.'^KlJWi 
 
 
 XI if. 
 
 1 ', no. 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029248949 
 
ULRICH YOI^ HUTTEN, 
 
 Imperial ^oet anb Orator; 
 
 THE SREAT KNIGHTLY REFORMER OF THE 16TH CENTURY. 
 
 TllANSLATED FROM 
 
 CHAUPFOUR-KESTNER'S ETUDES SUR LES REFOKMATEUES 
 D0 16me SIECLE, 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD YOUNG, ESQ., 
 
 ADVOCATE. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. 
 
 LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND 00. 
 
 MDCCCLXIII. 
 
MUKKAY AND GIBB, PKINTEKS. EDINBURGH. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IIR JAMES, STEPHEN remarks, in one 
 of his admirable Essays on Ecclesiastical 
 Biography, that ' English literature is 
 singularly defective in whatever relates to the Re- 
 formation in Germany and Switzerland, and to the 
 lives of the great men by whom it was accom- 
 plished ; ' and to none of these great men does this 
 observation more forcibly apply than to Ulrich von 
 Hutten, of whose varied and eventful life, and 
 powerful influence both upon the revival of letters 
 and the reformation of religion in the sixteenth 
 century, no account is to be found in our language, 
 beyond the brief and imperfect notices afforded by 
 magazine, articles and biographical dictionaries. 
 Yet scarcely any career in that stirring century is 
 more diversified by adventures, or more surrounded 
 by strong elements of dramatic interest. The_fildest 
 son of an ancient and noble family of Franconia — 
 whose knighthood was esteemed tlie flower of Ger- 
 man chivalry — and gifted with remarkable abilities^ 
 
4 _ TEANSLATOE'S PEEFACE. 
 
 Ulrich. von Hutten might have attained to the high- 
 est dignities in church or state, if he could have 
 been content to follow the old paths, and accept 
 the established order of things. But he preferred 
 to be a champion and a martyr in the cause of civil 
 and religious liberty. When a mere lad, he fled 
 from the cloister of Fulda, in order to escape being 
 compelled to embrace a monastic life, as he thought 
 that, in some other career, he could better serve 
 God and his country. Afterwards, he gave up to 
 his family the estate which fell to him, as eldest 
 son, on his father's death, that they might not be 
 involved in the proscription and ruin which he 
 was about to incur by the publication of the Trias 
 Romana, — that tremendous satire upon the mani- 
 fold corruptions of Rome, beside whose withering 
 sarcasm and terrible invective, the attacks of About, 
 and other modern assailants of the Papacy, sound 
 tame and feeble. At twenty^eight, he had written 
 theEpistolce Ohscurorum virorurn, the national satire of 
 Germany, which, according to the celebrated Herder, 
 effected for Germany incomparably more than Hu- 
 dibras for England, or Gargantua for France, or the 
 Knight of La Mancha for Spain. It gave the victory 
 to Reuchlin over the begging friars, and to Luther 
 over the court of Rome. At thirty-fi ve he died, a 
 worn-out, persecuted, destitute fugitive, on the little 
 green island of Uffnau, in the Lake of Zurich, almost 
 
TEANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 5 
 
 within the shadow of the mighty Alps, — finishing 
 his life and his work at an age when some of the 
 world's greatest men, such as Mahomet, Luther, 
 and Oliver Cromwell, had scarcely begun theirs. 
 Yet in that short, but busy and fruitful life, how 
 much had been accomplished, amidst poverty, per- 
 secution, privations and anxieties of all kinds, and 
 frequent travel ! Hutten's works amount to about 
 fifty separate pjj blications, m prose and verse, many 
 of which deeply stirred the German mind, and ma- 
 terially contributed to the triumph of the Reforma- 
 tion over the papal power, and of polite learning 
 over the old scholastic teaching. It is surely some- 
 what remarkable, that there is no life of such a 
 man in the English language. There are several 
 biographies of him in French ; and in German — as 
 might naturally be expected — a great number, of 
 which the latest and most complete is that by Dr 
 Friederich Strauss. I have attempted, in some 
 measure, to supply this want in our literature by 
 translating M. V. Chaffour-K'estner's life of the 
 great knightly reformer of Germany, to which my 
 attention was first directed when writing an article 
 on Ulrich von Hutten for the ' Eclectic Review' of 
 July 1858. This biography is very appropriately 
 dated from Zurich, where Hutten found a last 
 refuge, when all others had failed him, beside the 
 intrepid and noble-minded Zwingle. It contains, 
 
b TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 within a brief compass, a picturesque and popular 
 narrative of Hutten's chequered career ; and, as far 
 as possible, makes him speak for himself, through 
 the medium of those among his works which exer- 
 cised the greatest influence on his era, and which 
 best illustrate his character and designs. Such are 
 the philippics against Ulrich, Duke of Wurtemburg, 
 who had assassinated his cousin, Hans von Hutten ; 
 his edition of the work of Laurentius Valla, im- 
 pugning the donation of Constantine to the Holy 
 See, dedicated, with characteristic audacity, to Pope 
 Leo X., — a book which had a powerful influence in 
 convincing Luther of the antichristian nature of the 
 papal power ; the Trias Romana, the most terrible 
 exposure ever made of the vices and corruptions 
 of the Roman court; the dialogues entitled, The 
 Monitor and The Brigands; and the Letters to 
 the Emperor Charles V., and to the Elector Fre- 
 derick, the friend and protector of Luther. These 
 works are largely drawn upon by M. Chaufibur- 
 Kestner, and his quotations from them give a vivid 
 idea both of the character of Hutten and of the 
 age in which he lived. Of Hutten, with his restless 
 impetuosity often bordering upon rashness, his in- 
 tense activity of thought and action, his disinterest- 
 edness, his sincerity and love of truth, his bitter 
 hatred of every form of oppression, his fervent devo- 
 tion to freedom and to the fatherland; — of the age in 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 7 
 
 which he lived, with its deeply -felt wants and aspira- 
 tions, its sense of ignorance and oppression, and its 
 strivings after clearer vision and healthier life. 
 
 No man was ever more thoroughly a type, an 
 epitome, of his age, than Ulrich von Hutten. Many 
 phases of that age have been better represented by 
 others — its scholarship by Eeuchlin and Erasmus, 
 its religious reformation by Luther and Melancthon, 
 its knighthood by Franz von Sickingen. But no 
 one presents so man y of its aspects in his single 
 person as Hutten, who was at once knight, scholar, 
 poet7"and reformer. His marvellous activity of 
 thought, and variety and fertility of invention, 
 form another marked peculiarity of his genius, 
 which has been finely pointed out by Von Ranke. 
 ' Hutten,' he says, ' is not a great scholar, nor is 
 he a very profound thinker; his excellence lies 
 more in the exhaustlessness of his vein, which 
 gushes forth with equal impetuosity, equal, fresh- 
 ness, in the most varied forms — in Latin and in 
 German, in prose and in verse, in eloquent invective 
 and in brilliant satirical dialogue. Nor is he without 
 the spirit of acute observation : here and there — 
 for example, in the Nemo — ^he soars to the bright 
 and clear regions of genuine poetry. His hostilities 
 have not that cold malignant character which dis- 
 gusts the reader ; they are always connected with 
 a cordial devotion to the side he advocates; he 
 
O TKANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 leaves on the mind an impression of perfect vera- 
 city, of uncompromising frankness and honesty; 
 above all, he has always great and single purposes 
 which command universal sympathy ; he has ear- 
 nestness of mind, and a passion — to use his own 
 words — "for godlike truth, for common liberty." ' 
 
 Hutten has been accused of rashness, of a revo- 
 lutionary spirit, of a tendency to precipitate matters 
 before the proper time had arrived; and perhaps 
 there is some truth in this accusation. Yet it 
 ought to be remembered that reformation, on the 
 basis of the existing ecclesiastical institutions, was 
 impracticable, and that the quiet and gradual de- 
 velopment of reformation, even on the basis of the 
 Bible, was no less impossible. Force, in the first 
 instance, was used by Rome to prevent and arrest 
 such a development, which would have been most 
 agreeable to the Reformers themselves; and the 
 only way to win the right of free inquiry and free 
 action, was to meet force by force. The Reformers, 
 before the Reformation, had tried the power of 
 persuasion, and their voices had been silenced by 
 the sword and the stake. It remained to abandon 
 aU hope of civil and religious freedom, to submit 
 for ever to the bondage of Rome, or to make use 
 of the right of resistance, and, like Ulrich von 
 Hutten, to draw the sword and fling away the scab- 
 bard. The cause was just and holy ; and the blood 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 9 
 
 shed td maintain it rests on the heads of those who 
 strove to crush it by force, not on those who perilled 
 fortune and life to secure its triumph. 
 
 I have said that scarcely any life of the sixteenth 
 century presents stronger elements of dramatic in- 
 terest than that of Hutten, His early flight from 
 the Abbey of Fulda ; his travels, as a poor scholar 
 and student, throughout Germany and the neigh- 
 bouring countries— now the guest of a peasant or 
 burgher, now of a powerful noble or wealthy bishop, 
 whose hospitality he repaid by his verses and by 
 the charms of his conversation ; his perils from 
 shipwreck and robbers ; his first journey into Italy, 
 during which he was besieged in his lodgings at 
 Pavia by French soldiers, and reduced to such 
 straits, that he gave himself up for lost, and, like 
 a true poet, composed his own epitaph ; his escape, 
 and subsequent enlistment in the army of Maxi- 
 milian ; his return to Germany, and publication 
 of those eloquent philippics against Duke Ulrich 
 of Wurtemburg, whereby he elevated his private 
 wrong, in the assassination of his cousin, into an 
 affair of national importance ; his second visit to 
 Italy, and his combat, single-handed, against five 
 Frenchmen, who had insulted Kaiser Maximilian 
 and the fatherland; his coronation at Augsburg, 
 as Imperial Poet and Orator, by the Emperor's own 
 hand ; his brilliant services at the head of that 
 
10 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 noble army of scholars, the friends and followers of 
 Eeuchlin, who emancipated the human mind from 
 the bondage of the old scholastic teaching; his 
 terrible assaults upon the vices and corruptions of 
 Rome ; his heroic self-abnegation in giving up his 
 patrimony to his family, lest they should suffer by 
 his proscription ; his friendship with Sickingen, 
 and their evenings in the strong castle of Ebemberg, 
 passed in reading the writings of Luther, till the 
 strong hand of the Bayard of Germany grasped to 
 his war-sword, and he exclaimed, ' It is the cause 
 of God and of truth ! It is our fatherland which 
 commands us to listen to the counsels of Luther and 
 of Hutten, and to defend the true faith ;' last scene 
 of aU, the defeat and death of Sickingen, the pro- 
 scription of Hutten, his flight to Basle, Mulhausen, 
 and Zurich, and his early death on the little island 
 of Uffnau ; — where is the romance that possesses 
 stronger or more varied elements of dramatic in- 
 terest than this true story of one of the countless 
 champions and martyrs of freedom ? One poet at 
 least — Frblich of Aarau, in Switzerland — ^has felt 
 this, and has composed a poem in seven cantos, 
 entitled ' Ulrich von Hutten.' 
 
 The works by which Hutten roused the national 
 mind of Germany, and won the battles of freedom, 
 may now lie almost forgotten on the shelves of 
 libraries, as the war-swords and panoply of the 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 11 
 
 knights of that age now serve only as memorials on 
 the walls of armouries and arsenals. Not because 
 there remain no abuses to overthrow, no enemies 
 to overcome ; but because the style of our writing 
 has changed, as well as the fashion of our warfare. 
 Yet not the less, on that account, should we value 
 the weapons with which these sixteenth century 
 Reformers fought and won the great victory whose 
 fruits we are now enjoying. As to Hutten him- 
 self, it has been finely said by one of his German 
 biographers, that ' his arrows are immortal ; and 
 wherever in German lands a battle is gained against 
 obscurantism and spiritual tyranny, against priest- 
 craft and despotism, there have Hutten's weapons 
 been.' 
 
 lam far from holding out the work of M. Chauffour- 
 Kestner as a perfect or complete biography of Ulrich 
 von Hutten. But it certainly furnishes a better 
 account of the great German- patriot — the repre- 
 sentative of the political aspect of the Reformation 
 — than any to be found in the English language ; 
 and I shall consider my labour in translating it 
 amply repaid, if I shall succeed in inducing some 
 abler writer to undertake a fuller and more com- 
 plete biography of one, whose sufferings and services 
 in the cause of freedom deserve to be more gene- 
 rally known among us. 
 
 Edinburgh, January 1863. 
 
AUTHOE'S PREFACE. 
 
 |LL liberties are sisters ; or rather there is 
 but one liberty, the indomitable daugh- 
 ter of conscience. The progress of 
 civilisation consists in disengaging liberty from the 
 yoke of nature and from the yoke of institutions, 
 in making of each man a man, in conquering for 
 all the full and perfect exercise of their physical, 
 intellectual, and moral faculties. In that divine 
 |irogression of history, each ruin which is made in 
 the ancient slavery, announces and prepares a new 
 ruin. It is therefore that those who, in the sixteenth 
 century, affirmed that all Christians are brothers^ are 
 the legitimate ancestors of those who, in the eigh- 
 teenth century, declared that all men are equal. 
 
 In that long infancy of liberty, during the ages 
 of which the great battles are termed Christianity, 
 Reformation, Revolution, the Reformation has had 
 the honour of reclaiming and reconquering for 
 liberty her very sanctuary — the conscience. But 
 we need not go beyond our own time to seek for 
 examples in that memorable epoch. We have 
 
14 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 lately seen liberty driven from the arena which 
 she filled with her mighty voice : she has retired 
 into her sanctuary, and from that prolific retreat 
 she will emerge stronger, more serious, more 
 self-assured, to march onward to new triumphs. 
 Let the weak despair : it is the consequence 
 and the punishment of their feebleness. But it 
 must not, cannot be, that the strong themselves 
 should falter and lose heart ; for liberty shall not 
 perish. Who can tell all the storms to which she 
 has been exposed ! How often has she been bat- 
 tered by the winds, and abandoned on the waves 
 like a dismasted vessel ! And ere long she again 
 wooed the breeze, more beautiful and more majestic 
 than ever ! But she demands from her defenders 
 an undaunted spirit, a fearless heart. She despises 
 the cowards who believe her dead, because they 
 dare not raise her from the tomb, where they pre- 
 tend that she sleeps for ever, but where she only 
 slumbers for a time. She has nought to do with 
 tears and lamentations : she requires deeds, and 
 the fiery words which give birth to action. 
 
 I believe that I have found such words in the 
 writings of Hutten ; and I repeat them to my con- 
 temporaries, happy if they cherish or rekindle in 
 some hearts a spark of the sacred fire which has 
 animated so many heroes. 
 Zurich, 2Qth July 1852. 
 
ULRICH YON HUTTEN.* 
 
 ILRICH VON HUTTEN was born on the 
 21st April 1488, of one of the noblest 
 families of Franconia — of that country 
 where every man was noble. From the tenth 
 century the Huttens had acquired an honourable 
 name in camp and council ; and at the commence- 
 ment of the sixteenth, they had thirty knights in 
 the service of the Empire. The Franconian nobility 
 were, at that period, considered the most perfect 
 type of German chivalry. They had preserved 
 their independence after the formation of the terri- 
 torial principalities ; and when, almost everywhere 
 else, the lesser nobility had been, willingly or by 
 force, subjected to the sovereignty of the princes, 
 they owned allegiance only to the Empire, — ^that is 
 
 * Several notes have been added by the translator, relating to the 
 less generally known of the eminent persons mentioned by M. Chauf- 
 four-Kestner, in order to enable the reader intelligently to follow the 
 progress of the narrative without going beyond the volume in his hand. 
 These notes have been placed together at the end of the volume, and 
 each note is indicated by its number on the page to which it refers. 
 
16 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 to say, to an idea rather than to a reality. They 
 formed a sort of noble democracy, which properly 
 took its place ~T)yTEe side of the middle class 
 democracy of the towns, and which, not less than 
 the latter, was pervaded by a remarkable spirit of 
 liberty, joined to a profound sentiment of national 
 unity. 
 
 The castle of Steckelberg, the residence of the 
 Huttens, was situated some leagues distant from 
 Fulda, on the confines of Franconia and Hesse. 
 It was one of the feudal residences of which Hutten 
 has left ,us the description : ' Our castles are con- 
 structed, not for pleasure, but security. All is 
 sacrificed to the necessity of defence. They are 
 contracted between ramparts and ditches ; ar- 
 mouries and stables usurp the place of apartments. 
 Everywhere the smell of powder, horses, cattle, the 
 noise of dogs and oxen, and, upon the margin of 
 the mighty forests which surround us, the cries of 
 wolves. Always agitation ; perpetual coming and 
 going : our gates, open to all, often permit assassins 
 and thieves to enter. Bach day there is a new 
 care. If we maintain our independence, we risk 
 being crushed among too powerful enemies ; if we 
 put ourselves under the protection of some prince, 
 we are forced to espouse his quarrels. We cannot 
 sally forth without an escort. In order to hunt, or 
 to visit a neighbour, we must don casque and 
 
THE SCHOOL OF THE ABBEY OP PULDA. 17 
 
 cuirass. Always, everywhere, war.' War, in fact, 
 even to the end, was the normal state of feudal 
 society. Hutten, as we shall see, did not detest it ;, 
 but he wished it to be ennobled by its aim, and by 
 the grandeur of the results achieved. 
 
 II. 
 
 E know nothing of the infancy of Hutten ; 
 but we can fancy what it must have been, 
 in the midst of the savage manners of 
 which we have just sketched the picture. At 
 eleven years of age, his parents sent him to the 
 school of the Abbey of Fulda. They had four sons ; 
 and, although Ulrich was the eldest, they thought 
 that he would best make his way in the world by 
 the convent, as he was of delicate constitution, and 
 of short stature in that family of giants. Hutten 
 learned with ardour and success all that they could 
 teach him in the celebrated school of the Abbey, 
 and especially the rudiments of the classical lan- 
 guages ; but he acquired no taste for a monastic 
 life. ' Having seen the world ' (he says at a subse- 
 quent period), ' it appeared to me that, in another 
 condition, I could live in a manner more pleasing 
 to God, and more useful to men.' Thenceforward, 
 
 B 
 
18 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 witli that decisive and courageous resolution which 
 does not compound with duty, his mind was made 
 up. Nothing could induce him to, become a monk. 
 He was emboldened in his resistance by his fellow- 
 student, Crotus Rubianus (1), who remained his 
 friend, and by Eitelwolf von Stein (2), who was his 
 most useful protector. The latter addressed him- 
 self at first to the parents of the young man, and 
 entreated them not to force his inclinations. He 
 found them deaf to entreaties, and, conjecturing the 
 cause of their resistance, he went to the Abbot of 
 Fulda, and addressed him in the following terms : 
 . ' Are you not ashamed to destroy so promising a 
 genius ? ' The experienced statesman had already 
 divined in the youthful scholar the great man of 
 the future ; but the monk had made the same dis- 
 covery, and was not less ardent in his efforts to 
 secure him. He endeavoured to dazzle his eyes by 
 the dignities and honours which a monastic career 
 would place within his reach. Hutten remained 
 immovable. He had then recourse to menaces ; 
 but these only rendered Hutten the more deter- 
 mined. Then the Abbot called in his parents. 
 The father laid his commands upon him, and swore 
 that, if he did not obey, he would see him no more : 
 the mother wept and entreated. But the loyalty 
 of young Hutten's nature forbade him to sacrifice 
 the instinctive dictates of his conscience either to 
 
FLIGHT FROM THE ABBEY OF PULDA. 19 
 
 ambition or fear, or to the natural affections, which 
 were always so strong in his heart. To escape 
 from further persecutions, he fled from Pulda. He 
 was then sixteen years old. 
 
 Bitter but salutary initiation into the great 
 battle of life! Later, other seductions will be 
 tried, other dangers wiU threaten him ; but in that 
 first temptation he acquired the necessary strength 
 of character. After what he then suffered, it will 
 cost him nothing to remain faithful to the voice of 
 conscience. His family for a long time was lost to 
 him. His father no longer wished either to see him, 
 or to interest himself in his affairs. 
 
 III. 
 
 j]N leaving the Abbey, Hutten at first went 
 to Erfurth, where he might see Luther ; 
 but he soon afterwards repaired to 
 Cologne, where he was rejoined by his friend 
 Crotus Rubianus. Cologne was the most ancient 
 and illustrious of the German universities ; and the 
 two youths arrived there, full of ardour in the pur- 
 suit of knowledge. 
 
 Knowledge! But what kind of knowledge? 
 The scholastic system still reigned supreme ; and 
 
20 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 dialectics were the first branch of study to which 
 they applied themselves. ' We learn to fulminate 
 arguments, to overwhelm each other with syllogistic 
 strokes, to maintain up to thirty propositions, to 
 prove the for and against.' Futile and wretched 
 training, which, instead of exercising and rectifying 
 the intellect, perverted it, and sent it forth on a 
 wrong path ! However, that study was not lost : 
 the scholar, later in life, will avail himself of the 
 teaching of his masters, in his great and triumph- 
 ant controversy with the theologians of Cologne. 
 
 But the natural integrity of his disposition did 
 not permit Hutten to stray long in these devious 
 paths. He soon yielded to the inclination which 
 led him towards classical antiquity. He was the 
 assiduous and favourite pupil of Ragius JEsticam- 
 pius (3), who, in opposition to the old science of 
 the Scholastics, taught, with great success, the new 
 science of languages and ancient literature. It was 
 the invincible tendency of the epoch. The time 
 was approaching when the human spirit would 
 burst the swaddling clothes which had protected its 
 infancy, but which had for a long time impeded 
 its growth and development. In order to prepare 
 for this decisive struggle against the iron slavery of 
 the Middle Ages, the modern world sought its best 
 arms in classical antiquity. What, in truth, could 
 they do better than invoke the calm and clear 
 
HUTTEN AND RAGIUS ^STICAMPIUS. 2 1 
 
 reason of the G-reeks, the practical good sense of 
 the Romans, against that mass of subtleties, of 
 shadows which obscured the light ? 
 
 But the bid world, the old science, were not will- 
 ing to give place. We shall afterwards see what 
 blows it was necessary to strike, in order to achieve 
 for classical learning a little air and liberty. The 
 theologians of Cologne launched against Ragius the 
 accusation which was fatal to Socrates, the eternal 
 accusation with which all science is met at its first 
 appearance. They accused him of being an innova- 
 tor, a corrupter of youth, and expelled him from 
 the University. Later, we shall find them again 
 animated by the same passions ; but the times will 
 be changed, and their blind hatred will shatter it- 
 self against the holy league of good sense, of learn- 
 ing, and of wit. 
 
 Ragius carried his teaching to Frankfort-on-the- 
 Oder, where the Margrave of Brandenburgh was 
 about to found a university. Hutten followed him. 
 He was appointed one of the first, masters, and re- 
 quited by his earliest poem the hospitality which 
 he received. 
 
22 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ROM 1506 to 1514, Ulrich von Hutten 
 only appears at long intervals. He set 
 out on his travels in order to finish his 
 education. Like Ulysses, to whom his contem- 
 poraries have often compared him, he had to endure 
 the buffetings of the waves, the treachery of men, 
 and the persecutions of a contrary destiny. He 
 first visited the north of Europe ; later, he appears 
 at Rostock, at Wittemberg, at Vienna, sowing 
 broad-cast on his way much admired poetical com- 
 positions. These travels, undertaken without re- 
 sources, were often full of great hardships. On the 
 Baltic, he was exposed to a frightful tempest ; in 
 Pomerania, in that country of the Cyclops, as one of 
 his friends says, he was robbed of his slender bag- 
 gage. He travelled in the style of knights-errant — 
 or as the students of Germany have done for so 
 long a period — ^trusting to chance, on foot, hving on 
 alms, without anxiety or thought for the future, 
 certain of always finding some abbot, or lover of 
 good verses, or the hospitable table of a peasant. 
 Sometimes the charms of his conversation procured 
 for him a flattering reception. At Olmutz, for 
 example, the Bishop, after having lodged him for 
 several days, and treated him magnificently, gave 
 him, on his departure, a horse and some money. 
 
ADVENTUEES IN ITALY. 23 
 
 In 1512, Hutten was at Pavia, at the time when 
 the French defended that town, besieged by the 
 Swiss. His sojourn there was, for our hero, a suc- 
 cession of misfortunes. Having got into a quarrel 
 with some soldiers of the garrison, he had to endure 
 from them, in his small student's lodging, a siege 
 in form. He gave up all hope, prepared to die as 
 became a poet, and composed a beautiful epitaph 
 for himself in Latin. When the town was taken, 
 he expected to have been set free ; but the victors, 
 pretending to take him for a German in the ser- 
 vice of France, under that pretext, maltreated and 
 plundered him. He hastened to fly from that 
 uiihappy town, and took refuge at Bologna. 
 Misery, however, seemed to dog his steps ; and his 
 necessities became so pressing, that he enlisted as 
 a common soldier in Maximilian's army. ' If I were 
 to tell you what I suffered in Italy ' (he afterwards 
 says to his friend Perckheimer (4) ), ' you would 
 hear a tragedy so wonderful and melancholy, that 
 you would scarcely believe me.' This, however, 
 did not hinder him from making verses in honour 
 of the Empire, and against its enemies. On his re- 
 turn, his friends pressed him to dedicate them to 
 Maximilian : he did so, but in so haughty a tone, 
 that it was impossible to mistake him for a courtier. 
 
 He derived no advantage either from the verses 
 or the dedication ; but Eitelwolf von Stein recom- 
 
24 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 mended him to the Archbishop of Mayence, Albert 
 of Brandenburg, who received and treated him as a 
 friend. He composed a poem in his honour, which 
 is considered one of his best works in Latin verse. 
 He allowed it to be printed only at the request of 
 his patron, and with marked repugnance. ' If I 
 could refuse you anything, certainly I would not 
 have consented to that. You know to what risk I 
 expose myself You know the ideas and the 
 customs of the German nobility : one would take 
 them for centaurs rather than knights. If a young 
 man applies himself to the study of the sciences, 
 they point at him the finger of scorn, as a degene- 
 rate being, as a disgrace to his family and nobility. 
 Thus several who were making good progress have 
 turned back, and have bowed the neck to the yoke 
 of prejudice. Are we not condemned each day to 
 hear these centaurs exclaim that they are the 
 piUars of the country, that in them alone is true 
 nobility, and that they alone are qualified for great 
 exploits both in peace and war ? ' 
 
 I take notice of that first expression of a com- 
 plaint which often recurs in the writings of Hutten. 
 He reproaches the German nobility with their 
 coarseness, drunkenness, and contempt for the arts 
 and sciences. One object of his ambition was to 
 combat and destroy that prejudice of the nobility, 
 which considered the cultivation of literature as a 
 
HUTTEN'S ESTIMATE OF NOBILITY. 25 
 
 mark of low birth. Every noble of the sixteenth 
 century was proud of his nobility ; Hutten often 
 speaks with complaisance of the distinction of his 
 family; but from a feeling then entirely new, he 
 was still more proud of personal distinction : ' I 
 attach little importance' (he writes to Perckheimer) 
 ' to the nobility which arises merely from the acci- 
 dent of birth, and with which there is combined no 
 personal merit. For my part, I would wish to 
 ennoble myself, and to transmit to my descendants 
 some distinction which I have not inherited from 
 my ancestors.' 
 
 V. 
 
 E approach the period when Hutten, re- 
 turned from his long travels, is about to 
 commence his work. Unhappy, a wan- 
 derer on the face of the earth, shattered by mis- 
 fortunes, attacked by a shameful disease from 
 which he will suffer all his life, and which will 
 hasten his death, what has he learned ? One great 
 thing — experience. He has examined the world 
 closely: he knows its passions, its wants, its vices, 
 its great aspirations. He knows that, from the 
 north to the south, it is in expectation, and await- 
 ing only an impulse. He knows the spell which 
 
26 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 will arouse it. He has suffered : lie will take part 
 with those who suffer. He has studied on the spot 
 the secrets of the Roman tyranny : he will smite it 
 to the heart. At the same time, he has developed 
 his intellectual capacities : he remains a poet, but 
 he has become a learned man ; he has acquired a 
 perfect acquaintance with the marvels of Greek 
 and Latin genius brought to light at the Renais- 
 sance. His verses everywhere make for him ad- 
 mirers and friends. Young men set out to listen 
 to him, on, the vague report that he has commenced 
 a course of instruction. He occupies one of the 
 highest positions among the learned men of that 
 learned century. And his knowledge is not the 
 dead knowledge of books and vain formulas ; it is 
 the instrument of liberation. That spirit of liberty 
 which had pervaded his character from his in- 
 fancy, which his earliest struggles had increased in 
 him, and which had been the most ardent senti- 
 ment of his adventurous youth, he brought back 
 enlarged, enlightened, purified by meditation and 
 travel. To this he added a fervent love of his 
 country, and a passionate faith in the grandeur of 
 the mission which he had to fiU in the world. 
 Than him, none had more pride of nationality, or 
 deeper hatred of all, foreign rule. What shocks and 
 revolts him in the pontifical power, as a free Chris- 
 tian, is the yoke which it imposes on the conscience ; 
 
PERSONAL APPEAEANCE AND CHARACTER. 27 
 
 but, at the same time, and chiefly, it is the empire 
 which it pretends to exercise over Germany. Thus, 
 though he neglects not to pierce, with his best 
 directed and most poignant sarcasms, the unheard- 
 of corruptions of the Roman court, he may with 
 good reason be reckoned the representative of the 
 poUtical aspect of the Reformation, just as Luther 
 — whom^e preceded and encouraged in the struggle 
 — is the special representativeof its religious aspect. 
 Hutten was of short stature ; his body was bent 
 by disease, and by the' hardships of his youth. 
 But his expressive countenance, his sparkling eyes, 
 told immediately all the feelings of his soul. His 
 enemies were often terrified at the tremendous 
 energy which appeared in that lofty countenance ; 
 while his friends read in it only the nobleness and 
 generosity of his intellect and heart. His character 
 was exceedingly amiable, without hauteur, without 
 pretension, fuU of readiness to oblige, and of kind 
 attentions to women and children, and for the 
 humblest of mankind. During his happiest years, 
 Budseus (5) praises in him these amiable qualities ; 
 and Zwingle bestows on him the same praise, at the 
 end of his life, when so many misfortunes and de- 
 ceptions might well have embittered his spirit. 
 His wit, nourished by serious studies, enlarged by 
 an attentive observation of men and things, had an 
 irresistible charm : it sparkled in refined remarks, 
 
28 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 in curious comparisons, in unexpected sallies. All 
 the learned and distinguished men of his time were 
 his friends, and remained so. One only — Eras- 
 mus (6) — ^betrayed him in his last hour ; but Eras- 
 mus, enamoured of a quiet life, betrayed less the 
 man than the unfortunate. 
 
 Such was Hutten, when a tragical event threw 
 him into the midst of the strifes of his time. 
 
 VI. 
 
 E learned at the same time the death of 
 his friend and protector, Eitelwolf von 
 Stein, and the assassination of his cousin, 
 Hans von Hutten, by the Duke of Wurtemberg. 
 To the first he gave a touching and tender regret ; 
 to the second, a memorable vengeance. 
 
 The Huttens had rendered important services to 
 the Duke of Wurtemberg. In a revolt of the pea- 
 santry, they had given him the victory by leading the 
 Franconian nobility to his aid. They believed them- 
 selves sure of his friendship, and he made warm 
 protestations of gratitude. He requested of old 
 Lfudwig von Hutten that he would confide to him 
 his son, who was accounted the most accomplished 
 knight of Pranconia. He held out the most brilliant 
 
ASSASSINATION OP H. VON HUTTEN. 29 
 
 inducements, saying that lie wished, in the person of 
 this young man, to requite the obligations which he 
 owed to the family. The youthful Hutten hesitated 
 long, as if he had had a presentiment of his fate ; 
 but the father thought it his duty not to let slip the 
 opportunity which fortune placed before his son. 
 
 The Duke overwhelmed the young knight with 
 favours, and kept him constantly at his side ; while 
 the latter gave himself up with delight to the 
 enchantments of that court life, where, by a rare 
 good fortune, he enjoyed at once the friendship of 
 the prince, and the good-will of the nobles and 
 people. He was soon attached to the country by 
 a closer and softer tie ; he married the daughter of 
 the Marshal of Wurtemberg. 
 
 After some months of unmingled happiness, he 
 learned from his wife herself that she was beloved 
 by the Duke. That information struck him like a 
 thunderbolt. He rushed to the presence of the 
 Duke, with the agony of outraged friendship, rather 
 than with the resentment of an injured husband. 
 He reproached him with his passion, and entreated 
 him to combat it ; but the Duke, in the delirium of 
 desire, threw himself at his feet, and did not blush 
 to ask him to sanction his love for his wife, per- 
 mitting him in return to aspire to the favours of 
 the Duchess. The young noble repulsed with con- 
 tempt this infamous bargain. Prom that time his 
 
30 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 resolution was taken to quit the court, and to with- 
 draw his wife from attempts, in which, as yet, he 
 did not know her complicity. 
 
 After long delays, caused by the opposition of the 
 Duke, his departure was fixed, when he was invited 
 to a farewell hunting party. He joined the Duke 
 without mistrust, and without arms. The Duke 
 was armed. He gave the young man a most flat- 
 tering reception, and attached him to his side in 
 order to converse with him more familiarly. They 
 soon became separated from the rest of the court ; 
 and upon arriving in the heart of the forest, where 
 two horses could not ride abreast, the Duke made 
 the unhappy young man go before him. Sud- 
 denly he threw himself upon him from behind, and 
 ran him through the body with his sword, not 
 ceasing from his murderous attack until he had 
 given him seven mortal wounds. Then — adding 
 cowardly outrage to crime — ^he loosed the belt of 
 the dead man, fastened it round his neck, and hung 
 him up to a tree. On regaining his escort with 
 haggard eyes and blood-stained hands, he informed 
 them that, in virtue of his right as a free judge, he 
 had taken vengeance on an adulterer ! 
 
 The fatal news spread rapidly through Germany, 
 and roused a universal feeling of horror. Every- 
 where the Duke met indignation and contempt; 
 but, as if he believed himself above punishment, he 
 
ATTACKS DUKE OF WURTEMBERG. 31 
 
 paraded his crime, and lived publicly with the wife 
 of his victim (7). 
 
 VII. 
 
 UTTEN was at the baths of Ems when he 
 learned from a friend this frightful crime. 
 His first feeling was grief, and sympathy 
 with the bereaved father ; but he determined not 
 to shed useless tears, and resolved to pursue the 
 criminal until punishment should overtake him. 
 
 With this view he hastened to reconcile himself 
 with his father, and then took up the cause of the 
 family. Letters, poems, orations, were in turns 
 employed by him to rouse Germany against the 
 t3nrant. He fulminated against him five harangues, 
 five philippics full of wrath and vigour. He im- 
 parted to Latin, to that dead language, all the life 
 of his ardent soul. He does not disguise the passion 
 which animates him ; he gives himself up to all its 
 vehemence, and all its coarseness. He demands of 
 the princes the judgment and punishment of the 
 criminal, and does not conceal from them, that if 
 they refuse, the Huttens will know right well how 
 to do justice to themselves. 
 
 ' Know, princes' (he exclaims), 'what will be 
 thought of you if you abandon our cause. The 
 
32 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 whole German people will be animated with a just 
 indignation : they will curse your pride, your hard- 
 ness of heart ; they will deem you accomplices in 
 the crime which you have neglected to punish. 
 Your honour is at stake ; reflect well on this. They 
 will say that this man is your peer — ^this man, who 
 ought to be placed beyond the pale of human com- 
 munion. Let justice do her office, and do not con- 
 strain us to have recourse to force. As to myself, 
 nothing shall make me endure such an injury : I 
 shall renounce only with life the pursuit of that 
 great criminal. These are the feelings of all my 
 kindred ; and how many others share in them ! If 
 you abandon us, it will only remain to take up arms; 
 and then what will become of Germany? At least 
 she will know that we are not to blame for these 
 misfortunes, that we have done everything to obtain 
 justice, and that we have given the signal of war 
 in spite of ourselves, and constrained by your de- 
 sertion.' 
 
 In these orations Hutten appeared as the avenger 
 of an outraged family ; and, as has been said of him, 
 he prosecuted a true vendetta. But these orations 
 have a still greater importance in his life : they 
 revealed to Germany, and perhaps to himself, the 
 politician, as well as the great writer. Hutten 
 made a national cause of his own private wrong, 
 and raised it to the importance of an affair of state. 
 
ATTACKS DUKE OP WUKTEMBEKa. 33 
 
 At the outset, he recalls the services which the 
 Huttens have rendered to the Dake of Wurteraberg ; 
 and here is how he treats that first revolt of the 
 Swabian peasantry : — 
 
 ' A conspiracy had been formed against him. 
 The peasantry could no longer support his tyranny, 
 his imposts, his rapacity, his extortions of every 
 description ! How would Germany have been con- 
 vulsed ! What perils, princes, would have menaced 
 you, through the fault of a single individual, if 
 that contagion had been allowed to spread! For, 
 although at first their demands were but too just, 
 evil counsellors crept in among them, and corrupted 
 their original designs. All the scoundrels enlisted 
 in their ranks, and thenceforward there was no 
 diversity of opinion about massacring the nobility, 
 plundering the rich, and overthrowing everything. 
 Such was the danger that menaced Germany. The 
 Franconian knights, sent by Ludwig von Hutten, 
 saved Germany : they saved the Duke, but they 
 could not cure the vices which would lead anew to 
 similar convulsions ! ' 
 
 Undoubtedly, this appreciation of the rising of 
 the German peasantry is not that with which 
 history will agree. She will have more sjrmpathy 
 for these poor wretches, who only rose against an 
 intolerable yoke, and fought valiantly around the 
 irpn-shod shoe (Bundschuh), which served them 
 
 c 
 
34 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 for a standard. But she will not deny that acts of 
 violence and atrocity sullied a cause just in itself; 
 and, even while taking the part of the ignorant, she 
 will bow herself before the first impartial judgment 
 pronounced by a noble upon that great popular 
 movement. 
 
 Hutten afterwards narrates the crime, and de- 
 mands the punishment of the criminal. ' You owe 
 it to the honour of your country ; you owe it to 
 yourselves, Swabians. It is time to throw off the 
 yoke of that execrable tyrant ! No ! believe not 
 that our knights can attempt to protect that man, 
 to assist his abominable passions. We are armed 
 less against you, than for Germany ; and if we had 
 been able, we would have saved you all. His vio- 
 lence, his tyranny, are not imputable to us ; they 
 are the crimes of his own individual wickedness. 
 And who have suffered from them more than we 
 have ? His impunity has encouraged him in fresh 
 crimes. He believes that he may do anything : he 
 has confiscated your goods, destroyed your houses, 
 killed your best citizens. There is a great reason 
 for inflicting upon him an exemplary punishment. 
 Germany knows but too well what would be the 
 results of his impunity ! ' 
 
 To these orations Hutten added a dialogue, 
 entitled Phalarismus. It is the meetiiig of Phalaris 
 and the Duke of Wurtemberg in hell. Phalaris 
 
THE PHALARISMUS. 35 
 
 congratulates himself on seeing a man his equal in 
 cruelty. He gives him, however, some good lessons 
 in tyranny : — 
 
 ' Above all, liberate your soul from the fear of 
 God, and from every feeling of humanity. The 
 better and more virtuous a man is, the more you 
 will suspect him as an enemy, and will hasten to 
 get rid of him : in this way you will make yourself 
 feared. At the same time, you will take care to 
 attach some followers by your generosity : they 
 will chant your praises among the people. Be pro- 
 fuse to them, without thinking of counting the 
 money which you have taken from the rest. One 
 great thing is to have good spies, who will bring 
 you an exact account of what is said, thought, and 
 done. Whatever you may do, arrange it so as to 
 give a creditable appearance to your acts ; so that, 
 if they do not see you do good, they may at least 
 have no certain proof that you do evil. Often, you 
 must even do something just, noble, and courage- 
 ous. There is one great point: do not forget it. 
 A single good action, well proved, will efface the 
 remembrance of many crimes. In particular, direct 
 all the penetration of your intellect to discern those 
 whom you ought to fear, and those whom you can 
 seduce. And if, in spite of all, you find yourself in 
 some great danger, there remains to you a last re- 
 sort, often attempted in Germany, never well exe- 
 
36 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 cuted : gain over the populace by summoning them 
 to the destruction of the rich. As to your pleasures, 
 if you happen to love a woman, and her husband 
 refuses to give her up, get rid of the insolent, but 
 secretly. Such are the rules of tyranny ; if that 
 Syracusan had followed them, he would not have 
 fallen from a tjrant to a schoolmaster.' 
 
 These writings made an immense impression in 
 Germany. The Emperor, however, hesitated to 
 punish a prince; and it was not until 1519 that 
 vengeance overtook the criminal. Put to the ban 
 of the Empire, he was hunted from Wurtemberg by 
 the indignant people, assisted by an army which 
 Franz von Sickingen (8) commanded, and in which 
 Hutten served. It was in this campaign that the 
 friendship of these two knights commenced. 
 
 I do not intend to follow the details of that war ; 
 but I must specially mention one event, connected 
 with it, which had an incalculable influence upon 
 the life of Hutten. He had made himself master of 
 the political affairs of Germany ; he had studied, to 
 assist his vengeance, all their springs. His voice 
 had made itself heard beyond the little circle of 
 philosophers who, up to that time, had alone ap- 
 preciated its power : it had gone forth to the people, 
 and re-echoed through the whole nation, His name 
 was associated in the popular imagination with the 
 sad story which affected him so strongly : he had 
 
THE SCHOLASTICS AND HUMANISTS. 37 
 
 his place in the tragedy. At the same time, he had 
 viewed princes close at hand : he knew their am- 
 bitions, their cabals, and how the Emperor, the 
 venerated representative of national unity, had 
 in reality but little power. He understood one 
 of the evils of Germany. He had had a glimpse 
 of the other in his travels, and soon he will 
 •study it better at Rome herself But, previously, 
 he will fight his first great battle against religious 
 fanaticism, and obtain one of his most brilliant 
 triumphs. 
 
 VIIT. 
 
 j]HB natural opposition of the Scholastics 
 and the Humanists could not fail to re- 
 sult in an open war. In truth, the 
 question at issue between them, related to nothing 
 of less importance than the empire over the souls 
 of men, the direction of their intellects, the substi- 
 tution of a new moral world for that which was old 
 and worn out. That final strife, however, burst 
 forth in an unexpected manner; for when ques- 
 tions have been mentally decided, the, most trivial 
 incident rouses them, with intense force, into 
 action. 
 
38 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 One of the most moderate and timid among the 
 adherents of the new method gave the signal for 
 that memorable combat. John Reuchlin. (9) was a 
 learned man, rather than an original or sympathetic 
 intellect : his spirit lacked boldness ; his style, 
 warmth and brilliancy ; but he possessed the pas- 
 sion for learning in the highest degree. Wherever 
 there were any crumbs fallen from the table of the 
 masters to be picked up — to use his own words — 
 there he hastened to proceed. At Paris, in the 
 Vatican, at Florence, and at Basle, he had reaped 
 an ample harvest; and he hastened to call the 
 world to partake with him. He did incontestable 
 service to the cause of Latin literature by the 
 publication of a dictionary, and to that of Greece 
 by the publication of a small grammar. He spared 
 neither trouble nor money to procure editions of 
 the ancient authors, either in MS., or as they were 
 issued from the printing-presses of Italy. He w as 
 the first German who possessed a complete edition 
 of Homer. But his insatiable curiosity did not 
 confine itself to classical antiquity : he turned his 
 attention also to the study of Hebrew. ' No one 
 before me ' (he affirms with legitimate pride) ' had 
 known how to combine in a single volume the 
 grammatical rules of the Hebrew language ; and, 
 in despite of envy, I am and remain the first. 
 Exegi monumentum cere perennius.'' With a view of 
 
DISPUTE ABOUT HEBREW LITERATURE. 39 
 
 improving himself in this study, he had become 
 intimate with several rabbis, by whom he was 
 initiated into the mysteries of the Kabbala. But 
 it was not from that quarter that the storm arose 
 which disturbed him in his learned labours. 
 
 Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew, had published a 
 book, in which, with the fanaticism of a neophyte, 
 he accused his ancient co-religionists of adoring the 
 sun and moon, and of insulting Christianity in the 
 most odious manner. That book was welcomed as 
 a special piece of good fortune by the theologians 
 of Cologne, and especially by Hochstraten, Prior of 
 the Dominicans, and Inquisitor for the three eccle- 
 siastical electorates. They represented the Jewish 
 books as dangerous and heretical, and demanded of 
 the Emperor an order to burn them. Maximilian 
 had no objection to this literary auto da fe ; but his 
 councillors, many of whom belonged to the modern 
 school, and who all detested the Inquisition, con- 
 sidered it advisable .to consult the Faculties of 
 Theology, and the most learned men in Hebrew 
 literature. The theologians of Cologne had no 
 hesitation in ranging themselves on the side of 
 Hochstraten, They drew up a memorial, in which 
 they endeavoured to establish, with much show of 
 learning, the startling proposition that the Jews 
 were heretics, and that, as such, it was the 
 Emperor's right and duty to punish them. The 
 
40 UI.K1CH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 Faculties of Paris, Erfurth, .Louvain, and Mayence, 
 were, as might be expected, of the same opinion ; 
 but Reuchlin adopted the opposite view of the 
 question, and all independent and enlightened men 
 were of his opinion. 
 
 He had been consulted by the Archbishop of 
 Mayence, and had answered with remarkable 
 moderation. He pointed out that many Jewish 
 books could not but be very useful to Christianity ; 
 that the greater number took no notice of it ; and 
 that, consequently, if it was absolutely necessary 
 to bum, a selection, at least, should be made. 
 That moderation was a crime in the eyes of the 
 fanatics. The memorial of Reuchlin, destined for 
 the eyes of the Archbishop of Mayence alone, was, 
 in some unknown manner, communicated to Pfef- 
 ferkorn, and to the theologians of Cologne. They 
 attacked it immediately with the utmost violence. 
 Reuchlin replied. His answer was burned. He 
 published a second, and was forthwith cited to 
 appear before the Inquisition. 
 
 The moment was decisive. It was essential for 
 the Dominicans to strengthen their authority, 
 always disputed, and definitively to establish the 
 Inquisition in the heart of that G-erman land which 
 repulsed it with horror. For the innovators, it was 
 equally essential to conquer liberty and safety. 
 
 It was then a war to the death, and every one 
 
TRIUMPH OF THE HUMANISTS. 41 
 
 felt it to be so. The established authorities did all 
 in their power to prevent a strife which might 
 draw all into its vortex. The Inquisition having 
 assembled at Mayence in 1513, the Archbishop 
 ordered it to dissolve. The Pope remitted the 
 affair to the Bishop of Spire, who condemned the 
 accusers of Reuchlin. 
 
 But the theologians did not account themselves 
 vanquished. They burned anew the writings of 
 Reuchlin. The foreign Faculties also did so, espe- 
 cially that of Paris, although public opinion in 
 France was loud against that excess of intolerance. 
 Fortified by such support, Hochstraten turned to 
 the Pope, and set out for Rome, accompanied hj 
 a numerous suite, and furnished with a large sum of 
 money, there to plead the cause of the old theology 
 against the Humanists. The Pope was greatly em- 
 barrassed. How could he acquit Reuchlin without 
 injuring those powerful Universities, true pillars 
 of the church, and those religious orders, whose 
 assistance was so necessary for the sale of indul- 
 gences ? And how condemn him, without raising 
 a storm, whose results no one could foresee ? He 
 suspended the cause ; but, in reality, the Humanists 
 had conquered. 
 
42 ULKICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 UTTEN celebrated the victory even before 
 it had been achieved, so confident was 
 he in the strength of the new school. 
 
 The Triunvphus Capnionis — Capnio was the 
 learned name of Reuchlin — is one of the most re- 
 markable of Hutten's writings. After the eulogy 
 of the victor, as in ancient triumphs, he makes for 
 him a train of vanquished foes. He is full of wild 
 energy. He depicts in glowing colours the corrup- 
 tion of the enemies of all truth, of all liberty, their 
 ignorance, their superstition, their barbarism. He 
 paints their portraits ; as, for example, that of the 
 Inquisitor, Hochstraten : — 
 
 ' Are God or religion spoken of? On a sudden he 
 cries out. To the fire ! to the fire ! Does one write 
 ^ome book? To the fire with the book and the 
 author ! Do you speak truth ? To the fire ! Do 
 you utter falsehood ? To the fire ! Do you act 
 justly ? To the fire ! Do you commit injustice ? 
 To the fire ! He is all over fire : he breathes fire ; 
 he lives on fire ! To the fire ! to the fire ! such is 
 his first and his last word.' 
 
 In this poem the satire does not smile. It is the 
 first cry of an indignant conscience. It is violent, 
 even brutal. Later, Hutten will be more measured 
 
TRIUMPH us CAPNIONIS. 43 
 
 in the form of his writings, but not less cutting ; 
 he will avail himself of the nimble weapon of 
 ridicule. On this occasion he is armed with 
 the lash and the mace, and crushes and over- 
 whelms his antagonists. Let us mark well this 
 first appearance of Hutten upon the field of battle, 
 which he wiU leave no more. Here is his procla- 
 mation : — 
 
 ' Gird up your loins, Theologians, and take to 
 flight. More than twenty of us have conspired for 
 your exposure and ruin. We owe it to the inno- 
 cence of Capnio, to your own wickedness, to the 
 republic of letters. We owe it to the religion 
 which you have wrapped in darkness, and on 
 which we have poured the light. Jerome has re- 
 appeared : the Gospel has seen the day. A num- 
 ber of Greek and Latin authors have been pub- 
 lished. Everywhere there is ardent working ; and 
 you, what do you do ? By what right do you 
 usurp the title of theologians, you who have re- 
 duced that noble science to a repetition of vain 
 prating, of sterile and verbose follies and senilities ? 
 You only know how to persecute those to whom 
 we owe so many wonders. Many are arraying their 
 ranks to oppose you. I enter the first into the 
 lists, not because I am the most skilful, but because 
 I am the most eager. Come on, then, conspirators, 
 to the work ! to the work ! Our chains are broken ! 
 
44 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 The die is cast !^ To fall back is impossible ! No! 
 the Turks are not more odious than these men ! 
 But Germany- has now her eyes opened; the veil 
 has fallen ; she sees you at fuU length ! You have 
 feigned too long, owing to some fatal destiny, or 
 to the crimes of those who have endured it. What 
 Pope so unjust as to impose that yoke, upon us ! 
 and what Emperor so cowardly as to submit to it ! 
 But you have conspired against Capnio in good 
 time. Germany could no longer remain under an 
 illusion when she saw you attack such a man. She 
 felt that her honour had been made sport of ! She 
 has raised herself as one man to defend it ! Re- 
 joice then with me, fellow-countrymen; but let 
 that victory, so hard to win, IgaxQ you at the same 
 time where your forbearance should stop ! ' 
 
 |LMOST at the same time as the Triumph 
 of Capnio, appeared that powerful satire, 
 known as ' Epistolce Ohscurorum virorwm^ 
 which struck so deadly a blow at monastic estab- 
 lishments and at the Papacy. The plot is very 
 
 ^ This is the first time that I meet with the expression, which will 
 afterwards become the motto of Hutten. 
 
EPISTOL^ OBSCUKORUM VIRORUM. 45 
 
 simple : they are letters, supposed to be written 
 chiefly by monks and theologians — but a few by 
 jurists and doctors — to Ortuinus Gratus, who, along 
 with Hochstraten and Tunger (10), stood at the head 
 of the persecutors of Reuchlin. Written in the bad 
 Latin which at that time was the usual language 
 of the monks, these letters display the peculiar 
 phraseology and vulgarisms characteristic of the 
 last representatives of Scholasticism. They unveil, 
 with a simplicity full of tact and cleverness, the 
 secret history of the mendicant orders, their vices, 
 their hatred of all serious instruction, their ignorance, 
 their plots against Reuchlin and the Humanists. 
 ' That composition' (says Herder, cited by a bio- 
 grapher of Hutten) ' strikes so truly, depicts so 
 faithfully, Pfefferkorn and Ortuinus, and all their 
 spawn, that we find them there just as God had 
 made them. It is a national satire, full of fire, wit, 
 and a marvellous exactitude of detail. Do not ob' 
 ject, fastidious critics, to the name of pamphlet; 
 all true and lively satire is a pamphlet. The more 
 a pamphlet is general, and at the same time telling, 
 the more it is worth. And the pamphlet in' ques- 
 tion struck far and truly. The lukewarm satire, 
 which is neither fish nor flesh, has never done any 
 good. Hutten's satire has been very useful, and 
 why"? It was entirely true. It had life and truth, 
 like aU that he has ever written.' (11.) 
 
46 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 And, in reality, the great excellence of this book 
 is its truth, — so much so, that those whom it over- 
 whelmed with ridicule, took it at firstTor a serious 
 production. ' It is^^intefeStmg to observe,' writes 
 Sir Thomas More to Erasmus, 'how much, the 
 EpistoloB Obscurorum virorum please both the learned 
 and unlearned. When the latter see us laughing 
 at them, they fancy that we laugh only at the style, 
 which they do not attempt to defend ; but under 
 that somewhat barbarous language, say they, what 
 an abundance of excellent maxims ! It is a pity 
 that the book has not another title : it would take 
 a hundred years before these imbeciles would com- 
 prehend to what an extent they have been taken in.' 
 Erasmus also relates that, in Brabant, a Dominican 
 prior bought a great many copies of the work, to 
 present to his superiors, under the belief that it 
 had been written in praise of their order ! (12.) Be- 
 hold the Atlases who believe themselves destined 
 to uphold a falling church !' 
 
 This satire, the most perfect specimen of that 
 species of writing in the German language, recalls 
 in more than one point our immortal MSiippee. 
 It recalls to memory the great name of Voltaire. 
 Like the work of that able man, it has spirit, 
 vivacity, occasionally too great liberty of language, 
 cutting and relentless personality; and, lastly, a 
 wit which hides all. Its ridicule springs from the 
 
EPISTOL^ OBSCURORUM VIRORUM. 47 
 
 same source ; it usually attacks the same objects, 
 the histories of apocryphal saints and of imaginary 
 relics. It ridicules, for example, as Voltaire has 
 somewhere done, I believe, the legend of these 
 three kings of Cologne, who were, perhaps, three 
 Westphalian peasants. Finally, it delights to seek 
 in the Scriptures themselves its keenest shafts ; and 
 the history of Ezekiel, certain too practical maxims 
 of Ecclesiastes, and certain crudities of the pro- 
 phets, without doubt symbolical, are found in it as 
 in a jest-book. 
 
 It is in the nature of such a work to be un- 
 translatable. I prefer to send my readers to the 
 book itself, rather than attempt an impossible ren- 
 dering (13). On this occasion, however, irony, in 
 the service of common sense, conquered. The men- 
 dicant orders, and the old scholastic framework, of 
 which they were the firmest bulwarks, have never 
 recovered it. 
 
 The German monks were not deceived, like those 
 of England and Brabant, They begged, or they 
 bought, from the Pope a Bull, which ordered the 
 burning of the book and its authors, when they should 
 be discovered; for the pamphlet had appeared anony- 
 mously. It was sometimes claimed for Erasmus, 
 sometimes for Reuchlin ; but from its first appear- 
 ance, friends and enemies agreed in recognising, in 
 the greater part of it, the hand which had written 
 
48 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 the Triumphus Capnionis, and modern criticism has 
 placed this fact beyond doubt (14). 
 
 We may suppose that the judgment of the Pope 
 was less galling to the authors than that of Erasmus. 
 As long as the letters were in manuscript, no one 
 had more keenly enjoyed them; he had learned 
 several of them by heart i he recited them to his 
 friends ; he sent them as wonders to his illustrious 
 correspondents in France and England. When they 
 were published, however, and the tempest burst, he 
 feared to be taken for the author ; and lost no time 
 in writing that these letters were very disagreeable 
 to him — that he appreciated their cutting irony, 
 but that he abhorred all personalities (15). 
 
 Hutten could console himself for this cowardly 
 desertion in contemplating the success of his work. 
 The war had opened by a victory : that first success 
 was, for him, an omen and an encouragement. 
 
 After that first battle, the strife was waged beyond 
 the head of Reuchlin ; he almost disappeared in the 
 smoke of the combat. However, we must relate 
 the termination of this first episode. In 1520, after 
 the brilliancy thrown on the scene by the writings 
 of Hutten and Luther, the Dominicans at length ob- 
 tained the condemnation of Reuchlin. But times 
 were greatly changed ; Germany no longer gave 
 any weight to a sentence which, but lately, would 
 have led the condemned to the stake. Only, Franz 
 
DEATH or EEUCHLIN. 49 
 
 von Sickingen, the protector of all the oppressed, 
 and the friend of Hutten, took up the cause of 
 Reuchlin, and struck such terror into the Domi- 
 nicans, that they hastened to promise never to 
 molest the prot^g^ of the brave knight. Reuchlin 
 died the same year. 
 
 XL 
 
 HAT sadder lot than to be disowned by his 
 relations, by those even to whom he has 
 sacrificed all, except his faith ! It is the 
 last, the bitterest trial, which only the strongest 
 spirits can resist. It was not spared to Hutten. 
 
 In his first grief, after the crime which had 
 plunged him into mourning, his family had been 
 reconciled to him, and Hutten rejoiced in the re- 
 conciliation. But he was far from receiving the 
 welcome which he had a right to expect after so 
 long an absence, after so many misfortunes. They 
 did not disguise the contempt which they enter- 
 tained for those studies which were his honour and 
 delight. What had he learned ? Nothing. What 
 was he ? A learned man, . a poet, a being useless, 
 almost a disgrace to his relations. ' One day,' says 
 he, jestingly, ' a noble friend of the family asking 
 
 D 
 
50 ULRICH vJn HUTTEN. 
 
 of one of my relatioris -by what title he should ad- 
 dress me : " Alas," was the answer, "he is stiU 
 nothing.'" But if he had consented to enter the 
 convent ! It was not that his father was in reality 
 much chagrined that he had disobeyed him in. that 
 particular ; he confessed one day to Crotus Rubi- 
 anus, with a mixture of regret and paternal self- 
 love, that he did not believe that his son was fitted 
 for such a life. But, as a provident father, he 
 wished that he should be something, and Hutten 
 was nothing, not even Doctor. ' He must be 
 Doctor, or at least Master or Bachelor of Laws, 
 or else he is nothing. They don't ask what a man 
 is really worth, but what he is. Fortune, title, are 
 everything; virtue, nothing.' 
 
 Three high roads then conducted to a position 
 in the world — war, the convent, the law. War? 
 In spite of his incontestable bravery, Hutten was 
 unfitted for it, since he was a learned man. His 
 relations and his friends regarded with contempt his 
 limbs distorted by disease and enfeebled by study, 
 his forehead wrinkled by thought, his hands fitter for 
 the pen than the sword. — The convent ? Nothing 
 could overcome the horror with which Hutten had 
 regarded it even at that age when everything ap- 
 pears gay and bright. — There remained but the law. 
 The doctors of civil law made a very good figure in 
 sixteenth century society. They peopled the courts 
 
SECOND JOUENEY TO ITALY. 51 
 
 of princes and of the Emperor. ' They fill like 
 sponges -the ears of the great ; they are their ad- 
 visers, their agents in all affairs of peace or war. 
 It matters little whether they are indoctrinated 
 with learning, provided they have the title of 
 Doctor ; with that title, they are sure of being 
 everywhere well received. The princes ruin them- 
 selves to enrich them.' To sum up all, to be 
 Doctor of Laws was no derogation of nobility, even 
 in a noble Franconian ; and it was therefore de- 
 cided that Hutten should repair to Italy to acquire 
 that precious title. 
 
 He set out on his journey with great repug- 
 nance ; for he would have preferred proceeding to 
 Basle to be near Erasmus, to continue under that 
 illustrious master his favourite Greek and Latin 
 studies. However, he was determined to satisfy 
 the desires of his parents, and he applied himself 
 to study with conscientious ardour. But he was 
 not captivated by the science of the Bartholists, by 
 that vain and unproductive learning which the last 
 commentators had established in the schools, and 
 which held the ascendant until driven forth by 
 Cujas and Donneau. The more he studied it, 
 the more he detested that false science, which 
 pretended to imprison in antiquated formulas, to 
 deaden and to petrify the law, which, rightly 
 understood, lends animation and security to social 
 
52 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 life. And by a contradiction more apparent than 
 real, with the very spirit of the Renaissance, he 
 attached himself with a thoughtful ardour to the 
 last vestiges of the national law. He did so be- 
 cause, in his opinion, antiquity was not a model 
 which the modern world ought servilely to copy : 
 what he sought for in her, was the sacred fire which 
 might re-illumine the torch of life. ' How much 
 more happy was Germany' (he exclaims in his 
 preface to 'JVemo'^) 'before the invasion of these 
 Bartholists, who have come, with their innumerable 
 volumes, to take the place of the time-honoured 
 customs of our forefathers ! What cities are better 
 governed than those which have shut their gates 
 against them ! Look at the Saxons on the shores 
 of the Baltic : how speedy and impartial is justice 
 among them ! They only look to their customs, 
 while we drag on our law-suits for twenty years, 
 led on by the contradictory opinions of six and 
 thirty doctors. How can we form a favourable 
 opinion of their science, when all their books do 
 not teach them to administer law in a imiform 
 manner ?' 
 
 1 Tliat preface, under the form of a letter to Crotus Eubianus, de- 
 fends the cause of the Humanists against the Bartholists and the 
 theologians. It is one of the most important documents connected 
 with the history of the Eenaissance. With regard to the poem to 
 which it serves as an introduction, it is a long string of puns, some- 
 times ingenious, hut without any special interest. 
 
DISOKDEES OP THE PAPACY. 53 
 
 But the most important result of Hutten's jour- 
 ney to Italy was, that he saw upon the spot, in 
 Rome herself, the corruption of the church. All 
 those who have seen papal Rome in her palmy 
 days, convey substantially the same impression. 
 Boccaccio, Hutten, Luther, Montaigne, Eabelais, 
 differ only in the expression of their disgust. The 
 Papacy, which fancied that it had burned the last 
 heretic in Huss, and which, after the fruitless at- 
 tempts at Basle and at Constance, feared no longer 
 a general council, which she was besides deter- 
 mined never again to convoke, gave herself up, 
 without restraint, without fear, to all sorts of ex- 
 cesses. After the bloody and scandalous reign of 
 the Borgias, came the warlike sway of Julius II., 
 under which were to be seen Italians fighting 
 Italians, and a Pope pointing his cannon against 
 Christians, in order to realize the projects of a de- 
 testable ambition. Assassinations, debauchery, the 
 most shameful vices, the most unbridled luxury, 
 courtesans, and a swarm of infamous men around 
 the princes of the Church — idleness, ignorance, bad 
 faith, perjury, in the relations of public and private 
 life — make up the picture which historians and 
 travellers have painted of the court of Rome. And 
 in order to defray these unlimited expenses, money 
 was drawn, or rather extorted, from Christendom, 
 under the pretence of a war, constantly adjourned, 
 
54 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 against the Turks, or in order to complete the 
 always unfinished Church of St Peter ; all ecclesi- 
 astical dignities were put up for sale ; annats were 
 rendered more frequent by the systematic nomina- 
 tion of old men to benefices ; the price of the 
 pallium was raised, and that infamous traffic in 
 indulgences extended, where heaven was put up to 
 sale, and all crimes, even the most infamous and 
 nameless ones, pardoned for money. Germany, 
 which has ever possessed in a very high degree 
 the religious sentiment, was the worst treated of 
 all countries, and the most exhausted by the drain 
 of continual subsidies. Hutten was indignant at 
 seeing the contempt with which the Italians re- 
 garded the country of the Othos and the Frede- 
 ricks. He returned home, swearing in his heart 
 an eternal hatred and a ceaseless war against the 
 papal tyranny and corruption. 
 
 His residence in Italy was marked by two inci- 
 dents which procured him great honour in Ger- 
 many. One day, in the neighbourhood of Viterbo, 
 he heard five Frenchmen scoffing at the Emperor 
 Maximilian. He interfered to defend his sove- 
 reign. The discussion grew warm ; insults first, 
 and then blows, were exchanged. Swords were 
 drawn. The five Frenchmen at once threw them- 
 selves upon Hutten, who, placing his back to a 
 wall, sustained their attacks, killed one of his as- 
 
CROWNED IMPEEIAL POET AND ORATOR. 55 
 
 sailants, and put the others to flight (16). Forced 
 to leave Rome in order to escape from their ven- 
 geance, he repaired to Bologna. At that town a 
 quarrel took place between the German and Italian 
 students. The matter was brought before the 
 Podesta, and Hutten, who acted as advocate for 
 his countrymen, spoke with such warmth, that the 
 judge wished to throw him into prison. 
 
 He was therefore obHged to quit Italy without 
 having obtained the title of Doctor. But instead, 
 the Emperor Maximilian — ^whom Hutten's exploits 
 were exactly calculated to please — ^knighted him, 
 and bestowed upon him the title of Imperial Poet 
 and Orator (17). The laurel crown had been 
 woven, and was placed upon his head, in April 
 1517, by the Pearl of Augsburg, the beautiful 
 Constance, the daughter of Peutinger (18). 
 
 XII. 
 
 PON seeing his son crowned Imperial Poet 
 and Orator, Hutten's father thought that 
 he was at length something, and con- 
 soled himself for his return without the title of 
 Doctor of Laws. He received him with great kind- 
 ness at his castle of Steckelberg, where Hutten 
 
56 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 remained for some time, uncertain as to his future 
 course of life, and undecided whether he should 
 establish himself near the Emperor, or with his 
 ancient protector, the Archbishop of Mayence. 
 
 His leisure was not, however, lost to the cause 
 to which he had devoted his life. In December 
 1517, he issued his declaration of war against the 
 Pope, and commenced the campaign by the publica- 
 tion of the book of Laurentius Valla (19) upon the 
 donation of Constantine. This work, like several 
 of the writings of Hutten, was printed at the 
 castle of Steckelberg; for these champions of 
 liberty did not separate themselves from that power- 
 ful weapon in the armoury of freedom, with which 
 the genius of Gruttenberg had provided them ! 
 
 The donation of Constantine — ^that audacious 
 imposture, upon which are founded the temporal 
 sovereignty of the Pope, and his pretensions to 
 secular dominion over the whole of the West — is 
 now judged. Koman Catholic authors themselves 
 no longer defend it : as in the case of the false 
 Decretals, they have been forced to acknowledge 
 that it is apocryphal, and to fall back upon a tradi- 
 tion, which would only be legitimate if the sources 
 from which it flows were so themselves. But, in 
 the fifteenth century, criticism had not yet done its 
 work, and the Papacy had given up none of the pre- 
 tensions which it believed it possible to support. 
 
EDITS VALLA'S DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 57 
 
 Laurentius Yalla shows, with an affluence of learn- 
 ing which now makes us smile, that Cdnstantine 
 had not given a world to the Holy See ; that even 
 if he had given it, the donation would have been 
 nuU, the Emperor having no right to dismember 
 the Empire, and the Pope — the Vicar of Him whose 
 kingdom is not of this world — ^being still less en- 
 titled to receive kingdoms ; and that, finally, even 
 supposing the donation conferred, and valid, it 
 would have lapsed, the Popes having rendered 
 themselves unworthy of their rights by their de^ 
 testable tyranny. ' I shall say it ; for, strong in 
 the support of God, I fear not men. No, I have 
 not seen a single Pope who dreamed of the happi- 
 ness of the people, or who even ruled well. Who 
 Ls it, if not the Pope, who sows war among peaceful 
 nations ? He is greedy of the riches of others, 
 prodigal of his own. He makes a traffic not only 
 of the state, but of the church herself, and of the 
 Holy Spirit. He would recover, he says, from the 
 wrongful possessors the donation conferred by 
 Constantine ! Eh ! what matters it to the church ? 
 When the Pope shall possess all these territories, 
 will the church be less dishonoured and disturbed 
 by so many crimes, by luxury, by furious passions ? 
 The Pope gives the excuse and the example for all 
 these infamies. We may say to him, with St Paul 
 and Isaiah, " Thou therefore which teachest an- 
 
58 ULKICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 other, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that 
 preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal ? 
 Thou that sayest a man should not commit adul- 
 tery, dost thou commit adultery ? Thou that ab- 
 horrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou 
 that makest thy boast of the law, through break- 
 ing the law dishonourest thou God? For the 
 name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles 
 through you." May I live to see the day when 
 the Pope shall be no longer the Vicar of Caesar, 
 but of Jesus Christ ; when we shall no longer hear 
 of that horrible spectacle — Christians making war 
 against the church, and the church attacking 
 Perugia and Bologna. No ! it is not the church 
 that makes war against the faithful ; it is the Pope ! 
 Then the Pope will be, in truth, the holy father 
 of aU the nations : far from stirring up war among 
 Christians, from the height of his pontifical throne, 
 he will appease the discords which others have 
 excited ! ' 
 
 Such, speaking generally, is the part which the 
 Ultramontanists of our times have assigned to the 
 Papacy of the Middle Ages, but which history has 
 never seen her fulfil. The undaunted writer who 
 wrote these noble words was condemned, it is 
 almost needless to say. His book was everywhere 
 hunted out and burned, and had fallen into almost 
 complete oblivion, when Hutten found it in the 
 
DEDICATION TO POPE LEO X. 59 
 
 library of the Abbey of Fulda. The moment was 
 well chosen to give fullest effect to such a work. 
 Luther, after having commenced the war against 
 indulgences, was troubled in conscience, and hesi- 
 tated to attack the Pope. The spirits of all were 
 on the stretch, awaiting the event ; for a nameless 
 instinct warned them that the hour was come. 
 
 By a master-stroke of audacity, which insured 
 him impunity, Hutten dedicated the book to the 
 Pope hims^f, to Leo' X. 
 
 ' Although ' (he says) ' all your predecessors have 
 condemned the discourse of Laurentius Valla, be- 
 cause it impugns the donation of Constaptine, I 
 dedicate it to you with confidence. I have no fear, 
 as some think, that you will be offended at my 
 offering. Since your elevation to the Holy See, 
 you are the hope and the love of the world, the 
 restorer of peace, the protector of the arts and 
 sciences. You have silenced the warlike blast of 
 the , trumpet of Julius II. ; you have promised 
 peace, and consequently also justice, security, and 
 those truly royal virtues, mildness and clemency. 
 My dedication will furnish a testimony to succeeding 
 ages, that, under your pontificate, men might think 
 and speak freely, might utter and write the truth. 
 
 ' The work of Laurentius Valla undoubtedly 
 accuses your predecessors ; but it is even that 
 which makes it so useful, because it attacks the 
 
60 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 enemies of the human race. What other name, 
 indeed, can we give to those Popes who engross 
 the treasures of every country, and impose upon all 
 nations the most crushing of yokes ; who despoil 
 kings of their thrones, and private persons of their 
 , property ? Can we call those men Vicars of Christ 
 \fho have done nothing which Christ has done and 
 commanded ? No ! they deserve rather the name 
 of thieves and tyrants ! They have made a trafl&c 
 pf grace, of temporal and spiritual dispensations. 
 They have derived a revenue from the sins of other 
 men, and from their punishment even after death ; 
 and, every year, they have extorted from Christians 
 their last penny, under the pretext of a war, which 
 they have never waged, against the Turks, of a 
 temple — ^that of St Peter — ^which they have never 
 finished! And in spite of all these things, they 
 would have us to call them, Most Holy Fathers ! 
 And if any one permitted himself the slightest 
 criticism on their acts or customs, they at once 
 fired up, and condemned not merely his body, but 
 also his soul. To compare you to such men, would 
 be to offer you a gross insult. And therefore I 
 persuade myself, that you will receive this my offer- 
 ing with pleasure. If you deign to manifest your 
 satisfaction at my exertions, I shall strive to offer 
 you, at gome future period, another present of the 
 same description.' 
 
EFFECT ON THE MIND OF LUTHER. 61 
 
 All Hutten's contemporaries speak of the strong 
 impression produced by this bold and well-timed 
 publication. But 'what testimony can be so valu- 
 able as Luther's ? ' I have in my hands ' (he writes 
 to a friend) ' the donation of Constantine, refuted 
 by Laurentius Valla, and edited by Hutten. Good 
 God! what ignorance, or what perversity in that 
 court of Rome I And how ought we to admire the 
 designs of God, who has allowed falsehoods so im- 
 pure, shameful, and impudent, to prevail during 
 ages, and be received even into the Decretals, and 
 among the articles of faith, that nothing might be 
 wanting to the most monstrous of monstrosities. 
 I am so agita ted, that I scarcely any longer dovibt 
 that the Pope is Antichrist. All agrees : what he 
 does, what Tie says, and what he decrees ' (20). 
 
 XIII. 
 
 |FTER this thunderbolt, the Archbishop 
 of Mayence lost no time in attaching 
 Hutten to himself. This prelate, as we 
 know, was not favourable to the Pope : he too 
 had seen on the spot the corruption of Rome ; he 
 had been the victim of her rapacity. His pallium 
 had cost him no less than 20,000 florins. Thus he 
 
62 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 was not displeased at an attack made on the 
 Papacy from this side. He changed his views, 
 however, when he saw that the struggle tended to 
 nothing less than the complete liberation of lay- 
 men from the priestly yoke, to the secularization 
 of the ecclesiastical principalities ; and that, after 
 the overthrow of the Pope, it would be the turn of 
 the bishops to tremble for their temporal power. 
 Hutten did not spare him that shock ; but at this 
 time he did not yet foresee the ultimate tendency 
 of the movement. As to Luther, the Archbishop 
 of Mayence was always his enemy ; the first blow 
 struck by Luther having injured his interests. 
 For, as we know, the Pope had authorized the 
 Archbishop to appropriate the product of the sale 
 of indulgences within his diocese, in order to reim- 
 burse him for the extortion of which he had been 
 the victim at Rome. 
 
 Hutten made a journey to Paris on some business 
 of the Archbishop. There he met those liberal- 
 minded men, Lefebvre d'Etaples (21), Bud^e, Copp 
 (22), and Rueil, and acquired their friendship. He 
 engaged them in the war which he had undertaken 
 against the barbarous Scholasticism, or rather he 
 strengthened them in their hostility to it ; for, 
 long before, these noble spirits had been enlisted 
 in the cause. 
 
 The ruling thought of Hutten at this period, is 
 
LETTER TO COUNT NUENAR. 63 
 
 to form a holy league of those who contended for 
 the freedom of thought against the tyrants of the 
 human intellect. ' Would to God' (writes he to the 
 Count Nuenar (23) in 1517) 'that all those were con- 
 founded who oppose themselves to the revival of 
 letters, and who would fain trample under foot the 
 young nursery of all the virtues. A.s for you, re- 
 main true to yourself, and to your design. Be 
 assured that I shall share in all your labours and 
 all your perils. I shall spare nothing to gain over 
 to our cause all those who can be useful to it. 
 Already, many men of influence are ranged on our 
 side. The quarrels, also, which are springing up 
 among the enemies of the truth, and of the true 
 religion, will hasten their destruction. Perhaps! 
 you know that but lately, at Wittemberg, onel 
 party has protested against indulgences, while 
 another vindicates them with energy. The chiefs 
 of both parties are monks : they harangue, they 
 quarrel with all their might. They print proposi- 
 tions, conclusions, articles. Truly, I hope that 
 they will destroy each other. The other day, I 
 said to a monk who related to me these disputes, 
 " Go on, cease not to destroy each other, that you 
 also may be destroyed ! " If Germany would listen 
 to me, she would rid herself of that cankering 
 plague before dreaming of attacking the Turks, 
 although that also may be very necessary; for 
 
64 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 with the Turks, after all, we only dispute about 
 the Empire, while we endure among ourselves the 
 destroyers of science, manners, and religion ! ' 
 
 It is remarkable with what disdain Hutten 
 speaks in this letter of the act which commenced 
 the Reformation. At a distance, it seems as if 
 this act had, even at the moment, made the world 
 tremble. It cannot be believed that Germany re- 
 mained indifferent to it : history has preserved the 
 remembrance of the profound emotion with which 
 that country was affected. But, at that first mo- 
 ment, the enemy of the mendicant orders, the 
 friend of a prince who sold indulgences, was quite 
 headstrong in his friendship and his hatred, and 
 could not disengage his judgment from the influ- 
 ence of the position in which he was placed. Be- 
 sides, to be correct, it must be added, that at that 
 time the struggle was confined within narrow 
 limits. Many years elapsed before Luther took a 
 decisive step against the Pope, and the writings of 
 Hutten had a considerable influence in the develop- 
 ment of his opinions. We have already seen how 
 he had been moved by the work of Laurentius 
 Valla, and we shall again observe, more than once, 
 traces of a similar impression. It is an essential 
 part of the biography of Hutten : by the influence 
 which he exercised upon so original a genius, we 
 may calculate that which he had with the nation. 
 
HUTTEN AT AUGSBUEG. 65 
 
 Before Luther had declared against the Pope, Hutten 
 had abeady opened the campaign, and produced 
 considerable changes. From 1519, Tetzel dares no 
 longer show himself in public. About the same 
 period, or later, the princes hostile to Luther, the 
 ecclesiastical princes themselves, agree that they can 
 no longer support the exactions and the iniquities of 
 Rome, and that it is necessary to reassert the ancient 
 liberty. In their complaints^the^jdigplay-the spirit, 
 and employ the very phrases of Hutten. And thus, 
 side by side witEnffi:e' doctrinal question, about 
 which he was less concerned, Hutten 'prosecuted 
 the war upon the practical basis of the liberation of 
 the intellect, by the overthrow of the rapacious and 
 corrupt tyranny of the court of Rome. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 UTTEN accompanied the Archbishop of 
 Mayence to the Diet of Augsburg in 
 1518. The recent conquests of the Otto- 
 man arms gave, on this occasion, a peculiar import- 
 ance to the eternally recurring question of a tax to 
 maintain a war against the infidels. That tax, so 
 often agreed to, had never served, except to mini- 
 ster to Roman corruption and luxury ; and now that 
 
G6 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 it was necessary, — now that the war, so to speak, 
 was inevitable, nay, on the very threshold of Ger- 
 naany, — the estates of the kingdom were unwilling 
 to grant anything. Hutten had insisted, in an 
 energetic and eloquent discourse, upon the neces- 
 sity of defending Christendom, more seriously 
 menaced than ever. And, at the same time, he 
 had pointed out the true means of doing so : by 
 the church and the clergy furnishing the money, 
 while Germany would give her soldiers and her 
 blood. On that o ccasio n, he had declaimed with 
 his accustomed vi gour agai nst the exactions of the 
 Popes. His friends entreated him to suppress that 
 part of his oration; but to this he consented with great 
 unwillingness. ' Germany is no longer Germany' 
 (he writes to Pirckheimer) ; ' the liberty of writing 
 exists no longer. He who seeks the truth, and who 
 speaks it, is disgraced. It is no longer possible to 
 discharge one's duty as an honourable man ! ' This 
 concession to the fears of his friends weighed upon 
 his mind, and afflicted him with such remorse, that 
 in the following year he printed, at his castle of 
 Steckelberg, the discourse unmutilated (24). ' "Who 
 then' — he exclaims in his dedication. To all the free- 
 men of Germany — ' would wish to stifle our liberty, 
 so that we should no longer be able to rise up 
 against any injustice, any exaction ? Let such a 
 one beware ! Liberty, trodden down, will some day 
 
HUTTEN AT COURT. 67 
 
 burst forth, and annihilate her oppressors. I say 
 so for their own interest : let them leave a little 
 air and space to German liberty. She is not 
 ' exacting, and is content with little ; but she will 
 not submit to be chained completely, and led away 
 like a slave ! Rather than submit to that excess 
 of ignominy, she may at last become thoroughly 
 aroused, and, in order to save something, take all.' 
 
 Courtly life did not suit the independent spirit 
 of Hutten. At the end of some months, he had 
 penetrated into all its hoUowness, and criticised it 
 in a charming dialogue. He remained at court, 
 however, because he thought that he could be more 
 useful there than elsewhere. 
 
 ' It is necessary for me,' he writes to his friend 
 Pirckheimer, ' to throw myself, for the time at least, 
 into active life. I owe it to my family, to myself, 
 and especially to our well-loved studies. I have 
 my plan; I do not act rashly. I have a well- 
 defined aim towards which I direct my career, 
 which I seek resolutely to attain; but I cannot 
 succeed by my own unassisted strength. I shall 
 some day tell you, confidentially, how I hope to 
 find the requisite assistance in this court : it would 
 be imprudent to confide it to a letter. Let it sufl&ce 
 you to know, that it is from a sense of duty that I 
 encounter all the tediousness of this life. If my 
 condition appears changed to you, be assured that 
 
68 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 my soul is unchanged : I shall always be the same 
 Hutten ; I shall not be unfaithful to my youth, and 
 I shall advance, always like myself, in different 
 paths. With regard to the designs which I cherish, 
 the fortune to which I may look forward, though 
 pretty considerable, is not sufficient to carry them 
 out. I must endeavour to make my way at court. 
 And then, may I not attempt to destroy the preju- 
 dices of the nobility against the sciences ? If they 
 saw me given up to learned leisure, they would only 
 be more confirmed in their opinion, that the sciences 
 emasculate the soul, and make it cowardly and 
 effeminate. The time for repose has not arrived (25) . 
 Our party gains ground every day. The councillors 
 of the Emperor and of the princes are upon our 
 side : it is on this account that we term the princes 
 Mecsenases and Augustuses, not because they al- 
 ready merit those illustrious names, but in order to 
 inspire them with a generous emulation. Up to the 
 present time we have had tolerable success: I 
 know more than one who has declared for us from 
 fear of disgrace. I am therefore of opinion that we 
 should do aU to gain their good-will : the Bartholists 
 and the theologians have set us the example ; it is 
 by this means that they have become so powerful. 
 
 I see here a great number of illustrious men 
 
 Eck combats Carlstadt, my fellow-citizen, a virtuous 
 theologian ; he makes war upon Luther and Eras 
 
LETTER TO PIECKHEIMEE. 6it 
 
 mus. Erasmus continues to write. Guglielmus 
 Budaeus, the most' learned of French nobles, the 
 most noble of learned men, is finishing his com- 
 mentaries upon the Pandects: I leapt for joy at 
 that news. Behold, at the sam e moment, two Her- 
 euleses, extermina tors of monster s — Jblrasmus and 
 Budaeus. The one d estroys the posterity of Accur- 
 sius, and extirpates the evil brood of the Bartho- 
 lists ; the othe r attaclssthe b arbarians who conceal 
 themselves behind the smoke of theology, and brings 
 to light the ^ Holy Scrip tures. Add to them Faber, 
 that mighty workman in philosophy, and Copp and 
 Rueil, — ^the former Dioscorides, the latter Galen. 
 Oh age, oh literature ! How delightful it is to livej 
 now, although the time for repos e be noTyet arrived !* 
 Barbarism, thine hour is come : gird up thy loins, 
 and set out on an eternal exile ! ' 
 
 XV. 
 
 DO not pretend to give an account of all 
 the works of Hutten. I' select those 
 which exercised the greatest influence 
 on his era, or which best depict his character and his 
 designs. The year 1519 was one of the busiest of 
 his life. At the same time that he publishes his 
 terrible harangues against the tyrant of Wurtem- 
 
70 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 berg, and serves in the army that chases him from 
 his dominions, he edits an edition of Livy, and 
 launches againsi Eome and against her legates 
 three dialogues, full of spirit, eloquence, and irony. 
 He publishes, and dedicates to Ferdinand, brother 
 of Charles V., a work against Pope Gregory VII., 
 which he found, like the discourse of Valla, buried 
 in the dust of the Library of Fulda. He keeps up 
 a voluminous correspondence with all the illustrious 
 men of his time. 'More than 2000 letters,' says a 
 contemporary, 'from kings, princes, lords, bishops, 
 from every man of note, came to him from Italy, 
 France, Bohemia, Germany, from all countries, 
 congratulating him on having commenced the war 
 against the Romanists, and seeking to engage him 
 to continue it.' 
 
 The moment appeared favourable. The Arch- 
 bishop of Mayence treated Hutten like a friend ; 
 Erasmus assured him that Ferdinand, brother of 
 Charles V., took a great interest in him; and Sic- 
 kingen, the better to ensure the co-operation of that 
 prince, hastened to offer him his services, which 
 were contended for by kings. Finally, Charles V. 
 himself appeared likely to be hostile to the Pope, 
 who had strained every nerve in favour of Francis 
 I., his competitor for the Empire, and detested rival. 
 Hutten judged it to be his duty to make a direct 
 attack upon the Papacy. He hesitated no longer, 
 
LOVE OF TKUTH. 71 
 
 but threw himself into the van, shouting his war- 
 cry, — A lea jacta est ! He announced his determina- 
 tion to all his friends, and made preparations for 
 striking a grand blow. 
 
 His mind appears to have been still further 
 strengthened in this resolution by religious medita- 
 tion. He displa ,YS an ardour of faitl ijv hich is not J 
 observab le in his^ ^previous writings. ' Though I 
 should be certain,' he says, in the preface of his 
 book against Gregory VII., 'that the Pope would 
 direct against me the thunderbolts of his wrath, I 
 would not for that the less speak out what I know 
 to be truth, lest I should have to exclaim with the 
 repentant prophet, " Woe is me, for I am undone, 
 because I am a man of unclean lips ! " Truly we must / 
 obey God rather than men, and God commands us 
 to speak the truth : He calls Himself the Truth. 
 Paul writes to his disciple : "Preach the word; be 
 instant in season and out of season ; reprove, rebuke, I 
 exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. For 
 the time wiU come when they will not endure sound 
 doctrine." Christ also wishes us to proclaim the 
 truth undauntedly, and without fearing men, who 
 can destroy the body, but not the soul. "I am 
 come," says our Saviour, "to send fire upon the 
 earth; and what will I if it be already kindled?" 
 It is then, unquestionably, a meritorious action to 
 bring to light concealed truth ; and I shall have my 
 
72 ULRICH VON HUTTEX. 
 
 reward for doing so, if not on this earth, at least in 
 that heavenly country where every man will be 
 judged according to his works.' 
 
 At this time, Hutten requested his family nei- 
 ther to send him money nor to write to him, in 
 order that they might not be compromised, and in- 
 volved in the perils which he had resolved to incur. 
 That affectionate care for his relations never left him. 
 On the death of his father, he gave up his inherit- 
 ance, and maintained alone, and without resources, 
 the terrible struggle in which he was engaged. This 
 second portion of his life is entirely self-abnegation. 
 
 It seems probable, however, that, at the last 
 moment, his great heart may have hesitated. The 
 family sentiment, the desire for domestic life, was 
 awakened within him more vividly than ever ; and 
 he had fancied in a dream a peaceful domestic ex- 
 istence. ' I have a strong desire for repose,' he 
 writes to his friend Piscator, 'and some day 1 
 shall satisfy it. But in order to do so, I must have 
 a wife. You know my disposition : I cannot live 
 alone. I must have some one near me with whom 
 I can unbend from my cares and my toils, with 
 whom I can laugh, play, converse gaily, and forget 
 the bitterness of my soul, the griefs of my heart. 
 Get me a wife, then, dear Frederick ; and, that you 
 may know what kind of wife I desire, she must be 
 young, handsome, well educated^ and modest ; she 
 
THE TEIAS EOMANA. 73 
 
 must have a competence, though not a fortune : 
 upon riches I do not much insist. As to her birth, 
 the wife of Hutten will always be sufficiently noble.' 
 But he was never destined to enjoy that happiness 
 of which he dreamed — repose beside a beloved wife. 
 He was born for strife ; he fulfilled his destiny, and 
 found repose in the tomb. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 PREPARE a book,' writes Hutten to his 
 friend Eoban Hess (26), ' which contains 
 the strongest and the freest comments 
 upon the bloodsuckers of Rome.' That book is 
 the Vadiscus, or Trias Bomana, published at first 
 in Latin, ^nd a short time afterwards translated 
 into German. In his dedication to the knight 
 von Rotenhan (27), we read : * I shall not affirm 
 that this book is good, for it treats of a detest- 
 able subject. Yet I am, perhaps, in the right 
 to praise it on account of the truth which it con- 
 tains, and the freedom with which that truth is 
 stated. I have never satisfied myself so completely 
 as in this work. Our liberties were fettered by the 
 Pope, I set them free. The truth was banished 
 from our country, I bring her back.' 
 
 We must translate the whole of this formidable 
 
"4 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 pamphlet. ' Never,' as is remarked by a biographer 
 of Hutteli/ ' have the unheard-of abuses and cor- 
 ruptions of the Church of Rome; her infamies 
 and vices, which descended like a flood upon the 
 whole world ; her intolerable exactions, especially 
 practised upon Germany ; her insults, which ren- 
 dered these exactions still more unbearable ; the 
 extraordinary patience of princes and nations ; and 
 the inevitable necessity of a violent revolution ; 
 been represented in more true and lively colours. 
 Whoever would wish to know what the Papacy has 
 dared, what our ancestors have borne, should read 
 this book. No one will lay it down without bless- 
 ing its authot, without being animated with the sen- 
 timents which inspired him, without acknowledg- 
 ing that such a state of affairs could be no longer 
 supported, and that it was necessary to., change it 
 at all hazards' (28). 
 
 The Trias Romana is a dialogue, in which the 
 interlocutors are Hutten, and one of his friends, 
 Ehrenhold. Hutten relates to him what a traveller 
 of the name of Vadiscus has told him of the court 
 of Rome. These relations are given under the form 
 of triads, often interrupted by the exclamations of 
 Ehrenhold, and by the reflections which the two 
 friends interchange. 
 
 ' If I am not entirely mistaken,' says Hutten, 
 
 ' C. Meiners. Lebens Beschreibungen, t. iii. Zurich, 1797. 
 
THE TRIAS ROM ANA. 75 
 
 ' our nation aspires to liberty. The wisest and 
 the noblest endure with the greatest difficulty the 
 exactions of the ignorant and corrupt Romanists, 
 and the insults which they add to their violence. 
 Things have arrived at such a point, that they can 
 no longer be borne. Our princes, met together 
 at Frankfort, most deeply felt the insult when 
 Cajetan, one of those Romanists a latere^ exclaimed, 
 on seeing a long procession of priests magnificently 
 apparelled, "What handsome grooms we have there!" 
 Not less insolent was that Roman to whom I spoke 
 of the oppression of our country, adding that, out 
 of. regard to their own interests, the Romanists 
 would do well to employ a little more moderation 
 and address in their robberies. " The barbarians," 
 answered he, " are not worthy of having money ; 
 they do not even deserve that we should give our- 
 selves the trouble to extract from them with address 
 what they still possess." No nation is so generally 
 and visibly despised at Rome as the Germans ; and 
 why ? Because, owing to an overstrained and ill- 
 understood piety, we suffer ourselves to be piUaged 
 by those unworthy Romans, of that which their 
 haughty ancestors could not take from us by force 
 of arms. Young and old, men and women, mer- 
 chants and work-people, priests and courtiers, and, 
 to say the truth, the very Jews themselves, these 
 bondmen of every nation, laugh at our folly.' 
 
76 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 ' But the impudence of the vendors of indulgences 
 and of the legates, has had the result of opening 
 the eyes, even of .the people, in many districts of 
 Germany. How indignant, for example, were they 
 at Frankfort against these legates, who sold to 
 thousands of persons the permission to eat butter 
 and milk on fast-days ; and yet did not blush to 
 make themselves be served with all sorts of meats, 
 under the flimsy pretext that the fish of Germany 
 ma^e them ill! However, it is still greatly to be 
 lamented that they are unwilling to perceive the 
 crimes of the Romanists, and their impudence. It 
 is, therefore, necessary to exclaim, warn, accuse, 
 and strike, until all understand. I know well that 
 this cannot be done without risk ; but what great 
 thing is ever achieved without danger ? We must 
 write and speak the truth with Christian confidence ; 
 knowing how our Saviour Himself has done so, 
 vigorously and without pity, when He denounced 
 the priests and scribes ! Following in His steps, 
 we shall prevail against those who abuse the name 
 of God for their earthly ends, who have put their 
 human commandments in the place of those of 
 Christ, and who know neither how to teach good 
 nor to do it. They have made of the word of God 
 a fable ; they adore the creature instead of the 
 Creator ; they have entered into the Lord's fold, not 
 as shepherds, but as thieves and spoilers. Let us 
 
THE TEIAS ROMANA. 77 
 
 not cease, then, to unmask them. If we cannot 
 ourselves accomplish this great enterprise, we shall 
 perhaps arouse minds more happily constituted, 
 who shall succeed in awakening Christendom from 
 its lethargy and raising it against its oppressors. 
 Germany could not do a greater service to the 
 whole church, and to Christ Himself, than by at 
 once cutting short all these exactions, and by leav- 
 ing all these copyists and proto-notaries to die of 
 famine. More dangerous than the Turks, they 
 make a trafl&c of Christ, of His altars, of His sacra- 
 ments, of heaven itself. But hear what Vadiscus 
 says : — 
 
 * " Three things maintain the renown of Rome :. 
 the power of the P6pe, relics, and indulgences. 
 Three things are b rought from Rome by those who 
 go there : a .t>adconscience, a spoiled stomach, an 
 empty purse. Three t hings are not to be found at 
 Rome : consciencej__religion, truth. The Romans 
 laugh at t hree th ings : the virtue of their ancestors, 
 the Papacy of St Peter, the last judgment. Three 
 things a^qunSTat Rome : poison, a,ntiquities, empty 
 places. Three things are entirely wanting: sim- 
 plicity, moderation^, and loyalty. The Romans 
 sell three^_things publicly : Christ, ecclesiastical 
 dignities, and women. Of three things they have 
 a horror : a general council, churcFTeform, and the 
 progress of enlightenment. Three things may cure 
 
78 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 Rome of all her vices : the disappearan'ce of supersti- 
 tion, the suppression of the Romish form of worship, 
 and a revolution of her entire organization. Three 
 things are highly prized at Rome : beautiful women, 
 handsome houses, and papal bulls. Three things 
 are common at "Rome : pleasure, luxury, and pride. 
 The poor eat three things : cabbages, onions, and 
 garlic. - And the "rich ? The sweat of the poor, 
 swindled wealth, and the spoils of Christendom. 
 Rome possesses three sorts of citizens : Simon the 
 Magician, Judas Iscariot, and the people of Go- 
 morrah. The cardinals drag three trains behind 
 them : one at their robes ; another, a band of thieves, 
 assassins, and ruffians'; the third, their pardons and 
 dispensations with which they sweep up every- 
 thing. Three things never satiate the Romans : 
 the pallium, the pontifical months, and the annats. 
 
 ' " Each year they strive to extort more. Thus 
 the pallium of the Archbishop of Mayence formerly 
 cost 10,000 florins, now it costs 20,000 ; and in 
 the space of a man's life, we have seen it eight 
 times renewed. The six months which have been 
 given to the Pope, in the event of the vacancy of a 
 benefice, are also in the same way raised to a year. 
 And not even this suffices them. They sell bene- 
 fices publicly, and have no scruple in selling them 
 to two or three competitors at the same time. 
 What does it matter to them, whether or not they 
 
THE TRIAS KOMANA. 79 
 
 have the canonical qualifications? Dispensations, 
 suffice for everything : they make of a child, and a 
 woman, a man who has attained the years of 
 majority. The Romans sin without dispensation ; 
 but they sell to others the pardon of their sins. 
 
 '"If one wishes to obtain anything at Rome, he 
 must provide himself with three things : money, 
 introductions, "falsehood'. Three things wiU supply 
 the place of money : personal TeautyTcorruption of 
 heart, and patience in addition to both. Three 
 things may reclaim Rome to virtue : the energetic 
 resolution of the princes, the impatience of the 
 nations, and the victories^f the Turks. Neverthe- 
 less, it is not necessary to cut off the head of the 
 church : it suffices to extirpate her corruptions ; a 
 painful operation, doubtless, and one which cannot 
 be effected without violence. When the head shall 
 be cured, the body will do well. The priests, less 
 numerous, less rich, and better employed, will 
 lead more holy lives ; they will marry respectable 
 women, instead of maintaining shameless concu- 
 bines. This indispensable reform has always failed 
 owing to the fault of sovereigns, and the ignorance 
 of nations. It is therefore time that these abuses 
 should come to an end. Let us no longer endure 
 that Rome shall oppress us by a false appearance of 
 holiness ; that she shall impose upon us, as the in- 
 fallible laws of the church, the bulls which the Pope 
 
80 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 fabricates with some favourite associates ; and that 
 she shall despoil us by means of her indulgences, or 
 under the most lying pretexts. The successors of 
 St Peter ought, indeed, to fish, but souls, and not 
 treasures ; for no communion can exist between 
 Christ and Belial. Christ has said. Blessed are the 
 poor ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ! But as 
 for them, they say : To the rich is the kingdom of 
 heaven ; for the Pope and his agents go everywhere 
 preaching and proclaiming that we participate in 
 the kingdom of heaven, just in proportion to the 
 number of indulgences which we buy. And as to 
 all the dispensations sold by the legates ! They re- 
 lease from the most sacred oaths, from the holiest 
 duties, from the penalties which have been deserved 
 by the most execrable crimes. 
 
 ' " Three things are incessantly going on at Rome, 
 and never fims hedTT Fe" canonization of saints, the 
 building of churches, and the war against the Turks. 
 Of three things it is forbidden to speak ill : the 
 Pope, indulgences, and impiety. Three classes of 
 people bear rule at Rome : ruffians, courtesans, and 
 usurers. Three things are pompously apparelled : 
 prelates, mules, and women of the town. Of three 
 things they boast at Rome, although they possess 
 them not : piety, faith, and innocence. And three 
 things exist, of which they boast not: traffic in 
 offices, the venality of justice, and treachery in 
 
THE TRIAS EOMANA. , 81 
 
 friendship. To his two swords, the Pope adds a 
 third, with which he shears his floek and flays 
 them till the blood flows. 
 
 ' " Such is the impure source from which a flood 
 of corruption and misery has flowed down upon 
 every, nation ; and will not all the nations under- 
 stand that it must be stopped up ? Will they not 
 come by land and sea with fire and sword ? Oh, 
 Rome ! all Christendom has her eyes fixed upon 
 thee ; what thou dost appears to all honourable and 
 lawful. It is on this account that thy corruption 
 has tainted everything. Thou hast gathered to- 
 gether, as in a reservoir, the spoils of an entire uni- 
 verse ; and thou hast given them to be consumed 
 by a crowd of parasites. First they have drained 
 our blood, then they have eaten our flesh ; now they 
 have come to the very marrow of our bones, and 
 still they are not satiated ! And yet the Germans 
 would hesitate to have recourse to arms ! These 
 are the spoilers of our country : we defray the ex- 
 pense of all their vices. With the money of which 
 they plunder us, they maintain their dogs, their 
 horses, their mistresses. We pay for the purple 
 that clothes them, for the marble palaces in which 
 they dwell. And now they threaten, they, insult 
 us ; they fqrbid us to hesitate, to murmur at their 
 intolerable exactions. They wish, along with our 
 money, our shame and our smiles. When shall 
 
 F 
 
82 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 we have eyes to see our humiliation and our ruin, 
 and arms to avenge them ? " ' ^ 
 
 XVII. 
 
 |HE Trias Romana produced an immense 
 sensation in Germany. 'By this pam- 
 phlet,' says Cochlseus, Hutten has made 
 the name of the Roman court the most detested 
 in Germany.' And it is principally to it that we 
 must attribute the expression of popular opinion 
 which, as we have already seen, burst forth against 
 the legates in 1519 and 1520. 
 
 The fame of it reached even to Rome, and pro- 
 cured for Hutten, for the first time, the honour 
 of the pontifical wrath. But before the Pope 
 had fulminated an anathema against him, Hut- 
 ten had already acquired a fresh title to his im- 
 placable hatred. He printed, in June 1520, several 
 letters, written at the end of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury by the most illustrious Universities, upon the 
 means of putting an end to the schism in the 
 church. His preface terminates by the noble 
 
 ^ I have given a summary of this pamphlet, principally following 
 Meiners. I cannot cite all which I borrow from that excellent book. 
 
FURTHER ATTACKS ON THE PAPACY. 83 
 
 motto which he adopted after the pubhcation of the 
 Trias Bomana, ' Long live liberty ! The die is cast ! ' 
 His principal aim in publishing these letters, was 
 to point out with what freedom the ancient Uni- 
 versities had discussed the rights of nations, of the 
 Emperor, of councils, and the illegal power of the 
 Popes. He wished to arouse, by that example, the 
 emulation of the principal schools of his time, and 
 to protest against the condemnation pronounced by 
 the Universities of Cologne and of Louvain against 
 Luther. He cites, at the end of his preface, that 
 beautiful saying of St Gregory : ' We must remind 
 subjects, that they must' not be too submissive ; " 
 otherwise they would come to venerate even the 
 vices of their masters.' And to the court of Rome 
 he made the application of that great and everlast- 
 ing reservation in favour of justice ! 
 
 This work was published in the castle of 
 Steckelberg. The boldness of the Trias Romana, 
 printed at Mayence, had undoubtedly overpassed 
 the Hmits which the Archbishop wished to put to 
 his adhesion to the new ideas. Shortly afterwards, 
 the Archbishop received a brief from the Pope, who, 
 with all the deference due to such an important 
 personage, expressed his astonishment and grief at 
 learning that there had been printed in his arch- 
 bishopric, and almost under his eyes, such enor- 
 mities, and exhorted him to punish the insolence 
 
84 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 of a certain Hutten, ^ that his chastisement may 
 serve as a warning and example to others. Albert 
 did not follow the injunction of the Pope to the 
 letter, but. he demanded of Hutten a promise to 
 write nothing more against the court of Rome. 
 Hutten refused to enslave his conscience, and the 
 Archbishop, under pain of excommunication, pro- 
 hibited the reading of the writings of Hutten, and 
 other such fellows. ' This,' writes' Luther, ' is un- 
 doubtedly directed against me. If he had named 
 m^, I would have answered in such a way as to 
 cure him of the wish of attacking me. By these, 
 violences, they themselves prepare the way for the 
 end of their tyranny.' 
 
 Hutten having no longer any hope of assistance 
 from the Archbishop of Mayence, and freed from 
 the restraints which that hope imposed upon him, 
 hastened to ally himself with Luther. He had 
 already appreciated the importance of the mission 
 which that great man was called upon to fulfil. 
 He had comprehended that the monkish quarrel, 
 at which he had formerly laughed, contained the 
 germ of that very revolution to which all his own 
 energies were directed. He had, in common with 
 all Germany, been charmed, carried away, and sub- 
 
 1 This presumption of style was visual with the Eoman court. In 
 the bull against Luther, we read in the same way, ' a certain Luther.' 
 Rutten puts, as a note upon this word, Attende emphasin. 
 
LUTHER AND HUTTEN. 85 
 
 dued by the burning words of the Doctor of Wittem- 
 berg, and with the glance of an experienced man, 
 with the modesty of a hero, he had hailed in 
 Luther the chief of the Reformation. After 1519, 
 he had caused to be made to him the ofier of a 
 secure asylum with Sickingen. In June 1520, he 
 himself thus wrote to him : — 
 
 ' Long live liberty ! Ulrich von Hutten, knight, 
 to Martin Luther, theologian. If you meet with 
 some difficulties in the great enterprises which you 
 undertake with such unshaken courage, be assured 
 that I am with you, heart and soul. And, for my- 
 self, I do not remain idle. May Christ be with us 
 and assist us, since we restore, you with more suc- 
 cess, I according to my abilities. His diyine laws ; 
 and may He bring us back to the light of His 
 doctrine, falsified and veiled in darkness by the 
 pontifical constitutions. Would to God that all 
 would feel like us, and that our adversaries 
 would themselves recognise their injustice, and 
 return to the right way! They say that you are 
 excommunicated. How much, Luther, would 
 that ennoble you ! All truly religious men would 
 say with you, " They have enchained the word of 
 the Just One, and have condemned innocent blood ; 
 but the Lord our God will punish them for their 
 -injustice, and will cause them to perish in their 
 iniquity." There is our hope and our faith. Eck 
 
86 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 returns from Rome, overwhelmed, it is said, with 
 money and benefices ; and afterwards ? The sinner 
 is praised in his plans ; but may the Lord direct us 
 in His truth ! . . . . However, be upon your guard, 
 and withdraw not your attention or your mind from 
 the designs of your persecutors. If you should now 
 perish, you must yourself feel what a public calamity 
 that would be ! I well know that your courage is 
 such, that you would prefer to die thus, rather 
 than continue to live as you have hitherto done. 
 Me they equally threaten, and I have determined 
 to take all possible precautions : if they employ 
 force, I shall oppose it with force, equal, I 
 trust, if not superior ; yet I sincerely desire that 
 they may deem me beneath their notice. Eck has 
 denounced me as belonging to your party : and in 
 that he has spoken the truth; for I have always 
 gone along with you in all that I have known of 
 you. But, up to the present time, we have never 
 had any connection : he has then lied when he has 
 said, in order to please the Pope, that we act in 
 conformity to a plan previously agreed upon be- 
 tween us. What a wicked and insolent man ! As 
 to yourself, remain firm, and hesitate not in the 
 path on which you have entered. In every engage- 
 ment I shall be your second : you may then confide 
 to me all your ulterior projects. Let us unite 
 to save liberty; let us set free our country, so 
 
LETTEE TO LUTHER. 87 
 
 long oppressed. The Lord is with, us ; who, then, 
 shall be against us? .... I set out to-day to 
 present myself to Ferdinand. I shall spare nothing, 
 and shall make the greatest exertions to forward 
 the interests of our cause. Sickingen invites you to 
 come to him, if you are not in safety where you are 
 at present : he will welcome you as you deserve, 
 and will protect you against every enemy. He has 
 several times requested me to write to you.' 
 
 This letter appears to have been printed imme- 
 diately, with the exception of the name of Sickin-/ 
 gen, which is left blank in the edition which is 
 before me : they wished, doubtless, not to divulge 
 beforehand the asylum offered to Luther. It ap- 
 pears to have made a great impression upon the 
 illustrious Reformer. Henceforth he found himselJF 
 more free, and less obliged to moderate the impe- 
 tuosity of his generous anger, as he had hithertjo 
 done, out of regard to the Elector of Saxony. It ik 
 at this time (December 1520) that he publishefi 
 his Captivity of Babylon, and his Appeal to the Chris- 
 tian Nobility of the German Nation for the Reforma- 
 tion of the Church. 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 UTTEN set out, full of hope, for Brabant, 
 where Ferdinand held his court while 
 waiting for the arrival of his brother, 
 Charles V. The young Emperor was about to 
 visit the Empire. It appeared impossible that 
 Charles V., elected in spite of the Pope, and 
 who seemed to wear so loftily all the crowns 
 united on his head, should not seize the oppor- 
 tunity, unique in history, of terminating to his 
 own advantage the war between the secular empire 
 and the priesthood, and of reforming the abuses 
 under which the church was sinking. The favour 
 which Sickingen enjoyed at his court increased 
 still further these hopes ; for no one was ignorant of 
 the ties which linked that noble knight — ^in whom 
 Germany honoured another Bayard — ^to the friends 
 of the new learning. But where Hutten saw en- 
 couragement given to a fervent partisan of reform, 
 there was only a political calculation. Charles V. 
 wished to attach to himself a man who was the 
 most brilliant representative of ancient chivalry, 
 iron arm and lion heart, whom the whole German 
 nobUity hailed as its hero and its model. To do so 
 was to gain, in the very heart of Germany, an import- 
 ant basis of defence -against the princes, who, for a 
 century, had directed all their efforts to form in the 
 
TPIE POPE AND THE EMPEEOR. 89 
 
 Empire a kind of constitutional oligarchy. As to 
 the Pope, if Charles V. had only been Emperor, he 
 would undoubtedly have boldly treated him as his 
 enemy ; for, in spite of his Spanish education, we 
 cannot suppose the man who afterwards let loose 
 against Rome the Lutheran bands of Freundsberg 
 (29) to have been troubled with many religious 
 scruples. But at this moment, as the Pope might 
 be useful to his designs upon Italy, he sacrificed 
 to him Germany. Hutten rapidly comprehended 
 the motives of a policy which was to result in the 
 Edict of Worms ; but, faithful to the ideal which he 
 had formed of the Emperor, he preferred to impute 
 to his youth and inexperience, abused by detestable 
 advisers, a conduct dictated by a genius which was 
 profoundly calculating in the very age of passion. 
 
 Hutten could not remain long at court. On his 
 arrival, he was warned that the legates had designs 
 upon his life, and that they had hired assassins to 
 make away with him, by dagger or by poison. His 
 friends entreated him to be gone. He resisted for 
 a long time ; but he was at length obliged to yield 
 to the evidence of facts, and to depart in all haste. 
 At Mayence, they believed him dead, and his return 
 was celebrated as a resurrection. He learned at 
 Frankfort, that the Pope had written to several of 
 the princes, to request them to seize and send him 
 prisoner to Rome : that demand had been especially 
 
90 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 directed to the Archbishop of Mayence. Finally, 
 the legate asked the Emperor to put Hutten to the 
 ban of the Empire, and to permit the agents of the 
 Roman court to seize his person, wherever they 
 might find him. 
 
 These circumstances created a kind of solitude 
 around Hutten. The feeblest among his friends 
 denied him : the others withdrew. As to himself, in 
 this moment of extreme danger, he became but the 
 more determined to defend the truth, to vindicate the 
 liberty of his country — ' for which,' he says, ' it is my 
 duty to die.' His friend Sickingen gave him, in his' 
 castle of Ebernburg, a retreat inaccessible to all vio- 
 lence, to all treason. From thence, as from another 
 Wartburg, this worthy brother in arms of Luther 
 continued to issue his fiery publications. 
 
 This time, he relied upon the injury done to 
 himself, and made it the text of an energetic appeal 
 to the liberty and the honour of Germany. As in 
 the outset of his career, he raised his private affairs 
 to the elevation of a great national cause, and excited 
 all minds by the vehemence of his protestations. 
 
 He writes to his former protector, the Archbishop 
 of Mayence : ^ ' I have learned through others what 
 
 ^ This letter, and those which follow, are brought together in a eoUeo- 
 tion which bears qn the title-page the motto, Jacta est alea, and which 
 finishes by that verse of the psalmist — Dirumpamus vincula eorum et 
 projiciamus a nobis jugum ipsorum. 
 
DENOUNCED BY ROME. 91 
 
 Leo X. has demanded of you, — ^by what commands, 
 what force, he presses you to send me in fetters to 
 Rome. I ought, perhaps, to have waited until 
 warned by yourself. Without doubt, you fear the 
 Pope. I hope that you are the better for such con- 
 descension; but I am very much afraid that, by 
 pretensions hitherto unheard of, he prepares for 
 all of you, bishops and priests, some disastrous, 
 some atrocious blow. Think of this, and take 
 your precautions in time. More than ever it is 
 necessary that I should be able to maintain my 
 communications with you; and nothing is more 
 painful to me, in my present position, than not 
 being able to do so. I am shut out from courts, 
 from towns, from all public life, from all human 
 society; and for what crime? Because I have de- 
 fended the truth, and advised what is good. They 
 have condemned me unheard, and they only wish 
 to have me at Rome in order to put me to death. 
 Who, then, with a drop of German blood in his veins, 
 would not have risen against such indignities ? Yes, 
 I despise, I detest all these inventions of the Bishops 
 of Rome. They are not inspired by God, but by the 
 love of gain. I brave their anger, their excommuni- 
 cations, and their poisons ; my help is in the Lord, 
 the Creator of heaven and earth.' (September 1520.) , 
 To his old friend, the knight von Rotenhan, 
 he writes : ' What think you of this thunderbolt 
 
92 ■ Ul.RlCH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 launched against me ? What are your hopes, your 
 expectations of the future? When they attack 
 me, dare you defend me? Have you still the 
 heart of a Franconian, a love for the ancient liberty 
 of our country ? No, Germany is not so abandoned 
 of Heaven, that many will not join with me to 
 carry out that great enterprise, which cannot longer 
 be deferred without ruin to our liberty, without 
 ruin to every true Christian. If I remain alone, I 
 shall find a refuge in my own conscience, and shall 
 console myself by the hope of a near futurity ; for 
 the flame which I have kindled, cannot be so 
 thoroughly extinguished as to prevent its bursting 
 forth anew, more terrible than ever. Watch, 
 therefore, the course of events with care : sound the 
 intentions of the nobility. As to my foes, tell them 
 that I am disheartened : they will perhaps despise 
 me. I make my complaint to the Emperor, to the 
 princes, to the nations of Germany, not that I fear 
 for myself, but that 1 wish to raise public opinion 
 in favour of the cause of liberty, by exposing the 
 unheard-of iniquity of the conduct of the Romanists. 
 The Pope invokes against me the aid of the secu- 
 lar arm, and, for my part, I invoke the goodness of 
 the Lord ! How will all this end ? You may form 
 conjectures ; but this is certain, that we shall 
 attempt something, and that we shall not manage 
 the affair like cowards.' (September 1520.) 
 
LETTER TO CHARLES V. • 93 
 
 Of the same date, he addressed a letter to 
 Charles V., in which he insists upon the insult offered 
 to the imperial dignity by the claim put forward 
 by the Pope, to order a German knight, a member 
 of the body of which the Emperor is the head, to 
 be brought in chains to Rome, without trial or 
 judgment. 'And for what crime? They them- 
 selves confess that there is none. But for what 
 reason? Because I have proclaimed the Christian 
 truth, protested against the novel inventions of the 
 Pope, vindicated the ancient liberty of the Empire, 
 and especially because I have diminished their re- 
 ceipts, and the profits of their spoliation. If this is 
 a crime, let me, at least, be judged and punished by 
 you, my only sovereign. What would become of 
 Germany, if we could no longer, either serve you 
 without peril, or undertake without danger the 
 affairs of the country ? And what would become 
 of religion, if we were forced to put the paltry 
 Romanist traditions above the divine commands ? 
 Would to God you could behold what indignation 
 that violence excites, with what passion we await, 
 at your hands, justice and vengeance ! Each one 
 feels himself threatened. Is it not truly an atroci- 
 ous, an unheard-of thing, to wish to chain a man, 
 to torture him, to kill without hearing him ? (30.) 
 Yes, I have attacked, I sTiall unceasingly attack, 
 the enemies of the truth, the Oppressors of public 
 
94 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 liberty, the maligners of your dignity. It is my 
 duty to watch over your dignity ; my religion, to 
 love my country. In all this, I have no private in- 
 terest to serve. Truly, my conscience vindicates 
 me, and I have confidence in your justice. Your 
 interest is mine, my cause yours ; if you abandon 
 me, you are lost. After that first concession, you 
 can no longer refuse anything to their insatiable 
 pretensions ; else they will overthrow you, as they 
 have overthrown so many of 3'^our predecessors. 
 What have they not wrested from the Empire by 
 stratagem and by force ? They have made emperors 
 kiss their feet ; they have imposed upon them the 
 oath of vassalage. They ruin your Empire by their 
 exactions. They sell indulgences, absolutions, dis- 
 pensations, — a traffic infamous from its objects, more 
 infamous still by the artifices of those who carry it 
 on. They anathematize the best of your subjects ; 
 some of them they have poisoned, others they have 
 delivered over to their enemies. They fan the flame 
 of discord among the German princes. Such has been 
 their work hitherto. One thing only remains : to 
 compel the delivery to them of those Germans who 
 have incurred their displeasure. Such is what they 
 now demand. Think of your dignity, of the majesty 
 of the Empire, of my own rank ! Judge my cause 
 yourself What can a German knight have to do 
 with the Bishop of Rome ? ' 
 
LETTER TO FREDERICK OF SAXONY. 95 
 
 Sickingen transmitted this letter to Charles V., 
 who promised that Hutten should not be delivered 
 up, without being brought to trial. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 |NOTHER letter, addressed to the princes, 
 the nobles, and the people of Germany, 
 reproduced the same considerations, the 
 same eloquent complaints. But the most important 
 document of this collection, is that addressed to 
 Frederick of Saxony, the moderate but resolute 
 protector of Luther. It is quite a manifesto. 
 
 ' The moment is come, Prince Frederick, to op- 
 pose the tyranny of Rome. In spite of so many 
 brotherly warnings, the Romanists, instead of ex- 
 hibiting more moderation, have only become still 
 more violent. You know that they wish that 
 I should be sent to Rome in fetters. And as to 
 Luther ? What a cruel and violent bull have they 
 launched against him ! The roaring of the lion, 
 who has made all the flock of Christ to tremble ! 
 Where can we trace the least mildness or apostoli- 
 cal moderation? More atrocious still, when the 
 Pope enwraps himself, in that bull, in the mantle of 
 Christian benevolence, and, in dulcet tones, invites 
 
96 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 Luther to come to Rome. Luther at Rome ! But 
 do we not know, only too well, what they would do 
 to us, if Luther should go there voluntarily, and I 
 should be brought there by force ? ■ As to myself, 
 I wonder how Leo has been able to persuade him- 
 self that it would be so easy to rid himself of me, and 
 to drag me to Rome ! And then, what conduct for 
 a pastor, for a bishop, for a vicar of Christ, to con- 
 deifm a Christian to capital punishment without 
 judging him, without even hearing him ! And 
 what crime of ours excites his fury against us ? 
 We have striven to bring to light the Christian doc- 
 trine, obscured and almost effaced by his rapacity. 
 Our nation is the best fitted for liberty, and we 
 cannot resign ourselves to behold her enslaved. 
 This is what displeases that good shepherd ; but 
 this also is pleasing to Christ. We cannot, at the 
 . same time, serve Christ and the Pope, our country 
 and her oppressors. Peace cannot subsist between 
 him and us ; for peace is between us and truth ! 
 
 ' The moment has arrived when the strife can be 
 no longer deferred. Their perversity and our misery 
 are at their -height. The day approaches when that 
 great Babylon, the mother of corruptions and abomi- 
 nations, shall fall ; — I would say, that See of Rome, 
 sullied by every crime, and which^ hostile to all 
 the institutions of Christ, pretends to hold the place 
 of Christ, which, full of lust, and glutted with the 
 
LETTER TO FREDERICK OP SAXONY. 97 
 
 blood of the earth, does not the less hold up to the 
 eyes of the faithful the keys which open and shut 
 heaven, with a confidence so complete, that she fears 
 not to sell us consecrated things, or to forbid us their 
 use, according to her caprice. I seem to hear a hea- 
 venly voice, which commands us to attack, to destroy 
 that hundred-headed beast: Shall her crimes still 
 go on increasing ? And if they are at their height, 
 ought they not at length to be punished ? 
 
 ' But who shall overthrow that detestable struc- 
 ture ? Who shall reform these vices ? Who wash 
 away these pollutions ? God ? Yes, doubtless, 
 but by the instrumentality of man. What are you 
 then about, Princes ? What advice, what as- 
 sistance do you offer us ? You especially, to whom 
 belongs the hereditary right to defend the liberties 
 of Germany : you, the chief of these noble Saxons 
 whom no foreigner has ever subdued ! the chief of 
 the country of Arminius, of the Henry's and of the 
 Otho's ! Would to God that you, who have the 
 power, possessed also our boldness ; or that we, 
 who have the boldness, possessed your power ! As 
 to me, I shall not cease to exhort you, until you 
 have recovered your ancient virtue, or until I see 
 that you are no longer capable of doing so. Then 
 I shall betake myself elsewhere. If the head of 
 the nation fails to support this great cause, the 
 arms shall nat also be wanting ! ' 
 
 G 
 
98 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 ' But cannot we emancipate ourselves without 
 bloodshed? May that blood be on the heads of 
 those who will not give up their injustice and 
 tyranny! Let us strike with the sword, if so it 
 must be, those who have so often made use of the 
 sword. Perhaps it will not be necessary to go this 
 length. There is_a certain means to destroy the 
 Roman tyranny: letus__keep^ our money. After- 
 wards, under another Otho, we shall purge the city 
 of Rome and its senate ; we shall restore to the 
 Emperor the capital of the Empire ; we shall bring 
 down the Pope to the level of the other bishops ; 
 we shall diminish the number and the revenues of 
 the priests, we shall scarcely retain one out of a 
 hundred. As to those who call themselves friars, 
 and who live only by disputes, we shall entirely 
 suppress them. Then no one shall enter into the 
 ranks of the clergy through effeminacy or love of 
 money ; and all those hypocritical monks shall 
 cease to deceive the people, and to beg the sweat 
 and the blood of the poor !' 
 
 ' In destroying the convents, in cutting off all 
 the avenues by which our money finds its way to 
 Rome, we shall acquire a variety of resources for 
 useful employment : we shall then be able to raise 
 armies against the Turks, to maintain the many 
 unfortunates whom hunger drives to theft, to pro- 
 tect the sciences, to assist the miserable, to en- 
 
LETTER TO FREDERICK OP SAXONY. 99 
 
 courage virtue. Then we shall give one hand to 
 the Bohemians, who have freed themselves before 
 us from that rapacious spawn, and the other to the 
 Greeks, who have separated themselves from the 
 Roman tyranny.' 
 
 ' They wiU say that this is to overwhelm the 
 bark of St Peter, to rend the coat without seam : 
 such is the habitual theme of their declamations. 
 But you must clearly perceive that, far from sup- 
 pressing charity, I earnestly wish to enlarge its 
 sphere, by chasing away those who are obstacles to 
 its operation. Far from destroying the church, I 
 open its arms to all Christians : instead of these cor- 
 rupted Romanists, these buttresses of Antichrist, I 
 would entrust the priesthood to those recommended 
 by the purity of their lives. The drones removed, 
 the bees will come of themselves.' 
 
 ' For my part, if I do not succeed in gaining 
 you over to this noble enterprise, nor in else- 
 where kindling the fire which shall purify that 
 corruption, I shall at least do nothing unworthy 
 of a knight. Never shall I retreat a hair's breadth 
 from anything that I have spoken ; I shall remain 
 free, for I fear not death. Hutten will never be- 
 come the slave of a foreign sovereign, however 
 great he may be, and of the Pope less than any 
 other; for I would consider it dishonouring to 
 me, and a calling down of the divine wrath, 
 
100 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 if I adored along with you the hundred-headed 
 beast!' 
 
 ' And now, I quit towns, because T cannot for- 
 sake the truth ; I live in solitude, because I cannot 
 live free in society. For the rest, I am full of con- 
 tempt for the dangers which threaten me ; for I 
 can die, but not be a slave. I cannot endure with 
 patience the yoke borne by my country. But one 
 day, perhaps, I shall emerge from my retreat ; I 
 shall arrive in the midst of the assembled multi- 
 tude, and I shall cry out to my fellow-citizens, 
 " Who will live and die with Hutten for liberty?" ' 
 (September 1520). 
 
 Luther, in sending this letter to Spalatin, to be 
 transmitted to the Elector, adds, ' Good God ! what 
 will be the end of all these novelties ! I begin to 
 believe that the Papacy, hitherto invincible, will 
 be overthrown, contrary to all expectation, or else 
 the last day approaches.' 
 
 XX. 
 
 UTTEN had long believed that the union 
 of the Emperor, of the nobles, of the 
 learned men and intelligent burgesses 
 of the great towns, might, without any revolu- 
 
HIS FIRST POEM IN GERMAN. 101 
 
 tionary movement, effect a pacific reformation of 
 the church, and bring about the foundation of a 
 national church upon the ruins of that of Rome ; 
 for it is to these two objects that his thoughts seem 
 at first to have been limited, and his polemical 
 writings directed. He therefore wrote in the Latin 
 language, ' in order to give,' as he himself says, 
 ' my counsels in some degree in secret. I have 
 not been anxious to address myself to the .people, 
 although I had so many inducements to do so.' 
 But he soon saw that nothing could be effected 
 without a great movement of public opinion. He 
 could no longer delude himself either with re- 
 liance on the Archbishop of Mayence, who had 
 abandoned his cause, or on Charles V., who had 
 allied himself to the Pope, or on the princes, who 
 all followed their private ends. He comprehended 
 that he must seek elsewhere the support which the 
 great and powerful refused him. 
 
 In September 1520, he published a translation 
 of his letter to the Elector of Saxony ; and a little 
 later, he sent forth among the people a poem in 
 German, under the title, ' Complaint and Warning 
 against the excessive, antichrisiian Power of the Pope, 
 and against the Godlessness of the Monastic Orders. 
 Written ' in verse by Ulrich von Hutten, Poet and 
 Orator, for the good of all Christendom, and especially 
 of Germany, his native country. The die is east. I 
 
102 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 Jiave dared it.'' Let us conceive the impassioned 
 and too true accusations of the Trias Eomana, — 
 its invocations to patriotism, to glory, to oppressed 
 liberty, — its ardent protestations against Romish 
 tyranny and corruption, thrown among a people 
 who had just begun to read some of the writings of 
 Luther, and who had hitherto possessed scarcely 
 any other intellectual nourishment than the ro- 
 mances of chivalry ; and we shall comprehend the 
 effect produced by Hutten's poem. Certainly, we 
 need not search there for the poetic ideal ; but the 
 rhyme, united to the popular clearness of thought, 
 doubled its effect and fixed it in the memory. 
 Thus, the poorest bought the poem, the most 
 ignorant understood it; everywhere, even in the 
 most remote hamlets, some one was found to re- 
 peat to the deeply-moved commonalty the words 
 of freedom. This immense and truly popular suc- 
 cess, attested by an infinite number of editions 
 which succeeded each other from month to month, 
 and some of which continued to appear even to the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, was, indeed, all 
 that Hutten had hoped for. ' Up to this time,' he 
 says, ' I had written in Latin ; I was not understood 
 by every one. Now I invoke the fatherland in the 
 national language. You must blow away from be- 
 fore your eyes the smoke which blinds you. If 
 you would follow my advice, fellow-countrymen. 
 
HIS DEFENCE OP HUSS. 103 
 
 you would very speedily purge the Gospel of all 
 these Romish fables.' 
 
 After what I have said of the preceding writings 
 of Hutten, and especially of the Trias Romana, I 
 need not delay long upon this German poem. What 
 is new in it, is not the thought, but the form, the lan- 
 guage, the rhyme, the appeal to the people. How- 
 ever, I must mention two things, which will give 
 us an accurate conception of the nature of the 
 ideas which at this moment occupied the mind of 
 Hutten. The first is the justification of John Huss, 
 which will be soon followed by that of Ziska. 
 
 ' They have burned Huss,' he says, ' because he 
 held to the teaching of Christ without attending to 
 the glosses of the priests ; because he denounced 
 their avarice, their pride, their luxury, the tyranny! 
 of the Pope, and all his thefts from Christians,] 
 and the constitution of the canon law, opposed 
 in every point to the Scriptures. These denuncia- 
 tions were true then, and are true now. The 
 priests, however, were stirred up to vengeance. 
 Huss was cited before them, with a safe-conduct 
 from the Emperor ; but Sigismund kept his word 
 as so many princes stiU do. He suffered himself to 
 be led away by the advice of the priests, which also 
 condemned Christ. They told him that he was not 
 bound to keep faith with a heretic. But, although 
 it might be true that Huss was a heretic, a crime 
 
104 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 was not the less committed, in condemning him 
 in spite of his safe-conduct. Nor was Jerome of 
 Prague any more spared. Since that time, none 
 have followed their example: all have feared the 
 stake.' 
 
 I shall next cite the conclusion of the poem, 
 which contains a direct call to arms :; — ' How can 
 we endure such a tyranny ? I afl&rm that we 
 ought not to do so. The time is come. God 
 has reserved for our age the liberation of our 
 fatherland. I hope that King Charles will be on 
 our side, that he will not give himself up to oppres- 
 sion. I summon to that work the princes, the 
 nobles, and all those who wish to crush the heresy 
 of the Pope. He who would remain indifferent to 
 this great enterprise, loves not his coimtry, and 
 knows not the true God ! We wish to abolish 
 superstition, to restore truth. And since that can- 
 not be done peacefully, it may well be necessary 
 that blood shall flow. As to myself, I have recoiled 
 before that extremity, I have believed that we 
 might attain our object by another path. But 
 we must do what we can. The hour has sounded : 
 we have already submitted to too many insults. 
 Rally round me, Germans ; be of good cheer. We 
 have plenty of hauberks and horses, of halberts and 
 swords ; and, since pacific counsels are useless, let 
 us fly to arms ! The help and the vengeance of 
 
TRANSLATES THE TRIAS ROMANA. 105 
 
 God are on our side ! Our enemies are the enemies 
 of Grod ! Let my words awaken the princes in their 
 courts, the knights in their castles, the burgesses in 
 their towns ! Who would stay inactive at home, 
 in so good a cause ! For my own part, I have 
 dared the peril, that is my device ! ' 
 
 In the same year, 1520 — that year so fruitful in 
 Hutten's life, so important in the history of the Ke- 
 formation, in which Luther published his book on 
 the Captivity of Babylon, and burned the Pope's 
 bull and the decretals in the public square at Wit- 
 temberg — Hutten translated into German several of 
 his dialogues, and especially the Trias Romana, and 
 published them, with a dedication to The noble, 
 famous, courageous, and very honourable Councillor^ 
 servant and captain of His Majesty the Emperor, 
 Francis of Sichingen, my well beloved friend and con- 
 soler. I may perhaps be mistaken ; but I think that 
 we find in these pages something of the touching 
 accents of Montaigne, when speaking of La Boetie. 
 
 ' It is not without reason that the proverb says : 
 In adversity we come to know our friends ! for no 
 one can be assured of having a friend, if he has 
 not proved him during adversity, so as thoroughly 
 to know him. Although those are to be esteemed 
 happy who have not required thus to test their 
 friends, those also may thank God who have found, 
 in their misfortunes, a faithful and steady friend. 
 
106 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 More than any one, therefore, I ought to bless God 
 and my destiny. For, attacked by my enemies 
 in my property, my person, and my honour, with 
 such violence, that I have scarcely had time to 
 summon my friends to my assistance, you have 
 come to my aid, not, as often happens, with words 
 of consolation only, but also with effective help. . . 
 ... It is not that I despise those who are our 
 friends in the time of prosperity (although that may 
 be termed an agreeable acquaintanceship rather 
 than a true friendship) ; but I make between the 
 two the same distinction that physicians make 
 amongst meats : some are merely savoury ; others 
 are also salutary. And thus, Heaven has bestowed 
 you upon me, when I had need both of help and 
 of cure. From the love of truth, and from com- 
 passion for my misfortunes, you have espoused my 
 cause without caring about my enemies. And 
 when, through the imminence of the danger, the 
 cities were closed against me, you have opened to 
 me your castles, which I shall call on this, and on 
 other accounts, the abodes of justice.'' 
 
 ' Besides, I found myself not a little strengthened 
 in my purpose, when I saw that you also regarded 
 it as just and honourable. And aU the learned 
 men of Germany, who are menaced in my person, 
 have taken courage ; whilst the Romanists, who, 
 believing me entirely overthrown, already cole- 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH LUTHER. 107 
 
 brated their triumph, have become discouraged, 
 on finding me supported by an impregnable wall. 
 In order to prove to you my gratitude, it is not 
 heart that I want, or will, but happiness and ability ; 
 but, at least, I give you that of which none can 
 deprive me, the strength of my soul and of my 
 intellect. 
 
 ' I offer you, then, for your New Year's gift, my 
 little books, which I have translated into German, 
 in this abode of justice. And I wish for you, not, 
 as is often wished, a life of tranquillity and repose, 
 but just, serious, noble, and laborious affairs, in 
 which, for the good of mankind, you may have 
 an opportunity of displaying your heroic heart. 
 May God give you happiness and safety. 
 
 ' Written at Ebernburg on New Year's evening' 
 (31st December 1520). 
 
 XXI. 
 
 iHE relations between Hutten and Luther 
 became more and more intimate : they 
 communicated to each other their plans, 
 their fears, and their hopes, and drew from these 
 frequent communications, new strength and firmer 
 courage. In the opening of the year 1521, Hutten 
 
108 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 wrote that beautiful letter to his dearest brother 
 and friend, Martin Luther, the invincible herald of 
 the word of God. ' You would,' he says, ' assuredly 
 compassionate me, if you knew all the opposition 
 against which I have to contend. Whilst I seek to 
 attach new friends to our cause,^ many of the old 
 ones fall away from it : so much are the souls oTmen 
 still under the dominion of that prejudice, that to 
 attack the Pope is to commit an unpardonable 
 crime. Francis of Sickingen alone remains faithful 
 to us ; and they have almost succeeded in shaking 
 even his fidelity, by showing him, as coming from 
 you, monstrous things, which you certainly have 
 never written. I have effaced that impression by 
 reading your works to him, with which, until the pre- 
 sent moment, he was very little acquainted. He has 
 not been slow to appreciate them, and, beholding 
 the grandeur of your undertaking, he has exclaimed, 
 filled with admiration, "Is it really possible that a 
 single man has the courage to attack all the past ; 
 and if he has sufficient courage, will he have suffi- 
 cient power ? " He is so full of enthusiasm for the 
 
 1 It is important to observe, that Hutten did not admit all the doc- 
 trines of Luther. The theory of predestination instinctively repelled 
 him ; but he knew that if the Romanists opposed Luther, it was less 
 on account of his dogmatic opinions than on account of his violent in- 
 vectives against their corruption and rapacity. ' Thus,' as he himself 
 says, ' I accept the title of Lutheran, in order that they may know that 
 I am ever faithful to the cause of truth and liberty.' 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH LUTHER. 109 
 
 cause, that scarcely an evening passes without his 
 requesting me to read to him one or other of our 
 books. His friends advise him to abandon so peril- 
 ous a path. "No," he exclaims, " the cause which 
 I defend is neither dangerous nor doubtful. It is 
 the cause of God and of truth : it is the fatherland 
 itself which commands us to listen to the counsels 
 of Luther and of Hutten, and to maintain the true 
 faith." However, I ought not to conceal from you, 
 that Sickingen has hitherto prevented me from 
 taking any active steps against our enemies. He 
 believes that we must wait the judgment of the 
 Emperor, and what may be decided with regard to 
 our affairs after the Diet of Worms. So far as I 
 am concerned, I ^ave little confidence in the Em- 
 peror: he is always surrounded by priests, and 
 selects from among them his most cherished coun- 
 cillors. They take advantage of his youth, and urge 
 him to adopt measures which, certainly, will not be 
 for his advantage. Sickingen, on the contrary, 
 believes that the Emperor will decide, as he ought to 
 do, at Worms, with regard to these faithless Popes 
 and their supporters. Many even predict, that at 
 thatDiet, a complete rupture will take place between 
 the Pope and the Emperor ; and you may rely upon 
 it that Sickingen will lend all his influence to bring 
 this about, and he has great credit with the Em- 
 peror They have thrice burnt your books ! 
 
1 10 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 But what matters it? The people gather more 
 courage every day. Throughout the whole country 
 your name is never pronounced without veneration, 
 whilst Aleander (31) was nearly being stoned at 
 Mayence. I have written to Spalatin, to induce 
 him to endeavour to ascertain the designs of your 
 prince : endeavour yourself, I entreat you, to ascer- 
 tain these. It would be a great point for us to 
 learn that, in case of need, he would come to our 
 assistance, or at least would give us an asylum in 
 his states. As soon as I shall be assured on this 
 point, I shall fly to you ; because I cannot resist my 
 desire to see at length a man whom I love so much 
 for his virtues.' 
 
 XXII. 
 
 IHE Diet of Worms had a decisive influence 
 upon subsequent events. It drove, it 
 compelled to violence, a revolution which 
 had hitherto been purely pacific, and which bade fair 
 to transform the whole face of Germany by the 
 force of argument alone. We do not, then, depart 
 from our subject when we pause for a little to con- 
 sider it. Besides, we shall thus contemplate one 
 of the most magnificent scenes in the drama of his- 
 tory. 
 
THE DIET OP WORMS. HI 
 
 We have seen that, for Charles V., the question 
 which agitated Germany, which shook to its deepest 
 foundations the ancient fabric of Christian Europe, 
 resolved itself into a somewhat paltry calculation 
 of a purely material policy. Luther might serve 
 him, either to hold the Pope in check, or to reward 
 him for his alliance. This policy was frankly 
 avowed by the imperial minister to the nuncio who 
 brought him the bulls against Luther : ' The Em- 
 peror will exert himself to the uttermost to do what 
 is agreeable to the Pope, if on his side the Pope will 
 show himself the friend of the Emperor, and will 
 not negotiate with his enemies.' At Rome this was 
 perfectly well understood. They therefore never 
 attempted to work upon the conscience of Charles 
 V. : they appealed to his interests alone ; and em- 
 ployed means even still less justifiable. They put 
 at the disposition of the legate Aleander, all the 
 means of corruption which appeared to him likely 
 to be successful in gaining over the ministers of the 
 Emperor and in bribing the Diet. He bestowed 
 on a bishop, who had great influence at court, a 
 benefice already promised' to another ; he paid a 
 secretary of the Emperor for good and secret services ; 
 he even went the length of bribing the door-keepers, 
 in order that they might intercept Luther's books. 
 And he made a parade of all these villanies with 
 the most barefaced impudence. He boasted of 
 
11^' ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 having obtained, bj'' cunning and activity, that the 
 works of Luther should be burned in Flanders. 
 ' The Emperor and his councillors,' he exclaimed, 
 ' will see the glare of the pile before they clearly 
 understand that they have given the order to kindle 
 
 it; 
 
 The ability of this man was not, as we shall see, 
 without its effect in obtaining the famous Edict of 
 Worms. As to Charles V., they made sure of his 
 concurrence in the following manner : — The Cortes 
 of Arragon, after long efforts, had succeeded in ob- 
 taining a papal brief which modified the organiza- 
 tion and the procedure of the Inquisition, and 
 assimilated them to the common law. The Inquisi- 
 tion was the chief pillar of the Spanish crown ; all 
 that tended to diminish its implacable and arbitrary 
 rigour appeared to Charles V. to threaten the sta- 
 bility of his throne. He therefore vehemently 
 protested against the papal brief. The Pope re- 
 voked it ; and, in return, the Emperor engaged to 
 execute the bull against Luther (32). An instruc- 
 tive and curious reconciliation : religious despotism 
 clasps the hand of political tyranny ; the suspen- 
 sion of all progress in Spain, is the price of the 
 suppression of the Reformation niovement in Ger- 
 many. There is an intimate connection between 
 all liberties, and between all despotisms ! 
 
 But in Germany, nothing could be done without 
 
THE DIET OF WORMS. 113 
 
 the Diet. They feared its opposition ; because, 
 for a century past, it had never assembled without 
 directing against the corruptions of the Church, re- 
 monstrances which were always useless, but whose 
 energy was constantly increasing. They wished 
 to make short work of the matter. Accord- 
 ingly, one day, when a tournament had been an- 
 nounced, and all the preparations made, the 
 Emperor suddenly summoned the princes together, 
 and read to them the bull against Luther, and the 
 edict which was to put it into execution. We may 
 imagine the excitement which this unexpected pro- 
 ceeding produced among the assemblage. The 
 Emperor wished immediately to publish the edict, 
 according to the advice of the theologians, Aleander 
 and Eck, ' He is condemned,' said they ; ' what 
 further is required ? ' But the Diet was more diffi- 
 cult to satisfy. Although, perhaps, the majority 
 were not opposed to the condemnation, they felt 
 strongly that that condemnation, pronounced in 
 the absence of Luther, and without his having had 
 an opportunity of defending himself, would be an 
 outrage to the public conscience. They demanded 
 that Luther should be cited, that he should have a 
 safe-conduct, that he should be heard ; declaring, 
 besides, that they would accept the edict if Luther 
 persisted, not in his attacks against the corruptions 
 of the church (on that point all were agreed with 
 
 H 
 
1 14 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 him), but ' in his doctrines, contrary to the faith 
 which our fathers and ancestors have transnaitted 
 to us.' 
 
 The citation was given with this understanding, 
 and an imperial herald repaired to Wittemberg to 
 seek Luther. Many hoped that that great man 
 would retract, that he would content himself with 
 insisting on the reformation of the church, so 
 popular in Germany, and in fact so generally de- 
 sired. But Luther had other designs : no con- 
 sideration, no seduction, no personal fear, could 
 make him desert what he considered to be the 
 truth. 
 
 He set out immediately in a carriage, with which 
 the town of Wittemberg furnished him. By the 
 way, he could read on all the walls the imperial 
 mandate which condemned his books. This was 
 well calculated to inspire apprehension ; and the 
 imperial herald himself, distrusting the safe-con- 
 duct, asked him at Weimar, whether he would not 
 desire to return. At the first halting-place, a coun- 
 cillor of his patron, the Elector of Saxony, came to 
 him to say, that it would be better for him not 
 to go farther, as he ran the risk of experiencing 
 the fate of Huss. To all which the Reformer re- 
 plied, ' Huss has perished, but not the truth. I 
 shall go, if I should have against me as many devils 
 as there are tiles on the house-top's of Worms ! ' 
 
THE DIET OP WORMS. 115 
 
 On Thursday, the 16th April 1521, at mid-day, 
 the warden of the gate-tower sounded the trumpet, 
 to announce the arrival of Luther. The crowd 
 threw itself upon his path. He sat in his carriage 
 bareheaded, and in his monkish dress ; before him 
 rode the imperial herald with his tabard, em- 
 broidered with the imperial eagle, hanging over his 
 arm. Luther contemplated -the excited, agitated 
 crowd with a serene countenance. He read in 
 all eyes sympathy for his cause ; his courage rose 
 to confidence ; and when he descended from his 
 carriage, he cried, ' God will be with me.' 
 
 On the morrow, he was summoned before the 
 Diet. The assembly was numerous and splendid. 
 The Emperor, surrounded by six electors, by all the 
 lay and ecclesiastical princes, by the deputies from 
 the cities, and by the most illustrious captains and 
 councillors, expected Luther with visible curio- 
 sity. At the sight of so magnificent an assemblage, 
 the poor monk could not master his emotion. He 
 spoke in a low, suffocated, almost unintelligible 
 voice : many believed that he was terrified. He 
 was asked if he was willing to defend all that was 
 to be found in his books, or to retract something. 
 He demanded delay for reflection. He was granted 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 Next day he again appeared. It was late ; 
 night had fallen ; the torches were lighted. The 
 
11(5 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 assembly was still , more numerous than on tlie 
 previous occasion ; and the concourse of people was 
 so great, that the princes scarcely found room to 
 seat themselves. But now Luther was master of 
 himself: his conscience gave him courage to raise 
 his head in the presence of those princes before 
 whom all bent the knee ; he, too, felt himself a 
 power, and desired to honour by his attitude the 
 truth, of which he was the organ. There was 
 no longer any trembling in his voice, any hesitation 
 in his answers. When they repeated the question 
 of the previous day, he replied in a firm, manly 
 voice, everywhere audible. He divided his books 
 into books of doctrine, books against the abuses of 
 the See of Rome, and polemical books. ' To re- 
 tract the first is impossible, since the bull itself 
 finds much that is good in them ; to retract the 
 second, would be to furnish the Romanists with the 
 means of completely crushing Germany ; to retract 
 the third, would be to encourage my adversaries in 
 their struggle against the truth.' The official of 
 Treves urged him not to refuse all retractation. 
 ' If Arius,' he said, ' had retracted certain errors, 
 it would not have been necessary to burn his good 
 books with his bad ones : they would find means to 
 save his works, if he consented to expunge what 
 had been condemned by the Council of Constance.' 
 We see that Germany willingly subordinated the 
 
THE DIET OF WORMS. 117 
 
 infallibility of the Pope to that of councils. But 
 Luther believed in neither the one nor the other. 
 He answered, ' A council also may err.' And, upon 
 this being denied by the official, he offered to prove 
 that councils might err, and had erred. They did 
 not wish to begin that debate. The official de- 
 manded, for the last time, of Luther, if he was will- 
 ing tq maintain all that was in his books, or to 
 retract their contents, whoUy or partially ; sternly 
 declaring to him, that if he declined all retractation, 
 the Empire would know well how to treat an 
 obstinate heretic. Luther had expected, and was 
 prepared for, a discussion, a refutation ; but when 
 he saw that the sole question lay between his con- 
 demning himself or being condemned, his noble 
 heart became only the more determined. He re- 
 plied, calmly, ' If I am not convicted of error by 
 , the text of the Holy Scriptures, I cannot, and I 
 will not retract: my conscience is bound by the 
 word of Grod. By that I hold ; I cannot do other- 
 wise. May God help me. Amen.' 
 
 The spectacle of that noble attitude thrilled 
 through the heart of all Germany. She felt that 
 she had a worthy representative in her apostle. 
 Her warriors admired his courage. When he en- 
 tered the hall of the Diet, the veteran Freundsberg 
 clapped him on the shoulder in token of sympathy. 
 During the sitting, the brave Eric of Brunswick, 
 
118 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 seeing him stifled by the heat, brought him beer in 
 a silver cup. When he went out, he heard a voice 
 exclaiming, ' Blessed be the mother who bore thee ! ' 
 The princes visited and conversed familiarly with 
 him in his retirement. Elsewhere, the opposition 
 assumed a more menacing aspect. Billets were 
 found in the Emperor's apartments bearing this 
 inscription : ' Woe to the country whose king is a 
 child.' Placards on the walls of the town, announced 
 to the Romanists that 400 knights were leagued 
 against them for the defence of oppressed honour 
 and law, and the just cause of Luther. ' I write 
 badly, but I act with vigour. I have 8000 men at 
 my back ! Bundschuh ! Bundschuh !....' That 
 formidable war-cry of the Swabian peasants was 
 recalled. Resounding at that place, at that mo- 
 ment, it seemed to announce the alliance of the 
 knights and of the peasantry in favour of reform, — 
 an alliance often attempted, never realized. The 
 courtiers felt themselves ill at ease in the midst of 
 a population so violently excited. The wisest 
 among them still wished to attempt a compromise. 
 Also, when the Emperor proposed directly to the 
 Diet to treat Luther as a convicted heretic, the Diet 
 demanded a delay of some days. These were em- 
 ployed in bringing all meians to bear upon Luther. 
 They entreated him to retract at least his opinions 
 upon councils, and to accept the Emperor and the 
 
THE DIET OF WORMS. 119 
 
 Diet as judges of his doctrine. To the first pro- 
 posal he answered, ' Yes, Huss has been unjustly 
 condemned ; ' to the second, ' 1 cannot accept men 
 for judges of the word of God.' Nothing could 
 shake his resolution, and he departed, leaving the 
 Diet in the most violent agitation. 
 
 A decision, however, remained to be taken. The 
 Diet did not seem inclined to adhere to its former 
 resolution. Many regretted it : the presence and 
 the courage of Luther had excited vivid sympathy, 
 and the unmistakeable expression of public opinion 
 weighed upon the minds of a great number of the 
 members of the Diet. The result of the definitive 
 vote was, at any rate, doubtful. To turn it against 
 Luther, his enemies had recourse to the means re- 
 commended by Aleander, cunning and promptitude. 
 
 For a long time there had been no dispute about 
 anything. The Diet had finished its labours, and 
 many of its members had gone away. On the 25th 
 of May, the Emperor repaired to the hall of meet- 
 ing, to go through the formality of the ratification 
 of his decisions, and requested the Diet to protract 
 its sittings for three days longer, in order to dispose 
 of some affairs still pending. According to custom, 
 the assembly escorted the Emperor, on his going out, 
 as far as the episcopal palace, where he lodged. 
 The Elector of Saxony and the Elector Palatine had 
 already departed ; the other four Electors were pre- 
 
120 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 sent. At the palace they found the papal nuncios, 
 who delivered to them briefs addressed to them. 
 Whilst they were discussing this extraordinary pro- 
 ceeding, the Emperor informed them that he had 
 caused an edict to be drawn up with regard to 
 Luther, in conformity with their previous decision, 
 and ordered it to be read forthwith to the members 
 of the Diet who were present. Either from being 
 thus taken by surprise, or from conviction, no one 
 made any objection ; and the Elector of Branden- 
 burg admitted that the edict was really agreeable 
 to the previously expressed opinion of the Diet. 
 Aleander lost no time in drawing up the act. That 
 very day he made two copies, one in Latin and the 
 other in German; and next day-^a Sunday — he 
 followed the Emperor even to the church, in order 
 more speedily to obtain his signature. In short, to 
 give a last specimen of his machinations : the edict 
 was drawn up on the 26th of May ; Aleander found 
 it useful to antedate it on the 8th May, a day on 
 which the Diet still consisted of a sufficient number 
 of members. 
 
 Such is that famous legislative act, not submit- 
 ted to the assembled Diet, not deliberated upon, 
 not voted, but extorted by surprise from some mem- 
 bers brought together by chance, many of whom 
 would unquestionably have repudiated it if they 
 had been able to consult together. ' Happy sur- 
 
THE EDICT OF WORMS. 121 
 
 prise,' piously exclaims a Koman Catholic writer, 
 ' which has prevented the princes from perjuring 
 themselves ! ' ^ 
 
 The edict was as violent as possible. Luther 
 was put under the ban of the Empire, as a member 
 cut off from the church of God ; and all his adhe- 
 rents, protectors, and friends were included in the 
 same sentence. His writings, and those of his par- 
 tisans, were to be burnt ; and in order to prevent 
 any more copies from appearing, the censorship was 
 established on all printed works. 
 
 This edict, however, did not arrest the progress 
 of the Eeformation ; it did not deprive Luther of 
 a single partisan : on the contrary, the public con- 
 science revolted against such violence, and set itself, 
 throughout all Germany, to oppose its execution. 
 The circulation of the works of Luther and his 
 friends went on increasing more and more, in spite 
 of the censorship, in spite of the flames. One argu- 
 ment which is incessantly reappearing under the 
 pen of these writers, and which seems to have pro- 
 duced the most powerful effect, is this : ' Why 
 have they not refuted Luther at Worms ? ' It was 
 found impossible to persuade the strong sense of 
 justice in the nation, to accept a condemnation as 
 a substitute for a refutation. A swarm of pam- 
 
 1 C. Riffel, Christliche KirchengescMohte der neusten Zeit, t. i. p. 
 214. 
 
122 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 phlets was circulated throughout the country : but 
 the risk was great ; and all the authors remained 
 anonymous. Hutten alone dared to sign his brochure. 
 It assailed no less a person than Aleander himself, 
 the author of the edict and the papal legate, and 
 inflicted on him the severe chastisement of indignant 
 patriotism and virtue.^ 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 UTTEN had not waited until this time, 
 in order to stir still more profoundly 
 public opinion, already so strongly ex- 
 cited. Since the opening of the Diet, he had 
 published four new dialogues : the Bull, the First 
 Monitor] the Second Monitor, the Brigands. The 
 Second Monitor and^ the Brigands are the mosfun- 
 portant of these writings : there are none which 
 throw more light on the projects of Hutten and his 
 friends. The speakers of the Monitor are the 
 Monitor and Sickingen. 
 
 The Monitor warns Sickingen of the evil reports 
 which are spread abroad with regard to him. They 
 
 ' The greater part of this chapter is translated from Ranke's History 
 of Germany at the time of the Reformation, one of those books which 
 deserve to be better known in France. 
 
THE SECOND MONITOR. 123 
 
 suspect him of heresy, because he protects Luther 
 and entertains Hutten; they fear that he is pre- 
 paring some enterprise against the Pope, the bishops, 
 and the clergy : ' It is a dangerous game ; remember 
 the proverb : No one has been the better for attack- 
 ing the priests ! ' 
 
 Sickingen. — ' That proverb has often hed. For 
 proof of which, I need only refer to John Ziska, the 
 invincible chief of the Hussites, in that long war 
 against the priests. Has he not the renown of a 
 great captain ? Has he not the glory of having de- 
 livered his country from tyranny, purged Bohemia 
 from these lazy priests and monks, and restored 
 their goods in part to the heirs of the too generous 
 donors ? Has he not freed his country from the 
 exactions of the Popes, and avenged the death" of 
 Huss, that holy man assassinated by the priests ? 
 And is it not well known that, in all his great 
 undertakings, he never consulted his own advan- 
 tage, — ^that he thought only of his native country 
 and of religion ? Besides, after having been for- 
 tunate in all his enterprises, he died amidst the 
 grief and tears of his fellow-countrymen.' 
 
 The Monitor. — ' It would really seem as if you 
 were about to follow his example.' 
 
 Sickingen. — ' And why not ? If the clergy will 
 not listen to our counsels, nor to our brotherly 
 rebukes, we must at last have recourse to force.' 
 
124: ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 The Monitor. — 'But supposing that the Emperor 
 forbids you?' 
 
 SicUngen. — ' I shall not the less persist in my 
 design. I act like those who, before constructing 
 an edifice, calculate for a long time what it wiU 
 cost, but who, the plan once determined on, carry 
 it out to the end. Assuredly, I shall pay no atten- 
 tion to what perfidious or ignorant councillors now 
 advise the Emperor, but to what he will approve 
 of hereafter, when he will be older, and entertain 
 more mature views. If our young Emperor had a 
 burning fever, and asked me to give him cold 
 water, should I give it to him ? I am too faithful 
 and devoted a servant to do anjrthing that could 
 hurt him : to refuse to obey, is often the truest 
 obedience. It would be best that the Emperor 
 should not intermeddle with religious affairs. If, 
 according to the selfish counsel of priests, he 
 had not interfered with the natural course of 
 events, the knowledge of Gospel doctrine, spread 
 abroad by Luther, would have gradually improved 
 mankind, have restored the imperial dignity, and 
 driven the perverse and pernicious Romanists from 
 the whole of Germany. His resolutions are in the 
 hand of God. But, for my part, I shall always 
 seek to serve rather than to flatter him. If he 
 commanded me to do something against my con- 
 science, I would publicly refuse obedience ; for we 
 
THE SECOND MONITOR. 125 
 
 must obey God rather than man, especially when 
 the matter relates to religion. If, then, I see that 
 there is no hope from the Emperor, I shall attempt 
 the enterprise at my own risk and peril, whatever 
 may be the result.' 
 
 The Monitor. — ' And towards that noble under- 
 taking, you have a warm counsellor in your friend 
 Ulrich von Hutten. He cannot endure any delay, 
 and takes all the trouble in the world to draw down 
 the tempest upon the heads of his enemies.' 
 
 Sickingen. — ' Yes, assuredly : his services are pre- 
 cious to me ; he has the spirit necessary for such 
 undertakings.' 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 I HAT, then, was the support upon which 
 the two friends relied ? The Emperor 
 was led away by the exigencies of his 
 political position, and by the impatient promptings 
 of his ambition; the princes were indifferent, timid, 
 or gained over by the court of Rome. What then 
 remained ? Two great forces : the nobility and the 
 people, especially the people of the cities ; for, at 
 that epoch, scarcely even the bravest dared to con- 
 template the mighty mass of the rural population, 
 
126 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 SO violently agitated by the breath of the Reforma- 
 tion. The important question was, to ascertain if 
 a combination could be effected between the two, 
 in some degree, regular forces of lay society, 
 divided by so many prejudices, and by so many 
 just grounds of complaint. This was one of the 
 subjects which most profoundly occupied the mind 
 of Hutten. The first attempt which he made to 
 bring about so necessary a reconciliation, was the 
 dialogue which had for its title the Briga nds. The 
 speakers are Hutten, Sickingen, and an agent- of 
 the great house of the Fuggers (33) at Augsburg. 
 Hutten finds fault with the merchant, because he 
 has termed the knights brigands. Sickingen inter- 
 poses, calming his fiery friend, and thus addressing 
 himself to the merchant : 
 
 ' So far as concerns myself, I have no need of 
 justification. Germany knows it, and history has 
 taken note of it. I have never done harm to any 
 man without declaring war against him. — The 
 Merchant: But by what right do you declare war? 
 That reason does not excuse you. — Sickingen : How ! 
 do you say that we have no right to make war 
 after declaring it ? — The Merchant : No ! not with- 
 out the permission of the princes. — Sickingen: I 
 shall then ask you : must we preserve the nobility ? 
 — The Merchant : Yes, I think so. — Sickingen : Are 
 the princes alone noble? — The Merchant: No, 
 
THE BRIGANDS. 127 
 
 assuredly. I reckon also among the nobility the 
 counts, and even the simple knights, such as you 
 are, so far as you act honourably ; for it has for a 
 long time been my opinion, that nobility consists 
 only in' acliag--honourably>^;S^c^m^OT ; "You are 
 right. I also think that honour and virtue are not 
 hereditary ; and that whoever has been guilty of a 
 shameful action, ought to be blotted out from the 
 ranks of the nobility, even were he a prince. Not 
 to imitate the glorious ancestors who have con- 
 quered nobUity, is to lose it. I utterly despise all 
 the pretended nobles, who have many quarterings, 
 but few personal services — many ancestral pictures, 
 and no crown around their own foreheads. I shall 
 never consider as my equal, were he my nearest 
 relation, a man with a stain on his life. But what 
 do you term virtue in the nobility ? — The Merchant: 
 Valour is commonly considered to be so. — Sickingen : 
 You mean warlike virtue ; but what, in your 
 opinion, is warlike virtue ? — The Merchant : Valour 
 in the service of the right cause. — Sickingen : Very 
 good ; and I draw this conclusion : alj^men are 
 equal_-by-- nature; but the most virtuous are the 
 most noble. You will also granFine7~thatTrman is so 
 much the more noble, just in proportion as he more 
 warmly defends the right. And lastly, you will 
 agree that if the defence of the right belongs more 
 especially to princes, it also belongs to nobles, since 
 
128 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 it is by that, according to your own statement, that 
 they are noble. — The Merchant: Agreed, but on 
 condition that you fight only under the orders of 
 the princes. — Sickingen : But if they never order, if 
 they are all absorbed in their private interests, in- 
 different to the general well-being, shall we not 
 then make war ourselves ? — The Merchant : It must 
 be admitted that, under these circumstances, 
 you possess the right to do so. — Sickingen: And 
 if, when some one wishes to do you wrong, I 
 avert that peril without awaiting the order of 
 the princes, shall I not be acting rightly? — The 
 Merchant : That would only be just. — Sickingen : 
 You see, then, how far it would be doing us wrong, 
 to deprive us of the only thing by which we are 
 noble, — I mean the power of defending the right by 
 arms. Because therein is our law and our duty : 
 to succour the unfortunate, to raise up the op- 
 pressed, to avenge those who have been unjustly 
 injured, to make head against the wicked, to pro- 
 tect widows and orphans. We do not blush to 
 rank behind the princes ; and we serve them faith- 
 fully, when we have voluntarily agreed to serve 
 them. Beyond that, we recognise no other lord 
 than the Emperor : in him we see the defender of 
 the public liberty. But if the Emperor himself 
 ordered us to do something contrary to right and 
 justice, it would be our duty to refuse him obedi- 
 
THE BRIGANDS. 129 
 
 ence. Hq would himself tell you, if you could ask 
 him, that he has not the right to order anj'^thing 
 unjust, or to oppose anything just; and if the 
 Emperor possesses not that right, how should the 
 princes possess it ? ' 
 
 I doubt whether this somewhat sophistical 
 apology converted the merchant. How very differ- 
 ent were the facts of the case from that ideal of 
 nobility, which the knight depicts in such magnifi- 
 cent language ! The claim of the nobles to main- 
 tain their turbulent anarchy, explains the backward- 
 ness of the citizens of -the great towns in this first 
 episode of the long war for liberty of conscience. 
 But it is the biographer's duty to combine all the 
 traits which form the picture, and not to remove 
 men from the midst of the age in which they lived 
 and acted, in order to give them the ideas and the 
 passions of another time. 
 
 Sickingen at length assumes the offensive. ' The 
 great robbers are not those whom they hang on a 
 gibbet: they are the priests and the monks, the 
 chancellors and the doctors, the great merchants, 
 especially the Fuggers.' — The Merchant: -'How? 
 We thieves ! We, who so thoroughly detest the 
 knights on account of their brigandage ! ' — Sickin- 
 gen : ' Yes, assuredly ; you do not steal by open 
 force, but by secret and underhand practices. Have 
 not your masteirs, the Fuggers, by all means, just 
 
 I 
 
130 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 and unjust, excluded the other merchants from 
 commerce with the Indies, in order that they alone 
 may be enriched by the importation of commodi- 
 ties equally injurious to the health and the morals 
 of the country? Is it not the wish of all good 
 citizens to see this public plague driven out ? Or 
 will you venture to maintain that it is not theft 
 to inundate Germany with money under the just 
 weight, to monopolize the traffic with the Indies, 
 to add to it the traffic in papal dispensations, in 
 indulgences, in benefices, — to pour forth upon Ger- 
 many all these drugs, and to receive in exchange 
 for them solid crowns ? ' 
 
 ' But still more dangerous robbers are the doctors 
 and the chancellors of the princes, all these Rabu- 
 lists (34), who, of late years, have pounced upon 
 our native country. Old men often recall the happy 
 time when that leprosy was unknown; and now 
 they are everywhere, they steal everywhere — in the 
 courts of the princes, in the senates and assem- 
 blies of the towns, in every meeting, public or 
 private, in peace, in war ! And as to those who> pre- 
 side in the tribunals ! They are always seeking the 
 right and never finding it; they mould the laws 
 like soft wax, and turn them to their own profit : 
 between their venal hands the unjust becomes the 
 just. They do more harm to Germany than the 
 most disastrous war ; and it would be better to cut 
 
THE BRIGANDS. 131 
 
 short our processes by arms than by their false and 
 contradictory science. What happiness, if we could 
 one day see all these doctors chased away, and all 
 their books burnt ! ' 
 
 ' Let us, however, be just : there are robbers still 
 more pernicious in our unhappy country ; such are 
 the bishops, the canons, an.d the monks. Not con- 
 tent with having appropriated the richest and most 
 beautiful part of Germany, with being gorged with 
 wealth which they waste in criminal wars and 
 in the most shameful pleasures, they corrupt the 
 intellect and the heart of the people by superstition 
 and by their evil example, abhor the science which 
 would open the eyes of the nation, and render still 
 more intolerable the yoke of the Popes, whose crea- 
 tures they are. Have they not the audacity to 
 maintain that the Vicar of Christ may change, ex- 
 tend, and limit the doctrine of the Saviour; condemn 
 the most virtuous men ; sanctify the most wicked ; 
 do, or omit to do, whatever he chooses, without 
 any daring to complain! When we shall have 
 broken the chains of the Romish tyranny, forced 
 the priests to perform their duties, applied to the 
 pubhc use the revenues of the bishops, the canons 
 and the monks, and the treasures of the churches, 
 and abolished all the religious orders, then only will 
 Germany be free and happy. But the princes are 
 the obstacle in the way of this result, because 
 
Iu2 ULRICH VON liUTTEN. 
 
 they have their relations in the bishoprics, and 
 fear to see them thrown on their hands.' 
 
 The Merchant : ' Therefore it is that such a 
 noble and useful enterprise cannot be conducted to 
 a successful issue.' Hutten : ' It is so much the 
 more necessary that the knights should make the 
 most favourable arrangement that they can with the 
 cities, and should conclude an alliance with them. 
 The cities are rich and powerful, and full of ardour for 
 liberty. With their concurrence we can commence 
 the war, the most just of wars, against our tyrants ; 
 for, if we have always considered it a duty to combat 
 every description of tyranny, how much more ought 
 we to rebel against those tyrants who attack not 
 only our property, but also our faith and our re- 
 ligion, and who snatch from us the truth, and wish 
 to destroy us body and soul ! For my own part, 
 what I desire is, that this war should begin to-day 
 rather than to-morrow.' 
 
 And Sickingen calmly replies.' 'Assuredly I 
 shall second you with all my power when the 
 moment shall have come. But you are in too great 
 a hurry : if we yielded to your impatience, we 
 should be crushed at the commencement of our 
 undertaking. Besides, you have no cause to fear 
 that this war will be too long delayed. By Luther 
 and by you, Germany has been awakened from the 
 profound sleep in which she was wrapped. The 
 
THE PRINCES AND THE KEFORMATION. 133 
 
 hour approaches which will be the most favourable 
 for this great work.' 
 
 XXV. 
 
 HAVE given the greater part of this 
 dialogue, because it explains the senti- 
 ments of the two friends, their projects, 
 and the assistance upon which they believed that 
 they might rely. Their enterprise failed ; and the 
 triumph of religious liberty came from a quarter from 
 which no one expected it. The Reformation had 
 made especial progress in the country, in the cities, 
 and ainong the lower ranks of the nobility : -the 
 princes were hostile or indifferent to it. Besides 
 placing their younger sons in the best bishoprics^ 
 they found the court of Rome very complaisant in| 
 granting all the concessions which they coveted : 
 history informs us that the first secularizations 
 of church property were made without opposition 
 on the part of the Pope, in the most Catholic coun- 
 tries, — in Bavaria, for example, and in the here- 
 ditary estates of Austria. The princes were also 
 well aware of the fact, that, at the root of the 
 Reformation, in its early period, there was a mighty 
 movement of national unity, entirely opposed to 
 the constitution of principalities, and t6 the estab- 
 
134 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 lishment of that oligarchical government which, for 
 more than a century, the Electors had not ceased 
 to aim at. What was necessary to change all this ? 
 Two things : the ruin of the lesser nobility by the 
 defeat of Sickingen ; and the determination of the 
 Einperor to side with the Pope, to refuse the sup- 
 port which the religious revolution offered him, 
 and to throw himself, the representative of national 
 unity, into the arms of the foreign oppressor. At 
 this time, some of the princes declared themselves 
 in favour of the Reformation ; and if, in so doing, 
 they followed the impulse of their consciences, it is 
 not the less certain-that, for them, the Reformation 
 was also a political instrument which led them to 
 the goal at which they aimed. But none then fore- 
 boded the impending revolution of the wheel of for- 
 tune. Hutten, who was always an enemy to political 
 selfishness, and Sickingen, the last and most illus- 
 trious representative of the lesser nobility against the 
 sovereignty of the princes, foresaw it less than any. 
 It would seem that, after the edict of Worms, they 
 ought to have lost all hope of obtaining the assist- 
 ance of the Emperor. His support was, however, 
 so necessary, and the idea of which he was the in- 
 carnation was so rooted in their hearts, that they 
 unceasingly returned to it. For a moment, they 
 might yet believe that it would be possilale to gain 
 him over to their cause. 
 
GLAPIO. 135 
 
 Charles V., after having sacrificed Luther to the 
 Pope, in orderto make an enemy the more to Francis 
 I., wished to make use of the talents of Sickingen, 
 the energy of Hutten, and their influence over the 
 nobility, for the same purpose. He sent to them, 
 at the castle of Bbernburg, bis confessor, Glapio. 
 Glapio was really a very enlightened man, and as 
 thoroughly convinced as any one could be, of the 
 necessity of applying a remedy to the diseases of 
 the church. It is said that he had menaced Charles 
 with the wrath of Heaven if he did not correct 
 them ; but when he saw the tendency of Luther's 
 doctrines, he became one of. his most vehement 
 persecutors. ■ It may well be believed, however, 
 that he showed himself in quite another light to 
 the two friends. ' Never,' says Hutten,. ' was there 
 a greater hypocrite ; everything about him was de- 
 ception — the expression, the eyes, the mouth, the 
 speech, and the gestures.. He suited himself to all 
 situations, and changed according to circumstances. 
 "It is certain," said he to us, "that Luther has 
 opened the gate through which aU Christians have 
 arrived at the true knowledge of the holy Scrip- 
 tures." And when I demanded of himt what fault 
 lie had Committed that could be put in competi- 
 tion with such a benefit, he replied, " In truth I 
 see none." And, notwithstanding, he has insisted 
 more vehemently than any one, that Luther should 
 
136 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 be condemned without being allowed an opportu- 
 nity of justifying himself, without even a hearing.' 
 
 It is improbable that this singular ambassador 
 would have gained over the two friends, if they had 
 not seen, in the overtures made by the Emperor, a 
 last chance of attaching him to their party. Sickin- 
 gen raised an army of 3000 cavalry and 12,000 
 infantry. He wished, by a bold march, to penetrate 
 into the heart of France ; but the Count of Nassau, 
 to whom he held a subordinate command, insisted 
 upon besieging M^zieres. There, Bayard and Sic- 
 kingen, the two last representatives of the chivalry 
 of France and Germany, worthy of each other's 
 rivalry and of each other's friendship, found them- 
 selves opposed. The Imperialists were repulsed. 
 Sickingen lost in this expedition the sum he had 
 expended in raising his army, and the hope of 
 attaching the Emperor by gratitude for his services. 
 
 The desire of wiping out the stain given to his 
 reputation by this defeat, and perhaps also of re- 
 cruiting his exhausted finances, added to the reli- 
 gious tnotives which impelled Sickingen to com- 
 mence the war against the priests ; because it must 
 be admitted that this hero loved money, and liked 
 to amass it. But the aid of the Emperor hopelessly 
 gone, it became only the more necessary to com- 
 bine all the elements of opposition. The Rhenish 
 knights, assembled at Landau on the summons of 
 
THE NEW KAESTHANS. 137 
 
 Hutten and Sickingen, formed a league for the de- 
 fence of their interests, and undoubtedly, also, for 
 those of the Reformation : they elected Sickingen as 
 their chief At the same time, a number of writings 
 were circulated among the people, in order to rouse 
 them to action. Among these, there is one of 
 which Hutten appears to be the author, and which 
 deserves to occupy our attention. It is still in the 
 form of a dialogue, entitled the N&w Karsthans, the 
 supplement to another Karsthans, written in the 
 Alsacian dialect by an unknown author. It ap- 
 pears, however, that this Karsthans was a real and 
 a popular personage, a peasant who traversed the 
 countries bordering on the Rhine, preaching the 
 doctrines of Luther. 
 
 The speakers in the New Karsthans are Sickin- 
 gen and the pe&,sant. The knight asks the latter 
 why he has an air of so much anxiety. ' How can 
 I be gay with these priests, who harass us in every 
 way ? I no longer know what to do ; and if this 
 lasts, I shall forget myself grossly ; for truly their 
 conduct passes a joke.' Sickingen exhorts him 
 to take courage, and tells him that the face of 
 affairs may, before long, be entirely changed. But 
 the peasant has not much hope. Then follows a 
 dialogue, in which the speakers, by turns, expose 
 the exactions of the priests, their avarice, their 
 luxury, their whole conduct, so opposed to the doc- 
 
138 ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 trines of Christ. Karsthaiis frequently interrupts 
 himself in order to exclaim: 'Ah! then it will 
 truly be necessary that afflictions come ! ' Both 
 are agreed that the Pope is Antichrist, that the 
 nobQity and the people are ruined by the priests, 
 and that this state of things cannot last. It will 
 therefore be necessary to employ force if the priests 
 will not listen to reason. ' He was no fool, that 
 Ziska,' says the peasant, ' when he demolished the 
 churches ; if he had left them standing, his predic- 
 tion to the Bohemians would assuredly have been 
 verified. He said to them : " Leave the nests, and 
 in ten years you will find the birds " (35). I cannot 
 help admiring him for having chased away and 
 extirpated all the monks, these insatiable slug- 
 gards, from whom come all our woes.' Sickingen 
 is also of opinion that the chapters, convents, and 
 perpetual foundations, must be suppressed.^ — Karst- 
 hans : ' That would have happened a long time 
 ago to the whole brood, if the nobility had been 
 willing; but you were not willing.' — At the end of 
 the dialogue are thirty articles, gages of the alliance 
 solemnly sworn between Karsthans and the knights 
 Hulfreich and Heintz. They are of extreme auda- 
 city, and we afterwards find them among the docu- 
 ments of the peasants, in their great insurrection. 
 
 I can only mention a poem addressed to the free 
 towns, to induce them to combine with the lesser 
 
THE WAR OP EELIGION BEGINS. 139 
 
 nobility against the usurpations and violence of the 
 princes, and a letter of Hutten to the town of 
 Worms, which we may consider as an overture 
 made by Sickingen to his oldest enemies. At that 
 critical moment, the two knights perhaps felt, in 
 the same degree, the desire of strengthening their 
 cause by gaining new allies, and that of reconciling 
 themselves with their former enemies. Men do not 
 begin so mighty an enterprise without bethinking 
 them of the chance of death. 
 
 After the publication of these last mentioned writ- 
 ings, the war of religion commenced, to be no more 
 interrupted, except by truces, until 1648. Who 
 can deny the oceans of blood which that age-long 
 war. cost Germany and the whole of Europe ? (36). 
 But it is the fatality_of history thai; the past may 
 not give way to the^ future ^?ithout violence. Must 
 the truth therefore hide her face, must the future 
 be kept back, must progress be arrested ? May the 
 blood shed fall upon the heads of those who have 
 not had ' the wisdom to withdraw in time ! And 
 we who, after having given so many examples to 
 the world, are to-day reduced to receive them, may 
 that solemn, heroic strife- confirm us in our faith ! 
 The dead alone sleep in their tombs; the living 
 live; and to live is to strive, and, alas! to suffer.^ 
 Happy those who, in times of civil strife, and of 
 wars for conscience' sake, strive and suffer for the 
 
140 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 truth ! The champions of the future, happy, even 
 in their sufferings ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 VARIETY of causes contributed to the 
 failure of the first war of the Reformation. 
 The two friends and their ardent associ- 
 ates at Ebemburg had calculated everything, ex- 
 cept time, which matures the thoughts of men, and 
 ripens their fruits. And then, too, it must be con- 
 fessed, that their foundation was not laid on firm 
 ground. To unite the reformation of religion with 
 the restoration, of the nobility, was to seek to attach 
 the future to"" the past, the living to the dead. In 
 this way, the Reformation made itself suspected by 
 the cities and by the peasantry, as well as odious 
 to the princes. It aspired to give an impulse to the 
 world along the path of progress, and itself retro- 
 graded several centuries. Political and religious re- 
 formation assuredly ought not to be separated ; but 
 it was the misfortune of that early period, that the 
 Reformation allied itself to a policy contradictory 
 to its instincts, and to the wants of the age. Hut- 
 ten wished to give a mighty impulse to liberty, as 
 all his writings testify. Emancipated from the 
 
SICKINGEN ATTACKS TKEVES. 141 
 
 prejudices of the nobility, he boasts of the liberal 
 spirit of the towns, and praises it on every occa- 
 sion. He even stretches out the hand of friendship 
 to the passion for independence, which smouldered 
 among the peasantry. And he would not have 
 given utterance to that cruel saying of Luther: 
 ' Better that all the peasants should perish, than 
 that the princes and the magistrates should suffer 
 any injury; for the peasants have taken up the 
 sword against the will of God ! ' But his friends 
 and allies had not shaken off their ancient hatreds 
 and their hereditary pride : what they especially 
 "wished, was the re- establishment of the feudal 
 anarchy crushed by the sovereignty of the princes ; 
 and it was this that the peasantry (37) and the 
 citizens of the great towns detested above every- 
 thing. From that unhappy alliance resulted the 
 ruin of the plans so long organized. Besides, 
 Luther, who possessed political tact in a high 
 degree, refused to combine with his friends. ' The 
 Word has conquered the world,' he exclaimed ; ' the 
 Word shall save it.' Upon which Hutten replied, 
 ' Our paths are different : as for me, I am influenced 
 by purely human considerations ; while you, more 
 perfect, place everything in the hands of God 1 ' 
 
 War resolved upon, Sickingen did not long 
 hesitate as to which enemy he should first attack. 
 He had an old quarrel to settle with the Arch- 
 
142 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 bishop of Treves, and he counted on finding allies 
 among the inhabitants of the country. It was 
 against' him that he directed his forces. To mark 
 clearly the aim and the spirit of his enterprise, he 
 gave as the watchword to his army : Let the will of 
 the Lord he done! And he addressed the following 
 manifesto to the troops of the Archbishop : ' Dear 
 brethren and neighbours, wherefore do you march 
 against me ? Is not my cause yours ? I come to 
 deliver you from the antichristian yoke of priests, 
 to bring you the light of the Gospel, and to make 
 you enjoy Christian liberty, and yet you fight 
 against me ! Like men attacked by a mortal ma- 
 lady, who will not submit to be cured ! Reflect that 
 you are fighting against Christ and His Gospel, and 
 not against me! For Christ and His Gospel I 
 brave death ! May the will of the Lord be done ! ' 
 
 Sickingen encountered a resistance which he did 
 not anticipate ; and the succours which ought to have 
 arrived from Cleves, Cologne, and Brunswick, were 
 crushed before they could join him. At the same 
 time, he learned that the Count Palatine and the 
 Elector of Hesse, were advancing to give him battle 
 under the very walls of Treves. He was compelled 
 to raise the siege. The princes hotly pursued him, 
 and successively destroyed all the castles of his par- 
 tisans. 
 
 As to Sickingen, firmly resolved to prosecute the 
 
DEATH OF SICKINGEN. 143 
 
 war, but feeling all its perils, he separated himself 
 from those of his friends who were most compro- 
 mised, especially from those who, like Hutten and 
 CEcolampadius, had everything to fear, and whose 
 genius was necessary to the cause. Then he shut 
 himself up in the castle of Landstuhl, which was con- 
 sidered impregnable, and in which he hoped to be 
 able to sustain a long siege, and wait the coming of 
 the promised reinforcements. But the besiegers' 
 cannon soon beat down the walls, and battered the 
 castle into a mass of ruins. Sickingen himself was 
 mortally wounded by the fall of a fragment of wall. 
 He made up his mind to capitulate, demanding, 
 according to custom, that he should be allowed to 
 go forth free. The princes refused. ' I shall not be 
 their prisoner long,' he exclaimed, aiid surrendered 
 at discretion. He had scarcely sufficient strength 
 remaining to sign the capitulation. The princes 
 found him dying, stretched under a vault, sole relic 
 of the castle. The Archbishop of Treves said to 
 him, ' Wherefore^ Eranz, have you attacked me 
 and. my poor people?' Sickingen repljed, 'I have 
 an account to render to a more powerful Lord than 
 you.' • His chaplain asked if he wished to confess him- 
 self. He replied^ ' I have confessed tayself to God in 
 my conscience.' The chaplain recited the prayers 
 for the dying, and raised the host. The princes 
 uncovered themselves, and fell upon their knees. 
 
144 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 At that moment the hero expired. The princes 
 repeated a Pater for his soul.' 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 |N leaving Sickingen, Hutten and CEco- 
 lampadius directed their steps towards 
 Switzerland. Without resources, on ac- 
 count of his having given up his fortune to his 
 family, without a country, without a secure refuge, 
 Hutten nevertheless refused a pension of 400 
 crowns offered him by Francis I., with the right of 
 choosing his place of residence. His patriotism 
 recoiled, even in that distress, from the idea of 
 becoming a pensioner on the bounty of the Em- 
 peror's enemy. 
 
 Hutten was warmly welcomed at Basle. The 
 members of the Council, the whole population, 
 thronged around the proscribed unfortunate. Eras- 
 mus alone, his oldest friend, he whom Hutten had 
 once so highly praised, and who formerly had been 
 so proud of his praises, kept aloof from him. He 
 begged Hutten* not to visit him, if it was not 
 absolutely necessary for him to do so. And subse- 
 quently, after the death of Hutten, he had, the 
 
 ^ Ranke, following the Chronicle of Flersheim. 
 
UUTTEN AND ERASMUS. 145 
 
 effrontery to write to Melancthon, ' that he had 
 kept at a distance from Hutten, because he only- 
 sought a nest in which to die ; ' so little is some- 
 times the heart in the greatest intellects ! 
 
 The Bishop and his adherents strongly insisted 
 upon the removal of Hutten. The Senate, not 
 daring to resist, but not wishing to mix themselves 
 up with persecutions which they really detested, 
 requested Hutten to leave the town for the sake of 
 the public peace, and for his own personal safety. 
 He repaired to Mulhausen. The magistrates and 
 the citizens had already decided upon the establish- 
 ment of the Reformation ; and on the 12th March 
 1523, he had the pleasure of assisting in the solemn 
 suppression of the papal power in that city. The 
 sympathy of which he was the object softened 
 the bitterness of his patriotic griefs, and made him 
 forget the malady, which travelling, the uncer- 
 tainty of his position, and so many misfortunes, 
 had rendered more severe than ever, when he re- 
 ceived a letter written by Erasmus, containing fresh 
 insults against himself, mingled with perfidious 
 attacks upon the principal Reformers. This new 
 cowardice roused all his rage; and in a violent 
 pamphlet, whose violence, however, was well de- 
 served, he chastised the weaknesses and compro- 
 mises of conscience, of the man who wished at 
 once to preserve the tranquillity of his private life, 
 
 K 
 
146 ULRICH VON HUTTEN, 
 
 and to sow the seeds of war throughout the world 
 by his writings ! 
 
 The Reformation, however, was not established 
 at Mulhausen without opposition, and without re- 
 action. A disturbance, excited by the priests, 
 compelled Hutten to seek another asylum. He 
 took refuge at Zurich, beside Zwingli, the great 
 Reformer. ' Is this,' writes the latter to Pirck- 
 heimer, ' your terrible Hutten, that destroyer, that 
 conqueror! He who behaves with such sweet- 
 ness towards his friends, towards little children, 
 towards the humblest of men ! How can we be- 
 lieve that a tongue so amiable has raised up such a 
 tempest ! ' 
 
 Hutten's strength was now far spent, and he 
 already felt the approach of death. On the 12th 
 May 1524, he writes to his friend Eoban Hess, at 
 Erfurth : ' Will destiny never cease to pursue me 
 so cruelly ! My only consolation is, that I have 
 courage equal to my misfortunes. Germany, pros- 
 trate as she is, can no longer afford me an asylum : 
 a voluntary exile has conducted me to Switzerland, 
 
 and will perhaps conduct me still farther 
 
 I hope that God will one day reunite alf the friends 
 of the truth, now dispersed throughout the world, 
 and that He will humble our enemies.' We love to 
 cherish the belief, that this hope did not abandon 
 the hero before his last hour, and that it sweetened 
 
DEATH OP HUTTEN. 147 
 
 for him the bitterness of death, far from his native 
 country, far from all he held dear. 
 
 Zwingli had sent Hutten to the little island of 
 Uffnau, to be under the care of the clergyman, who 
 was well acquainted with medicine. There it was 
 that he died, on the 29th August 1524, at the age 
 of thirty-six, in the most complete destitution (38). 
 He is buried in that green isle, at the extremity 
 of the Lake of Zurich, at the feet of the mighty Alps. 
 No monument marks the place where a hero re- 
 poses ; and by an ironical caprice of destiny, the 
 sepulchre of the vehement enemy of monasticism 
 now belongs to the Convent of Einsiedeln. The 
 tears of his friends were not wanting to his memory. 
 Crotus Rubianus, Melancthon, Hess especially, 
 bade him, with tender emotion, an eternal adieu. 
 ' None was a greater enemy of the wicked ; none a 
 more devoted friend of the good.' These words 
 of a man who knew him thoroughly,^ admirably 
 sum up the life of one of the noblest champions of 
 liberty ! 
 
 ^ Eoban Hess, Letter to Draco. 
 
NOTES 
 
 THE TEANSLATOE. 
 
TEANSLATOE'S NOTES. 
 
 Note 1, page 18. 
 
 Crotus RuhiamLs was the bosom friend of Hutten 
 from childhood till death. He was an accom- 
 plished scholar, and a fine vein of satire distin- 
 guished his genius. In his discussions on philo- 
 sophy and literature, Sir William Hamilton has 
 proved, with a rare affluence of learning and acute- 
 ness of argument, that Crotus Rubianus and Her- 
 mannus Buschius had a share, along with Hutten, in 
 the composition of the Epistoloe Ohscurorum virorum. 
 
 Note 2, page 18. 
 
 Eitelwolf von Stein, who so early appreciated the 
 dawning genius of Hutten, was a man of great 
 intelligence and ability, as well as an excellent clas- 
 sical scholar. He was born in Swabia in 1466, and 
 was the first German knight who respected and 
 cultivated the arts of peace, and who attempted to 
 dispel the prejudices of the caste to which he be- 
 longed, which led them to regard war as the only 
 
152 NOTES. 
 
 occupation befitting men of noble birth, and to look 
 upon all kinds of study with contempt and aversion. 
 Eitelwolf had the principal share in founding the 
 High School of Mayence, which he endeavoured to 
 make the first seminary of its kind in Germany. 
 He looked forward to the perfecting of this school 
 as the chief occupation of his declining years, when 
 he should have withdrawn from the cares of busi- 
 ness, and the toils of war. But his premature death, 
 in 1515, prevented this expectation from being ever 
 realized. At the time of his death, he occupied 
 the important offices of Governor and Hof-Marshall 
 of the town of Mayence. Besides some letters, he 
 published a work entitled, 'De laudihus heroum et 
 virorum illustrium.'' 
 
 Note 3, page 20. 
 
 Eagius ZEsticampianus had the honour of being 
 expelled from the University of Leipsic for his 
 attachment to the new learning, and his opposi- 
 tion to the effete scholasticism. The universities 
 of Germany in general, were the bitterest persecu- 
 tors of the revivers of classical learning. Like most 
 corporations, they had a strong dislike to innovation. 
 
 Note 4, page 23. 
 
 Bilihdld Pirckheimer, a celebrated historian and 
 philologist, called by the Protestants of Germany 
 
NOTES. 153 
 
 the !^enoplioii of Nuremberg, was bom in that city 
 of a patrician family in 1470. His father was 
 councillor to the Bishop of Eichstaedt ; and at 
 eighteen the young Pirckheimer joined the troops 
 of the Bishop, in order to acquire a knowledge of 
 military discipline. He soon, however, left the 
 army and went to Italy, where he studied civil law 
 at Padua and Pisa, at the same time acquiring a 
 knowledge of Greek, mathematics, theology, and 
 medicine. He spent seven years in Italy, and then 
 returned to Nuremberg, where he became a mem- 
 ber of the senate. He did not, however, definitively 
 abandon the military career, and took the command 
 of the contingent of troops furnished by the town of 
 Nuremberg, to aid the Emperor Maximilian in his 
 war against the Swiss. At the close of the war, he 
 was created imperial councillor. He died at Nu- 
 remberg in 1530. Pirckheimer had formed, with 
 much care, a choice library of the best Greek and 
 Latin authors, which was afterwards acquired by 
 Lord Arundel, from whom it passed to the Duke of 
 Norfolk, and subsequently to the Royal Society of 
 London. 
 
 Note 5, page 27. 
 
 Budcem was bom at Paris in 1467, the year of 
 the birth of Erasmus. He was the most learned 
 Frenchrhan of his time. By his advice the College 
 
154 NOTES. 
 
 of Prance and the Royal Library were founded, and 
 his fortune and credit were constantly at the service 
 of the cause of learning. He was the restorer of 
 Greek literature in France, and was taught Greek 
 by Hermotymus, who took refuge in France after 
 the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. He 
 also received lessons from John Lascaris, a Greek 
 of illustrious family, who came to France in 1494. 
 On dismissing Hermotymus, Budseus presented 
 him with 500 golden crowns. In 1497, the fame 
 of Budseus for learning recommended him to Charles 
 VIII. , who appointed him one of his secretaries. 
 On the death of that monarch, he retired from court, 
 and devoted himself to his favourite studies. He 
 published various translations from the Greek and 
 Latin classics. But his Treatise De Asse is his most 
 famous work. No learned work ever obtained such 
 immense and sustained success. A vast number of 
 editions and abridgments of it have been published, 
 and not long ago a copy of it on vellum sold for 
 L.60. In August 1522, Budseus was elected by 
 the municipal corporation of Paris to the oflQ.ce of 
 prevot des inarchands ; and recently — ^in 1842 — the 
 municipality of Paris erected a statue to his me- 
 mory among those of their first magistrates. The 
 works of Budseus were collected and published, in 
 four volumes folio, at Basle in 1557. It has been 
 affirmed by some that Budseus had a tendency to- 
 
NOTES. 155 
 
 wards the doctrines of Calvin; and it is certain 
 that, after his death, his widow and the greater 
 part of his numerous family abjured Catholicism 
 and retired to Geneva. 
 
 Note 6, page 28. 
 
 Erasmus has wittily been termed * I'homme de 
 repos k tout prix ; ' and Ranke says of him, ' his 
 air was so timorous that he looked as if a breath 
 would overthrow him, and he trembled at the very 
 name of death.' He was the complete type of 
 feebleness of character united to vastness of in- 
 tellect. No one more clearly discerned, or more 
 powerfully described, the corruptions of Rome, the 
 ignorance and depravity of the religious orders, the 
 luxury and fanaticism of the bishops and theo- 
 logians, the utter rottenness of the whole existing 
 ecclesiastical fabric. Yet he was constantly seek- 
 ing frivolous excuses to escape from the practical 
 consequences of his own principles and writings ; 
 and his shuffling, vacillating conduct, in spite of his 
 splendid abilities, at length exposed him to the 
 contempt both of the adversaries and the defenders 
 of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 Note 7, page 31. 
 
 The Duke of Wurtemherg was connected with the 
 reigning family of Bavaria, and also with the Em- 
 
156 NOTES. 
 
 peror himself; and he was permitted to compound 
 for the cowardly murder which he had committed 
 by a payment of 27,000 florins. 
 
 Note 8, page 36. 
 
 Franz von Sichingen was born, in 1481, in the 
 castle of Sickingen, situated in what is now the 
 Grand Duchy of Baden. His father was a gentle- 
 man of no very distinguished lineage, and was put 
 to death by the Emperor Maximilian, on account of 
 the troubles he had excited in the Empire. From 
 his youth up Sickingen was a man of war ; and the 
 remarkable activity and ability which he displayed 
 in making partisans, and in raising troops to avenge 
 his father's death, made him, though but a simple 
 knight, a formidable enemy to the Emperor. By 
 force or by stratagem, he succeeded in making 
 himself master of a number of strong places. The 
 Duke of Lorraine, the town of Metz, and the Land- 
 grave of Hesse, especially suffered from his attacks, 
 and were at length obliged to pay him a sort of 
 black mail. Sickingen was proud of his position 
 as a free knight, relying only upon God, the Em- 
 peror, and his own good sword. He proclaimed 
 himself a general redresser of wrongs ; and his ex- 
 ploits in succouring the oppressed, and supporting 
 the feeble against the strong, spread his reputation 
 
NOTES. 157 
 
 throughout Germany, where he was regarded as a 
 sort of national hero. Yet there can be no doubt 
 that he was sometimes guilty of culpable excesses, 
 in the name of justice. He was often applied to by 
 those who had been wronged, and who were too 
 weak to right themselves; and in compelling a 
 powerful noble or an imperial city to pay a debt 
 unjustly withheld from a private person, he was 
 not always scrupulous about forms, or slow in the 
 employment of force. One of his great objects 
 seems to have been, to oppose and to humble the 
 despotism and pride of the princes and clergy ; but 
 it is by no means certain that he did not enter- 
 tain ulterior views, and aim at bringing about a 
 complete political revolution in Germany, which his 
 position in that warlike age as the acknowledged 
 flower of German chivalry, and the head and leader 
 of the lesser nobility of the Empire, might perhaps 
 have enabled him to accomplish. In the earlier 
 part of his adventurous career, Sickingen was pre- 
 sented to Francis I. as one well fitted to assist him 
 in his canvass for the Empire ; and that ambitious 
 monarch loaded him with presents, and conferred on 
 him a pension of 1000 crowns. But Sickingen was 
 offended that Francis had not also taken him into 
 his confidence. ' The king,' he said to Fleuranges, 
 ' but ill knows me, if he believes me more grateful 
 for favours than for confidence. I have penetrated 
 
158 NOTES. 
 
 his designs, which you and he have endeavoured to 
 conceal from me : he wishes to obtain the Empire : 
 I have asked him for troops ; he has believed that 
 I asked them in order to carry out my own ends, 
 whereas I asked them solely with the view of 
 attaching to his party a greater number of German 
 gentlemen. Warn him that he will never be well 
 served but by simple gentlemen like myself; if he 
 negotiates with the great Princes and the Electors, 
 they will take his money and will betray him.' A 
 circumstance soon afterwards occurred, which pro- 
 duced a total rupture between Francis and the great 
 German partisan. A dispute had taken place be- 
 tween some German and Milanese merchants. Sic- 
 kingen constituted himself the ally of the former, 
 and seized effects belonging to the latter to the 
 value of L. 1000. On hearing of this act of sum- 
 mary justice, Francis demanded that Sickingen 
 should restore the goods ; and on the knight's send- 
 ing a haughty refusal, he immediately stopped his 
 pension. Upon this, Sickingen considered all his 
 engagements to Francis cancelled, and from that 
 period became one of his bitterest enemies ; and 
 his opposition contributed not a little to the failure 
 of the efforts of the French king to obtain the im- 
 perial crown. Sickingen's subsequent invasion of 
 France ; the siege of Mezieres, where the two model 
 knights of France and Germany met face to face ; 
 
NOTES. 159 
 
 his ill-judged and disastrous war against the Arch- 
 bishop of Treves; and his death amidst the crumbling 
 ruins of his stronghold ; are recounted with much 
 spirit and ability in the narrative of M. Chauffour- 
 Kestner. But we want in English a more detailed 
 biography of this remarkable man, who, next toUlrich 
 von Hutten among the free knights of the German 
 Empire, most powerfully contributed to the revival of 
 letters and the reformation of religion, — a man who, 
 though belonging only to the lesser nobility, exercised 
 so powerful an influence on his own age, that some 
 of his enemies termed him the anti-emperor, and 
 others the anti-pope ; whose friendship was courted, 
 and whose enmity was dreaded by all ; who was the 
 type and model of German knighthood, and the 
 chosen leader of the lesser nobility in their war 
 against the princes ; who repeatedly offered Luther 
 a safe and inviolable asylum, if he should be com- 
 pelled to fly from the violence of his enemies ; and 
 who received and protected (Ecolampadius and 
 Hutten, until his own cause became desperate, and 
 ^then sent them away, lest lives so precious to the 
 Reformation should be involved in his destruction. 
 It is true, indeed, that the splendour of Sickingen's 
 character was somewhat dimmed by its faults. He 
 was occasionally rash and headstrong, high-handed 
 and heedless of law, as well as too much attached 
 to the right of private war, so inimical to all good 
 
160 NOTES. 
 
 and settled government. ,But these were the faults 
 of the age in which he lived, and of the order to 
 which he belonged ; and in spite of them, he would 
 have been well entitled to appropriate the proud 
 claim which Goethe has put in the mouth of Goetz 
 von Berlichingen, in that masterly drama which so 
 admirably depicts the state of Germany at the dawn 
 of the Reformation : — ' Let them show me where I 
 have preferred my interest to my honour. God 
 knows, my ambition has ever been to labour for my 
 neighbours as for myself, and to acquire the fame 
 of a gallant and irreproachable knight, rather than 
 princedoms or power ; and God be praised ! I have 
 gained the meed of my labour.' 
 
 Should the reception of the present sketch of the 
 life of Ulrich von Hutten be such as to justify him 
 in the attempt, the Translator hopes to supplement 
 it by a biography of Franz von Sickingen. 
 
 Note 9, page 38. 
 
 ' The character of Reuchlin,' says Sir William 
 Hamilton, in his admirable article on the character 
 and authorship of the Epistolce Ohscurm-um virorum, 
 ' is one of the most remarkable in that remarkable 
 age. It exhibits, in the highest perfection, a com- 
 bination of qualities which are in general found in- 
 compatible. At once a man of the world and of 
 books, he excelled equally in practice and specula- 
 
NOTES. 161 
 
 tion ; was a statesman and a philosopher, a jurist 
 and a divine. Nobles, and princes, and emperors 
 honoured him with their favour, and employed him 
 in their most difficult affairs; while the learned 
 throughout Europe looked up to him as the " tri- 
 lingue miraculum" the " phoenix literarum," the "eru- 
 ditorum aX<fia." In Italy, native Romans listened 
 with pleasure to his Latin declamation; and he 
 compelled the jealous Greeks to acknowledge that 
 " Greece had overflown the Alps." Of his country- 
 men, he was the first to introduce the study of 
 ancient literature into the German universities ; the 
 first who conquered the difficulties of the Greek 
 language ; the first who opened the gates of the East, 
 unsealed the word of God, and unveiled the sanc- 
 tuary of Hebrew wisdom. Agricola was the only 
 German of the fifteenth century who approached 
 him in depth of classical erudition ; and it was not 
 till after the commencement of the sixteenth that 
 Erasmus rose to divide with him the admiration of 
 the' learned. As an Oriental scholar, Reuchlin died 
 without a rival. Cardinal Fisher, who " almost 
 adored his name," made a pilgrimage from England 
 for the sole purpose of visiting the object of his wor- 
 ship; and that great divine candidly confesses to 
 Erasmus, that he regarded Reuchlin as "bearing 
 off from all men the palm of knowledge, especially 
 in what pertained to the hidden matters of religion 
 
 L 
 
162 NOTES. 
 
 and philosophy." ' Frederick Schlegel, in his Lec- 
 tures on Modern History,' speaks in equally high 
 terms of this ' rare and profound spirit.' ' Reuchlin,' 
 he says, ' one of the first scholars that Germany ever 
 produced, and as much at home in Italy as in his 
 native country, united all the literary culture, all 
 the knowledge and learning, which either country, 
 at the end of the fifteenth century, could supply. 
 Not content with being the powerful critic and 
 restorer of the then reviving Greek literature, he 
 was, at the same time, for all Europe, the founder 
 and creator of Oriental studies. Unlike later scho- 
 lars and men of letters, however, these studies were 
 not with him a mere matter of philology, of historical 
 compilation, or of rhetorical brilliancy ; he directed 
 all his researches to the highest object of knowledge, 
 that which the inquiring mind must ever consider 
 its principal concern, namely, the knowledge of 
 man, of nature, and of God.' 
 
 Note 10, page 45. 
 
 Ortuinus Gratius was a man of considerable learn- 
 ing, and held the important office of head of the 
 College of Cologne. His own works are obsolete ; 
 but he has been preserved, like a fly in amber, by 
 the biting satire of Hutten and his friends. 
 
 Jacob Hochstraten was prior of the Dominicans, 
 and chief inquisitor at Cologne. Arnold of Tungern 
 
NOTES. 163 
 
 was Dean of the Theological Faculty at Cologne, 
 and drew up and published in 1512 a pamphlet 
 entitled, ^Articuli sive propodtiones de Judaico favore 
 nimis suspectce ex lihello teutonico Joannis Reuchlin.' 
 
 Note 11, page 45. 
 
 ' Never,' says Sir William Hamilton, ' were un- 
 conscious barbarism, self-glorious ignorance, intoler- 
 ant stupidity, and sanctimonious immorality, so 
 ludicrously delineated ; never did delineation less 
 betray the artifice of ridicule. The Epistolce Obscu- 
 rorum Yirorum are at once the most cruel and the 
 most natural of satires ; and, as such, they were 
 the most effective. They converted the tragedy of 
 Reuchlin's persecution into a farce ; annihilated in 
 public consideration the enemies of intellectual 
 improvement; determined a radical reform in the 
 German universities ; and even the friends of Luther, 
 in Luther's lifetime, acknowledged that no other 
 writing had contributed so powerfully to the down- 
 fall of the papal domination.' 
 
 Note 12, page 46. 
 
 In England cleverer men than the Dominican 
 prior mistook the EpistoloB Obscurorum Virorum for 
 a serious work, of which Sir William Hamilton re- 
 lates the following curious anecdote : — ' Erasmus 
 would have wondered less at the stupidity of the 
 
164 NOTES. 
 
 sufferers, and more, perhaps, at the dexterity of the 
 executioner, could he have foreseen that one of the 
 most learned scholars of England, and the most 
 learned of her bibliographers, should have actually 
 republished these letters as a serious work ; and that 
 one of our wittiest satirists should have reviewed 
 that publication, without even a suspicion- of the 
 lurking Momus. And, what is almost equally asto- 
 nishing, the misprision has never been remarked. 
 In 1710, there was printed in London the most 
 elegant edition that has yet appeared of the Epistolfe 
 Ohscurorum Virorwm, which the editor, Michael 
 Maittaire, gravely represents as the production of 
 their ostensible authors, and takes credit to him- 
 self for rescuing, as he imagines, from oblivion, so 
 curious a specimen of conceited ignorance and un- 
 conscious absurdity. The edition he dedicates 
 " Isaaco Biclcer staff, Armigero, Magnoe Britannice 
 Censori" and Steele, in a subsequent number of 
 the Tatler, after acknowledging the compliment, 
 thus notices the book itself: " The purpose of the 
 work is signified in the dedication, in very elegant 
 language, and fine raillery. It seems this is a col- 
 lection of letters, which some profound blockheads, 
 who lived before our times, have written in honour 
 of each other, and for their mutual information in 
 each other's, absurdities (!). They are mostly of 
 the German nation, whence, from time to time. 
 
NOTES. 165 
 
 inundations of writers have flowed, more pernicious 
 to the learned world than the swarms of Goths 
 and Vandals to the politic (!!). It is, me thinks, 
 wonderful that fellows could be awake, and utter 
 such incoherent conceptions, and converse with 
 great gravity like learned men, without the least 
 taste of knowledge or good sense. It would have 
 been an endless labour to have taken any other 
 method of exposing such impertinences, than by an 
 edition of their own works, where you see their 
 follies, according to the ambition of such virtuosi, 
 in a most correct edition" (!!!). And so forth. 
 The monks are no marvel after this.' 
 
 Note 13, page 47. 
 
 Dr Strauss, in his excellent life of Hutten, pub- 
 lished in 1858, also adverts to the impossibility of 
 rendering the Epistolce Obscurorum Yirorum in a 
 translation. ' Though we have honestly endea- 
 voured,' he says, ' to give the reader an idea of the 
 scope and contents, the form and design, of the 
 Letters of Obscure Men, we must yet in conclusion 
 make the disheartening confession, that we have 
 undertaken what it is impossible properly to per- 
 form No form in which the transla- 
 tor may handle the German or any other language 
 can reproduce the impression of the original.' 
 
166 NOTES. 
 
 Note 14, page 48. 
 The best authorities make Hutten the author of 
 the greater portion of the work, but also assign the 
 authorship of part of it to Crotus, and to Hermannus 
 Buschius, who was the literary opponent and per- 
 sonal foe of Ortuinus Gratius, to whom the Epis- 
 tolce Ohscurorum Virorwm are addressed, and who 
 is the principal victim of the satire. Dr Priederich 
 Strauss gives Crotus Rubianus the credit of the 
 happy idea of parodying, in the fictitious letters of 
 the Epistolce Ohscurorum Virorum, the work which 
 Reuchlin had published in 1514, under the title of 
 Epistolce illustrium virorum ad Reuchlinum,, virum 
 nostra estate dodissimum, as a sort of testimonial 
 in his favour from the most distinguished culti- 
 vators of classical learning throughout Europe. 
 
 Note 15, page 48. 
 
 This was very ungrateful of Erasmus, who is said 
 to have been cured of an imposthume in his face, 
 by the laughter produced on reading the Epistolce 
 Ohscurorum Virorum. 
 
 Note 16, page 55. 
 
 Hutten was naturally proud of this gallant ex- 
 ploit. He celebrates it in six epigrams, and boasts 
 «f it to the Emperor in the third of his philippics 
 against the Duke of Wurtemberg. 
 
NOTES. 167 
 
 Note 17, page 55. 
 The diploma which conferred upon him that 
 dignity, with all the privileges thereto attached, 
 has been preserved: from this period Hutten as- 
 sumes the title of Poeta et Orator. He is repre- 
 sented on the frontispiece of his writings as com- 
 pletely armed, and his brow girt with laurels ; 
 later in his career, when the war against Rome 
 had commenced, his portraits depict him with his 
 hand on the hilt of his sword, which is half drawn 
 from its sheath. Dr Strauss makes the date of 
 Hutten's coronation 12th July 1517, and states 
 that he was decorated with the laurel crown by 
 the hand of Maximilian himself 
 
 Note 18, page 55. 
 
 Conrad Peutinger was the first German, man of 
 letters who devoted himself to the study and collec- 
 tion of antiquities. He was born at Augsburg, of 
 a patrician family, in 1465. He studied law at 
 Padua ; and at Rome, was a pupO. of the celebrated 
 scholar Pomponius Lsetus. Before leaving Italy, 
 he became doctor both of the civil and canon 
 law. On his return to his native town, he speedily 
 distinguished himself both by the extent and 
 variety of his learning, and by his capacity for 
 business. He bestowed much time upon the study 
 of inscriptions and antiques, and formed a precious 
 
168 NOTES. 
 
 collection of books and manuscripts, which he freely 
 threw open to the public. He had the principal 
 share in establishing a society for the purpose of 
 printing the works of the best Greek and Latin 
 authors. Peutinger was much esteemed by his 
 fellow-citizens, and was frequently deputed by them 
 to maintain their interests with the Emperor Maxi- 
 milian, who was so much pleased with his talents 
 and learning, that he appointed him one of his 
 councillors. In 1519, he was sent to congratu- 
 late Charles V. on his accession to the Empire; 
 and in 1521, he assisted at the Diet of Worms, 
 when he succeeded in procuring a confirmation 
 of the ancient statutes of Augsburg, and the ad- 
 ditional privilege of coining money. He died in 
 1547, at the advanced age of eighty-two. One of 
 Peutinger's principal claims to fame rests on the 
 famous chart, known as the Tabula Peutingeriana. 
 This interesting geographical monument — supposed 
 by some authorities to have been executed at 
 Constantinople in 393 by order of the Emperor 
 Theodosius, and by others in 435 — was discovered 
 by Conrad Celtes in an ancient library at Spires. 
 At his death, he bequeathed it to Peutinger, who 
 believed it to be the Itinerary of Antoninus ; and 
 proposed to jjublish it for the benefit of lovers of 
 antiquity, but did not find time to carry out his 
 purpose. It was found in his library by Mark 
 
NOTES. 169 
 
 Velser, forty years after his death, and printed in 
 1598. It has since been several times reproduced, 
 especially by Scheyb, in folio, in 1753, and by 
 another editor in 1809. The original is now in 
 the Library of Vienna. 
 
 Note 19, page 5Q. 
 
 Laurentius Valla was one of the most accom- 
 plished scholars of the early part of the fifteenth 
 century, and one of the most efficient and suc- 
 cessful promoters of the revival of classical learn- 
 ing. He was born at Rome in 1406, where his 
 father was Consistorial Advocate to the Holy 
 See. He studied Latin under Leonardo d'Arezzo, 
 and also acquired a competent knowledge of the 
 Greek language; but it was as an elegant and 
 accomplished Latinist that he won his greenest 
 laurels. Like most of the learned men who took 
 a leading part in the great movement of the 
 Renaissance, he led a stormy and troubled life, — 
 occupied in literary strifes, in attacking his enemies, 
 or in replying to their assaults. He first attacked 
 Bartolus, a famous jurist, who taught the civil law 
 at Pavia — whose followers Hutten frequently stig- 
 matizes under the title of Bartolists — principally 
 because the barbarous Latin employed by him and 
 his pupils offended the delicacy of his classical ear. 
 In the piquant pamphlet which he wrote against 
 
170 NOTES. 
 
 him — wliich was the work of a single night — he 
 designates Bartolus, Baldus, and Accursius as the 
 geese who had succeeded to Sc^vola, Paulus, and 
 Ulpian, the swans of jurisprudence. Valla dis- 
 tinguished himself as a teacher in many towns of 
 Italy — in Pavia, Milan, Genoa, and Florence. From 
 1435 to 1442, he followed the fortunes of Alphonso 
 of Arragon, in his wars for the conquest of the 
 kingdom of Naples ; and in 1440, he published 
 the celebrated work mentioned in the text, under 
 the title of ' Dedamatio de falsh credita Constantini 
 donatione.'' The pretended donation of Constantine 
 was then loudly vaunted by the Holy See, and im- 
 plicitly believed in France, Spain, Great Britain, and 
 Germany. Valla, however, attacked the obscure 
 author of this absurd invention, with the utmost 
 violence and indignation; and, with consummate 
 skill and marvellous erudition, brought forward an 
 irresistible mass of evidence to demonstrate its 
 futility and falsehood. But his presumption in 
 thus attempting to sap the foundation on which 
 rested the temporal power of the Holy See, drew 
 down upon him its unsparing and dangerous enmity, 
 and he was compelled to fly from Italy. He after- 
 wards returned, however, and was well received at 
 Naples by King Alphonso, his friend and patron. 
 But he soon became involved in another ecclesias- 
 tical controversy. He ventured to impugn the 
 
NOTES. 171 
 
 assertion of a popular preacher, that the Apostles' 
 Creed had been composed, clause by clause, by the 
 apostles — each apostle, beginning with Peter, suc- 
 cessively enunciating a separate clause. The In- 
 quisition would have seized him in its fatal grasp 
 for thus presuming to controvert the popular belief, 
 had it not been for the powerful protection of his 
 steady friend, King Alphonso. The work which 
 most contributed to the fame of Valla was his 
 treatise ' De Ehgantia LingucB Latino;.'' It was the 
 favourite text-book during the whole of the six- 
 teenth century ; Erasmus always professed the 
 greatest admiration for it, and wrote an epitome 
 of it for his own use, which was afterwards pub- 
 lished. Perhaps the most bitter of the many paper 
 wars in which Valla was engaged, was that which 
 he waged against Poggio Bracciolini, that famous 
 scholar and successful discoverer of ancient classical 
 manuscripts. It was disgraced by the virulence 
 of the abuse with which the enraged disputants 
 profusely bespattered each other. Valla died at 
 Naples in 1457, at the age of fifty-two. 
 
 Note 20, page 61. 
 
 It ought not to be forgotten, that Hutten's deci- 
 sive attack upon the pretensions of the Papacy was 
 made some time before Luther took any determined 
 step in the same direction ; and it is interesting to 
 
172 NOTES. 
 
 observe how the writings of Hutten influenced a 
 genius as original and fearless, but more large and 
 genial than his own. 
 
 Note 21, page 62. 
 
 Jacques Lefehvre of Etaples, in the diocese of 
 Amiens, was born about the middle of the fifteenth 
 century. He studied at Paris, and afterwards 
 travelled over a great part of Europe, and even 
 penetrated, according to some authorities, into 
 Asia and Africa. On his return to Paris, he was 
 appointed professor in the College of Cardinal 
 Lemoine, where he remained until 1507, when he 
 was introduced at court. In 1518, he was made 
 Bishop of Meaux. He was familiar with the 
 languages of classical antiquity, and had a fine and 
 critical taste in literature. Eor the old scholastic 
 system he had but little respect. He roused the 
 indignation of the Sorbonne by the publication of 
 a version of the New Testament with a comment- 
 ary. They were especially enraged at the horta- 
 tory discourse, in which he recommends the reading 
 of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue to all the 
 faithful. The favour of Francis I. for a time pro- 
 tected him against the malice of his enemies ; but 
 he was at last obliged to take refuge in Strasburg. 
 On his return from his captivity in Madrid, Francis 
 appointed Lefebvre preceptor to his third son. 
 
NOTES. 173 
 
 Charles ; and in this capacity he acquitted him- 
 self so well, that the ■ king would have advanced 
 him to the highest dignities in the church, had not 
 his modesty led him to decline them. He spent his 
 latter years with the Queen of Navarre at Nerac, 
 and died in 1536. His life was exemplary, and his 
 character frank and amiable. 
 
 Note 22, page 62. 
 
 Gnillawne Cop was born at Basle, and prosecuted 
 the study of medicine, first in his native town, and 
 afterwards in Paris. He was principal physician to 
 Louis XII. and Francis I. He was an accomplished 
 scholar, and translated several of the writings of 
 Hippocrates and Galen from the Greek. He died 
 in 1532. His son Nicolas was professor in the 
 College of Sainte-Barbe, and in 1533 was elected 
 rector of the University of Paris. He was after- 
 wards obliged to fly from Paris and take refuge in 
 Basle, on account of a sermon which he preached, 
 in order to refute the attacks directed by the 
 Sorbonne against Marguerite of Navarre, who 
 favoured and protected the doctrines and professors 
 of Protestantism. This sermon is said to have 
 been suggested, if not composed, by Calvin. Rueil 
 was a learned physician of Soissons, born in 1497, 
 died 1539. He wrote a treatise, ' De Natura 
 Siirpium.'' 
 
174 , NOTES. 
 
 Note 23, page 63. 
 Count Herman von Nuenar belonged to an an- 
 cient and noble German family, and was early im- 
 bued with a taste for literature by his relative 
 Count Maurice von Spiegelberg, one of the illus- 
 trious band of scholars who went forth from the 
 conventual seminary of St Agnes, near ZwoU in 
 Westphalia, to restore and remodel the learning and 
 education of Germany. Count Nuenar was provost 
 of the archiepiscopal cathedral at Cologne, the head- 
 quarters of the enemies of Reuchlin. Yet he was 
 a steady and warm friend to that great man. Like 
 Erasmus, he attempted to steer a middle course be- 
 tween the Roman Catholic and Protestant parties. 
 
 Note 24, page 66. 
 
 This is but one instance out of many, of what 
 was the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic 
 of the genius of Ulrich von Hutten — a fearless, un- 
 compromising love of truth and freedom, and an 
 intense hatred of falsehood and tyranny. 
 
 Note 25, page 68. 
 
 On earth, that time never arrived for Hutten. 
 His whole life was a struggle against religious and 
 political abuses, against persecution, desertion, and 
 disease; and to none of the great men of that 
 
NOTES. 175 
 
 momentous sixteenth century would the motto — 
 afterwards assumed by Mamix de Sainte Alde- 
 gonde, the friend of the famous William the Silent 
 — 'Repos ailleurs,' have better applied. But the 
 world owes most of the onward impulses which 
 have purified and improved it to men ill at ease. 
 The happy and the prosperous are too apt to con- 
 fine themselves within the ancient limits. 
 
 Note 26, page 73. 
 
 Eohan Hess was born in 1488, in the village of 
 Bockendorff in Hesse, of poor parents. He early 
 manifested a decided talent for poetry, which was 
 assiduously cultivated ; and at Erfurth, where he 
 studied, he made the acquaintance, and acquired 
 the friendship, of Ulrich von Hutten. This friend- 
 ship grew with their years, and continued till the 
 close of Hutten's short and brilliant career. They 
 laboured together to improve themselves, and to 
 enlighten their countrymen. Like, Hutten, Hess 
 was intended for the law; but for that study he 
 showed a decided aversion, and devoted himself to 
 philology and poetry. In 1514 he married, and 
 soon afterwards was made rector of Erfurth. He 
 was a member of the deputation that welcomed 
 Luther on his journey to Worms. Pecuniary difl&- 
 culties ultimately compelled him to leave Erfurth, 
 and he became teacher of the Gymnasium in 
 
176 NOTES. 
 
 Nuremberg. He afterwards laboured in Marburgh, 
 as professor for the diffusion of evangelical doc- 
 trine, and died in 1540. A life of him was 
 published by Vossius, at Gotha, in 1797. 
 
 Note 27, page 73. 
 
 Sebastian von Roienhan, a Franconian knight, was 
 born in 1478. He was a man of considerable learn- 
 ing, and, like his brother knight, Eitelwolf von 
 Stein, already mentioned, was fond of the study of 
 history and antiquities. During the peasants' war, 
 the Bishop of Halbertstadt entrusted him with the 
 command of a castle, in which position he so dis- 
 tinguished himself, that a monument was erected, 
 and a medal struck, in his honour. He travelled 
 through many countries in Europe, visited Jeru- 
 salem, and was created a knight of the Holy 
 Sepulchre. He was at various times entrusted with 
 diplomatic negotiations, was a member of the Im- 
 perial Chamber at Costnitz, councillor to Albert, 
 Archbishop of Mayence, and privy councillor to the 
 Emperor , Charles V. He died in 1542, at his castle 
 of Rotweinsdorf. 
 
 Note 28, page 74. 
 
 The translation of the Tria^ Bomana, here given 
 by M. Chauffour-Kestner, is a mere summary of that 
 searching and powerful satire. The original occu- 
 
NOTES. 177 
 
 pies seventy-three closely printed octavo pages of 
 Miinch's edition of the works of Hutten, printed 
 at Berlin, in five volumes, 1821-5. 
 
 Note 29, page 89. 
 
 George of Freundsherg was one of the most cele- 
 brated of the German military adventurers of his 
 time. He was exceedingly popular among the 
 German mercenaries, and played an important part 
 in the Italian wars, in which Bourbon and Pescara 
 led the armies of Charles V. He commanded the 
 German mercenaries at the battle of Pavia ; and, 
 in the motley army which Bourbon conducted to 
 the sack of Rome in 1527, twelve thousand lanz- 
 knechts followed the banners of this daring partisan. 
 Freundsberg was an ardent supporter of the Re- 
 formed doctrines, and a bitter enemy to the Church 
 of Rome. He is said to have carried a silken cord 
 in his pocket, for the purpose of strangling the 
 Pope, if ever an opportunity presented itself, in a 
 manner consistent with the pontifical dignity. 
 
 Note 30, page 93. 
 
 It seems probable that so accomplished a classical 
 scholar as Hutten, while penning this indignant 
 remonstrance against the tyranny of the Pope, must 
 have had in view the famous burst of eloquence in 
 which Cicero denounced the cruelties and tyranny 
 
 M 
 
178 NOTES. 
 
 of Verres : — ' Facinus est vincire civem Romanum ; 
 scelus verberare ; prope parricidium necare :, quid dicam 
 in crucem tollereV To bind a Roman citizen, is a 
 crime; to scourge him, an infamy; to kill him, almost 
 a parricide ; but to crucify him, what shall I call it ? 
 
 Note 31, page 110. 
 
 Jerome Aleander was born in 1480, and was de- 
 scended from a noble family in Istria. He possessed 
 great talents and learning ; but his passions were 
 violent, and his morality was of the laxest descrip- 
 tion. His acquaintance with the Hebrew language 
 was so accurate and extensive, that it gave colour 
 to Luther's allegation, that he was a Jew. He was, 
 besides, an accomplished classical scholar, and 
 master of several modern languages. In 1508, 
 Louis XII. appointed him professor of Philosophy 
 in the University of Paris ; and his success in that 
 capacity attracted the notice of the papal court, 
 ever anxious to appropriate the services of able, 
 adroit, and unscrupulous men. In 1519, Pope Leo 
 X. conferred upon Aleander the appointment of 
 librarian to the Vatican, and in 1520 sent him to 
 Germany to encounter, and, if possible, to dissipate 
 or avert., the storm which threatened the existence 
 of the Papacy. At the Diet of Worms, he under- 
 took the accusation of Luther, and made an elabo- 
 rate speech against him. 
 
NOTES. 179 
 
 Note 32, page 112. 
 
 ' In the matter of the Inquisition,' says Ranke, 
 ' the Pope agreed to make the most important 
 concessions. On the 21st October 1520, he de- 
 clared to the Grrand Inquisitor of Spain, that he 
 would give no further encouragement to the de- 
 mands of the Cortes of Arragon, that he would not 
 confirm the briefs he had issued, and that he would 
 introduce no innovation in the affairs of the Inqui- 
 sition without the approbation of the Emperor. 
 Even this did not satisfy Charles ; he demanded 
 the entire revocation of the briefs. On the 12th 
 of December, the Pope offered to declare all steps 
 that had been taken against the Inquisition null 
 and void. On the 16th January 1521, he at 
 length actually permitted the Emperor to suppress 
 the briefs, and expressed a wish to have them sent 
 
 back to Rome, that he might annul them 
 
 How grievously were the hopes which such men 
 as Hutten and Sickingen had placed on the young 
 Emperor disappointed! The papal Bull was exe- 
 cuted without hesitation in the Low German here- 
 ditary dominions, where the higher clergy and 
 confessors seemed to engross all the consideration 
 of the court. In January 1521, there was a general 
 belief that the Emperor wished to destroy Luther, 
 and, if possible, to exterminate his followers.' 
 
180 NOTES. 
 
 Note 33, page 126. 
 
 The Fuggers were the greatest bankers and 
 merchants in Germany, and were, in many respects, 
 to Augsburg what the Medici were to Florence, 
 though they never attained to the same height of 
 political power as their Italian contemporaries. 
 Both families sprung from a humble origin: the 
 Medici from an apothecary, the Fuggers from a 
 weaver. John, who was the founder of the Fuggers, 
 lived in the early part of the fourteenth century. 
 But the Fuggers alluded to in the text, must have 
 been his descendants, Jacques, and his nephews 
 Raymond and Anthony. Jacques for many years 
 directed the mercantile transactions of the house at 
 Venice and Augsburg. At that period, in addition 
 to their other business, the Fuggers farmed the 
 gold mines in the valley of the Inn, and the silver 
 mines of Falkenstein and Schwartz. In a single 
 year — 1506 — they made a profit of 175,000 ducats 
 from the sale of the merchandise imported by their 
 ships from the east. Jacques built the magnificent 
 castle of Fuggerau ; a,nd, at the period of his death, 
 was knight of the Golden Spur, Count Palatine, 
 and Imperial Councillor. His nephew Raymond 
 bought the county of Kirchberg from the Emperor, 
 for 525,000 florins. He encouraged science and 
 literature, and formed a valuable library. Both he 
 
NOTES. 181 
 
 and his brother, however, seem to have been some- 
 what unscrupulous in their business transactions, 
 as we find that they were compelled to pay 60,000 
 ducats to the Queen of Hungary, in compensation 
 for the bad quality of the money which they had 
 coined, and with which they had inundated 
 Hungary. There appears, therefore, to have been 
 some foundation for the accusations brought against 
 them in the ' Brigands.'' Raymond and Anthony 
 Fugger were often very useful to the Emperor 
 Charles V., when he was pressed for money. It is 
 related of them, that when that monarch lodged in 
 their palace, in passing through Augsburg, they 
 lighted the fire in his apartment with an acknow- 
 ledgment for 800,000 florins, with the imperial 
 signature attached. In return for the munificence 
 of the Fuggers, Charles rewarded them with 
 many valuable monopolies and privileges, such as 
 those of coining money in their towns and lordships, 
 and of being exempt from all judicial control, ex- 
 cept that of the Emperor himself. Erasmus has 
 bestowed the highest praise on the character of 
 Anthony Fugger, with whom he was on terms of 
 intimate friendship. He appears to have been a 
 liberal patron of learning and the fine arts. He 
 paid Titian 3000 crowns for works executed at 
 Augsburg; collected the finest library that had 
 ever been formed in Germany; and founded and 
 
182 NOTES. 
 
 endowed many charitable institutions, such as the 
 Hospital of Waltenhausen. Yet, at his death, he 
 left the enormous fortune of six millions of golden 
 crowns, besides plate and jewels, large possessions 
 in foreign countries, and factories at Antwerp and 
 Venice. This explains the saying of Charles V., 
 who exclaimed, on seeing the royal treasures at 
 Paris, ' I have a single weaver in Augsburg, who 
 could buy all this and pay for it with his own money.' 
 
 Note 34, page 130. 
 
 Eabulists — from the Latin rabula, a pettifogger, a 
 noisy, wrangling advocate — is a term of reproach 
 applied to those advocates who took advantage of 
 their position for their own profit, instead of look- 
 ing to the benefit of their clients, and who tried to 
 deafen the judge, or overwhelm their opponents, by 
 unnecessary clamour and -sdolence. 
 
 Note 35, page 138. 
 
 John Ziska von Trocznow had lost an eye in child- 
 hood, whence he was surnamed Ziska, or the one- 
 eyed. His sister, who was a nun, had been seduced 
 by a priest; and this circumstance inspired him 
 with the utmost hatred of the whole body of the 
 priesthood. The doctrines of Huss, in spite of the 
 murder of that Eeformer in 1415, had spread 
 rapidly throughout Bohemia ; and Ziska put himself 
 
NOTES. 183 
 
 at the head of the movement, and gained repeated 
 victories over the Imperialists and the Emperor 
 Sigismund, who endeavoured to suppress it by force 
 of arms. He lost his remaining eye at the siege of 
 the castle of Raby ; but still continued to lead his 
 troops, and gain victories as before, in spite of his 
 blindness. He died in October 1424, while advanc- 
 ing to invade Moravia. In person, Ziska was short 
 and broad-shouldered, with a large, roiMid, bald 
 head. His forehead was deeply furrowed, and he 
 wore long, fiery-red moustaches. After the loss of 
 his eyes, he always rode in a carriage close to the 
 great standard of the Hussite army. Knox probably 
 borrowed his famous saying, ' That the best way to 
 keep the rooks from returning, was to pull down 
 their nests,' from that attributed in the text to the 
 great general of the Hussites. 
 
 Note 36, page 139. 
 
 The following is the picture drawn by Menzel, in 
 his History of Germany, of the state of the country 
 at the close of the Thirty Years' War, which was ter- 
 minated in 1648 by the Peace of Westphalia. ' Ger- 
 many is reckoned by some to have lost one-half, 
 by others two-thirds, of her entire population dur- 
 ing the Thirty Years' War. In Saxony, 900,000 
 men had fallen within two years ; in Bohemia, the 
 number of inhabitants, at the demise of Ferdinand 
 
184 NOTES. 
 
 II., before the last deplorable inroads made by 
 Banner and Tortenson, bad sunk to one-fourtb. 
 Augsburg," instead of eighty, had eighteen thousand 
 inhabitants. Every province, every town through- 
 out the Empire, had suffered at an equal ratio, vrith 
 the exception of the Tyrol, which had repulsed the 
 enemy from her frontiers, and had enjoyed the 
 deepest peace during this period of horror. The 
 country was completely impoverished. The work- 
 ing class had almost totally disappeared. The 
 manufactories had been destroyed by fire, industry 
 and commerce had passed into other hands. The 
 products of Upper Germany were far inferior to 
 those of Italy and Switzerland, those of Lower 
 Germany to those of Holland and England. Im- 
 mense provinces, once flourishing and populous, lay 
 entirely waste and" uninhabited, and were only by 
 slow degrees repeopled by foreign emigrants, or 
 by soldiery. The original character and language 
 of the inhabitants were, by this means, completely 
 altered. In Franconia, which, owing to her central 
 position, had been traversed by every party during 
 the war, the misery and depopulation had risen to 
 such a pitch, that the Franconian Estates, with the 
 assent of the ecclesiastical princes, abolished (a.d. 
 1650) the celibacy of the Catholic clergy, and per- 
 mitted each man to marry two wives, on account of 
 the numerical superiority of the women over the 
 
NOTES. 185 
 
 men. The last remains of political liberty had, 
 during the war, also been snatched from the people ; 
 each of the Estates had been deprived of the whole 
 of its material power. The nobility were compelled 
 by necessity to enter the service of the princes, 
 the citizens were impoverished and powerless, the 
 peasantry had been utterly demoralized by military 
 rule and reduced to servitude. The provincial 
 Estates, weakly guarded by the Crown against the 
 encroachments of the petty princes, were completely 
 at the mercy of the more powerful of the petty 
 sovereigns of Germany, and had universally sunk 
 in importance. Science and art had fled from 
 Germany, and pedantic ignorance had replaced the 
 deep learning of her universities. The mother tongue 
 had become adulterated by an incredible variety 
 of Spanish, Italian, and French words, and the 'use 
 of foreign words with German terminations was 
 considered the highest work of elegance. Various 
 foreign modes of dress were also as generally adopted. 
 Germany had lost all, save her hopes for the future.' 
 
 Note 37, page 141. 
 
 Well might the peasantry of that time regard 
 with suspicion and detestation, anything that was 
 likely to perpetuate and strengthen the crushing 
 yoke of their feudal superiors, which is thus 
 graphically described by M. Audin in his Histoire de 
 
186 NOTES. 
 
 Luther. ' It was indeed a heavy oppression. At 
 the death of the master of the family, the lord in- 
 herited his best pair, of oxen ; on that of the 
 mistress, her best snit of clothes. This was the 
 right of Todfall. Every peasant who changed 
 masters, was obliged to pay a fine to the one he was 
 leaving, the Lehnschelling. The finest bundle of 
 wheat, the finest bunch of grapes, the finest fruits of 
 his garden, the finest honey from his bees, all be- 
 longed to the lord. On Shrove Tuesday, he was 
 bound to present him with a pig ; on St Martin's 
 day, with a couple of geese ; at Michaelmas, with a 
 couple of fowls. The temporal or spiritual lord 
 treated his peasants like veritable slaves ; body and 
 mind, they were wholly subject to him; if he 
 changed his religion, the vassal was compelled to go 
 over with him to the new faith. With these were 
 coupled the exactions of the priesthood, often as 
 cruel and oppressive as those of the temporal lord.' 
 
 Note 38, page 147. 
 
 Dr Strauss places the date of Hutten's death a 
 year earlier. According to him, he died towards 
 the end of August or the beginning of September 
 1523, at the age of 35 years and 4 months. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aocuraius, and liis followers denounced 
 by Hutten, 69. 
 
 iE)Btioampianus, Bagius, a successful 
 teacher of classical literature in the 
 University of Cologne, 20 ; Ulrioh 
 von Hutten pursues his studies un- 
 der his superintendence, i6. ; is ex- 
 pelled from the University as an in- 
 novator, and as a corrupter of youth, 
 by the theologians of Cologne, 21 ; 
 he and Hutten repair to the University 
 founded at Prankfort-on-the-Oder 
 by the Margrave of Brandenburg, ib. 
 
 Aleander, Jerome, the Papal Legate 
 at the Diet of Worms, 111 ; his great 
 abilities and unscrupulous character, 
 ib. ; obtains the Edict of Worms, 
 condemning Luther and his ad- 
 herents, by cunning and prompti- 
 tude, 119-121 ; is assailed by Hutten 
 in a violent pamphlet, 122 ; biogra- 
 phical notice of, 178, 179. 
 
 Audin, M., account given by him in his 
 Bistoire de Luther of the intolerable 
 oppression of the German peasantry 
 by their feudal superiors, at the time 
 of the Seformatiou, 185, 186. 
 
 Augsburg, Hutten attends the Diet of, 
 in the suite of the Archbishop of 
 Mayence, 65. 
 
 Bartholists, attacked by Hutten, 69. 
 Bayard, the Chevalier, compels Sickin- 
 
 gen to raise the siege of Meziferes, 136. 
 Brigands, the, a dialogue published by 
 
 Hutten in 1521, 122 ; quotations 
 
 from, 126-133. 
 Budseus, his praise of the character 
 
 of Hutten, 27 ; is termed by Hutten 
 
 the most learned of French nobles, 
 
 the most noble of learned n!ien, 69 ; 
 
 biographical notice of, 153-156. 
 Bull, the, a dialogue published by 
 
 Hutten in 1621, 122. 
 Buschius, Hermannus, one of the au- 
 
 thors of the Epistolse Obscuroi'wm 
 Virorum, 166. 
 
 Carlstadt, assailed by Eck, 68. 
 
 Charles V. appears likely to be hostile 
 to the Pope, who had exerted him- 
 self to forward the claims of Francis 
 I., his rival for the Empire, 70 ; 
 elected Emperor, and first visit to the 
 Empire, 88, 89 ; his profoundly cal- 
 culating genius, 89 ; requested by the 
 Pope to put Hutten to the ban of the 
 Empire, 90; letter addressed to, by 
 Hutten, 93-95 ; policy pursued to- 
 wards, by the papal court, previously 
 to, and during, the Diet of Worms, 
 110-122 ; makes overtures to Siokin- 
 gen and Hutten, in order to induce 
 them to attack Francis I., 135. 
 
 Coohlseus, his statement with regard to 
 the effect produced in Germany by 
 the publication of the Trias Somana, 
 82. 
 
 Cologne, University of, 19 ; scholastic 
 system prevalent there, 20 ; Hutten's 
 dislike to it, ib. ; E. ^sticampianus 
 expelled as an innovator, 21 ; theo- 
 logians of, range themselves on the 
 side of Hochstraten, the chief inqui- 
 sitor of Cologne, in his attack on 
 Beuchlin and the Humanists, 39. 
 
 Copp, Hutten makes his acquaintance 
 during a visit to Paris 62 ; an emi- 
 nent physician, 69 ; notice of, 173. 
 
 Eck, John, assails some of the prin- 
 cipal Eeformers, 68, 69 ; advises 
 Charles V. at once to publish the 
 Edict of Worms against Luther and 
 his adherents, without waiting- for 
 the decision of the Diet, 113. 
 
 Ehrenhold, a friend of Hutten, and one 
 of the interlocutors in the Trias 
 Xomana, 74. 
 
 Eoban Hess, a friend of Hutten, 73 ; 
 
188 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 letter to him from Hutten re- 
 garding the Trias Romama, ib.; his 
 deep regret for Hutten's premature 
 death, and his admirable summary 
 of his character, 147 ; biographical 
 notice of, 176, 176. 
 
 Epistolx Obscuromm Virorum, published 
 during the controversy between the 
 Scholastics and the Humanists, 44 ; 
 contain a most cutting exposure 
 of the vices of the monastic orders, 
 and the corruptions of the Papacy, 45 ; 
 Herder's opinion of them, ib. ; the most 
 perfect satire in the German lan- 
 guage, 46 ; partial resemblance to the 
 Msnipp& of Voltaire, ib. ; impossi- 
 bility of translating them, 47 and 165 ; 
 authorship imputed to Eeuchlin and 
 to Erasmus, 47 ; but the greater part 
 ■written by Hutten, 48 ; inconsistent 
 conduct of Erasmus with regard to, 
 ib. ; Sir William Hamilton's descrip- 
 tion of them, 163 ; curious anecdotes 
 regarding, 163-165. 
 
 Erasmus, his desertion of Hutten and 
 love of tranquillity, 28 ; letter to, 
 from Sir Thomas More, regarding 
 the Epistohs Obscwrorum Virorum, 
 46 ; applauds them while in manu- 
 script, but abuses them when pub- 
 lished, fearing to be taken for fheir 
 author, 48 ; dastardly conduct to Hut- 
 ten when proscribed and dying, 
 144-146 ; the type of vastness of intel- 
 lect and feebleness of character, 156. 
 
 Ferdinand, brother of Charles V., 
 Hutten dedicates to him a work 
 against Pope Gregoi"y VIL, 70 ; he 
 holds his court in Brabant, 88 ; to 
 which Hutten repairs, but is obliged 
 to fly from the attempts made against 
 his life at the instigation of the 
 papal legates, 88, 89. 
 
 Franconian nobility, the, considered 
 the most perfect type of German 
 chivalry, 15 ; form a kind of noble 
 democracy, 16. 
 
 Freundsberg, George of, a Lutheran 
 partisan leader, 89 ; notice of, 177. 
 
 Fuggers, the, great merchants of Augs- 
 burg, 126 ; account of the family, 
 180-182. 
 
 Fulda, Abbey of, its celebrated school, 
 17, 18 ; Hutten pursues his early 
 studies there, ib. ; flies from it in 
 order to avoid being compelled to 
 
 embrace a monastic life, 19 ; finds in 
 the library of the abbey the work of 
 Valla on the pretended donation of 
 Constantino to the Holy See, 59 ; 
 finds also a work against Pope Gre- 
 gory VII., 70. 
 
 Glapio,conf essor of the Emperor Charles 
 v., sent by the Emperor to Sickingen 
 and Hutten to enlist them against 
 Francis I., 135; his portrait by 
 Hutten, 185, 136. 
 
 Gratus, Ortuinus, one of the chief per- 
 secutors of Reuchlin, 45 ; and one of 
 the prihcipal victims of the satire of 
 the Epistoke ObscurorumVirorum, ib. ; 
 notice of, 162. 
 
 Herder, his opinion of the Epistols Ob- 
 scworum Viroi-um, 45. 
 
 Hesse, Elector of, compels Sickingen 
 to raise the siege of Treves, 142. 
 
 Hochstraten, attempts to procure from 
 the Emperor Maximilian an order to 
 burn all the Jewish books, 39 ; his 
 controversy with Beuohlin, 40, 41 ; 
 his portrait by Hutten, 42 ; notice of, 
 162. 
 
 Humanists, the, struggle between them 
 and the Scholastics, 37-49. 
 
 Huss, justification of, by Hutten, 103, 
 104. 
 
 Hutten, Hans von, cousin of Ulrich, 
 enters the service of the Duke of 
 Wurtemburg, 29; marries the daugh- 
 ter of the Marshal of Wurtemburg, 
 ib.; the Duke becomes enamoured 
 of his wife, i6. ; assassinated by the 
 Duke at a hunting party, 30. 
 
 Hutten, Louis von, father of the pre- 
 ceding, 28. 
 
 Hutten, Ulrich von, bom of an ancient 
 and noble Franconian family, 15 ; 
 . education at the school of the Abbey 
 of Fulda, 17-19 ; dislike of a monastic 
 life, and flight from the Abbey of 
 Fulda and from his family when only 
 16 years of age, 18, 19 ; studies at the 
 University of Cologne under E. 
 .Xsticampianus, 19 ; fondness for 
 classical literature, 20 ; appointed 
 one of the first masters in the new 
 University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 
 21 ; early travels, 22 ; first journey 
 to Italy, 23 ; composes a poem in 
 honour of his patron the Archbishop 
 of Mayence, 24 ; attempts to obviate 
 
INDEX. 
 
 189 
 
 • the prejudices of the German no- 
 bility against literary pursuits, 24 ; 
 his estimate of nobility, 25 ; personal 
 appearance and character, 27 ; in- 
 dignation and grief on learning the 
 assassination of his cousin Hans von 
 Hutten, 31 ; attacks the assassin, the 
 Duke of Wurtemburg, in five ora- 
 tions and in various other writings, 
 31-37 ; celebrates the victory of the 
 Humanists over the Scholastics in 
 the Triumphus Capnionis, 42-44; 
 Epistolx Obscurorum Virorum, 44; 
 character of that famous satire, 44^ 
 47 ; the greater part of it wi-itten by 
 Hutten, 47, 48 ; contempt of Hutten's 
 warlike relatione for his poetical 
 skill and classical learning, 49 ; they 
 wish him to become Doctor of Laws, 
 50; he sets out on a second journey 
 to Italy in order to acquire that title, 
 51 ; beholds at Rome the manifold 
 corruptions of the Papacy, 53 ; his 
 indignation at the contempt with 
 which Germany is viewed by the 
 Italians, 54; his successful duel, 
 single-handed, against five French- 
 men who had scoffed at the Em- 
 peror Maximilian, 54, 55 ; obliged 
 to leave Italy without obtaining the 
 title of Doctor of Laws, 55; is 
 knighted by the Emperor Maximi- 
 lian, and crowned with laurel as Im- 
 perial Poet and Orator, ii. ; publishes 
 the work of L. Valla on the pre- 
 tended donation of Constantiue to 
 the Holy See, 56; dedicates it to 
 Pope Leo S., 59 ; strong impression 
 produced by that work, especially on 
 the mind of Luther, 61 ; makes a 
 journey to Paris on business of the 
 Archbishop of Mayence, 62 ; acquires 
 the friendship of Lefebvre, Budseus, 
 Copp, and Iteuil, i6. ; letter to Count 
 Nuenar, 63 ; effect of his writings on 
 the development of Luther's views 
 regarding the Papacy, 64, 65 ; attacks 
 the Papacy before Luther takes any 
 step in the same direction, 65; 
 accompanies the Aj-chbishop of May- 
 ence to the Diet of Augsburg, ib. ; 
 letter to Pirckheimer on the degrada- 
 tion of Germany, 66 ; publishes a 
 discourse on the necessity of defend- 
 ing Christendom against the Turks, 
 and dedicates it to all the freemen of 
 Germany, 66, 67 ; his dislike of court 
 
 life, 67: letter to Pirckheimer, 67- 
 69; serves in the army that chases 
 the Duke of Wurtemburg from his 
 dominions, 70 ; publishes a work 
 against Pope Gregory VII., and 
 dedicates it to Prince Ferdinand, ib. ; 
 extensive correspondence, ib.; his 
 famous motto — alea jacta est, 71 ; 
 ardour of faith visible in the preface 
 to his work against Pope Gregory 
 VIL, ib. ; affectionate care for his 
 family, 72 ; his desire for repose and 
 for the company of an amiable and 
 accomplished wife, expressed in a 
 letter to Piscator, 72, 73 ; the Trias 
 Somana, 73 ; summary of that terrible 
 attack upon the corruptions of Eome, 
 74-82 ; its immense popularity 
 throughout Germany, 82 ; publishes 
 several letters, written towards the 
 close of the fourteenth century, 
 showing tlie freedom with which the 
 ancient universities discussed the 
 pretensions of the Papacy, 82, 83 ; 
 allies himself closely with Luther, 
 recognises in him the head of the 
 Beformation, and offers him a secure 
 asylum with Sickingen, 84, 85; letter 
 . to Luther, 85-87 ; visits the court of 
 Ferdinand, but is obliged to fly from 
 the attempts on his life instigated by 
 the papal legates, 88, 89 ; the Pope 
 ,writes to several of the German 
 princes, and especially to the Arch- 
 bishop of Mayence, requiring them 
 to seize Hutten and to send him 
 prisoner to Eome, 89, 90 ; requests 
 the Emperor to put Hutten to the 
 ban of the Empire, 90 ; his friends in 
 general desert him, but Sickingen 
 offers him a secure retreat in the 
 impregnable castle of Ebembuvg, 90 ; 
 his letter to the Archbishop of May- 
 ence, 90, 91 ; to the knight of Eoten- 
 han, 91, 92 ; to the Emperor Charles 
 v., 93, 94 ; to the Elector Frederick 
 of Saxony, 95-100 ; despairs of in- 
 ducing the Emperor and the princes 
 to declare against the Pope, and 
 addresses himself to the people of 
 Germany, 100, 101 ; his first poem in 
 German, 101-105; translates the 
 Trias Eomcma into German, and 
 dedicates it to Sickingen, 105-107; 
 his relations with Luther become 
 more intimate, 107 ; his letter to 
 Luther, written in the beginning of 
 
190 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 1521, 108-110 ; publishes a pamphlet 
 attacking Aleander, the papal legate 
 at the Diet of Worms, 122 ; publishes 
 the Bull, the First Monitor, the 
 Second Monitor, and the Brigands, 
 ib. ; quotations from the Second 
 Monitor, 123-126 ; from the Brigands, 
 126-133 ; the Emperor sends his con- 
 fessor Glapio to Hutten and Siokin- 
 gen, 135 ; publication of the dialogue 
 entitled the Nem Karsthams, 137 ; the 
 war against the Archbishop of 
 Treves, 140, 141 ; defeat of Siokingen 
 and Hutten, 142-144 ; Hutten takes 
 refuge in Basle, 144 ; is warmly 
 received, except by Erasmus, who 
 keeps aloof from him, 144 ; is com- 
 pelled to leave Basle by the intrigires 
 of the Bishop, 145 ; repairs to Mul- 
 bausen, and assists at the solemn 
 suppression of the papal power in 
 that town, ib. ; dastardly attack upon 
 him by Erasmus, ib. ; he replies to it 
 in a violent pamphlet, 145, 146; 
 ■ compelled by a disturbance to leave 
 Mulhausen and take refuge at Zurich 
 beside Zwingle, 146 ; letter to Eoban 
 Hess, ib. ; finds a last resting-place 
 on the green island of Uffnau in the 
 Lake of Zurich, where he dies in his 
 36th year, 147 and 186 ; summary of 
 his character by Eoban Hess, 147. 
 
 Karsthans, the new, a dialogue writ- 
 ten by Hutten, 137, 138. 
 
 Lefebvre or Faber, Hutten acquires 
 his friendship during a visit to Paris, 
 62; his eminence in philosophy, 69; 
 biographical sketch of, 172, 173. 
 
 Luther, effect produced on his mind by 
 Hutten's publication of the work of 
 L. Valla on the donation of Constan- 
 tino, 61; his observations on that 
 work, ib. ; effect of Hutten's writings 
 on the development of Luther's views 
 respecting the Papacy, 64, 66; Hutten 
 writes to offer him a secure asylum 
 with Siokingen, 65 ; letter to, from 
 Hutten, in June 1520, 85-87; his 
 remarks on Hutten's letter to the 
 Elector of Saxony, 100 ; relations be- 
 tween him and Hutten become more 
 intimate, 107 ; letter to him from 
 Hutten, 108-110 ; his heroic conduct 
 at the Diet of Worms, ll'H18 ; put 
 to the ban of the Empire by the Edict 
 
 of Worms, and his writings con- 
 demned to be burnt, 121 ; refuses to 
 have anything to do with the war of 
 the lesser nobSity against the princes, 
 141. 
 
 Maximilian, the Emperor, the theolo- 
 gians of Cologne attempt to prove 
 that all the Jewish books are danger- 
 ous and heretical, and demand from 
 him an order to burn them, 39 ; 
 knights Hutten, and bestows upon 
 him the title of Imperial Poet and 
 Orator, 55. 
 
 Mayence, Archbishop of, becomes the 
 friend and patron of Hutten, 24; 
 consults EeuohKn about burning the 
 Hebrew books, 40 ; suffers from the 
 rapacity of the Eomish court, 61 ; 
 an enemy to Luther, 62 ; attends the 
 Diet of Augsburg, to which Hutten 
 accompanies him, 66 ; at the instiga- 
 tion of the Pope, prohibits the read- 
 ing of Hutten's works under pain of 
 excommunication, 84 ; required by 
 the Pope to seize Hatten and send 
 him a prisoner to Eome, 89, 90 ; let- 
 ter to, from Hutten, 90, 91. 
 
 Meiners, C, his account of the Trias 
 JRomana, 74. 
 
 Melancthon, unfeeling letter of Eras- 
 mus to, after the death of Hutten, 
 144, 145 ; his regret for Hutten's 
 death, 147. 
 
 Menzel, his account of the lamentable 
 state of Germany at the close of the 
 long wars of religion in 1 648, 183-186. 
 
 Monitor, the First, a dialogue published 
 by_Hutteninl521, 122. 
 
 Monitor, the Second, a dialogue pub- 
 lished by Hutten in 1521, 122 ; quo- 
 tations from, 123-125. 
 
 Nuenar, Count Herman von, letter to 
 him from Hutteu, 63, 64 ; biographi- 
 cal notice of, 174. 
 
 (Ecolampadius, is compelled, along 
 with Hutten, to take refuge in Swit- 
 zerland, after the defeat of Siokin- 
 gen, 144. 
 
 Palatine, Count, compels Siokingen to 
 raise the siege of Treves, 142. 
 
 Peu linger, Com-ad, biographical sketch 
 of, 167-169. 
 
 ; Peutinger, Constance, called the Pearl 
 
INDEX. 
 
 191 
 
 of Augsburg, places the laurel 
 crown of Imperial Poet and Orator 
 on the brows of Hutten, 65. 
 
 Pfefferkom, a converted Jew, accuses 
 his co-religionists of insulting Chris- 
 tianity, 39. 
 
 Pirckheimer, Bilibald, letter to him 
 from Hutten, describing the hard- 
 ships of his first journey to Italy, 23 ; 
 another letter from Hutten on the de- 
 gradation of Germany, 66; a third 
 letter, 67, 68 ; biographical notice of, 
 162, 153. 
 
 Pisoator, letter from Hutten to, ex- 
 pressing his desire for repose and for 
 the society of an amiable and ac- 
 complished wife, 72, 73. 
 
 Princes, the German, opposed to the 
 Eefoxmation, as advei'se to the con- 
 stitution of principalities, and to the 
 continuance of the oligarchy which 
 they ware desirous of establishing, 
 133, 134 ; they aim at the ruin of the 
 lesser nobility, 134. 
 
 Eabulists, attacked by Hutten in his 
 dialogue of the Brigands, 130, 131; 
 explanation of the term, 182. 
 
 Beuchlin, John, gives the signal for 
 the stiif e between the Scholastics and 
 the Humanists 38 ; his great and 
 various learning, 38, 39 ; his memo- 
 rial to the Archbishop of Mayenoe — 
 who had consulted him about the 
 burning of the Jewish books — at- 
 tacked by the theologians of Cologne, 
 40 ; his reply to their attack is 
 burned, ib. ; he writes a second, and 
 is cited to appear before the Inquisi- 
 tion, i6. ; triumph of Beuchlin and 
 the Humanists, 41 ; the Dominicans 
 at length prociu-e his condemnation 
 by the Pope, but are compelled by 
 Sickingen to promise not to molest 
 him, 49 ; death of Beuchlin, ib. ; Sir 
 William Hamilton's estimate of his 
 character, 160-162; Frederick Sohle- 
 gel's, 162. 
 
 Beuil, his eminence as a physician, 
 69 ; notice of, 173. 
 
 Botenhan, Sebastian von, Hutten dedi- 
 cates to him the Trias Jiomana, 73 ; 
 biographical notice of, 176. 
 
 Eubianus, Orotus, an. early friend and 
 fellow-student of Hutten, 18 ; joins 
 Hutten at Cologne, 19 ; his grief for 
 the death of Hutten, 147 ; one of the 
 
 authors of the Epistolee Ohsourorwm 
 Vvrorum, 151. 
 
 Scholastics, struggle between them and 
 the Humanists, 37-49. 
 
 Sickingen, Franz von, commands the 
 
 ^ army which in 1519 drove the Duke 
 of Wurtemburg from his dominions, 
 36 ; contracts an intimate friendship 
 with Hutten during that campaign, 
 ib. ; his favour at the court of Charles 
 v., 88 ; the most brilliant represen- 
 tative of German chivalry, ib. ; offers 
 Hutten a secure asylum in his castle 
 of Ebemburg, 90 ; transmits Hut- 
 ten's letter to the Emperor, who pro- 
 mises that Hutten shall not be 
 condemned unheard, 95 ; Hutten 
 dedicates to him the German ver- 
 sion of the Trias Homana and some 
 of his other dialogues, 105-107 ; 
 one of the chief interlocutors in the 
 second Monitor, 122-125 ; and in the 
 Brigands, 126-133 ; the Emperor tries 
 to induce him to attack Francis I., 
 135 ; he raises an army and invades 
 France, 136 ; is repulsed by Bayard, 
 and compelled to raise the siege of 
 Mezier^s, ib,; the Bhenish knights 
 and leaser nobility assembled at Lan- 
 dau, elect him for their leader, 136, 
 137; he attacks the Archbishop of 
 Treves, 141, 142 ; the auxiliary 
 troops that he expects are crushed 
 before they can join him, and he 
 is compelled to raise the siege of 
 Treves by the advance of the Elec- 
 tor of Hesse and the Count Palatine, 
 142 ; he shuts himself up in the 
 strong fortress of Landstuhl, which 
 is besieged and destroyed by the 
 army of the princes, 143 ; Sickingen 
 himself is mortally wounded and 
 compelled to surrender, ib. ; his 
 death, 143, 144 ; biographical sketch 
 of him, 156-160. 
 
 Spires, Bishop of, condemns the ac- 
 cusers of Beuchlin, 41. 
 
 Spalatin, Luther sends him Hutten's 
 letter to the Elector of Saxony, 100. 
 
 Steckelberg, Castle of, the residence of 
 the Huttens, 16; description of, 16, 17. 
 
 Stein, Eitelwolf von, an early friend 
 and patron of Hutten, 18; recom- 
 mends him to the notice of the Arch- 
 bishop of Mayence, 23, 24 ; his death, 
 28 ;. biographical notice of, 151, 152. 
 
192 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Strauss, Dr Friederioh, his excellent 
 Life of Hutten, 163; differs from 
 M. Cliauffour-Kestiier as to the date 
 and circumstances of Hutten's coro- 
 nation as Poet and Orator, 167 ; and 
 also as to the date of his death, 186. 
 
 Tetzel, the writings of Hutten make liim 
 detested throughout Germany, 65. 
 
 Treves, Archbishop of, attacked by 
 Sickingen, 141, 142 ; he defeats 
 Sicktngen, destroys the castles of his 
 partisans, and finally shuts him up 
 in the fortress of Landstuhl, where 
 he is moiially wounded and com- 
 pelled to surrender, 142, 143 ; last' 
 interview between him and Sickin- 
 gen, 143, 144. 
 
 Trias Somema, a terrible attack on the 
 Papacy, written by Hutten in Latin, 
 and afterwards translated into Ger- 
 man , 73 ; summary of, 74-82 ; produces 
 an immense effect in Germany, 82. 
 
 Tunger, one of the chief persecutors of 
 Eeuchlin, 45 ; his pamphlet against 
 him, 162, 163. 
 
 Valla, Laurentius, Hutten discovers 
 and publishes his work upon the 
 pretended donation of Constantine to 
 
 the Holy See, 56 ; biographical 
 notice of, 169-171. 
 
 Worms, Diet of, 110-120 ; Edict of, ob- 
 tained by cunning and promptitude, 
 119-121. 
 
 Wurtemburg, Duke of, importance of 
 the services rendered him by the 
 Huttens, 28 ; takes Hans von Hut- 
 ten into his service, 29; becomes 
 enamoured of Hans' wife, ib. ; assas- 
 sinates Hans with his own hand 
 during a hunting party, and after- 
 wards lives openly with his widow, 
 30, 31 ; is put to the ban of the Em- 
 pire, and driven from his dominions 
 by an army, in which Ulrich von 
 Hutten served, and which was com- 
 manded by Sickingen, 36 ; notice re- 
 garding, 155, 156. 
 
 Ziska, John, defence of, by Hutten, in 
 the Second Monitor, 123 ; allusion to, 
 in the New Karsthans, 138 ; notice of, 
 182, 183. 
 
 Zwingli, Ulrich, his commendation of 
 the character of Hutten, 27 and 146 ; 
 affords Hutten an asylum at Zurich, 
 146; sends him to the island of 
 XJffnau, 147. 
 
 MURRAY AKD GIBE, PRINTERS, EDrNBURGH.