judgment of the University of Paris ; and an exchange of hostile pamphlets took place between him and Melanchthon. A controversy in which, in the early part of the year, Luther had become involved with the Fran- ciscans of Jiiterbogk was revived and embittered by the inter- ference of Eck on the one hand, of the Bishop of Brandenburg on the other; and now Luther published a Defence in which he parried the double assault. He had a little brusli of his own with Hoogstraten, Eeuchlin's old enemy ; he published Rcsolutiones, or detailed explanations of the propositions which he had defended at Leipzig, and before the end of the year another polemical pamphlet against Eck. In the meantime a new opponent, who was destined to harass him for many years, made his appearance. Hieronymus Emser, a humanist of the older school, and a correspondent of Erasmus, had been for some time Duke George's secretary. So far as we can now see, his relations to Luther had been outwardly friendly, though each must have recognised the fact that the other belonged to a different school of thought and scholarship. Emser had naturally been active at Leipzig in making arrange- ments for the disputation, and probably had been present at all its most interesting moments. In August he wrote a letter, it is difficult to see why, except to make mischief, to Dr. John Zack, a dignitary of the Catholic Church in Brag, in which, under the transparent pretext of defending Luther iroin the charge of sympathy with Bohemian lieresy, he artfully strove to connect him with it. For some reason or otlier tliis 304 THE YEAR 131 g: ERIENDS AND EOES chap. covert attack was peculiarly irritating to Luther, who replied in a very bitter pamphlet, the violence of which it is impossible to defend. Emser, who claimed to be a man of family, was accustomed to have his crest, the head of a mountain goat, accompanied by some appropriate motto, printed on the title- page of his books. Luther's first pamphlet is addressed to the " Emserian Goat " ; before long Emser retorted upon the " Mad Bull of Wittenberg," and a controversy began which, in the interests of Christian truth, it is not worth while to follow, in the interests of Christian charity best to pass by.^ Not even the Leipzig disputation seems to have discouraged that sanguine diplomatist Miltitz. It is difficult to believe that he can have really cherished any hope of succeeding in his mission, though, so long as a chance remained, he may have been unwilling to go back to Eome with a confession of failure. He kept a cheerful countenance, he wrote letters, he arranged interviews, boasting that " he had Dr. Martin in his hands." The Golden Eose, which he had hoped to carry into Witten- berg with solemn pomp and himself place in the hands of the Elector, he had been obliged to give up at Altenburg to a com- mission, of which Eabian von Feilitsch was the head ; worse still, he had been dissatisfied wdth the honorarium of 200 gulden offered him by Frederick, and had asked to have it doubled. Then, on the 9th of October, he met Luther at Liebenwerda, and there endeavoured to induce him to accompany him to Trier, where the Archbishop was willing to try his case. But the Reformer again refused to put himself in the power of his enemies, and Miltitz had no other resource than to begin renewing the web of liis futile intrigue. JMeanwhile it became increasingly clear that the great debate at Leipzig could come to no decisive issue. Before the end of the year the University of Erfurt declined the function of judgment. Paris was still silent; and when, on the 15th of April 1521, she sj)oke at last, contented herself with a condemnation of certain proposi- tions extracted from Luther's work on The Bahylonian Cap- tivity of the Church. The Bishop of IMerseburg had been wiser 1 Loscher, vol. iii. pp. 604, 660 ; De Wette, vol. i. p. 307; Weimar ed. vol. ii. pp. 388, 621, 655, 698. SER3/0NS ON PENAiXCE, ETC. 305 in his ^-eneration than Duke George ; the effect of the debate had not been to settle controversy, but to embitter it.^ Despite outward distractions Luther was busy through these months with academical and pastoral work at Wittenberg. The University flourished; 458 students were matriculated in 1519; in 1520, 579.- But we have minuter record of his activity in the pulpit at this period. Several sermons which he now preached have found a permanent place in his works, notably, one on " Usury," in which, possibly with an eye to Eck's rhetorical campaign at Bologna, he defended the common opinion of the Church as to the unlawfulness of lending money at interest.^ The most important, however, of this year's sermons are those which in November he published with a dedication to Duchess Margaret of Brunswick - Liineburg.'* Their subjects were the three sacraments of Penance, Baptism, and the Eucharist. His treatment of them is eminently char- acteristic both of his general way of working and of the state of his mind at the moment. He approaches them from the spiritual and practical side. He does not seem at all intent upon defining how far he agrees with or differs from the orthodox doctrme. The questions which afterwards had so strong an attraction for him at present do not seem to exist. — L / / He takes transubstantiation as^ matter of course, and is silent as to the sacriffce of the mass ; but he ajmost carelessly lets drop the dangerous remark that it were well liliatthe wine as -welj^ as th ejjread should be given to the laity. In the sermon on Penance we hear little of the absolving^ower of the priest, much of the necessity of faith in the penitent. It is impossible not to believe that even yet Lirther^was^' not eager to enter 1 upon a process of self-examination which mfglit end in showing 1 him that he was an alien from the Church. Indeed, he still writes letters upon Augustinian affairs which show that he has a living interest in them, and has not forfeited the confidence of all his brethren.^ At the same time the new leaven con- tinues to work. The Elector, still moved by traditional piety, 1 Tentzel, Hist. Bericht, vol. i. p. ^ Album Acad. Vitch. p. 80 et scq. 415; De Wette, vol. i. pp. 328, 339, ^ grl. D.S. vol. xvi. p. 77 ; Weimar 343, 344, 349, 380 ; Seidemann, L. JD. ed. vol. vi. p. 33. App. 34, p. 151 ; C'orj). He/, vol. i. ■* Weimar ed. vol. ii. p. 709 d scq. 366. ^ De Wette, vol. i. p. 341. X f />''v 3o6 THE YEAR 1319: FRIENDS AND FOES chap. wished to institute a new celebration of the Passion in the Castle Church. It was innocent enough in itself; two priests and eight choristers were to be endowed to sing psalms with this intention three days in the week. But Luther objected that church ceremonies were already too numerous ; that they had_ an irresistible tendency to become empty, formal, super- stitious, and to substitute themselves for spiritual life and growth. And in December he tells Spalatin^ that he must not expect anything from him in relation to the other sacraments, alluding, no doubt, to the sermons of which we have spoken. He cannot write of them until he has investigated the grounds on which they rest. " What has been fabled of the seven sacraments you shall hear at another time." And again, in the same letter, " I do not know what are the duties of a priest, as to which you inquire of me, since the more I reflect upon them the less I know what to say, unless indeed it be ceremonial things. Next, that word of the apostle Peter has great weight with me (1 Pet. ii.), 'that we are all priests,' and John the sames^ in the Apocalypse ; so that^his-kind of priesthood in which we are does not at all differ from the condition of the laity, except in the ministry by which we minister the word and sacraments. . . . Even so, your office in no way differs from that which is common to laymen, except in the burthens w^hich the Eoman Curia has laid upon all priests, without exception." He had been talking over these things, he said, with Melanchthon, and possibly felt the influence of his colleague's more defining and systematising intellect. It would be difficult to say which of the two friends at this time was exercising the deeper influence on the other. The large and vivid personality of the older man had com- pletely carried away the younger. Por the time at least, Melanchthon was quite cured of his indifference to theological studies. He threw himself eagerly into the Leipzig disputa- tion, and the controversies which followed it. In September 1519 he took the degree of Bachelor of Theology. Throughout the summer he lectured on the Epistle to the Eomans, and then turned his attention to the Gospel of JVIatthew. In December he wrote to a friend that he was altogether absorbed 1 De Wette, vol. i. pp. 378, 379. VI _ LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON 307 ill theological studies, which, he says, give him " wonderful pleasure," and delight him " as with a certain heavenly am- brosia." A few months afterwards he says to the same corre- spondent that " Martin is to him much greater, much more admirable than can be shadowed forth in words." Luther's enthusiasm for his young colleague is not less remarkable. " That little Greek," he fondly said, " beats me even in theology." " Master of Arts, of Philosophy, of Theology as I am," he wrote to Spalatiu, " I am not ashamed to give up my own opinion if it differs from that of this grammarian. And this I have often done, and daily do, on account of the divine gift which God has, with a large benediction, poured into this earthen vessel. I do not praise Philip ; he is God's creature : nor do I venerate aught save the work of my God in him." Nor is it difficult to see that at this moment Melanchthon was in advance of Luther in the precise definition of the points in wdiicli they were at issue with the Church. Two sets of theses from his pen are still extant, which, though it is impossible to date them exactly, must both belong to this period. In them he denies that the mass is a sacrifice, that to reject transub- stantiation is heresy. No Catholic, he says, need believe in any articles of faith save such as are proved by Scripture : and the authority of Scripture is above that of Councils. It was from Luther's mind, and especially from his^ spiritual neces- sities, that the impetus of the new movement came ; ^ut Melanchthon possibly saw more clearly of the two in what direction they were going, and how far they had gone. Already the relation between them answers to the fact that the theology which is known as Luther's receives its most systematic exposition in Melanchthon's Lod Communes} "We get a glimpse of a different side of Luther's character than that displayed in the controversies of the time in a work which, though not published till 1520, was completed in the last months of 1519. The Elector had been seriously ill, and Luther, prompted by Spalatin, had committed to writing some thoughts which he hoped would be consolatory to liim.- The 1 Lib. Dec. p. 23 ; Corp. Ref. vol. i. he conceives to be Melanchthon's Theses pp. 126, 128, 138, 264. De Wette, pp. on taking tlie degree of Bachelor of 305, 380. Krafft, Briefc iind Dock- Theology, Sept. 9th, 1519. mente aus der Zcit dcr Reformation, p. " Y.v\. Opp- v. a. vol. iv. p. 134, De 1, has recovered and published what Wette, vol.i.p.336;Weimar,vol.vi.p.l04. 3o8 THE YEAR 1519: FRIENDS AND FOES chap. book, the original text of which was in Latin, was sent to the chaplain to be translated into German for the Prince's use. It was called Tessaradecas, a Booh of Consolation for the Weary and Heavy Laden. A popular superstition in Germany put especial faith, in time of trouble, in fourteen saints — on what principle chosen it is impossible to say — called the Helpers (JSTothhelfer).^ For these Luther substituted as many aids of Christian meditation, dividing his work into two parts, the first treating of the seven evils which we escape, the second of the seven blessings which we enjoy. It is a quaint little treatise of practical theology, with a faint flavour of mysticism about it ; grave, even austere in its tone, not sinking into any abysses of despondency, not rising into any heights of rapture. What makes it peculiarly interesting is that Luther asks Spalatin to send him back the manuscript, that he may use it for his own comfort. He-jatasjfit always, then, the eager dis- putant, the self-confident controversialist, prompt in speech, bitter in reproach, eager in recrimination, which we might iiSfer from his polemical writings : not even the deep spiritual teaching, the calm practical wisdom of his sermons, display all ?ides of his changeful character. He had his dark hours of uncertainty and despondency, in which he recoiled in some- thing like doubt and fear from the strong things he was saying, the brave things he was doing: when he probably felt the beauty of church unity, and looked back upon the peace of earlier days, and longed for the love of friends whom he was driving away. In some such mood he wrote to Staupitz on (the 3d of October : ^ " What do you desire of me ? You desert me too much. To-day I have been very sorrow- ful on your account, as a weaned child on account of its mother. I beseech you, praise God in me, even though a sinner. I hate life, which is as bad as can be ; I dread death ; and though full of other gifts, which Christ knows I do not desire, if I may not serve Him, I am empty of faith." And at the conclusion of the same letter, as if to show that the personal affection overbore all other interests, " Last night I dreamed of you, as if about to depart from me : I all the ^ The fourteen were : Blaise, George, gidius, Dionysius, Eustacliius, Catharine, Erasmus, Vitus, Margaret of Antiocli, Achatius, Barbara. Christopher, Pantaleon, Cyriacus, Ae- - De Wette, vol. i. pp. 342, 343. THE ELECTION OF CHARLES V 309 while most bitterly grieving and lamenting. Hut you, wiili a motion of your band, bade me be quiet, saying that you would return to me. This certainly has become true this very day. But now, farewell, and pray for me, most miserable." It is one more proof, were any needed, that all great victories for mankind are won, as it were, by an agony and bloody sweat, and that the strongest souls have the hardest battle to fight. The year 1519 was, quite independently of the events which we have narrated, one of capital importance in the history of the Eeformation, for it witnessed the election of Charles V to the Empire. But to understand the sequence of events which ended in this result of world-wide import, we must retrace our steps a little. As Maximilian's life drew visibly near its close, the possibility of becoming his successor agitated the minds of many princes. He was not old, if we reckon by years, having been born in 1459 ; but at that time few men in high station attained old age ; and the approach of their sixtieth year usually found them feeble and broken. In the pursuit of his own tortuous and changeful policy, he had not disdained to dangle the glittering bait before more than one of his con- temporaries ; at one moment he assured Henry VIII of England of his sincere wish that he should be elected to the Empire, at another he made similar promises to the young Lewis of Bohemia. Apart from the promises or hints of the Emperor, the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg once flattered himself that the prize might be his ; while it was actually, for a few hours, within reach of Frederick of Saxony. But whatever ]\Iaximilian might say or do for a temporary purpose, his heart was really set on the . election of his grandson Charles, who, by the successive deaths of Isabella of Castile in 1504, of his father Philip in 1506, and of Ferdinand of Arragon in 1516, had inherited Spain, Naples, and the Xetherlands. And Charles's only real competitor for the Empire was Francis I. of France. In 1519 Francis was twenty-five years old, in the first flush of manhood, adorned with shining qualities, which drew all men's eyes upon him, and moved them to overlook defects of character, which became at once more marked and less pardonable as he grew older. How cruel, how treacherous, 3IO THE YEAR 1319: FRIENDS AND FOES chap. how selfish, he could be, they did not yet know ; but they marked the beauty of his person, his mastery of all chivalrous accomplishments, his interest in art and literature, his burning desire to make a name for himself. Under his immediate predecessors France had become one and powerful ; Lewis XI had taken advantage of the death of Charles the Bold to seize Burgundy and Tranche Comte and Artois ; while the marriage of Anne of Brittany, first with Charles VIII and then with Lewis XII, had united to the crown the last independent fief And the first years of Francis I. had been an uninterrupted series of brilliant successes. In a campaign, which took the world by surprise, he had led his army across the Alps by passes before unknown ; had defeated the Swiss, up to that time unbeaten, at the two days' battle of Marignano, had reconquered the Duchy of ]\Iilan, and made French influence once more para- mount in Northern Italy. His territories were not so wdde as those which owed allegiance to his rival, but they were far more compact, were not weakened by internal rivalries and dissensions, and placed their resources unreservedly at his disposal. His command of ready money was undoubted ; 3,000,000 of livres, he thought, would not be too much to spend in buying his way to the Empire. But the Empire, if he attained it, was only to be his stepping-stone to greater things still. All Europe then lived in terror of the Turk ; and the dream of Popes and Emperors was of a crusade against the unbeliever, which should at least repel him from the shores of Spain and Italy, or perhaps, by the hands of some heaven-born leader, once more restore the sacred sites to Christian worship. The adventure was one after Francis's own heart. When, in the spring of 1519, Sir Thomas Boleyn, Henry YIII's ambassador at his court, asked Mm whether, if he were elected Emperor, he would really lead an expedition against the Turks, he took the envoy's hand, and swore on his honour that within three years after his election he would be in Constantinople, or lose his life in the attempt. At that moment, at once of success and of expectation, nothing seemed too difficult to attempt, no achievement too high for his ambition. His rival was a sickly backward boy of nineteen, burthened, to all appearance, by a fate too great for him. Born at Ghent CHARLES V 311 in 1500, Charles had been brought up in Flanders by his father's sister, Margaret. There seemed to be nothing of the Spaniard in him ; Flemish was his only language ; wlien he made his first journey to Spain in 1517, the grandees of Castile and Arragon were shocked to find that their king could neither speak to them nor understand them. For his intellectual training first Lewis Vacca, a Spaniard, and after- wards the Fleming, Adrian of Utrecht, were responsible ; what- ever else they taught him, they made him a sound Catholic, himself an unquestioning believer in the faith, and indisposed to allow others to question it. Declared to be of age in January 1515, Charles devoted himself steadily to the business of the State, presiding at the meetings of his Council, and reading all despatches. But those who watched him narrowly thought that he was wholly in the hands of his ministers, of whom the Seigneur de Chievres, a member of the ancient and powerful house of Croy, was omnipotent. It was impossible to say what germs of great qualities the boy's shy gravity might hide ; but at first he showed little sign of independent will and judgment. He was not inapt at manly exercises, shot well with the bow and took pleasure in field sports, " a sign," as his grandfather remarked when the fact was reported to him, " that he was no bastard." But his health was feeble, he was subject to sudden attacks on occasions of excitement ; men whispered that he had the falling sickness, and would not live long to enjoy his great dignities. Possibly Chievres did the best thing for him in keeping him under close and long tutelage ; he was a plant that could not be forced ; his un- doubted abilities came slowly and late to maturity. But he was not without the consciousness of power, if the story be true that at a tournament, held not long after his arrival in Spain, he appeared in a suit of white armour, and on his shield the motto " ISTondum " — "Not yet." And when at the be- ginning of the year 1519 there was a disposition on the part of his aunt Margaret and her German advisers to substitute his more popular brother Ferdinand for himself, as the Austrian candidate for the Empire, his strong will unmistakably fiashed out, and he made it clear that the great prizes of ambition o[)eu to a member of his house were for its head alone. 312 THE YEAR i^iQ : FRIENDS AND FOES chap. His power was greatly crippled by the conditions under which he exercised it. Each separate constituent of his vast dominions had its own interests upon which its international policy depended. In regard to the territory which had once been Burgundian, Charles was a vassal of France ; and in any case the contiguity of France and Flanders made French friendship a thing to be conciliated and preserved. On the other hand, Spain had a perpetual subject of quarrel with France in the little border kingdom of Navarre; and the French alliance, which Chievres imposed upon Charles in the early years of liis reign, was profoundly unpopular in his Peninsular kingdoms. His first appearance in Spain was anything but a triumph. I do not merely allude to the fact that his Flemish councillors excited the jealousy and trampled upon the susceptibilities of the Spanish Grandees ; that Cardinal Ximenes was treated by Charles himself with cold and shameful ingratitude ; that the rich archbishopric of Toledo was given to a nephew of Chievres, hardly out of liis teens ; and that the Flemings generally behaved themselves in Spain as if they were at free quarters in a conquered country. If aU this had been otherwise, his position would still have been difficult. The unity of the Spanish kingdoms had been only liaK accomplished. Castile and Arragon had fallen apart at the death of Isabella. Each of the Peninsular kingdoms had its own Cortes, its own rights, its own local prejudices. In Castile the loyalty of the people still clung to the poor mad Queen ; in Arragon Ferdinand would willingly have had his favourite grandson and namesake for a successor. Charles was not accepted in his various Spanish kingdoms till he had sworn to respect their several privileges ; and even then no great pecuniary resources were placed at his disposal. He had always been poor ; he was obliged to borrow money from England before he could make the voyage to Spain at aU ; and now he found that the land of his hopes by no means glittered with gold and silver. The fact is, that at this time Spain, compared with France, England, the Netherlands, was a poor country : the expulsion of the Moors had deprived it of an industrious and prosperous population : SjDaniards were more given to warlike than to agricultural or manufacturing pursuits. VI ELECTION OF THE EMPEROR 313 and the mineral wealth of the New Worhl was only just beginning to pour in. It was the German patriotism of the Fuj^'gers, the great bankers of Augsburg, which supplied Charles with funds to bribe the Electors — perhaps the earliest instance on rccnrd of the decisive interference in politics of the kings of Ihuuice. The campaign of the two rivals began as far back as 1516. Francis was first in the field. Of the seven Electors, Mainz, Trier, Koln, the Count Palatine, Brandenburg, Bohemia, Saxony, he gained, or seemed to gain four by large promises, pecuniary and otherwise. Without going into the details of the odious traffic — details which change almost from month to month, till the student is equally weary of their complexity and their baseness — it may be said that the two Hohenzollern brothers, Joachim of Brandenburg and Albert of Mainz, were at all times ready to sell their votes to the highest bidder, and anxious only to know where he was to be found. The Elector Palatine, Lewis, was almost as venal, though perhaps less cynical in his venality ; and the same may be said of Hermann von Wied, the Archbishop of Koln. The King of Bohemia was a minor, not only under the joint guardianship of Maxi- milian and Sigismund, King of Poland, but closely connected by marriage with the House of Hapsburg, and on that account his vote was supposed to be secured to the Austrian candidate. Eichard von Greiffenklau, Archbishop of Trier, steadily gave his support to Francis. There remained Fred- erick of Saxony, " among the faithless faithful only found." He had no reason to love the House of Hapsburg, for Maxi- milian's Imperial policy had been constantly directed to aggran- dising the Brandenburg and depressing the Saxon princes. But through the whole of the tortuous negotiations he maintained one attitude. He would accept no bribe. He would make no promise. It was his duty as an Elector, as defined by the Golden Bull, to reserve his vote till the day of actual choice, and he meant to do it. He is the only respectable figure in a crowd of princely and mitred sharpers. By what means Maximilian was able, when the Diet met at Augsburg in the autumn of 1518, to change all tliis, may be left to the minute historian of the times to tell. It is enough to say that except the incorruptible Frederick and the 314 THE YEAR 1519: FRIENDS AND FOES chap. Archbishop of Trier, who still clung to France, he had won over all the Electors to the side of Charles. But there were diffi- culties in the way of the election of the latter as King of the Eomans. The chief was that Maximilian, who had never been crowned by the Pope, was himself only King of the Eomans, and that one Emperor-elect could hardly be put by the side of another. What was to be done ? That Maximilian should make an expedition into Italy to be crowned was not to be thought of, especially while Erancis held Milan. Would the Pope send the crown to Germany ? Would he send it to Trent, and with it a couple of cardinals to perform the cere- mony in his stead ? These were the questions which the restless old monarch was agitating when death suddenly over- took him at Wels, in the Tyrol, on the 12th of January 1519. At once the politics of the Empire assumed a new aspect. The five Electors who had pledged their votes to Charles, in a document under their own hands, treated it as so much waste paper. Under the new condition of things no promises held good, and the work of coaxing, flattering, bribing, had to be recommenced. Francis at once took heart, and sent a roving em- bassy to Germany : Margaret stepped into her father's place, and directed the operations of Charles's candidature from Flanders. The two Hohenzollern Electors again showed themselves pre-eminent in greed. It is difficult to decide whether the palm of corruption belongs to the Archbishop or to the Margrave. Even the agents of Charles and Francis, who on such a subject can hardly be supposed to have been squeamish, were astonished and disgusted. The Margrave they called " the father of all avarice." At one time Francis flattered hunself that he had certainly secured four votes out of the seven, namely, Mainz, Brandenburg, the Palatinate, and Trier, and was not without well-founded hope that Koln would go with them. And he had the advantage, if advantage it were, of the Pope's support. Nothing can be more instructive as to the purely worldly character of the Papal policy than Leo's conduct on this occasion. From every ecclesiastical point of view Charles was the preferable candidate. All the circum- stances of his education, whatever was known of his personal inclinations, indicated the soundness of his orthodoxy. If VI ELECTION OF THE EMPEROR 315 regard was to be paid to the possibility of a great campaign against the Turks, Charles represented on one side the Spanish crusade against the Moors, on the other the Austrian resistance to Ottoman invasion. But these were not the things of whicli Leo was thinking, but of the position in Italy of the States of the Church, and perhaps still more the interests of the Medicean House. He could not endure the idea that the King of Naples should also be Emperor, and the Papal territory, therefore, shut in between the dominions of a more powerful prince to north and south. At an early period of the negotiations, therefore, he declared that it was inconsistent with the conditions on which Naples was held as a Papal fief that its monarch should also rule over the Empire, and went so far as to notify to the Electors that this was an insurmount- able hindrance to Charles's election. On the other hand, the connection between Francis and the House of Medici had, since the battle of Marignano had made the former a great Italian power, been close. Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino, the last legitimate male of the family not in holy orders, had by his marriage with Madeline de la Tour d'Auvergne become allied with the French royal house, and there was nothing that the Pope would not do to advance the interests of his worthless relative. Some writers, willing to suspect in Leo's policy a deeper depth of duplicity, have supposed that his support of Francis only veiled a real prefer- ence of Charles, or some possible third candidate. But the evidence, so far at least as it is accessible, goes the other way. It is hardly likely that if this had been the case he should have given Francis, by a brief under his own hand, the power of promising cardinals' hats to the Archbishops of Trier and Koln, and of offering to him of Mainz the still more glitter- ing bribe of permission to hold a fourth bishopric, and the office of perpetual Papal Legate in Germany. Indeed it was only when Lorenzo de Medici died, in May 1519, and the Pope clearly saw that in the then temper of the German people Charles's election was inevitable, that he withdrew his opposi- tion on the score of Naples, and acquiesced in what he could not prevent. It would be unfair, not indeed to the probity, Ijut to the good 3i6 THE YEAR i^ig : FRIENDS AND FOES chap. sense of the Electors, to suppose that in their final decision they were guided by pecuniary and personal considerations alone. Francis might offer the best terms, but at the same time terms which it would be neither advantageous nor safe to accept. A concurrence of events in the spring of 1519 put a preponderance of physical force in the hands of the House of Hapsburg, which was the more considerable because it had l^ehiud it an overwhelming strength of national and patriotic feeling. Franz von Sickingen, the adventurous knight, whose power in the Ehineland exceeded that of many princes, after some coquetting with France, threw the weight of his lanz- knechts into the opposite scale. But the most important event of this kind was a revolution which in the spring of 1519 took place in Wiirtemberg. Duke Ulrich, the arbitrary and passionate prince who had murdered Hans von Hutten, was an avowed partisan of France, and formidable, inasmuch as he had at his disposal a large force of disciplined Swiss soldiers. The Confederated Cantons, it is true, had severed themselves from the Empire, but they were conterminous with it, and the fact that they were ready to sell their swords to the highest bidder gave them a certain political imjDortance. They had not forgotten Marignano, and envoys sent by Charles found a friendly welcome ; although they would not openly declare for the King of Spain, they renewed their old alliance with Austria, and recalled their troops from Wiirtem- berg. This was the signal for Ulrich's downfall. He had filled up the measure of his offences by an attack upon the free city of Eeutlingen, which he had : besieged, taken, and added to his own dominions. Then the Swabian League, a powerful confederacy in South -East Germany, moved. The Duke of Bavaria, whose sister, Sabina, was Ulrich's much-injured wife, raised an army, and after a brief and bloodless campaign took possession of Wiirtemberg, driving its ruler into deserved exile. But the troops were not disbanded when the immediate results of the war were attained, and lay not too far from Frankfurt to be, if not a menace to the Electors, at least a mute witness to the influence of the Austrian House within the Empire. It was indeed made abundantly plain, as the day of elec- ELECTION OF THE EMPEROR 317 tion drew near, that the sympathies of the people were all in favour of a prince of German blood, and that if the Electors decided for Francis, it would be at their own personal peril. A strong wave of Teutonic patriotism was rising throughout the land, which humanism and the study of history helpetl to swell. That Leo was on the side of France made in the same direction : all Germany, and not merely the part which was under Luther's influence, was weary of Papal extortion and oppression. Maximilian, too, had been a popular monarch — afiable, easy of access, touching the common imagination by attributes of chivalry ; his contemporaries did not know him as posterity does, stooping to all ignoble shifts to get money, and thwarting his own policy by an incurable levity anil treachery. And when the Electors came to compare the two candidates, the very terms in which Francis set forth his claims were such as to awaken caution. He was rich, powerful, suc- cessful in war, absolute ruler of his own subjects, disposing of the resources of the first monarchy of Europe ; why should the Electors put such a master over their own heads ? The silent, backward boy, who was content to leave his affairs in the hands of his aunt and his ministers, who had as yet developed no military talents, and whose ability to rule was still doubtful, offered, notwithstanding the vastness of his dominions, the promise of an Emperor who would be plastic in their hands. In despite, therefore, of the arguments and promises of France, the Austrian began finally to prevail. An attempt which, almost at the last moment, Henry VIII made to put himself forward was naturally futile. When the Electors were actually assembled at Frankfurt for the choice, a final effort was made to set aside both candidates, and to put some German prince in their place. For a few hours the highest crown in the world was at the disposal of Frederick of Saxony. But he firmly pushed it away. He was too old, his health was too broken, possibly, at the bottom, the temper of his mind was too irresolute, to assume so vast a burthen of responsibility. He thought, perhaps rightly, that a prince who should restore the ancient glories of the Empire, reorganising it within, and making it respected abroad, should have at his connnand greater resources than his. But it is impossible not to speculate upon 3i8 THE YEAR i5ig: FRIENDS AND FOES chap, vi what the after -history of Germany might have been if the Elector who loved and protected Luther had, at the very crisis of his fortune, been placed at the rudder of the State. The formal proceedings of the election began at Frankfurt on the I7th of June; on the 28th Charles was unanimously chosen Emperor. The " capitulation " which he was required to sign consisted of thirty-four articles. Besides promising in general terms to protect the rights and privileges of all Estates of the Empire, he bound himself to enter into no alliance with foreign States, to impose no tax, to summon no Diet without the consent of the Electors ; he was not voluntarily to enter upon any war, but to defend the Empire if attacked ; he was to bring no foreign soldiers into the Empire ; and to appoint to its offices only men of native birth and good standing. The language of intercourse between himself and the Estates was to be either German or Latin. The " Eeichsregiment " was to be re-established ; the increasing Papal demands of every kind to be brought within bounds ; the coinage to be reformed. Other articles were intended to save the rights of the Princes and other lower grades of the political hierarchy ; no one was to be placed under the ban of the Empire unheard, or without just cause ; no new laws were to be enacted except in accordance with the Golden Bull and with the assent of the Estates. The first Diet of the new reign was summoned to meet at Niirn- berg. Charles promised, lastly, to come to Germany to receive his crown, to reside within the Empire as much as possible, and at a convenient season to go to Ptome to be crowned by the Pope. These articles much more express the wish of the seven Electors to interpose themselves as a ruling order in the State between Emperor and people, than give any indication of the course which attempts at administrative reform actually took in Germany. It will be enough to remark in this place that, in pursuance of them, Charles was crowned at Aachen on the 23d of October 1520.^ ^ For the story of Charles's election V ; Mignet, Unc Election d V Empire &Q& 'Ra.-nke., Deutsche Geschichtc im Zeit- en 1519, Revue des deux Mondes, alter der Reformation, vol. i. pp. 248- 1854, pp. 209-264 ; Baiimgarten, Ges- 303 ; R. Rosier, Die Kaiserwahl Earls chichtc Earls V, vol. i. pp. 102-158. CHAPTER VII THE YEAR 1520: LUTHER's APPEAL TO THE NATION No great revolution in thought, and especially no great revolu- tion in religious thought, wholly depends upon the intellectual activity of a single thinker. It is, at least in part, the function of a powerful mind, a vivid personality, to gather into one focus tendencies of thought and feeling widely diffused, in a less concrete and concentrated form, through society, to give consciousness to emotions that before were half unconsciously felt, to find articulate voice for convictions that were only silently entertained. The question always arises. Did the age make the man, or the man mould the age ? — and can never be fully answered in either sense. Forces act and react ; there is a subtle correspondence between the master-thinker and the society which his thoughts quicken and change ; at any other time, in any other circumstances, he would be impossible ; yet again he bends circumstance to his purposes, and leads on a new time. The more individual a leader of men is, and the more he stands out from the common level, the easier it is to trace the reaction of contemporary tendencies upon him ; sometimes opposition strengthens the tenacity of his purpose, sometimes he acts in the line of least resistance ; often forces which rise out of a strange region of thought and feeling deflect liim from his course ; and again he may become the unconscious mouthpiece of passions with which he sympathises only in part. All this was true of Luther, though perhaps never so true as in the earlier stages of his revolt from Home. No sooner had he ventured out from the retirement of his cell at Wittenberg, 320 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. and become involved in the current of German thought, than he found himself in the presence of intellectual and social forces which in part determined the line of his development. There was the strong feeling of anger and disgust, which the vices of the clergy and the corruptions of the system which they administered aroused in the common people of Germany. There was the revolt against exactions and oppressions, which patriots represented as the work of an alien power. There was the slowly growing rebellion against scholasticism, against monkery, against medisevalism in general, of which Erasmus and the humanists were the leaders. There was the desire for the reform of the Church and the revival of religion, whicli manifested itself on the one side in the Greek New Testament of 1516 and all that gathered round it, and on the other in the popular broadsheets and pamphlets which circulated from hand to hand of citizen and peasant. National and political was strangely mingled with ethical and religious feeling, and, for different reasons and with different methods, the learned and the ignorant found themselves in pursuit of the same object. And the year 1520, in which these forces were still in strongest interaction but had not yet found their resultant, was decisive in the history of the Eeformation. It was that year which saw the publication of the books in which Luther laid down the principles of the revolt : the Address to the Ger- man Nobility, the Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, the tractate on the Freedom of a Christian Man. In June 1520 the Pope solemnly anathematises him in a Bull, which he no less solemnly burns in December. In April 1521 he appears before the Emperor and the States of Germany at the Diet of Worms. Nothing more vividly illustrates the fact that Europe in 1520 was one literary republic than the rapidity with which Luther's first books became known. Myconius,^ it is im- possible to say on what authority, declares that in a fortnight the Ninety-five Theses had run through all Germany, in a month through all Christendom. The assertion is rendered credible by the number of editions of Luther's earlier works which are still extant. Of the Exposition of the Penitential Psalms the ^ Myconius," p. 23. THE CIRCULATION OF HIS BOOKS 321 earliest authorities enumerate niue issues between 1517 and 1525. The book against Tetzel, Einc Freihcit des Sermons papstlichen Ablass und Gnade belangcnd, ran in a very short time through eleven editions. Of the Te7i Commandments preached to the people of Wittc7iber(/, there were five editions in Latin and six in German. The Sermo de Virtute Excommunicationis of 1518 was almost immediately reprinted nine times. Of the Sermon on the Con- templation of the Sufferings of Christ, of 1519, there are twenty- four editions in German and one in Latin. Six editions of the Rcsoliitio de Potestate Papac, all printed before the end of 1520, are still extant. Wliat the size of these editions was does not appear ; but a definite fact of this kind is that the Address to the German Nohility was published at the end of June 1520, and that by the middle of August four thousand copies had been sold. As early as October 1518, Froben, the famous prmter of Basel, acting on the suggestion of Beatus lihenauus, who was then his corrector of the press, made the first attempt at a collected edition of Luther's works. They were soon spread all over Europe. Froben writes to Luther (February 14th, 1519) "that all the editions, with the exception of ten copies, were already exhausted ; he had never made a more fortunate venture in any book. Six hundred copies had been sent into France and Spain ; others had been distributed through Italy ; others again had gone to England and to Brabant. The Cardinal of Sion, Matthias Schinuer, had been loud in his approbation ; so too the Bishop of Basel, Christopher von Uttenheim, was an admirer of Luther." A few weeks after the date of this letter even the ten copies were gone ; on the 23d of May a friend writes to Agrippa von Nettesheim that he has searched all Basel in vain for one, and that a new edition was talked of at Strassburg. A second edition, again printed at Basel, actually followed in February 1519, and a third in August of the same year. In November 1520, when the excitement had risen to a still greater height, Glareanus writes to Zwingli that he had heard of a bookseller who, at the last Frankfurt fair, had sold no fewer than one thousand four hundred of Luther's books, a thing hitherto unheard of Nor was answering encouragement from distant friends wanting. Le Fevre d'Etaples, in April 1519, bade Y 322 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. Beatus Ehenanus greet Luther in his name ; while a little later Peter Tschudi wrote to him from Paris that Luther's works were received there by all scholars with open arms. John Hess reported to Lauge that Luther had many friends in Italy. We have already seen that the Exposition of the Lord's Prayer was very soon translated into Italian and Bohemian. In Switzerland Luther's works circulated as freely as in Germany itself^ In May 1519 Erasmus wrote to Luther : " There are many in England who have the highest opinion of your writings, and those men of the greatest importance." ^ But more definite evidence of the extent to which England had been touched by rising controversy in Germany is afforded by a curious document recently published — the Day-book of John Dome, a bookseller of Oxford, in which he entered all the books that he sold in the year 1520. As might be expected, there was a large demand for the various works of Erasmus, who not only had a peculiarly English reputation, but whose friendship at Oxford with Colet and More must have been yet fresh in men's memories. Ulrich von Hutten furnishes three entries to the Day-book — two of an unspecified dialogue, one of the Fehris ; while there are two of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. The name of Luther occurs thirteen times. There are two copies of the Opera LutJieri, probably the Basel edition of 1518. One copy of the Commentary on the Galatians and one of the Disputation of Luther at Leipzig (probably the' of&cial report of 1519) are noted. One copy of the Resp)onsio ad Dialogum. Sylv. Prieratis was sold. But the most popular book was the Resolutio de Potestate Papae, which appears, if John Dome's abbreviated entries are rightly interpreted, no less than eight times. Besides these there is a book which apparently is on the other side of the controversy, Condemnatio Luthei'i, but really the decrees of condemnation passed on his books by the Universities of Koln and Louvain, and printed ^ Weimar ed. vol. i. pp. 154, 380, vol. iii. p. 81 ; Fabricius, Centifolium 394, 634; vol. ii. pp. 131, 180; De ZM<7iera?mm, pp. 318, 766; Hermiujard, Wette, vol. i. pp. 457, 478 ; Hottinger, Correspondence de.t Ecformateurs, vol. i. Helvetische Kirchengeschichte, vol. iii. pp. 45, 47 ; Kolde, Anal. Luth. p. p. 37 ; Enders, Brief w. Luther's, vol. i. 10 ; Zwingli, Ojjp. vol. vii. p. 151. p. 420 ; vol. ii. p. 354 seq.; Loscber, "^ Erasmi 0pp. vol. iii. p. 445 B. VII HIS THREE POPULAR TRACTS 323 by Luther himself, with his reply. In what precise relation this bookseller stood to the reading public of Oxford or of England generally it is impossible to say : in all probability the works of one who, like Luther, was soon branded as a heretic, were brought to England privately by merchants, and passed, with some precaution of concealment, from hand to hand. Still, the facts as they stand are sufficiently remarkable, and testify to the rapidity with which news of Luther's attack upon the system of the Church travelled to even distant seats of learning. But it is to be noted that none of the great books of 1520 appear to have found their way to Oxford in the course of that year.^ It is not easy to estimate the extent to which, up to this time, Luther had touched the common people of Germany. We can enumerate, without much difficulty, the names of the well-known humanists, the dignified churchmen, the dis- tinguished laymen who were his friends and admirers ; but to find out what was his influence upon the burgher and the peasant, we are thrown back upon anonymous broadsheets and satires, which rarely give any indication of origin or date. Up to this time his most characteristic works had been written in Latin, and therefore made their appeal only to the cultivated classes. Others, however, such as his Exposition of the Lord's Prayer for simple Laymen, as well as some of the sermons, which enjoyed the largest circulation, were in German ; while his younger colleagues were always busy in translating his more learned works into the vernacular. But in 1520, in the publication of his Address to the German Nobility, Tlie Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and TJie Freedom of a Christian 3fan, all of which were either written in the language of the people or at once translated into it, he may be said to have definitely taken up a new position, not so much in opposition to as by the side of the humanists. Everybody in Europe that pretended to be an educated man had read Erasmus's Colloquies, Adages, Praise of Folly, and had enjoyed or resented his lively polemic against monkish supersti- tions and self-indulgence ; and Hutten, in the biting satire of his 1 Collectanea of the Oxford Hist. Soc. 1st series. The Daily Ledger of John Dome, 1520. Ed. F. Madan, M.A. 324 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. Dialogues, addressed himself to the same audience. But as long as opposition to the corruptions of the Church and the \dces of the clergy was confined within limits of Latin it was an esoteric thing, like the philosophic contempt with which Mutian, from his scholarly retreat at Gotha, regarded the squabbles of the theologians. It was reserved for Luther, in whose footsteps, before the end of 1520, Hutten followed, to throw himself upon the German people, to speak to them in the only language which they understood, to appeal to their patriotic instincts, to point to a redress of the wrongs which they deeply felt. It is not within the compass of my present purpose to define Luther's exact relation to the development of the German language ; it is enough to say that, at a moment at which the Latin threatened to supersede it as the vehicle of cultivated thought, he suffused it with the glow of his own genius, and made it a literary tongue, capable of expression, clear, vivid, pathetic, and, above all, strong. The little quarto pamphlets, brown, worm-eaten, each with its engraved and often allegorical title-page, which collectors still prize, passed from hand to hand, in farms and workshops, giving a clear voice to dimly-felt religious aspirations, and definition to long- cherished discontents. As time went on it became more and more evident that Luther was at the head of a really national movement, and that he was formidable to Emperor and Pope, because, more than any other man, he represented the desires and purposes of the people of Germany. Such popular pamplilets as can with confidence be assigned to this early date are hardly theological at all. Their authors do not touch upon the controversial aspects of Luther's revolt against Eonie. They are severe upon the devourer of benefices — the man who goes to Eome, makes his way into the favour of some cardinal or high official, by services often too dis- graceful to be named, and receiving church preferment in Germany as his reward, spends the rest of his days in sloth and self-indulgence. Such men make no pretence of shepherd- ing the souls entrusted to them ; their parishes are utterly neglected ; they spread the contagion of carelessness round about them; they bring the Church into ill -repute. The habitual infraction of the law of clerical celibacy, the pomp VII SATIRICAL PAMPHLETS, ETC. 325 and woiidliuess of the higher clergy, the avarice and self- indulgence of monks, and the all-devouring greed of Home — these are the evils which demand a remedy. And Luther, with whom Erasmus is often coupled, appears as the restorer of ancient morals and primitive piety. These broadsheets have little that can be called Evangelical or Protestant about them. They give the impression that those who wrote and read them would be quite satisiied with the moral purification of the existing system. Their authors have not at all com- prehended, as perhaps Luther himself at that time had not, the dissolvent force upon mediieval Christianity of the principles which were slowly taking form at Wittenberg. But they were preparing the seed-bed for them. When it was made clear that Rome's only policy was suppression, and that it was use- less to look to the new Emperor for help in the direction of reform, the commonalty were ready to follow Luther into paths of popular revolt.^ The quarrel between Reuchlin and the theologians of Koln, which had so sharply divided learned opinion in Germany, was now in its final stage. It was in March 1514 that Eeuchlin had been acquitted at Speier, in July 1516 that his second acquittal at Eome had been followed by the Pope's mandate, ordering the suspension of all proceedings in the case. The Epistolae Obscicrorum Virorum assumed their complete form in the spring of 1517, and were promptly condemned by the Pope. Then followed the armed inter- vention of Sickingen, and the deposition of Hoogstraten from his dignities, till at last, in June 1520, the case was finally closed by the Brief of Leo X, which reversed all previous judicial decisions and restored the Inquisitor to his office. The effect of this long controversy, which had extended over nearly eleven years, had been to divide the learned men of Germany, or those who thought themselves learned, into two hostile camps. It was the old scholarship against the new. It was the devotees of the scholastic philosophy against the children of the classical revival. It was the tlieologians against 1 Conf. Schade, Satiren und Pas- Jahren, 1517-1525, hetrachlct im Lichte quille mis der Reformatimiszeit, 3 vols. , gleichzcitigrr anonymer xi-iul psciidony- and Au^. Baur, DeutscMand in den mer dculschcr Folks-und Flugschri/tcn. 326 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chai'. the "poets." It was the men who held what learning they had at the service and under the censorship of the Church against the men who cared for learning for its own sake, and feared no conclusions to which it might lead them. There were some among the older humanists who occupied a middle position, as for instance Wimpheliug, who was called " medius Eeuchlinista " (" half a Eeuchlinist ")/ men who had pursued their studies in full accord with the Church, and who regarded with apprehension whatever looked like revolt against her. But it is not unfair to qualify the assailants of Eeuchlin as obscurantists, or his defenders as the friends of light and learning. And there was a hot struggle between them for the possession of the Universities, the training of the rising generation, the approval of educated opinion. Into this current of thought and feeling swept the stream of Luther's movement, as the Arve joins the Ehone at Geneva, bearing with it very different waters, which are nevertheless destined to mix and flow in the same channel. Luther was no humanist at heart. The springs of his life were all theological. In his education he had enjoyed the advantage of partial emancipation from the old methods of thought, and had drunk, though not deeply, at the rediscovered fountains of scholarship. But he had stood outside the humanist circle at Erfurt, from which his entrance into the monastic life seemed to have finally cut him off. And when, as we have seen, the intellectual activity which his spiritual struggles had interrupted was resumed, it was still directed by theo- logical considerations. The acquaintance with Greek, which he laboured to increase, the knowledge of Hebrew, which he for the first time acquired, were devoted to the exposition of the Scriptures ; and it was his desire, as far as possible, to give the classical studies of Wittenberg the same direction. So that although, as time wore on, it became evident that he and the humanists had the same object of attack — the Church of Eome and its corruptions, they did not assail it from the same side, or with the same weapons. What witli them was almost an accident of the strife, was to him its essence. They struck for free learning ; he for pure doctrine and a reformed Church. ^ Antea, p. 72. VII WITTENBERG AND THE HUMANISTS 327 There was at first 110 great approximation between Wit- tenberg and the humanists. In a letter, written in August 1514, to Spalatin Luther warmly espouses the cause of EeuchHn ; but with the exception of one or two slighting re- ferences to the Letters of tlic Obscure Men, there is no further mention of the matter in his correspondence for four years. In the meantime Erasmus's New Testament and his edition of St. Jerome had been published ; and Luther had fully grasped the essential difference between the theological tend- ency of the Master of Eotterdam and his own. Erasmus did not sufficiently put forward Christ and the grace of God ; it was a significant thing that he should place Jerome on a level with Augustine. " I read over Erasmus," says Luther, " but my inclination towards him decreases from day to day." Nor is evidence lacking that Luther's indifference to the humanists was reciprocated by them. Hutten, in a letter, written in April 1518, to Count Hermann von Neuenar, a canon of Koln, who was also a friend of Eeuchlin, informs him in con- temptuous terms of a monk's quarrel as to indulgences which has broken out at Wittenberg, and expresses the hope that those enemies of the light may destroy one another in inter- necine strife. In a tone of even greater scorn Mosellanus announces to Erasmus the disputation wliich is about to take place at Leipzig between Eck and Carlstadt : " the Democriti," he says, "would find sufficient matter for laughter in it." At the end of 1518, however, when, after his fruitless inter- view with Cajetan, he was feeling the necessity of gather- ing round himself all possible friends and allies, Luther wrote, at the instigation of Melanchthon, a letter to Keuchlin. This letter, which afterwards appeared in the Ulustrium Virorum Upistolae, was not only a formal compliment and tender of allegiance to the old scholar, but a disthict assertion that his cause and Luther's were substantially identical. Their enemies were the same, he said, and their methods of attack; he opposed them with the same constancy of mind as Eeuchlin, though with less ability and learning. But the letter, though couched in the most respectful terms, drew out no answer. The old man was weary of a conflict in which he had been unwillingly involved, and which had wrecked the 328 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. peace of his declining years. He had nothing of the Eeformer in him, and probably would never have felt very deeply the corruptions of a Church which allowed him to pursue his Cabbalistical studies in quiet ; still less was he disposed to cast in his lot with a new and revolutionary movement. Once we find him sending a kindly message to Luther throvigh Melanchthon ; at a later period he prevented Eck from burning Luther's books in Ingolstadt. But this was all. We have already seen that he quarrelled with his nephew, in whom he had taken so much pride, for his adherence to the Wittenberg theology. At the beginning of 1521, just before Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms, Hutten addresses to him an indignant letter, reproaching him with having fallen away from his old . friends. Wliat Eeuchlin wanted was peace ; a truce to controversy, a cessation of persecutions ; and he found it in reconciliation with the Church. He died in 1522.1 At the end of March 1519, Luther, this time under the influence of Capito, wrote a similar letter to Erasmus, Nothing could be more flattering than its terms ; it was a letter from a humble member of the literary republic to its acknowledged head. It did not propose any definite terms of alliance, its writer was evidently uncertain of his ground, and trying to feel his way to a more confidential communication. Erasmus's answer, dated the 30 th of May, was perfectly polite, but he made it plain that he would not depart from his attitude of neutrality. He spoke of the excitement caused by Luther's books, of the public rumours which associated himself with their authorship, and made him the standard-bearer of the movement, of the clamour and calumny which were the weapons of the orthodox theologians. With the exception of the Operationcs in Fsalmos, which he very much liked, he had not read Luther's books ; he neither approved nor disapproved whatever was contained in them. He threw out a characteristic hint that such subjects were best discussed by the learned only, and were not fit for popular appeal ; he advised a quieter and less 1 DeWette, vol. i. pp. 13, 37, 38, 39, wechsel Eeiichlin's, pp. 327, 357; Eras- 62, 87, 196, 404 ; Huttcni 0pp. ed. mi 0pp. vol. iii. p. 404 D. Booking, vol. i. p. 167 ; Geiger, Brief- THE ATTITUDE OF ERASMUS 329 eager mode of treating them, alleging the example of Christ and Paul. It was not a letter with which it was easy to find fault; but it invited no reply, and it received none.^ All the allusions to Luther and his affairs contained in Erasmus's letters about this time are in the same tone. Common rumour will persist in identifying him with the "Wittenberg movement, and he does not like it. Keuchlin, Erasmus, Luther,-^these names came naturally together from men's lips ; but the too reckless satire of the Letters of the Ohscure Men had driven him out of the camp of the Eeuchlinists, and he is still less willing to be made answerable for the new ecclesiastical demagogue. What he cares for is the " cause of good letters," which he does not wish to have confounded with the quarrel of any man, or wrecked in storms of theological controversy. He does not know Luther ; he has not read his books, except, perhaps, a page here and there. The man, he admits, bears a high character, but he cannot approve the violence of his tone. As to his doctrine, he neither accuses nor excuses it. From none of Erasmus's letters at this time would it be possible to derive the slightest notion of what it was that Luther assailed in the theological system of the Church, or what were the weapons of his attack. Erasmus's tone, it must be confessed, varies with the person to whom he is writing ; to Leo X, to Cardinal Albert of Mainz, to AVolsey, he insists on his own obedience to the Church, and emphasises his ignorance and independence of Luther ; to Melanchthon, to Pirckheimer, to Oekolampadius, he shows the more friendly side of what is still la neutrality, and makes it clear that he has no desire to quarrel with Wittenberg. But he does not become more friendly to iLuther as time wears on, and the accent of controversy grows pharper ; he has no wish to take a side, but he sees that neutrality becomes every day less possible. But while there is a remarkable similarity in all Erasmus's utterances on this subject about this time, it is only fair to point out that there were moments at which tlie insight of the man of letters got the better of the timidity of the theologian, and he saw that, up to a certain point at least, Luther's line of movement coincided with his own. In his letter to Erasmus ' De Wette, vol. i. p. 247; Erasmi Ofip. vol. iii. i>. 444. 330 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. Luther had ventured to aUude to passages in the Preface to the new edition of the Enchiridion which seemed to be in accord with his own teacliing. Both had said hard things of the monks, and especially of the mendicant orders; both were assailed by the same enemies, fighting with the same weapons. In a letter which Erasmus addressed in November 1519 to the Archbishop of Mainz, and which contains the usual protestations that he has nothing to do with Luther, occurs also the following remarkable passage : " Of the articles which are made a ground of objection to Luther, I say nothing now ; I speak only of the manner and the occasion. Luther has dared to doubt of in- dulgences, as to which others had before made assertions, but were too shameless. He has dared to speak with somewhat too little moderation of the power of the Eoman Pontiff, of which others, of whom the chief were three of the order of Preachers, — Al varus, Sylvester, and the Cardinal of St. Sixtus, had before written much too immoderately. He has dared to despise the decrees of St. Thomas, decrees which the Dominicans almost prefer to the Gospels. He has dared to discuss certain scruples as to confession, a matter in which the monks ensnare the consciences of men without end. He has dared to neglect, to some extent, the decrees of the Schoolmen, things to which they themselves attribute too much, in regard to which, never- theless, they differ among themselves, and which, last of all, they do not hesitate to change, substituting new things for old. And it was a torment to pious minds to hear in the schools hardly any mention of evangelical doctrine, and that the sacred authors, formerly approved by the Church, were held to be antiquated ; yea, even from the pulpit hardly anything was said of Christ, almost everything of the power of the Pope and the opinions of the Moderns." But it did not help matters when a copy of this letter was surreptitiously procured and printed, probably by Ulrich von Hutten, who was then in the Archbishop's service. The great scholar might be pardoned for feeling that even his impartiality was being used against him, and that he was being involved in a movement which he only partly approved, and was quite unable to control.^ A curious and characteristic story completes the picture of ^ De Wette, vol. i. p. 247 ; Erasmi Op}), vol. iii. p. 515 F. THE ATTITUDE OF ERASMUS 11^ Erasmus's mood in these years. In October 1520 Charles V was crowned at Aachen. Frederick of Saxony, accompanied by Spalatin, went to be present at the ceremony in his official capacity as Marshal of the Empire, but, intercepted by gout, got no farther on his way than Koln. " Thereby at Kbln," says Spalatin, " the highly-learned man Erasmus Koterodamus was with this Elector of Saxony, and talked with him of all manner of things ; and was asked whether it was his opinion that Dr. Martin Luther had erred in his writing and preaching. Wherc- [iipon he answered in Latin, ' Yes, indeed, in two things, that he has attacked, first, the Pope's crown, and next the monks' bfellies.' Thereupon this Elector smiled, and bethought him of this answer hardly a year before his death." It was after this interview, or another a few days later, that Erasmus, going with Spalatin into the house of the Count of Neuenar, hastily committed to paper certain "axiomata," in which he brietly gave his view of the whole controversy. These he had no sooner written than with characteristic caution he asked for them back again, fearing lest they should bring him into trouble with Aleander and Caraccioli, the Papal agents, who were then I in Koln, Before a year had passed, however, the document had found its way to the press, through what channel it is now I impossible to say. As might be supposed from the cu'cum- I stances under which it was written, it represents Erasmus's I relation to Luther on its friendliest side. Erasmus takes up no theological position, but advises caution, condemns the severity of the Pope's bull, sustains Luther's claim to a fair trial, and speaks with some contempt of his adversaries. Had not the tone of this paper been so completely that of Erasmus himself in his more courageous moments, it might seem to have been an echo caught from the Elector's, But indeed the con- troversy had long overpassed these bounds.^ It has been too much the custom to put down the attitude of Erasmus to Luther and his movement to mere timidity or selfish caution. He was a sickly scholar, it is said, whose character was cast in no heroic mould ; living on terms of intimacy with great men in Church and State, and unwilling 1 Spalatin, Fried, der Weise, p. 164; Seckendorf, lib. i. sec. 34, § Ixxxi.; Eri. ed. 0pp. V. a. vol. v. p. 238. 332 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chaf. to imperil his position with them by avowed sympathy with revolution. No doubt this is a part of the truth, though only .a small part. Erasmus was constitutionally averse to loud talk and violent action; irony, not invective, was his favourite rhetorical weapon, and abuses which moved others to indigna- tion excited him only to mocking satire. But it should always be recollected that he had a method of reformation of his own, the method of literary culture ; that up to the year 1517 this method appeared to be in successful operation, and that he suddenly found its character compromised, and its issue en- dangered by Luther's movement. He tried in vain to evade the shock of theological opposition which first Eeuchlin and then Luther drew down upon all religious innovators. He found not only that he was charged with complicity in a line of action with which he imperfectly sympathised, but that the new Eeformer carried away with him all the young and pro- mising minds of the humanist party. He never gave his adhesion to the peculiar tenets of Luther's theology ; if we may anticipate the use of terms, he was upon the Catholic, not the Protestant, side of the controversy. He probably saw from the first the danger, as he conceived it to be, that the theo- logical element in Luther's movement would overbear every other, and felt that the time would come at which he would be compelled to say, "Wherever Lutheranism reigns, there good letters perish." ^ So that, if he were to be true to him- self, he could not act otherwise than he did. It is a mistake to find fault with him because he did not join to a command of literary culture, a knowledge of antiquity, a mastery of style, which Luther never possessed, the fiery religious earnest- ness, the absolute fearlessness of consequences which are necessary to make a revolution in religion. Criticism has completely established the fact that the Letters of the Obscure Men, which so decisively intervened in the affair of Eeuchlin, were the production of that band of Erfurt humanists of which Mutian was the head. After the publica- tion of that famous satire, Crotus, its chief author, went to Italy ; the leadership of the party silently passed from Mutian to Eoban Hess, and the enthusiasm of its members was trans- ^ Emsmi Op}), vol. iii. p. 1139 B. VII THE REFORMATION AT ERFURT m ferred from Eeuchlin to Erasmus. The great humanist was m 1517 and 1518 at the zenith of his fame, and now that the crisis of Eeuchlin's fate had passed, it was felt how much more attractive, how far better calculated to awaken youthful enthusiasm, were the Adages, the Praise of Folly, the JWno Testament of 1516 than the old Hebraist's mystical specula- tions on the Cabbala. It became a fashion to make pilgrimages from Erfurt to the Netherlands, to visit the master of all erudition ; one such was made by Eoban Hess, another by Justus Jonas. When Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, attacked Erasmus with all the virulence of obscurantist orthodoxy for his great contribution to theological scholarship — the Greek New Testament, the humanists of Erfurt fell i'oul of him, as they had before fallen foul of the monks of Koln. Eoban Hess lectured on the Enchiridion, Crafi't on the En- comium Moriae. Much indifferent Latin verse was produced at Erfurt about this time ; besides Eoban Hess, inexhaustibly fertile in every metrical form, there was Euricius Cordus, who embodied his loves and hatreds in innumerable epigi-ams, and by both Erasmus was largely celebrated. His influence was religious as well as literary ; the long letter is still extant in which he persuaded Justus Jonas to abandon law for theology, little thinking that he was preparing for Luther one of his most intimate and efficient allies. Shortly after his return from the Netherlands, at Easter 1519, Justus Jonas was elected Eector of the University, and commemorated the event on an illuminated page of the matriculation book, which recorded his \asit to Erasmus. A more important result of that visit was the reform in the studies of the University which the new Eector undertook. Henceforth the true spirit of humanisni was to prevail in them, and provision was made for the institution and maintenance of lectures on the Greek and Latin classics.^ But a change was impending. Erfurt was too near Witten- berg not in some degree to catch its infection. The two universities had been closely united for some years after the foundation of the younger, and the double relationship of Erfurt to Mainz and to Saxony placed it in the focus of the new move- ment. John Lange, who enjoyed Luther's confidential friend- ^ Kavrerm, BricfwechsclJusttcs Jonas, Erfurt. Univ. vol. ii. p. 307; Krausc, vol. i. p. 21 ; Weissenborn, Aden der Eoban Hess, vol. i. p. 302. 334 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. ship, was living there as Prior of the Augustinian Convent, and though not actually belonging to the band of humanists, many of whom were his old class-mates, was on friendly terms with them. And in October 1519 Crotus Paibianus, who was about to return northwards from Italy, wrote from Bologna two letters to Luther. They had been friends before the latter entered the monastic life ; but that event parted them, and communication between them seems to have wholly ceased. The first letter sunply gives the last news of Eck's proceedings in Ptome, the second is an impassioned proffer of allegiance. " Often, Martin," says Crotus, " when men have spoken of you, have I been wont to call you the father of our country, worthy of a golden statue and a yearly festival ; you, who first dared to call away the people of the Lord from noxious opinions and to assert true piety. Go on as you have begun ; leave an example to posterity ; for you do these things not without divine assistance. This was the purpose of Providence, when, before the town of Erfurt, as you were returning from your parents, the bolt from heaven struck you down, like another Paul, and drove you from our companionship, most sad at your departure, into the Augustinian Convent. And although our opportunities of intimacy after that were few, nevertheless my mind always remained yours, as you might have seen from the letter wdiich last year I wrote to you at Augsburg, if in- deed it was delivered to you." In the following April Hutten, who had already opened the communication with Lutlier of which we must presently speak, met his old friend at Bamberg, and in consultation with him no doubt drew closer the bonds which were about to unite the Pteformer with the Erfurt humanists. Eoban Hess was prepared to pour the stream of his facile enthusiasm into this fresh channel ; Cordus had already found matter for many a bitter epigram in the corrup- tions and oppressions of the Church. It was significant of the change that was setting in, that at the end of 1519 the Uni- versity declined to pronounce any judgment on the disputation at Leipzig ; and when at Michaelmas 1520 Crotus Eubianus was elected Eector, the alliance between the Eeformers and the humanists was complete.^ 1 Hutteni 0pp. ed. Bucking, vol. i. pp. 307, 311 ; Eiiders, vol. ii. pp. 204, 211. VII HUMAXISTS OF GREAT CITIES 335 A curious monument of this fusion of feeling (which, it may be remarked in passing, did not last very long) is extant in the illuminated page which, according to custom, the new IJector prefixed to the entries made during his term of office. It is entirely heraldic. The centre is occupied by Crotus's own arms — a hand coming out of a cloud holding a hunter's horn, in evident allusion to his name Johann Jager. Eound this are the heraldic devices of sixteen of his friends, some humanists, some Eeformers, who perhaps never before or after found themselves associated in so friendly a contact. The four corners are held by the great names of Luther, Erasmus, Eeuchlin, and Mutian. The other shields are those of Hutten, Eoban Hess, Justus Jonas, Melanchthon, Lange, Henry Eberbach, Eorchheimius, Urbanus Ehegius, Draco, Adam Crafll, Joachim Camerarius, and Justus Menius. Underneath stands the legend — " Ut numquam potuit sine cliaris vivere amicis, Hie etiam sohis noluit esse Crotus ; Picta vides variis fulgere toreixmata signis, His sociis nostrae praefuit ille scholae" — while the initials E. H. refer to the pen of Eoban Hess. There is something almost pathetic in the aspect of this brilliant heraldic scroll, which is illustrated by so many famous names and commemorates transitory as well as durable friend- ships.^ But with a certain class of humanists Luther had made his own way. In every populous German city, whether the seat of a university or not, there were men who culti- vated the new learning, kept up an active correspondence with one another, and felt that they belonged to the one republic of letters. Among these, both of the older and the younger generation, Luther was the occasion of great searchings of heart. Some of the seniors felt, like Eeuchlin, indisposed to embark in their old age on what promised to be a boundless ocean of controversy ; the Church, though they would willingly see it reformed, was good enough for them, and they had no sympathy with the peculiar theological opinions which were the mainspring of the new movement. For others, Luther 1 Weissenborn, vol. ii. p. 317 ; Kampsclmltc, vol. i. p. 2:>S. 336 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. more decisively exercised the function of a prophet, in reveal- ing their secret thoughts and making them conscious of their own position. Some of these, Bucer, Brenz, Schnepf, at Heidelberg ; Hedio and Capito, at Mainz ; Oekolampadius, at Augsburg, were afterwards chief instruments of the Eeforma- tion either in Germany or Switzerland, men who, though at a distance from Wittenberg, owed their first religious inspiration to Luther's writings and took the tone of their life from him. At Leipzig we find Mosellanus, a professed humanist, lectur- ing in 1519 on the letters of St. Paul, and declaring that " all the studious youths are eager in the pursuit of sacred literature." ^ On the other hand, Eck and Emser and Cochlaeus, all of whom, in various' degree, would have a right to be counted among the humanists, found occupation and notoriety in bitter and persistent opposition to Luther. The old antithesis between theologian and poet was in two ways being obliterated. First, the new learning was conquering ground hitherto resolutely held against it by the champions of scholasticism and the Church, so that to read Greek and Latin was no longer a sufficient ground of ecclesiastical sus- picion ; and next the religious principles of Wittenberg had made a fresh line of cleavage. It was quite possible with Erasmus to love " good letters," and yet to turn a cold face of neutrality to Luther. It would answer no good purpose to give a list of those who in all the great towns of Lower Germany and along the banks of the Ehine were either receptive of Luther's in- fluence or were preaching doctrines more or less akin to his. It may be enough to mention two cities, Augsburg and Niu'nberg, each of which held a Lutheran circle ; wliile each in its way was a centre-point of German commerce, and an ex- ample of the finest development of its civic life. At Augsburg, at the time of which I am speaking, Conrad Peutinger and Christopher Langemantel were examples of the new influence among the rich and educated citizens. Two canons of the Cathedral Church, Conrad and Bernard Adelmann, belonged to the humanist society, of which Willibald Pirckheimer of Nlirn- berg was the acknowledged head, liberal churchmen who were ' Tentzel, Reliquiae Epp. Mittiani, p. 43. VII HUMANISTS AT AUGSBURG AND NURNBERG lyj unwilling to admit that devotion to learning was incompatible with faithfulness to the Church. In 1520 Oekolampadius, afterwards among the foremost of the Eeformers of Switzerland, was preacher in the Cathedral of Augsburg ; and when, in that year, he retired in a strange fit of devotion into a monastery, Urbanus Ehegius, who had been vicar-general at Constanz, and before whom a lifetime of reforming energy still stretclied, was invited to fill his place. And it was in December 1519 that an effective blow for Luther was struck from Augsburg. In a pamphlet which Eck contributed to the controversy between Emser and Luther he made the scornful remark that all the clergy, except a few ignorant canons, were against the innova- tor. The challenge was at once taken up, and an anonymous little work, Tlic Reply of the Ignorant Lutheran Canons to John Eck, which was ascribed to one of the Adelmann brothers, but was really the work of Oekolampadius, showed, much to Eck's chagrin, that the ignorant canons were quite able to take care of themselves. The book has a special interest in being perhaps the first in which the word " Lutheran " was publicly adopted as a party designation.^ I have already mentioned the sermons which Staupitz delivered in Nlirnberg in the winter of 1516-1517 ; the effect which they produced was deepened and confirmed by the sub- sequent preaching of Link. The Augustinian convent was the centre of the new movement, which spread to every class in the city. With Christopher Scheurl, who had been professor at Wittenberg from 1507 to 1511, Luther kept up a confidential correspondence : to Hieronymus Ebner, another of the city Fathers, he dedicated an early work. Although Pirckheimer was closely connected, in the persons of his admirable and accomplished sisters, with the St. Clara convent at Niii'nberg, there was nothing as yet in the new religious teaching that shocked his sense of right or offended his prejudices ; while Lazarus Spengler, the city scribe, a man whose high character and gi'eat ability gave him an influence in Niirnberg dis- proportionate to his official station, was an avowed disciple of Luther. Hans Sachs, shoemaker and master-singer, who stood at the head of the poetic guild, which is one of the illustrations 1 Erl. ed. Op}), v. a. vol. iv. p. 59. Z 338 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. of Niirnberg at this period, had seen Luther at Augsburg. It is recorded of him that in 1522 he had already made a collection of forty of the Eeformer's books ; and in 1523 he celebrates his hero's praises in a poem, " The Nightingale of Wittenberg." Perhaps in the whole of German literature there is no more affecting passage than the entry which Albert Dtirer makes in his diary when, as he is travelling in the Netherlands, he hears that Luther, on his return from the Diet of Worms, has disappeared, and fears that he has been betrayed to his death. The dull routine of entries, recording the places which he has visited, the friends who have hospitably received him, the money which he spent, is suddenly interrupted, and he breaks into a passion of tears and prayer, which is often stayed and as often renewed, as if sorrow and indignation could not find vent enough. It is too long to quote entire, too sacred to mutilate ; we seem to hear in it the voice of the deepest religious gratitude to a quickening teacher lost for ever ; the cry of one noble soul to another, bound to it in the closest spiritual bonds.^ Two contributions to the controversies in which Luther was engaged, made about this time from Nlirnberg, are at once important in themselves, and curiously characteristic of their respective authors. The first, published some time in 1519, and written in German for the common people, was entitled "An Apology and Christian answer of an honourable Lover of the Divine truth of Holy Scripture, upon occasion of the contradiction of some ; with reasons why Dr. Martin Luther's doctrine should not be rejected as unchristian, but rather should be held to be Christian." It was anonymous, but Spengler made no secret of the fact that he was the author. An avowedly controversial work more charitably moderate in its tone, more completely penetrated with a certain sober and modest devoutness, never was written ; it produces at once the most favourable impression of the mind which gave it birth and of ^ Diircr's Briefe, Tagchiicher und und in Kupfer stechen, zu einem Heime, ed. Thausing, p. 119. At the daiiernden Andenken des christliclien beginning of 1520 Diirer ^vi'ites to Mannes, der mir aus grossen Aengsten Spalatin, "Und hilft mir Gott, dassicli geholfen hat." Ibid. 42. Unhapj^ily zu Doctor Martinus Luther komme, so this intention, so far as we know, was will ich ihn mit Fleiss abkonterfeien never carried into effect. VII GERM A N PA TRIO TISM 339 the force and purity of the religious impulse out of which it sprang. The second was a Latin satire, Hccins Dcdolatus, ■dcr abochohcltc Eck, wdiich, recollecting that "Eck" in German means " a corner," we may ti-anslate " the corner planed away." It was published in 1520; its author announced himself as Joannes Franciscus Cattalamhergius, Poet -Laureate, and the place and date of printing are not given. It was a furious satire against Eck, not without salt, but of the grossest and most personal kind ; not only making the victim ridiculous, but trampling him under foot in the mire of scorn and con- tempt. It is a dialogue in the spirit, though not in the Latinity, of the Letters of the Obscure Men, but full of a savage earnestness, as if the writer had a private grudge to avenge, and would hold no terms with his enemy. The authorship was never acknowledged ; but it was an open secret that the shaft was from Pirckheimer's quiver. At all events it was upon Pirckheimer that the insult was avenged : Eck was far too vain a man to forgive an assault which made him the laughing- stock of all learned Germany.^ There was, however, another element of popular feeling with which Luther had to reckon — the sentiment of German patriotism. That it was vague, inconsistent with itself, with- out fixed object or policy, did not prevent it from being strong. The revival of letters had led to the reopening of the records of the national past, the glories of Charlemagne and of Otho were not the less sympathetically because uncritically re- counted, and men went back to the days when emperors did not tamely submit to the Eoman yoke, but themselves nominated and deposed popes. The common people, to whom these things were little more than dim legends, saw with their own eyes the expropriation of German church revenues by a foreign race, who despised while they plundered them ; every benefice held by a cardinal's nominee, all tax and toll that was poured into the bottomless gulf of Ptoman avarice, was felt by them as an injury inflicted upon their German nationality. Wliat the patriots wanted was a strong Imperial government, ad- 1 Both the Schutzred and the Eceius urkuiiden, etc., Altdorf, 1 762. The latter Dedolatus wUl be found reprinted in will also be found in Opp. J/uUeni, cd. JLiedeTer'sBeytrag zu der Reformations- Biicking, vol. iv. p. 515. 340 ' LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. ministering justice and keeping the peace without fear or favour, at home and abroad, once more widening the Empire to its ancient bounds, and making it in reality as well as in repute the most powerful monarchy in the world. That this desire was doomed to disappointment all subsequent German history tells with one voice ; the active forces of politics worked in the opposite direction. The princes were intent upon rounding off their own territorial sovereignty ; the minor nobility, the free cities, had no principle of cohesion, and were incapable of united action ; no plan of common taxation could be devised which the several States would accept ; not even a powerful Emperor like Charles V could force new organisation on unwilling feudatories. The ideal which the patriots had in their minds was essentially one be- longing to a past age, which probably no cunning of statecraft, no enthusiasm of self-sacrifice, would have availed to recall ; Germany was slowly moving towards the anarchy of the Thirty Years' War, and the territorial disintegration of the century that foUow^ed it. But in 1520 patriotism was still a living force, for it compelled, as we have seen, venal electors to choose an emperor who, whatever liis other disqualifica- tions, was at least of German blood. The man who more than any other represents this phase of national feeling is Ulrich von Hutten. He returned from Italy to Germany in June 1517, and after a few months' interval, during which he prepared for the press Laurentius Valla's work On the Donation of Constantinc, entered for the second time the service of Albert of Mainz. In the spring of 1519 he eagerly took part in the campaign against Duke Ulrich of Wiirtemberg, with whom he had a private blood feud. This was the turning-point of his career. During the short war he contracted a close intimacy with Franz von Sickingen, the cele- brated partisan leader, whose history sheds so strange a light on the political disorganisation of Germany at this time, and- induced him so to throw the shield of his protection over Eeuchlin as for the moment to bring the Dominicans of Koln to their knees. In January 1520 he was again with Sickingen in his castle of Landstuhl, and endeavoured to win him to the side of Luther, as he had already won him for Eeuchlin. The FRANZ VON SICK IN GEN 341 result was a letter from Hutten to Melanchtlion, followed by another a month later, written on the supposition that tlie first had miscarried, in which, on Sickingen's behalf, lie offered Luther a refuge in his castle of Ebernburg. A similar letter reached the Eeformer, perhaps before Sickingen's, from Sylves- ter von Schaumburg, a Franconian nobleman, who, sooner than he should fly to Bohemia, as common report a^'erred that he was meditating, offered him the protection of a hundred of his own order. Luther's letters to both these new friends are no longer extant, but there is evidence enough that they put a fresh courage into him. " Schaumburg and Sickingen," he says to Spalatin, " have made me secure from the fear of men." He wishes' the Elector to let the Cardinal of St. George know that if he is driven from Wittenberg it will only make matters worse, for he will then take refuge, not in heretical Boliemia, but in the midst of Germany, where there are those who are willing and able to protect him. It is the policy of the hour ; Hutten urges it ; Crotus writes from Bamberg to recommend it. Wliether Luther ever seriously thought of adopting it, we do not know ; as it was, the Elector's friendship never failed him.^ Franz von Sickingen was one of the independent nobles of the Ehineland, who, from small beginnings, had become a power in the German Empire. By services at the court of the Elector Palatine, by a system of family alliances and joint heirships, and by bold " fighting for their own hand," the Sick- ingens had won a position of considerable influence ; and Schwicker von Sickingen, Franz's father, was lord of three fast- nesses, Landstuhl, Ebernburg, and Hohenburg, each with many attached fiefs. He was as fierce a robber knight as any of his mediaeval forefathers, as may be inferred from the fact that he laid a plot for surprising Koln and murdering its chief inhabitants, because in that city his dagger, which he was wearing in defiance of municipal laws, had been taken from him. From this beginning of the family fortunes, Franz, who had an undoubted faculty as a leader of men, went far. He carried on a great feud with the city of Worms. He led ^ Oiyp. Hutteni, ed. Bockinj,', vol. i. 1942 ; De Wette, pp. 448, 451, 460, 469, pp. 320, 324, -^40 ; Walch, vol. xv. p. 470. /.-. 342 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. border raids into France. He was put under the ban of the Empire by Maximilian, and by Maximilian again reconciled with it. When the contest for the Empire began, both candi- dates, Charles and Francis, strove to bind to their service, by pensions and honours, a leader who could bring into the field some thousands of disciplined men, and was willing to fly at any quarry, however high. He and liis troops formed an important part of the expedition into Wiirtemberg, which deposed Duke Ulrich, and, as they lay not yet disbanded in the neighbourhood of Frankfurt, were a significant hint to the Electors not to choose the foreign candidate. At the moment of which we are speaking, Sickingen had been formally taken into the Imperial service : not that he and his men were part of any regular army, or had specific military duties to perform, but that they were bound to throw their weight into the Emperor's scale should the necessity arise. They were an impcrmm in imperio, an irregular military assemblage, held together by common interests and the ascendancy of a leader's character, but only imperfectly subordinated to the sujDreme authority in the State. Some rude spirit of patriotism, partly inspired perhaps by Hutten, mingled with Sickingen's ambition. He regarded himself as the representative and champion of the lesser nobility, whose independence was threatened, and whose rights were invaded by the growing power of the princes. These robber nobles, for they were little better, had always been on terms of enmity with the Free Cities, whose burghers they thought it no shame to plunder upon the highway. There were indeed formalities to be observed, some colourable cause of quarrel to be found, a letter of feud to be delivered ; but this done, the roads were no longer safe for the merchants of the offending community. In Hutten's dialog ue Insp icientes, whi ch was pub lished in 1520, after his friendship with Sickingen had been formed, there is Vliterary defence of this state of things, wdiich suggests the theory of the origin of society which Eousseau made popular two hundred years afterwards. The cities and their inhabitants are the fruits of a corrupt civilisation. They and their trade are the centres from which an enervating luxury diffuses itself It can never VII SICKINGEN AND HUTTEN 343 be well with Germany so long as their power is maintained and increases. On the other hand, the nobles, each living in his own castle, content with the produce of his own land, reproduce the conditions of a time when the country was great, prosperous, and happy. What inference could be plainer than that when Sickingen intercepted a convoy of merchants from Worms, and carried off their wares to tlie Ebernburg, he was not guilty of any vulgar robbery, but striking a blow for the restoration of a pure and primitive state of society ? The same kind of blood ran in Hutten's veins as in Sickingen's, and there is no reason to suppose that he was anythmg but perfectly sincere in this apology. Nor was it difficult for Sickingen to persuade himself that he was working not only against the overweening power of the princes, but for the consolidation of Imperial rule, although indeed such armed organisations, as that of which he was the head, were fatal to all settled government. He hardly rose to the dignity of a revolutionary element in German politics ; for revolution implies some fixed outlook towards the future, and Sickingen and his allies were a survival of the past. Princes and cities alike were too strong for him. It was too late to prevent the territorial disintegration of the Empire. It was too late to treat Augsburg and Niirnberg as anachron- isms of civilisation. Sickingen and Hutten were well qualified to meet on equal terms of friendship. The former was the older by seven years, but his life had been spent in castles and camps, and Hutten, with his eager rhetoric, his quick satiric wit, his acquaintance with the new learning, soon became the intellec- tual force that guided the mailed hand. Probably Sickingen, in his rough martial way, was of the two the more suscept- ible of a purely religious impression ; he seems afterwards to have conceived a real admiration of the Eeformer, to whom he was at first willing to extend a somewhat careless protec- tion. Hutten, on the contrary, always appears to desire Luther's alliance on the political side. The motives which swayed him were not of the religious order. Even when he substitutes the Biblical phrases of the new school for the classical allusions familiar to the humanists they sound unreal. 344 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. But of his passionate hatred of Eome, as the power that at once plundered, oppressed, and despised Germany, there can be no doubt. Here he was in fullest accord with Luther, whom he would gladly have carried with him more com- pletely than was actually the case, in his methods of action. Tor nearly three years after his return from Italy, he is as it were groping after a vocation. He writes satirical dialogues in the manner of Lucian. He exhorts the German princes to unite in war against the Turks. He is the busy political agent of Albert of Mainz. Presently, in April 1520, he publishes two dialogues, Vadiscus, or the Roman Trinity, and Insjjicientes, The Onloohers, which may be taken as his formal declaration of war against Eome. Henceforth all his writings bear a gage of battle in the motto " Jacta est alea," or its German equivalent, " Ich hab's gewagt." Vadiscus is a dialogue supposed to take place at Frankfurt between himself and his friend Ernhold. There is nothing dramatic in it; it is simply a bitter epigrammatic invective against Eome, in which accusation is heaped on accusation with a wonderful cumulative force. Whatever Hutten has tcu= tell of Eome is cast into the form of a triad. Three things in Eome are without number — strumpets, priests, and scribes. Three things are banished from Eome — simplicity, moderation, and purity. Three things pilgrims are wont to bring back from Eome — unclean consciences, bad digestions, and empty purses. Three things Eome chiefly fears — that the princes should be agreed, that the people's eyes should be opened, and that its own deceit should come to light. Three things only will reform Eome — that the princes should be in earnest, the people impatient, and a Turkish army at the gates. And so he goes on, putting the same intense conviction of tlie moral corruption of Eome into an endless variety of triads, so arranged that one seems to arise inevitably out of the other in the natural course of conversation. Tlie Onloohers is much more after the true Lucianic model. Sol stops his chariot over the city of Augsburg at the time of the Diet of 1518, and having drawn aside the intervening canopy of cloud, converses upon what he sees there with his son Phaethon, who has sown his wild oats, and is a kind of assistant whip VII HIS POPULAR EXEGETICAL WORKS IN 1520 345 to his father. Perhaps it is the Germans who, in this dialogue, are made to feel the sharpest lash of satire ; their drunken habits are stigmatised in the severest terms, and, with then- general stupidity, are assigned as the reason why they suffer themselves to be robbed and trampled upon by the wily Italians. At the end of the dialogue Cardinal Cajetan is made to enter into colloquy with the celestial speakers, and, in virtue of the unbounded powers which he has received from the Pope, claims to be able to excommunicate tlie Sun himself.^ This, then, was the Germany in which through the year 1520 Luther became more and more a chief motive power. The year began and ended for him in controversy. Every month bears its own witness to the fact that his intellectual activity was strained to the highest point, and a less energetic, a less tough, a less buoyant nature than his must have broken down under the incessant pressure. Wlien the year began he had been busy for some time with a series of " Postills," or exegetical comments on the Gospels and Epistles, a work which he had undertaken at the request of the Elector, who desu'ed to withdraw him from the controversies which were taking up so much of his time and strength, to the quieter labours of his professorship. The task hardly had the desired effect, for 1520 was a year of per- petual struggle, but he persevered in its performance, and these Latin Postills, which were a prelude to a more important work of the same kind in German, were finally dedicated to the Elector, in a letter dated March 3d, 1521, and then given to the world. But however vehement was Luther's controversial spirit, and how little, in the opinion of some of his friends, under due regulation, it never diverted him from tlie work of building up the religious life of those who looked to him for guidance. Two or three little books, published at the begin- ning of 1520, one of them not much more than a broadslieet, expounded the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, tlie Belief, for simple folk.^ They were the foundation of the catechetical ^ 0pp. Hulteni, ed. Booking, vol. Vatcr Unscrs, vor sich nnd hintfr sich, iv. pp. 145-269. For Hutten and Erl. D. S. vol. xlv. p. 208 ; Weimar ed. Sickingen I may refer in general to vol. vi. p. 20 ; /Curzt' Form dcr zdun D. F. Strauss, Ulrich vu)i Hutten, and Gebote, dfs Glauhciui, und des l\Ucr to H. Ulmann, Franz von Sickingen. Unscrs, ibid. vol. .xxii. i>. 1 ; conf. - Kurze Auslegung des heiligen 0pp. Ex. vol. xii. p. 219. 346 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. works, by means of which Luther afterwards exercised so wide and deep an influence on the German people. To these must be counted the great Sermon on Good Works, on which he laboured during the first months of the year, and which he dedicated on the 29 th of March to Duke John. It was more than an ordinary sermon ; " it grew," he said, " in his hands into a not small volume," and became a treatise on a cardinal point of his doctrine — the relation of good works to faith. Like all his German works, it had a prompt and large popularity ; eight editions appeared in 1520, five more before 1525, while the Latin translation also was not without its numerous readers.^ The suggestion which Luther had made in his Sermon on the Sacrament, that it would be well to restore the cup to the laity, had excited an opposition quite out of proportion to the intrinsic importance of the subject. But it was characteristic of the Bohemian Church to administer the Communion in both kinds, and popular prejudice always eagerly fastens upon a visible sign of heresy. It might be difficult to draw the line between orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the matter of indulgences ; but to give the cup to a layman, was a proof of radical un- soundness which no one could mistake. In the last days of December 1519, Duke George wrote to his kinsman, the Elector Frederick, a very strong letter, in which he said that a book of Dr. Martin Luther's had fallen into his hands of which the doctrine was " almost Pragish." The word "■ Bohemian " was repeated again and again ; he identified Luther with the heretics whom Germany most feared and hated ; he called upon his cousin, as "the oldest and most Christian Elector," to stay a plague which threatened the dominions of both of them alike. Frederick replied in his usual calm, cautious way ; " he does not undertake to defend Luther, as he has already made clear to Cardinal Cajetan, and to Miltitz; but he hears that his doctrine is held to be Christian by many learned and understanding men, and he knows that he is ready to submit his case for trial to commissioners appointed by the Pope." Indeed the accusa- tion of Bohemianism, first started by Eck at the Leipzig 1 (PosHlle) De Wette, vol. i. pp. Erl. ed. D. S. vol. xvi. p. 118 scq. ; **.' 366, 376, 378, 405, 453, 563; [Sermon of Weimar ed. vol. vi. p. 196 seq. Good Works), ibid. vol. i. pp. 434, 447 ; VII IXHIBITIOX OF SERMON ON THE SACRAMENT 347 disputation, seems by this time to have spread far and wide. The story ran that Luther had been born in Bohemia, brought up in Prag, and instructed in Wiclif's books ; an accusation of Hussite heresy was even manufactured out of the engraved title- page, which, without his knowledge or sanction, the printer had prefixed to his sermon. It is curious to note how Luther thinks it necessary to deny all this, not only m a letter to Spalatin, but in an Explanation of some Articles in his Sermon on the Holy Sacrament — a tract, in German, which he published about the middle of January. But it is very characteristic of him that he will not yield to common orthodox prejudice in the matter of the Bohemians. In so far as the communion in both kinds < is concerned he declares that they may be schismatics, but/ certainly are not heretics. And all that he himself has said is that a change back to the ancient practice might well be made by a lawfully constituted council of the Church.^ But the matter was not allowed to rest here. The Bishop of Meissen issued a mandate on the 24th of January, dated from Stolpe, and sealed with the official seal, in which he inhibited Luther's sermon, and declared its doctrine to be con- trary to that laid down by councils of the Church. Luther, justly irritated by this unmistakable attempt to brand him as a heretic, quickly replied in an "Answer to the Placard," ^ which has been issued under the seal of the official at Stolpe. He chose to believe that such a document, so unguarded, so calumnious, so malicious, could not have been published with the knowledge and consent of the Bishop, and accordingly assumed a bearing towards its supposed author which would not have been respectful to a Father of the Church. He pointed out with unanswerable logic that his only offence had been to desire that a change might be introduced on the authority of a council, and vehemently denied the heresy imputed to him of believing that the Body and Blood of Christ were not to be partaken of under either species. But the contention was waxing somewhat warm, and Frederick, or Spalatin for him, became alarmed. How moderate this im- 1 Loscher, vol. iii. p. 920 scq. ; De ^ Erl. D. S. vol. xxvii. p. 77 seq.; Wette, vol. i. p. 390. Erl. D. S. vol. Latin, Ojjp. v. a. vol. iv. p. 136 ; xxvii. p. Id seq.; Weimar eel. vol. vi. p. Weimar ed. vol. vi. pp. 135 scq., 142 76 seq. scq. 348 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. petuous theologian, who seemed bent upon making the line of policy which the Elector was still willmg to pursue impossible ? Luther's letters make it plain that he was assailed by frequent remonstrances from Spalatin on what the latter thinks his violence and contentiousness ; while the chaplain is especially shocked that he should so unsparingly criticise an episcopal mandate. In some respects, Luther is not unwilling to excuse himself : " I am certainly," he says to his friend,^ " of a quick hand and a ready memory, so that what I write rather flows from me than is deliberately put forth. Even so, I am not sufficient for the occasion ; what happens to others who are slower, I wonder." Again, a little later : ^ " I cannot deny that I am somewhat more vehement than I ought to be ; and as my opponents know it they should not provoke the dog. How difficult it is to temper heat and pen you may learn even from your own case. This is the reason why I am always vexed 'to be involved in public affairs ; and the more I am vexed the more I am involved against my will. And that not without the cruellest accusa- tions, directed against myself and the Word of God : whereby it happens, that if I were carried away neither by heat nor by pen, even a stony mind might be moved to arms by the very indignity of the thing — and how much more I who am hot and have a pen that is not altogether blunt ? By these monsters I am. borne beyond the decorum of modesty. And at the same time I wonder whence that new religion has arisen, according to which whatever is said against an adversary is called an insult. What do you think of Christ ? Was He an utterer of insults when He called the Jews an adulterous and perverse generation, the offspring of vipers, hypocrites, children of the devil ? And then Paul ? " "I beseech you," he says in the same letter,^ " if you think rightly of the Gospel, not to suppose that it can be promoted without tumult, scandal, sedition. You will not make a pen out of a sword, or peace out of war ; the word of God is a sword, is war, is ruin, is scandal, is perdition, is poison ; and, as Amos says, it meets the sons of Ephraim like a bear in the way and a lioness in the wood. I wrote much more vehemently against Emser, 1 De AVette, vol. i. p. 405. - Ibid. p. 418. ^ ^j^vz. p. 417. VII COMMENTARY ON GALATIAXS 349 Eck, Tetzel, and you did not complain." Other passages of the same kind might be quoted ; but though Luther felt the danger of an ungoverned pen, he was not disposed to yield an inch to remonstrance. "I have delivered and oflered myself in the name of the Lord : His will be done. Who asked Him to make me a Doctor ? If He has made me one, let Him have me for Himself, or again destroy me, if He repents having created me. . . . This alone I care for, that the Lord may be propitious to me in those causes of mine which are between me and Himself." ^ Nevertheless Luther, probably at Spalatin's instigation, made another attempt to conciliate his ecclesiastical superiors. On the 4th of February he wrote two letters, one to the Archbishox3 of Mainz, the other to the Bishop of Merseburg, the prelate who had attempted to prevent the disputation at Leipzig. They were couched in respectful, but at the same time manly terms, asking that his books might be read and fairly judged, and professing his readiness to be instructed. Probably the most remarkable thing about the correspondence is the courteous moderation of the answers which he received ; both prelates, indeed, gently reprove him for the vehemence of his way of writing on difficult and disputed matters, but neither ventures to condemn him as a stiff-necked heretic. Perhaps they were waiting for the decision which they knew that Piome was preparing to take ; but meanwhile it is easy to read between the lines that the Augustinian monk is now a power in the land, in treating with whom at least a show of courtesy is to be preserved. But in truth the conflict was deepening day by day. In the Preface to the first edition of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, published in September 1519, Luther had given strong expression to the resentment against Eome, which the proceedings of the Diet of Augsburg, and we may suppose the catalogue of grievances presented by the Bishop of Liege, had awakened in his mind. He did indeed draw a distinction, which was at this time a very real one to him, between the Eoman Church and the Ptoman Curia, the first of which it is not lawful to oppose, while the second ought to be more stoutly resisted by all kings 1 De Wette, vol. i. p. 391. 350 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. and princes than the Turks themselves ; but Hutten himself, in his bitterest mood of patriotism, never said anything stronger of the contempt in which the German nation was held by the Italian ecclesiastics who deceived and plundered it. Now, just before the 24tli of February, he first saw Hutten's republication of Laurentius Valla's book on the Donation of Constantinc. Its exposure of the legendary basis on which the temporal power of the Pope rested made a great impres- sion upon his mind. He is all but con\dnced by it that the Pope is that veritable Antichrist whom the world expects ; everything in his life, sayings, doings, decrees, answers to that supposition. It is like a revelation to liim, that the power which is exercised with such utter disregard of righteousness should be founded on a lie. Every day some scruple is lightened or removed, and he becomes a rebel with a quieter conscience.-^ Sometime in the spring or early summer of this year — the precise date is not easy to fix — Valentine von Teutleben, a Saxon nobleman at Ptome, who was also a canon of Mainz, wrote to the Elector to tell him that on account of the protec- tion which he extended to Luther he was ill looked upon by the Holy See. This, with a letter of similar import from the Cardinal of St. George, Frederick sent to Luther, with a request that he would advise as to the answer which should be given to them. He respectfully put the task aside ; but in comparing the two letters which he wrote to Spalatin on the subject with the Elector's answer to Teutleben, it is easy to see that he in- spired, if he did not actually write, the latter. It contains two passages which deserve careful notice. In the first Frederick declares that at one time he had arranged with Luther that he should of his own accord retire from Saxony and the University of Wittenberg, and that the retirement ' woidd actually have taken place but for the earnest interces- sion of Miltitz, who thought that elsewhere Luther, relieved from the authority of the Elector and the influence of his colleagues, would write and act still more freely than he had yet done. The date of this negotiation is not given ; was it 1 De Wette, vol. i. pp. 398, 401, Ep. ad Gal. vol. iii. p. 133 ; Weimar, 420 ; Walch, vol. xv. p. 1644 ; Erl. vol. ii. p. 447 seq. vii HIS WORKS CONDEMNED A T LO UVAIN Z-- KOLN 351 upon Miltitz's first coining to Saxony, after Luther had re- turned from Augsburg, and about the publication of the Acta Augustana ? The second remarkable passage in the Elector's letter is one in which he calls liis correspondent's attention to the growing learning of Germany, both among divines and lay- men, and the harm that will arise should men come to feel that Luther has been unfaii-ly, and without due judgment of his case, condemned. " For the doctriuQ of Luther has already so rooted itself everywhere, both in Germany and elsewhere, in the minds of the majority of men, that if it be not refuted by true and solid arguments and clear witness of Scripture, and he be put down by the mere terror of the Church's power, the result cannot but be to excite in Germany the sharpest offence, and horrible and deadly tumults, whence no good can come either to our most holy lord, the Pope, or to any one else." The whole letter affords a clear indication of the Elector's policy. He is anxious to keep Luther within bounds of moderation. He will do nothing to hasten the day of decisive conflict. But he rightly estimates the force of public opinion at the Eeformer's back, and he sees that it is futile to oppose blind force to reasonable conviction.^ Meanwhile adversaries multiplied. The theological faculty of the University of Louvain had early taken alarm at Froben's edition of Luther's works, and had sent it in August 1519 to their bretliren of the University of Koln, to examine and report upon. The divines of Koln promptly condemned the book, ordering it to be publicly burned, a sentence in wliich, on the 7th of November, Louvain cordially concurred. The condemnation was then sent to the Cardinal of Tortosa, afterwards Pope Adrian VI, who at the moment was doing his best to administer the troubled affairs of Spain, for his old pupil Charles V. He fully approved the sentence, and ordered it to be published. A copy soon found its way to Wittenberg, which Luther, after his own daring fashion, re- printed with an answer, in which he repudiated in the strongest terms the pretensions of the two Universities to constitute themselves judges of theological orthodoxy.- Next, a Franciscan ^ Erl. 0;:i;7.v. a. vol. V. p. 7; De Wette, - Weimar eJ. vol. vi. p. \1Q seq.; vol. i. pp. 461, 463. Erl. cd. Opp. v. a. vol. iv. p. 176. 352 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. monk, Augustine of Alfeld (usually called Alveld), entered the lists, with a work on the divine right of the Papacy. Luther's first intention was not to waste his time in answering an attack which he regarded with contempt, and he delegated the task to one of his pupils at Wittenberg, John Lonicerus. But presently, when Alveld republished his book in German, the controversial impulse got the better of him, and he issued in June a tract. Of the Roman Papacy, against the highly rcnoivned Romanists at Leipzig^ which is to some extent notable as laying down that theory of the Church which was a fundamental principle of the Eeformation. But about the same time an old adversary reappeared. Sylvester Prierias, dissatisfied, it may be presumed, with his former effort of that kind, had been preparing an elaborate book on the Papacy, in which he put forward the extreme Eoman view of its unlimited dignity and privileges. Before publishing this, however, he issued what he called an Upitoma of it, a brief statement of the propositions which he intended to prove, arranged in their logical order. This, though dating from 1519, only reached Luther in the spring g£ 1520, and he ref>ublished it, at the same time as his answer to Alveld, with incisive notes and a /brief introduction and epilogue. The large claims which ; Prierias made for the Papacy angered him in the highest I degree ; he thought that the book had been written with the express purpose of destroying the authority of Councils, and therefore of invalidating his own appeal. " If Eome thus believes and teaches," ^ he breaks out, " with the knowledge of Popes and Cardinals (which I hope is not the case), then in these writings I freely declare that the true Antichrist is sitting in the temple of God, and is reigning in Eome, that enpurpled Babylon, and that the Eoman Curia is the Syna- gogue of Satan." And again, " If Eome thus believes, blessed is Greece, blessed is Bohemia, blessed all who have separated themselves from her, and have gone out from the midst of that Babylon — but condemned, one and all, who have held communion v/itli her."^ But in his Epilogue he rises to a 1 Weimar ed. vol. vi. p. 277 seq.; Weimar ed. vol. vi. p. 328. Erl. D. S. vol. xxvii. p. 86 scq. ^ Erl. 0?)^;. v. a. vol. ii. p. 80 ; - Erl. Ojjp. V. a. vol. ii. p. 79 ; Weimar ed. vol. vi. p. 329. A TURiYIXG-POINT 353 still higher pitch of indignation, and in words which stand almost, if not quite, alone among his utterances, he says,^ " Indeed, it seems to me that if the fury of the llomanists thus goes on there will be no remedy left, except that eniperoi-, kings, and princes, girt about with force and arms, sliould attack these pests of the world, and settle the matter, no longer by words, but by the sword. ... If we strike thieves with the gallows, robbers with the sword, heretics with the fire, why do we not much more attack in arms these INIasters of perdition, these Cardinals, these Popes, and all this sink of the Eoman Sodom which has without end corrupted the Church of God, and wash our hands in their blood ? " I do not think that these strong words ought to be taken metaphorically. Probably Luther only meant them for a moment. There are others, written in a calmer and more deliberate mood, and of diametrically opposite tendency, to be set against them. But they were the wild cry of a passion that undoubtedly moved him." This was a turning-point of the Reformation ; a moment at which it was necessary to make a decisive choice between un- compromising resistance to Piome and some form of transaction with her. News came to Wittenberg that Eck was in Pome, moving heaven and earth to secure Luther's formal condemna- tion. On the other hand, behind the Reformer was an inmiense and growing mass of German opinion ; the religious enthusiasm which the new movement had called out, the scorn of the younger humanists for mediaeval learning and all that was connected with it, the indignation of the people against the vices of the clergy and the exactions of Home, the revolt of ^ Erl. 0pp. V. a. vol. ii. p. 107; Papal Legates, and carrying them off to Weimar ed. vol. vi. p. 347. the Eberiiburg. Tliat some such 2 Loscher, vol. iii. p. 848 ; Tent- scheme was at least considered probable zel, vol. ii. p. 157 ; Seckendorf, lib. is plain from a passage in one of Ale- i. sec. 27, § Ixx. p. 106 ; De Wette, ander's despatches, in which lie .says vol. i. pp. 445, 448, 449, 451, 453 ; that the Archbishop of Trier had Corp. Ref. vol. i. p. 201. iluch has warned him to be on his guard against been made by Catholic critics of a Hutten as he travelled from Mainz sentence in a letter from Luther to to Worms (Brieger, Alcaadcr unci Spalatin, dated November 13th (De Luther, 1521, p. 19 ; Ualan, Monu- Wette, vol. i. p. 523), "Gaudeo Hut- vicnla Jie/ormatiunis Lutficntnw, i>.'25). tenum prodiisse, atque utinam Marinum But by the very simple expedient of aut Aleandrum intercepisset. " What translating "intercepisset " as if it this alludes to we do not know; were "interfecisset," it lias been easy possibly to some wild scheme of to represent Luther as an accomplice of Hutten's for sweeping down on the assassination. O 1 354 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. the patriots against an unworthy subservience to Italy — all coalesced into one threatening force. If we may judge by Spalatin's letters, the Elector was alarmed at the impetuosity of his theologian, but he never withdrew his protection from him, and the offers of Schaumburg and Sickingen gave him a confidence which he might not otherwise have felt. Unfortu- nately Luther's letters at this time to the patriots have perished ; and room has been left for much misconstruction of his ' methods and motives. How far the reproach of sympathy with \ revolution can justly be attached to his name is a matter which \ can best be discussed a little later on ; at this moment it was iquite unmerited. Whatever were Hutten's and Sickingen's Ischemes afterwards, they were strictly constitutional just now. It is quite curious, almost touching, to see what hope every one connected with the party of reform places in the young Emperor. He is to redress all wrongs ; he is to remedy all weakness ; he will defend the lesser nobility against the encroachments of the princes ; he will restore law and order to a distracted Empire ; more than all, he will feel as a German should as to Italian pretensions, and will put himself at the head of his faithful people against Eome. Only little by little were those who entertained these expectations disenchanted ; only little by little 1 did they learn that the boy on whom their hearts were fixed was I Catholic to the core, and surrounded by advisers whose \ sympathies were neither anti-Papal nor German. Still, it was ifchrough the House of Hapsburg, and in accord with the spirit of Imperial loyalty that Hutten and Sickingen resolved to work. In the autumn of 1519, Hutten, examining the ancient library of the Abbey of Fulda, found a dusty MS., without title-page or author's name, which showed by its contents that it belonged to the end of the eleventh century. It dealt with the circumstances and principles of the great struggle between Henry IV and Gregory VII, and though, as has since been ascertained, written by a German Bishop, Walram of Namnburg, decisively took the Imperial and national side. This document, under the title Dc JJnitate Ecclesiae Conservanda, Hutten edited with a strong anti-Papal preface, and dedicated, as Charles had not yet arrived in Germany, to the Archduke Ferdinand. It was one more appeal to the national feeling, of which it was Hutten's desire THE ARCHBISHOP OF MAIXZ AXD HUTTEX 355 that the Hapsburg Princes should become the representatives. And in June he left Llainz to visit Perdinaud in the Nether- lands, upon some vague hope of winning over the young prince, who stood next to the throne, to his side. The journey excited the utmost interest among Eeformers : Melanchthon reported the fact in terms of exultant expectation : " what, therefore," he adds, " may we not hope % "^ The journey was a futile one. We are not ac(iuainted either with Hutten's plans or the circumstances which frustrated them ; whether he even saw Ferdinand is uncertain. He soon began to think that he was not safe at the Archduke's court, and turned his steps homeward. But it was only to find that he had lost his footing at ]Mainz. That he should have kept it so long is strange enough ; the editor of Valla's book on the Donation of Constailtine, the author of the Trias Romana, could hardly have been an acceptable servant of the Primate of Germany, especially when that Primate was one who was so little troubled by scruples as to ecclesiastical irregularities and corruptions. But in truth Albert of Mainz was perhaps half unconsciously playing a double game. He had a genuine sympathy with humanism. Erasmus was his friend as well as Hutten. Capito, who was closely connected with the humanist reforming circle, and who afterwards became the lleformer of Strassburg, was at this moment his counsellor and secretary. We have seen that he looked to the success of Francis I. in his candidature for the Empire to make him l*apal Legate in Germany. Might he not expect, if Sickingen and Hutten were successful in revolt from Eome, to be the first head of a truly national Church, a Pope in his own country, owning no superior beyond the Alps ? If these were his dreams, they were rudely dissipated ; letters from Leo X called upon him, in terms which were not less imperative because veiled with courtesy, to choose between obedience to the Holy See and rebellion. First, he was ofiered the Golden Kose, an honour till then reserved for secular princes ; secondly, he was told that the Pope had noted witli astonishment the position which Hutten held at his court, and the fact that books containing the most atrocious attacks on 1 Corj). Re/, vol. i. p. 201 ; Hutlcni 0pp. cd. BiJcking, vol. i. i»p. 3'25-356 ; vol. iv. p. 689 ; Strauss, U. v. H. p. 322. 356 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. the Holy See had been printed at Mainz. A private letter from Valentine von Teutleben, a canon of Mainz, who was then at Eome, to his Archbishop, told the same story in still plainer words : the favour which the Elector showed to Hutten made him an object of suspicion to the Pope. Hutten declared to his friends that the Pope had ordered the Archbishop to seize him, and send him in chains to Rome ; and it is certainly true that one of the five briefs which the Papal Nuncios, Caracciolo and Aleander, brought with them was directed against him by name. Under these circumstances, he thought it advisable to join Sickingen at the Ebernburg ; and the Arch- bishop wrote a letter, full of submission, to the Pope, in which he reported that the printer of the obnoxious books was fast laid up in hold ; while their author had betaken himself to his mountain fortress and the protection of his men-at-arms. Henceforth Hutten had done with courts, and from the safe eminence of his friend's castle he addressed one passionate appeal after another to the German people.^ Meanwhile Eck had not been idle. According to his own account he was summoned to Eome by the Pope ; his enemies said that he had repaired thither to negotiate a fit reward for his dialectical triumph at Leipzig. When he arrived there, probably in February 1520, he was received in the most cordial way as a champion of the Holy See. He took with him the MS. of a work which he had written on the Primacy of Peter, and on the 1st of April presented it to the Pope. Nothing, if we may believe him, could be more gracious and friendly than the behaviour of Leo and his cardinals ; the Pope publicly kissed him ; he was constantly consulted on the Bull that was to be issued; on one memorable occasion, as he narrates with just pride, " His Holiness, two cardinals, a Spanish doctor, and I," privately deliberated for five hours on the subject. The Sacred College was far from being of one mind ; the lawyers, in opposition to the theologians, still desired to summon Luther to Eome, and there put him on his defence ; while a personal contest raged between Cardinal Peter Accolti — sometimes known as Anconitanus — and Laurentius ^ Off. Hutteni, ed. Bocking, vol. i. pp. 356, 357, 360, 363, 367, 36S ; De Wette, vol. i, p. 486. THE BULL ''EXSURGE DOMLXE 357 Pucci as to who should prepare the iinporlant document. The draft of the former was in substance finally adopted ; and after repeated consistories had been held, the Bull Exsurgc Domine was issued on the 15th of June. This document, which like others of its class" combined an unctuous religious phraseology with a quite legal difiuseness and repetition, stated the especial kindness with which the Holy See regarded the German nation, and vaunted the patience, the moderation, the fatherly long-sufiering extended to Luther by the Pope. But it went on to condemn forty-one articles extracted from his works, and extending over a wide range of Christian doctrine. At the same time the selection of the incriminated opinions was not so made as to give any distinct or comprehensive view of the matters really in dispute between Luther and the Church. All books of Luther's, wherever found, are to be burned ; Luther himself is prohibited from / preaching. He and his adherents are required to recant within sixty days of the publication of the Bull in the dioceses of I Brandenburg, Meissen, and Merseburg ; and sixty days more are I given for the news of their recantation to reach the Pope. 1 Otherwise they are declared to be self- convicted of obstinate / heresy, and given over to the punishment reserved for heretics : / a sentence which takes a lurid light from the fact that the/ 33d of the condemned propositions is, "To burn heretics ig contrary to the will of the Spirit." The author of the Bull affected a judicial style ; but how little of the judicial character belonged to it may be inferred from the fact that Eck was invested with the office of Papal Prothonotary, with a view to the publication of the Bull in those parts of Germany where Luther's influence was greatest ; and that he was authorised to insert in the document, at his own discretion, the names of not more than twenty-four persons who were to share the penalties inflicted on the arch-heretic himself. Eck declared afterwards that he had unwillingly undertaken the task of publishing the Bull ; but if it were so, he soon overcame his reluctance, and showed no lack of energy in its performance.^ 1 Erl. Opp.v. a. vol. iv. p. 256 ; Walch, l.'iO ; RietlertT, Bnjtrmj, jip. 56-59; En- voi. XV. p. 1658; Pallavicini, bk. i. ch. der.s, vol. ii. p. 412. Tlie liull itself, with 20;^AT\n,Istoria dclCoaciliu Tridrnlino, Hutten's annotation.s, will be found in bk. i. ch. 12 ; Wiedemann, Joh. Eck, p. IluUcnl 0pp. ed. Bijcking, vol. v. p. 301. 358 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. A gossiping letter, written from Eome at the end of the year 1520 by we know not whom, and afterwards found among Pirckheimer's papers, gives a lively account of the state of opinion in the sacred city. There is nobody there, says the writer, who does not know that in most things Martin has spoken truly ; but the good hide their opinions for fear of oppression, and the bad rage because they are compelled to hear the truth. There is much difference of opinion as to the policy of issuing the Bull ; many good and prudent men are in favour of moderate measures ; but indignation and fear have conquered. To debate with Luther, said the advocates of re- pression, was not consistent with the dignity of the Holy See ; and the precedent was alleged of the seasonable punishment inflicted upon John Hus and Jerome of Prag. The two men who were most conspicuous on the side of severity were Cajetan and Prierias. The former, returning disappointed from Augsburg, declared that unless the Germans were put down with fire and sword they would altogether shake off the yoke of the Papacy : the latter went back to the precedent of Eeuchlin : if he had been repressed Luther would never have dared so much. Finance, in the person of the Fuggers, was on the same side ; it was they who had sent Eck to Piome, " a not unfit instrument of the Eomau Curia if he had not been drunken, for in temerity, audacity, lying, dissimulation, adulation, and other vices well adapted to the Curia, he was a great proficient." Nor indeed did his inebriety much stand in his way ; men said it was appropriate that a drunken legate should be sent to a drunken people. Aleander was a fit companion for him; the drunken- ness of the one was balanced by the Jewish birth of the other. The talk of the predominant party ran high ; everything was to be done to destroy Luther, who was a worse enemy than the Turk, and with him his doctrine ; the approaching Diet at Worms would be occupied with little else. The Emperor was to be assailed by prayers and threats ; the Germans were to be flattered and bribed ; in Spain advantage was to be taken of the popular risings. But if these things do not prevail, " we will depose the Emperor," said the high-flying Papalists ; " we will liberate the people from their allegiance ; we will elect another Emperor, who shall be well pleasing to us, in his place ; CARACCIOLO AXD ALEANDER 359 we will stir up among the CJerinans a sedition such as now rages in Spain ; we will call France, Englantl, and all the kings of the earth to arms ; we will omit nothing that our pre- decessors have been wont to do, not without fortunate issue, against emperors and kings." So far Pirckheimer's nameless correspondent, whose words, which have a certain verisimilitude of their own, may be taken for what they are worth.^ Eck, however, was not the only ambassador whom at this juncture the Pope despatched to Germany. It was necessary that the Holy See should be represented at the coronation of Charles at Aachen, and at the important Diet at which he was to meet the Estates of Germany for the first time. The political interests involved were entrusted by Leo to Martin Caracciolo, an Italian diplomatist of noble birth, who had already earned by his services the title of Apostolical l*rothonotary, and who afterwards received a red hat from Paul III. With him was conjoined, for the express purpose of dealing with the Lutheran difficulty, a more remarkable man, Hieronymus Ale- ander. Born in 1480, at a little town in Istria, and, as his enemies said, of Jewish parents,- Aleander's first claim to distinction was made as a humanist. Invited by Lewis XII he had taught Greek with great acceptance in the University of Paris in 1508, and had filled the office of Hector. Thence he had passed into the service of Erhard, that Bishop of Liege whose schedule of grievances against Eome had been laid before the Diet of Augsburg. By him Aleander was sent to Rome to support his claims to a cardinal's hat, opposed, as he thought, by the King of France, and there remaining to push his own fortune, became, first, secretary to the Cardinal de Medici, and afterwards librarian of the Vatican. A certain pride which he took in being a native of the Empire, his familiarity with German men of letters, and his long experience of Papal business, marked him out as a fit person to negotiate not only with Charles, but with the electors and princes who were to gather around him. Eck was entrusted with the thunderbolts of the Church, Caracciolo and Aleander were to ^ Riederer, NachricUen, vol. i. p. aspersion. Vide Balan, MonumcnUi 178. Reformationis Luthcranac, p. 58. * Aleander emphatically denied this 36o LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATLON chap. awaken against Luther the justice of the Empire. IS^ov were the latter less zealous in their function than the former.^ The news, which letters from Italy brought to Wittenberg, that these weapons were being forged against him, found Luther undismayed. To draw back was impossible even if he had desired it ; but he never thought of retreat. At the beginning of June he writes to Spalatin : ^ " I have a mind to make a public appeal to Charles and the nobility of all Germany against the tyranny and worthlessness of the Eoman Curia." This, which he dedicated on the 23d of the same month to his brother-in-arms, Nicholas von Amsdorf, was the famous address, " To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, of the amending of the Christian State." Even in the dedication Luther strikes a strange note, as if he knew that he was taking a new departure, which was irrevocable. " The time of silence is past," he begins, " and the time to speak is come, as says Ecclesiastes." He has put together certain matters relative to the reform of the Christian state, to lay before the Christian nobility of the German nation ; of amend- ment from the side of the priestly order, he has no present hope. Perhaps he thinks too highly of himself, that he, a despised monk, should address persons of such condition on a matter so important, "but I am perhaps debtor to my God and the world of a folly," and, like Paul, though he does not compare himself to the Apostle, would have his friends bear with him in his foolishness. " But as I am not only a fool, but also a sworn Doctor of Holy Scripture, I am glad that I have the opportunity of being faithful to my oath, even in this foolish fashion." He was about to make the great venture of his life, and this is the way in which he lets his irony play for a moment with the deep seriousness of his purpose.^ For the book was an indictment of the whole Papal system, expressed in the most trenchant terms, and laid before the princes and nobles of Germany, who groaned, or ought to groan under its oppressions. The opportunity was at the door ; " God has given us a noble young blood for our head ; " it 1 Pallavicini, bk. i. cli. 23. "Weimar ed. vol. vi. p. 381 scq.; De W. - De Wette, vol. i. p. 453. vol. i. p. 457. 3 Erl. D. S. vol. xxi. p. 277 seq.; VII ''ADDRESS TO THE GERMAX NOBLES" 361 needed but a resolute determination to shake off the yoke, and a free Council would do the rest. In accordance witli the fact that the book is addressed to the laity, Luther lays down no elaborate foundation of theological principle. He enumerates what he calls three walls of defence which the Eoman Curia has built up ; three principles, that is, which are assumed to be beyond controversy. First, that the spiritual power is above the temporal ; second, that no one, save the l*ope alone, can interpret Scripture ; third, that only the Pope can law- fully summon a Council. These he briefly demolishes, chiefly by the establishment in their place of the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers, and then proceeds at great length to enumerate articles of practical reform, to which the future free Council is to direct its attention. What these were will be stated on another occasion : it is enough now to say that every one of them made more or less appeal to the reli- gious instincts, the good sense, the personal interests, or the patriotic feeling of those to whom he was writing. He covers the whole ground of civil as well as of ecclesiastical reform ; and spares the nobles to whom he appeals as little as the churchmen whose corruptions are the subject of his invective. As we read this fiery address, of which the earnestness never flags, and which indicates from the first page to the last the most masterly grasp of the subject, it is impossible not to admire its splendid moral audacity, its depth of patriotic feel- ing. If Leo had up to this time under-estimated his humble and distant antagonist, he could do so no longer. Here was a fire that, if it kindled and spread, would burn up the I'apal system in Germany like so much stubble.^ And it seemed as if the fire were kindling. Four thousand copies of the Address were sold in a few days ; Lange called it a trumpet of war ; Staupitz wrote, tliough happily ton late, to 1 Luther speaks of a certain " Cor- and finally, in 1533, was i)ut to *lciith tisanus Dr. Viccius," from whom he by the Canons of Munstur. De W. derived much of the material for this vol. i. p. 46.'') ; Lauterbath, p. 19 ; Coll. Address. This was John De Wick, or vol. ii. p. 160 ; T. T. vol. i. y. 2..9 ; Van der Wieck, who had acted as pro- Bockin^', Epp. Obs. Fir. vol. 1. p. 263 ; curator for Reuchlin at Rome in his vol. ii. p. 502. [Sec further the W i-inmr litigation with Hoogstraten, who after- editors' preface to their edition ol the wards took the Protestant side, was Address, vol. vi. p. 391 scq.] active in the Reformation of Bremen, 362 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. prevent its publication ; Luther, with the modesty which some- times accompanies what looks to the world like excess of seK- confidence, said, " Perhaps I am the precursor of Philip, whose way, after the manner of Elias, I am preparing." A Sermon on the Mass followed at the beginning of August ; ^ then a little later a letter to the Emperor, which was doubtless written in compliance with the wish of the Elector. It was a respectful, but at the same time a manly appeal to Imperial justice. He had been dragged into controversy, he said. " Witness my own conscience, and the judgment of the best men, I have endea- voured to publish only evangelical truths against the supersti- tious opinions of human tradition, for which cause, now for almost three years, I have suffered endless anger, contumely, danger, and whatever of e\dl my adversaries can devise. In vain I ask for pardon, in vain I ofter silence, in vain I pro- pose conditions of peace, in vain I ask to be better instructed ; the one thing that is being prepared against me is, that I, and with me the whole Gospel should be extinguished." Under these circumstances he appeals to Charles, as did Athanasius to Eoman emperors of old. He does not wish to be protected, if he be found impious or a heretic. Whether his doctrine be true or false, let it not be condemned unheard. But the appeal of strong conviction, asking opportunity to vindicate itself, was never addressed to deafer ears.- This was the moment at which a final attempt was made to influence Luther in the direction of submission, partly from the side of his order, partly by Miltitz. A chapter of Augustinian monks had been held at Venice in June 1519, at which Gabriel Venetus had been elected General. Staupitz was expected to be present, to consult with his brethren as to Luther and the reproach which he was bringing on the Augus- tinian order, but he did not come. On the 15th of March 1520, therefore, Venetus wrote to Staupitz begging him to use his great personal interest with his former pupil and friend : ^ ""Wherefore we implore you, by your piety and religion and love to God, that if indeed zeal, honour, the advantage of reli- ^ "Weimar ed. vol. vi. p. 351 ; Erl. ^ Zcitschrift fiir Kirchcngeschichte, D. S. vol. xxvii. p. 141. vol. ii. p. 480 ; Kolde, Staupitz, p. - De Wette, vol. i. pp. 393, 478, 479. 325. VII FIXAL EFFORTS OF MEDIATION 363 gion and your own Congregation, are things tliat lie near your heart, to apply all your care, your eflbrt, and your mind to bring Master Martin back to himself, and, with him, to save our order from so great and so wretched a reproach." Such ii request from such a quarter threw Staupitz into the greatest perplexity. He loved Luther; he felt a profound sympathy with the religious side of his action ; he would willingly have brought him back to ways of moderation. But he knew that his remonstrances would be fruitless. A responsibility was cast upon him which he felt that he could not sustain. Per- haps his request that the Address to the German nobility might not be published was the outcome of this mood, and its ill success showed him how untenable his position was. When then, on St. Augustine's Day, the Chapter of the Congregation was held at Eisleben, Staupitz laid down his office. It is a curious sign of the spirit that pervaded the province, that it was conferred on Wenceslaus Link, Luther's early and constant friend, who was already committed to his theology, and who stood by his side when the day of decisive revolt came.^ Now once more, and for the last time, IMiltitz thought that he saw his opportunity. He had been flitting about Saxony, talking and writing to people in authority, and making himself pleasant in his convivial way, though not able to eflect any- thing with the steadfast Elector or his resolute theologian. But he persuaded the Augustinians at Eisleben to send Staupitz and Link as a deputation to Luther, to ask him to write a letter to the Pope stating that he had never intended to attack him personally. They came to Wittenberg in the early days of September, and found Luther willing enough to make the small concession which they asked. " What can I write," he says to Spalatin, " more easily and more truly ? " But the interview, of which we have no record, is deeply interesting, as being the last occasion on which Luther and Staupitz met. The older man retired to his new preferment at Salzburg, seeking in the Benedictine the peace which the Augustinian order denied him : the younger remained in the forefront of a struggle which grew hotter every day. The one must have been saddened by a sense of disappointment with a state of 1 Kolde, Slauintz. p. 327. 364 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. things which he could no longer do anything to mould and rule : the other was still full of confidence in the forces of a newer time. But they loved one another still, and the recollection of the past was strong within them both. It is well to think that such a friendship could not be broken by any stress of adverse circumstances, and that the last words exchanged between Luther and Staupitz were words of sincerest affection.^ The letter to the Pope, however, was not written just yet ; nor, when actually sent, was it in the form which Miltitz expected. On the 3d of October Luther tells Spalatin ^ that he shall postpone it to some indefinite j)eriod, as he hears that Eck is already in Leipzig with the Bull. Whatever schemes of conciliation Miltitz might still cherish, Eck had no wish for the cessation of a war on which his own present notoriety and his chance of future preferment alike depended. In virtue of the plenary powers confided to him, he had inserted in the Bull six names in addition to Luther's, in the selection of which even his Catholic apologist is forced to admit that he was influenced by personal vindictiveness. Carlstadt paid the penalty of the Leipzig disputation ; Bernard Adelmann of the Canonid Indocti ; Pirckheimer of the Eccius Dcdolatus. The other three were undoubted adherents of Luther's : Lazarus Spengler, the author of the Schiltzrede ; Sylvius Egranus, parish priest of Zwickau ; and John Dolzig of Feldkirchen, a professor of theology at Wittenberg. The Bull, thus enlarged in its scope, was duly published at Meissen on the 21st, at Merseburg on the 25th, and at Brandenburg on the 29th of September. The formalities required for Luther's condemna- tion were now complete.^ Eck's mission, however, was not regarded by the bishops and universities of Germany with very favourable eyes. It was an innovation upon ecclesiastical usage that a theologian whose reputation did not stand high, and whose vanity and prejudices were notoriously involved in the controversy, should be sent on a roving commission from diocese to diocese to insist upon the execution of the Papal decree. He found bishops inclined 1 De Wette, vol. i. pp. 483, 486 ; " De Wette, vol. i. p. 491. Seidemann, K. v. Miltitz, p. 25 ; •'' AViedemann, J. Eck, p. 170 ; Kolde, Staupitz, p. 446. Riederer, Bcytrag, p. 8. VII THE RECEPTIOX OF THE BULL 365 to make difficulties, to fall back upon precedents, to think more of their own independence than of the danger to the faith. Everywhere in the universities Luther had many adherents, especially among the young, who made light of Papal threats, and mocked at the pompous disputant who was their bearer. It is not necessary to tell in detail the story of Eck's reception in every city, an example or two may suffice. Ou the 29th of September he was in Leipzig, the scene of his recent triumph, where, if anywhere, he might have expected a cordial welcome. He entered the city with a ducal escort ; and Duke George wrote to the Council requesting them to present him with a gilt goblet full of silver coin. But it was Fail" time ; a considerable number of students, not disinclined to mischief, had come over from Wittenberg, and Eck, who was no hero, was soon in terror for his life. Miltitz, who happened to be in Leipzig, asked him to dinner, and having filled liim with wine and drawn from him his vainglorious intentions, artfully played upon his fears. Satirical placards were posted up and down the city; songs were made upon the Papal Prothonotary, and sung in the streets. He took refuge, somewhat iguominiously, in the Dominican convent, appealing for protection to Caesar Pflug, the Duke's minister, who inter- vened in his behalf, without much effect, with the Eector of the University. The students had by this time fully entered into the spirit of the game. Daily letters of feud were thrown into the precincts of the monastery, a persecution wliich at last so terrified Eck that he left Leipzig by night, and betook liimself to Ereiburg. Nor was the official reception of the Bull by the University much more favourable. It raised difficulties and appealed to Duke George for advice. Even he refused to accept Eck's copy of the Bull as necessarily genuine: he wanted to know why the original, or at least a copy formally accredited by notary and witnesses, had not been produced, and ended by ad\dsing delay. It was only after some months that these difficulties were removed, and the Bull finally accepted by the University. Luther's books were burned at Merseburg on the 23d of January, and at Leipzig a few days afterwards.^ 1 Seidemann, Beitrage, p. 38 seq. ; p. 26 ; Wiedemann, J. Eck, p. 153 scq.; Erlduterungen, p. 5 scq.; K. von Miltitz, De Wette, vol. i. p. 492. 366 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. It was in the last days of September that Luther first vaguely heard that the Bull had been promulgated in Saxony. Day by day the news became more definite ; then came in- telligence of Eck's ill success at Leipzig. This was the moment which the Eeformer chose for delivering his second great blow — the book, On the Bahylonian Ca/ptivity of the Church. It was an elaborate and resohite attack upon the sacramental system of Eome ; less vehement in style, as became a scientific theological treatise, than the Address to the German Nohility, but, for those who could discern the wide sweep and necessary issues of the principles laid down, not less trenchant. " I hear," ^ says Luther in its last paragraph, " that Bulls and Papal threats have been again made ready against me, in which I am urged to recant on pain of being declared a heretic. If these things are so, I desire this book to be a part of my future recantation." This deliberate defiance of the Pope, for it was no less, was issued at first in Latin, in the shape of a letter to Hermann Tulich, one of the Wittenljerg professors, but almost immediately translated into German. Then on the 11th of October Luther reports to Spalatin that the Bull itseK has arrived in Wittenberg. Eck had sent it to Peter Burkhardt, the Ptector of the University, with a request that it might be at once put in force, and a threat that in case of refusal the Pope would withdraw from the University all the privileges which his predecessors had granted. Luther's mood on hearing the news is one of scorn ; he is far freer than he was before, he says, being at last certain that the Pope is Antichrist, and that the seat of Satan is plainly mani- fest. To us it seems strange that in this extremity his thought should turn to the boy Emperor : " Oh, that Charles were a man, and in Christ's cause would attack these Satans." But the exclamation is uttered rather in despair than in hope. " Erasmus writes," he goes on, " that the Emperor's court is beset with the mendicant tyrants, and that no hope can be placed in Charles. Nor is it wonderful. ' Trust not in princes, neither in the children of men, in whom is no help.' " ^ The Elector was at this moment in Kolu. He had got so 1 Erl. Ojyp. V. a. vol. v. p. US; - De Wette, vol. i. pp. 488, 489, 493, "Weimar, vol. vi. p. 573. 494, 495 ; Walch, vol. xv. p. 1874. VII FREDERICK AND THE XUXCIOS A T KOLX 367 far ou his way to Aachen, to be present at the coronation of the Emperor, when gout overtook him and prevented his further journey. Here there came to him a letter from Burkhardt asking what the University was to do, and no doubt hinting its unwillingness to take any steps against its most distinguished member. But Frederick had his own battle to tight. As soon as the coronation was over, Caracciolo and Aleander had sought a formal interview with him ; had delivered to him the Papal briefs of which they were the bearers ; and had de- manded of him, first, that he would cause Luther's books to be burned in his dominions, and next that he would arrest the culprit, and either subject him to condign punishment, or send him to Eome for that purpose. The tone of the Papal mes- sengers, probably raised by what they knew of the Emperor's Catholic sympathies, was high and confident. Emperor and princes, they said, were agreed on this matter ; Frederick alone stood out. But indeed the very existence of the Empire depended upon its obedience to Eome ; Greece had fallen away from the faith, and the Pope had transferred the Empire to the Germans ; and it w^as hinted, not darkly, that what the Holy See had once done it could do again. The private talk of the Italian diplomatists was, if we may trust Erasmus, nothing less than insolent. " The Pope," said one of them, " who has put down so many dukes, so many counts, will easily put down three lousy gi-ammarians." Again, " The Pope can say to the Emperor, ' Thou art a day labourer.' " Then the otlier, with such a look as a schoolmaster gives a boy before he whips liim, " We shall find a way with your Duke Frederick." It is not wonderful that Erasmus, with his keen eye for facts, and his cautious and moderating spirit, thought this an ill-judged method of forwarding the interests of the Holy See.^ The Elector's answer to the Nuncios, delivered to tliem a few days after, was such as might have been expected of him. He declared his attachment, and that of his brotlier, to the Holy See ; he denied that he had, or had ever had, anytliing in common with the cause of Luther, and that if the latter liad written or spoken wrongly against the Pope, or otlierwise tlian became a Christian and a theologian, it was displeasing to him. 1 Yon der Haidt, Uisl. Lit. Reform, i-t. i. p. 169. 368 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. A judge had been appointed in the case, namely the Archbishop of Trier, to whom Luther would show himself obedient if he were summoned before him under the protection of a safe-con- duct. Nor, again, had he been informed, either by the Emperor or any one else, that Luther's writings had been so condemned as to be adjudged worthy of the fire. If he had known it, he would certainly have acted as might be expected of a Christian Elector and an obedient son of the Church. And the document closed with the familiar request that Luther should not be condemned unheard, as he was condemned by the Bull, but should have a fair trial before "just, learned, pious, and un- suspected judges." The Elector's answer to Peter Burkhardt, which was despatched on the 18th of November from Hom- burg, enclosed a report of his interview with the Nuncios, and left the University free to act in the spirit of his reply to them. An attempt which Eck made after his ignominious flight from Leipzig to stir up Duke John, was equally fruitless ; the matter was referred to the Electoral Council, which was fertile in reasons for doing nothing. So the days went on, until in January 1521, Scultetus, Bishop of Brandenburg, in whose diocese Wittenberg lay, announced his intention, as he was travelling to the Diet of Worms, of himself promulgating the Bull in the recalcitrant city. But by this time the burning of the Bull had conclusively shown that all Wittenberg, pro- fessors, students, and citizens, were on Luther's side, and the Bishop came to the conclusion that it was unwise to provoke further opposition. Eck's failure at Wittenberg was final and complete.^ On the 11th of October, a day or two after the Bull ^reached Wittenberg, Luther and Melanchthon met the in- jdefatigable Miltitz at Lichtenberg. Now at last the scheme jagreed upon at Eisleben was to be carried out. Luther was ito write to the Pope a letter, in which he disclaimed any intention of personal attack, and was to accompany it by a document explanatory of his position. There was no reason why he should not ; a temperate statement of his case could not make matters worse ; though what Miltitz hoped from it for the success of his mission, now that the Bull had actually 1 Erl. Opiu V. a. vol. v. p. 243 seq.; Walcli, vol. xv. pp. 1875, 1881. VII LUTHER'S LETTER TO THE POPE 369 been published in the Saxon dioceses, no one e no salvation for their souls, unless with their whole heart they separated themselves from the rule of the Pope. It was excommunication against excommunication ; the Augustinian monk of Wittenberg against the Pontiff, whom all western Christians had hitherto obeyed as the vicar of Christ.' 1 De Wette, vol. i. p. 527. Exus- Acta,ET\. 0pp. v. &. vol v.j>i>.2r>l-255; tionis Antichristinarum Decretalium Kolde, Anal. LxUh. p. 26. The liinguago 376 . LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap. This decisive blow was followed and justified by two works ; one, An Assertion of all the Articles of Martin Luther con- demned in Leo X's Bull, which, dedicated to Fabian von Eeilitsch on the 1st of December, was really published in January 1521. Of this, which appeared both in Latin and in German, it is not necessary to speak at length. The second, also issued in both languages, Why the Books of the Roman Pontiff and of his Disciples have been burned by Br. Martin Luther, was a justification of his act, in answer to objections which were raised by some of the Canon lawyers of Witten- berg. In it he enumerates thirty propositions, taken from the books of Canon Law and the Papal Decretals, which he sub- mits, without annotation, as being worthy of the fire. But the most important part of this little work is its prologue, in which Luther gives five reasons for his action. First, he declares that burning of bad books is an old custom, and appeals to the example of Paul at Ej)hesus. Secondly, he says that he is a baptized Christian, a sworn Doctor of Holy Scripture, and, moreover, a daily preacher, whose business it is to drive away all false, misleading, and unchristian doctrine ; nor is his con- science excused if there are others, in like office, who neglect their duty. Yet, thirdly, he would not have undertaken to do this unless he had found that the Pope and his officials were wholly deaf to his instructions and warnings. Fourthly, he doubts, unless more evidence be forthcoming, whether the authors of the Bull are really obeying the commands of Leo, and ventures to hope that the books which he has burned, though authorised by his predecessors, are really not approved by him. And fifthly, because by the burning of his own books a great peril has come upon the truth, and suspicions may be raised among the untaught people, to the injury of many souls, (De Wette, vol. i. p. 532) in which adjecta per alios sunt : nt videant Luther announces to Spalatin the burn- incendiarii Papistae non esse magnaruni ing of the Bull is singularly brief virium libros exurere, quos confutare and business-like: " Salutem. Anno non possunt. Haec erunt nova." In MDXX, decima Decembris, hora nona, the Zeitschrift filr K. G. vol. iii. p. exusti sunt Wittenbergae ad orientalem 325, will be found a curious poem on portam, juxta S. Crucem, omnes libri the burning of the Bull. It is in Papae — Decretnm, Decretales, Sext. rhyming Latin verse, and may not Clement. Extravagant. , et Bulla novis- impossibly be the very song, or a re- sima Leonis X : item Summa Angelica, collection of it, which the students of Chrysoprasus Eccii, et alia ejusdem Wittenberg sang about the burning autoris, Emseri, et quaedam alia, quae pile. VII LUTHER'S COMPANIONS IX THE BULL 377 he, in his turu, by an instinct as he hopes of the Spirit, has burned books which there was no hope of amending and cor- recting to the preservation and confirmation of Christian truth. With this his defence is complete, his rebellion final. He has set up his own judgment against the authority of the Church. He declares that his action has been suggested to him by the Spirit of God. He condemns the system of the mediaival Church as unchristian, immoral, dangerous to men's souls. AVhat is to be the result of his revolt, what is to become of himself he does not know ; if he is safe to-day, he may fall into the hands of his enemies to-morrow ; but he has spoken the truth that was in him, he has liberated his soul, and he is content. He writes to Staupitz, " I have burned the Pope's books and the Bull, at first trembling and praying, but now more joyful than in any other act of my whole life, for they were more pestilential than I thought." ^ It only remains briefly to mention the six persons whose names Eck had inserted in the Bull. Carlstadt was carried forward into the full stream of the Eeformation ; at this moment he, like Luther, wrote pamphlets in his own defence, and made a formal appeal to a General Council. Of Dolzig we know little, except that he died in 1523. Sylvius Egranus, if we may judge from a single sentence in one of Luther's letters, more than wavered in his allegiance to the new faith, and afterwards joined the ranks of those who, without going back to the old Church, severely criticised the doctrines and metliods of nascent Protestantism. Bernard Adelmann of Augsburg thought a speedy retreat the best course open to him, and made his submission to Eck on the latter's own terms. There remained Lazarus Spengler and "Willibald Pirckheimer, the former in full sympatliy with Luther's theological position, the latter a man unaccustomed to submit, especially to clerical dictation. Had they been left to themselves they would probably have stood out; but the city council of Niirnberg, of which Pirckheimer was a leading member, while Spengler was its servant, was not yet prepared for revolt against Home, and urged them to compliance. It is not neces.sary to follow the 1 De Wette, vol. i. p. 542 ; Erl. ed. 0;v>. v. a. vol. v. yy. Mikscq., IWl acq., D.S. vol. xxiv. pp. 55 scq., 151 scq. 378 LUTHER'S APPEAL TO THE NATION chap, vii story into its details ; to narrate how Eck insisted, as his right, that the submission should be made to himself personally, and in the terms which he prescribed ; how Duke William of Bavaria intervened in vain ; how Pirckheimer and Spengler made fruitless appeal to the Pope. Aided by the influence of the Council of ISTlirnberg, which was moved not by Catholic zeal, but by desire of peace, Eck finally triumphed. Even so, the fact does not seem to have been properly reported at Eome ; for both Pirckheimer's and Spengler's names appeared in the second Bull of January 3d, 1521. To some historians it has seemed doubtful whether, in consequence of the deaths of Leo X and Adrian VI, and the rapid progress of the Eeformation in Niirnberg, the two offenders were ever formally absolved by the Pope ; but the question has been definitely settled in the affirmative by a lately published extract from the archives of the Vatican. It might seem at first sight as if the chief result of the Bull of June 1520 had been to enable a vindictive theologian to wreak a petty personal spite upon enemies who otherwise stood too high for him to touch. But it also helped to make it clear that there was no longer any resting-place between Wittenberg and Eome.^ ^ Riederer, Beytrag, passim ; Nach- richten, vol. i. pp. 167, 318, 438 ; vol. ii. pp. 54, 179 ; for Sylvius Egranus, De Wette, vol. i. p. 522 ; DoUinger, Die Reformation, vol. i. p. 135. [For Egranus, see further an article by Dr. Bucliwald, in Bcitrdgc zur siichsischcn Kirchengeschiehte, pt. iv. 1888.] For Pirckheimer and Spengler, Wiede- mann, Joh. Eck, p. 178 seq.; Roth. Die Einfiihrung der Reform, in Niirn- berg, p. 81 scq.; Brieger, pp. 224, 245 ; Balan, p. 18 (in the Bull, Spengler is curiously called Johannes), p. 279 : " Vi si mandano due brevi, uno per I'absolu- tion di quel due da Norimberga. " Vicecancellarius Aleandro. CHAPTEE YIII Luther's eelatiox to the theology of the latin chukch The moment at which we leave Luther waiting for a summons to the Diet of Worms is a convenient one at which to interrupt our narrative, in order to ascertain his exact relation to the theological system of the Latin Church. The year 1520 had been with him one of incessant literary activity. In it were published five of his most important works ; none of them long, but each marking a distinct advance in theory. These are the Sermon of Good Works^ the tractate, Against the highly renoivned Romanists of Leipzig,- the Address to the Christian Nolility of the German Nation^ the Prelude concern- ing the Bahjlonicm Captivity of the Church,'^ and finally, the little treatise, Of the Freedom of a Christian Man.^ At this time of liis life literary activity meant for Luther a gradual working out of his characteristic principles of thought, and a more careful definition of liis theological position. As we have already shown, he was not a reformer all at once. He kept his attitude of submission to the Church as long as he was able — longer indeed than could be logically justified, either by himself at the time or by his defenders since. He was sincerely reluctant to be thrust out of communion with her, and resented nothing so much as the imputation of heresy. At a time when he still held office in the Augustinian order 1 Erl. D. S. vcL xvi. p. 118 et scq. ; Weimar, voL vi. j.. 380 ft srq. nmar. vol. vi. p. 196 et scq. * Erl. Ojtp. var. arp. vol. v. p. 13 - Erl. D. S. vol. xxvii. p. 85 et scq.; et srq. ; Weimar, vol. vi. j>. 484 et .tt-q. jimar, vol. vi. p. 277 ct scq. * (Latin) Erl. (>j)p. vol. iv. p. 219 ; 3 Erl. I). S. vol. xxi. p. 274 ct scq.; (German) D. S. vol. xxvii. p. 173 ct.Kq. 38o LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. he maintained his characteristic principle of justification by faith ; he appealed from Aristotle, the Schoolmen, the Fathers, to Scripture ; nor did he feel that his action was inconsistent with sound Catholicism. It was only gradually that he /perceived whither principles which had become incorporated with his being were leading him, and saw, after a hard struggle, that he must either give them up or rebel against the Papacy. But on this account it is a difficult, and not a very useful task, to attempt to define Luther's theological position at any given moment. The period of flux and change is not yet passed. The road on • which he is travelling is plain enough ; but he is not to-day where he was yesterday, and it is impossible to predict how far he will go. Nor must it be forgotten that the peculiarity of Luther's movement was the enunciation of principles of belief which, on being worked out to their logical issues, were found to be dissolvent of the Catholic system. He saw with the keenest insight, he felt with the hottest indignation, the practical abuses of the Church, and so advocated a large scheme of disciplinary reform. But there is no reason to suppose that had this been his sole object he would have been more successful in attaining it than others before him. Wliere reforming Popes had failed, where councils had decreed in vain, where princes had exhausted themselves in fruitless remonstrance, it was hardly likely that a simple monk, how- ever eloquent, however earnest, should prevail. It was only under the pressure of an attack which was felt to be far more deadly that at last, after innumerable hesitations and delays, the Council of Trent was assembled, and the work of the Counter-Eeformation begun. The question thus decided was of revolution as against reform, the rebuilding of the Christian Church on fresh foundaUons as against the repair and cleans- ing of the ancient structure. The facts of Christianity were taken for granted on both sides ; but Luther looked at them in a new light, approached them with fresh principles of belief, gave them a different practical application. Of course his contention was that in so doing he was only reverting to primitive ways, and restoring to the Church the freshness, the purity, the force of apostolic faith ; while at the same VIII SCRIPTURE PUT IN THE BACKGROUXD 381 time he owned that he derived his chief intellectual and religious impulse from the study of the Scriptures. But the fact remains that the new system was in irreconcilable opposition to the old, that Lutheranism could not live within the Church, and that if Lutheranism were victorious the Church must crumble away. And this irreconcilability was perhaps most evident at the moment at which Luther's principles were first distinctly enunciated by himself and repudiated by Korae. Presently, when heretics of every kind bettered his instructions, and pushed his doctrines to conclusions for which he was not prepared, a reaction took place. He himself restated his principles, with limitations and safeguards, while it was reserved for a school of mediating theologians, of which Melanchthou was the head, to try to minimise the differences which separated Wittenberg from Eome. The Church of Eome claimed to be the visible representa- tive of Christ upon earth. Founded by the Saviour himself upon the rock of Peter, it was a divine organisation for the administration of the life of God to man, perpetually guided and governed by the Holy Spirit. Its claims, therefore, were exclusive : no other Church could live beside it ; Greeks and Bohemians were heretics and schismatics. It existed before the New Testament, which gave an account of its origin ; and it did not rest upon its authority so much as guaranteed its authenticity to its own members. In like manner the creeds had successively arisen out of its collective consciousness ; . it possessed the power of developing and defining doctrine ; the Church was not tried by conformity to any independent standard of truth, but itself authoritatively declared wliat was truth. As a matter of fact the Scriptures had fallen into the background in the system of the media-val Church ; first, overlaid with patristic comment and interi)retation, and next, woven into the complex web of the scholastic philosopliy, they had ceased to make an independent impression upon the clerical, and, much more, upon the popular mind. "While such part of them as was susceptible of pictorial representation lived in the sculptured porch, or glowed in the painted window, their plain meaning was hidden by mystical and allegorical interpretation, which misapplied them to the support of the 382 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME oiap. Church's highest pretensions ; and the most childish legends of the saints took their place in popular preaching by the side of the Gospel narratives. In like manner, to documents like the creeds, which were in different ways genuine monuments of Christian antiquity, were added forged decretals, upon the basis of which arbitrary canons of ambitious popes built up a vast system of ecclesiastical law, the origin of which was to uncritical students lost in the mists of an indefinite past, but which, in the comprehensiveness of its application to the facts of life, weighed with imposing authority on the minds of men. This mystic communion, which alone represented religion to Western Europe, was the sole custodian of the Sacraments, the sevenfold channel by which the indispensable grace of God descended upon the spirit of man. "Without participation in the sacraments there was no possibility of spiritual life in this world, or of salvation in another ; they were the machinery, so to speak, through which the grace, earned by the sufferings and death of Christ, was distributed to each single soul in order to restore or to confirm its spiritvial health. A sacrament is defined by the Catechism of the Council of Trent to be " a sensible thing, which, by the institution of God, has the power of both signifying and effecting holiness and righteousness."^ It consists, therefore, of two parts : an outward sign and an inward grace, but without the external element the internal cannot exist. And it is further essential to the nature of sacraments, that except in certain rare and carefully specified cases, which are recognised as exceptions to a general principle, they can only be administered by an order of priests solemnly set apart for that purpose. These ideas are closely involved with that of the apostolical succession. Through every age of the Church the sacramental ordination of priests has been handed down from Peter, to whom Christ delivered the power of binding and loosing. The sacraments are thus the tie which not only binds all true members of the Church in one, but which unites every generation with that which has pre- ceded and that which is to follow it. And it is plain that if the grace of God, which is indispensable to the weakness of 1 Catecldsmus ex deer do Cone. Trid. p. 116. VIII THE PAPAL SUPREMACY 383 liumanity, can be communicated only in this way — and if sacra- ments can be administered only by a body of men who are organised into a hierarchy, obeying one code of laws and animated by a common purpose, tliey furnish the basis of a complete and most effectual discipline. Taken in its crudest form, as apprehended by the common people, tlie theory amounts to this, that the Church, by its methods of excom- munication and interdict, can shut out men and nations from any access to God ; that it can arrest in this world the flow of the waters of life, and in another close, by its authoritative fiat, the gates of heaven. History shows that so vast and well compacted a power as this cannot be safely entrusted to any organised priesthood, however high its aims, however rigid its principles of" self- government. But the spiritual tyranny which lies involved in these principles was made at once more intense and more hatefid by the fact that it was concentrated in one hand and used for the basest purposes. It is impossible, in this place, to give even the briefest sketch of the process by which the federated republic of the Church became at last an autocracy, and the Bishop of Eome, at first only priinus inter pares, was developed into the Pope, who received unquestioned homage from all other prelates, and admitted only a qualified dependence upon General Councils. The establishment of the monastic, especially the mendicant orders, had much to do with it : the enforced celibacy of the clerg}' worked in the same direction. The claims of Papal authority, supported in documents the authenticity of which was not questioned till they liad done their work, were urged by a succession of astute and ambitious pontiffs : the position of the popes was strengtliened by the fact that they represented the rights and immunities of the Church against what was called the usurpation of emperors and kings. Nullum tempus occurrit Ecclcsiac was a principle of policy which the Court of Home never forgot ; a claim, tem- porarily abandoned, was never suffered to lapse ; and preten- sions, which powerful monarchs had successfully resisted, were renewed against weak ones. The mternatiunal position of the popes, once universally acknowledged, afforded a starting-point for fresh advances. One monarch, one national church, was 384 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. played off against another, with the inevitable result of lessen- ing the independence of all. The captivity at Avignon, and the consequent schism in the Church, seemed at one time likely to frvistrate the plans which such popes as Gregory VII and Innocent III had laid, and sanguine ecclesiastical reformers hoped great things from the Councils of Pisa, of Constanz, and of Basel. But the principle of the Papacy emerged stronger than ever from the chaos of discredited synods, and it was reserved for the popes of the latter half of the fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth century to show how much shame and wrong Christendom could endure without making a de- cisive effort to shake off a yoke which ages of use had bound upon its shoulders. I have already spoken at length of the moral consequences of this state of things, and have enumerated the abuses under which every Christian nation, above all Ger- many, groaned, and not without freojrent complaint. There is no real conflict of evidence here. t> ^hat Rome was a sink of iniquity is/(4](^hfe€^^ndisputed and indisputable. That the Papacy strove to establish its own autocracy over all national churches, and used the power which it had acquired in the most corrupt and venal w^ay, is proved over and over again, not by the invectives of reformers, but by the complaints of Diets and the remonstrances of orthodox monarchs. Every system of sacramental religion has a necessary tendency to the exteriial and the formal. The visible element of the sacrani^tK naturally draws to itself the attention of the vulgar,) to the comparative neglect of the internal and the spiritual. From the definition of a sacrament whid been given follows, almost by logical necessity, the anfel?e^ce^ that, once the external conditions are fulfilled, no intj^li?rial.,coli ditions on the side of man are of any consequence ; that the flagitious priest may administer, that the faithfeks recipient may partake of a real sacrament. A sacrament becomes an oipus operatum : a thing done, an item set down to the credit side of the account, whatever the spiritual state of either giver or recipient may be. The same tendency of mind illus- trates itself in the theory of good works, which grew out of the Church's doctrine of penitence and the disciplinary system dependent upon it. The original basis of repentance, in the viii HIS OPPOSITION TO PRACTICAL ABUSES 3S5 love of God and the awe of His holiness, gradnally faded out of view, and attention was concentrated on the number, the variety, the severity of the penitential acts themselves, rather than on the state of mind from which they flowed. Benefac- tions to the Church, pilgrimages, devotion to relics, repetitions of the Eosary, fastings, self-mortifications, acquired a value in themselves — until at last, in the practical corruption of the doctrine of indulgences, a pecuniary equivalent was substituted for them, and escape from the consequences of sin was publicly sold in the market-placew ' The first step in the descent which led to this moral abyss was the introduction of an external element into the soul's spiritual communion with God : the ^ )second, the administration and interpretation of that external element by a priesthood, subject not only to the ordinary temptations of humanity, but to those which lie in wait for a sacred caste. It is a besetting weakness of mankind that the sign should usurp the place of the thing signified — that men should take refuge from the difficult simplicity of spiritual in the tangible attractiveness of formal worship. It is always difficult to state, with due theological accuracy, the principles and doctrines of the Latin Church. For while it boasts a continuity of history and a tenacity of purpose such as no other Church can show, it always turns one side to scientific exposition and another to popular apprehension. The Neapolitan peasant, who chides his favourite Madonna for not attending to his petitions, looks at the cultus of the Saints in quite a different light from that in which it is presented by the Canons of the Council of Trent ; and a recipient of the consecrated wafer may devoutly believe in the Real Presence without being able to give an intelligent account of the doctrme of Transubstantiation. Pious opinions are often suffered to grow up in the Church, to which in due time the seal of infallibility may or may not be set, according to tlie exigencies of the case. The Counter- Reformation quietly ignored the abuses which had gatliered round the doctrine of imlulgcnces ; while, on the other hand, we have seen in our own day that theory of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, about which Dominicans and Franciscans wrangled so long, adopted as an article of faith. But there can be no uncertainty a.s to either 386 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. the inforuiing principles, the ruling tendencies of the Catholic system, or as to the practical abuses of it which confronted Luther. These were the formality and hoUowness- which characterised so large a part of religious worship ; the super- stition attaching to relics, places of pilgrimage, indulgences, popular miracles ; the shameless immorality of Eome and the Papal Court ; the oppressions and extortions practised upon Germany in the name of ecclesiastical law and order ; the scandals of clerical celibacy ; the abuses of monasticism ; the decline of national morals. The contention of Erasmus was, that a wider knowledge of Christian antiquity and the exten- sion of " good letters " would cure these evils ; of such men as Duke George, that the Church itself could effect a disciplinary reform, if only its princes and potentates would set about the task in earnest. It was the peculiarity of Luther to discern that " the whole head was sick and the whole heart faint," and that only new principles of belief could lead to a purer practice. The central and germinal point of Luther's theological system was his doctrine of justification by faith. When he was engaged in his cell at Erfurt in working out the problem •of his spiritual fate, the difficulty which perplexed him was how to please God, and how to know, with a certainty that should bring peace with it, that he had pleased Him. The most painful performance of ritual duty involved no such assurance ; and it was equally absent from the struggles of his heart for a perfect love and a complete service. It lay in the very nature of the case that it was impossible to know that the conditions of acceptance with God were all fulfilled ; the troubled spirit loaded itself with perpetually fresh self- accusation ; nor could it venture to believe that there was no false note in the most passionate penitence, no flaw in the most carefiilly planned obedience. And the God who asked this full tale of sacrifice was no benignant Father stooping down in love upon His children, and meeting their offering half-way, but a stern, almost a vindictive Judge, who visited in wrath the servants who had failed to perform an impossible task. Out of this terrible slough of despond Luther was extricated by the doctrine of justification by faith. When •once he believed that Christ had already done for him what JUSTIFICA TION B Y FAITH 3S7 he could not do for himself; that his sins and shortcomings were Christ's, Christ's strength, purity, obedience, liis ; and that God, whom he could never believe would accept him for his own sake, was infinitely propitious to him for his Saviour's siikc, the burthen fell from his shoulders, the sadness was lifted from his heart. The impossible task of pleasing God was at an end, for he knew that in Christ He was evermore gracious ; while for the hard service of the slave was substituted the child's happy obedience. And, first, from this sense of the free reconciliation of the soul with God, and next, from its intimate incorporation with the living holiness of Christ, fiow an eagerness to please God, a natural inclination of the will towards all godliness, which are fruitful in good works. That which was before a toil, a task, a struggle, becomes an unforced and happy activity of the spirit, which performs the will of God because in its marriage with Christ it is one with God. ^ Justification by faith, thus conceived, is essentially a ^ spiritual, almost a mystical doctrine. It reduces the elements of religion to the simplest possible. On the one side there is the weak and sinful soul of man, desiring, under the intiuence of divine grace, to be at one with God. On the other, there is the spectacle of the Saviour's love, the pathetic reality of His atoning sacrifice, the promise of reconciliation with the Father which He holds out. And faith grasps the promise — that is all. N"othing more is needed. In that single act all the possibilities of the spiritual life are involved. It breeds ga-ati- tude, affection, aspiration, self-mastery, self-denial; while all grow into finer strength and a more rounded symmetry as the soul draws vital energy from its mystic connnunion with Christ. At the same time there is nothing miraculous in tliis; the process is in strict accordance with well-known laws of human nature. Men are moved by their affections and passions : especially are all great moral changes effectetl in a certain fire of the soul ; what they vehemently hjve draws them to itself and moulds them into its own likeness. So Luther found the force which, making him a new creature, gave him peace for struggle, hai)py obedience for hopeless effort, a merciful Father for an inexorable Judge, in the love and gratitude which the acceptance of the infinite boon 388 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. offered by Christ awoke in his heart. But in this process there is no formal element whatever. It is a matter simply between the soul and its Sa\dour. No material conditions are attached to it. It is all conducted in the secrecy of divine communion. It asks for no witnesses ; it needs no guarantees ; it is complete in itself. A soul set free from the bondage of sin into the liberty of the sons of God has everything, and knows that it has everything. That this doctrine needed to be fenced about on the side of antinomianism must have presented itself to Luther's mind at a very early date. If he had not seen it himself, his Catholic critics would have been quick to point it out to him. Duke George's characteristic objection to his preaching was that it would make the common people reckless. Nor was Luther himself always sufficiently careful in his enunciation of it ; his mind was naturally prone to that kind of paradox which consists in putting one side of a truth in the strongest language, without regard to balance or symmetry of statement. This was more and more the case as he grew older and felt more keenly the irritation of opponents ; but even in 1520 he could say startling things of his favourite principle. " So you see," he says in the Babylonian Captivity of the Cliurcli} " how rich is a Christian or baptized man, who, even if he will, cannot lose his salvation, by no matter what sins, unless he will not believe. For no sin can damn him save unbelief alone." But as a rule he sees the danger into which men of less spiritual insight, of a poorer capacity of moral passion than himself, are likely to fall, in substituting a mere intellectual acceptance of the atonement for that living incorporation with Christ which can alone exercise a transforming power over the heart and life. And he is very anxious to show that the doctrine of justification by faith not only does not wither the fruits of godliness, but is the secret of their life and beauty. This is the object of the great Scrmoii of Good Works, which is one of the characteristic writings of the year 1520. In it he first states and defends the theory of the relation of faith to good works which has been drawn out above, and then proceeds to apply it to every precept of the Decalogue in turn. The result of thus showing ^ Erl. Opji. V. a. vol. v. p. 59 ; Weimar, vol. vi. p. 529. VIII JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH 389 how faith is the living principle of obedience is a complete system of Christian morals. It was therefore, in all probability, not a mere accident that Tetzel and the Indulgence were the first point at wliich Luther attacked the system of the Church. Between 1507 and 1517 he must have seen with questioning eyes many things in the Eoman administration of religion with which he could not wholly agree ; but he was not excited to protest, or led to dream of rebellion. But the theory wliich lay at the basis of the Indulgence cut the doctrine, which was the principle of his spiritual life, across the grain. IMerits that could be transferred, even by the coarse connnercial process of purchase ; good works that were efficacious to salvation, and yet were purely formal and perfunctory, involving no pious passion in those who performed them, nor springing from any spiritual movement within the soul, were altogether alien to the theory that the moral life of the believer had its origin and renewed its strength in faith in Christ. The Eeformer, as he looked back upon himself at Erfurt, wrestling for peace and holiness, and find- ing them in the assurance of divine forgiveness, stands at the opposite pole of the religious life from the burghers of Witten- berg, who flaunted in his face the letters of indulgence which they had bought for so much hard cash of Tetzel at Jliterbogk. He had no choice but to strike and spare not : this monstrous perversion of Christian theory was like that " other gospel " against which Paul warned his Galatian converts. But the practical effect of Luther's doctrine was not confined to the deadly blow which it dealt at the traffic in indulgences ; it extended to the whole moral administration of the Church, as it was popularly understood. For it substituted an inner for an outer standard in the estimate of good works. Xot the regularity and the frequency of prayers ; not the toil of pilgrimages ; not the splendour of benefactions to the Church ; not the extremities of self-mortification — much more, not any vicarious fulfilment of the Church's demands which a man could purchase — but tlie faith which might or might not be hidden in these observances was the main thing. And it is plain that this is a matter of wliich God alone can be the judge. The Church cannot weigh, or measure, or estimate, or reward, 390 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. or sell it. And with the power of tluis treating human merits, its accustomed hold upon the allegiance of the common people was gone. Human life in this world passed into a region whither the Church could not follow ; and it could no longer reign in purgatory nor open the gates of heaven. Faith leaves the soul alone with its Saviour, and is, in its essence, incompatible with ecclesiastical estimate or mediation. The same principle, carried to its complete logical issue, is fatal to the sacramental theory of religion. For if faith, the immediate contact of the soul with God, be all that is required, and is indeed a force of spiritual change and renewal by which every other is superseded, no material mediation of any kind is necessary. Without faith no sacrament can be efficacious, with faith no sacrament can be essential./ It is true that this sweeping view of the matter is an, argument, not so much for reducing the number of sacraments from seven to three, as for abolishing them altogether; a measure for which Luther, in view of the Scriptural institution of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, was by no means prepared. But that he saw whither his theory logically led, and was not altogether unwilling to go with it, is clear from the fact that he more than once quotes with approbation Augustine's dictum, Crcde, et mandiLcdsti, " Believe and thou hast eaten." It would be only too easy to show that in after years he receded from this advanced position, and, under the influence of a doctrine of the Eeal Presence which he believed to be Scriptural, maintained that the body and blood of Christ were partaken of by the ungodly recipient. He is puzzled even in 1520 to reconcile the omnipotent necessity of faith with the efficacy of infant baptism, and is obliged to fall back upon a vicarious faith of sponsors, and a certain prevailingness in the prayers of the Church. But the radical incompatibility between a doctrine of justification by faith only and a theory of sacraments remained ; and if Luther failed fully to recognise it, it became the acknowledged basis of a more advanced and logical Protestantism than his. The Prelude on the Bahylonicm Captivity of the Church made its attack on this line. A sacrament Luther defines to be a promise made by God to man, accompanied by a material LUTHER'S THEORY OF THE SACRAMENTS 391 sign which sets its seal, as it were, upon the covenant. Thus, for instance, in the Lord's Supper there is both a testanient and a sacrament ; first, the will of the dying Christ, promising to His disciples the remission of their sins, and next, the sacrament, the bread and the wine, which are the body and the blood. But the essential thing here is the acceptance of the promise by faith. If that is so, no actual participation in the material symbols is necessary. "Believe and thou hast eaten." Yet if this is what the mass really is, it cannot be regarded as an 02ms operatum which can be performed for another, or set down to a second account : " as well," says Luther,^ " be baptized for another, be married for another, be ordained for another, be anointed for another." The case of baptism is similar. Here the divine promise is, "Whoso believes, and is baptized, shall be saved," and the place of faith in regard to the sacrament is plain enough, until the ditHculty as to infant baptism arises, to which I have already alluded. It is not quite so easy to bring penitence within the category of sacraments, as above defined ; Luther finds the word of promise is, " "WTiatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," — but he fails to point out the correspond- ing signs. The other four sacraments — Confirmation, Marriage, Orders, Extreme Unction, he altogether rejects, as not coming within his definition. Possibly a rigid criticism might succeed in proving that in this cardinal point of controversy Luther was not always sure of his own theoretical ground, or did not apply his principles with logical thoroughness ; at the same time his general position is at once clear and unassailable. The faith of the receiver is the living element in the sacrament. All sacraments have been instituted for the furtherance of faith, which alone justifies. From this principle Luther draws many strong and sweep- ing conclusions. The mass is no sacrifice. Transubstantiation is an invention of men. Vows ought to be abolished as inter- fering with the efficacy of baptism. From the abuse of the sacrament of penitence has arisen the multifarious tyranny of the Church's disciplinary system. In like manner, to regard ' Erl. Ojip. V. a. vol. v. p. 47 ; Weimar, vol, vi. p. 521. 392 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. marriage as a sacrament has given the Papacy an opportunity of arbitrary interference with the domestic affairs of men which ought to be taken away. On the whole the principle of faith makes for freedom. Of faith there can be no external judgment or regulation ; salvation is, so to speak, a transaction between the soul and its Saviour, with which no third person, not even the Church, has a right to meddle, and upon which no conditions other than God has laid down ought to be imposed. Nothing can be more definitely outspoken than Luther's assertion of Christian liberty against Papal or eccle- siastical aggression. "I say, therefore, that neither Pope, nor Bishop, nor any man, has the right of imposing a single syllable upon a Christian man, unless it be done by his own consent ; and whatever is done otherwise is done in the spirit of tyranny." ^ " Upon Christians no law can rightfully be imposed, either by paen or angels, except so far as they are willing — for we are free from all." ^ Faith is anterior to the Church ; how then should the Church lay restrictions upon it, or annex conditions to it ? " For the Church is born from the word of promise by faith, and by the same is nourished and preserved ; that is, the Church is constituted by the promises of God, not the promises of God by the Church."^ Faith mvolves " the freedom of the Christian man." From the same great principle springs a new doctrine of the Church. It is the Communion of Saints, the assembly of those who have apprehended the promises of God by faith. But the principle of communion is internal, not external, and the lines of the invisible do not coincide with those of any visible Church. Nor can any excommunication do more than remove a man from external fellowship by depriving him of the sacraments, which are its material signs : it cannot touch the spiritual fellowship of which faith, hope, and charity are the essence. In a word, wherever faith is, there is the King- dom of God. Of this Church Christ alone is the Head, nor has He any earthly vicegerent. The Papacy, indeed, may be admitted as an actual fact: it exists, and is therefore to be ^ Erl. C|;jp. V. a. vol. v. p. 68 ; Weimar, vol. vi. p. 537. Weimar, vol. vi. p. 536. ^ Erl. 0pp. v. a. vol. v. p. 102 ; - Erl. 0pp. V. a. vol. v. p. 70 ; Weimar, vol. vi. p. 560. VIII UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD OF CHRISTIANS 393 taken as the expression of the Divine Will : men should not withstand it, but bear it, as they would the Turk, were he set over them. To this statement, however, there are two prac- tical limitations. " First," says Luther, " I will not suffer it that men should enact new articles of fiiith, and blame, insult, condemn all other Christians as heretics, schismatics, infidels, for the sole reason that they are not under the Pope. . . . The second, that I will accept all that the I*ope enacts, makes, and does, in order that I may judge it according to Holy Scripture. For me, he shall remain under Christ, and suffer himself to be judged by Scripture." ^ Each of these principles is suthciently far-reaching. Although Luther hmiself would have been the last to acknowledge it, although in the very book from which this extract is taken,- he speaks of human reason with a con- tempt that afterwards became habitual with him, they involve a declaration of the rights and duty of private judgment in matters of religion. Unhappily the time was not fiir distant at which he was to stand in the position of an orthodox theo- logian, over against heretics who had pushed his characteristic doctrines to unwelcome conclusions, and his principles would not bear the strain. The lesson of perfect religious toleration is too difficult and complex to be mastered by any single generation : if ever learned at all, it is from the slow instruc- tion of ages. From this conception of tlie Churcli we pass, by no violent transition, to the theory of the universal priesthood of Chris- tians. The believer, incorporated with Clirist by faith, receives from Him his royalty and his priesthood. We are all kings, all priests like the Saviour, with whom we are one. According to this sweeping doctrine, there is no difference between the peasant and the priest, save one of office only. Tlie former tills the ground, the latter administers the sacraments, and that is all. Orders are not a sacrament, but simply a matter of Church organisation ; and the " indelible character " of the priesthood is a figment of men. Suppcxse a body of Cliristiau believers cast upon a desert island, who Ijy popular election 1 Wider den hochbcruhmtcn lioman- » Eil. D. S. vol. xxvii. yy. 93, 94 ; istenzuLcipziij, Eri. D. S. vol. xxvii. p. Weimar, vol. vL p. 291 .w/. 136 ; "Weimar, vol. vi. p. 322. 394 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. chose one of their number to perform the functions of a priest — a priest in very deed he would be as long as he held his office, and when he resigned it, or w^as deposed, would become a layman again like the rest. It is plain that this principle, from which Luther never swerved, and which he apprehended with much more logical completeness than the analogous prin- / ciple of the purely spiritual character of the sacraments, ,' effectually undermined the disciplinary system of the Papacy. / It abolished the religious monopoly of the Church. It made it possible for a national Church to come into existence without at the same time cutting itself off from fellowship with the Divine Head and the in\dsible communion of Saints. At one stroke it freed those who accepted it from the tyranny of all existing priesthoods. More important still, it was a further step in the direction of bringing the individual believer into personal communion with God. No sacred caste could hence- forth claim a peculiar privilege of presenting men's homage to God, of conveying God's grace to men. Whatever functions rightly belonged to the priesthood were thrown open to all the faithful. Throughout the long mental processes which had led Luther to these results his method had been largely Scriptural. It was under the influence of the Bible that he had emancipated himself from the scholastic theology which had been instilled into him at Erfurt. Augustine had taught him much ; the Deutsche Theologia had interwoven itself with the stuff of his thinking ; but it was in his growing knowledge of the Scrip- tures that he had rebelled against Aristotle and the Schoolmen, and had recognised at last that there was an authority in matters of religion behind the Fathers, above the Pope, to which even Councils w^ere subject. He owed his own spiritual liberation, for the most part, to words of Scripture the meaning, of which he had painfully spelled out, first in Latin, then in Greek and in Hebrew. Under these circumstances we need not wonder that the Bible made so deep an impression upon him as to overbear in his mind the spirit of humanism. He soon came to value the study of the ancient languages only for the help which they gave in the interpretation of the Scrip- tures, and, for a while at least, carried away with him in the L UTHER 'S R ULES OF INTERPRE TA TION 395 same direction that born humanist, Melanchthon. Xo sooner had he taken his degree of Doctor of Theology than lie began courses of exegetical lectures, which, while they attracted large audiences and produced a deep religious impression, gave the lecturer himself the opportunity of gradually beating out his theological convictions and co-ordinating them into a system. Presently we shall note that his way of looking at Scripture was far from scientific, as indeed in that age it could not but be ; and he did not yet see the necessity of some theory by which his doctrine of salvation could be brought into intel- lectual accord with the sum of Scriptural facts and utterances. "VVliat had really happened was, that the Pauline theology, to which Augustine had first introduced him, had taken hold of him in the Apostle's living and burning words, had transformed his whole nature, had brought him out of darkness into light, had given him peace for disquietude. Naturally, what had so moved and strengthened him he proclaimed to the world. The words of his teacher might have been perpetually upon his lips, " I believed, and therefore have I spoken." Luther began by the unquestioning acceptance of the scholastic method of interpreting Scripture. According to this, it has a double sense, one literal, the other mystical or spiritual. The latter is threefold, as the old verse runs — " Litera gesta docet, quid credas AUegoria, Tropologia quid agas, quid speres Anagogia." The literal is thus the least important sense ; the true gold of Scriptural thought lies deep beneath the surface, and is only to be got at by much patient digging. Another difficulty is that the theory of the fourfold sense at once throws the reins of critical restraint upon the necks of commentators, and takes away all possibility of certain interpretation. Any one who has the slightest knowledge of mediieval exegesis knows that while the plain significance of Scripture was constantly passed over with contemptuous neglect, the wildest absurdities of mystical comment were the deliglit of interpreters, who vied with one another in their efforts to find eviilence for the doctrines and practices of the Church in the unlikeliest jilaces. It says much for Luther's good sense and critical insight that he cjraduallv abandoned a method which was not only 396 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. universally practised by orthodox theologians, but could claim the powerful advocacy of Erasmus. In his earliest exposition of the Psalter, indeed, he is upon the traditional ground. He makes the distinction between the literal and the mystical sense of Scripture, the same as that which the Apostle draws between "the letter that killeth and the Spirit that giveth life " — an identification against which he afterwards contended with great vehemence. He goes so far in one passage as to announce a sixfold sense in Scripture. But by the time we come to the "Decem Praecepta Wittenbergensi praedicata populo" of 1518, all this is changed. He enumerates among the ohenders against the Eighth Commandment " those foolish and inane dreamers who, playing with the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical sense," make of Scripture what they will.^ He thinks that such a fourfold interpretation of the Bible is tolerable only if regarded as rudiments for beginners. In 1521 he is prepared to speak more strongly still. In one of his pamphlets against Emser, who had declared that if the Bible were to be interpreted literally, it were better to read a legend of Virgil's, he says,"^ " The Holy Ghost is the all simplest writer and speaker that is in heaven or on earth : therefore His words can have no more than one simplest sense, which we call the scriptural or literal meaning." Whether Luther, throughout his career, strictly adhered to this principle, it is not now necessary to inquire : it was the general law of his teaching, and its importance cannot be over-estimated. This new canon of interpretation was one of the last in a series of facts which restored the Bible to a position in the Church from which it had been long excluded. It was to the task of multiplying copies of the Scriptures that the new art of printing first addressed itself. Editions of the Vulgate were repeatedly issued during the latter half of the fifteenth century ; the first Hebrew Bible was printed at Soncino in 1488, the first New Testament in Grreek at Basel in 1516. In like manner Bibles in both High and Low German had multiplied during the same period ; and though books were still scarce and dear, compared with the abundance and the cheapness of later times, the Scriptures had become accessible to all who ^ Weimar ed. vol. i. p. 507. - Eii. D. S. vol. xxvii. p. 259. LIMITS OF LUTHER'S BIBLICAL CRITICISM 397 seriously desired to read them. Now, for the first time, it was announced that they were of private interpretation : that to ascertain their meaning, and to receive their inspiration, no special erudition, no acquaintance with artificial rules of exegesis, no practice in mystical speculation were necessary, but only an attentive mind and a docile heart. On the one side, this principle laid the axe to the root of the jungle of absurd and contradictory theological comment which had over- grown the literal and historical sense of Scripture. On the other, it brought men's minds into immediate contact witli a literature which experience has proved to be more powerful and quickening than any other. Men have misinterpreted the Bible in all ages, have drawn from it many unwarranted inferences, have built upon it many unstable edifices of d(jctrine, but they have never failed to be moved by it. Tlie fresh interest of its narratives, the charm and the warning of its examples, the power of its words to touch the heart and to prick the conscience, attest the religious life which breatlies and moves in it ; and its spell is naturally the strongest upon a generation that has grown up in ignorance of it. And wliat made it particularly powerful as an engine of reformation was its picture of the primitive Church, which came like a revelation to men whose only idea of a Christian connnunity was that with whose vices and whose weaknesses they were only too well acquainted. To know Peter threw a new light on the character and pretensions of his Eoman successor. In such Prince-prelates as at once oppressed and plundered Germany, it was hard to trace the lineaments of the Apostles. Whatever arguments might be adduced' in defence of existing institutions — monasteries, celibate priests, indulgences, veneration of relics, cultus of Mary and the Saints, — it was startling to liud no trace of them in the Xew Testament. The Church was, as it were, put on its defence, and invited to account for its divergence from primitive purity and simplicity. At the same time, we do not find that Luther ever dis- tinctly asked himself whether the authority of Scripture was based on anything more ultimate than itself, or apjireciated the force of the objections that might be urged against it. These difficulties belong to a later age and a different ukkxI of mind. 398 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. It was not till modern criticism had done its slow work upon the Bible that the peculiarities of its structure and the diffi- culties, scientific, historical, doctrinal, which arise out of them, raised a host of questions as to the ground of its authority which are still the subjects of eager controversy. Some of the more obvious of these difficulties Luther soon began to feel, and had his own trenchant way of settling — a way which can- not be described as critical. But in 1520, and in the years that preceded, it is truest to say that the newly-revealed Bible had wholly taken possession of him. He was too deeply im- pressed with the truth that he found there, and the life which flowed out of it, to raise cavils as to its authority. It answered for him all the questionings of his eager soul, his restless intellect. It began by setting him free from the bondage of sin and death ; it sustained him in his successive struggles with hostile authority ; it vindicated itself as above Aristotle, Fathers, Schoolmen, Pope, Councils. He does not seem to have been tempted to go a step farther, and to ask whether the ultimate ground of authority was not in the interpreting mind rather than in the interpreted text. Till he presently found by woful experience that men could read the Bible with open eyes and not come to the same conclusions as himself, he thought that the path was so plain that " not even a wayfaring man could err therein ; " the splendour of the light was every- thing, the keenness of the perceiving eye nothing. He had no inclination to inquire into the ground of Scriptural authority. The weight and force of the appeal which the Bible made to him were enough. Nor did he ask himself. What was the Bible ? Were all parts of it of equal authority ? Were there books which, from uncertainty of authorship or want of general recognition by the Church, made a less imperious demand than others upon the mental submission of believers ? In the dispute with Eck at Leipzig on the subject of purgatory, Luther had drawn a dis- tinction between the authority of the books of Maccabees ^ and others which were more indisputably canonical, while in his Besolutioncs stqyer j^'i'ojwsitiojiihus suis Lipsiae disputatis he for ^ Weimar ed. {Disputatio L Eccii ct M. LutJieri Lipsiae habita, 1519), vol. ii. p. 324. CARLS TADT ON THE CANON 399 the first time uttered that disparaging judgment of the Epistle of James wliich he so often repeated in terms still stronger.* It was upon the latter provocation that Carlstadt entered the lists with a little book, Dc Canonicis Scripturis libcUusr wiiich was published at Wittenberg in the autumn of 1520, and fol- lowed a few months afterwards by a German translation, in some points altered from the original, Wdchc Bilchcr BiUisch seint. Carlstadt, who had been expounding the Epistle of James to a class of students, seems to have fancied that Luther's disparagement of that letter had something to do with jealousy and animosity towards himself, and devotes a dispro- portionate amount of space to the proof, that even if its Apos- toKcal authorship is uncertain it is not on that account the less canonical. But the tract is a remarkable one, inasnnich as it starts a discussion which, however important and necessary it may seem to modern eyes to be, the Eeformers almost unani- mously agreed to neglect. We find little to put in line with Carlstadt's LibeUus till we come to Faustus Socinus, De Sacrac ScripUirae Auctoritate. In Carlstadt's treatment of the inner ground of tliu authority of Scripture there is nothing new. He founds it upon the words of Scripture. He collects passages in which Biblical writers or speakers claim a divine origin and authority for what they utter. What is curious here is the use whicli he makes of Augustine, quoting his dicta so fretpiently and with such absolute respect as to expose himself to the imputa- tion of wishing to base the authority of the Bible on that of the great African Father. But as to the weight and sn]>remacy of the authority of Scripture he is very explicit. It e.xcludes all other authority. It furnishes the test by which all other writings may be tried. Any Christian layman is, by its helj), placed in a position to judge all Bishops and Doctors. It is above Popes, above Councils. Xo usage of the Church, liow- ever venerable, however universal, is to be quoted against it. But this is only on condition that the interpreter of Scripture ^ Weimar ed. vol. ii. p. 425. Conf. Thcologiae Doctoris et Archidiaconia De Capliv. Babyl., Erl. Op}), v. a. vol. Wittmberyensii, 1520. A re[)riiit of V. p. Ill ; Weimar, vol. vi. p. 569. this rare ami curious tract will U« fouml - De Canonicis Scripturis libcUns D. in Crcdncr, Zur GcschichU dcs Knnom, Andreae Bodenslcin Carlstadii Sacrac Halle, 1847. 400 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. surrenders himself entirely to its guidance. He is to keep himself strictly within its bounds ; nor does it tolerate any admixture of human tradition. And it is the Christ who lives and breathes under the letter of Scripture who imparts to the simple soul the grace of interpretation. Externally, the Canon defines the Scripture. This is Carl- stadt's distinguishing principle ; his book treats " de Canonicis Scripturis." There is an audible protest in it against Luther's subjective principle of judgment, which he afterwards so freely applied, making the authority of a Biblical book depend upon his estimate of its contents, not frankly accepting the contents on the authority of the book. With Carlstadt, on the other hand, the Canon is everything ; nor does he seem to see that historically it only rei^resents the gradually formed opinion of the Church, which thus becomes the guarantor of Scripture. With this important limitation, his treatment of the subject is fairly scientific. He goes for information as to what the Canon is to Augustine and to Jerome ; nor, considering the doctrinal prepossessions of Wittenberg, is it little to his credit that he chiefly follows the latter. His view is, that while there is a sharp dividing line to be drawn between books that are, and books that are not, included in the Canon (as, for instance, between the Hagiographa and the Apocrypha of the Old Testa- ment), so within the Canon also writings are capable of classi- fication. Taking the well-known division of the Old Testa- ment into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa, he ventures upon a similar division in the New. First, he places the Gospels ; next, thirteen epistles of Paul, the first Epistle of Peter, and the first Epistle of John ; and last of all, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the second Epistle of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude, and the Apocalypse. In what class the Acts of the Apostles is to be placed he failed to explain. Carlstadt's third class plainly corresponds to the "Anti- legomena " of the ancient Church ; and the books which he places in it stand on a lower level of authority from the con- joint fact that some uncertainty hangs about their authorship, and that they have not always enjoyed universal recognition. But there are evident traces throughout his book of what we VIII CARLSTADTS THREE CLASSES OF A. T. BOOKS 401 should now call the critical method. He detects signs of various authorship in the Pentateuch, and points out tliat Moses could not have written the account in Deuteronomy of his own death. He accepts Jerome's reasonable belief tliat not all the Psalms are the productions of David, in preference to Augustine's absurd theory that those which are ascribed to other poets were written by him in the spirit of prophecy. He follows Jerome and Erasmus in rejecting the last chapter of Mark. But his most remarkable position — one which Luther would have fiercely contested, one which opposes itself to the subsequent course of Protestant thought in this matter — is, that of the three classes of New Testament books the authority of the first is to be preferred to that of the second, the authority of the second to that of the third. On this ground the word of Paul is not to be put on a level with that of Christ. " Oportet enim servos dominis obsequi, atque sicut spiritus Apostoli in carne non fuit par vel major Domino, ita quoque pectus Paulinum sub literis non habet autoritatis tantundem, quantum habet Christus." ^ It is in accord with this principle that an instructed servant of Christ will apply himself to each of these classes of books in order : first to the evangelical, next to the apostolical, lastly to the catholic anonymous. Nor is it altogether inconsistent with his objective method that Carlstadt should find in some Biblical books utterances of surpassing and supreme authority, for these are passages which purport to be the voice and words of God Himself. Plainly the adoption of Carlstadt's principle would have made it impossible for the Peformer to embrace a Pauline theology, except under the condition of finding it in the books of first and greatest authority, tlie Gospels themselves. I do not find that Carlstadt's book produced any great effect. Modern critics, looking at it in the light of long subse- quent controversy, pronounce it epoch-making ; but in truth it made no epoch. The passion and enthusiasm of the Eeformation spent themselves in quite different directions: while Carlstadt's aberrations, under the influence of Thomas Munzer and the prophets of Zwickau, which date from 1522, 1 Carlstadt, De Canonicis Scripturia, cJ. CrcJucr, § IGl. 2 D 402 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. deprived him of much influence over nascent Protestantism. Yet he had not only thought out the relation of the Bible to religious belief more completely than Luther, but was on the track of a more scientific theory. The time for this contro- versy had not yet arrived. It was not till ages of gradual education in criticism had forced upon the attention of Europe the literary facts of the Bible, and placed them in their true light, that the question of its authority could be satisfactorily discussed. In 1520 Luther for the first time drew up a scheme of practical Church reform. It occupies the latter and the larger half of his " Address to the Christian nobility of the German nation on the amendment of the Christian estate " — the nobility including the newly-elected Emperor as their natural head. To them he turned in despair of the clergy : " if God be willing by means of the laity to help His Church, since the clerical order, to whom the business more properly belongs, is become quite indifferent." ^ It is a very precise document, showing that its author had fully apprehended the facts of the case, and deeply sympathised with the feelings of annoyance and indignation against the Church which moved so many of his countrymen. After a brief introduction, in which he describes and undermines the three walls of defence which the Papacy had set up (the principles, first, that the spiritual power is above the temporal ; secondly, that no one but the Pope can interpret Scripture ; thirdly, that no one can call a council but the Pope), he marshals under twenty-eight heads the articles of reform on wliich a General Council might with advantage deliberate. These are not set out in logical sequence, or dis- criminated from each other with anxious care. The Address was written in fiery haste, and was intended much more to move men's indignation and enthusiasm than to furnish " agenda " for any deliberative meeting. Had there been any prospect of such a synod being caUed together, Luther would no doubt have been prepared with a more exact statement of grievance. In his own eager way, however, he now goes over the whole ground. He demands that the splendour and luxury of the Papal court should be rej)laced by a simpler ^ Erl. D. S. vol. xxi. p. 277 ; Weimar, vol. vi. p. 404 et seq. I VIII HIS SCHEME OF PRACTICAL REFOR.U 403 mode of living, and that the vast crowd of hangers-on at Eome, from the cardinals down to the meanest servant wlio hopes to be rewarded with a German benefice, sliall no longer feed on the spoils of foreign Churches. He would abolish first- fruits, pallia, reservations, commendams, and all the devices by which lucrative patronage is concentrated in the hands of Eome. No cases of conscience should be reserved for Papal decision : all appeals of civil action to Eome should cease. The bishops are no longer to take an oath of allegiance to the Pope, and the Emperor's independence of him is to be acknow- ledged. Pilgrimages to Eome and masses for the dead are to be abolished ; there is to be no more kissing of the Pope's toe ; the monastic, and especially the mendicant orders are to be restricted, and priests are to be allowed to marry. The power of the interdict is to be done away, and that of excommunica- tion limited. All festivals save Sunday are to be abolished ; there are to be no more indulgences ; permissions to eat butter in Lent are no longer to be sold : at one stroke the Canon Law is to be swept away. It was high time, Luther thought, that some terms should be come to with the Bohemians, so that mutual calumny, hatred, and envy should cease. The Church should acknowledge that Hus and Jerome of Prag had been unrighteously and treacherously burned at Constanz, whether they were heretics or not. " Heretics should be over- come with arguments, not by fire : if the latter be the true method, then are the executioners the most learned doctors upon earth." ^ Erudite bishops and doctors — not cardinals or Papal inquisitors — should be sent to Boliemia on a message of reconciliation ; and he advises that the Hussites should be allowed to continue their practice of communion in both kinds. But Luther is much too fearless and too thorough a reformer to confine his criticisms and recommendations to matters of ecclesiastical interest alone. He wishes to abolish mendicancy by instituting something which we .shoulil now call a Poor Law. He advocates a sweeping reform of the universities, involving the degradation of Aristotle from his pride of place, and a largely extended study of the Scriptures. In every German town he would set up a girls' school in which 1 Erl. D. S. vol. xxi. p. 311 ; Weimar, vol. vi. \\ 155. 404 LUTHER AND THE THEOLOGY OF ROME chap. the maidens should learn to read the Gospel, either in Latin or in their own tongue. He inveighs in burning words against undue splendour in attire ; he is strong against usury, or, to speak with more exactness, against lending out money at interest : he thinks that Germany would be better without any foreign trade, which he holds to be the cause of luxury and effeminacy. Excessive eating and drinking was a vice for which Germans were unhappily notorious ; nor does he spare the lash, " Last of all," he says,^ " is it not a lamentable thing that we Christians should have among us free and public brothels, although we are all baptized into chastity ? " He cannot think that they are necessary. " If the people of Israel maintained itself without such an abuse, why should not Christian people be able to do as much ? Yea, as many towns, markets, villages, hamlets are without such houses, why should not great cities be the same ? " "I know very well," he says,^ at the end of his long list of actual grievances and desirable reforms, " that I have sung a high note, have put forward many things that will be regarded as impossible, have attacked many abuses too fiercely. But what should I have done ? It has been laid upon me to say these things : if I could I would also do them. I had rather that the world were angry with me than God : man cannot take from me more than my life." Animated and strengthened by these principles, and striving towards these practical ends, Luther expected his summons to the Diet of Worms : a new Athanasius, alone, not against the world, but against the Church. But it would be unfair, even at this crisis of his story, to look at the Catholic system only through the medium of his strong and, in the main, justi- fiable invective. Three centuries and a half have passed away since Protestantism, at the Diet of Augsburg, asserted its right to separate ecclesiastical organisation, and the Catholic Church still exists, almost unimpaired in power and splendour, if no longer able to put forth the old claim to universality. The impartial historian must admit that, however deep and in- veterate were the practical corruptions which in part caused 1 Erl. D. S. vol. xxi. p. 358 ; [Weimar, vol. vi. p. 467, with editor's note]. 2 Ibid. p. 360. VIII THE PERMANENCE OF CA THOLICISM 405 and justified Luther's revolt, she had within her a power of self-reformation, which, in the latter part of the sixteentli cen- tury, bore good fruit. Though her type of holiness be not the Protestant, it is one which exercises a powerful attraction over some forms of character, and has a marvellous plastic force : ' in all ages, even those of her moral degradation, she has been a prolific mother of saints. Many minds, weary of questioning the grounds of faith, gladly take refuge in the arms of authority ; her organised piety, her careful discipline, are inexj)ressibly grateful to spirits that feel themselves incapable of self-guidance ; the splendour of her ritual appeals to souls which are best approached through the medium of the senses. Perhaps no Church has completely realised the idea of author- ity ; none has wholly abstained from interference with indi- vidual liberty ; but the authoritative Church and the voluntary assemljly of free men will always continue to exist side by side, each uttering an eternal protest against the other, yet both necessary to supply the various religious wants of mankind. And each, perhaps, answers its end more perfectly because it lives in the presence of the other. CHAPTEPt IX THE DIET OF WORMS The Diet of the Holy Eoman Empire which was held at Worms in the first months of 1521 is now chiefly memorable as the occasion on which Luther was brought face to face with the Emperor and the Estates, and decisively refused to draw back from the position which he had taken up. But what is to us the central fact of the Diet was to the German princes and cities who took part in it only an episode in its proceedings, though an episode of absorbing interest. It was Charles's first meeting for deliberative and executive purposes with his new subjects. Many questions, both of foreign and domestic policy, loudly cried out for settlement. There was the old difiiculty of a " Eeichsregiment " — an administrative body which, in the absence of the Emperor, should take charge of the internal affairs of the Empire. The Supreme Court of Justice, which should do right between prince and prince and settle all appeals from inferior tribunals, still waited to be constituted. The Emperor asked for an army, to be furnished in due proportions by the several States, which should form his escort into Italy, when, in pursuance of due precedents, he went to Eome to be crowned. But again, these things, right and necessary as they might be, all cost money : Germany was both unused and un- willing to tax herself ; on what principle were the contributions from the several Estates to be assessed, and how was the money to be collected ? In short, all the questions which, when Maximilian was a young man, Berthold of Mainz had tried to settle, were still open, and the promised era of national adminis- CHAP. IX THE EMPEROR'S DIFFICULTIES 407 tration and organisation had not begun. In the meantime, the Emperor's situation was one of extreme ditticulty. In Spain the Commons were in open insurrection against his authority, and his viceroy, Cardinal Adrian of Tortosa, wlio was main- taining an unequal jfight with them, begged for liis speedy return to his Peninsular dominions. He was in the utmost straits for money ; he had even borrowed 20,000 gulden without interest from Franz von Sickingen.^ Spain had not yet begun to profit by the discovery of America. In Germany he had inherited little but his grandfather's debts. At the moment of liis elevation to what seemed to be the pinnacle of earthly greatness, he was at once hampered by vulgar embarrassments and exposed to grave dangers. But the greatest peril tln-eatened from the side of his unsuccessful competitor for the Empire, Francis I. of France. It was the old rivalry between France and Eurgundy, manifesting itself on a wider field, and with issues that aft'ected the civilised world. Each of the rivals might easily persuade himself that he had a just claim to preponderance in Europe. Francis wielded the whole power of France, now for the first time consolidated into a single State, and was flushed with his recent military success in Italy, which had made him master of the rich duchy of Milan, hitherto a fief of the Empire. On the other hand, Charles added to the hereditary dominions of Austria and Burgundy the kingdoms of Spain and Naples, the prestige of the Empire, and the rapidly fulfilling promise of the Indies. And it was plain that the shock of these rival powers would take place in Italy. Kach had already a footing there, more or less firm, and each was eagerly desirous to extend and strengthen his influence. For many years the web of diplomatic intrigue was being woven and pulled to pieces ; it had been so when Alexander VI and Julius II Hlled the fisherman's chair, and the feeble and irresolute Maximilian had been the plaything of their policy. Now the great (question was, which side would the Pope take ? It was hardly likely that he would wish to have the Papal dominion shut in between the Empire on the north and Charles's Arragonese inheritance on the south. Then Leo was a Florentine and a Medici, and ^ Ulmann, Franz v. Sickiiigcn, p. 163. 4o8 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. therefore not unmindful of the old connection of his house with France ; what better thing than to play off the new master of Milan against the old, and so relieve himself of the pressure of an Imperial influence over the whole of Italy ? It is true that Charles was in his heart a much truer son of the Church than Francis, and as far as that went, more likely to advance her interests. But throughout the whole course of this tangled history it is instructive to note how small is the part played by the religious convictions of the chief personages in it. If religion can be made a lever for the attainment of any distinct worldly advantage, by all means use it ; if not, let it be put aside as one of the inferior motives which no wise man takes into account. It is not the good of the Church which the Pope has in view when he hesitates as to which of the two great rivals he shall support, but the advantage of the Papacy and the interests of the Medicis. It was thus that the fate of Luther became a matter of European policy. Charles had no sympathy with him either doctrinal or practical. Adrian of Utrecht had brought him up a sound Catholic ; and when he saw Luther at Worms he is reported to have said, not without an accent of contempt, " This man will never make a heretic of me."^ But for the larger interests that were involved, he would have crushed him as remorselessly as most men set their foot upon a worm. Still, Luther was a power in the German land. One great Electoral House protected him. He had friends in all the chief com- mercial cities. The people everywhere read his sermons and pamphlets eagerly. The feeling against the oppressions and extortions of the Papacy was strong in every class of society from the highest to the lowest ; and he was looked upon by many as its representative and embodiment. Already he was excommunicated by the Church ; should he also be placed under the ban of the Empire ? Charles was willing enough to run the risk of popular discontent in thus making himself the instrument of Papal policy — but it must be upon terms. He had no mind to pleasure the great Italian ally of Francis. If the Pope were willing to ally himself with Imn, and in the great struggle that must come throw the weight of the Papal ^ Pallavicini, lib. i. cap. 26. IX INCREASING POWER OF HOUSE OF AUSTRIA 409 influence into his scale, he would be well content that the sup- pression of heresy should be one article of the treaty. Sucli an alliance between Charles and Leo was indeed concludeil on the 8th of May 1521 ; and the Edict of Worms, by which Luther was condemned, was — perhaps by a curious chance — antedated to the same day. But now that diplomacy has revealed to a curious posterity some of her secrets, it is not difficult to see why Luther's fate trembled so long in the balance. Before we turn to the history of the Diet of Worms it may be the fit time to notice a series of transactions which augmented the already prosperous fortunes of the House of Austria. For tlie moment Charles was the sole possessor of its many kingdoms and dignities. But the position of his only brother Ferdinand required to be considered. More popular than Charles, he was commonly credited with the possession of greater talents, and it was doubtful how far, at least in the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, a strict law of primogeniture prevailed. Then there were old treaties of mar- riage between the Hapsburgs and the Jagellon dynasty in Bohemia and Hungary. When Wladislaus died in 1516, leaving but one feeble son Lewis, only ten years old, and a single daughter Anna, there was plainly room for one of those brilliant marriages on which the prosperity of Austria lias been so largely founded. It is needless in this place to recite the negotiations in their chronological order : suffice it to say, that in November 1520 they came to a definite issue. To Lewis was given Maria, a sister of Charles and Ferdinand. On the other hand, Ferdinand was to marry Anna, witli expecta- tions of succession to Bohemia and Hungary, which were ful- filled — though against fierce opposition — after the battle of Mohacz in 1526. But the important part of the bargain was that Charles abandoned to his brother all his rights in the five Austrian duchies and their dependent territories. A further expressed intention of elevating these territories into an liere- ditary kingdom was never fulfilled ; but the firm foundation of an Austro-Burgundian House with dominions stretching into Eastern Europe, is an event of capital importance in modem history. And its immediate effect was, at the cost of dividing territories which were too vast and too scattered to have been 4IO THE DIET OF WORMS chap. easily kept together, to convert Ferdinand from a possible rival into a friend and ally, and, at least as long as Charles^ lived, to secure the preponderance of their House.^ Charles's first care, after his coronation at Aachen, was to satisfy, as far as possible, the claims of the Electors. Into these transactions it is not necessary now to enter. A more important matter was the transference of Wiirtemberg, from which Duke Ulrich, under circumstances which I have already narrated, had been expelled by the Swabian League, to the Emperor as head of the Austrian house, in exchange for the payment of certain war expenses. By him it was again handed over to Ferdinand, and included in the settlement of his new hereditary dominions. But while this important change in the inner economy of the Empire was being negotiated, Charles was preparing for the Diet. Augsburg was originally named as the place at which it should be held, possibly with the implied suggestion that the Emperor con- templated an immediate expedition into Italy ; but as early as the 1st of November it was summoned to meet at Worms. On the 28th of the same month Charles, who in the mean- time had been slowly ascending the Ehine, reached that city, there to await the arrival of the Electors and Estates. Ny Apart from the complications of foreign policy which were looming in the distance, the situation was one of much un- certainty, not to say peril. Society in Germany was stirred to its depths. The discontent which broke out in the Peasants' War only four years afterwards was seething beneath the surface. The lesser nobility, whose political aspirations were represented at the moment by Sickingen and Hutten, felt themselves pressed out of independent existence by the territorial system. The free cities, which were con- scious of the same pressure, regarded the Empire as the bulwark of their liberties. The organisation of the common life which was looked for in the institution of a " Eeichs- regiment," a Supreme Court of Justice, a system of common taxation, amounted to the erection of a new constitution in Germany upon the ruins of old anarchy ; while the task was ^ Kanke, vol. i. p. 357 ; Baum- KaiserwaM, p. 20 ; Bucholtz, Ferdi- garten, Karl V. vol. i. p. 376 ; Rosier, nand der Erste, vol. i. pp. 155-158. LUTHER THE VOICE OF GERMANVS HEART 411 rendered difficult, if not impossible, by the jealousies and quarrels of the rival houses, and their determination to yield nothing either to each other or to the common weal. In addition to all tliis was the profound dissatisfaction felt in Germany at the national relations with Eome, a dissatisHiction which found a voice in "gravamina," which had been pre- sented at many Diets, and were about to confront the rai)al Legates at Worms with added vehemence. But the popular heart spoke most of all in Luther. No one else had so fear- lessly attacked the abuses which at once saddened and disgusted religious men ; no one else had so clearly indicated the only remedy. These were his best days, when he was still making his clear appeal to the spiritual principles which lie at the basis of all religion, and was receiving tlie reply of the unspoiled conscience. His thoughts had not yet hardened themselves into a logically compacted system, which, like all systems, had its vulnerable points ; nor had the fear of those who went further than himself driven him back upon incon- sistencies and half truths. As yet he is no rebel against the Church ; his appeal is to the fair judgment of a free council : if he is to be a schismatic, he will be driven into schism, only foot by foot, against his will. His principles he cannot give up, because he believes them to be rooted in Scripture and his own apprehension of the truth ; but he leaves the issue of them to God, going on his way meanwhile with manly courage. If ever any man expressed for a great nation its best opinion, and gave a voice to its highest aspiration, it was Luther in 1521. Whether he still entertained hopes of the Euiperor's character and intentions we do not know ; Aleander put his ' faith in princes with much more justification. Charles was not yet twenty-one, a silent, somewhat backward young man, who had up to this time given no proof, except such as is imi)lied in political industry, of the talents which he undoubtedly possessed. Chievres, who held an entire ascendency over him, was still his chief minister, a statesman who, next to the aggrandisement of his own family, turned his chief attention to the maintenance of the French alliance. Charles's clian- cellor was ]\Iercurino Gattinara, one of those astute Italians THE DIET OF WORMS who were the condotticre of statesmanship, ready to take service at any court, without reference to patriotic or dynastic considerations. But this very fact often gave them a certain breadth and ilexibility of mind which emancipated them from partial views : it was Gattinara's distinction among Charles's advisers to be the constant advocate of a council of the Church. Naturally, with a pious Emperor, the confessor played a con- siderable part : this was Glapion, a Franciscan of Maine, educated at the Sorbonne, and afterwards superior of a convent at Bruges. Our authentic knowledge of him is not large ; soon we shall see him, whether sincerely or not it is hard to say, attempting to reconcile Luther with the Holy See ; not improbably he was the advocate of a reformation after the Spanish model — disciplinary without being doctrinal. Among other ecclesiastics who stood near the Emperor were Ludovico Marliano, Bishop of Tuy, a friend and correspondent of Erasmus, and royal physician ; Pedro Euiz de la Mota, Bishop of Palencia, a Spaniard of much literary cultivation, who had excited the hatred of his countrymen by making himself the instrument of Chievres's policy ; Eberhard von der Mark, Bishop of Liege, the author of the vigorous remonstrance against the oppres- sions and exactions of the Holy See, presented to the Diet of Augsburg in the summer of 1518, a document the responsi- bility for which he now repudiated ; and last of all Matthias Lang, Cardinal Archbishop of Salzburg, a statesman who had served in turn Frederick III and Maximilian, caring nothing for the Church except as a tool of policy. The influence of none of these promised much for the cause of Luther. Nor is there any reason to suppose that Charles ever wavered in his determination to put down the new movement, however he might be temporarily diverted from his purpose by reasons of policy. Immediately after his election to the Empire he wrote to Francis I. (August 3d, 1519), "that no advancement of his will ever diminish his anxiety for their mutual amity and the peace of Christendom ; and as his correspondent has more power than any other in this respect, he should hold the first place in the extirpation of heresy." In a remarkable despatch written to his aunt, the Governor of the Netherlands, in March 1519, he states as his " chief object " " the exaltation THE WORMS OF LUTHER'S DA Y 413 and increase of our Holy Catholic faith." We shall finil him in the spring of 1521 defending the severity of the Spanish Inquisition against the Tope himself. If sometimes he seems to lean for a moment to the other side, the secret is revealed in a letter which his ambassador Juan ^Manuel addressed to him from Eome in May 1519, recommending that "when he came to Germany he should show some favour to a certain monk, named Brother Martin, which, as the Pope was extra- ordinarily afraid of him; would be a good way to compel iiis Holiness to an alliance." ^ The ancient and famous city of Worms has long since fallen from its high estate. Of mediaeval Worms all that is left is the great Minster, a mountain of red sandstone, whose eastern apse rises in tier upon tier of Eomanesque arcades, and whose lofty towers and twin domes catch the last rays of the setting sun. If not the Minster of the Nibelungenlied, it probably stands on its site ; it is impossible to believe that Luther did not worship there at the crisis of his own fate, while under its roof the edict which condemned him was signed. But Worms, which had suffered severely in the Thirty Years' War, was reduced to a heap of ashes by Lewis XIV, and, though rebuilt when the storm was over- passed, has never recovered its ancient size and splendour. But at the moment of which I am speaking it was the political centre of Europe. Electors, princes, prelates, nobles, represen- tatives of free cities were gathering from all Germany to do honour to the new Emperor, and to take part in the transaction of Imperial business of the greatest moment. Every day saw tlie arrival of some new potentate ; the Elector of Saxony came nn the 6th of January; Duke Henry of Brunswick on the 7th; the Elector Palatine on the 8th ; I'hilip of Hesse rode in on the 2 2d, with an escort of six hundred horsemen ; the PLlector of Brandenburg did not come till February 7th, when the Diet was already opened. The English and French amljassadors were there ; the two Papal nuncios, Caracciolo and Aleander ; representatives of the Kings of Hungary and Poland ; accredited ^ Brewer, Letters and Papers, Forci'jn Brieger, Alcamlcr uiul Luther, 1521, and Domestic, of the reign of Henry pp. 79-87 ; JJaumgartcn, vol. J. pp. VIIL vol. iii. pt. i. pp. 148-378 ; 138, 339, 390, a21. 414 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. messengers from Venice and Mantua. The Emperor was sur- rounded by a brilliant court, gathered from every part of his dominions, while the throng was swollen by nobles who came to display their magnificence, and adventurers in pursuit of their own advantage. The authorities of the city did their best to cope with the difficulties created by the ever-increasing crowd, but in vain. They published an ordinance regulating the price of lodgings and provisions, and prescribing the rate at which coin should pass ; but, as might be expected, the forces of supply and demand were too much for them. The representative of Frankfurt wrote to his city, " It is im- possible to accommodate the princes. To-day one nails his escutcheon on a lodging, to-morrow another tears it down." -^ Prices rose in spite of strict regulation. Quarrels and uproar were frequent ; the streets were full of gay women ; the im- perial Provost Marshal, whose notions of justice were sharp and sudden, had a busy time. Elector Frederick writes to his brother John, who was preparing to come to Worms, " that his people will find it difficult, if not impossible, to find stable room for the horses that he is intending to bring with him ; his own lodging is quite insufficient for his needs ; he has three kitchens, yet cannot get his meals properly cooked. Worse than all, the Diet has not yet opened, and he has already spent 4000 gulden." All was joyous confusion, not unmingled with baser passion. " The cause of the postponement," again writes Frederick to his brother, " is that questions of j)recedence can- not be settled ; the Bavarians claimed a higher place than the Saxons. It is truly a grievous thing that Imperial Majesty and the Estates must lie here doing nothing because of this court pettiness." And again, " God grant that it may turn out well. I am grieved that the Italians should see our court pettiness and disunion. The Almighty grant us His grace that we poor Germans come to a better frame of mind." ^ With this throng mingled Aleander, watching his oppor- tunity, appraising the characters of influential men, and reporting all he saw and heard to Eome. His despatches ^ Quoted by Baumgarten, vol. i. p. Duke John in Fcirstemann, Neucs 399. Urkundcnbuch, pp. 5, 6, 7; Baumgarten, - Letters of Elector Frederick to vol. i. pp. 398 seq. IX THE PAPAL NUNCIO ALEANDER 4,5 (those of his colleague Caracciolo have never been published) are one of the chief authorities for the inner history of the Diet.^ They do not at all answer to his reputation jis a scholar, being written in a strange mixture of Itidian and Latin, as if he had recourse indifferently to whichever language best expressed the thought of the moment. But they bear abundant witness to the contemptuous liatred, not unmingled with fear, with which Luther was regarded by the leading Papalists; he has no better names for him than "ribald," "thief," "assassin," "monster," "Arius," " ^lahomet," and the like ; while of any perception of the strength of his character, or the righteousness of his cause, there is not a trace. He leaves upon the reader's mind the impression of a devoted servant of the Papacy, contending strenuously against obstacles, yet not without a kind of peevish displeasure at the necessity of contention. He makes much of liis labours and privations, and is quite sure that he goes in danger of liis life from the Lutherans ; but the spirit of faithful obedience is strong within him, and he never thinks of abandoning his post. He is quite incapable of understanding the position of liis opponents, to whom he freely attributes the basest personal motives, nor does he hold his own on any large grounds of policy. Even when he writes beseeching letters to Rome, that this or that specific abuse may be remedied, it is not so much that the abuse grieves his conscience, or wounds his sense of ecclesiastical propriety, as that he sees how such things exasperate Germany, and put obstacles in the way of the success of his mission. His chief hope is in the Emperor ; "Caesar," he says, "has the best inclination of any man born this thousand years ; if he were not so, certainly our a flairs would be much entangled with private intei'csts." - Again, " Above all, both our hope and plan of victory are in Caesar 1 Aleander's despatches, in MS., Almndtr und Luther 1521 (fJotha, were used by Cardinal Pallavicini in 1884); and nalan,iV(y/ii/r;ir;i/e expected useful fruits for the Church. lUit all this Ijad been changed by the publication of the book Of Out linhihmian Captivitij, which had made him feel " ns if he had Injcn > Forsteraann, Neues Urkiaulcnbuch, ' IJrewer, vol. i. p. 42« note ; Forrte- p. 5. mann, p. 27 ; Balan, pp. 17. 34 ; Bncger, p. 75. 422 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. scourged and pommelled from head to foot." Indeed he would not believe that it was Brother Martin's until he had acknowledged it. Neither style nor manner was his ; if he had written it, he could only suppose that it was under the impulse of anger against the Bull which had condemned him. In defence of this position he adduced certain articles, taken from the Bcibylonian Captivity, which he afterwards put into writing. He acutely seized upon the weak point of Luther's system ; " the Bible," he said, " was a book like soft wax, which every man could twist and stretch according to his own pleasure." He even went so far as to associate the Emperor with himself. Charles, too, had been pleased with Luther's earlier writings, and had wished that such a man could be reconciled with the Church. He admitted that there was great need of a reformation ; had Luther confined himself to exposing the abuses connected with indulgences and the administration of the sacraments, his conduct would have been laudable, and but few learned men would have disagreed with him. He himself had not shunned to communicate his opinions to his Imperial penitent. " I have already said to his Majesty, that God will punish him and all Princes, if they do not free the Church from such overweening abuses." He declared further that he had said to Caesar that this man Martin had been sent by God, and that it had been enjoined upon him to curse men, and to be a scourge to them, for their sins' sake. Let Charles be Emperor for only five years, and the world would see what he would accomplish in the way of reformation. In brief, he felt that a great opportunity for the Church was being lost ; " thereupon the Father answered and said with a deep sigh, God knew that what he had done in this matter had been done of pure, genuine goodwill, and not at any man's suggestion, but of his own motion, that the happy issue of which he had before spoken much with me might not be frustrated, and the noble wares and merchandise, which Dr. Luther had now almost brought to land and into port, might not be cast into the sea." This, and much more of the same kind, all directed towards the revocation by Luther of the obnoxious articles taken from the Bahylonian Captivity, and accompanied by many assertions, that even now THE ACTION OF G LA PI OX after the publication of the Bull, a way to reconciliation with the Holy See was yet open, made up Gla])ion's slran,i,'c communication.^ Nothing came of the invitation to Luther to recant. If I rightly interpret letters which, on or about the 19th of March, he wrote to Spalatin and the Elector, Glapion's propositions were laid before him only to be promptly rejected. The intellectual and moral opposition between the KeiVjrnu'r and the Holy See remained as sharp as it had been before. IJui in what spirit, in what interest were these propositions made ? Some historians, following the lead of Hutten, look upon Glapion as a double-tongued intriguer, whose only object was to delude Luther into an abandonment of the position which he had hitherto consistently held. In all probability he was an astute negotiator, neither inclined to sliow his cards nor careful to exhibit an exact veracity : it is very difficult to believe that Charles had ever expressed approval of any of Luther's books ; while Erasmus describes Glapion as a man to whom he should not dare to open his whole heart, and with whom Hutten might live for ten years without knowing. On the other hand, the legate and the confessor were on the best terms. Aleander flattered himself that he had secured Glapion by certain honeyed words from the Holy Sec ; while Glapion had produced an excellent eflect upon the mind of Aleander by asking for four hundred copies of the Bull against Luther, for distribution among monks of his onmi order. May not this intrigue have been a bold attempt on the part of one who, though not highly placed in the Church, felt that he had the ear of Majesty, to repair the errors of the game as it had been hitherto played, and to convert Luther from an enemy into a useful instrument of the Holy See ? What if Glapion, recognising the ecclesiastical abu.ses under which Germany groaned, and recollecting the schedule of " gi-avamina," which, whatever became of Luther'.s afUiir, was to be presented to the Legate by the Diet, desired to turn the whole current of excited feeling in the direetion of a di.s- ciplinary reformation ? Such a reformation hail alrt-ady l>oen carried out in Spain, the most orthodox of Christian countries ; ' ForeUJtiiaiin. pp. 3').54. 424 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. such a reformation was destined to be the work of the Council of Trent. Would Luther but abandon the position of doctrinal revolt, and confine the thunder of his eloquence to practical abuses, in regard to which all good men were at one, a refor- mation might be wrought in the Church, and at the same time her bleeding wounds be healed. The plan failed at the moment of its first inception ; but had it not been shattered against the firm resolution of Luther, it would have been ship- wrecked on the invincible ignorance, the engrained corruption of the court of Eome.^ Greatly, therefore, to Aleander's dissatisfaction, Luther's affair was referred to the Diet. He was sure of the Emperor and his Spanish and Flemish advisers ; while it was only too doubtful what would be the issue of the matter in an assembly where the rank and character of the Elector Frederick counted for much. A mandate against Luther and his books was accordingly prepared,^ and Aleander was requested by the Emperor to bring the whole Papal case before the Diet. This he did on Ash Wednesday, February 13th, in a speech of three hours' duration, in which, though he had had only a single day for preparation, he acquitted himself much to his own satisfaction. The Estates promised their answer on the following Saturday. But the debate lasted for seven days, becoming hotter as it went on : men said that the Electors of Saxony and of Brandenburg almost came to blows. " The monk," reports the Frankfurt envoy on the 20th of February ,2 " makes a great coil : some would willingly nail him to the cross ; I fear he will hardly escape them ; but care must be taken, if it happen, that he does not rise again the third day." ^ De Wette, vol. i. pp. 574, 575 ; implicates Erasmus in the transaction, Hutteni 0pp. ed. Bocking, vol. ii. pp. In the Spongia he says in explicit 210, 287 ; Brieger, pp. 39, 63. Some terms: "Quid ille {i.e. Glapion) mo- historians, especially Maurenbrecher litus sit aut peregerit in Lutherum {Studien u. Skizzen, pp. 258 - 261 ; nescio : eerte quicquid hujus fecit, non Gesch. d. Katli. Reformation, vol. i. p. meo fecit impulsu." Hutteni 0pp. ed. 186 et scq.), have attempted to connect Bocking, vol. ii. p. 287. Erasmus with these events, and to ^ "We have the draft of this mandate represent him as the adviser and in two forms. Fijrstemann, pp. 55-58. prompter of Glapion. That the con- ^ gome extracts from the reports of fessor, to a considerable extent, repre- the Frankfurt envoy to his employers sented what we know to have been are printed in the appendix to Steitz, Erasmus's ideas is indubitable ; but I Die Melanchthon-und, Luther herbergen can find no positive evidence which zu Frankfurt am Main, p. 47. IX LUTHER SUMMONED TO WORMS 425 In the Electoral College the three Archbishops and Brandenburg hung together, while Saxony and the Palatine took the other side. If Aleander is to be trusted, many of the princes of the second class threw in their votes with the majority ; at all events, a common answer to the Emperor was agreed upon. After a recognition of the Emperor's Christian disposition and industry in the matter, the Estates went on to remind him that as Luther had made so deep an impression on the minds of the common people in Germany, it might be well to consider the consequences of proceeding strongly against him by mandate, without giving him the opportunity of being heard in his own defence. They advise, therefore, that he shall be sent for under safe-conduct, and that he should be asked (but in no case should be disputed with) whether he confesses him- self the author of the published writings and articles against the holy Christian faith, which, up to this time, they and their forefathers had held, and whether he stands to them or not. Should he recant, then let him be forthwith interrogated on other points, and let what is convenient be done. But if, on the contrary, he should persist in affirming things contrary to Holy Church and Christian faith, then will the Electors, Princes, and Estates, without further disputation, abide by the same, and assent to the publication throughout the Empire of his Majesty's fit and needful mandate. And the answer concludes with a request that the Emperor will consider the oppressions and abuses of the Holy See under which Germany lies, and take steps for the remedy of the same.-^ To this answer of the Estates Charles made a formal reply, in which he promised due attention to the " gravamina," and proceeded to summon Luther to Worms. He would willingly have substituted the Elector's safe-conduct for his own, but Frederick, true to his policy of caution, not only insisted that the responsibility should lie with the Emperor, but left Luther entirely free to obey the summons or not, as he pleased. Charles's letter, dated March 6 th, though not actually de- spatched till the 15 th, was a somewhat remarkable document. Signed by the Archbishop of Mainz, in compliance with the 1 Balan, p. 59; Brieger, pp. 59-61, scq. Conf. Aleander's version of this 70 ; Steitz, p. 47 ; Forstemann, pp. 57 answer, Brieger, p. 70. 426 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. Emperor's command, and addressed to an excommunicated heretic, it qualified him as " honourable, beloved, pious." It simply summoned him to put himself under the escort of the messenger sent, and to come to Worms to give an account to Emperor and Diet of his books and doctrines. The herald, Caspar Sturm, officially known as Deutschland, set out from "Worms on the 15 th of March, the bearer to Wittenberg of safe-conducts, not only from the Emperor, but from the Elector and his brother, and even from Duke George. Needless to say, Aleander was vehemently averse to these proceedings, and still more to their courteous and judicial form. He begged in vain that Luther when he came should be consigned to the honourable durance of the royal palace, where restrictions could be placed on his intercourse with his friends. But indeed, Charles, with the best will in the world to please him, had little choice in the matter. It was one of the moments at which the political outlook was black ; war with France seemed imminent ; the news from Spain was daily more disquieting ; and he could not afford to put himself in opposition to the Estates of the Empire. One thing, however, he did. On the 27 th of March an Imperial mandate, dated March 10 th, was published at Worms, calling upon all people everywhere to give up to the lawful authorities whatever books of Luther's they might have in their possession.^ The months which elapsed between the burning of the Bull at Wittenberg, December 10th, 1520, and Luther's departure for Worms, April 2d, 1521, were for him a period of ceaseless literary activity. He was, as we have seen, more than willing to obey the summons of the Emperor ; but no. feeling that the crisis of his life was at hand interrupted for a moment his usual avocations. On the 25 th of January he sent to the Elector a copy of the letter which he had written to Charles V in the August of the preceding year, with a view of its securely reaching the Emperor's hands.^ But the communica- tion of the arch-heretic was treated with truly Imperial scorn ; Charles tore it across in face of the Diet, and threw the pieces ^ Balan, p. 117 ; Forstemann, i^p. ^ De Wette, vol. i. p. 549 ; vide 13, 14 ; Brieger, p. 141 ; Walch, vol. xv. siqjra, p. 362. p. 2122. IX LUTHER'S LITERARY LABOURS 427 upon the ground.^ For the rest, Liither worked and waited. It was in these months that he finished the Book of Postilh- which the Elector had asked for, perhaps in the vain liope ol" withdrawing him from controversy, and pubHshed the Krposi- tion of the Magnificat, dedicated to Prince John Frederick. He was still working upon his Exposition of the Fsahm. He printed in February a short pamphlet entitled An Instruction to Penitents vnth regard to the Forbidden Boohs, in which lie advised those who were threatened with refusal of al)solutioii for having his works in their possession to stand out stoutly against their confessors.^ The controversy with Eniser, to which I have before alluded, was still going on in a series of pamphlets, which were much more outspoken than polite. In one of them Luther dealt a side blow at Thomas Murncr, a Franciscan monk of Alsace, belonging to the school of Geiler and Brandt, who had attacked the treatise on the Babgloiiian Captivity of the Church, and then swiftly followed up the assault by four pamphlets, in which, with growing vehemence, he controverted Luther's characteristic principles.'* A more serious controversy, which, however, went over the old ground in much the old way, was with Ambrosius Catharinus, a Komaii theologian, again a Dominican and a Thomist, who, at the end of 1520, dedicated to the Emperor a book Against the Impious ami very Pestiferous Doctrines of Martin Luther. Luther received the book a little before the 7th of March, and on the 1st of April his answer, dedicated to his old friend, Wenzel Link, was ready.^ Last of all, I may mention a book in which the close alliance between Luther and Lucas Cranach, the painter of Wittenberg, was first made public. This wa.s the Passional of Christ and Antichrist, a series of twenty-si .k woodcuts, in which Christ and the Pope are exliibited in sharpest antithesis. The designs were by Cranach ; the ex- planations, though anonymous, by Luther. On the 7th of March the latter writes to Spalatin, " Lucas ha.s biddi-ii ino 1 Brieger, p. 55 ; Pallaviciiii, lib. i. ■* Schmidt, Uistoire LttUraire de cap. 26, § 1. I'Ahiue, vol. ii. pp. 'J39, 24n ; Koldo, - The date of the dedication is Aiudcda Lutheraiut, p. 26 ; Du Wotto, March 3d. De Wette, vol. i. p. 563. vol. i. p. 5-12. 3 De W.-tte, vol. i. p. 560 ; Erl. » Erl. t>}ip. Ut. vol. v. p. 286 ; De D. S. vol. xxiv. p. 204. Wetto, vol. i. pp. 569, 570, 582. 428 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. write under these pictures, and send them to thee ; thou wilt have a care of them. Now is exhibited the opposition between Christ and the Pope, set out in figures ; a good book, and one for the laity." ^ The day on which Luther was bidden to present himself before the Emperor in Worms was the 16th of April. He set out from Witteeberg on the 2d. The party consisted of four persons : Luther himself, his intimate friend Nicholas von Amsdorf, a young Pomeranian nobleman, Peter Swaven, at that time a student at Wittenberg, and an Augustinian monk, John Petzensteiner, whom he took with him in obedience to the rule of his order, that monks should travel two and two. Justus Jonas, who had just succeeded Henning Goede as Provost of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, joined them at Erfurt ; Schurf, who was to act as his legal adviser, was already at Worms. The herald, Deutschland, rode ahead, displaying his insignia ; the four travellers followed in a covered carriage, which, with its horses, was supplied by the municipality of Wittenberg. On the same day they came to Leipzig, where Luther was honoured with the customary present of wine ; on the 3d to Naumburg, where a certain priest, if we may trust Mathesius, sent him a portrait of Savonarola, with an exhorta- tion to stand fast in the truth, in which case God would be with him ; Weimar, where at that time Duke John was hold- ing his court, was the next halting-place. Here Luther was sure of the friendliest reception ; he rested a day, preached, and was sent on his way with unabated courage and renewed funds.2 The journey thence to Worms was much more like a triumphal progress than the conduct of a state criminal to be tried by the highest tribunal in the land. "Whenever he entered a city," says Myconius, "the people flocked to meet him outside the gates, to gaze upon the wonderful man who was so bold as to set himself against the Pope and all who in opposition to Christ look upon the Pope as a god."^ But it was at Erfurt, where Luther had spent so many eventful years, 1 De Wette, vol. i. p. 571 ; Erl. " De Wette, vol. i. pp. 586, 587 ; D. S. vol. Ixiii. p. 240 ; Lindau, Lucas Mathesius, p. 23 B ; Fbrstemann, p. 68; Cranach, p. 172. Spalatin's Annales, p. 39. ^ Myconius, p. 38. LUTHER'S PROGRESS TO WORMS 429 that his triumph was to cuhiiinate. In a letter written before he left Wittenberg, he had announced his coming to Jolin Lang, now the Prior of his old convent. Crotus Paibianus, wlio more than any one else was secretly responsible for the Ldt(r& of the Obscure Men, and was one of the strongest links between the party of the Poets and that of the Peformers, was Pcctor of the University. In conjunction with Eoban Hess and others like-minded he resolved to give Luther the most splendiil and joyful reception. Vvlicn, on the 6th of April, the humble cavalcade reached the boundary of the Erfurt territory, it was met by Crotus, attended by forty horsemen and a great crowd on foot. The Eector addressed his old friend in an enthusiastic oration, Hess added a few stammering words of ecstatic welcome, and then the multitude escorted Luther back to the city, where the crowded streets and walls and roofs, full of rejoicing people, testified to the universal excitement. Luther alighted at the Augustinian convent, where his old teacher, Arnoldi von Usingen, gave him but a cold reception, which was, however, more than made up for by the warm welcome of the Prior. Xext day, the Sunday quasimodogeniti, he preached in the Augustinian church on the Gospel of the day (John xx. 19-31) to an overflowing congregation. It was characteristic of the man that he said not a word of himself, or of the peril in which he stood, but preached with simple earnestness his central doctrine of justification by faith alone.^ Luther remained two days in Erfurt. City and University vied with each other in doing him honour : the latter invited him to a solemn banquet : the former gave him, when he went away, the city captain, Hermann von Hoff, as a guide and protector. Crotus would willingly have accompanied him to "Worms, but his dignified office forbade him to leave Ph-furt : all he could do was to accompany his friend for some miles, when he left him with an exhortation to steadfastness. Eoban's facile muse was greatly excited by these events, which for tlie last time gave public witness to the union between the I'oets of Erfurt and the Pteformer who had gone out from among them. Seven elegies are to be found in his works, bearing tlie general ^ Kampschulte, vol. ii. p. 95 scq. ; Lin<;ke, 7;<:wr imprudent word.' Luther's first appearance before the Diet hardly increased his reputation in high places. Charles himself is reported to have said: "This man will never make a lieretie of me." Aleander, on the authority of the Archbishop of Trier and his Official, ventures so far as to allege that the p:ieetor wa.s .H.s- satisfied with his champion. But however this nuiy have bi-en, the people were still with him. The street.s were crowileil with applauding friends a.s he went to his lotlging ; he was ^ Ada TVormatiafihabUa,Er].Opp.v. p. 175; Peutingcr aji. KoIJe, Anal. a. vol. \'i. p. 6 seq.; Forstcmaiin, y. fi9 ; LtUlur. p. 28. Steitz, p. 4? ; IJrieger, p. 146 ; iJalaii, 438 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. exhorted in various terms to play the man, and testify to the truth before kings and princes ; one voice was heard, " Blessed is the womb that bare thee." Philip, the young Landgrave of Hesse, as yet only a boy of seventeen, and destined to play so conspicuous a part in the drama of reformation, now looked Luther in the face for the first tune ; he came to his lodging, and having spoken with him, ended by saying, " Dear doctor, if you are in the right, so may our Lord God help you." Many nobles, too, offered their encouragement : there was a talk of burning him, they said, but ere that should happen all should be involved in a common ruin. One quaint incident we cannot precisely date ; it belongs either to the "Wednesday or the Thursday of this eventful week. The celebrated partisan leader George von Frundsberg, a man who, whatever his freedom from theological convictions or prejudices, knew courage when he saw it, clapped him on the shoulder, with the words : " Little monk, little monk, now goest thou thy way, to take a stand such as I, and many a commander, even in our sharpest battles, have never taken : art thou of good intent, and certain of thine affair, so go in God's name, and be comforted, God will not forsake thee." ^ But what Luther's own mood at this precise moment was we know on the best evidence. On this very evening of the l7th of April he wrote a letter to Cuspinian, a man of letters at Vienna, the acquaintance of whose brother he had made at Worms. He narrates, in the briefest possible phrase, the facts of his first audience, saying that he had acknowledged the authorsliip of the books, but as to recantation, had asked and received a day's delay. "But I shall not withdraw a single jot, Christ being favourable to me." In this frame of mind he awaited the morrow.- The hearmg on the 18th was held in a larger room than that of the day before, but nevertheless so crowded that even the Electors had a difficulty in taking their proper places. The legates were absent. Four o'clock was the appointed hour, but other business caused delay, and it was growing dark when Eck repeated to Luther, first in Latin and then in 1 Spanpjenberg, Adelsspicgd, vol. ii. Acta, Erl. Opj). v. a. vol. vi. p. 8 ; p. 54, quoted by Kostlin, M. L. vol. i. Cochlaeus, p. 57 A ; Erl. D. S. vol. p. 445. Ixiv. pp. 369-373 ; T. T. vol. iv. p. 349 ; - Pallavicini, lib. i. cap. 26, § 7 ; De Wette, vol. i. p. 587. LUTHER BEFORE THE DIET 439 German, the questions of tlie preceding day, in a somewhat altered shape. The form of procedure had bt^jn connnitted by the Emperor to Eck, Glapion, and Meander, and it may have been by their deliberate intention tliat Luther was now asked, " Wliether he wished to defend all the books wliicli ho had acknowledged as his own, or to retract any part of them?" He began his answer in Latin,^ by an apology for any mistakes that he might make in addressing personages so great, " as a man versed, not in courts, but in monks' cells ; " then, rej)eat- ing his acknowledgment of his books, proceeded to tUvidu tliem into three classes. There were some in which he had treated the piety of faith and morals so simply and evangelically that his very adversaries had been compelled to confess tliem useful, harmless, and worthy of Christian reading. How could he condemn these ? There were others in which lie attacked the Papacy and the doctrine of the Papists, who both by their teachings and their wretched examples have wasted Christen- dom with both spiritual and corporal evil. Nor could any one deny or dissimulate this, since the universal experience and complaint bear witness that by the laws of the Pope and the doctrines of men consciences are miserably ensnared and vexed, especially in this illustrious German nation. If he should revoke these books, what would it be but to add force to tyranny, and to open, not merely the windows, but the doors to so great impiety ? In that case, good God, what a cover of wickedness and tyranny would he not become ! A third class of his books had been written against private persons, those, namely, who had laboured to protect the Koman tyranny, and to undermine the piety which he taught. In the.se he con- fessed that he had been more bitter than became his religion and profession. Even these, however, he could not recall, because to do so would be to throw his .shield ovi-r tyranny and impiety, and to augment their violence again.st the pi-nplu of God. From this he proceeded to ask f(tr evidence against 1 There is a direct conflict of evi- 0pp. v. a. vol. vi. p. 9). On the dence on this point. Spalatin (.-/juirt/'-.i, othLT lianal con- sisted of the Electors of Trier and Brandenburg, representing the Electors ; the Bishops of Augsburg and Brandenburg, repre- senting the Prelates ; Duke George of Saxony and tlie Master of the Teutonic Order, representing the Princes ; Hans Bock and Conrad Peutinger, representing the Eree Cities. On the other hand, Luther was accompanied by the frienils whie Gravamina der Hof, pp. 89 scq. 452 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. In the meantime Aleander had promptly prepared the decree against Luther, and procured its translation into Ger- man. But May at Worms was a month of troubles and delays. So far as we dimly gather from the Nuncio's de- spatches, his first draft was at once accepted, but referred to some council, whether of the Emperor's personal advisers or a committee of the Diet, it is hard to say. By this time the Diet was drawing to its natural end ; its political business had been transacted ; the alliance between Emperor and Pope had been concluded. Then epidemic sickness broke out among the Emperor's immediate friends. Chievres fell ill on the 6 th of May and died on the 27th. A much shorter sickness carried off the bishop of Tuy, the Emperor's physician. Charles him- self kept his room for some days. " Many other distinguished persons," writes Contarini on the 12th of May, "are ill; every day dies somebody, especially among the Spaniards." It was in the midst of the consternation caused by these events that the decree took its final form. Aleander seems still to have thought that all the Emperor had to do was to sign and promul- gate it in the exercise of his personal authority, and had once more to be instructed as to the constitutional difference between the Empire and Charles's hereditary dominions. And there were other difficulties in the way. The Diet was beginning to dis- perse. Two of its most important members, Frederick of Saxony and the Elector Palatine, left Worms on the 23d of May, not sorry, in all probability, to leave the responsibility of what was going to be done on the shoulders of their colleagues.^ The Diet was called together for its last sitting on the afternoon of Saturday, May 25th. Before it met, Aleander, in an interview with the Emperor, begged him now to conclude the matter in hand. Charles in reply told him to wait where he was till he came back from the meeting. Thence, the usual compliments incident to the dissolution of the Diet having been passed between monarch and subjects, Charles returned, accompanied by Joachim of Brandenburg, the three ecclesiastical Electors, and some other princes. In the presence of a mixed assembly, in which the Spanish and Italian noble- men probably outnumbered the Germans, the Nuncios pre- 1 Brieger, pp. 178, 179, 204, 214 ; Baumgarten, vol. i. p. 485. IX THE EDICT AGAINST LUTHER 453 sented to the Emperor the Brief addressed to him by the Pojx?. This document was read aloud by the Chancellor (Jattinara, " with great attention on the part of the German princes, and the jubilation of the Spanish and Italian gentlemen." In like manner a shnilar Brief was presented to each of the four Electors. Then the Emperor, who had in the meantime dismissed all but the Electors and a few others, said to them, " with truly Imperial authority," " This is the Edict which I intend to promulgate in the Lutheran matter ; you shall see it." " And then it was read," continues Aleander, " by Dr. Spieghcl, with great attention on the part of aU ; and finally the Elector Joachim said, with the consent and in the name of all, that the Edict was acceptable to them, and that it should be promulgated without the change of an iota, and that this was the mind and conclusion of all the Estates of the Empire." Still, it was not till the next day that the Edict was actually signed. Aleander, who allowed no grass to grow under his feet, was up betimes to secure the intervention of the Chancellor Gattinanv with the Emperor. Him he found in bed with the gout, but the Bishop of Palencia was ready to take his place. The first signature to be obtained was that of Albert of Mainz, as Arch- chancellor of the Empire. From him Aleander proceeded to the Minster, where, after mass (it was the first Sunday after Trinity), he presented himself to the Emperor, who addressed him in French — " I know well that you are not a.sleep." Then in the midst of the church, surrounded by a brilliant assenibly of prelates and nobles, Charles signed both the Latin and the German copies of the Edict. Then smiling, he said to Aleander, " Now you will be content with me." Whereupon the Ximcio broke into a paean — " Of a certainty, Sire ; but much more will be content his Holiness, the Holy See and all Christendom, and will thank God, who has given them so good, so holy, so religiou.s an Emperor, whom may God maintain anil prosjjcr in these His holy undertakings, by which your Majesty has acquired perpetual glory and an eternal reward with God." Five days afterwards, on the 31st of May, the p:mperor left Worms.* The Edict, though actually signed on the 2Gth of May, was antedated to the 8th. Upon the good faith of thi.s pro- ' Bricger, ri'- 221, 222,223. 454 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. ceeding a lively controversy has arisen. The coincidence with the 8 th of May, the day on which the alliance between Emperor and Pope was said to have been made, may be regarded as accidental, as the treaty was certainly not ratified by Leo till near the end of the month. But was not the change of date intended to convey the idea to the world that the Edict had been issued while the Diet was still in full session, especially as in section 26 and elsewhere occur the words, "by virtue of the dignity, height, and authority of our Imperial office, and moreover with the unanimous advice and goodwill of our and the Holy Empire's Electors, Princes, and Estates now here assembled " ? It is true that the same words, in not quite so precise a form, are found in a kind of introduction to the Edict, which openly bears tlie date of May 26th ;^ while one distinguished critic ^ insists that the 8th of May was really the date at which the Edict assumed its present shape, both in Latin and in German. But it is obvious to reply that official documents do not take their date from any period of their intellectual gestation, but from the time at which the requisite signature makes them valid. The only conclusions to which it is possible to come are, first, that the Edict cannot be considered an act of the Diet, as it was first produced after its last sitting had come to an end, and then only to a few of its members ; and secondly, that the date was altered with a view of giving it an official weight which it did not really possess.^ The document itself bears the plainest traces of its origin. We can well believe Aleander when he declares himself its author. It is written with the pen of a Papal scribe, trying to place himself in the Imperial point of view. It tells the story of Luther's heresies, narrates what had taken place at Worms, vaunts the justice of the Emperor, the clemency of the Pope, paints with a broad brush the wickedness of the criminal on whom it is about to pass sentence. It places Luther and his adherents out of the pale of the law ; condemns his books to the flames; and subjects all printing to the control ^ Neudecker, UrJcunden aus der Ref. fur KircUengeschichte, vol. ix. p. 129: — Zcit. p. 2. W. Tesdorpf, Die ZiLVilckdatierung dcs - Brieger, p. 192 7iote. TFormser Ediktes, and Th. Brieger, 2 Vide two papers in the Zcitschrift Das Datum des Wormser Ediktes. LUTHER'S DEPARTURE FROM IVORAfS 455 of the bishops. Prepared with such eager care, welcomed with such ecstatic enthusiasm, the Edict was but stage thunder after all. Here and there, it is true, Lutlier's books were burned, but they were reprinted in rapidly nudtiplying editions. The course of the Eeformation was not f».)r a moment stayed — and not a hair of the heresiarch's head was touched. All that the Edict did was to display the Emperor bound hand and foot to the car of the Papacy.^ We return to the personal fortunes of Luther. Attended by the same companions as had escorted him on his journey thither, he rode out of Worms on Friday, April 2Glh. At Oppenheim he was overtaken by the Herald, and the whole party proceeded to Frankfurt. Hence on Sunday the 28th Luther wrote to Lucas Cranach, tlie painter, at Witten- berg, a letter. " My service to you, dear gossip Lucas. I bless and commend you to God. I allow myself to be shut up and hidden, I myself know not where. And although I had rather suffer death at the hands of the tyrants, especially those of the raging Duke George of Saxony, yet must I not despise the advice of good people, until His time come." " He had received some kind of warning from the Elector of wluit was to befall him, and had in part admitted Amsdorf to his confidence ; but the success of the plan depended upon its being kept secret, and we may easily suppose that he was content to remain in partial ignorance. Friedberg was the next stage in the journey. Hence he wrote letters^ to the Emperor and the Estates, which he sent back to Worms by the Herald, letters which, as we have seen, were absolutely without effect on his fate. It is the old story : he protests his personal loyalty and obedience to the Emperor ; he is willing to submit his case to learned and fair judges ; but he cannot give up the authority of the Word of God. If we may judge from a note of the same date, written to Spalatin, these letters were written at the request of the Elector.'* " Thou hast here the letters for which thou didst ask, my Spalatin ; for the rest do thou care." The next night he seems to have 1 The Edict will be found in Walch, => Ibid. pp. 580, L9i. vol. XV. pp. 2264 scq. * Ibid. p. COl. 2 De Wette, vol. i. p. 5S8. 456 THE DIET OF WORMS chap. spent at Griinberg ; and thence went on to Hersfeld, where he was received with great hospitality, both by the Benedictine Abbot and the council of the city. At five o'clock next morning he preached, in defiance, indeed, of the terms of the safe-conduct, yet unwilling that the Word of God should be bound. The Abbot, himself a Prince of the Empire, escorted him some distance on his way, and ordered a farewell meal to be prepared for the party at Berka. Thence a few miles brought him to Eisenach, where he was in the midst of kins- folk and friends, many of whom came out to welcome him.-^ At Eisenach he preached once more ; the priest of the church endeavouring to protect himself by a notarial protest. Here all his companions left him, except Amsdorf, and the Augustinian brother, John Petzensteiner. These accompanied him to Mohra, the cradle of his race, where his grandmother was still living, and Luthers were in almost every farmstead. Here again, he preached, tradition says under a great linden tree, and on the afternoon of Saturday, May 4th, took his way in the direction of Gotha. But while traversing a wood, behind Schloss Altenstein, not far from a little stream called the Glasbach, the carriage was suddenly attacked by a number of armed horsemen. Brother John, who was not in the secret, as well as Amsdorf, who was, saved themselves as they could ; the driver, with a crossbow held to his breast, was bidden to stand still ; Luther was carried into the wood by his captors. These proved to be Hans von Berlepsch, the commander of the Wartburg, and the Knight Burkhard Hund, to whom Schloss Altenstein belonged, both of them devoted servants of the Elector. They put Luther on horseback, and by devious ways brought him to the Wartburg, an Electoral residence, half palace, half fortress, which overhangs the town of Eisenach, and is all but visible from its streets.^ In days like these, when the communication of news is so rapid and so certain, it is difficult to understand how well the secret of Luther's hiding-place was kept. That he had dis- appeared, every one knew ; whither, no one. Some of his friends, as, for instance, Albert Diirer, lamented him as dead.^ ^ Spalatin's Annales, p. 50; De Ortmann, Mohra, pp. 150 scq., 183 Wette, vol. ii. p. 6. scq. 2 De Wette, vol. ii. pp. 6, 7 ; ' See ante, p. 338. LUTHER HIDDEX IX THE W'ARTlil'RG 457 Duke John of Saxony wrote to his brother, that he had lieunl a report that Luther was hidden in a castle of Siekini^'i'ii's, not far from the French frontier ; but tlie Elector is ])ni(k'nt, and in reply professes complete ignorance. But besides thu few to whom the secret was entrusted there were others who •guessed the truth. On the 31st of ]\Iay Crotus Eubianus wrote from Erfurt to John Hess, " Be of good comfort ; not foes but friends have carried him off." Aleander soon suspected wliat had taken place, though the Elector, he says in a letter of May 15th, swore by every oath that he knew nothing about it. By the beginning of July, however, this suspicion had ripened into certainty ; he had heard that Luther, under pretence of l)eing captured by his enemies, had been hidden by tlie contrivance of " the Saxon fox." Luther himself, no doubt at the instance of those who have him in charge, is cautious. On the 12th of May he writes three letters — one to Melanchthon, one to Amsdorf, and one to Agricola, assuring them of his safety ; Init they are dated "in regione avium," "in regione volucrum." Pre- sently it came to be " ex Eremo," or " in meiner Pathmos." ^ ]\Ieanwhile Aleander was happily convinced that his work was done. He had, indeed, an uncomfortable time when the news of Luther's disappearance came to "Worms ; he was told, and repeats the story with the gusto of a thnid man who has successfully encountered a danger, of conspiracies that had been made and oaths that had Ijeen taken against him, " so that lie would not be safe, even in the lap of Caesar." But this danger, as many similar ones had already done, passed away. Tlie comforting news came from Paris that the theological faculty of the University had, on the 15th of April, solemnly con- demned Luther's books. And presently, when Aleandei- followed Charles down the Pthine into the well-alfected Bur- gundian lands, there were burnings of books which were as incense in his nostrils. The Parliament of Paris ordered a like confiagi-ation throughout France ; a similar auto da fr actually took place in London, when Fisher, Bishop of Bochestcr, preached a sermon to 30,000 hearers. At the same time, there were clearer eyes than Aleander's, to which the cause of 1 Kolde, Friedr. d. Wcise, p. 47 ; nnd Documcnlr, p. 28 ; BrieRcr, pp. Fbrstemann, pp. 17-19 ; Krafft, Bric/e 209-213, 244 ; De Wettc, vol. ii. jx 1 trq. 458 THE DIET OF WORMS chap, ix the Papacy in Germany did not present itself in so favourable a light. About the middle of July 1521 the Archbishop of Mainz wrote to the Pope : " Day by day, in spite of the endeavours of all good men, of the Bull of your Blessedness, and the Edict of the Emperor against Martin and his accom- plices, the forces of the Lutherans increase ; not only are there but very few laymen who are candidly and simply well-affected to Churchmen, but a large portion of the priesthood takes part with Luther, and most are ashamed to stand on the side of the Eoman Church, so hated is the name of curtisani and the decrees, which with great scorn both the Wittenbergers and others reject." What, then, had the Diet of Worms done for the Church in Germany ? And whither had vanished Aleander's victory ? ^ 1 Brieger, pP- 188, 211, 257 ; E. Pace to Leo X, Balan, p. 255 ; Ihid. p. 268. INDEX AccoLTi, Cardinal Peter, 356 Adelmanu, Bernard, 336, 364, 377 Adelmauu, Conrad, 336 Adrian of Utrecht, Bishop of Tortosa (Pope Adrian VI), 30, 311, 351, 378, 407, 408, 432 iEneas Sylvius (Pius II), 66, 69 Agricola, John, 213, 288, 457 Agricola, Rudolf, 48, 69, 71, 84, 88, 262 Agrippa, Cornelius, von "Nettesheiui, 73, 321 Albert II (Emperor), 19, 40 Albert of Bavaria, Bishojj of Strassbxirg, 52 Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, birth and early career, 200 ; expectations formed on his appointment, 201 ; Luther's letters on the Ninety- live Theses, 215 ; his relations with Hutten, 355 ; at the Diet of Worms, 416, 420, 425 : 29, 34, 102, 105, 107, 169, 243, 313, 329, 340, 344, 431, 444, 445, 453, 458 Albert, Count of Mansfeld, 239 Albert of Saxony (Albertiue line), 168, 286 Aleander, Hieronymus, birth and career, 359 ; mission to Germany, 359 ; at the Diet of Worms, 413 sqq. : 331, 356, 358, 367, 372, 411 Alexander III (Pope), 7, 30 Alexander IV (Pope), 148 Alexander V (Pope), 39 Alexander VI (Pope), 8, 30, 172, 183, 233, 407 Alveld (Augustine of Alfeld), 352 Amsdorf, Nicholas, 154, 174, 176, 198, 222, 293, 360, 428, 446, 455, 456, 457 Anfechtungen, Luther's, 147 Anhalt, Adolph von, 178, 284, 294 Anna of Bohemia, 409 Anne of Brittany, 19, 310 Anshelm, Tliomas, 263 Aquinas, Thomas, 31, 68 Argyropulos, John, 85 Armstorff, 431 Auer, Dr. John, 245 Augsburg, the centre of Germau timuKo, 75 ; humanists at, 336 Augsburg, Diet of (1518), 33, 241 sqq. Augsburg, Diet of (1530), 2, 57, 404 Augustiue of Alfeld v. Alveld Augustinian Order, its foundation and history, 148 Aurogallus, Matthew, 259 Austria, House of, its increasing power, 409 Austria, Ferdinand of, 311, 354, 409, 435 Austria, Margaret of, 241, 311, 314 Austria, Maria of, 409 Austria, Philip of, 241, 309 Ave Maria, its prominent place in wor- ship, 57 Barbarus, Hemiolaus, 85, 262 Barnim, Duke of Pomt-rania, 293, 297,300 Basel, Council of, 1, 38, 40, 68. 384 Beatus Rhenanus, 229, 288, 321, 322 Bebel, Heinrich, S3, 263 Berlejisch, Hans von, 456 Berlichingen, (Jntz von, 16 Berthold, Arclibishop of Mainz, 20, 21 54, 200, 406 Besler, Nicholas, 181 Beyer, Leonard, 227, 240, 252 Bible, circulation of in Germany befon- Luther, 53, IVlnqq. Bibra, Lorenz von. Bishop of WunburK, 227 Biel, Gabriel, 140 Billican, Theol>ald, 223 Bock, Hans, 445 Bodensteiu, Andrew v. CarUtadt Boheini, Hans, hit preaching at Nikliw- hausen, 55 Bok-yu, SirThoma-s, 310 Boniface, 11, 123 Boniface VIII (Pojm:), 31, 42, 208. 237 BoscheuHtcin, John, 259 Bracciolini, Poggio, 68 46o INDEX Brant, Sebastian, his Ship of Fools, 83 : 51, 71, 83 Brassicanus, 263 Brauu, John, 118, 132, 165 Brenz, John, 228, 336 Briick, 421, 431, 432 Bucer or Butzer, Martin, 228, 336, 430, 431, 432, 433 Burkhardt, George v. Spalatin Burkhardt, Peter, 366, 367, 368 Busch, John, 38 Busche, Hermann von dem, 77, 175 Butzer v. Bucer Cajetan, Cardinal (Thomas de Vio), his character and mission, 242 ; his inter- views with Luther at Augsbursr, 246, sqq.: 239, 253, 254, 269, 270, 282, 289, 327, 346, 358 Calvin, 195, 197 Calvinism, a Protestant scholasticism, 3 Cameracensis (Peter d'Ailly), 154 Camerarius, Joachim, 77, 335 Canon Law, 31 Capito, 328, 336, 355 Capniot'. Reuchlin Caracciolo or Caraccioli, Martin, 331, 356, 359, 367, 413, 415, 431, 435 Carlstadt (Andrew Bodenstein), his charac- ter,278 ; thesesagainstEck, 281 ; contro- versy with Eck, 283 sqq. ; the disputa- tion at Leipzig, 293 sqq. ; his book on the Canon, 399 sqq. : 174, 175, 198, 213, 222, 277, 279, 280, 290, 303, 364, 377 Catharinus, Ambrosius, 427 Catholicism, permanence of, 405 Caxton's printing press, 54 Celtes, Conrad, 67, 74, 76, 81, 262 Charlemagne, 5, 7, 11 Charles IV (Emperor), 10 Charles V (Emperor), birth, education, and character, 311 ; weakness of his position, 312 ; candidature for the Imperial crown, 310 sqq. ; election and coronation, 318 ; hopes placed in him, 354 ; his difficulties, 407 ; policy at the Diet of Worms, 408 sqq., 418, 421 sq., 426 ; his ministers, 411 ; sum- mons Luther to Worms, 425 ; tears his letter, 426 ; his impression of Luther, 437 ; his declaration against Luther, 443 ; his alliance with Leo X, 451 : 8, 9, 23, 108, 241, 309, 331, 342, 351, 441, 449, 450, 452, 453 Charles YII (of France), 42 Charles VIII (of France), 19, 310 Charles Martel, 11 Charles the Bold, 22, 310 Chieregati, 34 Chievres, Seigneur de, 311, 312, 411, 418, 443, 446, 452 Christian, King of Denmark, 243 Church, the, its power in Germany, 10 sqq.; origin of this power, 11 ; loses its democratic character, 13 ; effect of the combination of wealth and political power, 29 ; its unity and supremacy, 24 ; its dissociation from classical literature, 25 ; connection with philo- sophy, 26 ; claims an indefeasible authority, 27, 381 ; sole medium of salvation, 27 ; its omnipresence, 28 ; wealth, 29 ; immorality, 29, 34 ; claims to universal supervision, 31 ; system of jurisprudence, 31 ; demands for reform of abuses, 33 ; character of its system dependent upon that of its priests, 35 ; Catholic attempts at re- form, 36 sqq. ; weakness of nionasticism, 37 ; conciliar attempts, 39, 42 ; the Catholic mystics, 43 ; Brethren of the Common Life, 45 sqq. ; other Catholic reformers, 47 sqq. ; censorship of books, 54 ; attitude towards Scripture, 381 ; sole custodian of the Sacraments, 382 ; practical abuses, 385; Luther's doctrine of the Church, 392 ; his scheme of practical reform, 402 ; gravamina at Worms, 450 Clement VII (Pope), 30 Cochlaeus, 54, 179, 336, 446 Coelde, Dederich, 38 Coelius, Pastor, 124 Colet, John, 89, 91, 322 Common Life, Brethren of the, 38, 42, 44, 45 sqq., 54, 128 Conrad, Professor at Heidelberg, 262 Constauz, Council of, 1, 38, 39, 49, 68, 135, 149, 373, 384, 432, 440, 443, 446, 448 Constanz, Diet of, 450 Contarini, Gasparo, 449, 452 Contoblacas, Andronicus, 84 Cordus, Euricius, 77, 333, 334 Cottas, the, of Eisenach, 130 sqq. Craflft, Adam v. Kraft Cranach, Lucas, 201, 427, 455 Crocus, Richard, 111 Cross, Brothers of the, 124 " Cross miracles," 58 Crotus Rubianus (Johann Jager), his re- lationship to the E})}}. Obsc, Vir., Ill sqq. ; his letters to Luther, 334 : 77, 101, 115, 140, 141, 175, 332, 341, 429, 457 Cuspinian, 438 Dalberg, Johannes von, 71, 85, 262 Daun, Philip von, 52 Decretals, the pseudo-Isidorian, 8, 31 INDEX 461 Dispensations and indulgences, 32 Dolzig, John, 364, 377 Douatus, 123 Dorne, John, of Oxford, liis ledger, 3-2'2 Draco, 335 Driindorf, John, burned at Worms, -49 Driugenberg, Ludwig, 69, 70, 261 Diirer, Albert, 75, 201 ; his emotion at Luther's disappearance, 338, 456 Eberbach, George, 77 Eberbach, Heinrich, 77, 335 Eberbach, Peter v. Petrejns Eberhard or Erhard von der Mark (Erar- dus de Marca), Bishop of Liege, 244, 359, 412 Eberhard -nith the Beard, Count of Wiirtemberg, 85, 263 Ebner, Hieronymus, 337 Eck (John Maier), birth, education, and character, 276; his attack on the Ninety- five Theses, 280 ; his challenge to Carl- stadt, 282 ; controversy with him and Luther, 283 sqq. ; the disputation at Leipzig, 293 sqq. ; at Rome, 356 ; the Bull Exsurge Domine, 357 ; mission to Germany in 1520, 358, 359 ; his re- ception, 365 : 49, 76, 213, 233, 275, 281, 289, 290, 302, 328, 334, 336, 337, 339, 346, 353, 364, 366, 368, 371, 377, 378 Eck, John von. Official of Archbishop of Trier, 436, 438, 439, 440, 441, 446 Eckhart, 44 Egidio da Viterbo, 42 Egranus, Sylvius, 280, 364, 377 Electoral College, composition of, 10 Empire, the, its political condition, 5 sqq.\ theory of, contra-sted with real position, 6 ; relations with the Pajiacy, 7 ; effect of the crowii not being here- ditary, 8 ; its estimation at the lowest, 18 ; projects of reform, 19 sqq.; their failure, 21 ; summary of its condition, 21 sqq. Emser, Hieronymus, his controversy with Luther, 303 : 86, 138, 336, 337, 396, 427, 430 Ejnstolae Obscurorum Virorum, 109 ; their success, 110 ; their authorshii>, 111; Erasmus's attitude towards them, 113 ; Luther's, 197 ; 325, 332 Eiasmus, 53, 69, 76, 83 ; l)irth and edu- cation, 88 ; his grievance afrainst Mon- asticism, 88 ; in England, 89 ; vii.it to Italy, 89 ; his use of Latin, 90 ; his Collcjuies, 90 ; his corre»i>onden(«', 90 ; his Adatjrs and Km-nmium Morioe, 83, 90 ; bis monanhy of literature, 91 : his serious religious puqiasc, 91 ; his EnehirUiion, M ; hu method of refonn, 93 ; publi«hp« Valla's ,l»ni(./.j/.,.H.,. ^\ ; hin (;rv«k New Testament, 94 ; ,l,.frcU of tlio lirst edition, 95 ; itn characlor, 95 ; his i)osition as an interpn-tcr, 97* ; the climax of his life, 99 ; hi-, attitude In the Keuchlin controviTty, 113; Luther*, opinion of him, 197 ; |.mi.i«-s Midanch- thon, 264 ; letter to Luther, 322 ; hii attitude towanls Lutlier's movenifnl, 329: 115, 201, 2StJ, 320, 327, 335. 355, 367, 386, 396, 401, 412 423 431 Erfurt, its position and wealth, 133 ; it-. University, 134, 300, 304 ; CntlioU.- Reformers at, 135 ; attitude of the city an\-ick • LUneliurv. 187 ^ Euricius Conlus r. Cord us Exsurge Domini-, the Bull, 357 ; its pub- lication, 364 ; reception in Genuauy, 365, 371 ; burnt by Luther, 375 Eyb, Gabriel von, Bishop of Ei.-hatadt, 280 Feilitsch, Fabian von, 272, 304, 370 Feilitsch, Philij. von, 245, 248, 434 Ferdinand of Arragon, 1, 5, 241, 309, 312 Ferdinand of Austria r. Austria Ficino, Marsilio, 65 Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 113. 457 Flagellants, 124 Fleck, Dr., 222 Forchheimius, 335 Francis L, 21; character, 309; caixU< dature for the Ini|irrial crown, 309 sqq.; 342, 355, 407, 412 Frederick Barlwirossa, 7 Frederick II (Kiiii>fror\ P Fre.l.ruk III 1' ' ud reign, IS : •'<, Fred. rick the (.. .1. Frederick the Warlike (KIccior of 8M' nnv\ 2'»4 F; " ■ ■■■ ■■ ' ^', la l.i:r.', 'J.'' !, •.'. ■ lii.i«n*J 462 INDEX crowu, 317; interview with Erasmus, 331 ; ill looked ^^pou at Rome, 350 ; interview with Caracciolo and Aleander, 367 ; at the Diet of Worms, 413 sqq. ; 23, 78, 128, 165, 167, 169, 170, 172, 174, 184, 187, 222, 226, 239, 240, 242, 265, 269, 287, 289, 303, 304, 307, 309, 313, 346, 354, 414, 418, 420, 421, 424, 425, 435, 441, 445, 452, 455, 457 Frederick of Zollern, Bishop of Aixgs- burg, 52 Free cities, 16 sqci- "Friends of God," 42, 44 Froben, Johann, printer at Basel, 53, 94, 321 Frosch, John, 245 Frdschel, Sebastian, 301 Frundsberg, George, 23, 438 Fuggers, the, 75, 201, 203, 277, 293, 313, 358 Gattinara, Mercurino, 411, 446, 453 Geiler von Kaisersberg, 50 sciq. ; his sermons, 51 ; his inflnence, 52 ; 71, 262 Gemmingen, Uriel von, Archbishop of Mainz, 200 George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony, his birth and character, 286 : 169, 282, 283, 284, 285, 287, 288, 298, 300, 301, 346, 365, 374, 386, 388, 426, 445, 455 George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, 286 Germany, political condition of, 5 sqq.; contrast with other European countries, 5 ; growing independence of States, 9 ; number of States in the hands of the Church, 10; eftect of this upon politics, 12 sciq. ; double character of such States, 12s2'(?. ; religious life of, 24 sqq.; religious excitement in, 54 sqq.; the renaissance in, 62 sqq.\ education in, 66 sqq.\ its reform, 69 ; division of learned opinion in, 325 ; patriotism in, 339 Gerson, John, 39 Ghiuucci, Hieronymus, 238 Glapiou, 412 ; his action at the Diet of Worms, 421 sqq. ; his second intrigue, 431 sqq. ; 434, 439 Glareauus, 321 Goch, John of, 48 Gode, Henuing, 78, 145, 175, 428 Golden Bull, the, 10 Greek, revived study of, 62, 63 Gregory VII (Pope), 7,8, 30, 34, 354, 384 Greiffenklau, Richard von. Archbishop of Trier, 242, 273, 313, 445 ; interviews with Luther at Worms, 446 sqq. Grimanus, Cardinal, 113 Grocyn, 89 Groot, Gerhard, 42, 45 Gunpowder, efiect of invention of, 16 Gunther, Count of Mansfeld, 126 Giinther, Francis, his Theses Contra Schol- asticam Theologiam, 194 Gutenberg, 69 Hedio, 336 Hegius, Alexander, 69, 70, 77, 88, 110 Hemmerlin, Felix, 50 Henry IV (Emperor), 7, 354 Henry V (Emperor), 12 Henry VIII (of England), 89, 309, 310, 317 Henry, Duke of Brunswick, 413 Henry, Duke of Saxony, 371 Henry of Nassau, 418 Hermann, Count, von Neuenar, 327, 331 Hermolaus Barbarus v. Barbarus Hermonymus, George, 84 Hess, Eoban, 80, 82, 112, 140, 175, 332, 333, 334, 335, 429, 430 Hess, John, 322, 457 Hilten, John, 132 Hoff, Hermann von, 429 "Holy Blood," Miracle of, 54 Honstein, William von, Bishop of Strass- burg, 52 Hoogstrateu, Jacob, 107 sq., 114, 303, 325 Hroswitha, 74 Humanism, Italian, 65 Humanists, the German, 69 sqq. ; their patriotic spirit, 72 ; at Augsburg and Niirnberg, 75, 366 ; at Erfurt, 77, 333 ; their literary correspondence, 81 ; Luther's relation to them, 197 ; their indifi'erence to his movement, 327 ; at great cities, 335 Hund, Burkhard, 456 Hus, John, his relation to Luther, 49 ; his influence on German thought, 49 : 2, 39, 299, 358, 373, 403, 419, 432, 440 Hutten, Hans von, 102, 316 Hutteu, Ulrich von, his birth, descent, and education, 100 ; early life, 101 ; at Mainz, 102 ; his cousin's murder, 102 ; his enthusiasm for the new learning, 103 ; his relationship to the Ejjp. Obsc. Vir., Ill ; his Triamphus Capnionis, 113 ; a partisan of Luther, 114 ; visits Wittenberg, 175 ; his indifference to Luther's movement, 327 ; is drawn to the Reformers, 334 ; intimacy with Sickingen, 340, 342 sqq.; his patriot- ism, 340 ; hatred of Rome, 344 ; his Vadiscus and Insjncientes, 344 ; leaves the service of Albert of Mainz, 355 ; I.XDEX 463 joius Sk'kingcii, 356 ; at tlif Ditt of Worms, 416, 420, 423 ; bis intri^nie ■with Armstorft' aud Glapion, 430 .vv/.: 33, 76, 77, lOS, 201, 322, 324, 328, 330, 334, 335, 350, 354, 430 Imitation of Christ, 42, 43, 44, 46 sq., 196 Immaculate conception, doctrine of the, 57, 222, 385 Indulgence of 1500, 59 sq. Indulgence of 1516, 203 Indulgences, 32, 202, 256, 389 ; Catholic theory of, 205 sq. ; ceremonial of pro- mulgation, 211 ; disputation on, at Leipzig, 299 Innocent III (Pope), 8, 31, 384 Innocent IV (Pope), 148 Innocent VIII (Pope), 30, 57, 125 Investiture, struggle for the right of, 12; effect of its decision, 13 Isabella of CastUe, 1, 5, 241, 309, 312 Jager, Johann v. Crotus Jerome of Prague, 39, 358, 403 Jesus, Society of, 2 Joachim I., Elector of Brandenburg, 102, 200, 300, 309, 313, 413, 445, 446, 452, 453 Joacliim of Flora, 246 Joan of Spain, 241 John XII (Pope), 7 John XXIII (Pope), 32, 39 John, Elector of Brandenburg, 200 John, Elector of Saxony, 154, 169, 172, 187, 368, 414, 428, 457 John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 187, 427 Jonas, Justus, 78, 112, 333, 335, 428, 430, 433 Jubilee, the, of 1500, 59 Julius II (Pope), 30, 41, 172, 183, 202. 210, 232, 233, 237, 291, 407 Justice, Imperial Court of, 20, 406, 410, 449 ILvuFCXGEX, Kuuz von, 168, 169, 286 Kestner, John, 240 Knipstrow, John, 223 Koburger, Antony, 53 Koln, University of, and Reuchlin, 107 ; condemns Luther's works, 351 Kraft w CYafft, Adam, 75, 333, 335 Lang, Matthew, Archbishop of Salzburg, 273, 283, 412,417 Lang or Liinge, John, 77, 139, 186, 187, 194, 199, 214, 227, 291, 293, 322, 333, 335, 361, 429 Lange, John (of Silesia), 300 Lange, Rudolf, 69, 7", 71 Langeniantcl, Christophur, 245, 252, 336 Lateran Council, the First, 13 Laterau Council, the Fifth, 1, 41 Latin, a living langunKe i" Italy, 62 Le Fevre d'Etnplos v. StapuU-ndiH Lee, Edward, An-libj.shop of York. 333 Legates, Papal, tlu-ir i>o>ition in England and Germany contm>tod, 1 4 Leipzig Disi)utation, the, 283. 293 »qq. Leipzig, the University of, 284 Leo X (Pope), (Giovanni de Me«lici), liiii character, 233 ; attituile townnli Luther, 233 ; towards tiie candidaturr'.n of Charles and Francis, 314 : 29, 30, 41, 104, 107, 108, 110, 113, 201, 202, 214, 231, 243. 256, 269, 270, 275, 289. 325, 329, 355, 356, 361, 37o, 373, 378, 407, 409, 418, 421, 451. 454 Lewis of Bohemia, 309, 409 Liber, Antonius, 69, 70 Linacre, 89 Link, Wenceslaus, 129, 184. 187, 199, 240, 246, 250, 337, 363, 427 Loans, Jehiel, 86 Locher, 72, 83 Lombard, Peter, Sentences of, 68 Lonicerus, John, 352 Lotter, Melchior. 266 Louis XI (of France), 19. 241, 310 Louis XII (of France), 19, 41, 107. 310 Louvaiu, University of. (-...•■'••i!"- Luther's works, 351 Luder. Peter, 71, 77, 135 Lupinus, Peter, 279 Luther, Fabian, 117 Luther, Hans, 116, 119, 120, 125. 126, 146, l.'i5 Luther, Jacob, 120 Luther, Margarette, 116, 119 Luther, Martin, liis doctrine of the authority of Scrijiture, 2 ; theor>- of the priesthooidlinjr« of the name, 118; birthplace, 119; character of parents, 120 ; tliM-iplioe at homo and at school. 121 ; tint »chool iin.l childhooology and Christian Answer," 338 : 337, 364, 377, 378, 420, 436 Spiegelberg, Count Moritz von, 69, 70, 71 Sprenger, Jacob, 57 Stadianus, 263 Stapulensis (Le Fi-vTe d'Etaples). 197. 321 Staupitz, John von, his career and char- acter, 152 sqq.: 141, 151, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 170, 174, 175, 180, 185, 192, 198, 199. 218, 221, 227, 230, 239, 245, 248, 249, 250, 270, 337, 361, 362, 363 Staupitz, Magdalena, 153 Stein, Eitelwolf von, 102, 201 Stein, Heylin von, 50, 84 StutUer, 263 Storm, Claus, 129 Sturm, Caspar (II enald "Deutschland "), 426, 428, 433, 435 Swaven, Peter, 428 Sybutus, George, 174 Sylvius Egranus v. Egranus Tauleb, Johann, 42, 44, 195 Tetzel, John, birth, education, and cliar acter, 209, 256; his j.reuching, 211, 212 ; his relations with Alltert of Mainz, 216 ; his reply to tlie Ninety- five Theses, 223 ; further i)ublication8, 233 ; death, 272 : 146, 193, 199, 203, 205, 271, 281, 283, 389 Teutleben, Valentine von, 350, 356 Teutonic knights, 11, 210 Theoloyia (Jennutiict, 42, 43, 44, 370 : its influence on Luther, 195 */