This was not enough for the priests; they must get a stop put to sermons which, in spite of their strange delivery, contained much truth. A beginning was made by depriving Reinhard of his interpreter. The bishops of Roschild and Aarhuus offered to Eliæ a canonry at Odensee. The latter, wishing for nothing better than to make his escape from a business which was becoming ridiculous, accepted it. The people called him the weathercock priest. Reinhard, thus compelled to relinquish preaching, maintained in Latin some theses on the doctrines of the Reformation. Eliæ, at the instigation of the bishop of Aarhuus, completely changed sides and attacked the messenger of Melanchthon and Luther.[[231]] At the same time, the University required that the writings of the reformers should be proscribed. The king had certainly not been happy at his game. When the awakening of a people is in question, it is not for royal chanceries to undertake it. There is a head of the church, Jesus Christ, to whom this work belongs, and he had chosen for it the son of a peasant of Kiertminde and other men like him.
The king, however, was in no humor to tolerate the opposition of bishops whose influence he had set himself to destroy. He profited by the lesson he had received. Finding that Reinhard was not the man that he wanted, the king sent him back to Saxony, requiring him to take an invitation from himself to the great reformer, whose position in Germany, Christian thought, the edict of the diet of Worms must have made untenable. If Luther could not come, said the king, he must send Carlstadt.
The first of these calls was unacceptable, and the second was unfortunate.
Reinhard, who reached Wittenberg at the beginning of March, did not fail to push himself into notice. He related to Luther what had taken place at Copenhagen, or at least such portions of the story as were favorable to himself and to his cause. It gave great joy to the reformer. ‘The king of Denmark,’ he wrote to Spalatin (March 7), ‘has forbidden the university to condemn my writings and is sharply pressing the papists.’[[232]] Luther did not accept the king’s offer. His place was at Wittenberg. Would not removing him from Germany be taking him from Europe and from the work for which he had been chosen? At the most, he thought that if in some dark hour the danger resulting from the edict of Worms became too urgent, Denmark might be an asylum for him. As for the turbulent Carlstadt, he was quite ready, and the adventure pleased him. He took his passports and set out.
Code Of Christian II.
While awaiting the arrival of the Wittenberg doctors, Christian, a prince at once civilized and savage, a murderer and a lover of literature, a despot, a tyrant, and nevertheless the author of laws really liberal, published a code which did him great credit. He felt the necessity of reforming the clergy; he wished to imbue the ecclesiastics with patriarchal morality, and to suppress the feudal and often corrupt morality which characterized them. A third part of the land belonged to them, and they were incessantly trying to add to their possessions. All the bishops had strong castles and a body of guards in attendance on their persons. The archbishop of Lund was usually accompanied by a hundred and thirty knights, and the other prelates had almost as many. The king forbade that more than twenty mounted guards should escort the archbishop, and that the bishops should not have more than twelve or fourteen domestics.[[233]] Then, coming to moral order, Christian said—‘No prelate or priest may acquire any lands unless he follow the doctrine of St. Paul (1 Tim. iii.), unless he take a wife and live like his ancestors in the holy state of marriage.’ By suppressing celibacy, the king not only put an end to great licentiousness, but he gave the death-blow to the Romish hierarchy.
This law is the more remarkable because it preceded by four years the declaration of Luther against celibacy. Another ordinance displayed the wisdom, and we might almost say the humanity of the king. The bishops had appropriated the right of wreck, so that whenever a ship foundered, their men took possession of all articles which the sea cast up on the shore, and sometimes put the shipwrecked men to death, lest they should reclaim their property. The king withdrew this right from them. The bishops complained. ‘I will allow nothing,’ said the king, ‘which is contrary to the law of God as it is written in the Holy Scriptures.’ ‘They contain no law about waifs and wrecks,’ said a bishop sharply. ‘What then,’ replied Christian, ‘is the meaning of the sixth and eighth commandments—“Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal”?‘[[234]]
Carlstadt In Denmark.
At this crisis, Carlstadt arrived in Denmark. He was not the man that was wanted. A lover of innovation, and rash in his proceedings, he had by no means the moderation essential for reformers. He was honorably received, and a grand banquet was given him. At table, he was thrown off his guard, he talked a good deal and got excited, and when heated with the feast he violently attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation.[[235]] This outburst against the fundamental doctrine of Roman Catholicism gave offence even to some of the friends of reform. The bishops took advantage of it. ‘The master,’ they said, ‘is no better than the disciple (Reinhard).’ The imprudent colleague of Luther was politely sent back to Wittenberg.
The king, who was at this time absent from Copenhagen, was however no stranger to the disgrace of this imprudent and noisy Wittenberg doctor. Christian had gone into the Netherlands, to meet his brother-in-law Charles the Fifth, for the purpose of treating with him of important matters. He easily changed his mind, as passionate men generally do; and amidst the splendor of the imperial court, he yielded to the influence of the new atmosphere which surrounded him. He wished the emperor to concede to him, as king of Denmark, the right of conferring the duchy of Holstein as a fief. The court bishops, on their side, implored Charles to make the expulsion of the Lutheran doctors the price of this favor. Christian, aware of all that he had to fear from the Pope, from Sweden, and even from a great number of the Danes, was anxious to conciliate the emperor that he might be able to face all his enemies. He therefore complied with the requirements of Charles. Carlstadt, as we have seen, was sent away from Denmark, and Reinhard never returned.