History of the Reformation, vol. 3
Chapter 8
Basle—Oecolampadius—He visits Augsburg—Enters a Convent—Retires to Sickingen’s Castle—Returns to Basle—Ulrich Hutten—His Plans—Last Effort of Chivalry—Hutten dies at Ufnau
Thus everything announced the triumphs that the Reformation would soon obtain at Berne. Basle, a city of no less importance, and which was then the Athens of Switzerland, was also arming herself for the great combat that has distinguished the sixteenth century. HRSCV3 411.2
Each of the cities of the confederation had its peculiar character. Berne was the city of the great families, and it seemed that the question would be decided by the part adopted by certain of the leading men. At Zurich, the ministers of the Word,—Zwingle, Leo Juda, Myconius, and Schmidt,—carried with them a powerful class of citizens. Lucerne was the city of arms and military capitulations; Basle, of learning and the printing-press. Here Erasmus, the head of the literary republic in the sixteenth century, had taken up his abode; and preferring the liberty he enjoyed in this capital to the flattering invitations of popes and kings, he had become the center of a numerous concourse of men of letters. HRSCV3 411.3
But an humble, meek, and pious man, though in genius far inferior to Erasmus, was destined erelong to exercise in this very city a more powerful influence than that of the prince of the schools. Christopher of Utenheim, bishop of Basle, in concert with Erasmus, was endeavouring to surround himself with men fitted to accomplish a kind of half-way Reformation. With this view he had invited Capito and Oecolampadius to his court. In the latter person there was a taint of monasticism that often annoyed the illustrious philosopher. But Oecolampadius soon became enthusiastically attached to him; and perhaps would have lost all independence in this close intimacy, if Providence had not separated him from his idol. In 1517, he returned to Weinsberg, his native place, where he was soon disgusted with the disorders and profane jests of the priests. He has left us a noble monument of the serious spirit which then animated him, in his celebrated work on The Easter Revels, which appears to have been written about that time. HRSCV3 411.4
Having been invited to Augsburg about the end of 1518, as cathedral preacher, he found that city still agitated by the famous conference held there in the month of May between Luther and the papal legate. He had to decide between one party and the other; Oecolampadius did not hesitate, and declared in favor of the reformer. This frankness soon gave rise to a violent opposition against him; and feeling convinced that his timidity and the weakness of his voice would be prejudicial to his success in the world, he looked around him, and fixed his eyes on a convent of monks of Saint Bridget, near Augsburg, celebrated for their piety and their profound and liberal studies. Feeling the need of repose, of leisure, of study, and of prayer, he turned towards these friars, and inquired: “Can I live among you according to the Word of God?” The latter having replied in the affirmative, Oecolampadius entered the monastery on the 23rd of April 1520, with the express condition that he should be free, if ever the service of God’s Word should call him elsewhere. HRSCV3 411.5
It was well that the future reformer of Basle should, like Luther, become acquainted with that monastic life which is the highest expression of Roman-catholicism. But here he found no repose; his friends blamed the step; and he himself openly declared that Luther was nearer the truth than his adversaries. Accordingly, Eck and the other Romish doctors pursued him with their menaces, even in his calm retreat. HRSCV3 411.6
At this time, Oecolampadius was neither reformed nor a follower of Rome; he desired a certain purified catholicism, which is nowhere to be found in history, but the idea of which has often bridged the way to many minds. He began to correct the rules of his order in conformity with the Word of God. “Do not, I beseech you,” said he to his brethren, “set a higher value upon your statutes than on the ordinances of God!”—“We desire no other law,” replied the brothers, “than that of our Saviour. Take our books, and mark, as if in the presence of Christ himself, whatever you find contrary to His Word.” Oecolampadius applied himself to the task, but was almost wearied by the labor. “O Almighty God!” exclaimed he, “what abominations has not Rome approved of in these statutes!” HRSCV3 411.7
As soon as he pointed out some of them, the anger of the monks was aroused. “Heretic!” exclaimed they, “apostate! you deserve to be thrown into a dungeon for the rest of your days!” They excluded him from public prayers. But the danger from without was still greater. Eck and his party had not relinquished their projects. “In three days,” he was told, “they will be here to arrest you.” He went to the brethren and said, “Will you give me up to assassins?” The monks were silent and undetermined; they neither wished to save nor destroy him. At this moment some friends of Oecolampadius arrived near the cloister with horses to carry him to a place of safety. On being informed of this, the monks resolved to allow the departure of a brother who had brought trouble into their convent. “Farewell,” said he, and was free. He had remained nearly two years in the cloister of Saint Bridget. HRSCV3 411.8
Oecolampadius was saved; at last he began to breathe. “I have sacrificed the monk,” wrote he to a friend, “and have regained the Christian.” But his flight from the convent and his heretical writings were known everywhere, and everywhere people shrunk back at his approach. He knew not what would become of him, when, in the spring of 1522, Sickingen offered him an asylum, which he accepted. HRSCV3 412.1
His mind, oppressed by monastic servitude, took a new flight in the midst of the noble warriors of Ebernburg. “Christ is our liberty,” exclaimed he, “and death, which men consider their greatest misfortune, is a real gain to us.” He directly began reading the Gospels and Epistles in German to the people. “As soon as these trumpets sound,” said he, “the walls of Jericho will fall down.” HRSCV3 412.2
Thus, in a fortress on the banks of the Rhine, and in the midst of illiterate warriors, the most humble man of his age was preparing for that change of worship which Christianity was shortly to undergo. But Ebernburg was too confined for him, and he felt the need of other society than these armed men. The bookseller Cratander invited him to Basle; Sickingen allowed him to depart, and Oecolampadius, delighted at the thought of seeing his old friends again, arrived in that city on the 16th of November 1522. After having lived there some time, simply as a man of learning without any public occupation, he was nominated curate of Saint Martin’s church, and it was this call to an humble and obscure employment that possibly decided the Reformation of Basle. An immense crowd filled the church whenever Oecolampadius went into the pulpit. At the same time the public lectures delivered by himself and Pellican were crowned with such success that even Erasmus was forced to exclaim, “Oecolampadius triumphs.” HRSCV3 412.3
In effect, this mild yet firm man (says Zwingle) spread around him the sweet savour of Christ, and all those who crowded about him grew in truth. Often, indeed, a rumor was circulated that he would be forced to leave Basle and recommence his perilous pilgrimage. His friends, Zwingle in particular, were alarmed; but erelong the tidings of fresh victories gained by Oecolampadius scattered their fears and raised their hopes. The renown of his lectures extended even to Wittenberg, and delighted Luther, who talked with Melancthon about him every day. And yet the Saxon reformer was not without anxiety. Erasmus was at Basle, and Erasmus was the friend of Oecolampadius Luther thought it his duty to put the man whom he loved on his guard. “I much fear,” wrote he, “that Erasmus, like Moses, will die in the country of Moab, and never lead us into the land of promise.” HRSCV3 412.4
Erasmus had taken refuge at Basle, as in a quiet city, lying in the center of the literary movement, and from the bosom of which he could, by means of the press of Frobenius, act upon France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and England. But he did not like men to come and trouble him there; and if he looked upon Oecolampadius with suspicion, another man inspired him with still greater apprehension. Ulrich Hutten had followed Oecolampadius to Basle. For a long while he had been attacking the pope, as one knight engages with another. “The axe,” said he, “is already laid at the root of the tree. Germans! faint not in the heat of the battle; the die is cast; the work is begun Liberty for ever!” He had abandoned Latin, and now wrote only in German; for it was the people he wished to address. HRSCV3 412.5
His views were noble and generous. It was his idea that there should be an annual meeting of the bishops to regulate the interests of the Church. A christian constitution, and above all a christian spirit, was to go forth from Germany, as from Judea in other times, and spread through the whole world. Charles V was to be the youthful hero appointed to realize this golden age; but Hutten, having seen the failure of his hopes in this quarter, had turned towards Sickingen, and sought from knighthood what the empire had refused him. Sickingen, at the head of the feudal nobility, had played a distinguished part in Germany; but the princes had besieged him in his castle of Landstein, and the new invention of cannons had crushed those aged walls, accustomed to other attacks. The taking of Landstein had proved the final defeat of chivalry,—the decisive victory of artillery over shields and lances,—the triumph of modern times over the middle ages. Thus the last exploit of the knights was destined to be in favor of the Reformation; the first effort of these new arms and system of warfare was to be against it. The mailed warriors that fell beneath the unlooked for storm of balls, and lay among the ruins of Landstein, gave way to other soldiers. Other conflicts were about to begin; a spiritual chivalry succeeded to that of the Du Guesclins and Bayards. And those old and ruined battlements, those battered walls, these dying heroes, proclaimed with greater energy than even Luther could have done, that not by such allies or such arms would the Gospel of the Prince of peace obtain the victory. HRSCV3 412.6
The fall of Landstein and of chivalry had blasted all Hutten’s hopes. Standing beside the corpse of Sickingen, he bade farewell to those brighter days which his imagination had conjured up before him, and losing all confidence in man, he sought only for seclusion and repose. In search of these he visited Erasmus in Switzerland. These two men had long been friends; but the unpolished and turbulent knight, braving the opinions of others, ever ready to lay his hand upon the sword, dealing his blows right and left on all whom he met, could scarcely live in harmony with the squeamish and timid Dutchman, with his refined manners, his mild and polished language, his love of approbation, and his readiness to sacrifice everything for its sake, and fearing nothing in the world so much as a dispute. On arriving at Basle, Hutten, poor, sick, and a fugitive, immediately inquired for his old friend. But Erasmus trembled at the thought of receiving at his table a person under the ban of the pope and the emperor, who would spare no one, who would borrow money of him, and would no doubt be dragging after him a crowd of those “Gospellers” whom Erasmus dreaded more and more. He refused to see him, and shortly after, the magistrates of Basle desired Hutten to leave the city. Wounded to the quick, and exasperated against his timid friend, Hutten repaired to Mulhausen, and there published a violent pamphlet against Erasmus, to which the latter replied in a paper overflowing with wit. The knight had grasped his sword with both hands, and aimed a crushing blow at his antagonist; the scholar, adroitly stepping aside, pecked the soldier smartly in return. HRSCV3 413.1
Hutten was again compelled to flee; he reached Zurich, and there met with a generous reception from the noble-hearted Zwingle. But intrigues again compelled him to leave that city; and after passing some time at the baths of Pfeffers, he repaired with a letter from the Swiss reformer to the pastor of John Schnepp, who inhabited the small island of Ufnau in the lake of Zurich. This poor minister entertained the sick and fugitive knight with the most touching charity. It was in this peaceful and obscure retreat that Ulrich Hutten, one of the most remarkable men of the sixteenth century, died obscurely about the end of August 1523, after a most agitated life, expelled by one party, persecuted by another, deserted by nearly all, and having always contended against superstition, but, as it would seem, without having ever possessed the truth. The poor pastor, who had some skill in the healing art, had vainly lavished on him all his cares. With him chivalry expired. He left neither money, nor furniture, nor books;—nothing in the world but a pen. Thus was broken the arm of iron that had presumed to support the ark of God. HRSCV3 413.2