Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/316

 the whole of Swabia. And now all the populace has risen against the nobility of the free towns in Germany to abolish many institutions favorable to the nobility and adverse to the people; and this by the advice and assistance of Martin Luther, the five letters of whose name are said by them to signify Lux t^ra totius ^cclesiae J?omanae. .

68x. CASPAR SPINELLI, SECRETARY OF LAWRENCE ORIO. TO HIS BROTHER LOUIS SPINELLI.

Brown, 1520^ no. 1007. Antwerp, May 10^ 1525.

Wrote from Mayence. The Papal Auditor [Ghinucci], on his way to the King of England from the Pope, was captured by the peasants, and paid 1200 crowns ransom; he then con- tinued his journey by way of Lyons, and quitted Antwerp for London yesterday. Did not mention this in his former letter, because he, Spinelli, was tired and in the stove-heated rooms of Germany, which disgusted him, being full of butter and stench.

Many days ago Luther issued a book for his followers con- cerning the unjust and unreasonable taxes with which the Church burdened the people of Germany, whom he exhorted not to bear them.^ Hence arose this great movement and in- surrection well nigh all over Germany, which, to free itself from such unbearable tyranny, took up arms against all the ecclesiastics, as also against the nobility, including even the nuns. The people desire to live in freedom, without being subject to anyone, and their power increases hourly; for whereas at first they seemed willing to be subject to the Em- peror, they will now no longer obey even his Majesty; and this determination they have already shown by making them- selves masters of the marquisate of Wurttemberg, which be- longed to the Archduke, many of whose stipendiaries they have killed. They are most hostile, and, indeed, open enemies, to the Pope and the whole Roman Church, and say they will have no other faith than that of Luther, to which the greater part of the German ecclesiastics have adhered, the sexes inter- marrying with each other, as, for instance, a friar with a nun, and a priest with a woman of the world, which is done every-

^ Probably the Open Letter to the Chrutian NohUity (1520).

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