Aleander was accordingly assigned the agreeable duty of drafting the famous Edict of Worms. This document declared Luther an outlaw on the following grounds: that he disturbed the recognized number and celebration of the sacraments, impeached the regulations in regard to marriage, scorned and vilified the pope, despised the priesthood and stirred up the laity to dip their hands in the blood of the clergy, denied free will, taught licentiousness, despised authority, advocated a brutish existence, and was a menace to Church and State alike. Every one was forbidden to give the heretic food, drink, or shelter, and required to seize him and deliver him to the emperor.
Moreover, the decree provides that "no one shall dare to buy, sell, read, preserve, copy, print, or cause to be copied or printed any books of the aforesaid Martin Luther, condemned by our holy father the pope, as aforesaid, or any other writings in German or Latin hitherto composed by him, since they are foul, noxious, suspected, and published by a notorious and stiff-necked heretic. Neither shall any one dare to affirm his opinions, or proclaim, defend, or advance them in any other way that human ingenuity can invent,—notwithstanding that he may have put some good into his writings in order to deceive the simple man."[283]
For the last time the empire had recognized its obligation to carry out the decrees of the Bishop of Rome. "I am becoming ashamed of my fatherland," Hutten cried. So general was the disapproval of the edict that few were willing to pay any attention to it. Charles immediately left Germany, and for nearly ten years was occupied outside it with the government of Spain and a succession of wars.
General Reading.—Beard, Martin Luther (see above, p. 386), is probably the best account in English of Luther before his retirement to the Wartburg; Köstlin, Life of Luther (Scribner's Sons, $2.50), is excellent. An account of Luther and Hutten by a learned Roman Catholic writer may be found in Janssen, History of the German People (see above, p. 386), Vol. III; Creighton, History of the Papacy (see above, p. 320), Vol. VI; Chapters III and V are devoted to Luther and the diet of Worms.
CHAPTER XXVI
COURSE OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLT IN GERMANY
1521–1555
Luther begins a new translation of the Bible in the Wartburg.
149. As Luther neared Eisenach upon his way home from Worms he was seized by a band of men and conducted to the Wartburg, a castle belonging to the elector of Saxony. Here he was concealed until any danger from the action of the emperor or diet should pass by. His chief occupation during several months of hiding was to begin a new translation of the Bible into German. He had finished the New Testament before he left the Wartburg in March, 1522.