justify himself and those who had taken part in the act but aims at
something more; Luther’s apologia becomes a violent attack; a breach
was to be made in the wall which so far had hindered Protestants from
appropriating the Catholic bishoprics of Germany. “Our intention,”
says Luther quite plainly, “is to establish an example to show how the
bishoprics may be reformed and governed in a Christian manner.”[702]
The opening lines show that the book was intended to inflame and
excite the masses. The jocular tone blatantly contrasts with the
august subject of the episcopate and supplies a good “example” of the
author’s mode of controversy. The work begins: “Martin Luther, Doctor.
We poor heretics have once more committed a great sin against the
hellish, unchristian Church of our most fiendish Father the Pope by
ordaining and consecrating a bishop for the see of Naumburg without
any chrism, without even any butter, lard, fat, grease, incense,
charcoal or any such-like holy things.” Cheerfully indeed did he own,
acknowledge and confess this sin against those, who “have shed our
blood, murdered, hanged, drowned, beheaded, burnt, robbed and driven
us into exile, and inflicted on us every manner of martyrdom, and now,
with Meinz and Heinz, have taken to sacking the land.”
With a couple of Bible passages he bowls over the legal difficulties
arising out of the expulsion of the bishop-elect and the oath of the
Estates: “Thou shalt have none other Gods before me”; “Beware of
false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are
ravening wolves,” etc. We must sweep away the “wolf-bishops whom the
devil ordains and thrusts in.” “Oath and obedience stand untouched,”
for they “could take no [valid] oath to the wolf.”[703] The further
question, “whether it was right to accept consecration or ordination
from such damnable heretics [i.e. as he], was disposed of by saying,
that the Evangel was no heresy, and that though he understood Holy
Scripture but little, yet at any rate he understood it far better—and
also knew better how to consecrate a Christian bishop—than the Pope
and all his men, who one and all were foes of Holy Writ and of the
Word of God.”[704]
This screed stands undoubtedly far below many of Luther’s other
productions. It tends to be diffuse and to harp tediously on the same
ideas. Luther had already overwritten himself, and when engaged on it
was struggling with bad health, the forerunner of his fatal sickness
three years later. His disgust with life spoiled his work.
The “Popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, canons and parsons” he
implores to look rather to the beam in their own eye, to the “simony,
favouritism, sharp practices, agreements, conventions and other
horrible vices” which prevailed at their own consecrations, than
at the mote in the eye of the Lutherans. “You strainers at gnats
and swallowers of camels, wipe yourselves first—you know where I
mean—before coming and telling us to wipe our noses. It is not
fitting that a sow should teach a dove not to eat any unclean grain
of corn while itself it loves nothing better than to feed on the
excreta which the peasants leave behind the hedge. As for the rest you
understand it well enough.”[705] “Let us stop our ears and not listen
to their shouting, barking, bellowing, their complaints and their
abuse,” with which I have “put up for many a year from Dr. Sow [Dr.
Eck], from Witzel, Tölpel, Schmid, from Dr. Dirtyspoon [Cochlaeus],
Tellerlecker, ‘Brünzscherben,’ Heinz and Meinz and whatever else they
may be.... The [Last] Day is approaching for which we hope and which
they must needs fear, however obstinately they may affect to despise
it. Against their defiance we pit ours; at least we may look forward
to The Day with a happy, cheerful conscience. On that day we shall be
their judges, unless indeed there is really no God in heaven or on
earth as the Pope and his followers believe.”[706]
How little Luther really knew of the cunning policy of his sovereign
is plain from his assuring his reader in the same booklet, apparently
in the best of faith, that it was no motive of self-interest that had
led the Elector to intervene in the Naumburg business; “the lands
were to remain the property of the see,” the Elector did not wish “to
subjugate it, to deprive it of its liberty, or alienate it from the
Empire,” etc.[707] He declares that whatever reports Julius Pflug was
spreading to the contrary were a “stinking lie.” Yet the Elector had
ousted the rightful occupant of the see, as he had intended to do all
along, and those who ventured to oppose his commands he was to punish
by sequestration of lands and even by imprisonment.
The Protestant bishop was assigned a miserable pittance of six hundred
Gulden so that Amsdorf, as Luther declared, had been better off at
Magdeburg.[708] Practically nothing was done by the sovereign for the
ordering of the Church. Luther bewailed to Amsdorf: “The negligence of
our government gives me great concern. They so often take rash steps
and, then, when we are down in the mire, snore idly and leave us on the
lurch. I intend, however, to open the ears of Dr. Pontanus [Chancellor
Brück] and of the Prince and give them some plain speaking.”[709]
“How is this?” Luther wrote about this time to Justus Jonas, who, at
Halle, had gone through much the same experience, “We pray against the
Turk, we are the teachers of the people and their intercessors with God
and yet those who wish to be accounted ‘Evangelicals’ rashly excite
the wrath of God by their avarice, their robbing and plundering of the
Church. The people let us go on teaching, praying and suffering while
they heap sin upon sin!”[710]
_Excerpts from Luther’s Letters to the New “Bishop”_
Luther’s correspondence with his friend Amsdorf affords an instructive
psychological insight into the working of his mind. During those last
years of his life he took refuge more and more in a certain fanatical
mysticism. He sought comfort in the thought of his exalted calling
and in a kind of inspiration; yet all he could do availed but little
against his inward gloom.
Amsdorf, the whilom Catholic priest, found little pleasure in his
episcopal status and felt bitterly both his isolation and the contrast
between a pomp that was irksome to him and the real emptiness of
his position; Luther, accordingly, in the letters of consolation he
wrote him, appealed to the Divine inspiration, which had led to his
appointment as bishop. The consecration was surely undertaken at the
express command of God which no man may oppose. “In these Divine
matters,” he writes, “it is far safer to allow oneself to be carried
away than to take any active part; this is what happened in your case,
and yours is a noble and unusual example. We are never in worse case
than when we fancy we are acting with discernment and understanding,
because then self-complacency slinks in; but the blinder we are,
the more God acts through us. He does more than we can think or
understand.” We have here the same principle to which he had been so
fond of appealing in the early days of his career so as to be able
to attribute to God the unforeseen and far-going consequences of his
deeds, and to reassure himself and urge himself on.
“We must never seek to know,” he said to Amsdorf, “what God wills to
accomplish through us.” “The most foolish thing is the wisest.”[711]
“God rules the world by means of fools and children, He will finish
His work [in you] by our means, just as in the Book of Proverbs (xxx.
2), where we are called the greatest fools on earth.”[712]
“It is the counsel of a fool,” so Luther said in his “Exempel” of his
intentions regarding the bishops’ sees, “and I am a fool. But because
it is God’s counsel, therefore it is at least the counsel of a wise
fool.”[713]
This pseudo-mystical bent though usual enough in Luther seems to
have become very much stronger in him at that time. To this his sad
experiences contributed. More than ever convinced, on the one hand,
that everything in the world was of the devil and that “Satan and his
whole kingdom, full of a terrible wrath, were harassing” the Elector,
as he declares in a letter to Amsdorf,[714] he tends, on the other,
to fall back with a fanatical enthusiasm on the Evangel “revealed” to
him. More than one statement which is no mere empty form, shows that
he was really anxious to find consolation in the Divine truths; again
and again he strove to rouse himself to a firm confidence. He is also
more diligent in his peculiar sort of prayer and strongly urges his
friends, notably Amsdorf to whom he frankly imparts his fears and
hopes, to seek for help in prayer. His words are really those of one
who feels in need of assistance.
Amidst the trials of increasing bodily ailments and in other temporal
hardships he knows how to encourage his life’s partner, Catharine
Bora, whose anxiety distressed him: “You want to provide for your
God,” he says to her in one of his letters, “just as though He were
not all-powerful and able to create ten Dr. Martins should your
old one get drowned in the Saale, or smothered in the coal-hole or
elsewhere. Do not worry me with your cares; I have a better caretaker
than even you or all the angels. He lies in the crib and sucks at a
Virgin’s breast, but nevertheless is seated at the right hand of God
the Father Almighty. Hence be at peace, Amen.”[715] “Do you pray,” he
admonishes her not long after, “and leave God to provide, for it is
written: ‘Cast thy care upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee,’ Ps.
lv.”[716]
Such ready words of encouragement do not however prevent him,
when dealing with other more stout-hearted friends who were aware
of the precarious state of the cause, from giving full voice to
the depression, nay despair, which overwhelmed him. The following
example from his correspondence with the “bishop” of Naumburg is
characteristic.
After an attempt to parry the charge brought against him of being
responsible for the public misfortunes which had arisen through the
religious revolt, and to reassure Amsdorf, and incidentally himself
too, he goes on gloomily to predict the coming chastisement: “Were we
the cause of all the evils that have befallen us [and others], how
much blood should we have already shed!... It is, however, Christ’s
business to see to this, since He Himself by His Word has called
forth so much evil and such great hatred on the part of the devil.
All this, so they fancy, is a scandal and a disgrace to our teaching!
Nevertheless ingratitude for God’s proffered grace is so great, the
contempt for the Word goes such lengths, vice, avarice, usury, luxury,
hatred, perfidy, envy, pride, godlessness and blasphemy are increasing
by such leaps and bounds that it is hard to believe God can much
longer deal indulgently and patiently with Germany. Either the Turk
will chastise us [‘while we brood full of hate over the wounds of our
brethren’] or some inner misfortune [civil war] will break over us.
It is true we feel the chastisement, we pay the penalty in grief and
tears, but yet we remain sunk in terrible sins whereby we grieve the
Holy Ghost and rouse the anger of God against us.”
What faithful Catholics feared for him owing to his obstinacy, this,
in his sad blindness, he now predicts for the foes of his Evangel.
“Who can wonder,” he cries, “should God, as Holy Scripture says,
laugh at our destruction in spite of the weeping and sighing of the
guilty.... The worst end awaits the impenitent.”
“Let none of us expect the least good of the future. Our sins cry
aloud to heaven and on earth and there is no hope of any good. Now,
in a time of peace, Germany affords the eye a terrible spectacle,
seeing that God’s honour is outraged everywhere by so many wicked men
and that the churches and schools are being destroyed.... Meanwhile,
we at least [the despised preachers of the truth] will bewail our own
sins and those of Germany; we will pray and humble our souls, devote
ourselves to our office, teaching, exhorting and consoling. What
else can we do? Germany has become blind and deaf and rises up in
insolence; we cannot hope against hope.”
“But do you be brave and give thanks to the Lord for the holy calling
He has deigned to bestow upon us; He has willed to sunder us from
these reprobates, who are bent on ruining others too, to preserve us
clean and blameless in His pure and holy Word, and will continue so
to preserve us. Let us, however, weep for the foes of the cross of
Christ, even though they mock at our tears. Though we be filled with
grief on account of their misery still our grief will be assuaged by
the holy joy which will attend the again-rising of the Lord on the day
of our salvation, Amen.”
He concludes this curious letter, written on Easter Sunday, with
the following benediction: “May the Lord be with you to support and
comfort you together with us. Outside of Christ, in the kingdom of the
raging devil, there is nothing but sadness to be seen or heard.” Thus,
at the close, he returns to the opening thought suggested by the very
object of the letter. Amsdorf had deplored the warlike acts undertaken
by Duke Maurice of Saxony against the Elector. Luther, in turn, had
informed him, that “here, we are quite certain that what the Duke is
doing is the direct work of Satan.”[717]
5. Some Further Deeds of Violence. Fate of Ecclesiastical Works of Art
_End of the Bishopric of Meissen_
The Elector of Saxony, after having been so successful in seizing the
bishopric of Naumburg, sought to obtain control of that of Meissen also.
Here, however, there was another Protestant claimant in the field in
the person of the young Duke Maurice of Saxony, successor of the late
Duke Henry. As for the chartered rights, temporal and spiritual, of
the bishop of Meissen they were simply ignored. The Elector, by a
breach of the peace, sent a military force on March 22, 1542, to occupy
the important town of Wurzen, where there was a collegiate Chapter
depending on Meissen. The Chapter was “reformed” by compulsion, the
prebendaries who were faithful to the Church being threatened with
deposition and corporal penalties, and many sacred objects being flung
out of their church. When eventually war threatened to break out
between the two branches of the house of Saxony, Landgrave Philip of
Hesse stepped in as mediator in the interests of the new Evangel. He
twice sent express messengers to summon Luther to intervene. But, even
before this, the latter, horrified at the prospect of the “dreadful
disgrace” which civil war between two Evangelical princes would bring
upon the Evangel, had addressed a long and earnest letter of admonition
to both combatants: It was the devil who was seeking to kindle a great
fire from such a spark; both sides should have recourse to law instead
of falling upon each other over so insignificant a matter, like tipsy
yokels fighting in a tap-room over a broken glass; if they refused to
do this, he would take the part of the one who first suffered acts of
violence at the hands of the other and would free all the latter’s
followers from their duty and oath of obedience in the war.[718] The
writing, which was intended for publication and to be forwarded “to
both armies,” was only half-printed when the Landgrave intervened. The
author withdrew it in order to be able to take up a different attitude
in the struggle and to proceed at once to denounce Maurice.
Luther it is true admitted to Brück, the electoral chancellor, that
certain people at Wittenberg did not consider the Elector’s claims
at all well-founded.[719] At the Landgrave’s instigation he also
addressed a friendly request to the Elector, “not to be too hard and
stiff”; of the temporal rights of the case he was ignorant; seeing,
however, that there was a dispute the question could not be clear; at
any rate Duke Maurice was acting wrongfully in “pressing his rights by
so bloodthirsty an undertaking. At times there may be a good reason
for pulling one’s foot out of the tracks of a mad dog or for burning a
couple of tapers at the devil’s altar.”[720] But on the whole he took
the part of his Elector against Maurice, who, even before this, had
appeared to him lax and wavering in his support of the new faith. In
his history of Maurice of Saxony, G. Voigt gives as his opinion that:
“In this matter Luther neither showed himself unbiased nor did he act
uprightly and honourably.”[721]
To Amsdorf, who had helped to fan the flame of mutual hate, Luther
speaks of Duke Maurice as “a proud and furious young fellow, in whom
we undoubtedly see the direct work of Satan”; it is not he (Luther)
or Amsdorf who have to reproach themselves with the conflagration; he
is to be quite at rest on this score. Rather, it is Christ Who—by
His Word—has given rise to the mischief and to all the hatred of the
demons against us. His Word alone is to blame, not we, that so many
confessors of our faith have been slain, drowned and burnt. “In vain
do they impute to us the bloody deeds which have taken place owing to
Münzer, Carlstadt, Zwingli and the [Anabaptist] King of Münster.”
“At first Maurice was not regarded by Luther, Melanchthon and most
of their contemporaries as of such importance, whether for good or
for evil, as he soon after showed himself to be; they fancied him far
more dependent on his nobles and councillors than he really was.”[722]
Luther thought he detected the evil influence of the councillors
in the twin businesses of Wurzen and Meissen. In his reply to the
Landgrave concerning the attempt to bring the matter to a peaceful
issue, without having as yet examined the cause, he speaks of Duke
Maurice as a “stupid bloodhound.”[723] To his own Court he wrote,
on April 12, as though the Duke were without question in the wrong:
“May God strengthen, console and preserve my most Gracious Lord and
you all in His Grace and in a good conscience, and bring down on the
heads of the hypocritical bloodhound of Meissen what Cain and Absalom,
Judas and Herodes deserved. Amen and again Amen, to the glory of His
name Whom Duke Maurice is outraging to the utmost by this abominable
scandal, and singing meanwhile so blasphemous a hymn of praise to the
devil and all the foes of God.”[724]
In the meantime, owing to Philip’s exertions, a compromise was effected
between the two parties ready for the fray; by this it was agreed that
each should have a free hand in one of the two portions of the diocese,
the Elector retaining Wurzen; as for the defenceless bishop of Meissen,
who was not even informed of this, he had simply to bow to his fate.
Maurice, however, was so greatly angered that he soon after abandoned
the League of Schmalkalden and began to make advances to the Emperor.
After the conclusion of peace “the Elector had all the images in the
chief church of Wurzen destroyed, except those which were overlaid
with gold or which represented ‘serious events,’ and the rest buried
in the vaults.” The new teaching was then introduced throughout the
diocese.[725] Maurice on his part carried off from the cathedral of
Meissen, which had fallen to his share, all the gold and silver vessels
richly studded with jewels and precious stones and all the treasures
of art. He was taking them, he said, under his protection “because the
times were so full of risk and danger.” After he had taken them into
his “care” all trace of them disappeared for all time.
_Destruction of Church Property_
The fate of the treasures of Meissen Cathedral resembles that which
befell the riches of many churches at that time.
We are still in possession of the inventory made by Blasius Kneusel of
Meissen which gives us a glimpse of the wealth and magnificence of the
treasures of mediæval German art and industry which perished in this
way.
The list contains the following entries among others: “One gold cross
valued by Duke George at 1300 florins; in it there is a diamond valued
at 16,000 florins, besides other precious stones and pearls with which
the cross is covered.” “A second gold cross, worth 6000 florins. A
third is worth 1000 florins, besides the precious stones and pearls
of which the cross is full. I value the gold table and the credence
table, without the precious stones, at 1000 florins in gold. The
large bust of St. Benno weighs 36-1/2 lbs.; it is set with valuable
stones; it was made by order of the church and all the congregation
contributed towards it. The small cross with the medallions of the
Virgin Mary and St. John weighs about 50 lbs.”
The number of these treasures of art which fell a prey to the
plunderer amounted to fifty-one.[726]
Two years later Luther wrote to Duke Ernest of Saxony to seek help
on behalf of two fallen monks then studying theology at Wittenberg:
in order to support men who “may eventually prove very useful” “the
chalices and monstrances might well be melted down.”[727]
The ruthless handling of the Black Monastery at Wittenberg, which
had been bestowed on Luther after the dissolution of the Augustinian
community, was to set a bad example. The fittings of the church there
were scattered and the mediæval images and vestments which, though
perhaps only of small material value, would yet be carefully treasured
by any museum to-day, were calmly devoted by Luther to destruction.
“Now at last,” he says, “I have sold the best of the pictures that
still remained, but did not get much for them, fifty florins at the
most, and with this I have clothed, fed and provided for the nuns and
the monks—the thieves and rascals.” He had already remarked that the
best of the “church ornaments and vessels” had gone; at the “beginning
of the Evangel everything had been laid waste” and “even to this very
day they do not cease from carrying off ... each man whatever he can
lay hands on.”[728]
No one can adequately describe the material damage which the Catholic
parsonages and benefices, convents and bishoprics had to suffer on
their suppression. A simple list of the spoliations from the hundreds
of cases on record, would give us a shocking picture of the temporal
consequences involved in the ecclesiastical upheaval. Apart from
the injustice of thus robbing the churches and, incidentally, the
numberless poor who looked to the Church for help, it was regrettable
that there was no other institution ready to take the place of the
olden Church, and assume possession of the properties which fell
vacant. The Catholic Church was a firmly knit and well-established
community, capable of possessing property. The new Churches on the
contrary did not constitute an independent and united body; the
universal priesthood, the invisibility of the Church of Christ and its
utter want of independence were ideas altogether at variance with the
legal conception of ownership upon which, in the topsyturvydom of that
age of transition it was more than ever necessary to insist.
Hence the secular element had necessarily to assume the guardianship
of the property. But of the secular authorities, which was to take
control? For these authorities, which all were looking forward
expectantly to their share of the church property heaped up by their
Catholic ancestors, were not one but many: There was the sovereign with
his Court, the civil administration, the towns with their councils,
not to speak of other local claimants; to make the confusion worse
there were the church patrons, the trustees of monasteries, the
founders of institutions, and their heirs, and also those endowed with
certain privileges under letters patent. Moreover, the leaders of
the religious innovations insisted that the property acquired was to
be devoted to the support of the preachers, the schools and the poor.
Hence to the above already lengthy list of claimants must be added
the preachers, or the consistories representing them, likewise the
administrators of the relief funds, the governors of the schools, and
the senates of the universities which had to furnish the preachers.
The war-council of the town of Strasburg, in 1538, addressed a
letter to Luther concerning their prospects or intention of securing
a share of the church property there. On Nov. 20 of that year he
replied, peremptorily telling them to do nothing of the sort; under
the conditions then prevailing they must “_de facto_ stand still.”
Yet no less plain was his hint to them to warn Catholic owners “who
hold church property but pay no heed to the cure of souls,” to amend
and to accept the new Evangel; if they “wished to go,” i.e. preferred
banishment, so much the better, otherwise they must once for all by
some means be “at last brought to see that further persistence in their
wantonness” was out of question.[729]
* * * * *
To add to the general chaos in many places the powerful nobles, as
Luther frequently laments, without a shadow of a right, set violent
hands on the tempting possessions, and, by entering into possession,
frustrated all other claims.
The leading theologians of Wittenberg gradually gave up in despair
their attempts to interfere, and contented themselves with exhortations
to which nobody paid much heed.
They saw how the lion’s share fell to the strongest, i.e. to the
Elector, and how everywhere the State took the pennies of the devout
and the poor, using them for purposes of its own, which often enough
had nothing whatever to do with the Church.
Nowhere do we find any evidence to show that the theologians made
use of the authority on which on other occasions they laid so much
stress, or made any serious attempt to check arbitrary action and to
point out the way to a just distribution, or to lay down some clear
and general rules in accordance with which the graduated claims of the
different competitors might have been settled. They might at least
have associated themselves with the lawyers in the Privy Council and
formulated some rule whereby the rights of the State, of the towns
and of the church patrons could have been protected against the worst
attacks of the plunderers. But no check of this sort was imposed by the
theologians on the prevailing avarice and greed of gain. It is plain
that they despaired of the result, and, possibly, silence may not have
been the worst policy. No one can be blind to the huge difficulties
which attended interference, but who was after all to blame for these
and so many other difficulties which had arisen in public order, and
which could be solved only by the use of force?
When an exceptionally conscientious town-council sent a messenger to
Luther in 1544 to ask for advice and instructions how to deal with the
property of two monasteries which had been suppressed, the “honourable,
prudent and beloved masters and friends” received from him only a short
and evasive answer: “We theologians have nothing to do with this ...
such things must be decided by the lawyers ... our theology teaches
us to obey the worldly law, to protect the pious and to punish the
wicked.”[730]
If, however, the lawyers were to follow the jurisprudence in which they
had been trained, then they could but insist upon the property being
restored to its rightful owners, who had never ceased to claim it for
the Church, and had even appealed to the imperial authority. Luther’s
reply constituted a formal retreat from the domain of moral questions,
questions indeed which had become burning largely through the action
of his theologians. It was an admission that their theology was of no
avail to solve an eminently practical question of ethics coming well
within its purview which was the safeguarding of the moral law, and for
which, indeed, this theology was itself responsible. In this, however,
as in so many other instances, they sowed the wind, but when the
whirlwind came they ran for shelter to their theological cell.[731]
Still, the question of church property caused Luther so much
heart-burning in his old age that his death was hastened thereby.
The lamentations wrung from him in 1538, his description of himself as
“tormented” and the “unhappiest of all unhappy mortals,”[732] were due
in no small measure to the rapacity he had seen in connection with the
church lands. The bulwarks he strove to erect against this disorder
were constantly being torn down afresh by the unevangelical disposition
of the Evangelicals, and yet he refused to admit, even to himself,
that he had been the first to open the way to such arbitrary action.
As in his own house he had set an example of destruction of church
property, so in his turn he met with bitter experiences even in his own
dwelling and in the case of his own private concerns. His tenure of the
Black Monastery at Wittenberg was uncertain, and, as already stated,
hostile lawyers at Court even questioned his right to dispose of his
possessions by Will on the ground that his marriage was null in law,
whether canon or civil. The Monastery had been given him by the Prince,
and Luther and Catherine Bora used it both as their residence and as a
boarding-house for lodgers. It had not, however, been given to Luther’s
family, and from this the difficulty arose. He was most careful to
note down in his account books the things that were to be Katey’s
inalienable property on his death, but, when he was no more, Katey and
her children had in their turn to make acquaintance with the poverty
and vicissitudes endured by so many churchmen whose means of livelihood
had been filched from them.
_Luther and the Images_
Can the charge be brought against Luther’s teaching of being in
part responsible for the outbreaks of iconoclastic violence which
accompanied the spread of the Reformation in Germany? Did his writings
contribute to the destruction of those countless, admirable and often
costly creations of art and piety which fell a prey to the blind fury
of the zealot, or to greed of gain?
Assuredly he would, had he seen them, have disapproved of many of the
acts of vandalism which history tells us were perpetrated against
Catholic churches, monasteries and institutions. Generally speaking
the ideas of Carlstadt and Zwingli, wherever they gained the upper
hand, proved far more destructive to ecclesiastical works of art
than Luther’s gentler admonitions against the veneration of images.
Nevertheless, his exhortations, though more guarded, made their way
among both the mighty and the masses, and were productive of much harm.
He himself declared frankly, about the end of 1524, that “by his
writings he had done more harm to the images than Carlstadt with all
his storming and fanaticism will ever do.”[733] In the course of
the next year he boasted of having “brought contempt” on the images
even before Carlstadt’s time. He had repudiated the latter’s acts of
violence and his ill-judged appeal to the law of Moses;[734] on the
other hand, he had undermined the very foundations of image-worship by
his Evangelical doctrines; this was a better kind of “storming,” for in
this way those who once had bowed to images now “refused to have any
made.” As much as the most fanatical of the iconoclasts, he too wished
to see the images “torn out of men’s hearts, despised and abolished,”
but he “destroyed them [the images] outwardly and also inwardly,”[735]
and so went one better than Carlstadt, who attacked them only from the
outside.
He had, so he continues, speaking to the German people, “consented”
that the images should be “done away with outwardly so long as this
took place without fanaticism and violence, and by the hand of the
proper authorities.”[736] “We drive them out of men’s hearts until the
time comes for them to be torn down by the hands of those whose duty it
is to do this.”[737] Meanwhile, however, it was “every man’s duty” to
“destroy them by the Evangel,” “especially the images of God and other
idolatrous ones.”[738]
In his Church-sermons he makes his own the complaint, that, though
these images which attracted a great “concourse of people” should be
“overthrown,” the bishops were actually attaching indulgences to them
and thus increasing the disorder.[739]
In his sermons against Carlstadt at Wittenberg he had said things, and
afterwards disseminated them in print, little calculated to impose
restraint on the zeal of the multitude: “It were better we had none
of these images on account of the tiresome and execrable abuse and
unbelief.”[740]
The iconoclasts at Wittenberg were anxious, he says, to set about
hewing down the images. His reply was: “Not yet! For you will not
eradicate the images in this way, indeed you will only establish them
more firmly than ever.”[741]
Accordingly it was then his own opinion that they should be “abolished”
and “overthrown,” particularly such images as were held in peculiar
veneration; in 1528 he again admitted that this was his object, when
once more proposing his own less noisy and more cautious policy as the
more effectual; in his sermons on the Ten Commandments printed at this
time he declared that the way to “hew down and stamp out the images was
to tear and turn men’s hearts away from them.”[742] Then the “images
would tumble down of their own accord and fall into disrepute; for they
[the faithful] will say: If it is not a good work to make images, then
it is the devil who makes them and the pictures. In future I shall keep
my money in my pocket or lay it out to better advantage.”[743]—“The
iconoclasts rush in and tear down the images outwardly. To this I do
not object so much. But then they go on to say that it must be so, and
that it is well pleasing to God”; this, however, is false; it is a
mistake to say that such a Divine command exists to tear them down.[744]
The grounds on which he opposed the old-time use of images were the
following: By erecting them people sought to gain merit in God’s sight
and to perform good works; they also trusted in images and in the
Saints instead of in Christ, Who is our only ground for confidence;
finally—a reason alleged by him but seldom—people adored the
images and thus became guilty of idolatry. Here it is plain how much
his peculiar theology on good works and the worship of the saints
contribute to his condemnation of the ancient Catholic practice. In his
zeal against the existing abuses he overlooks the fact, that to invoke
before their images the Saints’ intercession with Christ was not in
the least opposed to belief in Christ as the one mediator. As for the
charge of adoring the images to which he resorts exceptionally—more
with the object of making an impression and shielding himself—it
amounted to an act of injustice against all his forefathers to accuse
them of having been so grossly stupid as to confuse the images with the
divinity; even he himself had elsewhere sufficiently absolved them of
the charge of adoring saints, let alone images.[745]
The real cause of this premature attack on images found in these
sermons was the storm called forth by Carlstadt, which Luther hoped
to divert and dominate[746] by the attitude he assumed; otherwise it
is very likely he would have refrained from assailing the religious
feelings of the people in so sensitive a spot for many years to come,
or at any rate would not have done so in the manner he chose by way of
reply to Carlstadt.
Nor assuredly would he have gone so far had he himself ever vividly
realised the profoundly religious and morally stimulating character of
the veneration of images, and its sympathetic and consoling side as
exemplified at many of the regular places of pilgrimage at that time.
Owing to the circumstances of his early years he had never enjoyed the
opportunity of tasting the refreshment and the blessings to be found in
those sacred resorts visited by thousands of the devout, where those
suffering from any ill of soul or body were wont to seek solace from
the cares and trials of life. Indeed it was particularly against such
images as were the object of special devotion and to which the people
“flocked” with a “false confidence” that his anger was directed.
His animosity to image-worship would also appear to have been
psychologically bound up with two tendencies of his: first, with the
desire to attack the hated Church of the Papists at those very spots
where her influence with the people was most apparent; secondly, with
his plan to bring everything down to a dead level, which led him on the
specious pretext of serving the religion of the spirit to abolish, or
to curtail, the most popular and cheering phenomena of outward worship.
It is a reprehensible thing, he says, even in his sermons against
Carlstadt, to have an image set up in the church, because the believer
fancies “he is doing God a service thereby and pleasing Him, and has
thus performed a good work and gained merit in God’s sight, which
is sheer idolatry.” In their zeal for their damnable good works
the princes, bishops and big ones of the earth had “caused many
costly images of silver and gold to be set up in the churches and
cathedrals.” These were not indeed to be pulled down by force since
many at least made a good use of them; but it was to be made clear
to the people that if “they were not doing any service to God, or
pleasing Him thereby,” then they would soon “tumble down of their own
accord.”[747]
It was a mistake, so he declared in 1528 concerning the grounds of
his verdict against the images, to “invoke them specially, as though
I sought to give great honour or do a great service to God with the
images, as has been the case hitherto.” The “trust” placed in the
images has cost us the loss of our souls; the Christians whom he had
instructed were now opposed to this “trust” and to the opinion “that
they were thereby doing a special service to God.”[748] Amongst them
memorial images might be permitted, i.e. such as “simply represent,
as in a glass, past events and things” but “are not made into objects
of devotion, trust or worship.”[749]—It is dreadful to make them a
pretext for “idolatry” and to place our trust in anything but God.
“Such images ought to be destroyed, just as we have already pulled
down many images of the Saints; it were also to be wished,” he adds
ironically, “that we had more such images of silver, for then we
should know how to make a right Christian use of them.”[750]—“I
will not pay court to such idols; the worship and adoration must
cease.”[751] Whoever “with his whole heart has learnt to keep” the
First Commandment would readily despise “all the idols of silver and
gold.”[752]—Yet of the “adoration” of the images he had said in a
letter of 1522 to Count Ludwig von Stolberg, that the motive of his
opposition was not so much fear of adoration, because adoration of the
Saints—so he hints—might well occur without any images; what urged
him on was, on the contrary, the false confidence and the opinion of
the Catholics that “they were thereby doing a good work and a service
to God.”[753]
We have just quoted Luther’s reservation, viz. that he was willing to
tolerate the use of images which “simply represent, as in a glass,
past events and things.” Statements of this sort occur frequently
in his writings. They go hand in hand with a radical insistence on
inward disdain for image-worship, and a tendency to demand its entire
suppression in the churches. It was on these lines that the Elector
of Saxony acted when ordering the destruction of the images in the
principal church of Wurzen (above, p. 202); images which represented
“serious events” and those overlaid with gold were not to be hewn to
pieces.
In the book “Against the Heavenly Prophets” Luther, in the same
sense, writes: “Images used as a memorial or for a symbol, like
the image of the Emperor” on the coins, were not objectionable;
even in conversation images were employed by way of illustration;
“memorial pictures or those which bear testimony to the faith,
such as crucifixes and the images of the Saints,” are honest and
praiseworthy, but the images venerated at places of pilgrimage are
“utterly idolatrous and mere shelters of the devil.”[754] And in the
“Vom Abendmal Christi Bekentnis” (1528) he says: “Images, bells, mass
vestments, church ornaments, altars, lights and such like I leave
optional; whoever wishes may discard them, although pictures from
Scripture and representations of sacred subjects I consider very
useful, though I leave each one free to do as he pleases; for with the
iconoclasts I do not hold.”[755]
In one passage of his Church-postils he entirely approves the use of
the crucifix; we ought to contemplate the cross as the Israelites
looked upon the serpent raised on high by Moses; we should “see Christ
in such an image and believe in Him.”[756] “If it be no sin,” he says
elsewhere, “to have Christ in my heart, why should it be a sin to have
it [His image] before my eyes?”[757]
But Catholics were saying much the same thing in defence of the
veneration of images, though to this Luther paid no attention: If
it be no sin to have in our hearts the saints who are Christ’s own
friends or Mary who is His Mother, how then should it be sinful to
have their images before our eyes and to honour them?
As years went by Luther became more and more liberal in recommending
the use of historical and, in particular, biblical representations.
In 1545, when he published his Passional with his little manual of
prayers, he said in the preface, alluding to the woodcuts contained in
the book: Such pictures ought to be in the hands of Christians, more
particularly of children and of the simple, who can “better be moved
by pictures and figures”; there was no harm “in painting such stories
in rooms and apartments, together with the texts”; he was in favour
of the “principal stories of the whole Bible” being pictorially
shown, though he was opposed to all “abuse of and false confidence in”
images.[758]
Such kindlier expressions did not, however, do full justice to the
veneration of images as practised throughout the olden Church, nor did
they counteract what he had said of the idols of silver and gold, of
the uselessness and harmfulness of bestowing money on sacred pictures
and religious works of art to be exposed for the devotion of the
people. All was drowned in his incitement to “destroy,” “break in
pieces,” “pull down” and “fall upon” the images, first by means of the
Evangel, and, then through the action of the authorities. It is plain
what fate was in store particularly for those religious works of art
which served as symbols of, or to extol, those dogmas and institutions
peculiarly odious to him, for instance, the sacrifice of the Mass,
around which centred the ornaments of the altar, the fittings of the
choir, and, more or less, all the decorations of the church. As for the
sacred vessels, often of the most costly character, and all else that
pertained to the dispensing of the sacraments, their destruction had
already been decreed.
_Further details regarding the Fate of the Works of Art and of Art
itself_
The account already given above of the squandering and destruction of
ecclesiastical works of art, in particular of the valuable images of
the Saints in the towns of Meissen and Wurzen,[759] may be supplemented
by the reports from Erfurt of the damage done there at the coming
of the religious innovations; we must also bear in mind, that the
suppression of Catholic worship in this town which looms so large in
Luther’s life, took place under his particular influence and with the
co-operation of preachers receiving their instructions from Wittenberg.
Before the lawless peasants entered the town on April 28, 1525, the
Council had already “taken into safe custody” the treasures of the
churches and monasteries; chalices and other vessels of precious metal
were on this occasion carried away in “tubs and trogs,” and eventually
the public funds were enriched with the profit derived from their
sale.[760]
Amongst the objects taken, were: a silver censer in the shape of a
small boat, the silver caskets containing the heads of Saints Severus,
Vincentia and Innocentia, the silver reliquary with the bones of SS.
Eobanus and Adolarius in which they were carried in solemn procession
every seven years. This art-treasure which belonged to St. Mary’s,
was, not long after, melted down by the town-council when pressed for
money, “and cast into bars which were taken to the mint at Weimar.” The
silver pennies minted from them were later on called coffin pennies.
Other valuables which the Council had taken in charge were put up
for auction secretly, without their owners learning anything of the
matter. “The prebendaries were well-justified in urging,” writes the
Protestant historian who has collected these data, “as against these
high-handed proceedings that the Council should first have laid hands
on the valuables belonging to the burghers, or at the very least
have summoned the rightful owners to be present at the sale of their
property, in order that they might make a note of the prices obtained
and thus be able to claim compensation later. The Council suffered a
moral set-back, while at the same time reaping no appreciable material
advantage.”[761]
Not only the Council but the peasants too, led by the Lutheran
preachers, were greatly to blame for the destruction of art treasures
wrought at Erfurt in that same year. When, in order to put an end to
the rule over the town of the Elector, Albert of Brandenburg, they
stormed the so-called Mainzer Hof at Erfurt, “all the jewels, gold,
silver and valuable household stuff were carried off.” Shortly after
“the peasants, thanks to their sharpness, managed to unearth a pastoral
staff in silver, worth 300 florins [in the then currency], which had
been concealed in the privy attached to the room of the master cook
to save it from the greed of the robbers.”[762] At the Mainzer Hof
they removed all monumental tablets, pictures and statues as well
as the elaborate coats of arms bearing witness to the Archbishop’s
sovereignty. A stone effigy of St. Martin which stood in front of the
Rathaus and the ancient symbols of the sovereignty of Mayence were
pulled down and smashed to bits. In place of these they scrawled on
the new stone edifice which had been erected there another coat of
arms in chalk and charcoal, having a plough, coulter and hoe in the
shield and in the field a horse-shoe. “During all this Adolarius
Huttner [with Eberlin of Günzburg, the apostate Franciscan] and other
Lutheran preachers were going to and fro amongst them.” The whole row
of priests’ houses standing alongside the torrent was searched and the
valuables plundered.[763]
“The people of Erfurt did almost as much damage as the peasants.”[764]
As a matter of fact the citizens frequently outdid the agricultural
population in this work of destruction. The chronicles of the times
relate, that they broke down the walls of the vaults of the two
collegiate churches in hopes of finding hidden treasure behind them,
and, then, in their disappointment, sacrilegiously tore open the
tabernacles, threw the holy oils to the dogs and treated the things in
the churches in such a manner as is “heartrending beyond description.”
The mob destroyed not merely the books and parchments in which their
obligations were recorded, but a number of others of importance for
literature and learning were also wantonly spoiled.
From another contemporary source we have the following on the
destruction of the old writings: “And besides all this on St. Walpurgis
Day in the Lauwengasse the peasants and those who were with them tore
up more than two waggonloads of books, and threw them out of the houses
into the street. These the burgher folk carried home in large baskets.
While gathering up the torn books as best they could, putting them into
baskets and binding them with ropes as one does straw, a whirlwind
sprang up and lifted the torn books, letters and papers high into the
air and over all the houses, so that many of them were afterwards found
sticking to the poles in the vineyards.”[765]
* * * * *
In very many instances, particularly during the Peasant War, the
destruction and scattering of ecclesiastical works of art went much
beyond Luther’s injunctions. We shall hear him protest, that many
were good Evangelicals only so long as there were still chalices,
monstrances and monkish vessels to be had.[766] It was naturally a
very difficult task to check the greed of gain and wanton love of
destruction once this had broken loose, particularly after the civil
authorities had tasted the sweets to be derived from the change of
religion, and after the peasants in the intoxication of their newly
found freedom of the Gospel, and in their lust for plunder, had begun
to lay violent hands on property.
It was in accordance with Luther’s express injunctions that the “proper
authorities” proceeded to destroy such images as were not a record of
history. They went further, however, nor was the zeal confined solely
to the authorities.
In Prussia, the land of the Teutonic Order, the crosses and the images
of the Saints had been doomed to destruction by the revolution of
1525; the silver treasures of art in the churches were hammered into
plate for use at the new Lutheran Duke’s dining-table. The Estates
of his country, when he had asked them to vote supplies, retorted
that he might as well help himself to the treasures of the churches.
The result was, so the chronicler of that day relates, “that all the
chalices and other ornaments” were removed from the houses of God,
barely one chalice being left in each church; some of the country
churches were even driven to use pewter chalices. “When they had taken
all the silver they fell upon the bells”; they left but one in each
village, the rest being carried off to Königsberg and sold to the
smelters.[767] At Marienwerder only did the prebendaries, appealing
to the King of Poland, make a stand for the retention of their church
plate and other property, until they themselves were sent in chains to
Preuschmark.[768]
In 1524, during the fair, the images were dragged out of the churches
at Riesenburg in Pomerania, shamelessly dishonoured and finally burnt.
The bishop-elect, a dignitary whom the Pope had refused to confirm and
who was notoriously a “zealous instrument of the Evangel,” excused the
proceeding. In other towns similar outrages were perpetrated by the
iconoclasts.
On the introduction of Lutheranism at Stralsund almost all the
churches and monasteries were stormed, the crucifixes and images being
broken up in the presence of members of the town-council (1525).[769]
In 1525 the Lutherans at Dantzig took possession of the wealthy church
of St. Mary’s, which was renowned for the number of its foundations
and had 128 clergy attached to it. A list of the articles confiscated
or plundered comprises: ten chalices of gold with precious stones
of great value, and as many bejewelled gold patens and ampullae; a
ciborium of gold with corals and gems, two gold crosses with gems, an
image of the Virgin Mary with four angels in gold, a silver statue
of the same, silver statues of the Apostles, four and twenty silver
ciboriums, six and forty silver chalices, two dozen of them of
silver-gilt, twelve silver and silver-gilt ampullae, eleven ungilt
silver ampullae, twenty-three silver vessels, twelve of them being
gilt, twelve silver-gilt chalices with lids, twelve silver-gilt
crosses with corals and precious stones, two dozen small silver
crosses, eight large and ten small silver censers, etc., twelve
chasubles in cloth of gold with pearls and gems, twelve of red silk
with a gold fringe, besides this eighty-two silk chasubles, twelve
cloth-of-gold antependiums with pearls and gems, six costly copes,
twelve other silk copes, six and forty albs of gold and silver
embroidered flower-pattern, sixty-five other fine albs, eighty-eight
costly altar covers, forty-nine gold-embroidered altar cloths,
ninety-nine less elaborate altar cloths.[770]
When Bugenhagen had secured the triumph of Lutheranism in the town
of Brunswick the altars were thrown down, the pictures and statues
removed, the chalices and other church vessels melted down and the
costly mass vestments sold to the highest bidder at the Rathaus
(1528). Bugenhagen, Luther’s closest spiritual colleague, laboured
zealously to sweep the churches clean of “every vestige of Popish
superstition and idolatry.” Only the collegiate churches of St.
Blasius and St. Cyriacus, and the monastery of St. Egidius, of which
Duke Henry of Brunswick was patron, remained intact.[771]
The wildest outbreak of iconoclasm took place in 1542 in the Duchy of
Brunswick, when the Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony and Landgrave
Philip of Hesse occupied the country and proceeded to extirpate the
Catholic worship still prevalent there. Within a short while over four
hundred churches had been plundered, altars, tabernacles, pictures and
sculptures being destroyed in countless numbers.[772]
During this so-called “Evangelical War” five thousand burghers and
mercenaries of the town of Brunswick, shouting their war-cry: “The
Word of God remaineth for ever,” set out, on July 21, 1542, against
the monastery of Riddaghausen; there they broke down the altars,
images and organs, carried off the monstrances, mass vestments and
other treasures of the church, plundering generally and perpetrating
the worst abominations. The mob also broke in pieces the images
and pictures in the monastery of Steterburg and then demolished
the building. Nor did the abbey of Gandersheim fare much better.
The prebendaries there complained to the Emperor, that all the
crucifixes and images of the Saints had been destroyed together with
other objects set up for the adornment of the church and churchyard
outside.[773]
The Lutheran preacher, K. Reinholdt, looking back two decades later on
the devastation wrought in Germany, reminded his hearers that Luther
himself had repeatedly preached that, “it would be better that all
churches and abbeys in the world were torn down and burnt to ashes,
that it would be less sinful, even if done from criminal motives,
than that a single soul should be led astray into Popish error and be
ruined”; “if they would not accept his teaching, then, so Luther the
man of God had exclaimed, he would wish not merely that his doctrine
might be the cause of the destruction of Popish churches and convents,
but that they were already lying in a heap of ashes.”[774]
At Hamburg iconoclastic disturbances began in Dec., 1528. The
Cistercian convent, Harvestehude, where the clergy still dare to say
Mass, was rased to the ground.[775]
At Zerbst, in 1524, images and church fittings were destroyed,
part of these being used to “keep up the fire for the brewing of
the beer”;[776] stone sculptures were mutilated and then used in
the construction of the Zerbst Town-Hall, whence they were brought
to light at a much later date, when a portion of the building was
demolished. The statues, headless, indeed, but still gleaming
with gold and colours, gave, as a narrator of the find said, “an
insight into the horrors of the iconoclasm which had run riot in the
neighbouring churches.”[777]
The chronicler Oldecop describes how, at Hildesheim in 1548, the
heads of the stone statues of St. Peter and St. Paul which stood at
the door of the church of the Holy Rood were hewn off and replaced
by the heads of two corpses from the mortuary; they were then stoned
by the boys. The magistrates, indeed, fined the chief offender, but
only because forced to do so.[778] Hildesheim had been protestantised
in great part as early as 1524. At that time the mob plundered the
churches and monasteries, rifled the coffins of the dead in search of
treasure, destroyed the crucifixes and the images of the Saints, tore
down the side altars in most of the churches and carried off chalices,
monstrances and ornaments, and even the silver casket containing the
bones of St. Bernward.[779] From St. Martin’s, a church belonging
to the Franciscans, the magistrates, according to the inventory,
removed the following: sixteen gilt chalices and patens, eleven silver
chalices, one large monstrance with bells, one large gilt cross,
three silver crosses with stands, a silver statue of Our Lady four
feet in height, a silver censer, two silver ampullae, a silver-gilt
St. Lawrence gridiron, a big Pacifical from the best cope, all the
bangles from the chasubles, seventeen silver clasps from the copes,
“the jewellery belonging to our dear ladies the Virgin Catherine and
Mother Anne,” and, besides, ten altars and also a monument erected
to Brother Conrad, who was revered as a Saint, were destroyed; the
copper and lead from the tower was carried off together with a small
bell.[780]
When the Schmalkalden Leaguers began to take up arms for the Evangel
the Evangelical captain Schärtlin von Burtenbach, commander-in-chief
of the South-German towns, suddenly fell upon the town of Füssen on
July 9, 1546, abolished the Catholic worship and threw the “idols” out
of the churches. Before his departure he plundered all the churches
and clergy, and “set the peasants on to massacre the idols in their
churches”; the proceeds “from the chalices and silver plate he devoted
to the common expenses of the Estates.”
This was only the beginning of Schärtlin’s plundering. After joining
hands with the Würtemberg troops his raiding expeditions were carried
on on a still larger scale.[781]
During the Schmalkalden campaign the soldiers of Saxony and Hesse on
their retreat from the Oberland, acting at the behest of the Elector
of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, carried off as booty all the
valuable plate belonging to the churches and monasteries. Chalices,
monstrances, Mass vestments and costly images, none of them were
spared. In Saxony similar outrages were perpetrated.
In Jan., 1547, the Elector caused all the chalices, monstrances,
episcopal crosses and other valuables that still remained at Halle
and either were the property of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, Johann
Albert, or had been presented to the place by him, to be brought to
Eisleben and either sold or coined. The Elector’s men-at-arms and the
mob destroyed the pictures and statues in the Dominican and Franciscan
friaries. When, shortly after this, Merseburg, as well as Magdeburg
and Halberstadt, was occupied by the Saxon troops, the leaders robbed
the Cathedral church (of Merseburg) of its oldest and most valuable
art treasures, amongst which was the golden table which the Emperor
Henry II had presented to it.[782]
Magdeburg was the rallying-place of Lutheran zealots, such as Flacius
Illyricus, and was even called the “chancery of God and His Christ,”
by Aquila in a letter to Duke Albert of Prussia;[783] before it was
besieged in the Emperor’s name by Maurice of Saxony and was yet under
the rule of a Council banned by the Empire, it passed through a
period of wild outrage directed against the Catholic churches and
convents, both within and outside the walls. The appeal addressed by
the cathedral Chapter on Aug. 15, 1550, to the Estates of the Empire
assembled at Augsburg gives the details.[784] The town, “for the
protection of the true Christian religion and holy Evangel,” laid
violent hands on the rich property of the churches and cloisters, and
committed execrable atrocities against defenceless clerics. Bodies
were exhumed in the churches and cemeteries. Never, so the account
declares, would the Turks have acted with such barbarity. Even the
tomb of the Emperor Otto, the founder of the archdiocese, was, so the
Canons relate, “inhumanly and wantonly broken open and desecrated with
great uproar.”
Several thousand men set out from the town for the monastery of
Hamersleben, situated in the diocese of Halberstadt. They forced
their way into the church one Sunday during Divine service, wounded
or slaughtered the officiating priests, trampled under foot the
Sacred Host and ransacked church and monastery. Among the images and
works of art destroyed was some magnificent stained glass depicting
the Way of the Cross. No less than 150 waggons bore away the plunder
to Magdeburg, accompanied by the mob, who in mockery had decked
themselves out in the Mass vestments and habits of the monks.[785]
Hans, Margrave of Brandenburg-Küstrin, was one who had war against the
Catholic clergy much at heart. In a letter to the Elector Maurice he
spoke of the clergy as “priests of Baal and children of the devil.”
It was a proof of his Evangelical zeal, that, on July 15, 1551, he
ordered the church of St. Mary at Görlitz to be pillaged and destroyed
by Johann von Minckwitz. All the altars, images and carvings were
hacked to pieces, all the costly treasures stolen. Minckwitz had great
difficulty in rescuing the treasures from the hands of a drunken mob
of peasants who were helping in the work, and conveying them safely to
the Margrave at Küstrin.[786]
In the spring of 1552, when Maurice of Saxony levied a heavy fine on
the town of Nuremberg for having revolted against the Emperor, the
magistrates sought to indemnify themselves by taking nearly 900 lbs.
weight of gold and silver treasures out of the churches of Our Lady,
St. Lawrence and St. Sebaldus and ordering them to be melted down or
sold.[787]
In June and July, 1552, Margrave Albert of Brandenburg-Kulmbach laid
waste the country around Mayence with fire and sword to such an
extent, that the bishop of Würzburg, in order to raise the unheard-of
sums demanded, had, as we find it stated in a letter of Zasius to King
Ferdinand dated July 10, to lump together “all the gold and silver
plate in the churches, the jewels, reliquaries, monstrances, statues
and vessels of the sanctuary” and have them minted into thalers. “At
Neumünster one reliquary was melted down which alone was worth 1000
florins.”[788] The citizens of Würzburg were obliged to give up all
their household plate and the cathedral itself the silver statue of
St. Kilian, patron of the diocese.[789]
When the commanders and the troops of the Elector Maurice withdrew
from the Tyrol after the frustration of their undertaking owing to the
flight of the Emperor to Carinthia, all the sacred objects of value in
the Cistercian monastery of Stams in the valley of the upper Inn were
either broken to pieces or carried off. The soldiers broke open the
vault, where the earthly remains of the ruling Princes had rested for
centuries, dragged the corpses out of their coffins and stripped them
of their valuables.[790] The inventory of the treasures of art made
of precious metal and other substances which perished at Stams must
be classed with numerous other sad records of a similar nature dating
from that time.[791]
After the truce of Passau, Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, with the
help of France, turned his attention to Frankfurt, Mayence and Treves.
At Mayence, after making a vain demand for 100,000 gold florins from
the clergy, he gave orders to ransack the churches, and set on fire
the churches of St. Alban, St. Victor and Holy Cross, the Charterhouse
and the houses of the Canons. He boasted of this as a “right princely
firebrand we threw into the damned nest of parsons.” In Treves all
the collegiate churches and monasteries were “sacked down to the very
last farthing,” as an account relates; the monastery of St. Maximin,
the priory of St. Paul, the castle of Saarburg on the Saar, Pfalzel
and Echternach were given to the flames.[792] “Such proceedings were
incumbent on an honourable Prince who had the glory of God at heart
and was zealous for the spread of the Divine Gospel, which God the
Lord in our age has allowed to shine forth with such marvellous
light.” So Albert boasted to an envoy of the Archbishop of Mayence on
June 27, 1552, when laying waste Würzburg.[793]
“The archbishoprics of Treves and Mayence, the bishoprics of Spires,
Worms and Eichstätt are laid waste with pillage,” wrote Melchior von
Ossa the Saxon lawyer, “the stately edifices at Mayence, Treves and
other places, where lay the bones of so many pious martyrs of old, are
reduced to ashes.”[794] The complaints of a Protestant preacher who
had worked for a considerable time at Schwäbisch-Hall ring much the
same: “Our parents were willing to contribute towards the building
of churches and to the adornment of the temples of God.... But now
the churches have been pilfered so badly that they barely retain a
roof over them. Superb Mass vestments of silk and velvet with pearls
and corals were provided for the churches by our forefathers; these
have now been removed and serve the woman-folk as hoods and bodices;
indeed so poor have some of the churches become under the rule of the
Evangel, that it is impossible to provide the ministers of the Church
even with a beggarly surplice.”[795]
The wanton waste and destruction which took place in the domain of
art under Lutheran rule during the first fifty years of the religious
innovations, great as they were, do not by any means approach in
magnitude the losses caused elsewhere by Zwinglianism and Calvinism.
Yet two things in Lutheranism had a disastrous effect in checking the
revival of religious art, even when the first struggles for mastery
were over: first, there was the animosity against the Sacrifice of
the Mass and the perpetual eucharistic presence of Christ in the
tabernacle; this led people to view with distrust the old alliance
existing between the Eucharistic worship and the liberal arts for
exalting the dignity and beauty of the churches. After the Mass had
been abolished and the Sacrament had ceased to be reserved within the
sacred walls, respect for and interest in the house of God, which had
led to so much being lavished on it, began to wane. The other obstacle
lay in Luther’s negative attitude towards the ancient doctrine and
practice of good works. The belief in the meritoriousness of works
had in the past been a stimulus to pecuniary sacrifices and offerings
for the making of pious works of art. Now, however, artists began to
complain, that, owing to the decline of zeal for church matters their
orders were beginning to fall off, and that the makers of works of art
were being condemned to starvation.
In a protocol of the Council of Strasburg, dated Feb. 3, 1525, we read
in a petition from the artists: “Painters and sculptors beg, that,
whereas, through the Word of God their handicraft has died out they may
be provided with posts before other claimants.” The Council answered
that their appeal would “be borne in mind.”[796]
The verses of Hans Sachs of Nuremberg are well-known:
“Bell-founders and organists,
Gold-beaters and illuminists,
Hand-painters, carvers and goldsmiths,
Glass-painters, silk-workers, coppersmiths,
Stone-masons, carpenters and joiners,
’Gainst all these did Luther wield a sword.
From Thee we ask a verdict, Lord.”
In the poet’s industrious and artistic native town the decline must
have been particularly noticeable. According to the popular Lutheran
poet of Nuremberg the fault is with the complainants themselves, who,
“With scorn disdain
From greed of gain”
the Word of Christ. “They must cease worrying about worldly goods like
the heathen, but must seek the Kingdom of God with eagerness.”[797]
It is perfectly true that the words that Hans Sachs on this occasion
places in the mouth of the complainant are unfair to Luther:
“All church building and adorning he despises,
Treats with scorning,
He not wise is.”[798]
For in spite of his attacks on the veneration of images, on the
Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist and the meritoriousness of pious
foundations, Luther was, nevertheless, not so “unwise” as to despise
the “building and adorning” of the churches, where, after all, the
congregation must assemble for preaching, communion and prayer.[799]
That Luther was not devoid of a sense of the beautiful and of its
practical value in the service of religion is proved by his outspoken
love of music, particularly of church-music, his numerous poetic
efforts, no less than by that strongly developed appreciation of
well-turned periods, clearness and force of diction so well seen in his
translation of the Bible. His life’s struggle, however, led him along
paths which make it easy to understand how it is that he has so little
to say in his writings in commendation of the other liberal arts. It
also explains the baldness of his reminiscences of his visit to Italy
and the city of Rome; the young monk, immersed in his theology, was
even then pursuing quite other interests than those of art. It is true
Luther, once, in one of the rare passages in favour of ecclesiastical
art, speaking from his own point of view, says: “It is better to paint
on the wall how God created the world, how Noah made the ark and
such-like pious tales, than to paint worldly and shameless subjects;
would to God I could persuade the gentry and the rich to have the whole
Bible story painted on their houses, inside and out, for everyone’s
eye to see; that would be a good Christian work.”[800] Manifestly he
did not intend his words to be taken too literally in the case of
dwelling-houses. A fighter such as Luther was scarcely the right man to
give any real stimulus in the domain of art. The heat of his religious
polemics scorched up in his soul any good dispositions of this sort
which may once have existed, and blighted in its very beginnings the
growth of any real feeling for art among his zealous followers. Hardly
a single passage can be found in which he expresses any sense of
satisfaction in the products of the artist.
It is generally admitted that in the 16th century German art suffered
a severe set-back. For this the bitter controversies which for the
while transformed Germany into a hideous battlefield were largely
responsible; for such a soil could not but prove unfavourable for
the arts and crafts. The very artists themselves were compelled to
prostitute their talents in ignoble warfare. We need only call to mind
the work of the two painters Cranach, the Elder and the Younger, and
the horrid flood of caricatures and base vilifications cast both in
poetry and in prose. “The rock on which art suffered shipwreck was not,
as a recent art-writer says, the fact that ‘German art was too early
severed from its bond with the Church,’ but that, with regard to its
subject-matter and its methods of expression, it was forced into false
service by the intellectual and religious leaders.”[801]