The careers of the Pirkheimers give a good idea of the interest in scholarship on the part of both men and women in Germany during this Renaissance period. Charity Pirkheimer, afterwards the Abbess of the Convent of the Poor Clares in Nuremberg, deserves mention in this regard as much as her [{526}] brother, but the sketch of her career properly finds a place among the Women of the Renaissance. Wilibald Pirkheimer deserves the immortality that his scholarship has secured for him. He translated Xenophon, Plato, Plutarch and Lucian into Latin, but the spirit of the time will be better understood when it is recalled that he also made translations of Euclid and Ptolemy. The ordinary assumption that interest in the old pagan authors lessened attachment to the Church is refuted by his translations of the Greek Fathers also into Latin. He was himself the author of a history of Germany which won for him the title of the German Xenophon. His interest in letters, however, was only one portion of his scholarship, for astronomy, mathematics and the natural sciences were not only favorite subjects of study, but fields in which he carried on successful investigation. Besides, he took up the study of numismatics with great assiduity, and helped to bring about a general recognition of its value as a distinct department of historical research.
It was typical of the universality of the aesthetic interests of the men of the times in which he lived that Pirkheimer was also deeply attracted to art and that Albrecht Dürer was one of his closest friends. We owe to the great German artist a characteristic picture of the scholar. Like Erasmus, Wilibald Pirkheimer recognized the necessity for reform in the Church in Germany, and at the beginning of the reform movement he sided with Luther and wrote in defence of the German reformer and the doctrines that he was teaching. In the course of a few years, however, he came to see that the religious revolt, far from correcting the evils, was emphasizing them, and besides was so disturbing men's minds in Germany as to make the proper cultivation of the fine arts and literature impossible. In addition he soon learned that the so-called reformers were bent on disturbing the convent in Nuremberg in which so many of his feminine relatives found not only peace and happiness and the opportunity to cultivate the spiritual life, but also to live the intellectual life to the full measure of their desires. Charitas, his sister, was the Abbess of the Convent of St. Clare, and among the nuns there were another sister, Clare, and Wilibald's daughters, Catherine and Crescentia. [{527}] He wrote a defence of the monastic life for women, in which he pointed out the opportunities for peace, and joy in the cultivation of the intellectual life, as well as the spiritual life, enjoyed in these institutions. During the writing of this apologetic work he became himself entirely convinced of the necessity for adherence to the old Church.
The relations of the humanists, the classical scholars and devotees of the New Learning in Germany, to the Church have been the subject of many and varying opinions. Sandys has summed this up very well in a paragraph which deserves to be quoted because of the importance of the subject, the authority of the writer and the probability that the position which he occupies as regards both Germany and the Church make him, as far as is possible in a subject so fraught with personal feelings, an impartial critic. He said (page 258):
"The humanists of Germany may be divided into three successive schools distinguished from one another in their relation to the Church, (1) The Earlier or Scholastic Humanists, who were loyal supporters of the Church, while they were eager for a revival of classical learning and a new system of education. They are represented by the three great teachers of North Germany, Rudolfus Agricola, Rudolf von Langen and Alexander Hegius; also by Wimpheling, the restorer of education in South Germany; by Trithemius, one of the founders of the Rhenish Society of Literature, and by Eck, the famous opponent of Luther. They worked for the revival of learning in all branches of knowledge, while they hoped that the New Learning would remain subservient to the old theology. (2) The Intermediate or Rational Humanists, who took a rational view of Christianity and its creed, while they protested against the old scholasticism, and against the external abuses of the Church. 'They either did not support Luther, or soon deserted him, being conscious that his movement would lead to the destruction of all true culture.' Their leaders were Reuchlin and Erasmus, Conrad Muth, the Canon of Gotha. 'Their party and its true work of culture were shipwrecked by the tempest of the Reformation.' (3) The Later or Protestant Humanists, who were ready to 'protest' against [{528}] everything, young men of great talent, but of less learning, whose love of liberty sometimes lapsed into license. Their leading spirit was Ulrich von Hutten. In course of time, some of them became Rational Humanists; others, supporters of Luther. 'While Erasmus, Reuchlin and Muth viewed Luther's propaganda with distrust,' these younger Humanists 'flocked to the new standard of protest and revolt, and so doing brought culture into disgrace and shipwrecked the Revival of Learning in Germany.'"
The earlier German humanists were not carried away by the idea that the only thing worth while studying was the New Learning, and that only the classics of Greece and Rome could form the proper substance of any right education. In the later period of German humanism this exaggeration was very common. In the earlier period, however, the place and the value of the German language itself is recognized, and due acknowledgments were made to the men of the later Middle Ages for all that they had accomplished for scholarship and for real progress in philosophy and theology. Janssen in the third volume of his "History of the German People" has sketched this very clearly (pages 1-3):
"The earliest humanists had contemplated classical antiquity from the point of view of absolute faith in Christianity, and they had pressed the classics into the service of their creed. They valued the works of the ancient writers for the deeply religious nature of the ideas embodied in them; they regarded them as echoes of primaeval inspiration; but they were at the same time decided and active opponents of mere pagan systems of thought and life. They studied antiquity in a scientific spirit of exhaustive research, and they justified their incorporation of pagan materials into their systems of culture on the plea that these classic works were an indispensable groundwork of scholarship, a splendid means of mental gymnastic training for forming independent judgment and sharpening the intellect for the apprehension and presentation of truth. By the profounder knowledge they acquired of the intellectual life of the ancient world, they hoped to facilitate the understanding of the Scriptures and to put fresh life and reality into the contemporary systems of philosophical and theological [{529}] study. It was this motive that had inspired the unwearied labors of Nicholas of Cusa and his pupil Agricola in their efforts to graft the study of classic literature on the German University curriculum; that had led Alexander Hegius to make the classics the groundwork of education, and Jacob Wimpheling to write his epoch-making words. 'It is not the story of the heathen writers in itself which is dangerous to Christian culture,' said the latter, 'but the false apprehension and handling of them. It would undoubtedly be absolutely fatal if, as is often the case in Italy, by means of the classics, pagan ways of thought and life, prejudicial to pure Christian morality and the patriotic spirit of the rising generation, were spread abroad or were to creep into the teaching of our writers and poets. But, on the other hand, the legitimate use of the ancient writers might render the most invaluable services to Christianity and learning. Had not the Fathers of the Church themselves derived the greatest help in their explanations of Scripture from the study of these profane writers, and had they not in consequence recommended them to the veneration of Christian students? St. Gregory Nazienzen,' he went on to say, 'had described the opponents of classic study as the enemies of true learning, and Pope Gregory the Great had shown conclusively that classic study was a useful preparation and an indispensable aid to the understanding of theology.'
"For the same reasons the leading theologians of the fifteenth century, Heynlin von Stein, Gregory Reisch, Geiler of Kaisersberg, Gabriel Viel, Johannes Trithemius, had been zealous advocates and promoters of the labors of the Christian humanists.
"'With a good conscience,' says Trithemius, 'we can recommend the study of the ancient writers to all such as do not make use of them in a worldly spirit for mere intellectual sport, but for the serious cultivation of their mental powers, and who, after the example of the Fathers of the Church, seek to cull from them good fruit for the nourishment of Christian scholarship.'"
These quotations will serve to show how clearly all the value of the classical studies to scholarship, yet all the danger to real education as well as to Christianity was recognized by [{530}] the scholars of this time. They represent a critical wisdom often presumed not to have been developed at this time. Critical judgment is supposed to be a much later evolution. Those who make such a presumption, however, are led by ignorance of the realities of the education and scholarship of this time which has only properly come into its own true appreciation in comparatively recent years. German scholarship during the Renaissance period, that is, in Columbus' Century before the Reformation came to disturb it, represented as fine an expression of German ability and intellectual genius as has ever come to that capable people.
CHAPTER VIII
SCHOLARSHIP OUTSIDE OF ITALY AND GERMANY
While Italy was literally the alma mater studiorum during the Renaissance, and Germany probably accomplished more in scholarly education at this time that influenced succeeding generations than any other country except Italy, all the countries of Europe shared very largely in the New Learning and did much for classical scholarship before 1550. Indeed, it is probable that to a great many thoroughly educated students of this time the comparisons of achievement that I have suggested will seem invidious or at least uncalled for. Certainly no one appreciates more than I do the magnificent work of the scholarly humanists of France, Spain, Portugal and England during Columbus' Century. Each of them shared magnificently in the intellectual incentive that had been given by the reintroduction of classical studies and especially of Greek, and each of them, in fine compensation for the impetus lent them by the movement, gave back to it achievements in scholarship that swelled the tide and helped in the diffusion of Humanism throughout all of Western Europe at least. There are national accomplishments of all of these countries that are worthy of note, and each of them accomplished much at this time in education that will never be forgotten.