CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XIVFROM THE PEASANT WAR TO THE DIET OF AUGSBURG (1525-1530)1. Luther’s MarriageWhen, in November, 1524, Spalatin, on the occasion of an enquiry made by a lady, ventured to broach the question when Luther proposed taking a wife, he received the following answer: He was to tell the enquirer (Argula), that Luther was “in the hands of God, as a creature whose heart He could fashion as He would; whom He was able to kill or to make alive at any hour and any moment.” His feelings were yet foreign to matrimony. “But I shall neither set bounds to God’s action in my regard, nor listen to my own heart.”[463]By these words, which were addressed to all observers and critics, he not only left himself an open door, but attempted to describe his state in the terms of that pseudo-mysticism of man’s bondage and lack of free will as regards God’s designs to which at times he was wont to abandon himself more or less completely, according to the varying circumstances of his life.About March or April, 1525, a definite intention to marry begins to appear. The letter to Spalatin referred to above, on p. 140, was written on April 16, and, though in it he does not yet admit his determination to marry, he speaks of himself jestingly as a famous lover, who had had at one time three wives in his hands. His eye fell on Catherine von Bora, who after her flight from the convent at Nimbschen, had found a home in the house of the Town-clerk, Reichenbach (above, p. 138). He speaks of her in a letter of May 4 as “my Katey” and declares that he is about to marryher.[464]Owing to his intimacy with her all sorts of stories went the rounds in the town during the following months, to which intercourse with the ex-nuns referred to above (p. 145) gave all the more colour.Then, suddenly, without consulting any of his friends and with a haste which surprised even his own followers, on the evening of June 13, he celebrated his wedding with Bora in his own house, with all the formalities then usual. Besides Bugenhagen and Jonas, Luther’s friends, only the painter Lucas Cranach and his wife, and the Professor of Jurisprudence, Dr. Apel, were summoned as witnesses. The consummation of the marriage seems to have been duly witnessed by Bugenhagen as Pastor of Wittenberg. The public wedding did not take place until June 27, according to the custom common in that district of dividing the actual marriage from the public ceremony. During the interval Luther invited several guests to be present, as we see from his letters, which are still extant. From June 13 he speaks of himself already as “copulatus,”[465]and as a “husband.”[466]On June 14 Jonas sent by special messenger to Spalatin a letter, evidently written under the stress of very mixed feelings: “Luther has taken Catherine von Bora to wife. Yesterday I was there and saw the betrothed on the bridal couch. I could not restrain my tears at the sight; I know not what strong emotion stirred my soul; now that it has taken place and is the Will of God, I wish the excellent, honest man and our beloved father in the Lord, every happiness. God is wonderful in His decrees!”[467]Luther also was at pains to represent the incident as divinely ordained, a high and holy act.At a later date he said: “God willed that I should take pity on her [Catherine].”[468]Even before taking the step, he had thought out the plan of impressing upon his unionwith “Katey,” the ex-nun, the character of a “reforming work.” “Because our enemies do not cease to condemn matrimony,” he writes, and “our ‘little wiseacres’ daily scoff at it,” he feels himself for that very reason attracted to it; being determined to give celebrity to the true teaching of the Gospel concerning marriage.[469]He had informed Albert, the archiepiscopal Elector, that before quitting this life he would enter the married state, which he considered as enjoined by God,[470]and somewhat earlier he had confided to a friend that, if he could manage it before he died, he meant “to take his Katey to wife in order to spite the devil.”[471]This agrees in part with what he wrote shortly after his marriage: “The Lord plunged me suddenly, while I still clung to quite other views, into matrimony.”[472]As a matter of fact it was the unpleasant rumours aroused when his intimacy with Bora became known, which hastened the step. This is what Bugenhagen, an authentic witness, says with evident displeasure: Evil tales were the cause of Dr. Martin’s becoming a married man so unexpectedly.[473]Luther himself admits this in a confidential letter to Spalatin three days after the step. He informs him of his marriage as follows: “I have shut the mouth of those who slandered me and Catherine von Bora.”[474]In the same letter Luther also refers to the reproach he had at first dreaded, viz. of degrading himself by his marriage. He scoffs at this: “I have become so low and despicable by this marriage,” he says jokingly, “that I hope the angels will laugh and all the devils weep. The world and its ‘wise ones’ do not yet recognise the pious and holy work of God and in me they regard it as something impious and devilish. Hence it pleases me greatly that, by my marriage,the opinion of those who continue to persevere in their ignorance of divine things is brought in question and condemned. Farewell, and pray for me.”[475]Such utterances were directed also against many of the friends of the Evangel. Hieronymus Schurf, the lawyer, and otherwise Luther’s confidant, had been one of those opposed to his marriage. He had said: “If this Monk takes a wife all the world and the devil himself will laugh, and Luther will undo the whole of his previous work.”[476]Melanchthon, too, expressed his deep displeasure at the marriage in the remarkable Greek letter already once referred to (p. 145) addressed to his friend Joachim Camerarius, and dated June 16, 1525.The true wording of this Greek letter, which Camerarius saw fit to modify, as is proved by the original in the Chigi Library in Rome, with his “corrections” in red pencil, only became known in 1876.[477]He revised it completely for his edition of Melanchthon’s letters because he feared tomake the severe censure it contained public; thus the letter was formerly only known in the altered shape in which it was also published in 1834 in the “Corpus Reformatorum,” which begins with Melanchthon’s letters. A similar fate has befallen several other letters of Melanchthon in the Camerarius editions, and consequently also in the “Corpus.”Melanchthon, according to the real text of the letter (which we give in full in the note), commences with these words: “Since you have probably received divergent accounts concerning Luther’s marriage, I judge it well to send you my views on his wedding.” After detailing the external circumstances already referred to, and pointing out that Luther “had not consulted any of his friends beforehand,” he continues: “You will perhaps be surprised that, at this unhappy time when upright and right-thinking men are everywhere being oppressed, he is not also suffering, but, to all appearance, leads a more easy life (μᾶλλον τρυφᾶν) and endangers his reputation, notwithstanding the fact that the German nation stands in need of all his wisdom and strength. It appears to me, however, that this is how it has happened.” And here Melanchthon brings forward the complaints already related (p. 145) of the imprudent intimacy between a “man otherwise noble and high-minded” and the escaped nuns, who had made use of every art to attract him and thus had rendered him effeminate and inflamed his passions. “He seems after this fashion to have been drawn into the untimely change in his mode of life. It is clear, however, that the gossip concerning his previous criminal intercourse with her [Bora] was false. Now the thing is done it is useless to find fault with it, or to take it amiss, for I believe that nature impels man to matrimony. Even though this life is low, yet it is holy, and more pleasing to God than the unmarried state. And sinceI see that Luther is to some extent sad and troubled about this change in his way of life, I seek very earnestly to encourage him by representing to him that he has done nothing which, in my opinion, can be made a subject of reproach to him.”In spite of his misgivings Melanchthon seeks to console himself with two strange reflections: Advancement and honour are dangerous to all men, even to those who fear God as Luther does, and therefore this “low” way of life is good for him. And again, “I am in hopes that he will now lay aside the buffoonery[478]for which we have so often found fault with him.” Camerarius must not allow himself to be disconcerted by Luther’s unexpected mode of proceeding, even though he may be painfully aware that it is injurious to him. “I exhort you to bear this with patience ... God has shown us by the numerous mistakes (πταίσματα) the Saints committed in earlier ages, that He wishes us to prove His Word and not to rely upon the reputation of any man, but only on His Word. He would, indeed, be a very godless man who, on account of the mistake (πταῖσμα) of the doctor, should judge slightingly of his doctrine....” Melanchthon then reiterates his statement that nature impels a man to matrimony, adding to it the word “verily.”[479]The letter, which was not intended for publication and, probably for this reason, was written in Greek, contains a strange admixture of blame and dissatisfaction coupled with recognition and praise of Luther’s good qualities. We see clearly how Melanchthon tries to overcome the bitterness he feels by means of these reflections, which however reveal him as the learned and timid Humanist he really was, rather than as a theologian and man of the world. Protestants have attempted to moderate the impression created by this letter of Melanchthon’s by representingit as written hastily in a passing fit of temper. As a matter of fact, however, it does not bear the impress of having been so written, and, considering how the writer is evidently at pains to find some justification for Luther’s conduct, it cannot be described as written hastily and without due thought. The writer, in spite of all he says, is anxious that “what has taken place should not be blamed”; Luther to him is still “a noble and high-minded man,” one, too, who has given proof of his fear of God.One of the most recent of Luther admirers accordingly abandons this excuse, and merely speaks of the letter as a “hateful” one, “written in an extremely uncomfortable frame of mind.” After various reflections thereon he arrives at the following surprising conclusion: “If we place ourselves in poor Melanchthon’s position and realise the slight offered him in not having been apprised of the matter until after the wedding had taken place, and his grief that his friend should thus expose the cause of the evangel to slander, we must admit that, after all, the letter was quite amiable.” If, however, there was any question of slight in the matter, Melanchthon was certainly not the only one who had cause for complaint; accustomed as he was to such treatment on Luther’s part, he scarcely even refers to it, his objection being based on far more serious grounds. He showed no sign of having been slighted when, shortly after, he invited Wenceslaus Link to the public “nuptiæ,” expressing his good wishes that Luther’s marriage “may turn out well.”[480]The scruples which he shared with Camerarius concerning Luther’s intimacy with the ex-nuns were not new, but had long disquieted him. We may notice over and over again his secret esteem for celibacy, which he ranks above matrimony, and such thoughts may well have animated him when composing the letter, even though he repels them and praises the married state. “It is plain,” says Kawerau, “that a shudder passes through his frame at the very thought of marriage between a monk and a nun.”[481]We can only regard it as due to his state of indecision when he says in the letter in question, first that Luther “had done nothing that called for reproach,” and then, that “he had made a mistake.”We may nevertheless grant to the Protestant author, mentioned at the commencement of the previous paragraph, that Melanchthon—who was not, as a matter of fact, apprised by Luther of his thoughts at that time—“did not rightly understand the motive which caused him to enter the married state at such a moment.” Indeed, the motive was not to be readily understood. Luther’s intention, so our author thinks, was to set his enemies at defiance by his marriage and to show them “that he would pay less attention to them than ever”; being apprehensive of his approaching end, he determined to set the last touch to his doctrine on matrimony by a solemn and manly act.Many others, like Melanchthon, have been unable to appreciatethis “great motive,” or at any rate the disadvantages of marriage in Luther’s case seem to have weighed more heavily with them than its compensating advantages in the service of the Reformation.This explanation, nevertheless, appears so convincing to our author that he does not insist further upon another reason which he hints at, viz. that Catherine von Bora “was unkindly disposed to Melanchthon,” and that he much feared she would alienate his friend’s heart from him. The same writer mildly remarks concerning the falsification of the letter committed by Camerarius: “it was not with the intention of falsifying, that he made various alterations, but in order to prevent disedification.” Camerarius has, however, unfortunately aggravated one passage in the letter, for where Melanchthon speaks for the first time of man’s natural inclination for marriage, Camerarius adds the wordαὐτόν, thus referring directly to Luther what the writer intended for men in general: “I believehewas forced by nature to marry,” which, following immediately upon the passage referring to his frivolous intercourse with the nuns and the calumnies about Bora, gives a still more unfavourable impression of Luther. This at any rate may serve to exculpate the Catholic controversialists, who erroneously referred this passage, and the other one which resembles it, directly to Luther, whereas he is comprised in it only indirectly.According to what we have seen, the circumstance of Luther’s sudden marriage occurring just at the time of the panic of the Peasant War, made an especially deep impression on Melanchthon, who was ever inclined to circumspection and prudence.In point of fact, a more unsuitable time, and one in more glaring contrast with nuptial festivities, it would have been impossible for Luther to select. The flames of the conflagration raging throughout Germany and even in the vicinity of Wittenberg, and the battlefields strewn with the dead, slain by the rebels or the supporters of the Knights and Princes, formed a terrible background to the Wittenberg wedding.The precipitancy of his action was the more remarkable because at that time Luther himself was living in a state of keen anxiety concerning the outcome of the great social and religious upheaval.Seeing that he was looked upon, by both lord and peasant, as the prime instigator of the trouble, he had grave cause to fear for his own safety. About five weeks later, writing from Seeburg, near Mansfeld, after a preaching tour through the rebels’ country, he says: “I, who am also affected byit, for the devil is intent upon my death, know that he is angered because so far he has been unable either by cunning or by force to harm me and is determined to be rid of me even should he be forced to do his worst and set the whole world in an uproar; so that I really believe, and it appears to me, that it is on my account that he does such things in the world in order that God may plague the world. If I reach home safe and sound, I shall, with God’s help, prepare myself for death.”[482]Whereas he had written not long before, that he was not thinking of marrying because he awaited death, i.e. the death-penalty for heresy,[483]according to his statements after his marriage it was the thought of death which had led him to contract the union; God’s work was unmistakable, God was shaming his adversaries. He repeatedly makes statements to this effect, which we shall gather together with some of his other assertions to form a picture of his mental state then.In one of the letters of invitation to the public wedding he writes: “The lords, priests and peasants are all against me and threaten me with death; well, as they are so mad and foolish I shall take care to be found at my end in the state [matrimony] ordained by God.”[484]He is forced, however, to brace himself up in order not to lose heart and be vexed at the falling away of the people from him; “to resign favour, honour and followers”[485]caused him grief of heart and an inward struggle.His conviction that the end of the world was approaching, also did its part in exciting him; “the destruction of the world may be expected any hour,” he writes.[486]Hence he is determined, as he declares, to marry “in order todefy the devil,”[487]i.e. he defies all his afflictions and anxieties, all the accusations of others as well as of his own conscience, and surrenders himself to the feeling, which, since the Wartburg days, ever stirred the depths of his soul on such occasions and made him hope to recover all the ground lost by means of force and violence. Peace and contentment of soul were not, however, the immediate result, for Melanchthon writes, that, after his marriage, Luther had been “sad and troubled.”[488]Luther will, however, have it that it was God Who had shown him the road he had taken.“God is pleased to work wonders in order to mock me and the world and to make fools of us.”[489]“That it is God’s work even the ‘wise ones’ among us are forced to acknowledge, though they are greatly vexed. The picture their fancy paints of me and the girl makes them lose their wits so that they think and speak godlessly. But the Lord liveth and is greater in us than he [the devil] that is in the world (1 John iv. 4).”[490]“God willed it and carried it out” (“Sic Deus voluit et fecit”).[491]“On account of this work of God I have, it is true, to suffer much abuse and many calumnies.”[492]“Thus, so far as I am able, I have [by my marriage] thrown away the last remnant of my former popish life; I am determined to make them [my foes] still madder and more foolish; this is the stirrup-cup and my last good-bye.”[493]“Were the world not scandalised at us, I should be scandalised at the world, for I should be afraid lest what we undertake is not of God; but as the world is scandalised and withstands me, I am edified and comfort myself in God; do you likewise.”[494]“The cause of the Evangel has been greatly wronged by Münzer and the peasants,” he declares, therefore he wished to strengthen it by his marriage, in spite of the Papists who were shouting in triumph (“ne videar cessisse”), “and I shall do more still which will grieve them and bring them to the recognition of the Word.”[495]If, to the motives for his marriage which he enumerates above, we add a further reason, also alleged by him, viz. that he wished to show himself obedient to his father, who desired the marriage, we arrive at the stately number of seven reasons. They may be arranged as follows: 1. Because it was necessary to shut the mouth of those who spoke evil of him on account of his relations with Bora. 2. Because he was obliged to take pity on the forsaken nun. 3. Becausehis father wished it. 4. Because the Catholics represented matrimony as contrary to the Gospel. 5. Because even his friends laughed at his plan of marrying. 6. Because the peasants and the priests threatened him with death and he must therefore defy the terrors raised by the devil. 7. Because God’s will was plainly apparent in the circumstances. Melanchthon’s reason, viz. that man is impelled to marriage by nature, Luther does not himself bring forward.We must not lose sight of the circumstance that the marriage took place barely five weeks after the death of the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise. His successor was more openly favourable towards the ecclesiastical innovations. Frederick would have nothing to do with the marriage of the clergy, particularly with nuns, although he did not permit any steps to be taken against those who had married. He wrote to his Councillors at Torgau on October 4, 1523, that to undertake any alteration or innovation would be difficult, more particularly in these days when he had to anticipate trouble “for our country and people” from the opponents of Lutheranism; “he did not think that a clergyman ought to earn his stipend by idleness and the taking of wives, and by works which he himself condemned.”[496]In May, 1524, we see from one of Luther’s letters to Spalatin that difficulties had been raised at the Court concerning the remuneration of the married clergy by the Government. In this letter he recommends Johann Apel, formerly Canon of Würzburg, who had married a nun, for a post at the University of Wittenberg, and gives special advice in case his marriage should prove an obstacle (“quod si uxorcula obstet,” etc.). He here condemns the faint-hearted action of the Elector, and remarks, that he will not thereby escape the animosity of his foes, seeing that he notoriously “favours heretics and provides for them.”[497]Luther did not lose his habit of jesting with his friends, though his witticisms are neither proper nor edifying: “I am bound in the meshes of my mistress’s tresses,” he writes to one,[498]and to another, that it all seemed “very strange” to him and he could hardly realise he had “become amarried man, but the evidence was so strong that he was in honour bound to believe it”; and to a third, since God had taken him captive unawares in the bonds of holy matrimony, he would be obliged to confirm this with a “collation” [dinner-party], therefore he and Mrs. Catherine begged him to send a cask of the best Torgau beer for a good drink; should “it turn out not to be good, the sender would have to drink it all himself as a penalty.”[499]He speaks later in the same jocose fashion of his “Katey” as the “Kette” [chain] to which he is tied, and rather indelicately plays on his wife’s maiden name: “I lie on the bier [’Bore’ = mod. Germ. ‘Bahre’], i.e. I am dead to the world. My Catena [Kette, or chain] rattles her greetings to you and your Catena.” This to Wenceslaus Link, the former Vicar of the Augustinians, who was already married.[500]Such jokes were likely to be best appreciated in the circle of apostate priests and monks.But many earnest men of Luther’s own party, who like Melanchthon and Schurf, feared evil consequences from the marriage, were little disposed for such trifling.Luther jestingly complains of such critics: “The wise men who surrounded him” were greatly incensed at his marriage;[501]he says he knew beforehand that “evil tongues would wag” and, in order that the marriage might “not be hindered,” he had “made all haste to consummate it.”[502]Friends and followers living at a distance expressed strong disapproval of his conduct when it was already too late. The Frankfurt Patrician, Hamman von Holzhausen, wrote on July 16, 1525, to his son Justinian, who was studying at Wittenberg: “I have read your letter telling me that Martinus Lutherus has entered the conjugal state; I fear he will be evil spoken of and that it may cost him a great falling off.”[503]It was, however, useless for the new husband to attempt todefend himself against the consequences by excuses such as the following: “I am neither in love nor consumed by passion, but I esteem my wife highly.”[504]According to his own assertion the step had not been taken under stress of sensual passion, seeing that it was closely bound up with his theology. “I had firmly determined, for the honour of matrimony,” he says in the Table-Talk, “before ever I took a wife, that had I had to die unexpectedly, or were lying on my death-bed, I would have wedded some pious maiden.”[505]He again assures us, that even when an old man and incapable of begetting children, he would still have taken a wife “merely in order to do honour to the married state and testify to his contempt for the shameful immorality and evil living of the Papacy.”[506]We are here confronted with a strange psychological phenomenon, a candidate for death who is at the same time one for marriage.Luther, however, speaks so frequently of this abnormal idea of marrying at the hour of death, that he may gradually have come to look upon it as something grand. In the case of most people death draws the thoughts to the severing of all earthly ties, but Luther, on the contrary, is desirous of forming new ones at the very moment of dissolution. He arrives at this paradox only by means of two highly questionable ideas, viz. that he must exhibit the utmost defiance and at the same time vindicate the sacred character of marriage. It would have been quite possible for him without a wife to show his defiant spirit, and he had already asserted his doctrine concerning marriage so loudly and bluntly, that this fresh corroboration by means of such a marriage was quite unnecessary. What was wanted was, that he should vindicate his own act, which appeared to many of his friends both troublesome and detrimental. Hence his endeavours to conceal its true character by ingenious excuses.Luther’s Catholic opponents were loud in the expression of their lively indignation at the sacrilegious breaking of their vows by monk and nun; some embodied the same in satires designed to check the spread of the movement andto open the eyes of Luther’s followers. One saying of Erasmus has frequently been quoted: A wedding was the usual end of a comedy, but here it was the termination of a tragedy. The actual wording of the somewhat lengthy passage runs thus: “In the comic opera the fuss usually ends in a wedding and then all is quiet; in the case of sovereigns their tragedies also frequently come to a similar conclusion, which is not particularly advantageous to the people, but is better than a war.... Luther’s tragedy seems likely to end in the same way. The Monk has taken a nun to wife.... Luther has now become calmer and his pen no longer makes the same noise. There is none so wild but that a wife can tame him.”[507]Erasmus, however, speedily withdrew his last words, writing that Luther has become more virulent than ever.[508]More in place than such satires were the serious expressions of disapproval and regret on the part of Catholics concerning the terrible fall of the quondam monk and minister of the altar, by reason of his invalid marriage with the nun. Hieronymus Dungersheim of Leipzig was later to raise his voice in a protest of this sort, addressed to Luther, which may be considered as an echo of the feeling awakened in the minds of many by the news of Luther’s marriage and as such may serve as a striking historical testimony: “O unhappy, thrice unhappy man! Once you zealously taught, supported by Divine testimonies and agreeably with the Church of God, that the insolence of the flesh must be withstood by penance and prayer; now you have the fallen woman living with you and give yourself up to serve the flesh under the pretence of marriage, blinded as you are by self-indulgence, pride and passion; by your example you lead others to similar wickedness.... What a startling change, what inconstancy! Formerly a monk, now in the midst of a world you once forsook; formerly a priest, now, as you yourself believe, without any priestly character and altogether laicised; formerly in a monk’s habit, now dressed as a secular; formerly a Christian, now a Husite; formerly in the true faith, now a mere Picard; formerly exhorting the devout to chastity and perseverance, now enticing them totread their vow under foot and to deliver themselves without compunction into the hands of the Evil One!”[509]In the above, light has been thrown upon the numerous legends attaching to Luther’s wedding at Wittenberg, and their true value may now be better appreciated.It is clear, for instance, from the facts recorded, that it is incorrect to accuse Luther of not having complied with the then formalities, and of having consummated the marriage before even attempting to conclude these. The distinction mentioned above between the two acts of June 13 and 27, each of which had its special significance, was either unknown to or ignored by these objectors. Were we merely to consider the due observance of the formalities, then there is no doubt that these were complied with, save that objection might be raised as to the legal status of the pastor. But, on the other hand, Canon Law was plainly and distinctly opposed to the validity of a marriage contracted between parties bound by solemn monastic vows. Thus from the point of view of civil law the regularity of Luther’s new status was very doubtful, as both Canon Law and the Law of the Empire did not recognise the marriages of priests and monks, and lawyers were forced to base their decisions upon such laws. We shall have to speak later of Luther’s anger at the “quibbles” of the lawyers, and his anger had some reason, viz. his well-founded fear lest his marriage should not be recognised as valid by the lawyers, and hence that his children would be stamped as illegitimate and as incapable of inheriting.The false though frequently repeated statement, that Catherine von Bora was confined a fortnight after her marriage with Luther can be traced back to a letter of Erasmus, dated December 24, 1525, giving too hasty credence to malicious reports.[510]Erasmus himself, however, distinctly retracted this statement in another letter of March 13, 1526: “The previous report of the woman’s delivery,” he writes, “was untrue, but now it is said she is in a certain condition.”[511]As his previous statement was thought to be correct, doubts were raised as to the authenticity of the second letter; the objections are, however, worthless; both letters are taken from the same set of the oldest collection of thecorrespondence of Erasmus, and, from their first appearance, were ever held to be genuine.Indeed, the assumption that Luther had unlawful intercourse with Catherine von Bora before his marriage is founded solely and entirely on certain reports already discussed, viz. his intimacy with the escaped nuns generally.It is true that soon after the marriage Luther speaks of Catherine von Bora as his “Mistress” (“Metze”) in whose tresses he is bound,[512]but the word he uses had not at that time the opprobrious meaning it conveys in modern German; it simply meant a girl or woman, and was a term of endearment in common use.An assertion made by Joachim von der Heyden, a Leipzig Master, has also been quoted; in a public writing of August 10, 1525, addressed to Catherine von Bora, he reproached her with having conducted herself like a dancing-girl in her flight from the convent to Wittenberg, and there, as was said, having lived in an open and shameless manner with Luther before she took him as her husband.[513]A circumstance which must not be overlooked is, that these words were intended for Catherine herself, and appear to come from a man who believed what he was saying. Yet on examination we see that he rests his assertion merely on hearsay: “as was said.” The “dancing-girl,” again, was adduced merely by way of comparison, though assuredly not a complimentary one, and refers either to the very worldly manners of the escaped nun, or to the secular, perhaps even scarcely modest dress, for which she exchanged her habit on her flight or afterwards. It is probable that at Leipzig, where Heyden lived, and which was one of the headquarters of anti-Lutheranism, something more definite would have been urged, had anything really been known of any actual immorality between Catherine and Luther.Another bitter opponent of Luther’s, Simon Lemnius, who has also been appealed to, likewise adduces no positive or definite facts. Among the inventions of his fancy contained in the “Monachopornomachia” he left us, he does not even mention any illicit intercourse of Luther with Bora before his marriage, though in this satire he makes the wives of Luther, Spalatin, and Justus Jonas give vent to plentiful obscene remarks touching other matters. He merely relates—and this only by poet’s licence—how Bora, after overwhelming Luther with reproaches on account of his alleged attempt to jilt her, finally dragged him away with her to the wedding.[514]Since in this work it is history in the strict sense which speaks, only such evidence can be admitted against Luther as would beaccepted as proof in a court of law, and mere conjectures would be out of place. We have seen the historic complaint made by Melanchthon of Luther’s “effeminacy” and the “exciting of his passions by the nuns who pursued him with the utmost cunning,”[515]and have some idea of the scandal created by the quondam monk through his light-hearted intercourse with these women who had quitted their seclusion; we can now understand how natural was the gossip to which he himself and his friends bear witness. It is true that men like Eberlin of Günzburg, the apostate Franciscan, said at the time that the devil was busy everywhere stirring up “wicked and vexatious suspicions and calumnies” against Luther, etc.[516]Others gave vent to their spite against the manners of the ex-nuns, who were bringing the evangel into dispute.[517]We can comprehend such reflections as the following, made at a later date by indignant Catholic observers, even though in an historical work such as this we cannot make them our own. “To have remained spotless amidst such dangers Luther would have to have been an angel. Whoever has any knowledge of human nature, and knows that God as a rule punishes pride and haughtiness by this particular vice, will not wonder that many have their doubts as to Luther’s unblemished life before he took a wife.”[518]2. The Peasant-War. PolemicsThat the preaching of the new Evangel had a great part in the origin of the frightful peasant rising of 1525 is a fact, which has been admitted even by many non-Catholic historians in modern days.“We are of opinion,” P. Schreckenbach writes in 1895, “that Luther had a large share in the revolution,” and he endorses his opinion by his observations on “Luther’s warfare against the greatest conservative power of the day,” and the “ways and means he chose with which to carry on his war.”[519]Fr. v. Bezold, in 1890, in his “History of the German Reformation,” remarked concerning Luther’s answer to the hostile treatment he received from the Diet at Nuremberg (1524), and his allusions to “the mad, tipsy Princes”: “Luther should never have written in such a way had he not already made up his mind to act as leader of a Revolution. That he should have expected the German nation of those days to listen to such passionate language from the mouth of its ‘Evangelist’ and ‘Elias’ without being carried beyond the bounds of law and order, was anaïvetéonly to be explained by his ignorance of the world and his exclusive attentionto religious interests. Herein lies his greatness and his weakness.”[520]Concerning the effects of such language upon the people, the same historian wrote, as late as 1908: “How else but in a material sense was the plain man to interpret Luther’s proclamation of Christian freedom and his extravagant strictures on the parsons and nobles?”[521]Luther’s Catholic contemporaries condemned in the strongest manner his share in the unchaining of the revolt; they failed entirely to appreciate the “greatness” referred to above.One who was well acquainted with his writings and published a polemical work in Latin against him at that time, referring to certain passages, some of which we have already met, makes the following representations to him on his responsibility in the Peasant War. It was he who first raised the call to arms, and it was impossible for him to wash his hands of all share in the revolt, even though he had told the people that they were not to make use of force without the consent of the authorities and had subsequently condemned the rising with violence. “The common people pay no attention to that,” he tells him, “but merely obey what pleases them in Luther’s writings and sermons.” “You declared in your public writings,[522]that they were to assail the Pope and the Cardinals with every weapon available, and wash their hands in their blood. You called all the bishops who would not follow your teaching, idolatrous priests and ministers of the devil; you said that the bishops deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth in a great rising.” “You called those, ‘dear children of God and true Christians,’ who make every effort for the destruction of the bishoprics and the extermination of episcopal rule. You said also that whoever obeyed the bishops was the devil’s own servant. You called the monasteries dens of murderers, and incited the people to pull them down.”[523]A strong wave of anticlerical and of politico-social commotion due to unjust oppression prevailed among the peasantry in many parts of Germany even before Luther came forward. But it was the gospel of freedom, the mistaken approbation found in biblical passages for the desire for equality among the classes and a juster distribution of property, as well as the example of the great spiritual upheavalthen going on, which rendered the crisis acute, and incited the peasants to make their extravagant and violent demands.An attempt was made to conceal the revolutionary character of the movement by explaining it as mainly religious.The “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” was headed, for instance, by a demand for liberty to preach the Gospel and for congregations to have the right of choosing their own pastors.[524]It was believed by those who drew up these Articles that all the claims, even those relating to the tithes, to hunting, fishing, forest rights, etc., could be proved from Holy Scripture; only then, they said, were they ready to abandon them when they were refuted by Holy Writ; at the same time, however, they reserved to themselves the right to make in the future such additional demands as they might come to recognise as being in accordance with Scripture. Luther’s ideas were also embodied in the thirty Articles of “Squire Helferich and the Knights Heinz und Karsthanns,” indeed, they were for the most part couched in the very words of Luther’s writings and the 28th Article swore deadly hostility to all his foes.[525]The peasants in the Rhine province and about Mayence in their rising in May, 1525, demanded not merely the liberty to choose their own pastors and to preach the Gospel, but also that the preachers of the new faith imprisoned in Mayence should be set free. Their claim to choose their pastors, which was likewise made elsewhere, for instance, in the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” signified nothing less than the intention to fill the posts with preachers of the new faith.[526]“The rebels everywhere either supported or opposed the Evangelical demands, those of Evangelical views joining the rebels with the idea that they would be able to enforce their wishes by this means.” This explains why, after the rising had been put down, the Catholic lords were disposed “to look on Lutheranism as no better than rebellion.”[527]These words, written by a Protestant historian, refer to the Rhine Province, but they are equally applicable elsewhere. So, too, what he says of this district may also be said generally, viz. that the enthusiastic expectation, which was widespread in Lutheran circles, of a great change before the approaching end of the world, helped to make of the followers of the new faith supporters of the peasants. Luther encouraged such fanatical ideas among his readers till the very outbreak of the revolt. (See below, p. 200 f.)“What wonder,” the same historian says, “that when the social revolution broke out in the spring, Luther’s persecuted followers thought they recognised the beginning of the change, and in many instances made common cause with the peasants and the lower classes of the towns. Luther himself had no wish to carry through his religious enterprise with the help either of the knights or of the peasants,but his followers were not equal to making the necessary distinction between the spiritual and the temporal.”[528]Luther and his preachers had so frequently brought forward such disparaging and degrading charges against the secular, and still more against the spiritual authorities,[529]that clear-sighted contemporaries, such as Bartholomew von Usingen, foretold a revolution[530]as the result of such discourses and writings. The destruction of the episcopal power, which, under the conditions then prevailing, was so closely bound up with the secular, meant a radical revolution in the law of property obtaining in the German Empire.The “Christian freedom” of all, the equality of high and low in the common priesthood, was proclaimed in the most incautious and seductive terms. The peasants were taught by itinerant and often fanatical preachers, concerning their real or alleged rights as vouched for by Holy Scripture. Thus the esteemed Strasburg preacher, Caspar Hedio, of the Rhinegau, in a sermon which he delivered on the Wachholder Heide, near Erbach, explained to the people his views on the customary payment of tithes; his words acting like a charm: He thought the peasants should pay tithes only under protest, though they were nevertheless not to attempt to abrogate the payment by force. Once roused, however, who was to keep the crowd within theselimits? In 1524 Hedio had two sermons, preached on this subject in Strasburg, printed together with a circular letter addressed to the inhabitants of the Rhinegau, “which, there can be no doubt, exercised a certain influence upon the rising there.”[531]In the circular he proposed, that the people themselves should go in search of capable preachers if the ecclesiastical authorities did not send such.[532]A far-reaching social movement had been at work among the peasants, more particularly in many districts of the south-west of Germany, even previous to the rise of Lutheranism. They raised protests, which in many instances were justifiable, against the oppression under which they laboured. A crisis seemed imminent there as early as 1513 and 1514, and the feeling was general that a settlement of the difficulties could only be brought about by violence. The ferment in many places assumed an anticlerical character, which was all the more natural seeing that the landowners and gentry who were the chief cause of the dissatisfaction were either clergymen, like the Prince-Bishops, or closely allied with the Church and her multifarious secular institutions. The ill-feeling against the clergy was even then being stirred up by exaggerated descriptions of their idle life, their luxury and their unworthy conduct.To seek to represent the movement, as has been done, as an exclusively social one, is, even for the period before Luther, not quite correct, although it certainly was mainly social. Yet it was, as a matter of fact, the new ideas scattered among the people by Luther and Zwingli, and the preaching of the apostasy, which brought the unrest so quickly to a head. The anticlerical ideas of the religious innovators, combined with social class antagonism, lent an irresistible force to the rising. Hence the Peasant War has recently been described on the Protestant side as a “religious movement,” called forth by the discussion of first principles to which the Reformation gave rise, and which owed its violent character to the religious contrast which it brought out.[533]The expert on this period whowrites thus, proves and justifies his opinion, showing that Zwingli and Luther “were the primary cause” of the War, not indeed directly, but because once the peasants had become familiar with the new “biblical” ideas, which were so favourable to their cause, they refused to stand by and see such doctrines suppressed by violence, and preferred to take up arms against the Catholic rulers and their energetic anti-Reformation measures.[534]According to the same writer it is necessary to distinguish carefully between what the peasants themselves represented in the course of the revolt as the moving cause, i.e. the social disabilities of which they complained (for instance in the Twelve Articles), and that which actually produced the rising.Nor must it be overlooked that, at the moment when passions were already stirred up to their highest pitch, many attempts were made on the Lutheran side to pacify the people. The catastrophe foreseen affrighted those who were on the spot, and who feared lest the responsibility might fall upon their shoulders. Quite recently a forgotten pamphlet, written by an anonymous Lutheran preacher and dating from the commencement of the movement, has been republished, in which, after some pious exhortations, the author expresses his firm hope that the fear of God would succeed in triumphing over the excited passions; even biblical quotations against misuse of the new evangelical freedom are to be found in this well-intentioned booklet.[535]Then as now attention was drawn to Luther’s doctrine concerning obedience to the powers that be, which required of “the true Christian” that he should even “allow himself to be flayed,” and out of love of the cross renounce all desire for revenge (xiv. 4).Notwithstanding all this, the great responsibility which Lutheranism shares in the matter remains. “It is no purely historical and objective view,” says another Protestanthistorian, “but rather an apologetic and false assumption, which attempts to deny the fact, that Luther’s evangelical preaching most strongly encouraged and brought to a crisis the social excitement which had been simmering among the lowest classes since the fifteenth century. The agitation stirred up by the preachers who followed in Luther’s footsteps contributed in a still greater degree towards this result.”[536]Special research in the different parts of the wide area covered by the rising has to-day confirmed even more completely the opinion that the accusations urged against Lutheranism by the olden supporters of the Church were, after all, not so unjust in this particular. The much-abused Johann Cochlæus, who made such charges, is rightly spoken of by the last-mentioned historian as being “more suited” to depict that revolutionary period than the diplomatic and cautious Sleidanus, or the Protestant theological admirers and worshippers of Luther.[537]The learned Hieronymus Emser wrote, in the stormy year 1525, a work “AgainstLuther’s abominations,” a large part of which is devoted to proving what is already explained in the sub-title of the book, “How, and why, and in what words, Luther, in his books, urges and exhorts to rebellion.” Emser also gave indignant expression to his conviction in some verses intended for general circulation.Luther was directly implicated in the beginning of the rising when the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia” was forwarded to him by the insurgents. The peasants invited him, with confidence, “to declare what was of Divine right.”[538]Luther’s honoured name came first in the list of learned men who were to be consulted. The Wittenberg professor grasped the full importance of the moment; he felt that the direction of German affairs had been placed in his hands. Naturally he did not wish to be the one to let loose the terrible storm, nor did he, as the representative and “deliverer” of the people, wish to repulse the movement which had been so long favourable to him, and the demands of which were, in part at least, perfectly justifiable. He found himself in a position exactly similar to that which he had occupied formerly in regard to the Knights, who were anxious to take up arms, and with whom he had, up to a certain point, made common cause, but whose project afterwards appeared to him too dangerous and compromising to the cause of the evangel. In the question of the Twelve Articles it was difficult, nay, impossible, for him not to give offence either to the gentry or to the populace, or to avoid barring the way for the new evangel in one direction or the other. He determined to seek a middle course. But the tragic consequences of the position he had always assumed, the circumstances of the day and his unrestrained temper, caused him to give mortal offence to both sides, to the lords as well as to the peasants.First, he flung his “Exhortation to Peace” on the field of battle—no mere figure of speech, as, at the time of writing,the tumult had already broken out and the horrors of Weinsberg been enacted (April 16, 1525), though of this Luther was ignorant when he composed the pamphlet. Formerly this writing was thought to have been written in May, but as a matter of fact it belongs to the period just after April 18.[539]In this writing, as well as in the two following which treat of the rising, certain sides of Luther’s character are displayed which must be examined from the historical and psychological standpoint. The second, which was the outcome of the impressions made by the bloody contest, consists of only one sheet and is entitled “Against the murderous, thieving hordes of Peasants,” or more shortly, “Against the insurgent Peasants”; it, too, was written before the complete defeat of the rebels in the decisive days of May.[540]The third is the “Circular letter concerning the stern booklet against the Peasants,” of the same year, and belongs to the time when the conquerors, flushed with victory, were raging against the vanquished.[541]The three writings must be considered in conjunction with the circumstances which called them forth. Written in the very thick of the seething ferment, they glow with all the fire of their author, whose personal concern in the matter was so great. Whoever weighs their contents at the present day will be carried back to the storm of that period, and will marvel at the strength of the spirit which inspires them, but at the same time be surprised at the picture the three together present. He will ask, and not without cause, which of the three is most to be regretted; surely the third, for the unmistakable blunders of the author, who gives the fullest play to feeling and fancy to the detriment of calm reason, go on increasing in each pamphlet.In the first, the “Exhortation,” the author seeks to put the truth before, and to pacify the Princes and gentry, more particularly those Catholics who, subsequent to the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, had entered the lists against the innovations. He also would fain instruct and calm the peasants,his “dear Masters and Brothers.” Had Luther been endowed with a clear perception of the position of affairs, and seen the utter uselessness of any attempt merely to stem the movement, he would not at this critical juncture have still further irritated the rebels by the attacks upon the gentry, into which he allowed himself to break out, and which were at once taken advantage of.

CHAPTER XIVFROM THE PEASANT WAR TO THE DIET OF AUGSBURG (1525-1530)1. Luther’s MarriageWhen, in November, 1524, Spalatin, on the occasion of an enquiry made by a lady, ventured to broach the question when Luther proposed taking a wife, he received the following answer: He was to tell the enquirer (Argula), that Luther was “in the hands of God, as a creature whose heart He could fashion as He would; whom He was able to kill or to make alive at any hour and any moment.” His feelings were yet foreign to matrimony. “But I shall neither set bounds to God’s action in my regard, nor listen to my own heart.”[463]By these words, which were addressed to all observers and critics, he not only left himself an open door, but attempted to describe his state in the terms of that pseudo-mysticism of man’s bondage and lack of free will as regards God’s designs to which at times he was wont to abandon himself more or less completely, according to the varying circumstances of his life.About March or April, 1525, a definite intention to marry begins to appear. The letter to Spalatin referred to above, on p. 140, was written on April 16, and, though in it he does not yet admit his determination to marry, he speaks of himself jestingly as a famous lover, who had had at one time three wives in his hands. His eye fell on Catherine von Bora, who after her flight from the convent at Nimbschen, had found a home in the house of the Town-clerk, Reichenbach (above, p. 138). He speaks of her in a letter of May 4 as “my Katey” and declares that he is about to marryher.[464]Owing to his intimacy with her all sorts of stories went the rounds in the town during the following months, to which intercourse with the ex-nuns referred to above (p. 145) gave all the more colour.Then, suddenly, without consulting any of his friends and with a haste which surprised even his own followers, on the evening of June 13, he celebrated his wedding with Bora in his own house, with all the formalities then usual. Besides Bugenhagen and Jonas, Luther’s friends, only the painter Lucas Cranach and his wife, and the Professor of Jurisprudence, Dr. Apel, were summoned as witnesses. The consummation of the marriage seems to have been duly witnessed by Bugenhagen as Pastor of Wittenberg. The public wedding did not take place until June 27, according to the custom common in that district of dividing the actual marriage from the public ceremony. During the interval Luther invited several guests to be present, as we see from his letters, which are still extant. From June 13 he speaks of himself already as “copulatus,”[465]and as a “husband.”[466]On June 14 Jonas sent by special messenger to Spalatin a letter, evidently written under the stress of very mixed feelings: “Luther has taken Catherine von Bora to wife. Yesterday I was there and saw the betrothed on the bridal couch. I could not restrain my tears at the sight; I know not what strong emotion stirred my soul; now that it has taken place and is the Will of God, I wish the excellent, honest man and our beloved father in the Lord, every happiness. God is wonderful in His decrees!”[467]Luther also was at pains to represent the incident as divinely ordained, a high and holy act.At a later date he said: “God willed that I should take pity on her [Catherine].”[468]Even before taking the step, he had thought out the plan of impressing upon his unionwith “Katey,” the ex-nun, the character of a “reforming work.” “Because our enemies do not cease to condemn matrimony,” he writes, and “our ‘little wiseacres’ daily scoff at it,” he feels himself for that very reason attracted to it; being determined to give celebrity to the true teaching of the Gospel concerning marriage.[469]He had informed Albert, the archiepiscopal Elector, that before quitting this life he would enter the married state, which he considered as enjoined by God,[470]and somewhat earlier he had confided to a friend that, if he could manage it before he died, he meant “to take his Katey to wife in order to spite the devil.”[471]This agrees in part with what he wrote shortly after his marriage: “The Lord plunged me suddenly, while I still clung to quite other views, into matrimony.”[472]As a matter of fact it was the unpleasant rumours aroused when his intimacy with Bora became known, which hastened the step. This is what Bugenhagen, an authentic witness, says with evident displeasure: Evil tales were the cause of Dr. Martin’s becoming a married man so unexpectedly.[473]Luther himself admits this in a confidential letter to Spalatin three days after the step. He informs him of his marriage as follows: “I have shut the mouth of those who slandered me and Catherine von Bora.”[474]In the same letter Luther also refers to the reproach he had at first dreaded, viz. of degrading himself by his marriage. He scoffs at this: “I have become so low and despicable by this marriage,” he says jokingly, “that I hope the angels will laugh and all the devils weep. The world and its ‘wise ones’ do not yet recognise the pious and holy work of God and in me they regard it as something impious and devilish. Hence it pleases me greatly that, by my marriage,the opinion of those who continue to persevere in their ignorance of divine things is brought in question and condemned. Farewell, and pray for me.”[475]Such utterances were directed also against many of the friends of the Evangel. Hieronymus Schurf, the lawyer, and otherwise Luther’s confidant, had been one of those opposed to his marriage. He had said: “If this Monk takes a wife all the world and the devil himself will laugh, and Luther will undo the whole of his previous work.”[476]Melanchthon, too, expressed his deep displeasure at the marriage in the remarkable Greek letter already once referred to (p. 145) addressed to his friend Joachim Camerarius, and dated June 16, 1525.The true wording of this Greek letter, which Camerarius saw fit to modify, as is proved by the original in the Chigi Library in Rome, with his “corrections” in red pencil, only became known in 1876.[477]He revised it completely for his edition of Melanchthon’s letters because he feared tomake the severe censure it contained public; thus the letter was formerly only known in the altered shape in which it was also published in 1834 in the “Corpus Reformatorum,” which begins with Melanchthon’s letters. A similar fate has befallen several other letters of Melanchthon in the Camerarius editions, and consequently also in the “Corpus.”Melanchthon, according to the real text of the letter (which we give in full in the note), commences with these words: “Since you have probably received divergent accounts concerning Luther’s marriage, I judge it well to send you my views on his wedding.” After detailing the external circumstances already referred to, and pointing out that Luther “had not consulted any of his friends beforehand,” he continues: “You will perhaps be surprised that, at this unhappy time when upright and right-thinking men are everywhere being oppressed, he is not also suffering, but, to all appearance, leads a more easy life (μᾶλλον τρυφᾶν) and endangers his reputation, notwithstanding the fact that the German nation stands in need of all his wisdom and strength. It appears to me, however, that this is how it has happened.” And here Melanchthon brings forward the complaints already related (p. 145) of the imprudent intimacy between a “man otherwise noble and high-minded” and the escaped nuns, who had made use of every art to attract him and thus had rendered him effeminate and inflamed his passions. “He seems after this fashion to have been drawn into the untimely change in his mode of life. It is clear, however, that the gossip concerning his previous criminal intercourse with her [Bora] was false. Now the thing is done it is useless to find fault with it, or to take it amiss, for I believe that nature impels man to matrimony. Even though this life is low, yet it is holy, and more pleasing to God than the unmarried state. And sinceI see that Luther is to some extent sad and troubled about this change in his way of life, I seek very earnestly to encourage him by representing to him that he has done nothing which, in my opinion, can be made a subject of reproach to him.”In spite of his misgivings Melanchthon seeks to console himself with two strange reflections: Advancement and honour are dangerous to all men, even to those who fear God as Luther does, and therefore this “low” way of life is good for him. And again, “I am in hopes that he will now lay aside the buffoonery[478]for which we have so often found fault with him.” Camerarius must not allow himself to be disconcerted by Luther’s unexpected mode of proceeding, even though he may be painfully aware that it is injurious to him. “I exhort you to bear this with patience ... God has shown us by the numerous mistakes (πταίσματα) the Saints committed in earlier ages, that He wishes us to prove His Word and not to rely upon the reputation of any man, but only on His Word. He would, indeed, be a very godless man who, on account of the mistake (πταῖσμα) of the doctor, should judge slightingly of his doctrine....” Melanchthon then reiterates his statement that nature impels a man to matrimony, adding to it the word “verily.”[479]The letter, which was not intended for publication and, probably for this reason, was written in Greek, contains a strange admixture of blame and dissatisfaction coupled with recognition and praise of Luther’s good qualities. We see clearly how Melanchthon tries to overcome the bitterness he feels by means of these reflections, which however reveal him as the learned and timid Humanist he really was, rather than as a theologian and man of the world. Protestants have attempted to moderate the impression created by this letter of Melanchthon’s by representingit as written hastily in a passing fit of temper. As a matter of fact, however, it does not bear the impress of having been so written, and, considering how the writer is evidently at pains to find some justification for Luther’s conduct, it cannot be described as written hastily and without due thought. The writer, in spite of all he says, is anxious that “what has taken place should not be blamed”; Luther to him is still “a noble and high-minded man,” one, too, who has given proof of his fear of God.One of the most recent of Luther admirers accordingly abandons this excuse, and merely speaks of the letter as a “hateful” one, “written in an extremely uncomfortable frame of mind.” After various reflections thereon he arrives at the following surprising conclusion: “If we place ourselves in poor Melanchthon’s position and realise the slight offered him in not having been apprised of the matter until after the wedding had taken place, and his grief that his friend should thus expose the cause of the evangel to slander, we must admit that, after all, the letter was quite amiable.” If, however, there was any question of slight in the matter, Melanchthon was certainly not the only one who had cause for complaint; accustomed as he was to such treatment on Luther’s part, he scarcely even refers to it, his objection being based on far more serious grounds. He showed no sign of having been slighted when, shortly after, he invited Wenceslaus Link to the public “nuptiæ,” expressing his good wishes that Luther’s marriage “may turn out well.”[480]The scruples which he shared with Camerarius concerning Luther’s intimacy with the ex-nuns were not new, but had long disquieted him. We may notice over and over again his secret esteem for celibacy, which he ranks above matrimony, and such thoughts may well have animated him when composing the letter, even though he repels them and praises the married state. “It is plain,” says Kawerau, “that a shudder passes through his frame at the very thought of marriage between a monk and a nun.”[481]We can only regard it as due to his state of indecision when he says in the letter in question, first that Luther “had done nothing that called for reproach,” and then, that “he had made a mistake.”We may nevertheless grant to the Protestant author, mentioned at the commencement of the previous paragraph, that Melanchthon—who was not, as a matter of fact, apprised by Luther of his thoughts at that time—“did not rightly understand the motive which caused him to enter the married state at such a moment.” Indeed, the motive was not to be readily understood. Luther’s intention, so our author thinks, was to set his enemies at defiance by his marriage and to show them “that he would pay less attention to them than ever”; being apprehensive of his approaching end, he determined to set the last touch to his doctrine on matrimony by a solemn and manly act.Many others, like Melanchthon, have been unable to appreciatethis “great motive,” or at any rate the disadvantages of marriage in Luther’s case seem to have weighed more heavily with them than its compensating advantages in the service of the Reformation.This explanation, nevertheless, appears so convincing to our author that he does not insist further upon another reason which he hints at, viz. that Catherine von Bora “was unkindly disposed to Melanchthon,” and that he much feared she would alienate his friend’s heart from him. The same writer mildly remarks concerning the falsification of the letter committed by Camerarius: “it was not with the intention of falsifying, that he made various alterations, but in order to prevent disedification.” Camerarius has, however, unfortunately aggravated one passage in the letter, for where Melanchthon speaks for the first time of man’s natural inclination for marriage, Camerarius adds the wordαὐτόν, thus referring directly to Luther what the writer intended for men in general: “I believehewas forced by nature to marry,” which, following immediately upon the passage referring to his frivolous intercourse with the nuns and the calumnies about Bora, gives a still more unfavourable impression of Luther. This at any rate may serve to exculpate the Catholic controversialists, who erroneously referred this passage, and the other one which resembles it, directly to Luther, whereas he is comprised in it only indirectly.According to what we have seen, the circumstance of Luther’s sudden marriage occurring just at the time of the panic of the Peasant War, made an especially deep impression on Melanchthon, who was ever inclined to circumspection and prudence.In point of fact, a more unsuitable time, and one in more glaring contrast with nuptial festivities, it would have been impossible for Luther to select. The flames of the conflagration raging throughout Germany and even in the vicinity of Wittenberg, and the battlefields strewn with the dead, slain by the rebels or the supporters of the Knights and Princes, formed a terrible background to the Wittenberg wedding.The precipitancy of his action was the more remarkable because at that time Luther himself was living in a state of keen anxiety concerning the outcome of the great social and religious upheaval.Seeing that he was looked upon, by both lord and peasant, as the prime instigator of the trouble, he had grave cause to fear for his own safety. About five weeks later, writing from Seeburg, near Mansfeld, after a preaching tour through the rebels’ country, he says: “I, who am also affected byit, for the devil is intent upon my death, know that he is angered because so far he has been unable either by cunning or by force to harm me and is determined to be rid of me even should he be forced to do his worst and set the whole world in an uproar; so that I really believe, and it appears to me, that it is on my account that he does such things in the world in order that God may plague the world. If I reach home safe and sound, I shall, with God’s help, prepare myself for death.”[482]Whereas he had written not long before, that he was not thinking of marrying because he awaited death, i.e. the death-penalty for heresy,[483]according to his statements after his marriage it was the thought of death which had led him to contract the union; God’s work was unmistakable, God was shaming his adversaries. He repeatedly makes statements to this effect, which we shall gather together with some of his other assertions to form a picture of his mental state then.In one of the letters of invitation to the public wedding he writes: “The lords, priests and peasants are all against me and threaten me with death; well, as they are so mad and foolish I shall take care to be found at my end in the state [matrimony] ordained by God.”[484]He is forced, however, to brace himself up in order not to lose heart and be vexed at the falling away of the people from him; “to resign favour, honour and followers”[485]caused him grief of heart and an inward struggle.His conviction that the end of the world was approaching, also did its part in exciting him; “the destruction of the world may be expected any hour,” he writes.[486]Hence he is determined, as he declares, to marry “in order todefy the devil,”[487]i.e. he defies all his afflictions and anxieties, all the accusations of others as well as of his own conscience, and surrenders himself to the feeling, which, since the Wartburg days, ever stirred the depths of his soul on such occasions and made him hope to recover all the ground lost by means of force and violence. Peace and contentment of soul were not, however, the immediate result, for Melanchthon writes, that, after his marriage, Luther had been “sad and troubled.”[488]Luther will, however, have it that it was God Who had shown him the road he had taken.“God is pleased to work wonders in order to mock me and the world and to make fools of us.”[489]“That it is God’s work even the ‘wise ones’ among us are forced to acknowledge, though they are greatly vexed. The picture their fancy paints of me and the girl makes them lose their wits so that they think and speak godlessly. But the Lord liveth and is greater in us than he [the devil] that is in the world (1 John iv. 4).”[490]“God willed it and carried it out” (“Sic Deus voluit et fecit”).[491]“On account of this work of God I have, it is true, to suffer much abuse and many calumnies.”[492]“Thus, so far as I am able, I have [by my marriage] thrown away the last remnant of my former popish life; I am determined to make them [my foes] still madder and more foolish; this is the stirrup-cup and my last good-bye.”[493]“Were the world not scandalised at us, I should be scandalised at the world, for I should be afraid lest what we undertake is not of God; but as the world is scandalised and withstands me, I am edified and comfort myself in God; do you likewise.”[494]“The cause of the Evangel has been greatly wronged by Münzer and the peasants,” he declares, therefore he wished to strengthen it by his marriage, in spite of the Papists who were shouting in triumph (“ne videar cessisse”), “and I shall do more still which will grieve them and bring them to the recognition of the Word.”[495]If, to the motives for his marriage which he enumerates above, we add a further reason, also alleged by him, viz. that he wished to show himself obedient to his father, who desired the marriage, we arrive at the stately number of seven reasons. They may be arranged as follows: 1. Because it was necessary to shut the mouth of those who spoke evil of him on account of his relations with Bora. 2. Because he was obliged to take pity on the forsaken nun. 3. Becausehis father wished it. 4. Because the Catholics represented matrimony as contrary to the Gospel. 5. Because even his friends laughed at his plan of marrying. 6. Because the peasants and the priests threatened him with death and he must therefore defy the terrors raised by the devil. 7. Because God’s will was plainly apparent in the circumstances. Melanchthon’s reason, viz. that man is impelled to marriage by nature, Luther does not himself bring forward.We must not lose sight of the circumstance that the marriage took place barely five weeks after the death of the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise. His successor was more openly favourable towards the ecclesiastical innovations. Frederick would have nothing to do with the marriage of the clergy, particularly with nuns, although he did not permit any steps to be taken against those who had married. He wrote to his Councillors at Torgau on October 4, 1523, that to undertake any alteration or innovation would be difficult, more particularly in these days when he had to anticipate trouble “for our country and people” from the opponents of Lutheranism; “he did not think that a clergyman ought to earn his stipend by idleness and the taking of wives, and by works which he himself condemned.”[496]In May, 1524, we see from one of Luther’s letters to Spalatin that difficulties had been raised at the Court concerning the remuneration of the married clergy by the Government. In this letter he recommends Johann Apel, formerly Canon of Würzburg, who had married a nun, for a post at the University of Wittenberg, and gives special advice in case his marriage should prove an obstacle (“quod si uxorcula obstet,” etc.). He here condemns the faint-hearted action of the Elector, and remarks, that he will not thereby escape the animosity of his foes, seeing that he notoriously “favours heretics and provides for them.”[497]Luther did not lose his habit of jesting with his friends, though his witticisms are neither proper nor edifying: “I am bound in the meshes of my mistress’s tresses,” he writes to one,[498]and to another, that it all seemed “very strange” to him and he could hardly realise he had “become amarried man, but the evidence was so strong that he was in honour bound to believe it”; and to a third, since God had taken him captive unawares in the bonds of holy matrimony, he would be obliged to confirm this with a “collation” [dinner-party], therefore he and Mrs. Catherine begged him to send a cask of the best Torgau beer for a good drink; should “it turn out not to be good, the sender would have to drink it all himself as a penalty.”[499]He speaks later in the same jocose fashion of his “Katey” as the “Kette” [chain] to which he is tied, and rather indelicately plays on his wife’s maiden name: “I lie on the bier [’Bore’ = mod. Germ. ‘Bahre’], i.e. I am dead to the world. My Catena [Kette, or chain] rattles her greetings to you and your Catena.” This to Wenceslaus Link, the former Vicar of the Augustinians, who was already married.[500]Such jokes were likely to be best appreciated in the circle of apostate priests and monks.But many earnest men of Luther’s own party, who like Melanchthon and Schurf, feared evil consequences from the marriage, were little disposed for such trifling.Luther jestingly complains of such critics: “The wise men who surrounded him” were greatly incensed at his marriage;[501]he says he knew beforehand that “evil tongues would wag” and, in order that the marriage might “not be hindered,” he had “made all haste to consummate it.”[502]Friends and followers living at a distance expressed strong disapproval of his conduct when it was already too late. The Frankfurt Patrician, Hamman von Holzhausen, wrote on July 16, 1525, to his son Justinian, who was studying at Wittenberg: “I have read your letter telling me that Martinus Lutherus has entered the conjugal state; I fear he will be evil spoken of and that it may cost him a great falling off.”[503]It was, however, useless for the new husband to attempt todefend himself against the consequences by excuses such as the following: “I am neither in love nor consumed by passion, but I esteem my wife highly.”[504]According to his own assertion the step had not been taken under stress of sensual passion, seeing that it was closely bound up with his theology. “I had firmly determined, for the honour of matrimony,” he says in the Table-Talk, “before ever I took a wife, that had I had to die unexpectedly, or were lying on my death-bed, I would have wedded some pious maiden.”[505]He again assures us, that even when an old man and incapable of begetting children, he would still have taken a wife “merely in order to do honour to the married state and testify to his contempt for the shameful immorality and evil living of the Papacy.”[506]We are here confronted with a strange psychological phenomenon, a candidate for death who is at the same time one for marriage.Luther, however, speaks so frequently of this abnormal idea of marrying at the hour of death, that he may gradually have come to look upon it as something grand. In the case of most people death draws the thoughts to the severing of all earthly ties, but Luther, on the contrary, is desirous of forming new ones at the very moment of dissolution. He arrives at this paradox only by means of two highly questionable ideas, viz. that he must exhibit the utmost defiance and at the same time vindicate the sacred character of marriage. It would have been quite possible for him without a wife to show his defiant spirit, and he had already asserted his doctrine concerning marriage so loudly and bluntly, that this fresh corroboration by means of such a marriage was quite unnecessary. What was wanted was, that he should vindicate his own act, which appeared to many of his friends both troublesome and detrimental. Hence his endeavours to conceal its true character by ingenious excuses.Luther’s Catholic opponents were loud in the expression of their lively indignation at the sacrilegious breaking of their vows by monk and nun; some embodied the same in satires designed to check the spread of the movement andto open the eyes of Luther’s followers. One saying of Erasmus has frequently been quoted: A wedding was the usual end of a comedy, but here it was the termination of a tragedy. The actual wording of the somewhat lengthy passage runs thus: “In the comic opera the fuss usually ends in a wedding and then all is quiet; in the case of sovereigns their tragedies also frequently come to a similar conclusion, which is not particularly advantageous to the people, but is better than a war.... Luther’s tragedy seems likely to end in the same way. The Monk has taken a nun to wife.... Luther has now become calmer and his pen no longer makes the same noise. There is none so wild but that a wife can tame him.”[507]Erasmus, however, speedily withdrew his last words, writing that Luther has become more virulent than ever.[508]More in place than such satires were the serious expressions of disapproval and regret on the part of Catholics concerning the terrible fall of the quondam monk and minister of the altar, by reason of his invalid marriage with the nun. Hieronymus Dungersheim of Leipzig was later to raise his voice in a protest of this sort, addressed to Luther, which may be considered as an echo of the feeling awakened in the minds of many by the news of Luther’s marriage and as such may serve as a striking historical testimony: “O unhappy, thrice unhappy man! Once you zealously taught, supported by Divine testimonies and agreeably with the Church of God, that the insolence of the flesh must be withstood by penance and prayer; now you have the fallen woman living with you and give yourself up to serve the flesh under the pretence of marriage, blinded as you are by self-indulgence, pride and passion; by your example you lead others to similar wickedness.... What a startling change, what inconstancy! Formerly a monk, now in the midst of a world you once forsook; formerly a priest, now, as you yourself believe, without any priestly character and altogether laicised; formerly in a monk’s habit, now dressed as a secular; formerly a Christian, now a Husite; formerly in the true faith, now a mere Picard; formerly exhorting the devout to chastity and perseverance, now enticing them totread their vow under foot and to deliver themselves without compunction into the hands of the Evil One!”[509]In the above, light has been thrown upon the numerous legends attaching to Luther’s wedding at Wittenberg, and their true value may now be better appreciated.It is clear, for instance, from the facts recorded, that it is incorrect to accuse Luther of not having complied with the then formalities, and of having consummated the marriage before even attempting to conclude these. The distinction mentioned above between the two acts of June 13 and 27, each of which had its special significance, was either unknown to or ignored by these objectors. Were we merely to consider the due observance of the formalities, then there is no doubt that these were complied with, save that objection might be raised as to the legal status of the pastor. But, on the other hand, Canon Law was plainly and distinctly opposed to the validity of a marriage contracted between parties bound by solemn monastic vows. Thus from the point of view of civil law the regularity of Luther’s new status was very doubtful, as both Canon Law and the Law of the Empire did not recognise the marriages of priests and monks, and lawyers were forced to base their decisions upon such laws. We shall have to speak later of Luther’s anger at the “quibbles” of the lawyers, and his anger had some reason, viz. his well-founded fear lest his marriage should not be recognised as valid by the lawyers, and hence that his children would be stamped as illegitimate and as incapable of inheriting.The false though frequently repeated statement, that Catherine von Bora was confined a fortnight after her marriage with Luther can be traced back to a letter of Erasmus, dated December 24, 1525, giving too hasty credence to malicious reports.[510]Erasmus himself, however, distinctly retracted this statement in another letter of March 13, 1526: “The previous report of the woman’s delivery,” he writes, “was untrue, but now it is said she is in a certain condition.”[511]As his previous statement was thought to be correct, doubts were raised as to the authenticity of the second letter; the objections are, however, worthless; both letters are taken from the same set of the oldest collection of thecorrespondence of Erasmus, and, from their first appearance, were ever held to be genuine.Indeed, the assumption that Luther had unlawful intercourse with Catherine von Bora before his marriage is founded solely and entirely on certain reports already discussed, viz. his intimacy with the escaped nuns generally.It is true that soon after the marriage Luther speaks of Catherine von Bora as his “Mistress” (“Metze”) in whose tresses he is bound,[512]but the word he uses had not at that time the opprobrious meaning it conveys in modern German; it simply meant a girl or woman, and was a term of endearment in common use.An assertion made by Joachim von der Heyden, a Leipzig Master, has also been quoted; in a public writing of August 10, 1525, addressed to Catherine von Bora, he reproached her with having conducted herself like a dancing-girl in her flight from the convent to Wittenberg, and there, as was said, having lived in an open and shameless manner with Luther before she took him as her husband.[513]A circumstance which must not be overlooked is, that these words were intended for Catherine herself, and appear to come from a man who believed what he was saying. Yet on examination we see that he rests his assertion merely on hearsay: “as was said.” The “dancing-girl,” again, was adduced merely by way of comparison, though assuredly not a complimentary one, and refers either to the very worldly manners of the escaped nun, or to the secular, perhaps even scarcely modest dress, for which she exchanged her habit on her flight or afterwards. It is probable that at Leipzig, where Heyden lived, and which was one of the headquarters of anti-Lutheranism, something more definite would have been urged, had anything really been known of any actual immorality between Catherine and Luther.Another bitter opponent of Luther’s, Simon Lemnius, who has also been appealed to, likewise adduces no positive or definite facts. Among the inventions of his fancy contained in the “Monachopornomachia” he left us, he does not even mention any illicit intercourse of Luther with Bora before his marriage, though in this satire he makes the wives of Luther, Spalatin, and Justus Jonas give vent to plentiful obscene remarks touching other matters. He merely relates—and this only by poet’s licence—how Bora, after overwhelming Luther with reproaches on account of his alleged attempt to jilt her, finally dragged him away with her to the wedding.[514]Since in this work it is history in the strict sense which speaks, only such evidence can be admitted against Luther as would beaccepted as proof in a court of law, and mere conjectures would be out of place. We have seen the historic complaint made by Melanchthon of Luther’s “effeminacy” and the “exciting of his passions by the nuns who pursued him with the utmost cunning,”[515]and have some idea of the scandal created by the quondam monk through his light-hearted intercourse with these women who had quitted their seclusion; we can now understand how natural was the gossip to which he himself and his friends bear witness. It is true that men like Eberlin of Günzburg, the apostate Franciscan, said at the time that the devil was busy everywhere stirring up “wicked and vexatious suspicions and calumnies” against Luther, etc.[516]Others gave vent to their spite against the manners of the ex-nuns, who were bringing the evangel into dispute.[517]We can comprehend such reflections as the following, made at a later date by indignant Catholic observers, even though in an historical work such as this we cannot make them our own. “To have remained spotless amidst such dangers Luther would have to have been an angel. Whoever has any knowledge of human nature, and knows that God as a rule punishes pride and haughtiness by this particular vice, will not wonder that many have their doubts as to Luther’s unblemished life before he took a wife.”[518]2. The Peasant-War. PolemicsThat the preaching of the new Evangel had a great part in the origin of the frightful peasant rising of 1525 is a fact, which has been admitted even by many non-Catholic historians in modern days.“We are of opinion,” P. Schreckenbach writes in 1895, “that Luther had a large share in the revolution,” and he endorses his opinion by his observations on “Luther’s warfare against the greatest conservative power of the day,” and the “ways and means he chose with which to carry on his war.”[519]Fr. v. Bezold, in 1890, in his “History of the German Reformation,” remarked concerning Luther’s answer to the hostile treatment he received from the Diet at Nuremberg (1524), and his allusions to “the mad, tipsy Princes”: “Luther should never have written in such a way had he not already made up his mind to act as leader of a Revolution. That he should have expected the German nation of those days to listen to such passionate language from the mouth of its ‘Evangelist’ and ‘Elias’ without being carried beyond the bounds of law and order, was anaïvetéonly to be explained by his ignorance of the world and his exclusive attentionto religious interests. Herein lies his greatness and his weakness.”[520]Concerning the effects of such language upon the people, the same historian wrote, as late as 1908: “How else but in a material sense was the plain man to interpret Luther’s proclamation of Christian freedom and his extravagant strictures on the parsons and nobles?”[521]Luther’s Catholic contemporaries condemned in the strongest manner his share in the unchaining of the revolt; they failed entirely to appreciate the “greatness” referred to above.One who was well acquainted with his writings and published a polemical work in Latin against him at that time, referring to certain passages, some of which we have already met, makes the following representations to him on his responsibility in the Peasant War. It was he who first raised the call to arms, and it was impossible for him to wash his hands of all share in the revolt, even though he had told the people that they were not to make use of force without the consent of the authorities and had subsequently condemned the rising with violence. “The common people pay no attention to that,” he tells him, “but merely obey what pleases them in Luther’s writings and sermons.” “You declared in your public writings,[522]that they were to assail the Pope and the Cardinals with every weapon available, and wash their hands in their blood. You called all the bishops who would not follow your teaching, idolatrous priests and ministers of the devil; you said that the bishops deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth in a great rising.” “You called those, ‘dear children of God and true Christians,’ who make every effort for the destruction of the bishoprics and the extermination of episcopal rule. You said also that whoever obeyed the bishops was the devil’s own servant. You called the monasteries dens of murderers, and incited the people to pull them down.”[523]A strong wave of anticlerical and of politico-social commotion due to unjust oppression prevailed among the peasantry in many parts of Germany even before Luther came forward. But it was the gospel of freedom, the mistaken approbation found in biblical passages for the desire for equality among the classes and a juster distribution of property, as well as the example of the great spiritual upheavalthen going on, which rendered the crisis acute, and incited the peasants to make their extravagant and violent demands.An attempt was made to conceal the revolutionary character of the movement by explaining it as mainly religious.The “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” was headed, for instance, by a demand for liberty to preach the Gospel and for congregations to have the right of choosing their own pastors.[524]It was believed by those who drew up these Articles that all the claims, even those relating to the tithes, to hunting, fishing, forest rights, etc., could be proved from Holy Scripture; only then, they said, were they ready to abandon them when they were refuted by Holy Writ; at the same time, however, they reserved to themselves the right to make in the future such additional demands as they might come to recognise as being in accordance with Scripture. Luther’s ideas were also embodied in the thirty Articles of “Squire Helferich and the Knights Heinz und Karsthanns,” indeed, they were for the most part couched in the very words of Luther’s writings and the 28th Article swore deadly hostility to all his foes.[525]The peasants in the Rhine province and about Mayence in their rising in May, 1525, demanded not merely the liberty to choose their own pastors and to preach the Gospel, but also that the preachers of the new faith imprisoned in Mayence should be set free. Their claim to choose their pastors, which was likewise made elsewhere, for instance, in the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” signified nothing less than the intention to fill the posts with preachers of the new faith.[526]“The rebels everywhere either supported or opposed the Evangelical demands, those of Evangelical views joining the rebels with the idea that they would be able to enforce their wishes by this means.” This explains why, after the rising had been put down, the Catholic lords were disposed “to look on Lutheranism as no better than rebellion.”[527]These words, written by a Protestant historian, refer to the Rhine Province, but they are equally applicable elsewhere. So, too, what he says of this district may also be said generally, viz. that the enthusiastic expectation, which was widespread in Lutheran circles, of a great change before the approaching end of the world, helped to make of the followers of the new faith supporters of the peasants. Luther encouraged such fanatical ideas among his readers till the very outbreak of the revolt. (See below, p. 200 f.)“What wonder,” the same historian says, “that when the social revolution broke out in the spring, Luther’s persecuted followers thought they recognised the beginning of the change, and in many instances made common cause with the peasants and the lower classes of the towns. Luther himself had no wish to carry through his religious enterprise with the help either of the knights or of the peasants,but his followers were not equal to making the necessary distinction between the spiritual and the temporal.”[528]Luther and his preachers had so frequently brought forward such disparaging and degrading charges against the secular, and still more against the spiritual authorities,[529]that clear-sighted contemporaries, such as Bartholomew von Usingen, foretold a revolution[530]as the result of such discourses and writings. The destruction of the episcopal power, which, under the conditions then prevailing, was so closely bound up with the secular, meant a radical revolution in the law of property obtaining in the German Empire.The “Christian freedom” of all, the equality of high and low in the common priesthood, was proclaimed in the most incautious and seductive terms. The peasants were taught by itinerant and often fanatical preachers, concerning their real or alleged rights as vouched for by Holy Scripture. Thus the esteemed Strasburg preacher, Caspar Hedio, of the Rhinegau, in a sermon which he delivered on the Wachholder Heide, near Erbach, explained to the people his views on the customary payment of tithes; his words acting like a charm: He thought the peasants should pay tithes only under protest, though they were nevertheless not to attempt to abrogate the payment by force. Once roused, however, who was to keep the crowd within theselimits? In 1524 Hedio had two sermons, preached on this subject in Strasburg, printed together with a circular letter addressed to the inhabitants of the Rhinegau, “which, there can be no doubt, exercised a certain influence upon the rising there.”[531]In the circular he proposed, that the people themselves should go in search of capable preachers if the ecclesiastical authorities did not send such.[532]A far-reaching social movement had been at work among the peasants, more particularly in many districts of the south-west of Germany, even previous to the rise of Lutheranism. They raised protests, which in many instances were justifiable, against the oppression under which they laboured. A crisis seemed imminent there as early as 1513 and 1514, and the feeling was general that a settlement of the difficulties could only be brought about by violence. The ferment in many places assumed an anticlerical character, which was all the more natural seeing that the landowners and gentry who were the chief cause of the dissatisfaction were either clergymen, like the Prince-Bishops, or closely allied with the Church and her multifarious secular institutions. The ill-feeling against the clergy was even then being stirred up by exaggerated descriptions of their idle life, their luxury and their unworthy conduct.To seek to represent the movement, as has been done, as an exclusively social one, is, even for the period before Luther, not quite correct, although it certainly was mainly social. Yet it was, as a matter of fact, the new ideas scattered among the people by Luther and Zwingli, and the preaching of the apostasy, which brought the unrest so quickly to a head. The anticlerical ideas of the religious innovators, combined with social class antagonism, lent an irresistible force to the rising. Hence the Peasant War has recently been described on the Protestant side as a “religious movement,” called forth by the discussion of first principles to which the Reformation gave rise, and which owed its violent character to the religious contrast which it brought out.[533]The expert on this period whowrites thus, proves and justifies his opinion, showing that Zwingli and Luther “were the primary cause” of the War, not indeed directly, but because once the peasants had become familiar with the new “biblical” ideas, which were so favourable to their cause, they refused to stand by and see such doctrines suppressed by violence, and preferred to take up arms against the Catholic rulers and their energetic anti-Reformation measures.[534]According to the same writer it is necessary to distinguish carefully between what the peasants themselves represented in the course of the revolt as the moving cause, i.e. the social disabilities of which they complained (for instance in the Twelve Articles), and that which actually produced the rising.Nor must it be overlooked that, at the moment when passions were already stirred up to their highest pitch, many attempts were made on the Lutheran side to pacify the people. The catastrophe foreseen affrighted those who were on the spot, and who feared lest the responsibility might fall upon their shoulders. Quite recently a forgotten pamphlet, written by an anonymous Lutheran preacher and dating from the commencement of the movement, has been republished, in which, after some pious exhortations, the author expresses his firm hope that the fear of God would succeed in triumphing over the excited passions; even biblical quotations against misuse of the new evangelical freedom are to be found in this well-intentioned booklet.[535]Then as now attention was drawn to Luther’s doctrine concerning obedience to the powers that be, which required of “the true Christian” that he should even “allow himself to be flayed,” and out of love of the cross renounce all desire for revenge (xiv. 4).Notwithstanding all this, the great responsibility which Lutheranism shares in the matter remains. “It is no purely historical and objective view,” says another Protestanthistorian, “but rather an apologetic and false assumption, which attempts to deny the fact, that Luther’s evangelical preaching most strongly encouraged and brought to a crisis the social excitement which had been simmering among the lowest classes since the fifteenth century. The agitation stirred up by the preachers who followed in Luther’s footsteps contributed in a still greater degree towards this result.”[536]Special research in the different parts of the wide area covered by the rising has to-day confirmed even more completely the opinion that the accusations urged against Lutheranism by the olden supporters of the Church were, after all, not so unjust in this particular. The much-abused Johann Cochlæus, who made such charges, is rightly spoken of by the last-mentioned historian as being “more suited” to depict that revolutionary period than the diplomatic and cautious Sleidanus, or the Protestant theological admirers and worshippers of Luther.[537]The learned Hieronymus Emser wrote, in the stormy year 1525, a work “AgainstLuther’s abominations,” a large part of which is devoted to proving what is already explained in the sub-title of the book, “How, and why, and in what words, Luther, in his books, urges and exhorts to rebellion.” Emser also gave indignant expression to his conviction in some verses intended for general circulation.Luther was directly implicated in the beginning of the rising when the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia” was forwarded to him by the insurgents. The peasants invited him, with confidence, “to declare what was of Divine right.”[538]Luther’s honoured name came first in the list of learned men who were to be consulted. The Wittenberg professor grasped the full importance of the moment; he felt that the direction of German affairs had been placed in his hands. Naturally he did not wish to be the one to let loose the terrible storm, nor did he, as the representative and “deliverer” of the people, wish to repulse the movement which had been so long favourable to him, and the demands of which were, in part at least, perfectly justifiable. He found himself in a position exactly similar to that which he had occupied formerly in regard to the Knights, who were anxious to take up arms, and with whom he had, up to a certain point, made common cause, but whose project afterwards appeared to him too dangerous and compromising to the cause of the evangel. In the question of the Twelve Articles it was difficult, nay, impossible, for him not to give offence either to the gentry or to the populace, or to avoid barring the way for the new evangel in one direction or the other. He determined to seek a middle course. But the tragic consequences of the position he had always assumed, the circumstances of the day and his unrestrained temper, caused him to give mortal offence to both sides, to the lords as well as to the peasants.First, he flung his “Exhortation to Peace” on the field of battle—no mere figure of speech, as, at the time of writing,the tumult had already broken out and the horrors of Weinsberg been enacted (April 16, 1525), though of this Luther was ignorant when he composed the pamphlet. Formerly this writing was thought to have been written in May, but as a matter of fact it belongs to the period just after April 18.[539]In this writing, as well as in the two following which treat of the rising, certain sides of Luther’s character are displayed which must be examined from the historical and psychological standpoint. The second, which was the outcome of the impressions made by the bloody contest, consists of only one sheet and is entitled “Against the murderous, thieving hordes of Peasants,” or more shortly, “Against the insurgent Peasants”; it, too, was written before the complete defeat of the rebels in the decisive days of May.[540]The third is the “Circular letter concerning the stern booklet against the Peasants,” of the same year, and belongs to the time when the conquerors, flushed with victory, were raging against the vanquished.[541]The three writings must be considered in conjunction with the circumstances which called them forth. Written in the very thick of the seething ferment, they glow with all the fire of their author, whose personal concern in the matter was so great. Whoever weighs their contents at the present day will be carried back to the storm of that period, and will marvel at the strength of the spirit which inspires them, but at the same time be surprised at the picture the three together present. He will ask, and not without cause, which of the three is most to be regretted; surely the third, for the unmistakable blunders of the author, who gives the fullest play to feeling and fancy to the detriment of calm reason, go on increasing in each pamphlet.In the first, the “Exhortation,” the author seeks to put the truth before, and to pacify the Princes and gentry, more particularly those Catholics who, subsequent to the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, had entered the lists against the innovations. He also would fain instruct and calm the peasants,his “dear Masters and Brothers.” Had Luther been endowed with a clear perception of the position of affairs, and seen the utter uselessness of any attempt merely to stem the movement, he would not at this critical juncture have still further irritated the rebels by the attacks upon the gentry, into which he allowed himself to break out, and which were at once taken advantage of.

FROM THE PEASANT WAR TO THE DIET OF AUGSBURG (1525-1530)

When, in November, 1524, Spalatin, on the occasion of an enquiry made by a lady, ventured to broach the question when Luther proposed taking a wife, he received the following answer: He was to tell the enquirer (Argula), that Luther was “in the hands of God, as a creature whose heart He could fashion as He would; whom He was able to kill or to make alive at any hour and any moment.” His feelings were yet foreign to matrimony. “But I shall neither set bounds to God’s action in my regard, nor listen to my own heart.”[463]By these words, which were addressed to all observers and critics, he not only left himself an open door, but attempted to describe his state in the terms of that pseudo-mysticism of man’s bondage and lack of free will as regards God’s designs to which at times he was wont to abandon himself more or less completely, according to the varying circumstances of his life.

About March or April, 1525, a definite intention to marry begins to appear. The letter to Spalatin referred to above, on p. 140, was written on April 16, and, though in it he does not yet admit his determination to marry, he speaks of himself jestingly as a famous lover, who had had at one time three wives in his hands. His eye fell on Catherine von Bora, who after her flight from the convent at Nimbschen, had found a home in the house of the Town-clerk, Reichenbach (above, p. 138). He speaks of her in a letter of May 4 as “my Katey” and declares that he is about to marryher.[464]Owing to his intimacy with her all sorts of stories went the rounds in the town during the following months, to which intercourse with the ex-nuns referred to above (p. 145) gave all the more colour.

Then, suddenly, without consulting any of his friends and with a haste which surprised even his own followers, on the evening of June 13, he celebrated his wedding with Bora in his own house, with all the formalities then usual. Besides Bugenhagen and Jonas, Luther’s friends, only the painter Lucas Cranach and his wife, and the Professor of Jurisprudence, Dr. Apel, were summoned as witnesses. The consummation of the marriage seems to have been duly witnessed by Bugenhagen as Pastor of Wittenberg. The public wedding did not take place until June 27, according to the custom common in that district of dividing the actual marriage from the public ceremony. During the interval Luther invited several guests to be present, as we see from his letters, which are still extant. From June 13 he speaks of himself already as “copulatus,”[465]and as a “husband.”[466]

On June 14 Jonas sent by special messenger to Spalatin a letter, evidently written under the stress of very mixed feelings: “Luther has taken Catherine von Bora to wife. Yesterday I was there and saw the betrothed on the bridal couch. I could not restrain my tears at the sight; I know not what strong emotion stirred my soul; now that it has taken place and is the Will of God, I wish the excellent, honest man and our beloved father in the Lord, every happiness. God is wonderful in His decrees!”[467]

Luther also was at pains to represent the incident as divinely ordained, a high and holy act.

At a later date he said: “God willed that I should take pity on her [Catherine].”[468]Even before taking the step, he had thought out the plan of impressing upon his unionwith “Katey,” the ex-nun, the character of a “reforming work.” “Because our enemies do not cease to condemn matrimony,” he writes, and “our ‘little wiseacres’ daily scoff at it,” he feels himself for that very reason attracted to it; being determined to give celebrity to the true teaching of the Gospel concerning marriage.[469]He had informed Albert, the archiepiscopal Elector, that before quitting this life he would enter the married state, which he considered as enjoined by God,[470]and somewhat earlier he had confided to a friend that, if he could manage it before he died, he meant “to take his Katey to wife in order to spite the devil.”[471]This agrees in part with what he wrote shortly after his marriage: “The Lord plunged me suddenly, while I still clung to quite other views, into matrimony.”[472]

As a matter of fact it was the unpleasant rumours aroused when his intimacy with Bora became known, which hastened the step. This is what Bugenhagen, an authentic witness, says with evident displeasure: Evil tales were the cause of Dr. Martin’s becoming a married man so unexpectedly.[473]Luther himself admits this in a confidential letter to Spalatin three days after the step. He informs him of his marriage as follows: “I have shut the mouth of those who slandered me and Catherine von Bora.”[474]

In the same letter Luther also refers to the reproach he had at first dreaded, viz. of degrading himself by his marriage. He scoffs at this: “I have become so low and despicable by this marriage,” he says jokingly, “that I hope the angels will laugh and all the devils weep. The world and its ‘wise ones’ do not yet recognise the pious and holy work of God and in me they regard it as something impious and devilish. Hence it pleases me greatly that, by my marriage,the opinion of those who continue to persevere in their ignorance of divine things is brought in question and condemned. Farewell, and pray for me.”[475]Such utterances were directed also against many of the friends of the Evangel. Hieronymus Schurf, the lawyer, and otherwise Luther’s confidant, had been one of those opposed to his marriage. He had said: “If this Monk takes a wife all the world and the devil himself will laugh, and Luther will undo the whole of his previous work.”[476]

Melanchthon, too, expressed his deep displeasure at the marriage in the remarkable Greek letter already once referred to (p. 145) addressed to his friend Joachim Camerarius, and dated June 16, 1525.

The true wording of this Greek letter, which Camerarius saw fit to modify, as is proved by the original in the Chigi Library in Rome, with his “corrections” in red pencil, only became known in 1876.[477]He revised it completely for his edition of Melanchthon’s letters because he feared tomake the severe censure it contained public; thus the letter was formerly only known in the altered shape in which it was also published in 1834 in the “Corpus Reformatorum,” which begins with Melanchthon’s letters. A similar fate has befallen several other letters of Melanchthon in the Camerarius editions, and consequently also in the “Corpus.”

Melanchthon, according to the real text of the letter (which we give in full in the note), commences with these words: “Since you have probably received divergent accounts concerning Luther’s marriage, I judge it well to send you my views on his wedding.” After detailing the external circumstances already referred to, and pointing out that Luther “had not consulted any of his friends beforehand,” he continues: “You will perhaps be surprised that, at this unhappy time when upright and right-thinking men are everywhere being oppressed, he is not also suffering, but, to all appearance, leads a more easy life (μᾶλλον τρυφᾶν) and endangers his reputation, notwithstanding the fact that the German nation stands in need of all his wisdom and strength. It appears to me, however, that this is how it has happened.” And here Melanchthon brings forward the complaints already related (p. 145) of the imprudent intimacy between a “man otherwise noble and high-minded” and the escaped nuns, who had made use of every art to attract him and thus had rendered him effeminate and inflamed his passions. “He seems after this fashion to have been drawn into the untimely change in his mode of life. It is clear, however, that the gossip concerning his previous criminal intercourse with her [Bora] was false. Now the thing is done it is useless to find fault with it, or to take it amiss, for I believe that nature impels man to matrimony. Even though this life is low, yet it is holy, and more pleasing to God than the unmarried state. And sinceI see that Luther is to some extent sad and troubled about this change in his way of life, I seek very earnestly to encourage him by representing to him that he has done nothing which, in my opinion, can be made a subject of reproach to him.”In spite of his misgivings Melanchthon seeks to console himself with two strange reflections: Advancement and honour are dangerous to all men, even to those who fear God as Luther does, and therefore this “low” way of life is good for him. And again, “I am in hopes that he will now lay aside the buffoonery[478]for which we have so often found fault with him.” Camerarius must not allow himself to be disconcerted by Luther’s unexpected mode of proceeding, even though he may be painfully aware that it is injurious to him. “I exhort you to bear this with patience ... God has shown us by the numerous mistakes (πταίσματα) the Saints committed in earlier ages, that He wishes us to prove His Word and not to rely upon the reputation of any man, but only on His Word. He would, indeed, be a very godless man who, on account of the mistake (πταῖσμα) of the doctor, should judge slightingly of his doctrine....” Melanchthon then reiterates his statement that nature impels a man to matrimony, adding to it the word “verily.”[479]The letter, which was not intended for publication and, probably for this reason, was written in Greek, contains a strange admixture of blame and dissatisfaction coupled with recognition and praise of Luther’s good qualities. We see clearly how Melanchthon tries to overcome the bitterness he feels by means of these reflections, which however reveal him as the learned and timid Humanist he really was, rather than as a theologian and man of the world. Protestants have attempted to moderate the impression created by this letter of Melanchthon’s by representingit as written hastily in a passing fit of temper. As a matter of fact, however, it does not bear the impress of having been so written, and, considering how the writer is evidently at pains to find some justification for Luther’s conduct, it cannot be described as written hastily and without due thought. The writer, in spite of all he says, is anxious that “what has taken place should not be blamed”; Luther to him is still “a noble and high-minded man,” one, too, who has given proof of his fear of God.One of the most recent of Luther admirers accordingly abandons this excuse, and merely speaks of the letter as a “hateful” one, “written in an extremely uncomfortable frame of mind.” After various reflections thereon he arrives at the following surprising conclusion: “If we place ourselves in poor Melanchthon’s position and realise the slight offered him in not having been apprised of the matter until after the wedding had taken place, and his grief that his friend should thus expose the cause of the evangel to slander, we must admit that, after all, the letter was quite amiable.” If, however, there was any question of slight in the matter, Melanchthon was certainly not the only one who had cause for complaint; accustomed as he was to such treatment on Luther’s part, he scarcely even refers to it, his objection being based on far more serious grounds. He showed no sign of having been slighted when, shortly after, he invited Wenceslaus Link to the public “nuptiæ,” expressing his good wishes that Luther’s marriage “may turn out well.”[480]The scruples which he shared with Camerarius concerning Luther’s intimacy with the ex-nuns were not new, but had long disquieted him. We may notice over and over again his secret esteem for celibacy, which he ranks above matrimony, and such thoughts may well have animated him when composing the letter, even though he repels them and praises the married state. “It is plain,” says Kawerau, “that a shudder passes through his frame at the very thought of marriage between a monk and a nun.”[481]We can only regard it as due to his state of indecision when he says in the letter in question, first that Luther “had done nothing that called for reproach,” and then, that “he had made a mistake.”We may nevertheless grant to the Protestant author, mentioned at the commencement of the previous paragraph, that Melanchthon—who was not, as a matter of fact, apprised by Luther of his thoughts at that time—“did not rightly understand the motive which caused him to enter the married state at such a moment.” Indeed, the motive was not to be readily understood. Luther’s intention, so our author thinks, was to set his enemies at defiance by his marriage and to show them “that he would pay less attention to them than ever”; being apprehensive of his approaching end, he determined to set the last touch to his doctrine on matrimony by a solemn and manly act.Many others, like Melanchthon, have been unable to appreciatethis “great motive,” or at any rate the disadvantages of marriage in Luther’s case seem to have weighed more heavily with them than its compensating advantages in the service of the Reformation.This explanation, nevertheless, appears so convincing to our author that he does not insist further upon another reason which he hints at, viz. that Catherine von Bora “was unkindly disposed to Melanchthon,” and that he much feared she would alienate his friend’s heart from him. The same writer mildly remarks concerning the falsification of the letter committed by Camerarius: “it was not with the intention of falsifying, that he made various alterations, but in order to prevent disedification.” Camerarius has, however, unfortunately aggravated one passage in the letter, for where Melanchthon speaks for the first time of man’s natural inclination for marriage, Camerarius adds the wordαὐτόν, thus referring directly to Luther what the writer intended for men in general: “I believehewas forced by nature to marry,” which, following immediately upon the passage referring to his frivolous intercourse with the nuns and the calumnies about Bora, gives a still more unfavourable impression of Luther. This at any rate may serve to exculpate the Catholic controversialists, who erroneously referred this passage, and the other one which resembles it, directly to Luther, whereas he is comprised in it only indirectly.

Melanchthon, according to the real text of the letter (which we give in full in the note), commences with these words: “Since you have probably received divergent accounts concerning Luther’s marriage, I judge it well to send you my views on his wedding.” After detailing the external circumstances already referred to, and pointing out that Luther “had not consulted any of his friends beforehand,” he continues: “You will perhaps be surprised that, at this unhappy time when upright and right-thinking men are everywhere being oppressed, he is not also suffering, but, to all appearance, leads a more easy life (μᾶλλον τρυφᾶν) and endangers his reputation, notwithstanding the fact that the German nation stands in need of all his wisdom and strength. It appears to me, however, that this is how it has happened.” And here Melanchthon brings forward the complaints already related (p. 145) of the imprudent intimacy between a “man otherwise noble and high-minded” and the escaped nuns, who had made use of every art to attract him and thus had rendered him effeminate and inflamed his passions. “He seems after this fashion to have been drawn into the untimely change in his mode of life. It is clear, however, that the gossip concerning his previous criminal intercourse with her [Bora] was false. Now the thing is done it is useless to find fault with it, or to take it amiss, for I believe that nature impels man to matrimony. Even though this life is low, yet it is holy, and more pleasing to God than the unmarried state. And sinceI see that Luther is to some extent sad and troubled about this change in his way of life, I seek very earnestly to encourage him by representing to him that he has done nothing which, in my opinion, can be made a subject of reproach to him.”

In spite of his misgivings Melanchthon seeks to console himself with two strange reflections: Advancement and honour are dangerous to all men, even to those who fear God as Luther does, and therefore this “low” way of life is good for him. And again, “I am in hopes that he will now lay aside the buffoonery[478]for which we have so often found fault with him.” Camerarius must not allow himself to be disconcerted by Luther’s unexpected mode of proceeding, even though he may be painfully aware that it is injurious to him. “I exhort you to bear this with patience ... God has shown us by the numerous mistakes (πταίσματα) the Saints committed in earlier ages, that He wishes us to prove His Word and not to rely upon the reputation of any man, but only on His Word. He would, indeed, be a very godless man who, on account of the mistake (πταῖσμα) of the doctor, should judge slightingly of his doctrine....” Melanchthon then reiterates his statement that nature impels a man to matrimony, adding to it the word “verily.”[479]

The letter, which was not intended for publication and, probably for this reason, was written in Greek, contains a strange admixture of blame and dissatisfaction coupled with recognition and praise of Luther’s good qualities. We see clearly how Melanchthon tries to overcome the bitterness he feels by means of these reflections, which however reveal him as the learned and timid Humanist he really was, rather than as a theologian and man of the world. Protestants have attempted to moderate the impression created by this letter of Melanchthon’s by representingit as written hastily in a passing fit of temper. As a matter of fact, however, it does not bear the impress of having been so written, and, considering how the writer is evidently at pains to find some justification for Luther’s conduct, it cannot be described as written hastily and without due thought. The writer, in spite of all he says, is anxious that “what has taken place should not be blamed”; Luther to him is still “a noble and high-minded man,” one, too, who has given proof of his fear of God.

One of the most recent of Luther admirers accordingly abandons this excuse, and merely speaks of the letter as a “hateful” one, “written in an extremely uncomfortable frame of mind.” After various reflections thereon he arrives at the following surprising conclusion: “If we place ourselves in poor Melanchthon’s position and realise the slight offered him in not having been apprised of the matter until after the wedding had taken place, and his grief that his friend should thus expose the cause of the evangel to slander, we must admit that, after all, the letter was quite amiable.” If, however, there was any question of slight in the matter, Melanchthon was certainly not the only one who had cause for complaint; accustomed as he was to such treatment on Luther’s part, he scarcely even refers to it, his objection being based on far more serious grounds. He showed no sign of having been slighted when, shortly after, he invited Wenceslaus Link to the public “nuptiæ,” expressing his good wishes that Luther’s marriage “may turn out well.”[480]The scruples which he shared with Camerarius concerning Luther’s intimacy with the ex-nuns were not new, but had long disquieted him. We may notice over and over again his secret esteem for celibacy, which he ranks above matrimony, and such thoughts may well have animated him when composing the letter, even though he repels them and praises the married state. “It is plain,” says Kawerau, “that a shudder passes through his frame at the very thought of marriage between a monk and a nun.”[481]We can only regard it as due to his state of indecision when he says in the letter in question, first that Luther “had done nothing that called for reproach,” and then, that “he had made a mistake.”

We may nevertheless grant to the Protestant author, mentioned at the commencement of the previous paragraph, that Melanchthon—who was not, as a matter of fact, apprised by Luther of his thoughts at that time—“did not rightly understand the motive which caused him to enter the married state at such a moment.” Indeed, the motive was not to be readily understood. Luther’s intention, so our author thinks, was to set his enemies at defiance by his marriage and to show them “that he would pay less attention to them than ever”; being apprehensive of his approaching end, he determined to set the last touch to his doctrine on matrimony by a solemn and manly act.

Many others, like Melanchthon, have been unable to appreciatethis “great motive,” or at any rate the disadvantages of marriage in Luther’s case seem to have weighed more heavily with them than its compensating advantages in the service of the Reformation.

This explanation, nevertheless, appears so convincing to our author that he does not insist further upon another reason which he hints at, viz. that Catherine von Bora “was unkindly disposed to Melanchthon,” and that he much feared she would alienate his friend’s heart from him. The same writer mildly remarks concerning the falsification of the letter committed by Camerarius: “it was not with the intention of falsifying, that he made various alterations, but in order to prevent disedification.” Camerarius has, however, unfortunately aggravated one passage in the letter, for where Melanchthon speaks for the first time of man’s natural inclination for marriage, Camerarius adds the wordαὐτόν, thus referring directly to Luther what the writer intended for men in general: “I believehewas forced by nature to marry,” which, following immediately upon the passage referring to his frivolous intercourse with the nuns and the calumnies about Bora, gives a still more unfavourable impression of Luther. This at any rate may serve to exculpate the Catholic controversialists, who erroneously referred this passage, and the other one which resembles it, directly to Luther, whereas he is comprised in it only indirectly.

According to what we have seen, the circumstance of Luther’s sudden marriage occurring just at the time of the panic of the Peasant War, made an especially deep impression on Melanchthon, who was ever inclined to circumspection and prudence.

In point of fact, a more unsuitable time, and one in more glaring contrast with nuptial festivities, it would have been impossible for Luther to select. The flames of the conflagration raging throughout Germany and even in the vicinity of Wittenberg, and the battlefields strewn with the dead, slain by the rebels or the supporters of the Knights and Princes, formed a terrible background to the Wittenberg wedding.

The precipitancy of his action was the more remarkable because at that time Luther himself was living in a state of keen anxiety concerning the outcome of the great social and religious upheaval.

Seeing that he was looked upon, by both lord and peasant, as the prime instigator of the trouble, he had grave cause to fear for his own safety. About five weeks later, writing from Seeburg, near Mansfeld, after a preaching tour through the rebels’ country, he says: “I, who am also affected byit, for the devil is intent upon my death, know that he is angered because so far he has been unable either by cunning or by force to harm me and is determined to be rid of me even should he be forced to do his worst and set the whole world in an uproar; so that I really believe, and it appears to me, that it is on my account that he does such things in the world in order that God may plague the world. If I reach home safe and sound, I shall, with God’s help, prepare myself for death.”[482]

Whereas he had written not long before, that he was not thinking of marrying because he awaited death, i.e. the death-penalty for heresy,[483]according to his statements after his marriage it was the thought of death which had led him to contract the union; God’s work was unmistakable, God was shaming his adversaries. He repeatedly makes statements to this effect, which we shall gather together with some of his other assertions to form a picture of his mental state then.

In one of the letters of invitation to the public wedding he writes: “The lords, priests and peasants are all against me and threaten me with death; well, as they are so mad and foolish I shall take care to be found at my end in the state [matrimony] ordained by God.”[484]He is forced, however, to brace himself up in order not to lose heart and be vexed at the falling away of the people from him; “to resign favour, honour and followers”[485]caused him grief of heart and an inward struggle.His conviction that the end of the world was approaching, also did its part in exciting him; “the destruction of the world may be expected any hour,” he writes.[486]Hence he is determined, as he declares, to marry “in order todefy the devil,”[487]i.e. he defies all his afflictions and anxieties, all the accusations of others as well as of his own conscience, and surrenders himself to the feeling, which, since the Wartburg days, ever stirred the depths of his soul on such occasions and made him hope to recover all the ground lost by means of force and violence. Peace and contentment of soul were not, however, the immediate result, for Melanchthon writes, that, after his marriage, Luther had been “sad and troubled.”[488]Luther will, however, have it that it was God Who had shown him the road he had taken.“God is pleased to work wonders in order to mock me and the world and to make fools of us.”[489]“That it is God’s work even the ‘wise ones’ among us are forced to acknowledge, though they are greatly vexed. The picture their fancy paints of me and the girl makes them lose their wits so that they think and speak godlessly. But the Lord liveth and is greater in us than he [the devil] that is in the world (1 John iv. 4).”[490]“God willed it and carried it out” (“Sic Deus voluit et fecit”).[491]“On account of this work of God I have, it is true, to suffer much abuse and many calumnies.”[492]“Thus, so far as I am able, I have [by my marriage] thrown away the last remnant of my former popish life; I am determined to make them [my foes] still madder and more foolish; this is the stirrup-cup and my last good-bye.”[493]“Were the world not scandalised at us, I should be scandalised at the world, for I should be afraid lest what we undertake is not of God; but as the world is scandalised and withstands me, I am edified and comfort myself in God; do you likewise.”[494]“The cause of the Evangel has been greatly wronged by Münzer and the peasants,” he declares, therefore he wished to strengthen it by his marriage, in spite of the Papists who were shouting in triumph (“ne videar cessisse”), “and I shall do more still which will grieve them and bring them to the recognition of the Word.”[495]

In one of the letters of invitation to the public wedding he writes: “The lords, priests and peasants are all against me and threaten me with death; well, as they are so mad and foolish I shall take care to be found at my end in the state [matrimony] ordained by God.”[484]He is forced, however, to brace himself up in order not to lose heart and be vexed at the falling away of the people from him; “to resign favour, honour and followers”[485]caused him grief of heart and an inward struggle.

His conviction that the end of the world was approaching, also did its part in exciting him; “the destruction of the world may be expected any hour,” he writes.[486]

Hence he is determined, as he declares, to marry “in order todefy the devil,”[487]i.e. he defies all his afflictions and anxieties, all the accusations of others as well as of his own conscience, and surrenders himself to the feeling, which, since the Wartburg days, ever stirred the depths of his soul on such occasions and made him hope to recover all the ground lost by means of force and violence. Peace and contentment of soul were not, however, the immediate result, for Melanchthon writes, that, after his marriage, Luther had been “sad and troubled.”[488]

Luther will, however, have it that it was God Who had shown him the road he had taken.

“God is pleased to work wonders in order to mock me and the world and to make fools of us.”[489]“That it is God’s work even the ‘wise ones’ among us are forced to acknowledge, though they are greatly vexed. The picture their fancy paints of me and the girl makes them lose their wits so that they think and speak godlessly. But the Lord liveth and is greater in us than he [the devil] that is in the world (1 John iv. 4).”[490]“God willed it and carried it out” (“Sic Deus voluit et fecit”).[491]“On account of this work of God I have, it is true, to suffer much abuse and many calumnies.”[492]“Thus, so far as I am able, I have [by my marriage] thrown away the last remnant of my former popish life; I am determined to make them [my foes] still madder and more foolish; this is the stirrup-cup and my last good-bye.”[493]

“Were the world not scandalised at us, I should be scandalised at the world, for I should be afraid lest what we undertake is not of God; but as the world is scandalised and withstands me, I am edified and comfort myself in God; do you likewise.”[494]

“The cause of the Evangel has been greatly wronged by Münzer and the peasants,” he declares, therefore he wished to strengthen it by his marriage, in spite of the Papists who were shouting in triumph (“ne videar cessisse”), “and I shall do more still which will grieve them and bring them to the recognition of the Word.”[495]

If, to the motives for his marriage which he enumerates above, we add a further reason, also alleged by him, viz. that he wished to show himself obedient to his father, who desired the marriage, we arrive at the stately number of seven reasons. They may be arranged as follows: 1. Because it was necessary to shut the mouth of those who spoke evil of him on account of his relations with Bora. 2. Because he was obliged to take pity on the forsaken nun. 3. Becausehis father wished it. 4. Because the Catholics represented matrimony as contrary to the Gospel. 5. Because even his friends laughed at his plan of marrying. 6. Because the peasants and the priests threatened him with death and he must therefore defy the terrors raised by the devil. 7. Because God’s will was plainly apparent in the circumstances. Melanchthon’s reason, viz. that man is impelled to marriage by nature, Luther does not himself bring forward.

We must not lose sight of the circumstance that the marriage took place barely five weeks after the death of the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise. His successor was more openly favourable towards the ecclesiastical innovations. Frederick would have nothing to do with the marriage of the clergy, particularly with nuns, although he did not permit any steps to be taken against those who had married. He wrote to his Councillors at Torgau on October 4, 1523, that to undertake any alteration or innovation would be difficult, more particularly in these days when he had to anticipate trouble “for our country and people” from the opponents of Lutheranism; “he did not think that a clergyman ought to earn his stipend by idleness and the taking of wives, and by works which he himself condemned.”[496]In May, 1524, we see from one of Luther’s letters to Spalatin that difficulties had been raised at the Court concerning the remuneration of the married clergy by the Government. In this letter he recommends Johann Apel, formerly Canon of Würzburg, who had married a nun, for a post at the University of Wittenberg, and gives special advice in case his marriage should prove an obstacle (“quod si uxorcula obstet,” etc.). He here condemns the faint-hearted action of the Elector, and remarks, that he will not thereby escape the animosity of his foes, seeing that he notoriously “favours heretics and provides for them.”[497]

Luther did not lose his habit of jesting with his friends, though his witticisms are neither proper nor edifying: “I am bound in the meshes of my mistress’s tresses,” he writes to one,[498]and to another, that it all seemed “very strange” to him and he could hardly realise he had “become amarried man, but the evidence was so strong that he was in honour bound to believe it”; and to a third, since God had taken him captive unawares in the bonds of holy matrimony, he would be obliged to confirm this with a “collation” [dinner-party], therefore he and Mrs. Catherine begged him to send a cask of the best Torgau beer for a good drink; should “it turn out not to be good, the sender would have to drink it all himself as a penalty.”[499]He speaks later in the same jocose fashion of his “Katey” as the “Kette” [chain] to which he is tied, and rather indelicately plays on his wife’s maiden name: “I lie on the bier [’Bore’ = mod. Germ. ‘Bahre’], i.e. I am dead to the world. My Catena [Kette, or chain] rattles her greetings to you and your Catena.” This to Wenceslaus Link, the former Vicar of the Augustinians, who was already married.[500]

Such jokes were likely to be best appreciated in the circle of apostate priests and monks.

But many earnest men of Luther’s own party, who like Melanchthon and Schurf, feared evil consequences from the marriage, were little disposed for such trifling.

Luther jestingly complains of such critics: “The wise men who surrounded him” were greatly incensed at his marriage;[501]he says he knew beforehand that “evil tongues would wag” and, in order that the marriage might “not be hindered,” he had “made all haste to consummate it.”[502]

Friends and followers living at a distance expressed strong disapproval of his conduct when it was already too late. The Frankfurt Patrician, Hamman von Holzhausen, wrote on July 16, 1525, to his son Justinian, who was studying at Wittenberg: “I have read your letter telling me that Martinus Lutherus has entered the conjugal state; I fear he will be evil spoken of and that it may cost him a great falling off.”[503]

It was, however, useless for the new husband to attempt todefend himself against the consequences by excuses such as the following: “I am neither in love nor consumed by passion, but I esteem my wife highly.”[504]According to his own assertion the step had not been taken under stress of sensual passion, seeing that it was closely bound up with his theology. “I had firmly determined, for the honour of matrimony,” he says in the Table-Talk, “before ever I took a wife, that had I had to die unexpectedly, or were lying on my death-bed, I would have wedded some pious maiden.”[505]He again assures us, that even when an old man and incapable of begetting children, he would still have taken a wife “merely in order to do honour to the married state and testify to his contempt for the shameful immorality and evil living of the Papacy.”[506]

We are here confronted with a strange psychological phenomenon, a candidate for death who is at the same time one for marriage.

Luther, however, speaks so frequently of this abnormal idea of marrying at the hour of death, that he may gradually have come to look upon it as something grand. In the case of most people death draws the thoughts to the severing of all earthly ties, but Luther, on the contrary, is desirous of forming new ones at the very moment of dissolution. He arrives at this paradox only by means of two highly questionable ideas, viz. that he must exhibit the utmost defiance and at the same time vindicate the sacred character of marriage. It would have been quite possible for him without a wife to show his defiant spirit, and he had already asserted his doctrine concerning marriage so loudly and bluntly, that this fresh corroboration by means of such a marriage was quite unnecessary. What was wanted was, that he should vindicate his own act, which appeared to many of his friends both troublesome and detrimental. Hence his endeavours to conceal its true character by ingenious excuses.

Luther’s Catholic opponents were loud in the expression of their lively indignation at the sacrilegious breaking of their vows by monk and nun; some embodied the same in satires designed to check the spread of the movement andto open the eyes of Luther’s followers. One saying of Erasmus has frequently been quoted: A wedding was the usual end of a comedy, but here it was the termination of a tragedy. The actual wording of the somewhat lengthy passage runs thus: “In the comic opera the fuss usually ends in a wedding and then all is quiet; in the case of sovereigns their tragedies also frequently come to a similar conclusion, which is not particularly advantageous to the people, but is better than a war.... Luther’s tragedy seems likely to end in the same way. The Monk has taken a nun to wife.... Luther has now become calmer and his pen no longer makes the same noise. There is none so wild but that a wife can tame him.”[507]Erasmus, however, speedily withdrew his last words, writing that Luther has become more virulent than ever.[508]

More in place than such satires were the serious expressions of disapproval and regret on the part of Catholics concerning the terrible fall of the quondam monk and minister of the altar, by reason of his invalid marriage with the nun. Hieronymus Dungersheim of Leipzig was later to raise his voice in a protest of this sort, addressed to Luther, which may be considered as an echo of the feeling awakened in the minds of many by the news of Luther’s marriage and as such may serve as a striking historical testimony: “O unhappy, thrice unhappy man! Once you zealously taught, supported by Divine testimonies and agreeably with the Church of God, that the insolence of the flesh must be withstood by penance and prayer; now you have the fallen woman living with you and give yourself up to serve the flesh under the pretence of marriage, blinded as you are by self-indulgence, pride and passion; by your example you lead others to similar wickedness.... What a startling change, what inconstancy! Formerly a monk, now in the midst of a world you once forsook; formerly a priest, now, as you yourself believe, without any priestly character and altogether laicised; formerly in a monk’s habit, now dressed as a secular; formerly a Christian, now a Husite; formerly in the true faith, now a mere Picard; formerly exhorting the devout to chastity and perseverance, now enticing them totread their vow under foot and to deliver themselves without compunction into the hands of the Evil One!”[509]

In the above, light has been thrown upon the numerous legends attaching to Luther’s wedding at Wittenberg, and their true value may now be better appreciated.

It is clear, for instance, from the facts recorded, that it is incorrect to accuse Luther of not having complied with the then formalities, and of having consummated the marriage before even attempting to conclude these. The distinction mentioned above between the two acts of June 13 and 27, each of which had its special significance, was either unknown to or ignored by these objectors. Were we merely to consider the due observance of the formalities, then there is no doubt that these were complied with, save that objection might be raised as to the legal status of the pastor. But, on the other hand, Canon Law was plainly and distinctly opposed to the validity of a marriage contracted between parties bound by solemn monastic vows. Thus from the point of view of civil law the regularity of Luther’s new status was very doubtful, as both Canon Law and the Law of the Empire did not recognise the marriages of priests and monks, and lawyers were forced to base their decisions upon such laws. We shall have to speak later of Luther’s anger at the “quibbles” of the lawyers, and his anger had some reason, viz. his well-founded fear lest his marriage should not be recognised as valid by the lawyers, and hence that his children would be stamped as illegitimate and as incapable of inheriting.

The false though frequently repeated statement, that Catherine von Bora was confined a fortnight after her marriage with Luther can be traced back to a letter of Erasmus, dated December 24, 1525, giving too hasty credence to malicious reports.[510]Erasmus himself, however, distinctly retracted this statement in another letter of March 13, 1526: “The previous report of the woman’s delivery,” he writes, “was untrue, but now it is said she is in a certain condition.”[511]As his previous statement was thought to be correct, doubts were raised as to the authenticity of the second letter; the objections are, however, worthless; both letters are taken from the same set of the oldest collection of thecorrespondence of Erasmus, and, from their first appearance, were ever held to be genuine.Indeed, the assumption that Luther had unlawful intercourse with Catherine von Bora before his marriage is founded solely and entirely on certain reports already discussed, viz. his intimacy with the escaped nuns generally.It is true that soon after the marriage Luther speaks of Catherine von Bora as his “Mistress” (“Metze”) in whose tresses he is bound,[512]but the word he uses had not at that time the opprobrious meaning it conveys in modern German; it simply meant a girl or woman, and was a term of endearment in common use.An assertion made by Joachim von der Heyden, a Leipzig Master, has also been quoted; in a public writing of August 10, 1525, addressed to Catherine von Bora, he reproached her with having conducted herself like a dancing-girl in her flight from the convent to Wittenberg, and there, as was said, having lived in an open and shameless manner with Luther before she took him as her husband.[513]A circumstance which must not be overlooked is, that these words were intended for Catherine herself, and appear to come from a man who believed what he was saying. Yet on examination we see that he rests his assertion merely on hearsay: “as was said.” The “dancing-girl,” again, was adduced merely by way of comparison, though assuredly not a complimentary one, and refers either to the very worldly manners of the escaped nun, or to the secular, perhaps even scarcely modest dress, for which she exchanged her habit on her flight or afterwards. It is probable that at Leipzig, where Heyden lived, and which was one of the headquarters of anti-Lutheranism, something more definite would have been urged, had anything really been known of any actual immorality between Catherine and Luther.Another bitter opponent of Luther’s, Simon Lemnius, who has also been appealed to, likewise adduces no positive or definite facts. Among the inventions of his fancy contained in the “Monachopornomachia” he left us, he does not even mention any illicit intercourse of Luther with Bora before his marriage, though in this satire he makes the wives of Luther, Spalatin, and Justus Jonas give vent to plentiful obscene remarks touching other matters. He merely relates—and this only by poet’s licence—how Bora, after overwhelming Luther with reproaches on account of his alleged attempt to jilt her, finally dragged him away with her to the wedding.[514]Since in this work it is history in the strict sense which speaks, only such evidence can be admitted against Luther as would beaccepted as proof in a court of law, and mere conjectures would be out of place. We have seen the historic complaint made by Melanchthon of Luther’s “effeminacy” and the “exciting of his passions by the nuns who pursued him with the utmost cunning,”[515]and have some idea of the scandal created by the quondam monk through his light-hearted intercourse with these women who had quitted their seclusion; we can now understand how natural was the gossip to which he himself and his friends bear witness. It is true that men like Eberlin of Günzburg, the apostate Franciscan, said at the time that the devil was busy everywhere stirring up “wicked and vexatious suspicions and calumnies” against Luther, etc.[516]Others gave vent to their spite against the manners of the ex-nuns, who were bringing the evangel into dispute.[517]We can comprehend such reflections as the following, made at a later date by indignant Catholic observers, even though in an historical work such as this we cannot make them our own. “To have remained spotless amidst such dangers Luther would have to have been an angel. Whoever has any knowledge of human nature, and knows that God as a rule punishes pride and haughtiness by this particular vice, will not wonder that many have their doubts as to Luther’s unblemished life before he took a wife.”[518]

The false though frequently repeated statement, that Catherine von Bora was confined a fortnight after her marriage with Luther can be traced back to a letter of Erasmus, dated December 24, 1525, giving too hasty credence to malicious reports.[510]Erasmus himself, however, distinctly retracted this statement in another letter of March 13, 1526: “The previous report of the woman’s delivery,” he writes, “was untrue, but now it is said she is in a certain condition.”[511]As his previous statement was thought to be correct, doubts were raised as to the authenticity of the second letter; the objections are, however, worthless; both letters are taken from the same set of the oldest collection of thecorrespondence of Erasmus, and, from their first appearance, were ever held to be genuine.

Indeed, the assumption that Luther had unlawful intercourse with Catherine von Bora before his marriage is founded solely and entirely on certain reports already discussed, viz. his intimacy with the escaped nuns generally.

It is true that soon after the marriage Luther speaks of Catherine von Bora as his “Mistress” (“Metze”) in whose tresses he is bound,[512]but the word he uses had not at that time the opprobrious meaning it conveys in modern German; it simply meant a girl or woman, and was a term of endearment in common use.

An assertion made by Joachim von der Heyden, a Leipzig Master, has also been quoted; in a public writing of August 10, 1525, addressed to Catherine von Bora, he reproached her with having conducted herself like a dancing-girl in her flight from the convent to Wittenberg, and there, as was said, having lived in an open and shameless manner with Luther before she took him as her husband.[513]A circumstance which must not be overlooked is, that these words were intended for Catherine herself, and appear to come from a man who believed what he was saying. Yet on examination we see that he rests his assertion merely on hearsay: “as was said.” The “dancing-girl,” again, was adduced merely by way of comparison, though assuredly not a complimentary one, and refers either to the very worldly manners of the escaped nun, or to the secular, perhaps even scarcely modest dress, for which she exchanged her habit on her flight or afterwards. It is probable that at Leipzig, where Heyden lived, and which was one of the headquarters of anti-Lutheranism, something more definite would have been urged, had anything really been known of any actual immorality between Catherine and Luther.

Another bitter opponent of Luther’s, Simon Lemnius, who has also been appealed to, likewise adduces no positive or definite facts. Among the inventions of his fancy contained in the “Monachopornomachia” he left us, he does not even mention any illicit intercourse of Luther with Bora before his marriage, though in this satire he makes the wives of Luther, Spalatin, and Justus Jonas give vent to plentiful obscene remarks touching other matters. He merely relates—and this only by poet’s licence—how Bora, after overwhelming Luther with reproaches on account of his alleged attempt to jilt her, finally dragged him away with her to the wedding.[514]

Since in this work it is history in the strict sense which speaks, only such evidence can be admitted against Luther as would beaccepted as proof in a court of law, and mere conjectures would be out of place. We have seen the historic complaint made by Melanchthon of Luther’s “effeminacy” and the “exciting of his passions by the nuns who pursued him with the utmost cunning,”[515]and have some idea of the scandal created by the quondam monk through his light-hearted intercourse with these women who had quitted their seclusion; we can now understand how natural was the gossip to which he himself and his friends bear witness. It is true that men like Eberlin of Günzburg, the apostate Franciscan, said at the time that the devil was busy everywhere stirring up “wicked and vexatious suspicions and calumnies” against Luther, etc.[516]Others gave vent to their spite against the manners of the ex-nuns, who were bringing the evangel into dispute.[517]We can comprehend such reflections as the following, made at a later date by indignant Catholic observers, even though in an historical work such as this we cannot make them our own. “To have remained spotless amidst such dangers Luther would have to have been an angel. Whoever has any knowledge of human nature, and knows that God as a rule punishes pride and haughtiness by this particular vice, will not wonder that many have their doubts as to Luther’s unblemished life before he took a wife.”[518]

That the preaching of the new Evangel had a great part in the origin of the frightful peasant rising of 1525 is a fact, which has been admitted even by many non-Catholic historians in modern days.

“We are of opinion,” P. Schreckenbach writes in 1895, “that Luther had a large share in the revolution,” and he endorses his opinion by his observations on “Luther’s warfare against the greatest conservative power of the day,” and the “ways and means he chose with which to carry on his war.”[519]Fr. v. Bezold, in 1890, in his “History of the German Reformation,” remarked concerning Luther’s answer to the hostile treatment he received from the Diet at Nuremberg (1524), and his allusions to “the mad, tipsy Princes”: “Luther should never have written in such a way had he not already made up his mind to act as leader of a Revolution. That he should have expected the German nation of those days to listen to such passionate language from the mouth of its ‘Evangelist’ and ‘Elias’ without being carried beyond the bounds of law and order, was anaïvetéonly to be explained by his ignorance of the world and his exclusive attentionto religious interests. Herein lies his greatness and his weakness.”[520]Concerning the effects of such language upon the people, the same historian wrote, as late as 1908: “How else but in a material sense was the plain man to interpret Luther’s proclamation of Christian freedom and his extravagant strictures on the parsons and nobles?”[521]

“We are of opinion,” P. Schreckenbach writes in 1895, “that Luther had a large share in the revolution,” and he endorses his opinion by his observations on “Luther’s warfare against the greatest conservative power of the day,” and the “ways and means he chose with which to carry on his war.”[519]Fr. v. Bezold, in 1890, in his “History of the German Reformation,” remarked concerning Luther’s answer to the hostile treatment he received from the Diet at Nuremberg (1524), and his allusions to “the mad, tipsy Princes”: “Luther should never have written in such a way had he not already made up his mind to act as leader of a Revolution. That he should have expected the German nation of those days to listen to such passionate language from the mouth of its ‘Evangelist’ and ‘Elias’ without being carried beyond the bounds of law and order, was anaïvetéonly to be explained by his ignorance of the world and his exclusive attentionto religious interests. Herein lies his greatness and his weakness.”[520]Concerning the effects of such language upon the people, the same historian wrote, as late as 1908: “How else but in a material sense was the plain man to interpret Luther’s proclamation of Christian freedom and his extravagant strictures on the parsons and nobles?”[521]

Luther’s Catholic contemporaries condemned in the strongest manner his share in the unchaining of the revolt; they failed entirely to appreciate the “greatness” referred to above.

One who was well acquainted with his writings and published a polemical work in Latin against him at that time, referring to certain passages, some of which we have already met, makes the following representations to him on his responsibility in the Peasant War. It was he who first raised the call to arms, and it was impossible for him to wash his hands of all share in the revolt, even though he had told the people that they were not to make use of force without the consent of the authorities and had subsequently condemned the rising with violence. “The common people pay no attention to that,” he tells him, “but merely obey what pleases them in Luther’s writings and sermons.” “You declared in your public writings,[522]that they were to assail the Pope and the Cardinals with every weapon available, and wash their hands in their blood. You called all the bishops who would not follow your teaching, idolatrous priests and ministers of the devil; you said that the bishops deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth in a great rising.” “You called those, ‘dear children of God and true Christians,’ who make every effort for the destruction of the bishoprics and the extermination of episcopal rule. You said also that whoever obeyed the bishops was the devil’s own servant. You called the monasteries dens of murderers, and incited the people to pull them down.”[523]

One who was well acquainted with his writings and published a polemical work in Latin against him at that time, referring to certain passages, some of which we have already met, makes the following representations to him on his responsibility in the Peasant War. It was he who first raised the call to arms, and it was impossible for him to wash his hands of all share in the revolt, even though he had told the people that they were not to make use of force without the consent of the authorities and had subsequently condemned the rising with violence. “The common people pay no attention to that,” he tells him, “but merely obey what pleases them in Luther’s writings and sermons.” “You declared in your public writings,[522]that they were to assail the Pope and the Cardinals with every weapon available, and wash their hands in their blood. You called all the bishops who would not follow your teaching, idolatrous priests and ministers of the devil; you said that the bishops deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth in a great rising.” “You called those, ‘dear children of God and true Christians,’ who make every effort for the destruction of the bishoprics and the extermination of episcopal rule. You said also that whoever obeyed the bishops was the devil’s own servant. You called the monasteries dens of murderers, and incited the people to pull them down.”[523]

A strong wave of anticlerical and of politico-social commotion due to unjust oppression prevailed among the peasantry in many parts of Germany even before Luther came forward. But it was the gospel of freedom, the mistaken approbation found in biblical passages for the desire for equality among the classes and a juster distribution of property, as well as the example of the great spiritual upheavalthen going on, which rendered the crisis acute, and incited the peasants to make their extravagant and violent demands.

An attempt was made to conceal the revolutionary character of the movement by explaining it as mainly religious.

The “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” was headed, for instance, by a demand for liberty to preach the Gospel and for congregations to have the right of choosing their own pastors.[524]It was believed by those who drew up these Articles that all the claims, even those relating to the tithes, to hunting, fishing, forest rights, etc., could be proved from Holy Scripture; only then, they said, were they ready to abandon them when they were refuted by Holy Writ; at the same time, however, they reserved to themselves the right to make in the future such additional demands as they might come to recognise as being in accordance with Scripture. Luther’s ideas were also embodied in the thirty Articles of “Squire Helferich and the Knights Heinz und Karsthanns,” indeed, they were for the most part couched in the very words of Luther’s writings and the 28th Article swore deadly hostility to all his foes.[525]

The peasants in the Rhine province and about Mayence in their rising in May, 1525, demanded not merely the liberty to choose their own pastors and to preach the Gospel, but also that the preachers of the new faith imprisoned in Mayence should be set free. Their claim to choose their pastors, which was likewise made elsewhere, for instance, in the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” signified nothing less than the intention to fill the posts with preachers of the new faith.[526]

“The rebels everywhere either supported or opposed the Evangelical demands, those of Evangelical views joining the rebels with the idea that they would be able to enforce their wishes by this means.” This explains why, after the rising had been put down, the Catholic lords were disposed “to look on Lutheranism as no better than rebellion.”[527]These words, written by a Protestant historian, refer to the Rhine Province, but they are equally applicable elsewhere. So, too, what he says of this district may also be said generally, viz. that the enthusiastic expectation, which was widespread in Lutheran circles, of a great change before the approaching end of the world, helped to make of the followers of the new faith supporters of the peasants. Luther encouraged such fanatical ideas among his readers till the very outbreak of the revolt. (See below, p. 200 f.)

“What wonder,” the same historian says, “that when the social revolution broke out in the spring, Luther’s persecuted followers thought they recognised the beginning of the change, and in many instances made common cause with the peasants and the lower classes of the towns. Luther himself had no wish to carry through his religious enterprise with the help either of the knights or of the peasants,but his followers were not equal to making the necessary distinction between the spiritual and the temporal.”[528]

Luther and his preachers had so frequently brought forward such disparaging and degrading charges against the secular, and still more against the spiritual authorities,[529]that clear-sighted contemporaries, such as Bartholomew von Usingen, foretold a revolution[530]as the result of such discourses and writings. The destruction of the episcopal power, which, under the conditions then prevailing, was so closely bound up with the secular, meant a radical revolution in the law of property obtaining in the German Empire.

The “Christian freedom” of all, the equality of high and low in the common priesthood, was proclaimed in the most incautious and seductive terms. The peasants were taught by itinerant and often fanatical preachers, concerning their real or alleged rights as vouched for by Holy Scripture. Thus the esteemed Strasburg preacher, Caspar Hedio, of the Rhinegau, in a sermon which he delivered on the Wachholder Heide, near Erbach, explained to the people his views on the customary payment of tithes; his words acting like a charm: He thought the peasants should pay tithes only under protest, though they were nevertheless not to attempt to abrogate the payment by force. Once roused, however, who was to keep the crowd within theselimits? In 1524 Hedio had two sermons, preached on this subject in Strasburg, printed together with a circular letter addressed to the inhabitants of the Rhinegau, “which, there can be no doubt, exercised a certain influence upon the rising there.”[531]In the circular he proposed, that the people themselves should go in search of capable preachers if the ecclesiastical authorities did not send such.[532]

A far-reaching social movement had been at work among the peasants, more particularly in many districts of the south-west of Germany, even previous to the rise of Lutheranism. They raised protests, which in many instances were justifiable, against the oppression under which they laboured. A crisis seemed imminent there as early as 1513 and 1514, and the feeling was general that a settlement of the difficulties could only be brought about by violence. The ferment in many places assumed an anticlerical character, which was all the more natural seeing that the landowners and gentry who were the chief cause of the dissatisfaction were either clergymen, like the Prince-Bishops, or closely allied with the Church and her multifarious secular institutions. The ill-feeling against the clergy was even then being stirred up by exaggerated descriptions of their idle life, their luxury and their unworthy conduct.

To seek to represent the movement, as has been done, as an exclusively social one, is, even for the period before Luther, not quite correct, although it certainly was mainly social. Yet it was, as a matter of fact, the new ideas scattered among the people by Luther and Zwingli, and the preaching of the apostasy, which brought the unrest so quickly to a head. The anticlerical ideas of the religious innovators, combined with social class antagonism, lent an irresistible force to the rising. Hence the Peasant War has recently been described on the Protestant side as a “religious movement,” called forth by the discussion of first principles to which the Reformation gave rise, and which owed its violent character to the religious contrast which it brought out.[533]The expert on this period whowrites thus, proves and justifies his opinion, showing that Zwingli and Luther “were the primary cause” of the War, not indeed directly, but because once the peasants had become familiar with the new “biblical” ideas, which were so favourable to their cause, they refused to stand by and see such doctrines suppressed by violence, and preferred to take up arms against the Catholic rulers and their energetic anti-Reformation measures.[534]According to the same writer it is necessary to distinguish carefully between what the peasants themselves represented in the course of the revolt as the moving cause, i.e. the social disabilities of which they complained (for instance in the Twelve Articles), and that which actually produced the rising.

Nor must it be overlooked that, at the moment when passions were already stirred up to their highest pitch, many attempts were made on the Lutheran side to pacify the people. The catastrophe foreseen affrighted those who were on the spot, and who feared lest the responsibility might fall upon their shoulders. Quite recently a forgotten pamphlet, written by an anonymous Lutheran preacher and dating from the commencement of the movement, has been republished, in which, after some pious exhortations, the author expresses his firm hope that the fear of God would succeed in triumphing over the excited passions; even biblical quotations against misuse of the new evangelical freedom are to be found in this well-intentioned booklet.[535]Then as now attention was drawn to Luther’s doctrine concerning obedience to the powers that be, which required of “the true Christian” that he should even “allow himself to be flayed,” and out of love of the cross renounce all desire for revenge (xiv. 4).

Notwithstanding all this, the great responsibility which Lutheranism shares in the matter remains. “It is no purely historical and objective view,” says another Protestanthistorian, “but rather an apologetic and false assumption, which attempts to deny the fact, that Luther’s evangelical preaching most strongly encouraged and brought to a crisis the social excitement which had been simmering among the lowest classes since the fifteenth century. The agitation stirred up by the preachers who followed in Luther’s footsteps contributed in a still greater degree towards this result.”[536]

Special research in the different parts of the wide area covered by the rising has to-day confirmed even more completely the opinion that the accusations urged against Lutheranism by the olden supporters of the Church were, after all, not so unjust in this particular. The much-abused Johann Cochlæus, who made such charges, is rightly spoken of by the last-mentioned historian as being “more suited” to depict that revolutionary period than the diplomatic and cautious Sleidanus, or the Protestant theological admirers and worshippers of Luther.[537]The learned Hieronymus Emser wrote, in the stormy year 1525, a work “AgainstLuther’s abominations,” a large part of which is devoted to proving what is already explained in the sub-title of the book, “How, and why, and in what words, Luther, in his books, urges and exhorts to rebellion.” Emser also gave indignant expression to his conviction in some verses intended for general circulation.

Luther was directly implicated in the beginning of the rising when the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia” was forwarded to him by the insurgents. The peasants invited him, with confidence, “to declare what was of Divine right.”[538]Luther’s honoured name came first in the list of learned men who were to be consulted. The Wittenberg professor grasped the full importance of the moment; he felt that the direction of German affairs had been placed in his hands. Naturally he did not wish to be the one to let loose the terrible storm, nor did he, as the representative and “deliverer” of the people, wish to repulse the movement which had been so long favourable to him, and the demands of which were, in part at least, perfectly justifiable. He found himself in a position exactly similar to that which he had occupied formerly in regard to the Knights, who were anxious to take up arms, and with whom he had, up to a certain point, made common cause, but whose project afterwards appeared to him too dangerous and compromising to the cause of the evangel. In the question of the Twelve Articles it was difficult, nay, impossible, for him not to give offence either to the gentry or to the populace, or to avoid barring the way for the new evangel in one direction or the other. He determined to seek a middle course. But the tragic consequences of the position he had always assumed, the circumstances of the day and his unrestrained temper, caused him to give mortal offence to both sides, to the lords as well as to the peasants.

First, he flung his “Exhortation to Peace” on the field of battle—no mere figure of speech, as, at the time of writing,the tumult had already broken out and the horrors of Weinsberg been enacted (April 16, 1525), though of this Luther was ignorant when he composed the pamphlet. Formerly this writing was thought to have been written in May, but as a matter of fact it belongs to the period just after April 18.[539]

In this writing, as well as in the two following which treat of the rising, certain sides of Luther’s character are displayed which must be examined from the historical and psychological standpoint. The second, which was the outcome of the impressions made by the bloody contest, consists of only one sheet and is entitled “Against the murderous, thieving hordes of Peasants,” or more shortly, “Against the insurgent Peasants”; it, too, was written before the complete defeat of the rebels in the decisive days of May.[540]The third is the “Circular letter concerning the stern booklet against the Peasants,” of the same year, and belongs to the time when the conquerors, flushed with victory, were raging against the vanquished.[541]

The three writings must be considered in conjunction with the circumstances which called them forth. Written in the very thick of the seething ferment, they glow with all the fire of their author, whose personal concern in the matter was so great. Whoever weighs their contents at the present day will be carried back to the storm of that period, and will marvel at the strength of the spirit which inspires them, but at the same time be surprised at the picture the three together present. He will ask, and not without cause, which of the three is most to be regretted; surely the third, for the unmistakable blunders of the author, who gives the fullest play to feeling and fancy to the detriment of calm reason, go on increasing in each pamphlet.

In the first, the “Exhortation,” the author seeks to put the truth before, and to pacify the Princes and gentry, more particularly those Catholics who, subsequent to the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, had entered the lists against the innovations. He also would fain instruct and calm the peasants,his “dear Masters and Brothers.” Had Luther been endowed with a clear perception of the position of affairs, and seen the utter uselessness of any attempt merely to stem the movement, he would not at this critical juncture have still further irritated the rebels by the attacks upon the gentry, into which he allowed himself to break out, and which were at once taken advantage of.

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