The fact that at the time the Diet was sitting a committee of the Estates brought forward, under a new form, the so-called “Gravamina of the German Nation” against the Roman See, was greatly to the advantage of Luther’s cause. They consisted largely of legitimate suggestions for the amelioration of ecclesiastical conditions and the removal of the oppression exercised by the Curia. These were made the subject of debate, and were exploited in Luther’s interests by those desirous of innovations. Those among the Humanists who sided with him, and likewise the Knights of the Empire, had taken various steps during his stay at Worms to strengthen his position and to frighten the Estates by hinting at violent action to be undertaken on his behalf.
Ulrich von Hutten wrote to him from the Ebernburg on April 17: “Keep a good heart ... I will stand by you to the last breath if you remain true to yourself.” He knows how those assembled at the Diet gnash their teeth at him; his fancy indeed paints things black, but his hope in God sustains him.[156] In a second letter of April 20, Hutten speaks to him of trusting not only in God and His Christ, but also in earthly weapons: “I see that sword and bow, arrows and bolts are necessary in order to withstand the mad rage of the devil ... the wisdom of my friends hinders me from a venture, because they fear lest I go too far, otherwise I should already have prepared some kind of surprise for these gentlemen under the walls [of Worms]. In a short time, however, my hand will be free, and then you shall see that I will not be wanting in the spirit which God has roused up in me.”[157] In the same way as in his rhetorical language he ascribes his own mood to the illumination of the Spirit of God, so Hutten also sought to unearth a Divine inspiration in his friend Franz von Sickingen; all this was the outcome of Luther’s pseudo-mysticism, to which his friends were indebted for such figures of speech. Regarding Sickingen, Hutten wrote to Willibald Pirkheimer: “He has, so to speak, drunk in Luther completely; he has his little books read aloud at table, and I have heard him swear that he will never forsake the cause of truth in spite of every danger.” “You may well regard these words as a Divine Voice, so great is his constancy.”[158]
Numerous threats of violence reached the ears of the timorous Estates assembled at Worms. A notice was affixed to the Rathaus in which 400(?) sworn noblemen with 8000(?) men challenged the “Princes and Messrs. the Romanists.” It concluded with the watchword of the insurgents: “Bundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh.” Towards the close of the Diet several hundred knights assembled around Worms.[159]
At the Diet the Elector of Saxony made no secret of his patronage of Luther.
He it was who, on the evening before Luther’s departure, informed him in the presence of Spalatin and others, that he would be seized on the homeward journey and conducted to a place of safety which would not be told him beforehand.[160]
After having received this assurance Luther left Worms.
On the journey such was his boldness that he disregarded the Imperial prohibition to preach, though he feared that this violation of the conditions laid down would be taken advantage of by his opponents, and cause him to forfeit his safe-conduct. He himself says of the sermons which he delivered at Hersfeld and Eisenach, on May 1 and 2, that they would be regarded as a breach of the obligations he had undertaken when availing himself of the safe conduct; but that he had been unable to consent that the Word of God should be bound in chains. He is here playing on the words of the Bible: “Verbum Dei non est alligatum.” “This condition, even had I undertaken it, would not have been binding, as it would have been against God.”[161]
After the journey had been resumed the well-known surprise took place, and Luther was carried off to the Wartburg on May 4.
In his lonely abode, known to only a few of his friends, he awaited with concern the sentence of outlawry which was to be passed upon him by the Emperor and the Estates. The edict, in its final form of May 8, was not published until after the safe-conduct had expired. “To-morrow the Imperial safe conduct terminates,” Luther wrote on May 11 from the Wartburg to Spalatin; “ ... It grieves me that those deluded men should call down such a misfortune upon their own heads. How great a hatred will this inconsiderate act of violence arouse. But only wait, the time of their visitation is at hand.”[162] The proclamation of outlawry was couched in very stern language and enacted measures of the utmost severity, following in this the traditions of the Middle Ages; Luther’s writings were to be burnt, and he himself was adjudged worthy of death. Of Luther the document says, that, “like the enemy of souls disguised in a monk’s garb,” he had gathered together “heresies old and new.” The impression made by Luther on the Emperor and on other eminent members of the Diet, was that of one possessed.[163]