Luther, vol. 5 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

We are still in possession of the inventory made by Blasius Kneusel of Meissen which gives us a glimpse of the wealth and magnificence of the treasures of mediæval German art and industry which perished in this way.

The list contains the following entries among others: “One gold cross valued by Duke George at 1300 florins; in it there is a diamond valued at 16,000 florins, besides other precious stones and pearls with which the cross is covered.” “A second gold cross, worth 6000 florins. A third is worth 1000 florins, besides the precious stones and pearls of which the cross is full. I value the gold table and the credence table, without the precious stones, at 1000 florins in gold. The large bust of St. Benno weighs 36-1/2 lbs.; it is set with valuable stones; it was made by order of the church and all the congregation contributed towards it. The small cross with the medallions of the Virgin Mary and St. John weighs about 50 lbs.”

The number of these treasures of art which fell a prey to the plunderer amounted to fifty-one.[726]

Two years later Luther wrote to Duke Ernest of Saxony to seek help on behalf of two fallen monks then studying theology at Wittenberg: in order to support men who “may eventually prove very useful” “the chalices and monstrances might well be melted down.”[727]

The ruthless handling of the Black Monastery at Wittenberg, which had been bestowed on Luther after the dissolution of the Augustinian community, was to set a bad example. The fittings of the church there were scattered and the mediæval images and vestments which, though perhaps only of small material value, would yet be carefully treasured by any museum to-day, were calmly devoted by Luther to destruction.

“Now at last,” he says, “I have sold the best of the pictures that still remained, but did not get much for them, fifty florins at the most, and with this I have clothed, fed and provided for the nuns and the monks—the thieves and rascals.” He had already remarked that the best of the “church ornaments and vessels” had gone; at the “beginning of the Evangel everything had been laid waste” and “even to this very day they do not cease from carrying off ... each man whatever he can lay hands on.”[728]

No one can adequately describe the material damage which the Catholic parsonages and benefices, convents and bishoprics had to suffer on their suppression. A simple list of the spoliations from the hundreds of cases on record, would give us a shocking picture of the temporal consequences involved in the ecclesiastical upheaval. Apart from the injustice of thus robbing the churches and, incidentally, the numberless poor who looked to the Church for help, it was regrettable that there was no other institution ready to take the place of the olden Church, and assume possession of the properties which fell vacant. The Catholic Church was a firmly knit and well-established community, capable of possessing property. The new Churches on the contrary did not constitute an independent and united body; the universal priesthood, the invisibility of the Church of Christ and its utter want of independence were ideas altogether at variance with the legal conception of ownership upon which, in the topsyturvydom of that age of transition it was more than ever necessary to insist.

Hence the secular element had necessarily to assume the guardianship of the property. But of the secular authorities, which was to take control? For these authorities, which all were looking forward expectantly to their share of the church property heaped up by their Catholic ancestors, were not one but many: There was the sovereign with his Court, the civil administration, the towns with their councils, not to speak of other local claimants; to make the confusion worse there were the church patrons, the trustees of monasteries, the founders of institutions, and their heirs, and also those endowed with certain privileges under letters patent. Moreover, the leaders of the religious innovations insisted that the property acquired was to be devoted to the support of the preachers, the schools and the poor. Hence to the above already lengthy list of claimants must be added the preachers, or the consistories representing them, likewise the administrators of the relief funds, the governors of the schools, and the senates of the universities which had to furnish the preachers.

The war-council of the town of Strasburg, in 1538, addressed a letter to Luther concerning their prospects or intention of securing a share of the church property there. On Nov. 20 of that year he replied, peremptorily telling them to do nothing of the sort; under the conditions then prevailing they must “de facto stand still.” Yet no less plain was his hint to them to warn Catholic owners “who hold church property but pay no heed to the cure of souls,” to amend and to accept the new Evangel; if they “wished to go,” i.e. preferred banishment, so much the better, otherwise they must once for all by some means be “at last brought to see that further persistence in their wantonness” was out of question.[729]

To add to the general chaos in many places the powerful nobles, as Luther frequently laments, without a shadow of a right, set violent hands on the tempting possessions, and, by entering into possession, frustrated all other claims.