Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

There was little hope of aid from the emperor, but Von Hutten looked for all the help the cause needed in a union of the citizen classes (whom he had been wont to satirize) with the nobility. To further the end in view, he wrote his masterly dialogue of “The Robbers.” In this piece, the speakers are knights and citizens. Each side blames the other, but each is made acquainted with the other’s virtues, by the interposition of a Deus ex machinâ in the presence of the knight, Franz von Sickingen. The whole partakes of the spirit and raciness of Bunyan and Cobbett. Throughout the dialogue, the vices of no party in the state find mercy, while the necessity of the mutual exercise of virtue and aid is ably expounded.

The knight, Franz von Sickingen, was author of a part of this dialogue. His adjurations to Von Hutten not to be over-hasty and his reason why, are no doubt his own. By the production of such papers, Germany was made eager for the fray. This particular and powerful dialogue was dedicated to John, Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, and Count of Spanheim. This illustrious personage had requested Ulrich that whenever he published any particularly bold book, in support of national liberty, he would dedicate it to him, the duke. The author obeyed, in this instance, on good grounds and with right good will. There is in the dialogue an audible call to war, and this pleased Luther himself, who was now convinced that with the pen alone, the Reformation could not be an established fact.

Ulrich longed for the contact, whereby to make his country and his church free of Romanist tyranny. But he considers the possibility of a failure. He adjured his family to keep aloof from the strife, that they might not bring ruin on their heads, in the event of destruction falling on his own. The parents of Ulrich were now no more; Ulrich as head of his house was possessed of its modest estates. Of his own possessions he got rid, as of an encumbrance to his daring and his gigantic activity. He formally made over nearly all to his next brother, in order that his enemies, should they ultimately triumph, might have no ground for seizing them.

At the same time, he warned his brother to send him neither letters nor money, as either would be considered in the light of aid offered to an enemy, and might be visited with terrible penalties.

Having rid himself of what few would so easily have parted from, he drew his sword joyously and independently for the sake of liberty alone, and with a determination of never sheathing it until he had accomplished that at which he aimed, or that the accomplishment of such end had been placed beyond his power.

“Jacta est alea,” cried he, viewing his bright sword, “the die is thrown, Ulrich has risked it.”

In the meantime Von Hutten remained in the service of the Elector-Archbishop of Mayence. The courtiers laughed at him as a rude knight. The knights ridiculed him as a poor philosopher. Both were mistaken; he was neither poor nor rude, albeit a Ritter and a sage. What he most cared for, was opportunity to be useful in his generation, and leisure enough to cultivate learning during the hours he might call his own. His satirical poems, coarsely enough worded against a courtier’s life, are admirable for strength and coloring. Not less admirable for taste and power are his letters of this period. In them he denounces that nobility which is composed solely of family pride; and he denounces, with equally good foundation, the life of “Robber Knights,” as he calls them, who reside in their castles, amid every sort of discomfort, and a world of dirt, of hideous noises, and unsavory smells; and who only leave them to plunder or to be plundered. He pronounces the true knights of the period to be those alone who love religion and education. With the aid of these, applied wisely and widely, and with the help of great men whom he names, and who share his opinions, he hopes, as he fervently declares, to see intellect gain more victories than force—to be able to bid the old barbarous spirit which still influenced too many “to gird up its loins and be off.” Health came to him with this determination to devote himself to the service and improvement of his fellow-men. It came partly by the use of simple remedies, the chief of which was moderation in all things. Pen and sword were now alike actively employed. He put aside the former, for a moment, only to assume the latter, in order to strike in for vengeance against the aggressive Duke of Wurtemburg.

The crimes of this potentate had at length aroused the emperor against him. Maximilian had intrusted the leadership of his army to the famous knight-errant of his day, Franz von Sickingen. This cavalier had often been in open rebellion against the emperor himself; and Hutten now enrolled himself among the followers of Franz. His patron not only gave him the necessary permission but continued to him his liberal stipend; when the two knights met, and made their armor clash with their boisterous embrace, they swore not to stop short of vengeance on the guilty duke, but to fight to the death for liberty and Christendom. They slept together in the same bed in token of brotherly knighthood, and they rose to carry their banner triumphantly against the duke—ending the campaign by the capture of the metropolis, Stutgardt.

Reuchlin resided in the capital, and the good man was full of fear; for murder and rapine reigned around him. His fear was groundless, for Von Hutten had urged Sickingen to give out that in the sack of Stutgardt, no man should dare to assail the dwelling of Reuchlin. The two knights left the city to proceed to the spot in the wood where still lay buried the body of the murdered John von Hutten. “It had lain four years in the grave,” said Ulrich, “but the features were unchanged. As we touched him, blood flowed afresh from his wounds; recognise in this the witness of his innocence.” The corpse was eventually transported to the family vault at Esslingen.

The cities of the hard-pressed duke fell, one after the other, and the guilty prince was driven from his inheritance. Von Hutten remained with the army, busily plying his pen; his sword on the table before him, his dagger on his hip, and himself encased in armor to the throat. Erasmus laughingly wrote to him to leave Mars and stick to the Muses. He scarcely needed this advice, for his letters from the camp show that fond as he was of the field, he loved far better the quiet joys of the household hearth. Amid the brazen clangor of trumpets, the neighing of steeds, the rolling of the drum, and the boom of battle, he writes to Piscator (Fischer), his longing for home, and his desire for a wife to smile on, and care for him; one who would soothe his griefs and share his labors—“One,” he says, “with whom I might sportively laugh and feel glad in our existence—who would sweeten the bitter of life and alleviate the pressure of care. Let me have a wife, my dear Friederich, and thou knowest how I would love her ... young, fair, shy, gentle, affectionate, and well-educated. She may have some fortune, but not excess of it; and as for position, this is my idea thereon: that she will be noble enough whom Ulrich von Hutten chooses for his mate.” As a wooer, it will be seen that the scholar-knight had as little of the faint heart as the audacious “Findlay” of Burns, and I might almost say of Freiligrath, so spiritedly has the latter poet translated into German the pleasant lines of the Ayrshire ploughman.