Among his dearest fellow Alumni here were Rubianus and Hoff, both of whom subsequently achieved great renown. In the Augustine convent, near the school, there was residing a poor young monk, who also subsequently became somewhat famous. Nobody, however, took much account of him just then, and few even cared to know his name—Martin Luther. The plague breaking out at Erfurt, Rubianus was accompanied by Ulrich to Cologne, there to pursue their studies. The heart and purse of Ulrich’s father were closed against the son, because of his flight from Fulda; but his kinsman Eitelwolf, provided for the necessities of the rather imprudent young scholar.
The sages who trained the young idea at Cologne were of the old high and dry quality—hating progress and laboriously learned in trifles. At the head of them were Hogstraten and Ortuin. Ulrich learned enough of their manner to be able to crush them afterward with ridicule, by imitating their style, and reproducing their gigantic nonsense, in the famous “Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.” In the meantime he knit close friendship with Sebastian Brandt, and Œcolampadius—both young men of progress. The latter was expelled from Cologne for being so, but the University of Frankfort on the Oder offered him an asylum. Thither Ulrich repaired also, to be near his friend, and to sharpen his weapons for the coming struggle between light and darkness—Germany against Rome, and the German language against the Latin.
At Frankfort he won golden opinions from all sorts of people. The Elector, Joachim of Brandenburg; his brother, the priestly Margrave Albert; and Bishop Dietrich von Beilow were proud of the youth who did honor to the university. He here first became a poet, and took the brothers Von Osthen for his friends. He labored earnestly, and acquired much glory; but he was a very free liver to boot, though he was by no means particularly so, for the times in which he lived. His excesses, however, brought on a dangerous disease, which, it is sometimes supposed, had not hitherto been known in Europe. Be this as it may, he was never wholly free from the malady as long as he lived, nor ever thought that it much mattered whether he suffered or not.
He was still ill when he took up for a season the life of a wandering scholar. He endured all its miserable vicissitudes, suffered famine and shipwreck, and was glad at last to find a haven, as a poor student, in the Pomeranian University of Griefswalde. The Professor Lötz and his father the Burgomaster, were glad to patronize so renowned a youth, but they did it with such insulting condescension that the spirit of Ulrich revolted; and in 1509, the wayward scholar was again a wanderer, with the world before him where to choose. The Lötzes, who had lent him clothes, despatched men after him to strip him; and the poor, half-frozen wretch, reached Rostock half starved, more than half naked, with wounds gaping for vengeance, and with as little sense about him as could be possessed by a man so ill-conditioned.
He lived by his wits at Rostock. He was unknown and perfectly destitute; but he penned so spirited a metrical narrative of his life and sufferings, addressed to the heads of the university there, that these at once received him under their protection. In a short time he was installed in comparative comfort, teaching the classics to young pupils, and experiencing as much enjoyment as he could, considering that the Lötzes of Griefswalde were continually assuring his patrons that their protégé was a worthless impostor.
He took a poet’s revenge, and scourged them in rhymes, the very ruggedness of which was tantamount to flaying.
Having gained his fill of honor at Rostock, his restless spirit urged him once again into the world. After much wandering, he settled for a season at Wittenburg, where he was the delight of the learned men. By their eleemosynary aid, and that of various friends, save his father, who rejoiced in his renown but would not help him to live, he existed after the fashion of many pauper students of his day. At Wittenburg he wrote his famous “Art of Poetry;” and he had no sooner raised universal admiration by its production, than forth he rushed once more into the world.
He wandered through Bohemia and Moravia, thankfully accepting bread from peasants, and diamond rings from princes. He had not a maravedi in his purse, nor clean linen on his back; but he made himself welcome everywhere. One night he slept, thankfully, on the straw of a barn; and the next sank, well-fed, into the eider-down of a bishop’s bed. He entered Olmutz ragged, shoeless, and exhausted. He left it, after enjoying the rich hospitality he had laughingly extracted from Bishop Turso, on horseback, with a heavy purse in his belt, a mantle on his shoulder, and a golden ring, with a jewel set in it, upon his finger. Such were a student’s vicissitudes, in the days of German wandering, a long time ago.
The boy, for he was not yet twenty years of age, betook himself to Vienna, where he kept a wide circle in continual rapture by the excellence of his poetical productions. These productions were not “all for love,” nor were they all didactic. He poured out war-ballads to encourage the popular feeling in favor of the Emperor Maximilian, against his enemies in Germany and Italy. Ulrich was, for the moment, the Tyrtæus of his native country. Then, suddenly recollecting that his angry sire had said that if his son would not take the monk’s cowl, his father would be content to see him assume the lawyer’s coif, our volatile hero hastened to Pavia, opened the law books on an ominous 1st of April, 1512, and read them steadily, yet wearied of them heartily, during just three months.
At this time Francis the first of France, who had seized on Pavia, was besieged therein by the German and Swiss cavalry. Ulrich was dangerously ill during the siege, but he occupied the weary time by writing sharp epitaphs upon himself. The allies entered the city; and Ulrich straightway departed from it, a charge having been laid against him of too much partiality for the French. The indignant German hurried to Bologna, where he once more addressed himself to the Pandects and the Juris Codices Gentium.