Hitherto we have viewed the age mainly through the personality of
individuals. It remains to consider some of the features of the
Renaissance when it had spread across the Alps--to France, to Spain,
to Switzerland, to Germany, to England--and some of the contrasts that
it presents with the earlier movement in Italy. The story of the
Italian Renaissance has often been told; and we need not go back upon
it here. On the side of the revival of learning it was without doubt
the great age. The importance of its discoveries, the fervour of its
enthusiasm have never been equalled. But though it remains
pre-eminent, the period that followed it has an interest of its own
which is hardly less keen and presents the real issues at stake in a
clearer light. Awakened Italy felt itself the heiress of Rome, and
thus patriotism coloured its enthusiasm for the past. To the rest of
Western Europe this source of inspiration was not open. They were
compelled to examine more closely the aims before them; and thus
attained to a calmer and truer estimate of what they might hope to
gain from the study of the classics. It was not the revival of lost
glories, thoughts of a world held in the bonds of peace: in those
dreams the Transalpines had only the part of the conquered. Rather the
classics led them back to an age before Christianity; and pious souls
though they were, the scholar's instinct told them that they would
find there something to learn. Christianity had fixed men's eyes on
the future, on their own salvation in the life to come; and had
trained all knowledge, even Aristotle, to serve that end. In the great
days of Greece and Rome the world was free from this absorbing
preoccupation; and inquiring spirits were at liberty to find such
truth as they could, not merely the truth that they wished or must.
Another point of difference between Italy and the Transalpines is in
the resistance offered to the Renaissance in the two regions. The
scholastic philosophy and theology was a creation of the North. The
greatest of the Schoolmen found their birth or training in France or
Germany, at the schools of Paris and Cologne; and with the names of
Duns, Hales, Holcot, Occam, Burley and Bradwardine our own islands
stand well to the fore. The situation is thus described by Aldus in a
letter written to the young prince of Carpi in October 1499, to
rejoice over some translations from the Greek just arrived from
Linacre in England: 'Of old it was barbarous learning that came to us
from Britain; it conquered Italy and still holds our castles. But now
they send us learned eloquence; with British aid we shall chase away
barbarity and come by our own again.' The teaching of the Schoolmen
made its way into Italy, but had little vogue; and with the Church,
through such Popes as Nicholas V, on the side of the Renaissance,
resistance almost disappeared. The humanists charging headlong
dissipated their foes in a moment, but were soon carried beyond the
field of battle, to fall into the hands of the forces of reaction.
Across the Alps, on the other hand, the Church and the universities
stood together and looked askance at the new movement, dreading what
it might bring forth. In consequence the ground was only won by slow
and painful efforts, but each advance, as it was made, was secured.
The position may be further illustrated by comparing the first
productions of the press on either side of the Alps: in the early
days, before the export trade had developed, and when books were
produced mainly for the home market. The Germans who brought the art
down into Italy, Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome, Wendelin and Jenson
at Venice, printed scarcely anything that was not classical: Latin
authors and Latin translations from the Greek. Up in the North the
first printers of Germany, Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz, Mentelin at
Strasburg, rarely overstepped the boundaries of the mediaeval world
that was passing away or the modern that was taking its place.
The appearance of the _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_ in 1515 exposed
the scholastic teachers and their allies in the Church to such
widespread ridicule that it is not easy for us now to realize the
position which those dignitaries still held when Erasmus was young.
The stream of contempt poured upon them by the triumphant humanists
obscures the merit of their system as a gigantic and complete engine
of thought. Under its great masters, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas,
Duns Scotus, scholasticism had been rounded into an instrument capable
of comprehending all knowledge and of expressing every refinement of
thought; and, as has been well said, the acute minds that created it,
if only they had extended their inquiries into natural science, might
easily have anticipated by centuries the discoveries of modern
days.[39] In expressing their distinctions the Schoolmen had thrown to
the winds the restraints of classical Latin and the care of elegance;
and with many of them language had degenerated into jargon. But in
their own eyes their position was unassailable. Their philosophy was
founded on Aristotle; and while they were proud of their master, they
were prouder still of the system they had created in his name: and
thus they felt no impulse to look backwards to the past.
[39] Cf. F.G. Stokes, _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, 1909, p.
xvii.
In the matter of language they had been led by a spirit of reaction.
The literature of later classical times had sacrificed matter to form;
and the schools had been dominated by teachers who trained boys to
declaim in elegant periods on any subject whatever, regardless of its
content; thus carrying to an extreme the precepts with which the great
orators had enforced the importance of style. The Schoolmen swung the
pendulum back, letting sound and froth go and thinking only of their
subject-matter, despising the classics. In their turn they were
confronted by the humanists, who reasserted the claims of form.
There was sense in the humanist contention. It is very easy to say the
right thing in the wrong way; in other spheres than diplomacy the
choice of language is important. Words have a history of their own,
and often acquire associations independent of their meaning. Rhythm,
too, and clearness need attention. An unbalanced sentence goes
haltingly and jars; an ambiguous pronoun causes the reader to stumble.
An ill-written book, an ill-worded speech fail of their effects; it is
not merely by sympathy and character that men persuade. But of course
the humanists pushed the matter too far. Pendulums do not reach the
repose of the mean without many tos and fros. Elegance is good, but
the art of reasoning is not to be neglected. Of the length to which
they went Ascham's method of instruction in the _Scholemaster_ (1570)
is a good example. He wished his scholar to translate Cicero into
English, and then from the English to translate back into the actual
words of the Latin. The Ciceronians did not believe that the same
thing could be well said in many ways; rather there was one way which
transcended all others, and that Cicero had attained. Erasmus,
however, was no Ciceronian; and one of the reasons why he won such a
hold upon his own and subsequent generations was that, more than all
his contemporaries, he succeeded in establishing a reasonable accord
between the claims of form and matter in literature.
In their neglect of the classics the Schoolmen had a powerful ally.
For obvious reasons the early and the mediaeval Church felt that much
of classical literature was injurious to the minds of the young, and
in consequence discouraged the use of it in schools. The classics were
allowed to perish, and their place was taken by Christian poets such
as Prudentius or Juvencus, by moralizations of Aesop, patchwork
compositions known as 'centos' on Scriptural themes, and the like. The
scholars, therefore, who went to Italy and came home to the North
carrying the new enthusiasm, had strenuous opposition to encounter.
The Schoolmen considered them impertinent, the Church counted them
immoral. To us who know which way the conflict ended, the savage blows
delivered by the humanists seem mere brutality; they lash their fallen
foes with what appears inhuman ferocity. But the truth is that the
struggle was not finished until well into the sixteenth century. Biel
of Tubingen, 'the last of the Schoolmen', lived till 1495. Between
1501 and 1515 a single printer, Wolff of Basle, produced five massive
volumes of the _Summae_ of mediaeval Doctors. Through the greater
part, therefore, of Erasmus' life the upholders of the old systems and
ideals, firmly entrenched by virtue of possession, succeeded in
maintaining their supremacy in the schools.
Between the two periods of the revival of learning, the Italian and
the Transalpine, a marked line is drawn by the invention of printing,
_c._ 1455: when the one movement had run half its course, the other
scarcely begun. The achievements of the press in the diffusion of
knowledge are often extolled; and some of the resulting good and evil
is not hard to see. But the paramount service rendered to learning by
the printer's art was that it made possible a standard of critical
accuracy which was so much higher than what was known before as to be
almost a new creation. When books were manuscripts, laboriously
written out one at a time, there could be no security of identity
between original and copy; and even when a number of copies were made
from the same original, there was a practical certainty that there
would be no absolute uniformity among them. Mistakes were bound to
occur; not always at the same point, but here in one manuscript, there
in another. Or again, when two unrelated copies of the same book were
brought together, there was an antecedent probability that examination
would reveal differences: so that in general it was impossible to feel
that a fellow-scholar working on the same author was using the same
text.
Even with writers of one's own day uniformity was hardly to be
attained. Not uncommonly, as a mark of attention, an author revised
manuscript copies of his works, which were to be presented to friends;
and besides correcting the copyists' errors, might add or cut out or
alter passages according to his later judgement. Subsequent copies
would doubtless follow his revision, and then the process might be
repeated; with the result that a reader could not tell to what stage
in the evolution of a work the text before him might belong: whether
it represented the earliest form of composition or the final form
reached perhaps many years afterwards. To understand the conditions
under which mediaeval scholars worked, it is of the utmost importance
to realize this state of uncertainty and flux.
Not that in manuscript days there was indifference to accuracy.
Serious scholars and copyists laid great stress upon it. With
insistent fervour they implored one another to be careful, and to
collate what had been copied. But there are limits to human powers.
Collation is a dull business; and unless done with minute attention,
cannot be expected to yield perfect correctness. When a man has copied
a work of any length, it is hard for him to collate it with the
original slowly. Physically, of course, he easily might: but the
spirit is weak, and, weary of the ground already traversed once, urges
him to hurry forward, with the inevitable result.
With a manuscript, too, the possible reward might well seem scarcely
worth the labour; for how could any permanence be ensured for critical
work? A scholar might expend his efforts over a corrupt author, might
compare his own manuscript with others far and near, and at length
arrive at a text really more correct. And yet what hope had he that
his labour was not lost? His manuscript would pass at his death into
other hands and might easily be overlooked and even perish. Like a
child's castle built upon the sand, his work would be overwhelmed by
the rising tide of oblivion. Such conditions are disheartening.
Thus mediaeval standards of accuracy were of necessity low. In default
of good instruments we content ourselves with those we have. To draw a
line straight we use a ruler; but if one is not to be had, the edge of
a book or a table may supply its place. In the last resort we draw
roughly by hand, but with no illusions as to our success. So it was
with the scholar of the Middle Ages. His instruments were imperfect;
and he acquiesced in the best standards he could get: realizing no
doubt their defects, but knowing no better way.
But with printing the position was at once changed. When the type had
been set up, it was possible to strike off a thousand copies of a
book, each of which was identical with all the rest. It became worth
while to spend abundant pains over seeking a good text and correcting
the proofs--though this latter point was not perceived at first--when
there was the assured prospect of such uniformity to follow. One
edition could be distinguished from another by the dates on title-page
and colophon; and work once done was done for all time, if enough
copies of a book were taken off. This necessarily produced a great
change in methods of study. Instead of a single manuscript, in places
perhaps hopelessly entangled, and always at the mercy of another
manuscript of equal or greater authority that might appear from the
blue with different readings, the scholar received a text which
represented a recension of, it may be, several manuscripts, and whose
roughnesses had been smoothed out by the care of editors more or less
competent.
The precious volumes to which modern book-lovers reverently give the
title of 'Editio princeps', had almost as great honour in their own
day, before the credit of priority and antiquity had come to them; for
in them men saw the creation of a series of 'standard texts', norms to
which, until they were superseded, all future work upon the same
ground could be referred. As a result, too, of the improved
correctness of the texts, instead of being satisfied with the general
sense of an author, men were able to base edifices of precise argument
upon the verbal meaning of passages, in some confidence that their
structures would not be overset.
But the new invention was not universally acclaimed. Trithemius with
his conservative mind quickly detected some weaknesses; and in 1492 he
composed a treatise 'In praise of scribes', in vain attempt to arrest
the flowing tide. 'Let no one say, "Why should I trouble to write
books, when they are appearing continually in such numbers? for a
moderate sum one can acquire a large library." What a difference
between the results achieved! A manuscript written on parchment will
last a thousand years: books printed on paper will scarcely live two
hundred. Besides, there will always be something to copy: not
everything can be printed. Even if it could, a true scribe ought not
to give up. His pen can perpetuate good works which otherwise would
soon perish. He must not be amazed by the present abundance that he
sees, but should look forward to the needs of the future. Though we
had thousands of volumes, we must not cease writing; for printed books
are never so good. Indeed they usually pay little heed to ornament and
orthography.' It is noticeable that only in this last point does
Trithemius claim for manuscripts superior accuracy. In the matter of
permanence we may wonder what he would have thought of modern paper.
The first advance, then, rendered possible by the invention of
printing was to more uniform and better texts: the next step forward
was no less important. To scholars content with the general sense of a
work, a translation might be as acceptable as the original. Improved
standards of accuracy led men to perceive that an author must be
studied in his own tongue: in order that no shade of meaning might be
lost. Here again the two periods are easily distinguished. Nicholas V
set his scholars, Poggio and Valla, to translate the Greeks, Herodotus
and Thucydides, Aristotle and Diodorus. The feature of the later epoch
is the number of Greek editions which came out to supplant the
versions in common use. The credit for this advance in critical
scholarship must be given to Aldus for his Greek Aristotle, which
appeared in 1495-9; and he subsequently led the way with numerous
texts of the Greek classics. At the same time he proposed to apply the
same principle to Biblical study. As early as 1499 Grocin in a letter
alludes to Aldus' scheme of printing the whole Bible in the original
'three languages', Hebrew, Greek and Latin; and a specimen was
actually put forth in 1501.
In this matter precedence might seem to lie with the Jewish printers,
who produced the Psalms in Hebrew in 1477, and the Old Testament
complete in 1488; but as the Jews never at any period ceased to read
their Scriptures in Hebrew, there was no question of recovery of an
original. Aldus did not live to carry his scheme out; and it was left
to Ximenes and the band of scholars that he gathered at Alcala, to
produce the first edition of the Bible complete in the original
tongues, the Complutensian Polyglott, containing the Hebrew side by
side with the Septuagint and the Vulgate, and for the Pentateuch a
Syriac paraphrase. The New Testament in this great enterprise was
finished in 1514, and the whole work was ready by 1517, shortly before
Ximenes' death. But as publication was delayed till 1522, the actual
priority rests with Erasmus, whose New Testament in Greek with a Latin
translation by himself appeared, as we have seen, in 1516.
Thus by an accident Germany gained the credit of being the first to
assert this new principle, the importance of studying texts in the
original, in the field where resistance is most resolute and victory
is hardly won. And now it was about to enter upon a still greater
contest. Erasmus' New Testament encountered hostile criticism in many
quarters: conservative theologians made common cause with the friars
in condemning it. But at the very centre of the religion they
professed, the book was blessed by the chief priests. The Pope
accepted the dedication, and bishops wished they could read the Greek.
Far otherwise was it with the impending struggle of the Reformation:
there the cleavage of sides followed very different lines. Into that
wide field we cannot now expatiate; but it is important to notice an
element which the German Renaissance contributed to the Reformation,
and which played a considerable part in both movements--the
accentuation of German national feeling.
At the middle of the fifteenth century Italy enjoyed undisputed
pre-eminence in the world of learning. The sudden splendour into which
the Renaissance had blazed up on Italian soil drew men's eyes thither
more than ever; and to its ancient universities students from the
North swarmed like bees. To graduate in Italy, to hear its famous
doctors, perhaps even to learn from one of the native Greeks brought
over out of the East, became first the ambition, and then the
indispensable requirement of every Northern scholar who could afford
it; and few of Erasmus' friends and colleagues had not at some time or
other made the pilgrimage to Italy. Consequence and success brought
the usual Nemesis. The Italian _hubris_ expressed itself in the
familiar Greek distinction between barbarian and home-born; and the
many nations from beyond the Alps found themselves united in a common
bond which they were not eager to share. We have seen the kind of gibe
with which Agricola's eloquence was greeted at Pavia. The more such
insults are deserved, the more they sting. We may be sure that in many
cases they were not forgotten. Celtis returning from Italy to
Ingolstadt in 1492 delivered his soul in an inaugural oration: 'The
ancient hatred between us can never be dissolved. But for the Alps we
should be eternally at war.' In other countries the feeling, though
less acute, was much the same. Thus in 1517 spoke Stephen Poncher,
bishop of Paris, after his first meeting with Erasmus: 'Italy has no
one to compare with him in literary gifts. In our own day Hermolaus
and Politian have rescued Latin from barbarism; and their services can
never be forgotten. When I was there, too, I met a number of men of
rare ability and learning. But with all respect to the Italians, I
must say that Erasmus eclipses every one, Transalpine and Cisalpine
alike.'
Of the foreign 'nations' at the universities of Italy none was more
numerous than the German, a title which embraced many nationalities of
the North: not merely German-speaking races such as the Swiss and
Flemish and Dutch, but all who could by any stretch of imagination be
represented as descendants of the Goths; Swedes and Danes, Hungarians
and Bohemians, Lithuanians and Bulgars and Poles. That they went in
such numbers is not surprising. The prestige of Italian teaching was
great and well-established, whereas their own universities were few
and scarcely more than nascent; indeed, when the Council of Vienne had
ordained the teaching of Greek and other missionary languages in 1311,
its injunctions went to France and Italy and England and Spain: but
Germany had no university to which a missive could be directed. From
Southern Germany, too, and Switzerland and Austria, the distance was
small, notwithstanding the obvious Alps and the difficulties of the
passes. Even Celtis, in spite of his denunciations, sent on his best
pupils to Italy. So there were many who brought home with them to the
North recollections of lofty condescension and of ill-disguised
contempt for the foreigner: insults that they burned to repay.
Italy might vaunt the glories of ancient Rome; but Germany also had
deeds to be proud of. Rome might have founded the World-empire; but
Charlemagne had conquered the dominions of the Caesars and made the
Empire Germanic. Classic antiquity, too, could not be denied to the
land and people whom Tacitus had described; and Germans were not slow
to claim the virtues found among them by the Roman historian. Arminius
became the national hero. German faith and honour, German simplicity,
German sincerity and candour--these are insisted upon by the
Transalpine humanists with a vehemence which suggests that while
priding themselves on the possession of such qualities, they marked
the lack of them in others. We may recall Ascham's horror of the
Englishman Italianated. Not that Germans could not make friends in
Italy. Scheurl loved his time at Bologna, and was eager to fight for
the Bentivogli against Julius II. Erasmus was made much of by the
Aldine Academy at Venice; and ten years later Hutten was charmed with
his reception there. But with many, conscious of their own defects[40]
and of the reality of Italian superiority, the charge of barbarism
must have rankled. To Luther in 1518 Italian is synonymous with
supercilious.
[40] Thus a worthy abbot in the Inn valley, writing to Erasmus
in 1523, manages to achieve a Latin letter, but apologizes
for only being able to write in German characters.
The rising German feeling expresses itself on all sides in the letters
of the humanists. A young Frieslander, studying at Oxford in 1499,
writes to a fellow-countryman there: 'Your verses have shown me what I
never could have believed, that German talents are no whit inferior to
Italian.' Hutten in 1516 writes of Reuchlin and Erasmus as 'the two
eyes of Germany, whom we must sedulously cherish; for it is through
them that our nation is ceasing to be barbarous'. Beatus Rhenanus, in
editing the poems of Janus Pannonius (d. 1472), says in his preface,
1518: 'Janus and Erasmus, Germans though they are and moderns, give me
as much satisfaction to read as do Politian and Hermolaus, or even
Virgil and Cicero.' Erasmus in 1518 writes to thank a canon of Mainz
who had entertained him at supper. After compliments on his host's
charming manners, his erudition free from superciliousness--if he
could have known Gibbon, he surely must have used those immortal words
of praise, 'a modest and learned ignorance'--and his wit and elegance
of speech, he goes on: 'One might have been listening to a Roman. Now
let the Italians go and taunt Germans with barbarism, if they dare!'
In 1519 a canon of Brixen in Tirol writes to Beatus: 'Would to God
that Germany had more men like you, to make her famous, and stand up
against those Italians, who give themselves such airs about their
learning; though men of credit now think that the helm has been
snatched from their hands by Erasmus.' This is how Zwingli writes in
1521 of an Italian who had attacked Luther and charged him with
ignorance: 'But we must make allowances for Italian conceit. In their
heads is always running the refrain, "Heaven and earth can show none
like to us". They cannot bear to see Germany outstripping them in
learning.' Rarely a different note is heard, evoked by rivalry perhaps
or the desire to encourage. Locher from Freiburg could call Leipzig
barbarous. Erasmus wrote to an Erfurt schoolmaster that he was glad to
see Germany softening under the influence of good learning and putting
off her wild woodland ways. But these are exceptions: towards
insolence from the South an unbroken front was preserved.
In another direction the strong national feeling manifested itself; in
the study of German antiquity and the composition of histories.[41]
Maximilian, dipping his hands in literature, stimulated the
archaeological researches of Peutinger, patronized Trithemius and
Pirckheimer, and even instituted a royal historian, Stabius. Celtis
the versatile projected an elaborate _Germania illustrata_ on the
model of Flavio Biondo's work for Rome; and his description of
Nuremberg was designed to be the first instalment. As he conceived it,
the work was never carried out; but essays of varying importance on
this theme were produced by Cochlaeus, Pirckheimer, Aventinus and
Munster. The most ardent to extol Germany was Wimpfeling of
Schlettstadt, a man of serious temperament, who was prone to rush into
controversy in defence of the causes that he had at heart. His
education had all been got in Germany, and he was proud of his
country. His first effort to increase its praise was to instigate
Trithemius to put together a 'Catalogue of the illustrious men who
adorn Germany with their talents and writings'. The author's preface
(8 Feb. 1491) reveals unmistakably the animosity towards Italy: 'Some
people contemn our country as barren, and maintain that few men of
genius have flourished in it; hoping by disparagement of others to
swell their own praise. With all the resources of their eloquence they
trick out the slender achievements of their own countrymen; but
jealousy blinds them to the great virtues of the Germans, the mighty
deeds and brilliant intellects, the loyalty, enthusiasm and devotion
of this great nation. If they find in the classics any credit given
to us for valour or learning, they quickly hide it up; and in order to
trumpet their own excellences, they omit ours altogether. That is how
Pliny's narrative of the German wars was lost, and how so many
histories of our people have disappeared.'
[41] Cf. A. Horawitz in Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, xxv.
(1871), 66-101; and P. Joachimsen, _Geschichtsauffassung und
Geschichtschreibung in Deutschland unter dem Einfluss des
Humanismus_, pt. 1, 1910.
The book was sent to Wimpfeling, who collected a few more names and
added a preface of his own (17 Sept. 1492) in the same strain. 'People
who think that Germany is still as barbarous as it was in the days of
Caesar should read what Jerome has to say about it. The abundance of
old books in existence shows that Germany had many learned men in the
past; who have left carefully written manuscripts on oratory, poetry,
natural philosophy, theology and all kinds of erudition. All down the
Rhine you will find the walls and roofs of monasteries adorned with
elegant epigrams which testify to German taste of old. To-day there
are Germans who can translate the Greek classics into Latin; and if
their style is not pure Ciceronian, let our detractors remember that
styles change with the times. Mankind is always discontented, and
prefers the old to the modern. I can quite understand that our German
philosophers adapted their style to their audiences and their lofty
subjects. So foreign critics had better let this provocative talk
alone for ever.'
A few years later Wimpfeling edited a fourteenth-century treatise by
Lupold of Bebenburg entitled 'The zeal and fervour of the ancient
German princes towards the Christian religion and the servants of
God'; the intention of which clearly fell in with his desire. In his
preface, addressed to Dalberg, Agricola's patron, he tells a story
which explains a peculiarity occasionally found in mediaeval
manuscripts; of being written in sections by several different hands.
Some years before, the Patriarch of Aquileia was passing through
Spires. To divert the enforced leisure of a halt upon a journey, he
prowled round the libraries of the town; and in one discovered this
treatise of Lupold, which pleased him greatly. As he was to be off
again next morning, there was no time to have it copied, at least by
one hand: so the manuscript was cut up and distributed among a number
of scribes, and in the space of a night the desired copy was ready.
Subsequently Wimpfeling heard of the incident from one of the brethren
in the monastery, and obtained the original manuscript to publish.
When such things could happen, no wonder that some manuscripts are
imperfect and others have disappeared.
Wimpfeling's next endeavour to assert the glories of Germany was
completed in 1502; but did not appear till 1505. It was based upon the
work of a friend, Sebastian Murrho of Colmar (d. 1494). The title,
_Defensio Germaniae_ or _Epithoma Germanorum_, sufficiently explains
its purpose. After a brief account of Germany in Roman times--his hero
being not Arminius, but 'the first German king, Arioviscus, who fought
with Julius Caesar',--and fuller records of the Germanic Emperors
since Charlemagne, Wimpfeling comes to the praise of his own days;
the men of learning, the famous soldiers, the architects who could
build the great tower of Strasburg, the painters, the inventors of
printing and of that terrible engine the bombard. But nearest to his
heart lay a question debated then as now: to whom should rightfully
belong the western part of the Rhine valley, between the river and the
Vosges? It was there that his home lay, Schlettstadt, one of the
fairest cities of the plain. With all the 'zeal and fervour of the
ancient German princes' he sets out to prove that it must be German:
'where are there any traces' he cries 'of the French language? There
are no books in French, no monuments, no letters, no epitaphs, no
deeds or documents. For seven or eight centuries there is nothing but
Latin or German.' The cathedral of Spires, the fine monastery of St.
Fides in his native town, supply him with a further argument: would
the good Dukes of Swabia have lavished so much money, the substance of
their fathers, upon Gallic soil, to pour it out among the French? With
such arguments he convinced himself and others. Almost at the same
time Peutinger put out a little volume of 'Conversations about the
wonderful antiquities of Germany'; supporting Wimpfeling with further
evidence and concluding satisfactorily that French had never ruled
over Germans.
A work of very different calibre which appeared about this time was
the _Germaniae Exegesis_ of Francis Fritz, who Latinized his name into
Irenicus. Wimpfeling was growing grey when he had made his defence of
Germany: the new champion was a young man of 23, who had scarcely
emerged from his degree. The book was published in 1518; printed at
Hagenau by Anshelm at the cost of John Koberger, the great Nuremberg
printer, and fostered by Pirckheimer. In his later years Irenicus
became a Lutheran and displayed some dignity in refusing to sacrifice
his convictions to worldly interests; but at this time he was
enthusiastic and heady, and as a result his work is an uncritical
jumble. 'Puerile and silly' Erasmus called it, when he saw some of the
proof-sheets at Spires in 1518. 'A most unfortunate book', wrote
Beatus Rhenanus in 1525, 'without style and without judgement.' To
Aventinus in 1531 it was 'an impudent compilation from Stabius and
Trithemius, by a poor creature of the most despicable intelligence'.
But even a bad book can be a measure of the time, showing the ideas
current and the catchwords that were thought likely to attract the
reading public. It is much larger than Wimpfeling's Defence, and even
more miscellaneous; ranging over many aspects of Germany ancient and
modern. To us in the present inquiry its interest lies in the
frequency with which the excellence of Germany is asserted against
Italian sneers. The following specimen will illustrate this point, and
also explain Erasmus' epithets. In the chapter on the German language
(ii. 30) Irenicus is throughout engaged in refuting the charge of
German barbarism. 'It may be true', he says, 'that German is not so
much declined as Latin: but complexity does not necessarily bring
refinement. Germany is as rich in dialects as Italy, and to speak
German well merits high praise. Italian may be directly descended from
Latin; but German too has a considerable element of Latin and Greek
words. Guarino and Petrarch have written poetry in their vernaculars,
and so the Italians boast that their language is more suited to
poetry. But more than 1000 years ago Ovid wrote a book of German
poetry[42]; and Trebeta, son of Semiramis, is known to have been the
first person to compose in German.'
[42] Ovid, _Pont._ 4. 13. 19: Getico sermone.
In spite of such stuff, Pirckheimer, who saw the book in manuscript,
was delighted with it. 'You have achieved what many have wished but
few could have carried out. Every German must be obliged to you for
the lustre you have brought to the Fatherland.' After stating that he
had arranged with Koberger for the printing, he points out details
which might be improved: more stress might be laid on the connexion of
the Germans with the Goths, 'which the dregs of the Goths and
Lombards--by which I mean the Italians--try to snatch from us'; and
the universal conquests of the Goths might be more fully treated.
Finally he suggests that before publication the work should be
submitted to Stabius: 'the book deserves learned readers, and I should
wish it to be as perfect as possible.'[43]
[43] The letter is printed in Pirckheimer's _Opera_, 1610, p.
313: but is addressed wrongly, to Beatus Rhenanus.
This brief survey may close with a far more considerable work, the
_Res Germanicae_ of Beatus Rhenanus, published in 1531; from which we
have made some extracts above. The book is sober and serious, and the
subject-matter is handled scientifically; but in his preface Beatus is
careful to point out that German history is as important as Roman,
modern as much worth studying as ancient.
Such was the soil into which fell the seed that Luther went forth to
sow. When Tetzel came marching into German towns, with the Pope's Bull
borne before him on a cushion, and brandishing indulgences for the
living and the dead, when the coins were tinkling in the box, and the
souls, released by contract, were flying off out of purgatory, the
religious sense of thinking men was outraged by this travesty of the
Day of Judgement; but scarcely less were they angered to see the
tinkling coins, honest German money, flying off as rapidly as the
souls, to build palaces for the supercilious Italians. In the great
struggle of the Reformation the main issue was of course religious;
but even its leader could feel added bitterness in the knowledge that
this shocking traffic was ordained from Italy to benefit an Italian
Pope. If the sympathies of educated Germany had not already been
strongly moved in the same direction, it is conceivable that Luther's
intrepid protest might have lacked the support which carried it to
success.