In June and July, 1552, Margrave Albert of Brandenburg-Kulmbach laid waste the country around Mayence with fire and sword to such an extent, that the bishop of Würzburg, in order to raise the unheard-of sums demanded, had, as we find it stated in a letter of Zasius to King Ferdinand dated July 10, to lump together “all the gold and silver plate in the churches, the jewels, reliquaries, monstrances, statues and vessels of the sanctuary” and have them minted into thalers. “At Neumünster one reliquary was melted down which alone was worth 1000 florins.”[788] The citizens of Würzburg were obliged to give up all their household plate and the cathedral itself the silver statue of St. Kilian, patron of the diocese.[789]
When the commanders and the troops of the Elector Maurice withdrew from the Tyrol after the frustration of their undertaking owing to the flight of the Emperor to Carinthia, all the sacred objects of value in the Cistercian monastery of Stams in the valley of the upper Inn were either broken to pieces or carried off. The soldiers broke open the vault, where the earthly remains of the ruling Princes had rested for centuries, dragged the corpses out of their coffins and stripped them of their valuables.[790] The inventory of the treasures of art made of precious metal and other substances which perished at Stams must be classed with numerous other sad records of a similar nature dating from that time.[791]
After the truce of Passau, Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, with the help of France, turned his attention to Frankfurt, Mayence and Treves. At Mayence, after making a vain demand for 100,000 gold florins from the clergy, he gave orders to ransack the churches, and set on fire the churches of St. Alban, St. Victor and Holy Cross, the Charterhouse and the houses of the Canons. He boasted of this as a “right princely firebrand we threw into the damned nest of parsons.” In Treves all the collegiate churches and monasteries were “sacked down to the very last farthing,” as an account relates; the monastery of St. Maximin, the priory of St. Paul, the castle of Saarburg on the Saar, Pfalzel and Echternach were given to the flames.[792] “Such proceedings were incumbent on an honourable Prince who had the glory of God at heart and was zealous for the spread of the Divine Gospel, which God the Lord in our age has allowed to shine forth with such marvellous light.” So Albert boasted to an envoy of the Archbishop of Mayence on June 27, 1552, when laying waste Würzburg.[793]
“The archbishoprics of Treves and Mayence, the bishoprics of Spires, Worms and Eichstätt are laid waste with pillage,” wrote Melchior von Ossa the Saxon lawyer, “the stately edifices at Mayence, Treves and other places, where lay the bones of so many pious martyrs of old, are reduced to ashes.”[794] The complaints of a Protestant preacher who had worked for a considerable time at Schwäbisch-Hall ring much the same: “Our parents were willing to contribute towards the building of churches and to the adornment of the temples of God.... But now the churches have been pilfered so badly that they barely retain a roof over them. Superb Mass vestments of silk and velvet with pearls and corals were provided for the churches by our forefathers; these have now been removed and serve the woman-folk as hoods and bodices; indeed so poor have some of the churches become under the rule of the Evangel, that it is impossible to provide the ministers of the Church even with a beggarly surplice.”[795]
The wanton waste and destruction which took place in the domain of art under Lutheran rule during the first fifty years of the religious innovations, great as they were, do not by any means approach in magnitude the losses caused elsewhere by Zwinglianism and Calvinism.
Yet two things in Lutheranism had a disastrous effect in checking the revival of religious art, even when the first struggles for mastery were over: first, there was the animosity against the Sacrifice of the Mass and the perpetual eucharistic presence of Christ in the tabernacle; this led people to view with distrust the old alliance existing between the Eucharistic worship and the liberal arts for exalting the dignity and beauty of the churches. After the Mass had been abolished and the Sacrament had ceased to be reserved within the sacred walls, respect for and interest in the house of God, which had led to so much being lavished on it, began to wane. The other obstacle lay in Luther’s negative attitude towards the ancient doctrine and practice of good works. The belief in the meritoriousness of works had in the past been a stimulus to pecuniary sacrifices and offerings for the making of pious works of art. Now, however, artists began to complain, that, owing to the decline of zeal for church matters their orders were beginning to fall off, and that the makers of works of art were being condemned to starvation.
In a protocol of the Council of Strasburg, dated Feb. 3, 1525, we read in a petition from the artists: “Painters and sculptors beg, that, whereas, through the Word of God their handicraft has died out they may be provided with posts before other claimants.” The Council answered that their appeal would “be borne in mind.”[796]
The verses of Hans Sachs of Nuremberg are well-known:
“Bell-founders and organists,
Gold-beaters and illuminists,