Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/151

 won, could not keep silent when he saw what he believed to be a great source of moral corruption gathering round him and infecting the people whom he taught daily, and who had selected him as their confessor and the religious guide of their lives.

Luther began his work as a Reformer in an attack on what was called an Indulgence proclaimed in 1513 by Pope Leo X, farmed by Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, and preached by John Tetzel, a Dominican monk who had been commissioned by Albert to sell for him the "papal letters," as the Indulgence tickets were called. The money raised was to be devoted to the building of St Peter's Church in Rome, and to raise a tomb worthy of the great Apostle who, it was said, lay in a Roman grave. People had come to be rather sceptical about the destination of moneys raised by Indulgences; but the buyers had their "papal letters," and it did not much matter to them where the money went after it had left their pockets. The seller of Indulgences had generally a magnificent welcome when he entered a German town. He drew near it in the centre of a procession with the Bull announcing the Indulgence, carried before him on a cloth of gold and velvet, and all the priests and monks of the town, the Burgomaster and Town Council, the teachers and the school-children and a crowd of citizens went out to meet him with banners and lighted candles, and escorted him into the town singing hymns. When the gates were reached all the bells began to ring, the church-organs were played, the crowd, with the commissary in their midst, streamed into the principal church, where a great red cross was erected and the Pope's banner displayed. Then followed sermons and speeches by the commissary and his attendants extolling the Indulgence, narrating its wonderful virtues, and inviting the people to buy. The Elector of Saxony had refused to allow the commissary to enter his territories; but the commissary could approach most parts of the Elector's dominions without actually crossing the boundaries. Tetzel had come to Juterbogk in Magdeburg territory and Zerbst in Anhalt, and had opened the sale of Indulgences there; and people from Wittenberg had gone to these places and made purchases. They had brought their "papal letters" to Luther and had demanded that he should acknowledge their efficacy. He had refused; the buyers had complained to Tetzel and the commissary had uttered threats; Luther felt himself in great perplexity. The Indulgence, and the addresses by which it was commended, he knew, were doing harm to poor souls; he got the letter of instructions given to Tetzel by his employer, the Archbishop of Mainz, and his heart waxed wroth against it. Still at the basis of the Indulgence, bad as it was, Luther thought that there was a great truth; that it is the business of the Church to declare the free and sovereign grace of God apart from all human satisfactions.

The practice of Indulgences was, in his days, universal and permeated the whole Church life of the times. A large number of the pious