I. The German Reformation

ÆNEAS SYLVIUS PICCOLOMINI (so often quoted by us), formerly an enthusiast in the cause of Church reform, had made peace with the Roman Pope, and, as a reward, had been given the Cardinal’s hat, 1456. A letter was addressed to the newly-created Cardinal by Martin Mayer (a native of Heidelberg and Chancellor to the Archbishop of Mayence, Ditrich von Erbach), in which, among other things, he says:– “There are thousands of ways in which the Roman See robs us of our gold as if we were a nation of barbarians. From this it has come about that our country, once so famed, which by its courage and blood founded the Roman kingdom and was the king and queen of the world, is now sunk in poverty, a servile and tribute-paying land, and, grovelling in the dust, has for long years been bewailing its misery and indigence. Our rulers, however, have at length awakened from their sleep, and have begun to ponder how they can oppose this evil; aye, they have resolved to shake off the yoke and regain their old freedom, and the Roman Curia will suffer not a little if its princes carry out what they have in their minds.”

In refutation of Martin’s charges Æneas Sylvius deemed it necessary to write a book on the condition of Germany, which appeared in 1458, shortly before his election to the Papal throne. “He were indeed wanting in mental gifts,” he sets forth, “who should assert that Germany is poor.” He endeavours to prove this by a reference to the commerce and mining industry which at that time flourished in Germany and brought in great wealth. “If it be true,” he exclaims, “that where there are merchants there is always great wealth, then must it be conceded that the Germans are a very rich people, since the greater part of them thirst after profits in trade and roam through the most distant lands ... And then consider the veins of silver that have been discovered among you. Kuttenberg in Bohemia, Rankberg in Saxony, and Freiberg in Meissen possess inexhaustible silver mines on their dizzy heights.” He then points to the gold and silver mines in the valleys of the Inn, and Enns to the gold washings on the Rhine and in Bohemia; and finally asks:- “Where in your land is there an inn (diversorium) which has not its drinking cups of silver? What woman, not only among the nobility but among the plebeians, does not glitter with gold? Shall I make mention of the neck-chains of the knights and bridles of the horses, embossed with purest gold; of the spurs and scabbards garnished with precious stones; of the finger-rings and shoulder-belts, the armour and helmets, sparkling with gold? And how beautiful are the utensils of the churches? What number of reliquaries do we find encrusted with pearls and gold? how rich the vesture of the altars and priests”

Hence Germany was well able to contribute to the support of the Roman See. But what would happen to the Pontificate if Germany should cease to fulfil her mission? It would become poor and wretched and incapable of performing its high duties, since the small and uncertain revenues of the Papal States were insufficient for its needs. Without wealth it were impossible to be intelligent and highly esteemed. Moreover the laws of all societies (in omni lege) recognised the necessity of a wealthy priesthood.

There could be no greater contradiction between two statements than is here exhibited. It might be said that only one could be true, the other must be false; and yet both are true. Each by itself gives an incomplete picture of Germany’s condition in the second half of the fifteenth century. They are both true precisely because they are in irreconcilable contradiction the great antagonism of the time is, indeed, accurately reflected by the discrepancy between these statements. It was precisely because this antagonism was irreconcilable, that it could be terminated only by the conflict of the two opposing elements, and the triumph of one.

Mayer’s letter and the reply by Æneas Sylvius show us in the clearest light the pivot on which the Reformation turned, freed from the confused heap of theological wranglings concerning predestination, the Holy Communion, &c., with which it was afterwards overlaid by the Church reformers of various parties.

Æneas Sylvius was right Germany in the fifteenth century was flourishing through its mining and trade. He was also right in affirming that the Papal See was chiefly dependent on the revenues it obtained from Germany for the other great civilised nations of Europe had already to a great extent freed themselves from Papal spoliation.

For this reason the Vatican was obliged to exercise all its powers of extortion upon the German nation, and obstinately refuse even the smallest concession. No relief, therefore, from the Papal exactions could be expected. Germany must either suffer submissively, or throw off the Roman yoke completely.

This conviction continued to acquire strength, for Martin Mayer’s statement was also correct. Although the wealth of Germany was undoubtedly increasing, the Papal claims were nevertheless most oppressively burdensome and very obstructive to economic development.

It was a sufficient injury that she had to bear a burden from which the rest of the civilised nations were free. It is true that in France, England, and Spain the population was taxed for the Church, but the most substantial part of the revenues derived from such taxation remained in those countries and benefited the ruling classes. These seized upon all the lucrative benefices for the members of their own order, or for creatures and parasites from other classes. In Germany, on the contrary, many benefices fell to the share of foreigners – tools, not of the German princes, but of the Pope. All the lucrative clerical appointments in Germany were moreover articles of commerce, which the Pope sold to the highest bidder. Enormous sums flowed into Rome year in year out, and were lost to the great extortioners in Germany – its princes and merchants. Moreover, great as the profits from trading and mining might be, and rapid as was the increase of wealth in Germany, the necessity for money and the greed for gold among the ruling classes augmented in like proportion.

In the fifteenth century the production of commodities for the market had already attained remarkable dimensions, while that for home consumption as the exclusive form of production was, even in country places, in the course of rapid decline. Money began to play a great part in economic life. The necessity for it was ever greater on all sides, but chiefly among the upper classes, not only because their mode of life had reached a most extravagant degree of luxury, but also because money alone could satisfy the constantly increasing demands upon them. Money was also required to pay the mercenaries and officials who supported the absolute monarchy, at that time developing itself funds were needed to attract the independent nobles to its Court and induce them to serve its purposes and lastly means were necessary to bribe the tools of its adversaries. All this implied imposts, raking and scraping townsmen and peasants in order to extract from them all that they could yield, the ordinary revenue rarely proving sufficient and it meant moreover incurring debts – debts the interest of which enforced fresh expenditure. In spite of all exactions and all loans, only a few princes were in a satisfactory financial condition, and hence they felt, as did their subjects, upon whom these and other burdens rested, that they were becoming impoverished in spite of Germany’s increasing wealth, and that it was unbearable to look on quietly while the Pope, for no reason whatever, carried off the cream of the profits and left them the skimmed milk. It was nevertheless by no means a very simple matter to rid themselves of papistical demands.

Undoubtedly the mass of the people suffered like the princes, and indeed even more than they; the lower classes, the peasants, the town proletarians and the class immediately above them, together with the burgesses and the lower nobility, groaned under the dominion of Rome. Even before the days of Wycliffe and Huss they had shown themselves disposed, under Louis the Bavarian, to enter upon a struggle against the Papal Church, though they had, perhaps, to endure quite as much under the increasing demands of the higher nobility, the great merchants and princes and with this state of feeling among them, Bohemia was to learn, as England had done, how dangerous it was for the princes to undermine one of the great powers in the community.

The Revolution of 1789 in France brought about a period of reaction in Europe, and cooled the desire of the bourgeoisie for a revolutionary struggle, which could only be carried on with the assistance of small traders and the proletariat, against princely autocracy and the aristocratic landed proprietors. In the same way the Hussite war produced a period of reaction not only in Bohemia but in Germany also, and it required a long time for the idea of casting off the yoke of Rome to gain any influence among the upper classes of the Empire.

Then again there was the alliance between the Emperor and the Pope. The Imperial authority was declining very fast in Germany, and the Emperors were afraid that it would diminish still more rapidly if the other traditional authority of the Empire – the Papal – were shaken or destroyed. Moreover there was the danger from Turkey, which directly threatened the Imperial (i.e. the Hapsburg) possessions, a danger which could apparently be averted only by one of the Pope’s organised Crusades.

If one adds to all this the fatal disruption of Germany, which certainly reduced the power of the Emperor to a minimum, but at the same time made concerted action among the opponents of the Pope and Emperor very difficult, it is comprehensible that the Reformation movement in Germany only became strongly pronounced in the century after the Hussite War.

Meantime development was spreading far and wide in all spheres. The means for a religious and military conflict had greatly improved. The art of printing had been invented and artillery had been made more perfect, while the facilities for commerce, and especially for maritime intercommunication, had considerably increased. Shortly before the Reformation, bold navigators had sailed directly across the Atlantic Ocean, for the first time in the world’s history.

The advance of the Turks and nations of Central Asia was the incentive to these voyages, for these nations barred the old paths of commerce to the East. Thanks to the greater perfection attained by European navigation, this did not lead to any interruption in the trade between Western Asia and Europe, but rather to the search for new ways to India – along the coast of Africa on one side, and across the ocean on the other. The age of discovery had begun modern colonial policy took its rise.

By these means not only was the horizon of mankind vastly widened, and a complete revolution of human knowledge initiated, but an economic change was also inaugurated. The commercial centre of Europe was transferred from the basin of the Mediterranean to the shores of the Atlantic. The economic development of Italy was bound down and hemmed in, while on the contrary that of Western Europe was suddenly accelerated by a powerful impetus. Existing antagonisms, as much between classes as between nations, were brought to a climax, and fresh antagonisms were engendered, till the passions peculiar to the new capitalistic form of exaction were unfettered and exhibited with all the strength and recklessness of the Middle Ages, out of the barbarism of which society had just stepped. All traditional, social, and political relations were overthrown all prevailing codes of morality proved unstable. For a whole century a series of terrible wars raged throughout Europe in which the thirst for gold, the lust of murder, and the madness of despair were rampant. Who has not heard of the Eve of St. Bartholomew? Who does not know the deeds of the heroes of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, of Alva in the Netherlands, and of Cromwell in Ireland? There is no need to mention the abominations of contemporary colonial policy.

This mighty revolution, the greatest which Europe had seen since the migration of nations, found its termination in some measure (except in the case of England) in the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648. It arose from the German Reformation, which agitated the whole of Europe and supplied the catch-words and arguments for the combatants till the middle of the seventeenth century, so that to the superficial observer it might seem that in all these struggles religion was the only object in question: indeed, they are called the Religious Wars.

Taking all this into consideration, it is not surprising that the German Reformation movement was vastly more important in historic significance than the earlier agitations of this kind; that it has come to be known in general as the Reformation and that the Germans, though they halted so long after the other civilised nations of Europe in the revolt against Rome, were regarded as the chosen people of religious freedom, destined to carry it to other countries.