Several letters descriptive of the scene, written by men who were present in the Diet, reveal the intense interest taken by the great majority of the audience in the appearance and speech of Luther. His looks, his language, the att.i.tude in which he stood, are all described. When artists portray the scene, either on canvas or in bronze, Luther is invariably represented standing upright, his shoulders squared, and his head thrown back. That was not how he stood before Charles and the Diet. He was a monk, trained in the conventional habits of monkish humility. He stood with a stoop of the head and shoulders, with the knees slightly bent, and without gestures. The only trace of bodily emotion was betrayed by bending and straightening his knees.(264) He addressed the Emperor and the Estates with all respect,-"Most serene Lord and Emperor, most ill.u.s.trious Princes, most clement Lords,"-and apologised for any lack of etiquette on the ground that he was convent-bred and knew nothing of the ways of Courts; but it was noticed by more than one observer that he did not address the spiritual princes present.(265) Many a witness describes the charm of his cheerful, modest, but undaunted bearing.(266) The Saxon official account says, "Luther spoke simply, quietly, modestly, yet not without Christian courage and fidelity-in such a way, too, that his enemies would have doubtless preferred a more abject spirit and speech"; and it goes on to relate that his adversaries had confidently counted on a recantation, and that they were correspondingly disappointed.(267) Many expected that, as he had never before been in such presence, the strange audience would have disconcerted him; but, to their surprise and delight, he spoke "confidently, reasonably, and prudently, as if he were in his own lecture-room."(268) Luther himself was surprised that the unaccustomed surroundings affected him so little. "When it came to my turn," he says, "I just went on."(269) The beauty of his diction pleased his audience-"many fair and happy words," say Dr. Peutinger and others.(270)
When Luther had finished, the Official, mindful that it was his duty to extract from Luther a distinct recantation, addressed him in a threatening manner (_increpabundo similis_), and told him that his answer had not been to the point. The question was that Luther, in some of his books, denied decisions of Councils: Would he reaffirm or recant what he had said about these decisions? the Emperor demanded a plain (_non cornutum_) answer. "If His Imperial Majesty desires a plain answer," said Luther, "I will give it to him, _neque cornutum neque dentatum_, and it is this: It is impossible for me to recant unless I am proved to be in the wrong by the testimony of Scripture or by evident reasoning; I cannot trust either the decisions of Councils or of Popes, for it is plain that they have not only erred, but have contradicted each other. My conscience is thirled to the word of G.o.d, and it is neither safe nor honest to act against one"s conscience. G.o.d help me! Amen!"(271)
When he had finished, the Emperor and the princes consulted together; then at a sign from Charles,(272) the Official addressed Luther at some length.
He told him that in his speech he had abused the clemency of the Emperor, and had added to his evil deeds by attacking the Pope and Papists (_papistae_) before the Diet. He briefly recapitulated Luther"s speech, and said that he had not sufficiently distinguished between his books and his opinions; there might be room for discussion had Luther brought forward anything new, but his errors were old-the errors of the Poor Men of Lyons, Wiclif, of John and Jerome Huss (the learned Official gave Huss a brother unknown to history),(273) which were decided upon at the Council of Constance, where the whole German nation had been gathered together; he again asked him to retract such opinions. To this Luther replied as before, that General Councils had erred, and that his conscience did not allow him to retract. By this time the torches had burnt to their sockets, and the hall was growing dark.(274) Wearied with the crowd and the heat, numbers were preparing to leave. The Official, making a last effort, called out loudly, "Martin, let your conscience alone; recant your errors and you will be safe and sound; you can never show that a Council has erred." Luther declared that Councils had erred, and that he could prove it.(275) Upon this the Emperor made a sign to end the matter.(276) The last words Luther was heard to say were, "G.o.d come to my help" (_Got k.u.m mir zu hilf_).(277)
It is evident from almost all the reports that from the time that Luther had finished his great speech there was a good deal of confusion, and probably of conversation, among the audience. All that the greater portion of those present heard was an altercation between Luther and the Official, due, most of the Germans thought, to the overbearing conduct of Eck, and which the Italians and Spaniards attributed to the pertinacity of Luther.(278) "Luther a.s.serted that Councils had erred several times, and had given decisions against the law of G.o.d. The Official said No; Luther said Yes, and that he could prove it. So the matter came to an end for that time."(279) But all understood that there was a good deal said about the Council of Constance.
The Emperor left his throne to go to his private rooms; the Electors and the princes sought their hotels. A number of Spaniards, perceiving that Luther turned to leave the tribunal, broke out into hootings, and followed "the man of G.o.d with prolonged howlings."(280) Then the Germans, n.o.bles and delegates from the towns, ringed him round to protect him, and as they pa.s.sed from the hall they all at once, and Luther in the midst of them, thrust forward arms and raised hands high above their heads, in the way that a German knight was accustomed to do when he had unhorsed his antagonist in the tourney, or that a German landsknecht did when he had struck a victorious blow. The Spaniards rushed to the door shouting after Luther, "To the fire with him, to the fire!"(281) The crowd on the street thought that Luther was being sent to prison, and thought of a rescue.(282) Luther calmed them by saying that the company were escorting him home. Thus, with hands held high in stern challenge to Holy Roman Empire and mediaeval Church, they accompanied Luther to his lodging.
Friends had got there before him-Spalatin, ever faithful; Oelhafen, who had not been able to reach his place in the Diet because of the throng.
Luther, with beaming face, stretched out both his hands, exclaiming, "I am through, I am through!"(283) In a few minutes Spalatin was called away. He soon returned. The old Elector had summoned him only to say, "How well, father, Dr. Luther spoke this day before the Emperor and the Estates; but he is too bold for me." The st.u.r.dy old German prince wrote to his brother John, "From what I have heard this day, I will never believe that Luther is a heretic"; and a few days later, "At this Diet, not only Annas and Caiaphas, but also Pilate and Herod, have conspired against Luther."
Frederick of Saxony was no Lutheran, like his brother John and his nephew John Frederick; and he was the better able to express what most German princes were thinking about Luther and his appearance before the Diet.
Even Duke George was stirred to a momentary admiration; and Duke Eric of Brunswick, who had taken the papal side, could not sit down to supper without sending Luther a can of Einbecker beer from his own table.(284) As for the commonalty, there was a wild uproar in the streets of Worms that night-men cursing the Spaniards and Italians, and praising Luther, who had compelled the Emperor and the prelates to hear what he had to say, and who had voiced the complaints of the Fatherland against the Roman Curia at the risk of his life. The voice of the people found utterance in a placard, which next morning was seen posted up on the street corners of the town, "Woe to the land whose king is a child." It was the beginning of the disillusion of Germany. The people had believed that they were securing a German Emperor when, in a fit of enthusiasm, they had called upon the Electors to choose the grandson of Maximilian. They were beginning to find that they had selected a Spaniard.
-- 7. The Conferences.
Next day (April 19th) the Emperor proposed that Luther should be placed under the ban of the Empire. The Estates were not satisfied, and insisted that something should be done to effect a compromise. Luther had not been treated as they had proposed in their memorandum of the 19th February. He had been peremptorily ordered to retract. The Emperor had permitted Aleander to regulate the order of procedure on the day previous (April 18th), and the result had not been satisfactory. Even the Elector of Brandenburg and his brother, the hesitating Archbishop of Mainz, did not wish matters to remain as they were. They knew the feelings of the German people, if they were ignorant of the Emperor"s diplomatic dealings with the Pope. The Emperor gave way, but told them that he would let them hear his own view of the matter. He produced a sheet of paper, and read a short statement prepared by himself in the French tongue-the language with which Charles was most familiar. It was the memorable declaration of his own religious position, which has been referred to already.(285) Aleander reports that several of the princes became pale as death when they heard it.(286) In later discussions the Emperor a.s.serted with warmth that he would never change one iota of his declaration.
Nevertheless, the Diet appointed a Commission (April 22nd) to confer with Luther, and at its head was placed the Archbishop of Trier, who was perhaps the only one among the higher ecclesiastics of Germany whom Luther thoroughly trusted. They had several meetings with the Reformer, the first being on the 24th of April. All the members of the Commission were sincerely anxious to arrange a compromise; but after the Emperor"s declaration that was impossible, as Luther himself clearly saw. No set of resolutions, however skilfully framed, could reconcile the Emperor"s belief that a General Council was infallible and Luther"s phrase, "a conscience bound to the Holy Scriptures." No proposals to leave the final decision to the Emperor and the Pope, to the Emperor alone, to the Emperor and the Estates, to a future General Council (all of which were made), could patch up a compromise between two such contradictory standpoints.
Compromise must fail in a fight of faiths, and that was the nature of the opposition between Charles V. and Luther throughout their lives. What divided them was no subordinate question about doctrine or ritual; it was fundamental, amounting to an entirely different conception of the whole round of religion. The moral authority of the individual conscience confronted the legal authority of an ecclesiastical a.s.sembly. In after days the monk regretted that he had not spoken out more boldly before the Diet. Shortly before his death, the Emperor expressed his regret that he had not burned the obstinate heretic. When the Commission had failed, Luther asked leave to reveal his whole innermost thoughts to the Archbishop of Trier, under the seal of confession, and the two had a memorable private interview. Aleander fiercely attacked the Archbishop for refusing to disclose what pa.s.sed between them; but the prelate was a German bishop with a conscience, and not an unscrupulous dependant on a shameless Curia. No one knew what Luther"s confession was. The Commission had to report that its efforts had proved useless. Luther was ordered to leave Worms and return to Wittenberg, without preaching on the journey; his safe conduct was to expire in twenty-one days after the 26th of April.
At their expiry he was liable to be seized and put to death as a pestilent heretic. There remained only to draft and publish the edict containing the ban. The days pa.s.sed, and it did not appear.
Suddenly the startling news reached Worms that Luther had disappeared, no one knew where. Aleander, as usual, had the most exact information, and gives the fullest account of the rumours which were flying about.
Cochlaeus, who was at Frankfurt, sent him a man who had been at Eisenach, had seen Luther"s uncle, and had been told by him about the capture. Five hors.e.m.e.n had dashed at the travelling waggon, had seized Luther, and had ridden off with him. Who the captors were or by whose authority they had acted, no one could tell. "Some blame me," says Aleander, "others the Archbishop of Mainz: would G.o.d it were true!" Some thought that Sickingen had carried him off to protect him; others, the Elector of Saxony; others, the Count of Mansfeld. One persistent rumour declared that a personal enemy of the Elector of Saxony, one Hans Beheim, had been the captor; and the Emperor rather believed it. On May 14th a letter reached Worms saying that Luther"s body had been found in a silver-mine pierced with a dagger.
The news flew over Germany and beyond it that Luther had been done to death by emissaries of the Roman Curia; and so persistent was the belief, that Aleander prepared to justify the deed by alleging that the Reformer had broken the imperial safe conduct by preaching at Eisenach and by addressing a concourse of people at Frankfurt.(287) Albert Durer, in Ghent, noted down in his private diary that Luther, "the G.o.d-inspired man," had been slain by the Pope and his priests as our Lord had been put to death by the priests in Jerusalem. "O G.o.d, if Luther is dead, who else can expound the Holy Gospel to us!"(288) Friends wrote distracted letters to Wittenberg imploring Luther to tell them whether he was alive or imprisoned.(289) The news created the greatest consternation and indignation in Worms. The Emperor"s decision had been little liked even by the princes most incensed against Luther. Aleander could not get even the Archbishop of Mainz to promise that he would publish it. When the Commission of the Diet had failed to effect a compromise, the doors of the Rathhaus and of other public buildings in Worms had been placarded with an intimation that four hundred knights had sworn that they would not leave Luther unavenged, and the ominous words _Bundschuh_, _Bundschuh_, _Bundschuh_ had appeared on it. The Emperor had treated the matter lightly; but the German Romanist princes had been greatly alarmed.(290) They knew, if he did not, that the union of peasants with the lower n.o.bility had been a possible source of danger to Germany for nearly a century; they remembered that it was this combination which had made the great Bohemian rising successful. Months after the Diet had risen, Romanist partisans in Germany sent anxious communications to the Pope about the dangers of a combination of the lesser n.o.bility with the peasants.(291) The condition of Worms had been bad enough before, and when the news of Luther"s murder reached the town the excitement pa.s.sed all bounds. The whole of the Imperial Court was in an uproar. When Aleander was in the royal apartments the highest n.o.bles in Germany pressed round him, telling him that he would be murdered even if he were "clinging to the Emperor"s bosom." Men crowded his room to give him information of conspiracies to slay both himself and the senior Legate Caraccioli.(292) The excitement abated somewhat, but the wiser German princes recognised the abiding gravity of the situation, and how little the Emperor"s decision had done to end the Lutheran movement. The true story of Luther"s disappearance was not known until long afterwards. After the failure of the conferences, the Elector of Saxony summoned two of his councillors and his chaplain and private secretary, Spalatin, and asked them to see that Luther was safely hidden until the immediate danger was past. They were to do what they pleased and inform him of nothing. Many weeks pa.s.sed before the Elector and his brother John knew that Luther was safe, living in their own castle on the Wartburg. This was his "Patmos," where he doffed his monkish robes, let the hair grow over his tonsure, was clad as a knight, and went by the name of Junker Georg. His disappearance did not mean that he ceased to be a great leader of men; but it dates the beginning of the national opposition to Rome.
-- 8. The Ban.
After long delay, the imperial mandate against Luther was prepared. It was presented (May 25th) to an informal meeting of some members of the Diet after the Elector of Saxony and many of Luther"s staunchest supporters had left Worms.(293) Aleander, who had a large share in drafting it, brought two copies, one in Latin and the other in German, and presented them to Charles on a Sunday (May 26th) after service. The Emperor signed them before leaving the church. "Are you contented now?" said Charles, with a smile to the Legate; and Aleander overflowed with thanks. Few State doc.u.ments, won by so much struggling and scheming, have proved so futile.
The uproar in Germany at the report of Luther"s death had warned the German princes to be chary of putting the edict into execution.
The imperial edict against Luther threatened all his sympathisers with extermination. It practically proclaimed an Albigensian war in Germany.
Charles had handed it to Aleander with a smile. Aleander despatched the doc.u.ment to Rome with an exultation which could only find due expression in a quotation from Ovid"s _Art of Love_. Pope Leo celebrated the arrival of the news by comedies and musical entertainments. But calm observers, foreigners in Germany, saw little cause for congratulation and less for mirth. Henry VIII. wrote to the Archbishop of Mainz congratulating him on the overthrow of the "rebel against Christ"; but Wolsey"s agent at the Diet informed his master that he believed there were one hundred thousand Germans who were still ready to lay down their lives in Luther"s defence.(294) Velasco, who had struck down the Spanish rebels in the battle of Villalar, wrote to the Emperor that the victory was G.o.d"s grat.i.tude for his dealings with the heretic monk; but Alfonso de Valdes, the Emperor"s secretary, said in a letter to a Spanish correspondent:
"Here you have, as some imagine, the end of this tragedy; but I am persuaded it is not the end, but the beginning of it. For I see that the minds of the Germans are greatly exasperated against the Roman See, and they do not seem to attach great importance to the Emperor"s edicts; for since their publication, Luther"s books are sold with impunity at every step and corner of the streets and market-places. From this you will easily guess what will happen when the Emperor leaves. This evil might have been cured with the greatest advantage to the Christian commonwealth, had not the Pope refused a General Council, had he preferred the public weal to his own private interests. But while he insists that Luther shall be condemned and burnt, I see the whole Christian commonwealth hurried to destruction unless G.o.d Himself help us."
Valdes, like Gattinara and other councillors of Charles, was a follower of Erasmus. He lays the blame of all on the Pope. But what a disillusion this Diet of Worms ought to have been to the Erasmians! The Humanist young sovereigns and the Humanist Pope, from whom so much had been expected, congratulating each other on Luther"s condemnation to the stake!
The foreboding of Alfonso de Valdes was amply justified. Luther"s books became more popular than ever, and the imperial edict did nothing to prevent their sale either within Germany or beyond it. Aleander was soon to learn this. He had retired to the Netherlands, and busied himself with _auto-da-fes_ of the prohibited writings; but he had to confess that they were powerless to prevent the spread of Luther"s opinions, and he declared that the only remedy would be if the Emperor seized and burnt half a dozen Lutherans, and confiscated all their property.(295) The edict had been published or repeated in lands outside Germany and in the family possessions of the House of Hapsburg. Henry VIII. ordered Luther"s books to be burnt in England;(296) the Estates of Scotland prohibited their introduction into the realm under the severest penalties in 1525.(297) But such edicts were easily evaded, and the prohibited writings found their way into Spain, Italy, France, Flanders, and elsewhere, concealed in bales of merchandise. In Germany there was no need for concealment; the imperial edict was not merely disregarded, but was openly scouted. The great Stra.s.sburg publisher, Gruniger, apologised to his customers, not for publishing Luther"s books, but for sending forth a book against him; and Cochlaeus declared that printers gladly accepted any MS. against the Papacy, printed it _gratis_, and spent pains in issuing it with taste, while every defender of the established order had to pay heavily to get his book printed, and sometimes could not secure a printer at any cost.
-- 9. Popular Literature.
The Reformation movement may almost be said to have created the German book trade. The earliest German printed books or rather booklets were few in number, and of no great importance-little books of private devotion, of popular medicine, herbals, almanacs, travels, or public proclamations. Up to 1518 they barely exceeded fifty a year. But in the years 1518-1523 they increased enormously, and four-fifths of the increase were controversial writings prompted by the national antagonism to the Roman Curia. This increase was at first due to Luther alone;(298) but from 1521 onwards he had disciples, fellow-workers, opponents, all using in a popular way the German language, the effective literary power of which had been discovered by the Reformer.(299) These writers spread the new ideas among the people, high and low, throughout Germany.(300)
There are few traces of combined action in the anti-Romanist writings in the earlier stages of the controversy; it needed literary opposition to give them a semblance of unity. Each writer looks at the general question from his own individual point of view. Luther is the hero with nearly all, and is spoken about in almost extravagant terms. He is the prophet of Germany, the Elias that was to come, the Angel of the Revelation "flying through the mid-heaven with the everlasting Gospel in his hands," the national champion who was brought to Worms to be silenced, and yet was heard by Emperor, princes, and papal nuncios. Some of the authors were still inclined to make Erasmus their leader, and declared that they were fighting under the banner of that "Knight of Christ"; others looked on Erasmus and Luther as fellow-workers, and one homely pamphlet compares Erasmus to the miller who grinds the flour, and Luther to the baker who bakes it into bread to feed the people. Perhaps the most striking feature of the times was the appearance of numberless anonymous pamphlets, purporting to be written by the unlearned for the unlearned. They are mostly in the form of dialogues, and the scene of the conversations recorded was often the village alehouse, where burghers, peasants, weavers, tailors, and shoemakers attack and vanquish in argument priests, monks, and even bishops. One striking feature of this new popular literature is the glorification of the German peasant. He is always represented as an upright, simple-minded, reflective, and intelligent person skilled in Bible lore, and even in Church history, and knowing as much of Christian doctrine "as three priests and more." He may be compared with the idealised peasant of the pre-revolution literature in France, although he lacks the refinement, and knows nothing of high-flown moral sentiment; but he is much liker the Jak Upland or Piers Plowman of the days of the English Lollards. Jak Upland and Hans Mattock (_Karsthans_), both hate the clergy and abominate the monks and the begging friars, but the German exhibits much more ferocity than the Englishman. The Lollard describes the fat friar of the earlier English days with his swollen dewlap wagging under his chin "like a great goose-egg," and contrasts him with the pale, poverty-stricken peasant and his wife, going shoeless to work over ice-bound roads, their steps marked with the blood which oozed from the cut feet; the German pamphleteer pours out an endless variety of savage nicknames-cheese-hunters, sausage-villains, begging-sacks, sourmilk crocks, the devil"s fat pigs, etc. etc. It is interesting to note that most of this coa.r.s.e controversial literature, which appeared between 1518 and 1523, came from those regions in South Germany where the social revolution had found an almost permanent establishment from the year 1503.
It was the sign that the old spirit of communist and religious enthusiasm, which had shown itself spasmodically since the movement under Hans Bohm, had never been extinguished, and it was a symptom that a peasants" war might not be far off. Very little was needed to kindle afresh the smouldering hatred of the peasant against the priests. When German patriots declaimed against the exactions of the Roman Curia, the peasant thought of the great and lesser t.i.thes, of the marriage, baptismal, and burial fees demanded from him by his own parish priest. When Reformers and popular preachers denounced the scandals and corruptions in the Church, the peasant applied them to some drunken, evil-living, careless priest whom he knew. It should be remembered that the character _Karsthans_ was invented in 1520, not by a Lutheran sympathiser, but by Thomas Murner, one of Luther"s most determined opponents,(301) when he was still engaged in writing against the clerical disorders of the times. This virulent attack on priests and monks had other sources than the sympathy for Luther.(302) It was the awakening of old memories, prompted partly by an underground ceaseless Hussite propaganda, and partly, no doubt, by the new ideas so universally prevalent.
Some of this coa.r.s.e popular literature had a more direct connection with the Lutheran movement. A booklet which appeared in 1521, ent.i.tled _The New and the Old G.o.d_, and which had an immense circulation, may be taken as an example. Like many of its kind, it had an ill.u.s.trated t.i.tle-page, which was a graphic summary of its contents. There appeared as the representatives of the New G.o.d, the Pope, some Church Fathers, and beneath them, Cajetan, Silvester Prierias, Eck, and Faber; over-against them were the Old G.o.d as the Trinity, the four Evangelists, St. Paul with a sword, and behind him Luther. It attacked the ceremonies, the elaborate services, the obscure doctrines which had been thrust on the Church by b.l.o.o.d.y persecutions, and had changed Christianity into Judaism, and contrasted them with the unchanging Word of the Old G.o.d, with its simple story of salvation and its simple doctrines of faith, hope, and love. To the same cla.s.s belong the writings of the voluminous controversialist, John Eberlin of Gunzburg, whom his opponents accused of seducing whole provinces, so effective were his appeals to the "common" man. He began by a pamphlet addressed to the young Emperor, and published, either immediately before or during the earlier sitting of the Diet of Worms in 1521, a daring appeal, in which Luther and Ulrich von Hutten are called the messengers of G.o.d to their generation. It was the first of a series of fifteen, all of which were in circulation before the beginning of November of the same year.(303) They were called the "Confederates" (_Bundsgenossen_). The contents of these and other pamphlets by Eberlin may be guessed from their t.i.tles-_Of the forty days" fast before Easter and others which pitifully oppress Christian folk._ _An exhortation to all Christians that they take pity on Nuns._ _How very dangerous it is that priests have not wives_ (the frontispiece represents the marriage of a priest by a bishop, in the background the marriage of two monks, and two musicians on a raised seat).
_Why there is no money in the country._ _Against the false clergy, bare-footed monks, and Franciscans_, etc., etc. He exposes as trenchantly as Luther did the systematic robbery of Germany to benefit the Roman Curia-300,000 gulden sent out of the country every year, and a million more given to the begging friars. He wrote fiercely against the monks who take to this life, because they were too lazy to work like honest people, and called them all sorts of nicknames-_cloister swine_, _the Devil"s landsknechts_, etc., twenty-four thousand of them sponge on Germany and four hundred thousand on the rest of Europe. He tells of a parish priest who thought that he must really begin to read the Scriptures: his parishioners are reading it, the mothers to the children and the house-fathers to the household; they trouble him with questions taken from it, and he is often at his wit"s end to answer; he asked a friend where he ought to begin, and was told that there was a good deal about priests and their duties in the Epistles to Timothy and t.i.tus; he read, and was horrified to find that bishops and priests ought to be "husbands of one wife," etc. Eberlin had been a Franciscan monk, and was true to the revolutionary traditions of his Order. He preached a social as well as an evangelical reformation. The Franciscan Order sent forth a good many Reformers: men like Stephen Kampen, who had come to adopt views like those of Eberlin without any teaching but the leadings of his heart; or John Brissmann, a learned student of the Scholastic Theology, who like Luther had found that it did not satisfy the yearnings of his soul; or like Frederick Mec.u.m (Myconius), whose whole spiritual development was very similar to that of Luther. Pamphlets like those of Eberlin, and preaching like that of Kampen, had doubtless some influence in causing popular risings against the priests that were not uncommon throughout Germany in 1521, after the Diet of Worms had ended its sittings-the Erfurt tumult, which lasted during the months of April, May, June, and July, may be instanced as an example.
-- 10. The Spread of Luther"s Teaching.
It may be said that the very year in which the imperial edict against Luther was published (1521) gave evidence that a silent movement towards the adoption of the principles for which Luther was testifying had begun among monks of almost all the different Orders. The Augustinian Eremites, Luther"s own Order, had been largely influenced by him. Whole communities, with the prior at their head, had declared for the Reformation both in Germany and in the Low Countries. No other monastic Order was so decidedly upon the side of the Reformer, but monks of all kinds joined in preaching and teaching the new doctrines. Martin Bucer had been a Dominican, Otto Braunfells a Carthusian, Ambrose Blauer a Benedictine. The case of Oecolampadius (John Hussgen (?) Hausschein) was peculiar. He had been a distinguished Humanist, had come under serious religious impressions, and had entered the Order of St. Bridget; but he was not long there when he joined the ranks of the Reformers, and was sheltered by Franz von Sickingen in his castle at Ebernberg.(304) Urban Rhegius, John Eck"s most trusted and most talented student at Ingolstadt, had become a Carmelite, and had quitted his monastery to preach the doctrines of Luther. John Bugenhagen belonged to the Order of the Praemonstratenses. He was a learned theologian. Luther"s struggle against Indulgences had displeased him. He got hold of _The Babylonian Captivity of the Christian Church_, and studied it for the purpose of refuting it. The study so changed him that he felt that "the whole world may be wrong, but Luther is right"; he won over his prior and most of his companions, and became the Reformer of Pomerania.
Secular priests all over Germany declared for the new evangelical doctrines. The Bishop of Samlund in East Prussia boldly avowed himself to be on Luther"s side, and was careful to have the Lutheran doctrines preached throughout his diocese; and other bishops showed themselves favourable to the new evangelical faith. Many of the most influential parish priests did the like, and their congregations followed them.
Sometimes the superior clergy forbade the use of the church, and the people followed their pastor while he preached to them in the fields.
Sometimes (as in the case of Hermann Tast) the priest preached under the lime trees in the churchyard, and his parishioners came armed to protect him. If priests were lacking to preach the Lutheran doctrines, laymen came forward. If they could not preach, they could sing hymns. Witness the poor weaver of Magdeburg, who took his stand near the statue of Kaiser Otto in the market-place, and sang two of Luther"s hymns, "Aus tiefer Not schrei Ich zu dir," and "Es woll" uns Gott gnadig sein," while the people crowded round him on the morning of May 6th, 1524. The Burgermeister coming from early Ma.s.s heard him, and ordered him to be imprisoned, but the crowd rescued him. Such was the beginning of the Reformation in Magdeburg.(305) When men dared not, women took their place. Argula Grunbach, a student of the Scriptures and of Luther"s writings, challenged the University of Ingolstadt, under the eyes of the great Dr. Eck himself, to a public disputation upon the truth of Luther"s position.
Artists lent their aid to spread the new ideas, and many cartoons made the doctrines and the aims of the Reformers plain to the common people. These pictures were sometimes used to ill.u.s.trate the t.i.tle-pages of the controversial literature, and were sometimes published as separate broadsides. In one, Christ is portrayed standing at the _door_ of a house, which represents His Church. He invites the people to enter by the door; and Popes, cardinals, and monks are shown climbing the walls to get entrance in a clandestine fashion.(306) In another, ent.i.tled the _Triumph of Truth_, the common folk of a German town are represented singing songs of welcome to honour an approaching procession. Moses, the patriarchs, the prophets, and the apostles, carry on their shoulders the Ark of the Holy Scriptures. Hutten comes riding on his warhorse, and to the tail of the horse is attached a chain which encloses a crowd of ecclesiastics-an archbishop with his mitre fallen off, the Pope with his tiara in the act of tumbling and his pontifical staff broken; after them, cardinals, then monks figured with the heads of cats, pigs, calves, etc. Then comes a triumphal car drawn by the four living creatures, who represent the four evangelists, on one of which rides an angel. Carlstadt stands upright in the front of the car; Luther strides alongside. In the car, Jesus sits saying, _I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life_. Holy martyrs follow, singing songs of praise. German burghers are spreading their garments on the road, and boys and girls are strewing the path with flowers.(307) Perhaps the most important work of this kind was the _Pa.s.sional Christi et Antichristi_.(308) Luther planned the book, Luke Cranach designed the pictures, and Melanchthon furnished the texts from Scripture and the quotations from Canon Law. It is a series of pairs of engravings representing the lives of our Lord and of the Pope, so arranged that wherever the book opened two contrasting pictures could be seen at the same time. The contrasts were such as these:-Jesus washing the disciples"
feet; the Pope holding out his toe to be kissed: Jesus healing the wounded and the sick; the Pope presiding at a tournament: Jesus bending under His Cross; the Pope carried in state on men"s shoulders: Jesus driving the money-changers out of the Temple; the Pope and his servants turning a church into a market for Indulgences, and sitting surrounded with strong boxes and piles of coin. It was a "good book for the laity," Luther said.
One of the signs of the times was the enthusiasm displayed in the imperial cities for the cause of Luther. The way had been prepared. Burgher songs had for long described the ecclesiastical abuses, and had borne witness to the widespread hatred of the clergy shared in by the townsfolk. Wolfgang Capito and Frederick Mec.u.m (Myconius), both sons of burghers, inform us that their fathers taught them when they were boys that Indulgences were nothing but a speculation on the part of cunning priests to get their hands into the pockets of simple-minded laity. Keen observers of the trend of public feeling like Wimpheling and Pirkheimer had noticed with some alarm the gradual spread of the Hussite propaganda in the towns, and had made the fact one of their reasons for desiring and insisting on a reformation of the Church. The growing sympathy for the Hussite opinions in the cities is abundantly apparent. Some leading Reformers, Capito for instance, told their contemporaries that they had frequently listened to Hussite discourses when they were boys; and the libraries of burghers not infrequently contained Hussite pamphlets. Men in the towns had been reading, thinking, and speaking in private to their familiar friends about the disorders in the life and doctrine of the Church of their days, and were eager to welcome the first symptoms of a genuine attempt at reform.
The number of editions of the German Vulgate, rude as many of these versions were, shows what a Bible-reading people the German burghers had become, enables us to wonder less at the way in which the controversial writers a.s.sume that the laity knew as much of the Scriptures as the clergy, and lends credibility to contemporary a.s.sertions that women and artisans knew their Bibles better than learned men at the Universities.
These things make us understand how the townsmen were prepared to welcome Luther"s simple scriptural teaching, how his writings found such a sale all over Germany, how they could say that he taught what all men had been thinking, and said out boldly what all men had been whispering in private.
They explain how the burghers of Stra.s.sburg nailed Luther"s Ninety-five Theses to the doors of every church and parsonage in the city in 1518; how the citizens of Constance drove away with threats the imperial messenger who came to publish the Edict of Worms in their town; how the people of Basel applauded their pastor when he carried a copy of the Scriptures instead of the Host in the procession on Corpus Christi Day; how the higher clergy of Stra.s.sburg could not expel the nephew and successor of the famed Geiler of Keysersberg although he was accused of being a follower of Luther; and how his friend Matthew Zell, when he was prohibited from preaching in the pulpit from which Geiler had thundered, was able to get carpenters to erect another in a corner of the great cathedral, from which he spoke to the people who crowded to hear him. When the clergy persuaded the authorities in many towns (Goslar, Danzig, Worms, etc.) to close the churches against the evangelical preachers, the townspeople listened to their sermons in the open air; but generally from the first the civic authorities sided with the people in welcoming a powerful evangelical preacher. Matthew Zell and, after him, Martin Bucer became the Reformers of Stra.s.sburg; Kettenbach and Eberlin, of Ulm; Oecolampadius and Urba.n.u.s Rhegius, of Augsburg; Andrew Osiander, of Nurnberg; John Brenz, of Hall, in Swabia; Theobald Pellica.n.u.s (Pellica.n.u.s, _i.e._ of Villigheim), of Nordlingen; Matthew Alber, of Reutlingen; John Lachmann, of Heilbron; John Wanner, of Constance; and so on. The gilds of _Mastersingers_ welcomed the Reformation. The greatest of the civic poets, Hans Sachs of Nurnberg, was a diligent collector and reader of Luther"s books. He published in 1523 his famous poem, "The Wittenberg Nightingale"
(_Die Wittembergisch Nachtigall, Die man jetz h.o.r.et uberall_). The nightingale was Luther, and its song told that the moonlight with its pale deceptive gleams and its deep shadows was pa.s.sing away, and the glorious sun was rising. The author praises the utter simplicity of Luther"s scriptural teaching, and contrasts it with the quirks and subtleties of Romish doctrine. Even a peasant, he says, can understand and know that Luther"s teaching is good and sound. In a later short poem he contrasts evangelical and Romish preaching. The original edition was ill.u.s.trated by a woodcut showing two preachers addressing their respective audiences. The one is saying, _Thus saith the Lord_; and the other, _Thus saith the Pope_.
-- 11. Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt.(309)
Every great movement for reform bears within it the seeds of revolution, of the "tumult," as Erasmus called it, and Luther"s was no exception to the general rule. Every Reformer who would carry through his reforming ideas successfully has to struggle against men and circ.u.mstances making for the "tumult," almost as strenuously as against the abuses he seeks to overcome. We have already seen how these germs of revolution abounded in Germany, and how the revolutionists naturally allied themselves with the Reformer, and the cause he sought to promote.
While Luther was hidden away in the Wartburg, the revolution seized on Wittenberg. At first his absence did not seem to make any difference. The number of students had increased until it was over a thousand, and the town itself surprised eye-witnesses who were acquainted with other University towns in Germany. The students went about unarmed; they mostly carried Bibles under their arms; they saluted each other as "brothers at one in Christ." No rift had yet appeared among the band of leaders, although his disappointment in not obtaining the Provostship of All Saints had begun to isolate Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt. Unanimity did not mean dulness; Wittenberg was seething with intellectual life. Since its foundation the University had been distinguished for weekly Public Disputations in which students and professors took part. In the earlier years of its existence the theses discussed had been suggested by the Scholastic Theology and Philosophy in vogue; but since 1518 the new questions which were stirring Germany had been the subjects of debate, and this had given a life and eagerness to the University exercises. When Justus Jonas came to Wittenberg from Erfurt, he wrote enthusiastically to a friend about the "unbelievable wealth of spiritual interests in the little town of Wittenberg." None of the professors took a keener interest in these Public Discussions than Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt. He had been a very successful teacher; had come under Luther"s magnetic influence; and had accepted the main ideas of the new doctrines. He had not the full-blooded humanity of Luther, nor his sympathetic tact, nor his practical insight into how things would work. He lacked altogether Luther"s solid basis of conservative feeling, which made him know by instinct that new ideas and new things could only flourish and grow if they were securely rooted in what was old. It was enough for Carlstadt that his own ideas, however hastily evolved, were clear, and his aims beneficent, to make him eager to see them at once reduced to practice. He had the temperament of a revolutionary rather than that of a Reformer.
He was strongly impressed with the fundamental contradictions which he believed to exist between the new evangelical doctrines preached by Luther and the theories and practices of the mediaeval religious life and worship.
This led him to attack earnestly and bitterly monastic vows, celibacy, a distinctive dress for the clergy, the idea of a propitiatory sacrifice in the Ma.s.s, and the presence and use of images and pictures in the churches.
He introduced all these questions of practical interest into the University weekly Public Discussions; he published theses upon them; he printed two books-one on monastic vows and the other on the Ma.s.s-which had an extensive circulation both in German and in Latin (four editions were speedily exhausted). The prevailing idea in all these publications, perhaps implied rather than expressed, was that the new evangelical liberty could only be exercised when everything which suggested the ceremonies and usages of the mediaeval religious life was swept away. His strongest denunciations were reserved for the practice of celibacy; he dwelt on the divine inst.i.tution of marriage, its moral and spiritual necessity, and taught that the compulsory marriage of the clergy was better than the enforced celibacy of the mediaeval Church. Zwilling, a young Augustinian Eremite, whose preaching gifts had been praised by Luther, went even further than Carlstadt in his fiery denunciation of the Ma.s.s as an idolatrous practice.
The movement to put these exhortations in practice began first among the clergy. Two priests in parishes near Wittenberg married; several monks left their cloisters and donned lay garments; Melanchthon and several of his students, in semi-public fashion, communicated in both kinds in the parish church on Michaelmas Day (Sept. 29th), 1521, and his example seems to have been followed by other companies.