-- 5. The Papal Bull.
The Bull, _Exurge Domine_, was scarcely worthy of the occasion. The Pope seems to have left its construction in the hands of Prierias, Cajetan, and Eck, and the contents seem to show that Eck had the largest share in framing it. Much of it reads like an echo of Eck"s statements at Leipzig a year before. It began pathetically: "Arise, O Lord, plead Thine own cause; remember how the foolish man reproacheth Thee daily; the foxes are wasting Thy vineyard, which Thou hast given to Thy Vicar Peter; the boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it."
St. Peter is invoked, and the Pope"s distress at the news of Luther"s misdeeds is described at length. The most disturbing thing is that the errors of the Greeks and of the Bohemians were being revived, and that in Germany, which had hitherto been so faithful to the Holy See. Then came forty-one propositions, said to be Luther"s, which are condemned as "heretical or scandalous, or false or offensive to pious ears, or seducing to simple minds, and standing in the way of the Catholic faith."(172) All faithful people were ordered to burn Luther"s books wherever they could find them. Luther himself had refused to come to Rome and submit to instruction; he had even appealed to a General Council, contrary to the decrees of Julius II. and Pius II.; he was therefore inhibited from preaching; he and all who followed him were ordered to make public recantation within sixty days; if they did not, they were to be treated as heretics, were to be seized and imprisoned by the magistrates, and all towns or districts which sheltered them were to be placed under an interdict.
Among the forty-one propositions condemned was one-that the burning of heretics was a sin against the Spirit of Christ-to which the Pope seemed to attach special significance, so often did he repeat it in letters to the Elector Frederick and other authorities in Germany. The others may be arranged in four cla.s.ses-against Luther"s opinions about Indulgences; his statements about Purgatory; his declarations that the efficacy of the sacraments depended upon the spiritual condition of those who received them; that penance was an outward sign of sorrow, and that good works (ecclesiastical and moral) were to be regarded as the signs of faith rather than as making men actually righteous; his denial of the later _curial_ a.s.sertions of the nature of the papal monarchy over the Church.
Luther"s opinions on all these points could be supported by abundant testimony from the earlier ages of the Church, and most of his criticisms were directed against theories which had not been introduced before the middle of the thirteenth century. The Bull made no attempt to argue about the truth of the positions taken in its sentences. There was nothing done to show that Luther"s opinions were wrong. The one dominant note running all through the papal deliverance was the simple a.s.sertion of the Pope"s right to order any discussion to cease at his command.
This did not help to commend the Bull to the people of Germany, and was specially unsuited to an age of restless mental activity. The method adopted for publishing it in Germany was still less calculated to win respect for its decisions. The publication was entrusted to John Eck of Ingolstadt, who was universally recognised as Luther"s personal enemy; and the hitherto unheard of liberty was granted to him to insert at his pleasure the names of a certain number of persons, and to summon them to appear before the Roman Curia. He showed how unfit he was for this responsible task by inserting the names of men who had criticised or satirised him-Adelmann, Pirkheimer, Carlstadt, and three others.(173)
Eck discovered that it was an easier matter to get permission from the Roman Curia to frame a Bull against the man who had stopped the sale of Indulgences, and was drying up a great source of revenue, than to publish the Bull in Germany. It was thought at Rome that no man had more influence among the bishops and Universities, but the Curia soon learnt that it had made a mistake. The Universities stood upon their privileges, and would have nothing to do with John Eck. The bishops made all manner of technical objections. Many persons affected to believe that the Bull was not authentic; and Luther himself did not disdain to take this line in his tract, _Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist_. Eck, who had come down to Germany inflated with vanity, found himself mocked and scorned.
Pirkheimer dubbed him _gehobelter Eck_, Eck with the swelled head, and the epithet stuck. Nor was the publication any easier when the pretence of unauthenticity could be maintained no longer. The University of Wittenberg refused to publish the Bull, on the ground that the Pope would not have permitted its issue had he known the true state of matters, and they blamed Eck for misinforming His Holiness: the Council of Electoral Saxony agreed with the Senate; and their action was generally commended. Spalatin said that he had seen at least thirty letters from great princes and learned men of all districts in Germany, from Pomerania to Switzerland, and from the Breisgau to Bohemia, encouraging Luther to stand firm. Eck implored the bishops of the dioceses surrounding Wittenberg-Merseburg, Meissen, and Brandenburg-to publish the Bull. They were either unwilling or powerless.
Luther had been expecting a Bull against him ever since the Leipzig Disputation. His correspondence reveals that he met it undismayed. What harm could a papal Bull do to a man whose faith had given him fellowship with G.o.d? What truth could there be in a Bull which clearly contradicted the Holy Scriptures? St. Paul has warned us against believing an angel from heaven if he uttered words different from the Scriptures, which are our strength and our consolation; why should we pin our faith to a Pope or a Council? The Bull had done one thing for him, it had made him an excommunicated man, and therefore had freed him from his monastic vows. He could leave the convent when he liked, only he did not choose to do so.
When he heard that his writings had been burnt as heretical by order of the Papal Legates, he resolved to retaliate. It was no sudden decision.
Eleven months previously he had a.s.sured Spalatin (January 1520) that if Rome condemned and burnt his writings he would condemn and burn the papal Decretal Laws. On December 10th (1520) he posted a notice inviting the Wittenberg students to witness the burning of the papal Const.i.tutions and the books of Scholastic Theology at nine o"clock in the morning.(174) A mult.i.tude of students, burghers, and professors met in the open s.p.a.ce outside the Elster Gate between the walls and the river Elbe. A great bonfire had been built. An oak tree planted long ago still marks the spot.
One of the professors kindled the pile; Luther laid the books of the Decretals on the glowing ma.s.s, and they caught the flames; then amid solemn silence he placed a copy of the Bull on the fire, saying in Latin: _As thou hast wasted with anxiety the Holy One of G.o.d, so may the eternal flames waste thee_ (_Quia tu conturbasti Sanctum Domini, ideoque te conturbet ignis eternus_). He waited till the paper was consumed, and then with his friends and fellow-professors he went back to the town. Some hundreds of students remained standing round the fire. For a while they were sobered by the solemnity of the occasion and sang the _Te Deum_. Then a spirit of mischief seized them, and they began singing funeral dirges in honour of the burnt Decretals. They got a peasant"s cart, fixed in it a pole on which they hung a six-foot-long banner emblazoned with the Bull, piled the small cart with the books of Eck, Emser, and other Romish controversialists, hauled it along the streets and out through the Elster Gate, and, throwing books and Bull on the glowing embers of the bonfire, they burnt them. Sobered again, they sang the _Te Deum_ and finally dispersed.
It is scarcely possible for us in the twentieth century to imagine the thrill that went through Germany, and indeed through all Europe, when the news sped that a poor monk had burnt the Pope"s Bull. Papal Bulls had been burnt before Luther"s days, but the burners had been for the most part powerful monarchs. This tune it was done by a monk, with nothing but his courageous faith to back him. It meant that the individual soul had discovered its true value. If eras can be dated, modern history began on December 10th, 1520.
-- 6. Luther the Representative of Germany.
Hitherto we have followed Luther"s personal career exclusively. It may be well to turn aside for a little to see how the sympathy of many cla.s.ses of the people was gathering round him.
The representatives of foreign States who were present at the Diet of Worms, of England, Spain, and Venice, all wrote home to their respective governments about the extraordinary popularity which Luther enjoyed among almost every cla.s.s of his fellow-countrymen; and, as we shall see, the despatches of Aleander, the papal nuncio at the Diet, are full of statements and complaints which confirm these reports. This popularity had been growing since 1517, and there are traces that many thoughtful men had been attracted to Luther some years earlier. The accounts of Luther"s interview with Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, and his att.i.tude at the Leipzig Disputation, had given a great impulse to the veneration with which people regarded him; but the veneration itself had been quietly growing, apart from any striking incidents in his career. The evidence for what follows has been collected chiefly from such private correspondence as has descended to us; and most stress has been laid on letters which were not addressed to Luther, and which were never meant to be seen by him. Men wrote to each other about him, and described the impression he was making on themselves and on the immediate circle of their acquaintances. We learn from such letters not merely the fact of the esteem, but what were the characteristics in the man which called it forth.(175)
A large part of the evidence comes from the correspondence of educated men, who, if they were not all Humanists strictly so called, belonged to that increasing cla.s.s on whom the New Learning had made a great impression, and had produced the characteristic habit of mind which belonged to its possessors. The att.i.tude and work of Erasmus had prepared them to appreciate Luther. The monkish opponents of the great Humanist had been thoroughly in the right when they feared the effects of his revolutionary ways of thinking, however they might be accompanied with appeals against all revolutionary action. He had exhibited his idea of what a life of personal religion ought to be in his _Enchiridion_; he had exposed the mingled Judaism and paganism of a great part of the popular religion; he had poured scorn on the trifling subtleties of scholastic theology, and had asked men to return to a simple "Christian Philosophy"; above all, he had insisted that Christianity could only renew its youth by going back to the study of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of the New Testament; and he had aided his contemporaries to make this return by his edition of the New Testament, and by his efforts to bring within their reach the writings of the earlier Church Fathers. His Humanist followers in Germany believed that they saw in Luther a man who was doing what their leader urged all men to do. They saw in Luther an Erasmus, who was going to the root of things. He was rejecting with increasing determination the bewildering sophistries of Scholasticism, and, what was more, he was showing how many of these had arisen by exalting the authority of the pagan Aristotle over that of St. Paul and St. Augustine. He had painfully studied these Schoolmen, and could speak with an authority on this matter; for he was a learned theologian. The reports of his lectures, which were spreading throughout Germany, informed them that he based his teaching on a simple exposition of the Holy Scriptures in the Vulgate version, which was sanctioned by the mediaeval Church. He had revolted, and was increasingly in revolt, against those abuses in the ordinary religious life which were encouraged from sordid motives by the Roman Curia,-abuses which Erasmus had pierced through and through with the light darts of his sarcasm; and Luther knew, as Erasmus did not, what he was speaking about, for he had surrendered himself to that popular religion, and had sought in it desperately for a means of reconciliation with G.o.d without succeeding in his quest. They saw him insisting, with a strenuousness no Humanist had exhibited, on the Humanist demand that every man had a right to stand true to his own personal conscientious convictions. If some of them, like Erasmus, in spite of their scorn of monkery, still believed that the highest type of the religious life was a sincere self-sacrificing Franciscan monk, they saw their ideal in the Augustinian Eremite, whose life had never been stained by any monkish scandal, and who had been proclaimed by his brother monks to be a model of personal holiness. They were sure that when he pled heroically for the freedom of the religious life, his courage, which they could not emulate, rested on a depth and strength of personal piety which they sadly confessed they themselves did not possess. If they complained at times that Luther spoke too strongly against the Pope, they admitted that he was going to the root of things in his attack. All clear-sighted men perceived that the _one_ obstacle to reform was the theory of the papal monarchy, which had been laboriously constructed by Italian canonists after the failure of Conciliar reform,-a theory which defied the old mediaeval ecclesiastical tradition, and contradicted the solemn decisions of the great German Councils of Constance and Basel. Luther"s attacks on the Papacy were not stronger than those of Gerson and d"Ailly, and his language was not more unmeasured than that of their common master, William of Occam. There was nothing in these early days to prevent men who were genuinely attached to the mediaeval Church, its older theology and its ancient rites, from rallying round Luther. When the marches began to be redd, and the beginnings of a Protestant Church confronted the mediaeval, the situation was changed. Many who had enthusiastically supported Luther left him.
Conrad Mutia.n.u.s, canon of Gotha, and the veteran leader of the Erfurt circle of Humanists, wrote admiringly of the originality of Luther"s sermons as early as 1515. He applauded the stand he took at Leipzig, and spoke of him as _Martinum, Deo devotissimum doctorem_. His followers were no longer contented with a study of the cla.s.sical authors. Eoba.n.u.s Hessus, crowned "poet-king" of Germany, abandoned his _Horace_ for the _Enchiridion_ of Erasmus and the Holy Scriptures. Justus Jonas (Jodocus Koch of Nordlingen) forsook cla.s.sical Greek to busy himself with the Epistles to the Corinthians. The wicked satirist, Curicius Cordus, betook himself to the New Testament. They did this out of admiration for Erasmus, "their father in Christ." But when Luther appeared, when they read his pamphlets circulating through Germany, when they followed, step by step, his career, they came under the influence of a new spell. The _Erasmici_, to use the phrases of the times, diminished, and the _Martiniani_ increased in numbers. One of the old Erfurt circle, Johannes Crotus Rubea.n.u.s, was in Rome. His letters, pa.s.sed round among his friends, made no small impression upon them. He told them that he was living in the centre of the plague-spot of Europe. He reviled the Curia as devoid of all moral conscience. "The Pope and his carrion-crows" were sitting content, gorged on the miseries of the Church. When Crotus received from Germany copies of Luther"s writings, he distributed them secretly to his Italian friends, and collected their opinions to transmit to Germany. They were all sympathetically impressed with what Luther said, but they pitied him as a man travelling along a very dangerous road; no real reform was possible without the destruction of the whole curial system, and that was too powerful for any man to combat. Yet Luther was a hero; he was the _Pater Patriae_ of Germany; his countrymen ought to erect a golden statue in his honour; they wished him G.o.d-speed. When Crotus returned to Germany and got more in touch with Luther"s work, he felt more drawn to the Reformer, and wrote enthusiastically to his friends that Luther was the personal revelation of Christ in modern times. So we find these Humanists declaring that Luther was the St. Paul of the age, the modern Hercules, the Achilles of the sixteenth century.
No Humanist circle gave Luther more enthusiastic support than that of Nurnberg. The soil had been prepared by a few ardent admirers of Staupitz, at the head of whom was Wenceslas Link, prior of the Augustinian-Eremites in Nurnberg, and a celebrated preacher. They had learned from Staupitz that blending of the theology of Augustine with the later German mysticism which was characteristic of the man, and it prepared them to appreciate the deeper experimental teaching of Luther. Among these Nurnberg Humanists was Christopher Scheurl, a jurist, personally acquainted with Luther and with Eck. The shortlived friendship between the two antagonists had been brought about by Scheurl, whose correspondence with Luther began in 1516.
Scheurl was convinced that Luther"s cause was the "cause of G.o.d." He told Eck this. He wrote to him (February 18th, 1519) that all the most spiritually minded clergymen that he knew were devoted to Luther; that "they flew to him in dense troops, like starlings"; that their deepest sympathies were with him; and that they confessed that their holiest desires were prompted by his writings. Albert Durer expressed his admiration by painting Luther as St. John, the beloved disciple of the Lord. Caspar Nutzel, one of the most dignified officials of the town, thought it an honour to translate Luther"s _Ninety-five Theses_ into German. Lazarus Sprengel delighted to tell his friends how Luther"s tracts and sermons were bringing back to a living Christianity numbers of his acquaintances who had been perplexed and driven from the faith by the trivialities common in ordinary sermons. Similar enthusiasm showed itself in Augsburg and other towns. After the Leipzig Disputation, the great printer of Basel, Frobenius, became an ardent admirer of Luther; reprinted most of his writings, and despatched them to Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Italy, England, and Spain. He delighted to tell of the favourable reception they met with in these foreign countries,-how they had been welcomed by Lefevre in France, and how the Swiss Cardinal von Sitten had said that Luther deserved all honour, for he spoke the truth, which no special pleading of an Eck could overthrow. The distinguished jurist Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg said that Luther was an "angel incarnate," and while he deprecated his strong language against the Pope, he called him the "Phnix among Christian theologians," the "flower of the Christian world," and the "instrument of G.o.d." Zasius was a man whose whole religious sympathies belonged to the mediaeval conception of the Church, yet he spoke of Luther in this way.
It is perhaps difficult for us now to comprehend the state of mind which longed for the new and yet clung to the old, which made the two Nurnberg families, the Ebners and the Nutzlers, season the ceremonies at their family gathering to celebrate their daughters taking the veil with speeches in praise of Luther and of his writings. Yet this was the dominant note in the vast majority of the supporters of Luther in these earlier years.
Men who had no great admiration for Luther personally had no wish to see him crushed by the Roman Curia by mere weight of authority. Even Duke George of Saxony, who had called Luther a pestilent fellow at the Leipzig Disputation, had been stirred into momentary admiration by the _Address to the Christian n.o.bility of the German Nation_, and had no great desire to publish the Bull within his dominions; and his private secretary and chaplain, Jerome Emser, although a personal enemy who never lost an opportunity of controverting Luther, nevertheless hoped that he might be the instrument of effecting a reformation in the Church. Jacob Wimpheling of Stra.s.sburg, a thoroughgoing mediaevalist who had manifested no sympathy for Reuchlin, and his friend Christopher of Utenheim, Bishop of Basel, hoped that the movement begun by Luther might lead to that reformation of the Church on mediaeval lines which they both earnestly desired.
Perhaps no one represented better the att.i.tude of the large majority of Luther"s supporters, in the years between 1517 and 1521, than did the Prince, who is rightly called Luther"s protector, Frederick the Elector of Saxony. It is a great though common mistake to suppose that Frederick shared those opinions of Luther which afterwards grew to be the Lutheran theology. His brother John, and in a still higher degree his nephew John Frederick, were devoted Lutherans in the theological sense; but there is no evidence to show that Frederick ever was.
Frederick never had any intimate personal relations with Luther. At Spalatin"s request, he had paid the expenses of Luther"s _promotion_ to the degree of Doctor of the Holy Scriptures; he had, of course, acquiesced in his appointment to succeed Spalatin as Professor of Theology; and he must have appreciated keenly the way in which Luther"s work had gradually raised the small and declining University to the position it held in 1517.
A few letters were exchanged between Luther and Frederick, but there is no evidence that they ever met in conversation; nor is there any that Frederick had ever heard Luther preach. When he lay dying he asked Luther to come and see him; but the Reformer was far distant, trying to dissuade the peasants from rising in rebellion, and when he reached the palace his old protector had breathed his last.
The Elector was a pious man according to mediaeval standards. He had received his earliest lasting religious impressions from intercourse with Augustinian Eremite monks when he was a boy at school at Grimma, and he maintained the closest relations with the Order all his life. He valued highly all the external aids to a religious life which the mediaeval Church had provided. He believed in the virtue of pilgrimages and relics. He had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and had brought back a great many relics, which he had placed in the Church of All Saints in Wittenberg, and he had agents at Venice and other Mediterranean ports commissioned to secure other relics for his collection. He continued to purchase them as late as the year 1523. He believed in Indulgences of the older type,-Indulgences which remitted in whole or in part ecclesiastically imposed _satisfactions_,-and he had procured two for use in Saxony. One served as an endowment for the upkeep of his bridge at Torgau, and he had once commissioned Tetzel to preach its virtues; the other was to benefit pilgrims who visited and venerated his collection of relics on All Saints"
Day. But it is clear that he disliked Indulgences of the kind Luther had challenged, and had small belief in the good faith of the Roman Curia. He had prevented money collected for one plenary Indulgence leaving the country, and he had forbidden Tetzel to preach the last Indulgence within his territories. His sympathies were all with Luther on this question. He was an esteemed patron of the pious society called _St. Ursula"s Schifflein_. He went to Ma.s.s regularly, and his attendances became frequent when he was in a state of hesitation or perplexity. When he was at Koln (November 1520), besieged by the papal nuncios to induce him to permit the publication of the Bull against Luther within his lands, Spalatin noted that he went to Ma.s.s three times in one day. His reverence for the Holy Scriptures must have created a bond of sympathy between Luther and himself. He talked with his private secretary about the incomparable majesty and power of the word of G.o.d, and contrasted its sublimities with the sophistries and trivialities of the theology of the day. He maintained firmly the traditional policy of his House to make the decisions of the Councils of Constance and of Basel effective within Electoral Saxony, in spite of protests from the Curia and the higher ecclesiastics, and was accustomed to consider himself responsible for the ecclesiastical as well as for the civil good government of his lands.
Aleander had considered it a master-stroke of policy to procure the burning of Luther"s books at Koln while the Elector was in the city.
Frederick only regarded the deed as a petty insult to himself. He was a staunch upholder of the rights and liberties of the German nation, and remembered that by an old concordat, which every Emperor had sworn to maintain, every German had the right to appeal to a General Council, and could not be condemned without a fair trial; and this Bull had made Luther"s appeal to a Council one of the reasons for his condemnation. So, in spite of the "golden rose" and other blandishments, in spite of threats that he might be included in the excommunication of his subject and that the privileges of his University might be taken away, he stood firm, and would not withdraw his protection from Luther. He was a pious German prince of the old-fashioned type, with no great love for Italians, and was not going to be browbeaten by papal nuncios. His att.i.tude towards Luther represents very fairly that of the great ma.s.s of the German people on the eve of the Diet of Worms.
Chapter III. The Diet Of Worms.(176)
-- 1. The Roman Nuncio Aleander.
Rome had done its utmost to get rid of Luther by ecclesiastical measures, and had failed. If he was to be overthrown, if the new religious movement and the national uprising which enclosed it were to be stifled, this could only be done by the aid of the supreme secular authority. The Curia turned to the Emperor.
Maximilian had died suddenly on the 12th of January 1519. After some mouths of intriguing, the papal diplomacy being very tortuous, his grandson Charles, the young King of Spain, was unanimously chosen to be his successor (June 28th, 1519). Troubles in Spain prevented him leaving that country at once to take possession of his new dignities. He was crowned at Aachen on the 23rd of October 1520, and opened his first German Diet on January 22nd, 1521, at Worms.
The Pope had selected two envoys to wait on the young Emperor, the Protonotary Marino Caraccioli (1469-1530), who was charged with the ordinary diplomatic business, and Jerome Aleander, the Director of the Vatican Library, who was appointed to secure the outlawry of Luther.
The Roman Curia had in Aleander one of the most clear-sighted, courageous, and indefatigable of diplomatists. He was an Italian, born of a burgher family in the little Venetian town of Motta (1480-1542), educated at Padua and Venice; he had begun life as a Humanist, had lectured on Greek with distinction in Paris, and had been personally acquainted with many of the German Humanists, who could not forgive the "traitor" who had deserted their ranks to serve an obscurantist party. His graphic letters, full of minute details, throb with the hopes and fears of the papal diplomacy. The reader has his fingers on the pulse of those momentous mouths. The Legate was in a land where "every stone and every tree cried out, "Luther." "
Landlords refused him lodging. He had to shiver during these winter months in an attic without a stove. The stench and dirt of the house were worse than the cold. When he appeared on the streets he saw scowling faces, hands suddenly carried to the hilts of swords, heard curses shrieked after him. He was struck on the breast by a Lutheran doorkeeper when he tried to get audience of the Elector of Saxony, and no one in the crowd interfered to protect him. He saw caricatures of himself hanging head downwards from a gibbet. He received the old deadly German feud-letters from Ulrich von Hutten, safe in the neighbouring castle of Ebernberg, about a day"s ride distant.(177) The imperial Councillors to whom he complained had neither the men nor the means to protect him. When he tried to publish answers to the attacks on the Papacy which the Lutheran presses poured forth, he could scarcely find a printer; and when he did, syndicates bought up his pamphlets and destroyed them. As the weeks pa.s.sed he came to understand that there was only one man on whom he could rely-the young Emperor, believed by all but himself to be a puppet in the hands of his Councillors, whom Pope Leo had called a "good child," but whom Aleander from his first interview at Antwerp had felt to be endowed with "a prudence far beyond his years," and to "have much more at the back of his head than he carried on his face." He also came to believe that the one man to be feared was the old Elector of Saxony, "that basilisk," that "German fox," that "marmot with the eyes of a dog, who glanced obliquely at his questioners."
Aleander was a pure worldling, a man of indifferent morals, showing traces of cold-blooded cruelty (as when he slew five peasants for the loss of one of his dogs, or tried to get Erasmus poisoned). He believed that every man had his price, and that low and selfish motives were alone to be reckoned with. But he did the work of the Curia at Worms with a thoroughness which merited the rewards he obtained afterwards.(178) He had spies everywhere-in the households of the Emperor and of the leading princes, and among the population of Worms. He had no hesitation in lying when he thought it useful for the "faith," as he frankly relates.(179) The Curia had laid a difficult task upon him. He was to see that Luther was put under the ban of the Empire at once and unheard. The Bull had condemned him: the secular power had nothing to do but execute the sentence.
Aleander had little difficulty in persuading the Emperor to this course within his hereditary dominions. An edict was issued ordering Luther"s books to be burnt, and the Legate had the satisfaction of presiding at several literary _auto-da-fes_ in Antwerp and elsewhere. He was also successful with some of the ecclesiastical princes of Germany.(180) But it was impossible to get this done at Worms. Failing this, it was Aleander"s business to see that Luther"s case was kept separate from the question of German national grievances against the Papacy, and that, if it proved to be impossible to prevent Luther appearing before the Diet, he was to be summoned there simply for the purpose of making public recantation. With the a.s.sistance of the Emperor he was largely successful.(181)
-- 2. The Emperor Charles V.
Aleander was not the real antagonist of Luther at Worms; he was not worthy of the name. The German Diet was the scene of a fight of faiths; and the man of faith on the mediaeval side was the young Emperor. He represented the believing past as Luther represented the believing future.(182) "What my forefathers established at Constance and other Councils," he said, "it is my privilege to uphold. A single monk, led astray by private judgment, has set himself against the faith held by all Christians for a thousand years and more, and impudently concludes that all Christians up till now have erred. I have therefore resolved to stake upon this cause all my dominions, my friends, my body and my blood, my life and soul."(183) The crisis had not come suddenly on him. As early as May 12th, 1520, Juan Manuel, his amba.s.sador at Rome, had written to him asking him to pay some attention to "a certain Martin Luther, who belongs to the following of the Elector of Saxony," and whose preaching was causing some discontent at the Roman Curia. Manuel thought that Luther might prove useful in a diplomatic dispute with the Curia.(184) Charles had had time to think over the matter in his serious, reserved way; and this was the decision he had come to.
The declaration was all the more memorable when it is remembered that Charles owed his election to that rising feeling of nationality which supported Luther,(185) and that he had to make sure of German a.s.sistance in his coming struggle with Francis I. A certain grim reality lurked in the words, that he was ready to stake his dominions on the cause he adopted. There is much to be said for the opinion that "the Lutheran question made a man of the boy-ruler."(186)
On the other hand, it is well to remember that the young Emperor did not take the side of the Pope nor commit himself to the Curial ideas of the absolute character of papal supremacy. He laid stress on the unity of the Catholic (mediaeval) Church, on the continuity of its rites, and on the need of maintaining its authority; but the seat of that authority was for him a General Council. The declaration in no way conflicts with the changes in imperial policy which may be traced during the opening weeks of the Diet, nor with that future action which led to the Sack of Rome and to the Augsburg Interim (1548). It is possible that the young ruler had read and admired Luther"s earlier writings, and that he had counted on him as an aid in bringing the Church to a better condition. It is more than probable that he already believed that it was his duty to free the Church from the abuses which abounded;(187) but Luther"s fierce attack on the Pope disgusted him, and a reformation which came from the people threatened secular as well as ecclesiastical authority. He had made up his mind that Luther must be condemned, and told the German princes that he would not change one iota of his determination. But this did not prevent him making use of Luther to further his diplomatic dealings with the Pope and wring concessions from the Curia. For one thing, the Pope had been interfering with the Inquisition in Spain, trying to mitigate its severity; and Charles, like his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon, believed that the Holy Office was a help in curbing the freedom-loving people of Spain, and had no wish to see his instrument of punishment made less effectual. For another, it was evident that Francis I. was about to invade Italy, and Charles wished the Pope to take his side. If the Pope gave way to him on both of these points, he was ready to carry out his wishes about Luther as far as that was possible.(188)
-- 3. In the City of Worms.
The city of Worms was crowded with men of diverse opinions and of many different nationalities. The first Diet of the youthful Emperor (Charles was barely one and twenty), from whom men of all parties expected so much, had attracted much larger numbers than usually attended these a.s.semblies.
Weighty matters affecting all Germany were down on the _agenda_. There was the old const.i.tutional question of monarchy or oligarchy bequeathed from the Diets of Maximilian; curiosity to see whether the new ruler would place before the Estates a truly imperial policy, or whether, like his predecessors, he would subordinate national to dynastic considerations; the deputies from the cities were eager to get some sure provisions made for ending the private wars which disturbed trade; all cla.s.ses were anxious to provide for an effective central government when the Emperor was absent from Germany; local statesmen felt the need of putting an end to the constant disputes between the ecclesiastical and secular powers within Germany; but the hardest problem of all, and the one which every man was thinking, talking, disputing about, was: "To take notice of the books and descriptions made by Friar Martin Luther against the Court of Rome."(189) Other exciting questions were stirring the crowds met at Worms besides those mentioned on the _agenda_ of the Diet. Men were talking about the need of making an end of the papal exactions which were draining Germany of money, and the air was full of rumours of what Sickingen and the knights might attempt, and whether there was going to be another peasant revolt. These questions were instinctively felt to hang together, and each had an importance because of the way in which it was connected with the religious and social problems of the day. For the people of Germany and for the foreign representatives who were gathered together at Worms, it is unquestionable that the Lutheran movement, and how it was to be dealt with, was the supreme problem of the moment. All these various things combined to bring together at Worms a larger concourse of people than had been collected in any German town since the meeting of the General Council at Constance in 1414.
Worms was one of the oldest towns in Germany. Its people were turbulent, a.s.serting their rights as the inhabitants of a free imperial city, and in constant feud with their bishop. They had endured many an interdict, were fiercely anti-clerical, and were to a man on Luther"s side. The crowded streets were thronged with princes, their councillors and their retinues; with high ecclesiastical dignitaries and their attendant clergy; with n.o.bles and their "riders"; with landsknechts, artisans, and peasants.
Spanish, French, and Italian merchants, on their way home-wards from the Frankfurt fair, could be seen discussing the last phase of the Lutheran question, and Spanish n.o.bles and Spanish merchants more than once came to blows in the narrow thoroughfares. The foreign merchants, especially the Spaniards, all appeared to take the Lutheran side; not because they took much interest in doctrines, but because they felt bound to stand up for the man who had dared to say that no one should be burned for his opinions. These Spanish merchants made themselves very prominent. They joined in syndicates with the more fervent German partisans of Luther to buy up and destroy papal pamphlets; they bought Luther"s writings to carry home. Aleander curses these _marrani_,(190) as he calls them, and relates that they are getting Luther"s works translated into Spanish. It is probable that many of them had Moorish blood in them, and knew the horrors of the Inquisition. Aleander"s spies told him that caricatures of himself and other prominent papalists were hawked about, and that pictures of Luther with the Dove hovering over his head, Luther with his head crowned with a halo of rays, Luther and Hutten,(191) the one with a Bible and the other with a sword, were eagerly bought in the streets. These pictures were actually sold in the courts and rooms of the episcopal palace where the Emperor was lodged. On the steps of the churches, at the doors of public buildings, colporteurs offered to eager buyers the tracts of Luther against the Pope, and the satires of Ulrich von Hutten in Latin and in German. On the streets and in open s.p.a.ces like the Market, crowds of keen disputants argued about the teaching of Luther, and praised him in the most exaggerated ways.
Inside the Electoral College opinion was divided. The Archbishop of Koln, the Elector of Brandenburg, and his brother the Archbishop of Mainz, were for Luther"s condemnation, while the Elector of Saxony had great influence over the Archbishop of Trier and the Count Palatine of the Rhine. The latter, says Aleander, scarcely opened his mouth during the year, but now "roared like ten bulls" on Luther"s behalf. Aleander had his first opportunity of addressing the Diet on February 13th. He spoke for three hours, and made a strong impression. He dwelt on Luther"s doctrinal errors, which he said were those of the Waldenses, of Wiclif, and of the Hussites. He said that Luther denied the Presence of Christ in the Holy Supper, and that he was a second Arius.(192) During the days that followed the members of the Diet came to a common understanding. They presented a memorial in German (February 19th) to the Emperor, in which they reminded him that no imperial edict could be published against Luther without their consent, and that to do so before Luther had a hearing would lead to bloodshed; they proposed that Luther should be invited to come to Worms under a safe conduct, and in the presence of the Diet be asked whether he was the author of the books that were attributed to him, and whether he could clear himself of the accusation of denying fundamental articles of the faith; that he should also be heard upon the papal claims, and the Diet would judge upon them; and, finally, they prayed the Emperor to deliver Germany from the papal tyranny.(193) The Emperor agreed that Luther should be summoned under a safe conduct and interrogated about his books, and whether he had denied any fundamental doctrines. But he utterly refused to permit any discussion on the authority of the Pope, and declared that he would himself communicate with His Holiness about the complaints of Germany.(194)
The doc.u.ments in the _Reichstagsakten_ reveal not only that there was a decided difference of opinion between the Emperor and the majority of the Estates about the way in which Luther ought to be treated, but that the policy of the Emperor and his advisers had changed between November 1520 and February 1521. Aleander had found no difficulty in persuading Charles and his Flemish councillors that, so far as the Emperor"s hereditary dominions were concerned, the only thing that the civil power had to do was to issue an edict h.o.m.ologating the Papal Bull banning Luther and his adherents, and ordering his books to be burnt. This had been done in the Netherlands. They had made difficulties, however, about such summary action within the German Empire. Aleander was told that the Emperor could do nothing until after the coronation at Aachen (October 1520);(195) and in November, much to the nuncio"s disgust, the Emperor had written to the Elector of Saxony (November 28th, 1520) from Oppenheim asking him to bring Luther with him to the Diet.(196) At that time Luther had no great wish to go to the Diet, unless it was clearly understood that he was summoned not for the purpose of merely making a recantation, but in order that he might defend his views with full liberty of speech. He was not going to recant, and he could say so as easily and clearly at Wittenberg as at Worms. The situation had changed at Worms. The Emperor had come over to the nuncio"s side completely. He now saw no need for Luther"s appearance. The Diet had nothing to do but to place Luther under the ban of the Empire, because he had been declared to be a heretic by the Roman Pontiff. Aleander claimed all the credit for this change; but it is more than probable that the explanation lies in the shifting imperial and papal policy. In the end of 1520 the policy of the Roman Curia was strongly anti-imperialist. The Emperor"s amba.s.sador at Rome, Don Manuel, had been warning his master of the papal intrigues against him, and suggesting that Charles might show some favour to a "certain Martin Luther"; and this advice might easily have inspired the letter of the 28th of November. At all events the papal policy had been changing, and showing signs of becoming less hostile to the Emperor. However the matter be accounted for, Aleander found that after the Emperor"s presence within Worms it was much more easy for him to press the papal view about Luther upon Charles and his advisers.(197)