Part 793

"On the 2nd of April [1521], the Tuesday after Easter, Luther set out on his momentous journey. He travelled in a cart with three of his friends, the herald riding in front in his coat of arms. … The Emperor had not waited for his appearance to order his books to be burnt. When he reached Erfurt on the way the sentence had just been proclaimed. The herald asked him if he still meant to go on. 'I will go,' he said, 'if there are as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the house-tops. Though they burnt Huss, they could not burn the truth.' The Erfurt students, in retaliation, had thrown the Bull into the water. The Rector and the heads of the university gave Luther a formal reception as an old and honoured member; he preached at his old convent, and he preached again at Gotha and at Eisenach. Caietan had protested against the appearance in the Diet of an excommunicated heretic. The Pope himself had desired that the safe–conduct should not be respected, and the bishops had said that it was unnecessary. Manœvres were used to delay him on the road till the time allowed had expired. But there was a fierce sense of fairness in the lay members of the Diet, which it was dangerous to outrage. Franz von Sickingen hinted that if there was foul play it might go hard with Cardinal Caietan—and Von Sickingen was a man of his word in such matters. On the 16th of April, at ten in the morning, the cart entered Worms, bringing Luther in his monk's dress, followed and attended by a crowd of cavaliers. The town's people were all out to see the person with whose name Germany was ringing. As the cart passed through the gales the warder on the walls blew a blast upon his trumpet. … Luther needed God to stand by him, for in all that great gathering he could count on few assured friends. The princes of the empire were resolved that he should have fair play, but they were little inclined to favour further a disturber of the public peace. The Diet sate in the Bishop's palace, and the next evening Luther appeared. The presence in which he found himself would have tried the nerves of the bravest of men: the Emperor, sternly hostile, with his retinue of Spanish priests and nobles; the archbishops and bishops, all of opinion that the stake was the only fitting place for so insolent a heretic; the dukes and barons, whose stern eyes were little likely to reveal their sympathy, if sympathy any of them felt. One of them only, George of Frundsberg, had touched Luther on the shoulder as he passed through the ante–room. 'Little monk, little monk,' he said, 'thou hast work before thee, that I, and many a man whose trade is war, never faced the like of. If thy heart is right, and thy cause good, go on in God's name. He will not forsake thee. A pile of books stood on a table when he was brought forward. An officer of the court read the titles, asked if he acknowledged them, and whether he was ready to retract them. Luther was nervous, not without cause. He answered in a low voice that the books were his. To the other question he could not reply at once. He demanded time. His first appearance had not left a favourable impression; he was allowed a night to consider. The next morning, April 18, he had recovered himself; he came in fresh, courageous, and collected. His old enemy, Eck, was this time the spokesman against him, and asked what he was prepared to do. He said firmly that his writings were of three kinds: some on simple Gospel truth, which all admitted, and which of course he could not retract; some against Papal laws and customs, which had tried the consciences of Christians and had been used as excuses to oppress and spoil the German people. If he retracted these he would cover himself with shame. In a third sort he had attacked particular persons, and perhaps had been too violent. Even here he declined to retract simply, but would admit his fault if fault could be proved. He gave his answers in a clear strong voice, in Latin first, and then in German. {2452} There was a pause, and then Eck said that he had spoken disrespectfully; his heresies had been already condemned at the Council at Constance; let him retract on these special points, and he should have consideration for the rest. He required a plain Yes or No from him, 'without horns.' The taunt roused Luther's blood. His full brave self was in his reply. 'I will give you an answer,' he said, 'which has neither horns nor teeth. Popes have erred and councils have erred. Prove to me out of Scripture that I am wrong, and I submit. Till then my conscience binds me. Here I stand. I can do no more. God help me. Amen.' All day long the storm raged. Night had fallen, and torches were lighted in the hall before the sitting closed. Luther was dismissed at last; it was supposed, and perhaps intended, that he was to be taken to a dungeon. But the hearts of the lay members of the Diet had been touched by the courage which he had shown. They would not permit a hand to be laid on him. … When he had reached his lodging again, he flung up his hands. 'I am through!' he cried. 'I am through! If I had a thousand heads they should be struck off one by one before I would retract.' The same evening the Elector Frederick sent for him, and told him he had done well and bravely. But though he had escaped so far, he was not acquitted. Charles conceived that he could be now dealt with as an obstinate heretic. At the next session (the day following), he informed the Diet that he would send Luther home to Wittenberg, there to be punished as the Church required. The utmost that his friends could obtain was that further efforts should be made. The Archbishop of Treves was allowed to tell him that if he would acknowledge the infallibility of councils, he might be permitted to doubt the infallibility of the Pope. But Luther stood simply upon Scripture. There, and there only, was infallibility. The Elector ordered him home at once, till the Diet should decide upon his fate. … A majority in the Diet, it was now clear, would pronounce for his death. If he was sentenced by the Great Council of the Empire, the Elector would be no longer able openly to protect him. It was decided that he should disappear, and disappear so completely that no trace of him should be discernible. On his way back through the Thuringian Forest, three or four miles from Altenstein, a party of armed men started out of the wood, set upon his carriage, seized and carried him off to Wartburg Castle. There he remained, passing by the name of the Ritter George, and supposed to be some captive knight. The secret was so well kept, that even the Elector's brother was ignorant of his hiding place. Luther was as completely lost as if the earth had swallowed him. … On the 8th of May the Edict of Worms was issued, placing him under the ban of the empire; but he had become 'as the air invulnerable,' and the face of the world had changed before he came back to it: … Luther's abduction and residence at Wartburg is the most picturesque incident in his life. He dropped his monk's gown, and was dressed like a gentleman; he let his beard grow and wore a sword. … The revolution, deprived of its leader, ran wild meanwhile. An account of the scene at Worms, with Luther's speeches, and wood cut illustrations, was printed on broadsheets and circulated in hundreds of thousands of copies. The people were like schoolboys left without a master. Convents and monasteries dissolved by themselves; monks and nuns began to marry; there was nothing else for the nuns to do, turned as they were adrift without provision. The Mass in most of the churches in Saxony was changed into a Communion. But without Luther it was all chaos, and no order could be taken. So great was the need of him, that in December he went to Wittenberg in disguise; but it was not yet safe for him to remain there. He had to retreat to his castle again, and in that compelled retreat he bestowed on Germany the greatest of all the gifts which he was able to offer. He began to translate the Bible into clear vernacular German. … He had probably commenced the work at the beginning of his stay at the castle. In the spring of 1522 the New Testament was completed. In the middle of March, the Emperor's hands now being fully occupied, the Elector sent him word that he need not conceal himself any longer; and he returned finally to his home and his friends. The New Testament was printed in November of that year, and became at once a household book in Germany. … The Old Testament was taken in hand at once, and in two years half of it was roughly finished."

_J. A. Froude, Luther: a Short Biography, pages 28-35._

ALSO IN: _G. Waddington, History of the Reformation, chapters 13-14 (volume 1)._

_W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 2 (volume 1)._

_C. Beard, Martin Luther and the Reformation, chapter 9._

_J. Köstlin, Life of Luther, part 3, chapter 9._

PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535. Beginning of the Protestant Reform movement in France. Hesitation of Francis I. His final persecution of the Reformers.

"The long contest for Gallican rights had lowered the prestige of the popes in France, but it had not weakened the Catholic Church, which was older than the monarchy itself, and, in the feeling of the people, was indissolubly associated with it. The College of the Sorbonne, or the Theological Faculty at Paris, and the Parliament, which had together maintained Gallican liberty, were united in stern hostility to all doctrinal innovations. … In Southern France a remnant of the Waldenses had survived, and the recollection of the Catharists was still preserved in popular songs and legends. But the first movements towards reform emanated from the Humanist culture. A literary and scientific spirit was awakened in France through the lively intercourse with Italy which subsisted under Louis XII. and Francis I. By Francis especially, Italian scholars and artists were induced in large numbers to take up their abode in France. Frenchmen likewise visited Italy and brought home the classical culture which they acquired there. Among the scholars who cultivated Greek was Budæus, the foremost of them, whom Erasmus styled the 'wonder of France.' After the 'Peace of the Dames' was concluded at Cambray, in 1529, when Francis surrendered Italy to Charles V., a throng of patriotic Italians who feared or hated the Spanish rule, streamed over the Alps and gave a new impulse to literature and art. Poets, artists, and scholars found in the king a liberal and enthusiastic patron. The new studies, especially Hebrew and Greek, were opposed by all the might of the Sorbonne, the leader of which was the Syndic, Beda. He and his associates were on the watch for heresy, and every author who was suspected of overstepping the bounds of orthodoxy was immediately accused and subjected to persecution. {2453} Thus two parties were formed, the one favorable to the new learning, and the other inimical to it and rigidly wedded to the traditional theology. The Father of the French Reformation, or the one more entitled to this distinction than any other, is Jacques Lefèvre. … Lefèvre was honored among the Humanists as the restorer of philosophy and science in the University. Deeply imbued with a religious spirit, in 1509 he put forth a commentary on the Psalms, and in 1512 a commentary on the Epistles of Paul. As early as about 1512, he said to his pupil Farel: 'God will renovate the world, and you will be a witness of it'; and in the last named work; he says that the signs of the times betoken that a renovation of the Church is near at hand. He teaches the doctrine of gratuitous justification, and deals with the Scriptures as the supreme and sufficient authority. But a mystical, rather than a polemical vein characterizes him; and while this prevented him from breaking with the Church, it also blunted the sharpness of the opposition which his opinions were adapted to produce. One of his pupils was Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux, who held the same view of justification with Lefèvre, and fostered the evangelical doctrine in his diocese. The enmity of the Sorbonne to Lefèvre and his school took a more aggressive form when the writings of Luther began to be read in the University and elsewhere. … The Sorbonne [1521] formally condemned a dissertation of Lefèvre on a point of evangelical history, in which he had controverted the traditional opinion. He, with Farel, Gérard Roussel, and other preachers, found an asylum with Briçonnet. Lefèvre translated the New Testament from the Vulgate, and, in a commentary on the Gospels, explicitly pronounced the Bible the sole rule of faith, which the individual might interpret for himself, and declared justification to be through faith alone, without human works or merit. It seemed as if Meaux aspired to become another Wittenberg. At length a commission of parliament was appointed to take cognizance of heretics in that district. Briçonnet, either intimidated, as Beza asserts, or recoiling at the sight of an actual secession from the Church, joined in the condemnation of Luther and of his opinions, and even acquiesced in the persecution which fell upon Protestantism within his diocese. Lefèvre fled to Strasburg, was afterwards recalled by Francis I., but ultimately took up his abode in the court of the King's sister, Margaret, the Queen of Navarre. Margaret, from the first, was favorably inclined to the new doctrines. There were two parties at the court. The mother of the King, Louisa of Savoy, and the Chancellor Duprat, were allies of the Sorbonne. … Margaret, on the contrary, a versatile and accomplished princess, cherished a mystical devotion which carried her beyond Briçonnet in her acceptance of the teaching of the Reformers. … Before the death of her first husband, the Duke of Alençon, and while she was a widow, she exerted her influence to the full extent in behalf of the persecuted Protestants, and in opposition to the Sorbonne. After her marriage to Henry d'Albret, the King of Navarre, she continued, in her own little court and principality, to favor the reformed doctrine and its professors. …

See NAVARRE: A. D. 1528-1563].

The drift of her influence appears in the character of her daughter, the heroic Jeanne d'Albret, the mother of Henry IV., and in the readiness of the people over whom Margaret immediately ruled to receive the Protestant faith. … Francis I., whose generous patronage of artists and men of letters gave him the title of 'Father of Science,' had no love for the Sorbonne, for the Parliament, or for the monks. He entertained the plan of bringing Erasmus to Paris, and placing him at the head of an institution of learning. He read the Bible with his mother and sister, and felt no superstitious aversion to the leaders of reform. … The revolt of the Constable Bourbon [see FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523] made it necessary for Francis to conciliate the clergy; and the battle of Pavia, followed by the captivity of the King, and the regency of his mother, gave a free rein to the persecutors. An inquisitorial court, composed partly of laymen, was ordained by Parliament. Heretics were burned at Paris and in the provinces. Louis de Berquin, who combined a culture which won the admiration of Erasmus, with the religious earnestness of Luther, was thrown into prison." Three times the King interposed and rescued him from the persecutors; but at last, in November, 1529, Berquin was hanged and burned.

_G. P. Fisher, The Reformation, chapter 8._

"Such scenes [as the execution of Berquin], added to the preaching and dissemination of the Scriptures and religious tracts, caused the desire for reform to spread far and wide. In the autumn of 1534, a violent placard against the mass was posted about Paris, and one was even fixed on the king's own chamber. The cry was soon raised, 'Death! death to the heretics!' Francis had long dallied with the Reformation. … Now … he develops into what was quite contrary to his disposition, a cruel persecutor. A certain bourgeois of Paris, unaffected by any heretical notions, kept in those days a diary of what was going on in Paris, and from this precious document … we learn that between the 13th of November, 1534, and the 13th of March, 1535, twenty so-called Lutherans were put to death in Paris. … The panic caused by the Anabaptist outbreak at Munster may perhaps account for the extreme cruelty, … as the siege was in actual progress at the time. It was to defend the memories of the martyrs of the 29th of January, 1535, and of others who had suffered elsewhere, and to save, if possible, those menaced with a similar fate, that Calvin wrote his 'Institution of the Christian Religion.' A timid, feeble-bodied young student, he had fled from France [1535], in the hope of finding some retreat where he might lose himself in the studies he loved. Passing through Geneva [1536] with the intention of staying there only for a night, he met the indefatigable, ubiquitous, enterprising, courageous Farel, who, taking him by the hand, adjured him to stop and carry on the work in that city. Calvin shrank instinctively, but … was forced to yield. … Calvin once settled at Geneva had no more doubt about his calling than if he had been Moses himself."

_R. Heath, The Reformation in France, book 1, chapters 2-3._

ALSO IN: _H. M. Baird, History of the Rise of the Huguenots of France, chapters 2-4 (volume 1)._

_R. T. Smith, The Church in France, chapter 12._

PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1555. Beginnings of the Reformation in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555.

{2454}

PAPACY: A. D. 1522. Election of Adrian VI.

PAPACY: A. D. 1522-1525. The deepening and strengthening of the Lutheran Reformation and its systematic organization. The two diets of Nuremberg. The Catholic League of Ratisbon. The formal adoption of the Reformed Religion in Northern Germany.