An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

"Hard it is," Luther exclaimed, "to be forced to contradict all the prelates and princes, but there is no other way to escape hell and God's anger." Never had one man so unreservedly declared war upon pretty much the whole consecrated order of things. As one power arrayed against an equal, the Wittenberg professor opposed himself to pope and emperor, giving back curse for curse and fagot for fagot. His students were summoned to witness "the pious, religious spectacle," when he cast Leo's bull on the fire, along with the canon law and one of the books of scholastic theology which he most disliked.

Hutten's plan for an immediate destruction of the old Church.

Never was the temptation so great for Luther to encourage a violent demolition of the old structure of the Church as at this time. Hutten was bent upon the speedy carrying out of the revolution which both he and Luther were forwarding by their powerful writings. Hutten had taken refuge in the castle of the leader of the German knights, Franz von Sickingen, who he believed would be an admirable military commander in the coming contest for truth and liberty. Hutten frankly proposed to the young emperor that the papacy should be abolished, that the property of the Church should be confiscated, and that ninety-nine out of a hundred of the clergy should be dispensed with as superfluous. In this way Germany would be freed, he argued, from the control of the "parsons" and from their corruption. From the vast proceeds of the confiscation the state might be strengthened and an army of knights might be maintained for the defense of the empire.

Views of the papal representative on public opinion in Germany.

Public opinion appeared ready for a revolution. "I am pretty familiar with the history of this German nation," Leo's representative, Aleander, remarked; "I know their past heresies, councils, and schisms, but never were affairs so serious before. Compared with present conditions, the struggle between Henry IV and Gregory VII was as violets and roses.... These mad dogs are now well equipped with knowledge and arms; they boast that they are no longer ignorant brutes like their predecessors; they claim that Italy has lost the monopoly of the sciences and that the Tiber now flows into the Rhine." "Nine-tenths of the Germans," he calculated, "are shouting 'Luther,' and the other tenth goes so far at least as 'Death to the Roman curia.'"

Luther's attitude toward a violent realization of his reforms.

Luther was too frequently reckless and violent in his writings. He often said that bloodshed could not be avoided when it should please God to visit his judgments upon the stiff-necked and perverse generation of "Romanists," as the Germans contemptuously called the supporters of the pope. Yet he always discouraged precipitate reform. He was reluctant to make changes, except in belief. He held that so long as an institution did not mislead, it did no harm. He was, in short, no fanatic at heart. The pope had established himself without force, so would he be crushed by God's word without force. This, we may assume, was Luther's most profound conviction, even in the first period of enthusiasm and confidence. He perhaps never fully realized how different Hutten's ideas were from his own, for the poet knight died while still a young man. And as for Franz von Sickingen, Luther soon learned to execrate the ruthless, worldly soldier who brought discredit by his violence upon the cause of reform.

Charles V's want of sympathy with the German reformers.

147. Among the enemies of the German reformers none was more important than the young emperor. It was toward the end of the year 1520 that Charles came to Germany for the first time. After being crowned king of the Romans at Aix-la-Chapelle, he assumed, with the pope's consent, the title of emperor elect, as his grandfather Maximilian had done. He then moved on to the town of Worms, where he was to hold his first diet and face the German situation.

Although scarcely more than a boy in years, Charles had already begun to take life very seriously. He had decided that Spain, not Germany, was to be the bulwark and citadel of all his realms. Like the more enlightened of his Spanish subjects, he realized the need of reforming the Church, but he had no sympathy whatever with any change of doctrine. He proposed to live and die a devout Catholic of the old type, such as his orthodox ancestors had been. He felt, moreover, that he must maintain the same religion in all parts of his heterogeneous dominions. If he should permit the Germans to declare their independence of the Church, the next step would be for them to claim that they had a right to regulate their government regardless of their emperor.