Fatal Discord

by Michael Massing

  Having sucked Italy dry, the Romanists were now turning to Germany. The “drunken Germans” were not supposed to realize what the Romanists were up to until there was not a bishopric, monastery, benefice, or red cent left. “How is it that we Germans must put up with such robbery and extortion of our goods at the hands of the pope?” If 99 percent of the Curia were abolished, it would still be large enough to dispense its duties. “Today, however, there is such a swarm of parasites in that place called Rome that not even Babylon saw the likes of it.” With hundreds of thousands of guldens a year flowing from Germany to Rome, “we ought to marvel that we have anything left to eat!”

  Luther went on to describe the many insidious devices Rome used to exploit the German people: the annates, those first-year payments that Rome demanded for senior Christian offices; the right to name the holder of a benefice when an opening occurred during six months of the year; the practice of “mental reservation,” by which the pope reserved the right to take a benefice and award it to another; and so on. The “Holy Roman See of Avarice” treated benefices “more shamefully than the heathen soldiers treated Christ’s clothes at the foot of the cross.”

  Most noxious of all was the Datary, in whose splendid building near St. Peter’s vows were dissolved, monks granted permission to leave their orders, and bastards legitimized—all for a price. In this “brothel of all imaginable brothels,” the possession of property acquired by theft and robbery was legalized. It was the duty of good Christians to protect their faith from such confiscations. If it was right to hang thieves and behead robbers, why should the Roman avarice go unpunished? “He is the worst thief and robber that has ever been or could ever come into the world, and all in the holy name of Christ and St. Peter!”

  To remedy those abuses, Luther proposed a twenty-seven-point reform program. Annates should be abolished. Benefices and other ecclesiastical preferments should be kept out of Rome’s hands. The pope should support his household out of his own pocket. No emperor or anyone else should ever again kiss the pope’s feet. The Vatican should give up its claim to Bologna, Vicenza, Ravenna, “and other lands which the pope has seized by force and possesses without right.” All Masses and vigils for the dead should be abolished. So should canon law, the decretals, the interdict, church bulls, festivals, canonizations of saints, and butter letters. The common people “think that eating butter is a greater sin than lying, swearing, or even living unchastely.” Mendicants should, with few exceptions, be relieved of preaching and hearing confession, and all begging should be abolished and every city required to look after its own poor. The chapels in forests and the churches in fields that had become pilgrimage sites “must be leveled.” The Roman Church must admit that Jan Hus had been burned at Constance in violation of the safe-conduct that had been granted him and that the pope and his advisers were to blame for all the misery and death resulting from this grave injustice. Heretics should be overcome “with books, not with fire, as the ancient fathers did.” Priests should not be compelled to live without wives but should instead be permitted to marry. “The pope has strangled so many wretched souls with this devilish rope that he has long deserved to be driven out of this world.”

  While he was at it, Luther called for a thorough overhaul of the university curriculum, beginning with the purging of Aristotle. “It grieves me to the quick that this damned, conceited, rascally heathen has deluded and made fools of so many of the best Christians with his misleading writings.” Since the universities were responsible for training Christian youth, the Bible should be taught in place of the Sentences and the number of theology books reduced and only the best ones published. By the age of nine or ten, every Christian boy should know the entire Gospel, and every town should have a school for girls so that they, too, could read the Bible in Latin or German. Luther urged a crackdown on extravagant dress, demanded restrictions on the spice trade, and called for controls on the Fuggers and other firms that had amassed great fortunes. He even urged the government to combat excessive eating and drinking, which, he maintained, had given Germans “a bad reputation in foreign lands.”

  Toward the end of his tract, Luther issued an emotional call to action: “We have paid tragically and far too dearly for such an empire with incalculable bloodshed, with the suppression of our liberty, the hazarding and theft of all our possessions, especially of our churches and benefices, and with the suffering of unspeakable deception and insult.” It was time for the pope to free the German lands “from his intolerable taxing and fleecing: let him give us back our liberty, our rights, our body and soul; and let the empire be what an empire should be, so that the pope’s words and pretensions might be fulfilled.”

  With its merciless ridicule, flaring anger, and damning detail, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation was perhaps the most devastating attack ever leveled at the Roman Church. As Luther himself acknowledged, he had spoken severely and suggested much that would be considered impossible, but, he added, “I would rather have the wrath of the world upon me than the wrath of God. The world can do no more to me than take my life.”

  When his manuscript was done, on June 23, 1520, Luther sent it to Melchior Lotther, who, immediately grasping its sensational nature, arranged for a print run of four thousand copies—four times the usual number. Within a week a second, enlarged edition was being prepared. Editions soon followed in Leipzig, Strasbourg, and Basel. While many expressed shock that someone had written so violently against the pope, the tract roused not only the ruling class to which it was addressed but also the German masses who most felt Rome’s bite.

  “Good heavens! what wise liberty is in it!” Martin Bucer, the young cleric who had been so impressed with Luther at the Heidelberg disputation, wrote to Spalatin. “I seem to myself to have found a man undoubtedly acting out the spirit of Christ.” John Kotter, an organist and composer in Freiburg, marveled to Bonifacius Amerbach in Basel: “I have never read nor heard the like; all men wonder at it; some think the devil speaks out of him, some the Holy Ghost.” The book “shows all the wickedness that goes on at Rome. It can’t stand. There must be a reformation. Charles must begin it.”

  While Luther was inveighing against Rome, Rome was mobilizing against Luther. In the months leading up to the imperial election, the Vatican—absorbed in the political jockeying—had taken its eye off Luther. Not until early February 1520 did Pope Leo X finally get around to appointing a commission (under the direction of Cardinal Cajetan) to consider the charges that should be brought against Luther, and even then the case stalled.

  Then Johann Eck arrived. On meeting the pope, Eck kissed his feet, and Leo kissed Eck in return. (“Let them lick, lap, spit on, and bite each other thus,” Luther sneered on hearing this.) Eck showed Vatican officials his notes from the Leipzig debate as well as the Louvain-Cologne condemnation, with its forceful repudiation of Luther’s doctrines. He also described the radicalization taking place in Germany and the growing animosity toward Rome. To dramatic effect he conveyed the nationalist fervor of the humanists, especially the inflammatory bombast of Hutten. The Italians found Eck’s boasting and boorishness irritating, but his success at Leipzig and his firsthand knowledge of developments in Germany bolstered his credibility, and at his prodding a new commission was empaneled, with the pope himself presiding.

  Relying heavily on the Louvain-Cologne judgment, this body drew up a bull condemning dozens of Luther’s articles. On May 2, 1520, Eck carried a draft to Magliana, the papal hunting villa, where Leo was enjoying an early-spring outing. Located some five miles west of Rome, the compound included a palazzetto, a chapel, stables, and an arsenal. A rabbit warren and apiary had been built with the aim of creating a rural paradise amid the plentiful game fields of the Roman Campagna. Leo was spending more time here as he devoted himself to the pleasures of the hunt, and he regularly invited scholars, poets, and artists to come and provide entertainment after the excitement of the day’s chase.

  Here, amid the shrieks of birds and
the grunts of boars, and with two cardinals and a Spanish scholar present, Leo approved the articles. A preface was drafted that reflected the surroundings. It began, Exsurge Domine—“Arise O Lord”—a phrase by which the document would become known. “Foxes have arisen that want to devastate thy vineyard, where thou hast worked the wine-press. . . . A roaring sow of the woods has undertaken to destroy the vineyard, a wild beast wants to devour it.” From Magliana, the bull was carried back to Rome for discussion by a consistory, or ecclesiastical council. Between May 25 and June 1 it met four times, in sessions lasting from six to eight hours each—a measure of the contentiousness of the issue. One key point of debate was whether Luther’s articles should be condemned uniformly or distinctions made between those deemed heretical and those considered simply scandalous or offensive to pious ears. With reports reaching Rome that some princes were drifting into Luther’s camp, it was decided that quick action was needed, and a blanket condemnation was adopted as the most expedient course.

  In the end, the bull listed forty-one points on which Luther had erred. A number cited Luther’s pronouncements on penance, including his assertion that the practices associated with it (contrition, confession, satisfaction) lacked any foundation in Scripture. Others dealt with his views on indulgences, including his position that they were of no use for the dead or dying. Also included were his demand for allowing Communion in both kinds, his contention that in every good work the righteous man sins, and his teaching that Christians should not fear but cherish excommunications. Luther was admonished as well for his statements supporting Hus and rejecting the pontiff’s claim to be the vicar of Christ. In a measure of the length to which the Church was willing to go to extinguish dissent, the bull censured Luther for maintaining that the burning of heretics went against the Holy Spirit. The final error cited was Luther’s opposition to mendicancy.

  A section was added setting out sanctions and demands. The errors found in Luther’s writings were to be condemned, rejected, and denounced for all times, and no Christian under any circumstance was “to read, speak, preach, laud, consider, publish or defend such writings, sermons, or broadsides or anything contained therein.” Rather, such writings were to be publicly burned. “Dear God,” the bull stated with stentorian sorrow, “what have we failed to do, what have we avoided, what paternal love did we not exercise, to call him back from his errors? . . . We reminded him through our writings that he should desist from his error or else, with safe-conduct and the necessary provisions, to come to us and talk with us.” Had he done so, “we would have clearly instructed and taught him that the holy popes, our predecessors, whom he chides without all reason, never erred in their statutes and regulations, which he boldly destroys.” For more than a year, however, he had remained disobedient, and so now, with Rome’s love having failed to move him, perhaps the “terror of the pain of punishment” would.

  Within sixty days of the bull’s publication, Luther was to inform the Church of his recantation by submitting a sealed document or, better yet, by personally traveling to Rome and offering assurances of his sincere obedience. If, however, he and his supporters failed to comply with these provisions, they were to be condemned as “barren vines which are not in Christ,” and Luther’s preaching was to be rejected as “an offensive doctrine contrary to the Christian faith,” to “the damage and shame of the entire Christian Church.”

  Remarkably, it seems not to have occurred to anyone in Rome to provide an actual rebuttal of Luther’s teachings, explaining how in fact they contradicted those of the Church. The one concession made was the sixty-day waiting period. While some prelates favored excommunicating Luther outright, others hoped that the threat of sanction would be sufficient to bring him (or Frederick) to his senses. Dated June 15, 1520, the bull was posted the following week both at St. Peter’s Basilica and in the Campo de’ Fiori, and copies of Luther’s works were burned in the Piazza Navona. In Germany, the bull would take effect only after being publicly posted in certain designated towns.

  Two emissaries were assigned that task. One was Eck, who was to post the bull throughout Saxony and other parts of eastern Germany as well as to make sure it reached Luther himself. To carry the bull to western Germany and the Low Countries, the Church designated Jerome Aleander. An accomplished humanist, Aleander had taught at the Sorbonne and worked for the prince-bishop of Liège before coming to Rome in 1516 on a diplomatic mission. Showing his political acumen, he had served as secretary to the powerful Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, then become the Vatican librarian. Though much less accomplished a theologian than Eck, Aleander was a far more adept diplomat, and with his many contacts in the Low Countries, he seemed well positioned to deal with Charles V, whose help in executing the bull would be essential.

  On July 17 and 18, 1520, Exsurge Domine was placed in the hands of the two envoys. Soon afterward, they set off on their long journeys northward, with Eck bound for the eastern Alpine passes en route to Saxony and Aleander headed to the western passes on the way to the Rhineland. Given the growing rebellion against Rome in the north, each undertook the mission at the risk of his life.

  23

  Bonfires

  Like so many others, Erasmus was looking forward to Charles’s arrival in the north, but with far more modest expectations. As a councilor to Charles and a frequent visitor to the Burgundian court, he knew a great deal about the young man’s upbringing and temperament. Charles had grown up without the presence of either his father (Philip the Handsome, who had died in 1506, when Charles was six) or his mother (Joanna the Mad, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who had been declared mentally ill and confined to Tordesillas Castle in Spain). His religious and moral training was entrusted to Adrian of Utrecht, who had steeped him in an austere brand of Catholic piety. Drawn to tales of knightly chivalry, Charles had developed a love of honor and ceremony, which was magnified by his exposure to the pomp and protocols of the Burgundian court. Erasmus in 1516 had dedicated The Education of a Christian Prince to the then-teenage Charles, explaining that he had done so so that those raised to rule great empires might learn the principles of government from his example. With Charles now about to rule such an empire, Erasmus hoped to have the chance to recall him to that ideal.

  Charles’s court included many Flemish followers of Erasmus, and from them he had received regular reports about Charles’s time in Spain and the tremendous trials he had faced there. From the moment of his arrival, in 1517, Charles had been seen as a foreign occupier. A native speaker of French, he knew no Spanish, and—distrustful of anyone outside his immediate circle—had relied heavily on his Burgundian advisers. Greedy and haughty, they had shamelessly taken the most powerful and lucrative positions for themselves. The Spaniards were especially furious at the bestowing of the archbishopric of Toledo on the young and inexperienced William de Croy. Monks had begun preaching against the opulence of the royal court and the large sums being sent out of the country. Amid this growing discontent, Charles was repeatedly forced to delay his departure for Germany and the coronation in Aachen.

  Nonetheless determined to leave, Charles in the spring of 1520 went with his court to La Coruña, on Spain’s northwestern coast, where a fleet was being readied. He appointed Adrian of Utrecht, the bishop of Tortosa (who in 1517 had been named a cardinal by Leo X), as regent. In need of cash to finance both his journey and his anticipated projects as emperor, Charles convened two sessions of the Castilian Cortes to demand more revenue. Enraged, the communities of Castile (known as Comuneros) formed a league with an eye to setting up a revolutionary government and dethroning Charles and installing his mother, Joanna. For weeks, Charles and his fleet were bottled up in port by a strong northeaster, and during that time the Revolt of the Comuneros broke out. Charles was so eager to head north, however, that when the winds finally shifted, he set off on May 20, leaving Adrian in charge of putting down the revolt.

  Charles’s initial destination was England. The previous autumn, he had received
an invitation from Thomas Wolsey to stop there on his way to the Continent to see Henry VIII. Charles had readily accepted. Visiting England would allow him for the first time to meet his aunt, Catherine of Aragon, who was Henry’s queen. It would also give him a chance to win Henry’s support against the French king Francis I. Ever since he had lost the imperial crown to Charles, Francis—bellicose by nature and feeling encircled by Charles’s lands—was expected to attack him, and Charles saw in England an effective counterweight.

  From Wolsey’s standpoint, the invitation to Charles was part of a grand new geopolitical plan. After initially overseeing Henry’s military adventures in France, the calculating cardinal had improbably turned peacemaker. Through his diplomacy, England and France—Europe’s two oldest enemies—had in October 1518 signed a peace treaty in London. The pact was opened up to other powers, and twenty had eventually signed on, including the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, Spain, and the papacy. A prime motive was the need for unity in the face of the Ottomans, but beyond that, Wolsey—influenced by Erasmus, Colet, More, and other Christian humanists—hoped to build on the Treaty of London to create a perpetual peace among the nations of Christendom. Henry—ready to don the mantle of a man of peace—approved. To solidify the English-French rapprochement, Wolsey had organized a summit between Henry and Francis to take place in June 1520 near Calais. Wolsey had conceived of a meeting beforehand between Henry and Charles as a means of giving Henry added leverage.

  On May 26, 1520, after six days at sea, Charles and his fleet were in the English Channel. Wolsey sailed out to meet him, then accompanied him to Dover. Henry rode down at once to see him. The next day, the two monarchs went to Canterbury, where Charles was magnificently received and for the first time presented to Catherine. Henry and Charles spent three days together, with much of the time given over to banqueting and jousting. The subdued Charles seemed uncomfortable in Henry’s pleasure-loving world. Only on the afternoon of May 29, 1520, was any serious business transacted, mostly concerning trade. Their time together went well enough, however, for them to agree to meet again on the Continent after Henry’s summit with Francis. That evening Henry and Charles left Canterbury together. Five miles outside the city they parted ways, with Henry continuing on to Dover for the Channel crossing to Calais and his rendezvous with Francis, and Charles heading to Sandwich for the trip to Flushing and Brussels.