CHAPTER XIII
[1] Dr. Philip Schaff, the Church historian, says: "Schleiermacher reduced the whole difference between Romanism and Protestantism to the formula, 'Romanism makes the relation of the individual to Christ depend on his relation to the Church: Protestantism, vice versa, makes the relation of the individual to the Church depend on his relation to Christ.'" (Quoted by G. B. Adams, from a pamphlet, Luther Symposiac, Union Seminary, 1883.)
[2] The importance of writing before the days of printing can readily be appreciated. Just as the monk was carefully trained to copy manuscript, so the clerk for a city or a business house needed to be carefully trained to read and write. Writing formed a distinct profession, there being the "city writer" (city clerk, we say), Latin and vernacular secretaries, traveling writers, writing teachers, etc. Writing masters sometimes taught reading also, but usually not. In some French cities the guild of writing masters was granted an official monopoly of the privilege of teaching writing in the city.
[3] Reckoning schools were to meet direct commercial needs in the cities, and were seldom found outside of commercial towns. The arithmetic taught in the Latin schools as a part of the Seven Liberal Arts was largely theoretical; the arithmetic in the reckoning schools was practical. The work of the professional reckoner in time developed similarly to that of the professional writer, and often the two were combined in one person. When employed by a city he was known as the city clerk. In 1482 the first reckoning book to be published in Germany appeared, filled with merchant's rules and applied problems in denominate numbers and exchange. See an interesting monograph by Jackson, L. L., Sixteenth Century Arithmetic (Trs. College Pubs., No. 8, 1906).
[4] Luther tried to make a translation so simple that even the unlearned might profit by listening to its reading. To insure that his translation should be in a language that would be perfectly clear and natural to the common people, he went about asking questions of laborers, children, and mothers to secure good colloquial expressions. It sometimes took him weeks to secure the right word, but so satisfactory was the result that it fixed the standard for modern German, and still stands as the most conspicuous landmark in the history of the German language.
[5] The French version of this great original work represents the first use of French as a language for an argumentative treatise, and, as Calvin's work was more widely discussed than any other Protestant theological treatise, it did much to fix the character of this national language.
[6] "Tyndale's translation is not only the first which goes back to the original tongues, but it is so noble a translation in its mingled tenderness and majesty, its Saxon simplicity, and its smooth, beautiful diction that it has been but little improved on since. Every succeeding version is little more than a revision of Tyndale's." (J. Paterson Smyth, How We Got Our Bible.)
The following extract from Matthew is illustrative: "O oure father which art in heven, halewed be thy name. Let thy kingdom come. Thy wyll be fulfilled, as well in erth, as hit ys in heven. Geve vs this daye oure dayly breade. And forgeve vs oure treaspases, even as we forgeve them whych treaspas vs. Lede vs nott in to temptacion, but delyvre vs from yvell. Amen."
[7] The most famous of Luther's German hymns, and one expressive of the Protestant spirit, is the one beginning:
"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, "A mighty fortress is our God,
Ein gute Wehr und Waffen." A bulwark never failing."
This hymn has often been called "The Marseillaise of the Reformation."
[8] The evolution, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the German vernacular school-teacher out of the parish sexton is one of the interesting bits of our educational history.
[9] Magdeburg is typical, where the Lutherans united all the parish schools under the supervision of one pastor.
[10] Wittenberg, founded in 1502 as a new-learning university, and in which Luther, Melanchthon, and Bugenhagen were professors, was the first of the universities to become Protestant. Gradually the other universities in Protestant Germany threw off their allegiance to the Pope, and took on that of the ruling prince.
[11] The first Protestant university to be founded was Marburg, in Hesse, in 1527. When this later went over to Calvinism, a new university was founded at Giessen, in 1607, by a migration of the Lutheran professors. Other Protestant universities founded were Königsberg (1544) Jena (1555), Helmstadt (1576), and the free-city universities of Altdorf (1573), Strassburg (1621), Rinteln (1621), Duisberg (1655) and Kiel (1665). The support of these came, to a considerable extent, from old monastic or ecclesiastical foundations which had been dissolved after the Reformation.
[12] This was in response to a petition to the King, nearly two years before. The King finally granted the request, "though maintaining that he was not compelled by God's Word to set forth the Scriptures in English, yet 'of his own liberality and goodness was and is pleased that his said loving subjects should have and read the same in convenient places and times.'" (Procter and Frere, History of the Book of Common Prayer, p. 30.)
[13] "The injunctions directed that 'a Bible of the largest volume in English' be set up in some convenient place in every church, where it might be read, only without noise, or disturbance of any public service, and without any disputation, or exposition." (Ibid., p. 30.)
[14] The right to read the Bible was later revoked, during the closing years of Henry VIII's reign (d. 1547), by an act of Parliament, in 1543, which provided that "no woman (unless she be a noble or gentle woman), no artificers, apprentices, journeymen, servingmen, under the degree of yeomen … husbandmen, or laborers" should read or use any part of the Bible under pain of fines and imprisonment.
[15] These were, distributed by reigns, as follows:
Henry VIII (1509-1547) 63 schools
Edward VI (1547-1553) 50 "
Mary (1553-1558) 19 "
Elizabeth (1558-1603) 138 "
James I (1603-1625)
Charles I (1625-1649) 142 "
Protectorate (1649-1660)
Charles II (1660-1685)
James II (1685-1688) 146 "