The Age of the Reformation Part 5

[Sidenote: The Leipzig Debate, 1519]

A debate on this and other propositions between Eck on the one side and Luther and his colleague Carlstadt on the other took place at Leipzig in the days from June 27 to July 16, 1519. The climax of the argument on the power of popes and councils came when Eck, skilfully manoeuvring to show that Luther's opinions were identical with those of Huss, forced from his opponent the bold declaration that "among the opinions of John Huss and the Bohemians many are certainly most Christian and evangelic, and cannot be condemned by the universal church." The words sent a thrill through the audience and throughout Christendom. Eck could only reply: "If you believe that a general council, legitimately convoked, can err, you are to me a heathen and a publican."

Reconciliation was indeed no longer possible. When Luther had protested against the abuse of indulgences he did so as a loyal son of the church. Now at last he was forced to raise the standard of revolt, at least against Rome, the recognized head of the church. He had begun by appealing from indulgence-seller to pope, then from the pope to a universal council; now he declared that a great council had erred, and that he would not abide by its decision. The issue was a clear one, though hardly recognized as such by himself, between the religion of authority and the right of private judgment.

His opposition to the papacy developed with extraordinary rapidity.

His study of the Canon Law made him, as early as March, 1519, brand the pope as either Antichrist or Antichrist's apostle. He {70} applauded Melancthon, a brilliant young man called to teach at Wittenberg in 1518, for denying transubstantiation. He declared that the cup should never have been withheld from the laity, and that the ma.s.s considered as a good work and a sacrifice was an abomination. His eyes were opened to the iniquities of Rome by Valla's exposure of the Donation of Constantine, published by Ulrich von Hutten in 1519. After reading it he wrote:

Good heavens! what darkness and wickedness is at Rome! You wonder at the judgment of G.o.d that such unauthentic, cra.s.s, impudent lies not only lived but prevailed for many centuries, that they were incorporated into the Canon Law, and (that no degree of horror might be wanting) that they became as articles of faith.

Like German troops Luther was best in taking the offensive. These early years when he was standing almost alone and attacking one abuse after another, were the finest of his whole career. Later, when he came to reconstruct a church, he modified or withdrew much of what he had at first put forward, and re-introduced a large portion of the medieval religiosity which he had once so successfully and fiercely attacked. The year 1520 saw him at the most advanced point he ever attained. It was then that he produced, with marvellous fecundity, a series of pamphlets unequalled by him and unexcelled anywhere, both in the incisive power of their attack on existing inst.i.tutions and in the popular force of their language.

[Sidenote: _To the Christian n.o.bility_, 1520]

His greatest appeal to his countrymen was made in his _Address to the Christian n.o.bility of the German Nation on the Improvement of the Christian Estate_. In this he a.s.serts the right of the civil power to reform the spiritual, and urges the government to exercise this right.

The priests, says he, defend themselves against all outside interference by three "walls," of {71} which the first is the claim that the church is superior to the state, in case the civil authority presses them; the second, the a.s.sertion, if one would correct them by the Bible, that no one can interpret it but the pope; the third, if they are threatened with a general council, the contention that no one can convoke such a council save the pope. Luther demolishes these walls with words of vast import. First, he denies any distinction between the spiritual and temporal estates. Every baptized Christian, he a.s.serts, is a priest, and in this saying he struck a mortal blow at the great hierarchy of privilege and theocratic tyranny built up by the Middle Ages. The second wall is still frailer than the first, says the writer, for anyone can see that in spite of the priests' claims to be masters of the Bible they never learn one word of it their whole life long. The third wall falls of itself, for the Bible plainly commands everyone to punish and correct any wrong-doer, no matter what his station.

[Sidenote: Reform measures]

After this introduction Luther proposes measures of reform equally drastic and comprehensive. The first twelve articles are devoted to the pope, the annates, the appointment of foreigners to German benefices, the appeal of cases to Rome, the a.s.serted authority of the papacy over bishops, the emperor, and other rulers. All these abuses, as well as jubilees and pilgrimages to Rome should be simply forbidden by the civil government. The next three articles deal with sacerdotal celibacy, recommending that priests be allowed to marry, and calling for the suppression of many of the cloisters. It is further urged that foundations for ma.s.ses and for the support of idle priests be abolished, that various vexatious provisions of the Canon Law be repealed, and that begging on any pretext be prohibited. The twenty-fourth article deals with the Bohemian schism, saying that Huss was wrongly {72} burned, and calling for union with the Hussites who deny transubstantiation and demand the cup for the laity. Next, the writer takes up the reform of education in the interests of a more biblical religion. Finally, he urges that sumptuary laws be pa.s.sed, that a bridle be put in the mouth of the great monopolists and usurers, and that brothels be no longer tolerated.

Of all the writer's works this probably had the greatest and most immediate influence. Some, indeed, were offended by the violence of the language, defended by Luther from the example of the Bible and by the necessity of rousing people to the enormities he attacked. But most hailed it as a "trumpet-blast" calling the nation to arms. Four thousand copies were sold in a few days, and a second edition was called for within a month. Voicing ideas that had been long, though vaguely, current, it convinced almost all of the need of a reformation.

According to their sympathies men declared that the devil or the Holy Ghost spoke through Luther.

[Sidenote: The Babylonian Captivity, 1520]

Though less popular both in form and subject, _The Babylonian Captivity of the Church_ was not less important than the _Address to the German n.o.bility_. It was a mortal blow at the sacramental system of the church. In judging it we must again summon the aid of our historical imagination. In the sixteenth century dogmas not only seemed but were matters of supreme importance. It was just by her sacramental system, by her claim to give the believer eternal life and salvation through her rites, that the church had imposed her yoke on men. As long as that belief remained intact progress in thought, in freedom of conscience, in reform, remained difficult. And here, as is frequently the case, the most effective arguments were not those which seem to us logically the strongest. Luther made no appeal to reason as such. He {73} appealed to the Bible, recognized by all Christians as an authority, and showed how far the practice of the church had degenerated from her standard. [Sidenote: Sacraments] In the first place he reduced the number of sacraments, denying that name to matrimony, orders, extreme unction and confirmation. In attacking orders he demolished the priestly ideal and authority. In reducing marriage to a civil contract he took a long step towards the secularization of life. Penance he considered a sacrament in a certain sense, though not in the strict one, and he showed that it had been turned by the church from its original significance of "repentance" [1]

to that of sacramental penance, in which no faith was required but merely an automatic act. Baptism and the eucharist he considered the only true sacraments, and he seriously criticized the prevalent doctrine of the latter. He denied that the ma.s.s is a sacrifice or a "good work" pleasing to G.o.d and therefore beneficial to the soul either of living or of dead. He denied that the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus, though he held that the body and blood are really present with the elements. He demanded that the cup be given to the laity.

The whole trend of Luther's thought at this time was to oppose the Catholic theory of a mechanical distribution of grace and salvation (the so-called _opus operatum_) by means of the sacraments, and to subst.i.tute for it an individual conception of religion in which faith only should be necessary. How far he carried this idea may be seen in his _Sermon on the New Testament, that is on the Holy Ma.s.s_,[2]

published in the same year as the pamphlets just a.n.a.lysed. In it he makes the essence of the sacrament forgiveness, and the vehicle of this forgiveness the word of G.o.d apprehended by {74} faith, _not_ the actual partic.i.p.ation in the sacred bread and wine. Had he always been true to this conception he would have left no place for sacrament or priest at all. But in later years he grew more conservative, until, under slightly different names, almost the old medieval ideas of church and religion were again established, and, as Milton later expressed it, "New presbyter was but old priest writ large."

[1] In Latin _penitentia_ means both penance and repentance.

[2] _Cf_. Matthew, xxvi, 28.

SECTION 2. THE REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: Germany]

Although the Germans had arrived, by the end of the fifteenth century, at a high degree of national self-consciousness, they had not, like the French and English, succeeded in forming a corresponding political unity. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, though continuing to a.s.sert the vast claims of the Roman world-state, was in fact but a loose confederacy of many and very diverse territories. On a map drawn to the scale 1:6,000,000 nearly a hundred separate political ent.i.ties can be counted within the limits of the Empire and there were many others too small to appear. The rulers of seven of these territories elected the emperor; they were the three spiritual princes, the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves and Cologne, the three German temporal princes, the Electors of the Rhenish Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg, and in addition the King of Bohemia, who, save for purposes of the imperial choice, did not count as a member of the Germanic body. Besides these there were some powerful dukedoms, like Austria and Bavaria, and numerous smaller bishoprics and counties.

There were also many free cities, like Augsburg and Nuremberg, small aristocratic republics. Finally there was a large body of "free knights" or barons, whose tiny fiefs amounted often to no more than a castle and a few acres, but who owned no feudal superior save {75} the emperor. The unity of the Empire was expressed not only in the person of the emperor, but in the Diet which met at different places at frequent intervals. Its authority, though on the whole increasing, was small.

With no imperial system of taxation, no professional army and no centralized administration, the real power of the emperor dwindled.

Such as it was he derived it from the fact that he was always elected from one of the great houses. Since 1438 the Hapsburgs, Archdukes of Austria, had held the imperial office. Since 1495 there was also an imperial supreme court of arbitration. [Sidenote: 1495] The first imperial tax was levied in 1422 to equip a force against the Hussites.

In the fifteenth century also the rudiments of a central administration were laid in the division of the realm into ten "circles," and the levy of a small number of soldiers. And yet, at the time of the Reformation, the Empire was little better than a state in dissolution through the centrifugal forces of feudalism.

So little was the Empire an individual unit that the policy of her rulers themselves was not imperial. The statesmans.h.i.+p of Maximilian was something smaller than national; it was that of his Archduchy of Austria. The policy of his successor, on the other hand, was determined by something larger than Germany, the consideration of the Spanish and Burgundian states that he also ruled. Maximilian tried in every way to aggrandize his personal power, not that of the German Nation. [Sidenote: Maximilian I, 1493-1519] The Diet of Worms of 1495 tried to remodel the const.i.tution. It proclaimed a perpetual public peace, provided that those who broke it should be outlawed, and placed the duty of executing the ban upon all territories within ninety miles of the offender. It also pa.s.sed a bill for taxation, called the "common penny," which combined features of a poll tax, an {76} income tax and a property tax. The difficulty of collecting it was great; Maximilian himself as a territorial prince tried to evade it instead of setting his subjects the good example of paying it. He probably derived no more than the trifling sum of 50,000-100,000 gulden from it annually. The Diet also revived the Supreme Court and gave it a permanent home at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Feeble efforts to follow up this beginning of reform were made in subsequent Diets, but they failed owing to the insuperable jealousies of the princes and because the party of national unity lost the sympathy of the common people, to whom alone they could look for support.

Maximilian's external policy, though adventurous and unstable, was somewhat more successful. His only principle was to grasp whatever opportunity seemed to offer. Thus at one time he seriously proposed to have himself elected pope. His marriage with Mary, the daughter of Charles the Bold, added to the estates of his house Burgundy--the land comprising what is now Belgium, Luxemburg, most of Holland and large portions of north-eastern France. On the death of Mary, in 1482, Maximilian had much trouble in getting himself acknowledged as regent of her lands for their son Philip the Handsome. A part of the domain he also lost in a war with France. This was more than made up, however, by the brilliant match he made for Philip in securing for him the hand of Mad Joanna, the daughter and heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. This marriage produced two sons, Charles and Ferdinand. The deaths of Isabella (1504), of Philip (1506) and of Ferdinand of Aragon (1516) left Charles at the age of sixteen the ruler of Burgundy and of Spain with its immense dependencies in Italy and in America. [Sidenote: Charles V, 1500-1558] From this time forth the policy of Maximilian concentrated in the effort to {77} secure the succession of his eldest grandson to the imperial throne.

When Maximilian died on January 12, 1519, there were several candidates for election. So little was the office considered national that the kings of France and England entered the lists, and the former, Francis I, actually at one time secured the promise of votes from the majority of electors. Pope Leo made explicit engagements to both Charles and Francis to support their claims, and at the same time instructed his legate to labor for the choice of a German prince, either Frederic of Saxony, if he would in return give up Luther, or else Joachim of Brandenburg. But at no time was the election seriously in doubt. The electors followed the only possible course in choosing Charles on June 28. They profited, however, by the rivalry of the rich king of France to extort enormous bribes and concessions from Charles. The banking house of Fugger supplied the necessary funds, and in addition the agents of the emperor-elect were obliged to sign a "capitulation"

making all sorts of concessions to the princes. One of these, exacted by Frederic of Saxony in the interest of Luther, was that no subject should be outlawed without being heard.

The settlement of the imperial election enabled the pope once more to turn his attention to the suppression of the rapidly growing heresy.

After the Leipzig debate the universities of Cologne and Louvain had condemned Luther's positions. Eck went to Rome in March, 1520, and impressed the curia, which was already planning a bull condemning the heretic, with the danger of delay. After long discussions the bull _Exsurge Domine_ was ratified by the College of Cardinals and promulgated by Leo on June 15. [Sidenote: Bull against Luther, 1520]

In this, forty-one of Luther's sayings, relating to the sacraments of penance and the eucharist, to indulgences and {78} the power of the pope, to free will and purgatory, and to a few other matters, were anathematized as heretical or scandalous or false or offensive to pious ears. His books were condemned and ordered to be burnt, and unless he should recant within sixty days of the posting of the bull in Germany he was to be considered a heretic and dealt with accordingly. Eck was entrusted with the duty of publis.h.i.+ng this fulmination in Germany, and performed the task in the last days of September.

The time given Luther in which to recant therefore expired two months later. Instead of doing so he published several answers to "the execrable bull of Anti-christ," and on December 10 publicly and solemnly burnt it, together with the whole Canon Law. This he had come to detest, partly as containing the "forged decretals," partly as the sanction for a vast mechanism of ecclesiastical use and abuse, repugnant to his more personal theology. The dramatic act, which sent a thrill throughout Europe, symbolized the pa.s.sing of some medieval accretions on primitive Christianity. There was nothing left for the pope but to excommunicate the heretic, as was done in the bull _Decet Pontificem Romanum_ drawn up at Rome in January, [Sidenote: 1521] and published at Worms on May 6.

In the meantime Charles had come to Germany. For more than a year after his election he remained in Spain, where his position was very insecure on account of the revolt against his Burgundian officers.

Arriving in the Netherlands in the summer of 1520 Charles was met by the special nuncios of the pope, Caracciolo and Aleander. After he was crowned emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle, he opened his first Diet, at Worms.

[Sidenote: October 23, 1520 January 27, 1521 The Diet of Worms]

Before this august a.s.sembly came three questions of highest import.

The first related to the dynastic {79} policy of the Hapsburgs. For the chronic war with France an army of 24,000 men and a tax of 128,000 gulden was voted. The disposition of Wurttemberg caused some trouble.

Duke Ulrich had been deposed for rebellion in 1518, and his land taken from him by the Swabian League and sold to the emperor in 1520.

Together with the Austrian lands, which Charles secretly handed over to his young brother Ferdinand, this territory made the nucleus of Hapsburg power in Germany.

The Diet then took up the question of const.i.tutional reform. In order to have a permanent administrative body, necessary during the long absences of the emperor, an Imperial Council of Regency was established and given a seat at Nuremberg. [Sidenote: Council of Regency] The emperor nominated the president and four of the twenty-two other members; each of the six German electors nominated one member; six were chosen by the circles into which the Empire was divided and six were elected by the other estates. The powers of the council were limited to the times when the emperor was away.

The third question treated by the Diet was the religious one. As usual, they drew up a long list of grievances against the pope, to which many good Catholics in the a.s.sembly subscribed. Next they considered what to do with Luther. Charles himself, who could speak no language but French, and had no sympathy whatever with a rebel from any authority spiritual or temporal, would much have preferred to outlaw the Wittenberg professor at once, but he was bound by his promise to Frederic of Saxony. Of the six electors, who sat apart from the other estates, Frederic was strongly for Luther, the Elector Palatine was favorably inclined towards him, and the Archbishop of Mayence represented a mediating policy. The other three electors were opposed.

Among the {80} lesser princes a considerable minority was for Luther, whereas among the representatives of the free cities and of the knights, probably a majority were his followers. The common people, though unrepresented, applauded Luther, and their clamors could not pa.s.s unheeded even by the aristocratic members of the Diet. [Sidenote: February 13] The debate was opened by Aleander in a speech dwelling on the sacramental errors of the heretic and the similarity of his movement to that of the detested Bohemians. After a stormy session the estates decided to summon the bold Saxon before them and accordingly a citation, together with a safe-conduct, was sent him.

Though there was some danger in obeying the summons, Luther's journey to Worms, was a triumphal progress. Brought before the Diet in the late afternoon of April 17, he was asked if a certain number of books, the t.i.tles of which were read, were his and if he would recant the heresy contained in them. The form of the questions took him by surprise, for he had expected to be confronted with definite charges and to be allowed to defend his positions. He accordingly asked for time, and was granted one more day. [Sidenote: April 18, 1521] On his second appearance he made a great oration admitting that the books were his and closing with the words:

Unless I am convicted by Scripture or by right reason (for I trust neither popes nor councils since they have often erred and contradicted themselves) . . . I neither can nor will recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to act against conscience. G.o.d help me. Amen.

There he stood, braving the world, for he could do no other. . . . He left the hall the hero of his nation.

Hoping still to convince him of error, Catholic theologians held protracted but fruitless conferences with him before his departure from Worms on the 26th of {81} April. The sympathy of the people with him was shown by the posting at Worms of placards threatening his enemies.

Charles was sincerely shocked and immediately drew up a statement that he would hazard life and lands on the maintenance of the Catholic faith of his fathers. An edict was drafted by Aleander on the model of one promulgated in September in the Netherlands. [Sidenote: Luther banned]

The Edict of Worms put Luther under the ban of the Empire, commanded his surrender to the government at the expiration of his safe-conduct, and forbade all to shelter him or to read his writings. Though dated on May 8, to make it synchronize with a treaty between Charles and Leo, the Edict was not pa.s.sed by the Diet until May 26. At this time many of the members had gone home, and the law was forced on the remaining ones, contrary to the wishes of the majority, by intrigue and imperial pressure.

After leaving Worms Luther was taken by his prince, Frederic the Wise, and placed for safe-keeping in the Wartburg, a fine old castle near Eisenach. [Sidenote: The Wartburg] Here he remained in hiding for nearly a year, while doing some of his most important work. Here he wrote his treatise _On Monastic Vows_, declaring that they are wrong and invalid and urging all priests, nuns and monks to leave the cloister and to marry. In thus freeing thousands of men and women from a life often unproductive and sterile Luther achieved one of the greatest of his practical reforms. At the Wartburg also Luther began his translation of the Bible. The New Testament appeared in September 1522, and the Old Testament followed in four parts, the last published in 1532.

[Sidenote: The radicals]

While Luther was in retirement at the Wartburg, his colleagues Carlstadt and Melanchthon, and the Augustinian friar Gabriel Zwilling, took up the movement at Wittenberg and carried out reforms more radical {82} than those of their leader. The endowments of ma.s.ses were confiscated and applied to the relief of the poor on new and better principles. Prost.i.tution was suppressed. A new order of divine service was introduced, in which the words purporting that the ma.s.s was a sacrifice were omitted, and communion was given to the laity in both kinds. Priests were urged to marry, and monks were almost forced to leave the cloister. An element of mob violence early manifested itself both at Wittenberg and elsewhere. An outbreak at Erfurt against the clergy occurred in June, 1521, and by the end of the year riots took place at Wittenberg.

Even now, at the dawn of the revolution, appeared the beginnings of those sects, more radical than the Lutheran, commonly known as Anabaptist. The small industrial town of Zwickau had long been a hotbed of Waldensian heresy. Under the guidance of Thomas Munzer the clothweavers of this place formed a religious society animated by the desire to renovate both church and state by the readiest and roughest means. Suppression of the movement at Zwickau by the government resulted only in the banishment, or escape, of some of the leaders.

[Sidenote: December 27, 1521] Three of them found their way to Wittenberg, where they proclaimed themselves prophets divinely inspired, and conducted a revival marked with considerable, though harmless, extravagance.

[Sidenote: January 20, 1522]

As the radicals at Wittenberg made the whole of Northern Germany uneasy, the Imperial Council of Regency issued a mandate forbidding all the innovations and commanding the Elector of Saxony to stop them. It is remarkable that Luther in this felt exactly as did the Catholics.

Early in March he returned to Wittenberg with the express purpose of checking the reforms which had already gone too far {83} for him. His personal ascendency was so great that he found no trouble in doing so.