Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/493

 450 LUTHSB

Amply proves that something more deep than Luther's 44; " S&nmitl. W.'S XXIV, 287-294). His advice was

contentiousness (Stichart. op. cit., 380) made him an literally followed. The process of repression was

alien to the movement. Nor did Luther's subsequent frightful. The encounters were more in the character

efforts to re-establish amicable relations with Erasmus, of massacres than battles. The undisciplined peasants

to which the latter alludes in a letter (11 April, 1526), wil^ their rude farming Implements as weapons, were

meet with anything further than a curt refusal. slaughtered like cattle in the shtunbles. More than

The times were pregnant with momentous events 1000 monasteries and castles were levelled to the

for the movement. The humanists one after the other eround, hundreds of villages were laid in ashes, the

dropped out of the fray. Mutianus Rufus, Crotus harvests of the nation destroyed, and 100,000 killed.

Rubianus, Beatus Rhenanus, Bonifacius Amerbach, The fact that one commander alone boasted that ** he

Sebastian Brant, Jacob Wimpheting, who played so hanged 40 evangelical preachers and executed 11,000

prominent apart in the battle of the Obscure Men. revolutionists and heretics" (Keim, *' Schwabische

now formally returned to the allegiance of the Ola Reformations Geschichte'', Stuttgart, 1855, 46), and

Church (Hausrath, op. cit., II, 68, 88). Ulrich Zasius, that history with hardly a dissentmg voice fastens the

of Freiburg, and Chnstoph Scheurl, of Nilmbei^, the origin of this war on Luther, fully shows where its

two most illustrious jurists of Germany, early friends source and responsibiUt^r lay (Schreckenbach, op. cit.,

and supporters of Luther, with the statesmen's pre- 5, 44: Thudichum, op. cit., II, 1-64; Bezold, ''Ucsch.

vision cietected the political complexion of affairs, der deutsch. Reform.", Berlin, 1890, 447; Maurcn-

could not fail to notice the growing relidous anarchy, brecher, "Gesch. der kath. Reform.", I, 527; See-

and, hearing the distant nmiblings of the Feasants' War, bohm, *'The Protestant Revolution", London, 1894,

abandoned his cause. The former found his preaching 148; Bavne, op. cit., II, 264; Creighton, ** Hist, of the

mixed with deadlv poison for the German people, the Papacy', VI, 303-305; Bax, "The Peasants' War in

latter pronounced Wittenberg a sink of error, a hot- Germany", London, 1899, 278-279; Beard, "The

house of heresy (Ke^stlin-Kawerau, I, 652-653). Reformation", London, 1883, 199-200; Armstrong,

Sickingen's last raid on the Archbishop of Trier (27 "The Emperor Charles V", I, 207, 215; "Cambridge

Aug., 1522) proved disastrous to his cause and fatal to Modern Hist.", II, 192-194; Planck, "Gesch. des

himself. Deserted by his confederates, overpowered protest. Lehrbegriffs", II, 176-177; Bar^e, "Karl-

by his assailants, his lair — the fastness Landstuhl — statt", II, 357; Idem, "FrOhprotestantisches Ge-

f^ into the hands of his enemies, and Sickingen him- meindechnstentum. . .", 332-335). self horribly wounded died after barely signing its While Germany was drenched in blood, its people

capitulation (30 Aug., 1523). Hutten, forsi3cen and paralyzed with horror, the cry of the widow and wail

soutary, in poverty and neglect, fell a victim to his of the orphan heard throughout the land, Luther then

protracted debauchery (Aug., 1523) at the early age of in his fortynsecond year was spending his honeymoon

thirty-five. The loss siistained by these detections withCatharine von Bora, then twenty-six (married 13

and deaths was incalculable for Luther, especially at June, 1525), a Bemardine nun who had abandoned

one of the most critical periods in German nistoiy. her convent. He was regaling his friends with some

The peasant outbreaks, which in milder forms were coldblooded witticisms a^ut the horrible catastrophe previously easily controlled, now assumed a magnitude (De Wette, op. cit.. Ill, 1) uttering confessions of self- and acuteness that threatened the national life of Ger- reproach and shame (De Wette, op. cit., Ill, 3), and many. The primary causes that now brought on the ^ving circimistantial details of his connubial bliss predicted and inevitable conflict (Cambridge Hist., II, irreproducible in English (De Wette, op. cit.. Ill, 18). 174) were the excessive luxury and inordinate love of Melanchthon's famous Greek letter to his bosom friend pleasure in all stations of life, the lust of money on the Camerarius, 16 June, 1525 f^'Kirsch, "Melanchthons utat of the nobility and wealthy merchants, the un- Brief an Camerarius", Mainz, 1900) on the subject, bushing extortions of commercial corporations, the reflected his personal feelings, which no doubt were artificial advance in prices and adulteration of the shared by most of the bridegroom's sincere friends, necessities of life, the decay of trade and stagnation of This step, in conjimction with the Peasants' War, industiy resulting from the dissolution of guilds, above marked the point of demarcation in Luther's career aU, the long endured oppression and daily increasing and the movement he controlled. "The springtide of destitution of the peasantry, who were the main su^ the Reformation, had lost its bloom. Luther no lon- ferers in the unbroken wars and feuds that rent aild ger advanced, as in the first seven years of his acfi vity, devastated Germany for more than a century. A fire from success to success. . . The plot of a complete of repressed rebellion and infectious unrest burned overthrow of Roman supremacy m Germany, by a throughout the nation. This smouldering fire Luther torrential popular uprising, proved a chimera' (Haus* fanned to a fierce flame by his turbulent and incen- rath, op. cit., II, 62). Until after the outbreak of the diary writings, which were read with avidity by all, social revolution, no prince or ruler, had so far given and by none more voraciously than the peasant, who his formal adhesion to the new doctrines. Even the k)okea upon "the son of a peasant" not only as an Elector Frederick (d. 5 May, 1525), whose irresolution emancipator from Roman impositions, but the pre- allowed them imhampered sway, did not, as yet sepa- eursor of social advancement. " His invectives poured rate from the Church. The radically democratic drift oil on the flames of revolt" (Cambridge Hist., II, 193). of Luther's whole agitation, his contemptuous allu- True, when too late to lay the storm he issued his "Ex- sions to the Grerman princes, "generally the biggest kortation to Peace ", but it stands in inexplicable and fools and worst scoundrels on earth " (W alch, op. cit., ineffaceable contradiction to his second, unexampled X, 460-464), were hardly calculated to curry favour or blast " Against the murderous and robbing rabble of win allegiance. The reading of such explosive pro- Peasants". In this he entirely changes front, " dipped nouncements as that of 1523 " On the Secular Power " his pen in blood" (Lang, 180), and "calls upon (Walch, op. cit., XXII, 59-105) or his disingenuous the princes to slaughter the offending peasants like "Exhortation to Peace" in 1525 (Idem, op. cit., mad dogs, to stab, strangle and slay as best one can, XXIV, 257-286), especially in the light of the events and holds out as a reward the promise of heaven. The which had just transpired, impressed them as breath- few sentences in which allusions to sympathy and ing the spirit of insubordination, if not insurrection. mercy for the vanquished are contained, are relegated Luther, although the mightiest voice that ever spoke to the background. What an astounding illusion lay in the German language, was a vox etpraterea mhil" in the fact, that Luther had the hardihood to offer as (Cambridge Hist., II, 162), for it is acunitted that he apology for his terrible manifesto, that God com- possessed none of the constructive qualifications of manded him to speak in such a strain!" (Schracken- statesmanship, and proverbially lacked theppidential bach, "Luther u. der B^uemkrieg",Qldenbuig, 1895, attribute of cons&Btency. His championship of the