TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—Italic text is indicated _like this_, upright text within italic
passages ~like this~, bold =like this=.
—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using
the title page of the original book. The image is placed in the public
domain.
LUTHER
IMPRIMATUR
EDM. CAN. SURMONT,
_Vic. Gen._
_Westmonasterii, die 12 Martii, 1917._
LUTHER
BY
HARTMANN GRISAR, S.J.
PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BY
E. M. LAMOND
EDITED BY
LUIGI CAPPADELTA
VOLUME VI
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
BROADWAY HOUSE 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.
1917
A FEW PRESS OPINIONS OF VOLUMES I-V.
“His most elaborate and systematic biography … is not merely a book
to be reckoned with; it is one with which we cannot dispense, if only
for its minute examination of Luther’s theological writings.”—_The
Athenæum_ (Vol. I).
“The second volume of Dr. Grisar’s ‘Life of Luther’ is fully as
interesting as the first. There is the same minuteness of criticism
and the same width of survey.”—_The Athenæum_ (Vol. II).
“Its interest increases. As we see the great Reformer in the thick
of his work, and the heyday of his life, the absorbing attraction
of his personality takes hold of us more and more strongly. His
stupendous force, his amazing vitality, his superhuman interest in
life, impress themselves upon us with redoubled effect. We find him
the most multiform, the most paradoxical of men.… The present volume,
which is admirably translated, deals rather with the moral, social,
and personal side of Luther’s career than with his theology.”—_The
Athenæum_ (Vol. III).
“Father Grisar has gained a high reputation in this country through
the translation of his monumental work on the History of Rome and the
Popes in the Middle Ages, and this first instalment of his ‘Life of
Luther’ bears fresh witness to his unwearied industry, wide learning,
and scrupulous anxiety to be impartial in his judgments as well as
absolutely accurate in matters of fact.”—_Glasgow Herald._
“This ‘Life of Luther’ is bound to become standard … a model of every
literary, critical, and scholarly virtue.”—_The Month._
“Like its two predecessors, Volume III excels in the minute analysis
not merely of Luther’s actions, but also of his writings; indeed,
this feature is the outstanding merit of the author’s patient
labours.”—_The Irish Times._
“This third volume of Father Grisar’s monumental ‘Life’ is full of
interest for the theologian. And not less for the psychologist; for
here more than ever the author allows himself to probe into the
mind and motives and understanding of Luther, so as to get at the
significance of his development.”—_The Tablet_ (Vol. III).
“Historical research owes a debt of gratitude to Father Grisar for the
calm unbiased manner in which he marshals the facts and opinions on
Luther which his deep erudition has gathered.”—_The Tablet_ (Vol. IV).
“We have nothing but commendation for the translation.”—_The Tablet_
(Vol. V).
“Another volume of Father Grisar’s ‘Life of Martin Luther’ …
confirms the belief that it will remain the standard ‘Life,’ and
rank amongst the most valuable contributions to the history of the
Reformation.”—_Yorkshire Post._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXV. LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND
EDUCATION (_continued from Vol. V._) _pages_ 3-98
3. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND HIGHER EDUCATION.
Luther’s appeals on behalf of the schools; polemical
trend of his appeals; his ideal of elementary
education; study of the Bible and the classics. The
decline in matters educational after the introduction
of the innovations; higher education before Luther’s
day; results achieved by Luther _pages_ 3-41
4. BENEVOLENCE AND RELIEF OF THE POOR.
Organised charity in late mediæval times. Luther’s
attempts to arrange for the relief of the poor; the
“Poor-boxes”; Bugenhagen’s work; the sad effects of the
confiscation of Church-property; and of the doctrine
that good works are valueless _pages_ 42-65
5. LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS WORLDLY CALLINGS.
Whether Luther’s claim can stand that he was the
first to preach the dignity of worldly callings? His
depreciation of the several classes of the nation due
to his estrangement from them. Attitude towards the
merchant-class. His Old-Testament ideas react on his
theories about usury and interest; his views on the
lawfulness of permanent investments, etc. _pages_ 65-98
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DARKER SIDE OF LUTHER’S INNER LIFE.
HIS AILMENTS _pages_ 99-186
1. EARLY SUFFERINGS, BODILY AND MENTAL.
Fits of fear, palpitations, swoons, nervousness; his
temptations no mere morbid phenomena _pages_ 99-112
2. PSYCHIC PROBLEMS OF LUTHER’S RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.
Temptations to despair. The shadow of pseudo-mysticism.
Temptations of the flesh _pages_ 112-122
3. GHOSTS, DELUSIONS, APPARITIONS OF THE DEVIL.
The statements regarding Luther’s intercourse with the
beyond and his visions of the devil. The misunderstood
reference to his disputation with the devil on the
Mass. His belief in possession and exorcism _pages_ 122-140
4. REVELATION AND ILLUSION. MORBID TRAINS OF THOUGHT.
His conviction that he was the recipient of a special
revelation; his apparent withdrawals of this claim. His
so-called “temptations” viewed by him as confirming his
mission; his persuasion that the Pope is Antichrist,
that his opponents are all egged on by the devil and
that no man on earth can compare with him. His tendency
to self-contradiction; his changeableness, his feverish
polemics _pages_ 141-171
5. LUTHER’S PSYCHOLOGY ACCORDING TO PHYSICIANS AND
HISTORIANS.
Whether Luther’s mind was abnormal, or whether all
his symptoms are to be explained by uric acid, or by
degeneracy _pages_ 172-186
CHAPTER XXXVII. LUTHER’S LATER EMBELLISHMENT
OF HIS EARLY LIFE _pages_ 187-236
1. LUTHER’S LATER PICTURE OF HIS CONVENT-LIFE AND
APOSTASY.
The legend about his first appearance on the field
of history. His supposed excessive holiness-by-works
during his monastic days _pages_ 187-205
2. THE REALITY. LUTHER’S FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY.
Inward peace and happiness in his monastic days; his
vows and their breach; some peculiarities of his
humility; his feverish addiction to his work; the facts
around which his later legend grew _pages_ 205-229
3. THE LEGEND RECEIVES ITS LAST TOUCH; HOW IT WAS USED.
Forged in the solitude of the Coburg. His
characteristic passage from the “I” to the “we.” His
monkish “experience” useful to him _pages_ 229-236
CHAPTER XXXVIII. END OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. THE
CHURCH-UNSEEN AND THE VISIBLE CHURCH-BY-LAW _pages_ 237-340
1. FROM RELIGIOUS LICENCE TO RELIGIOUS CONSTRAINT.
Freedom as Luther’s early watchword. Intolerance
towards Catholics, in theory, and in practice.
Sanguinary threats against all papists; the
death-penalty pronounced against “sectarians” at home;
his justification: blasphemy must be put down. The
people driven to the new preaching; no freedom of
conscience allowed: Luther’s intolerance imitated by
his friends _pages_ 237-279
2. LUTHER AS JUDGE.
The pigheadedness and arrogance of all the
“sectarians.” None of them are sure of their cause;
none of them can work miracles _pages_ 279-289
3. THE CHURCH-UNSEEN, ITS ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY.
Luther’s invisible Church; her marks; only the
predestined are members; his shifting theory _pages_ 290-308
4. THE CHURCH BECOMES VISIBLE. ITS ORGANISATION.
The Church materialises in Articles and a Ministry
set up by Wittenberg with the sovereign as
“emergency-bishop.” The results of State-interference _pages_ 309-325
5. LUTHER’S TACTICS IN QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE CHURCH.
The Erfurt preachers at variance with the Town-Council.
Luther shifts his ground in his controversies with
the Catholics. How the Church, in spite of Christ’s
promises, contrived to remain plunged in error for over
a thousand years. Luther’s interpretation of Christ’s
words “On this rock” _pages_ 325-340
CHAPTER XXXIX. END OF LUTHER’S LIFE _pages_ 341-386
1. THE FLIGHT FROM WITTENBERG.
His depression gets the better of him and he leaves the
town “for ever.” Change of air sweetens his temper and
he returns and resumes his work with new ardour _pages_ 341-351
2. LAST TROUBLES AND CARES.
Quarrels with the Swiss and with New Believers nearer
home; with the lawyers regarding clandestine marriages;
the State proves a cause of vexation on account of its
interference in matters which concern the preachers.
Luther’s fears for the future; encroachments of human
reason; the coming collapse of morals _pages_ 351-369
3. LUTHER’S DEATH AT EISLEBEN (1546).
Thoughts of death. His last visit to Mansfeld, to act
as arbitrator between the Counts. The versions of his
last moments _pages_ 370-381
4. IN THE WORLD OF LEGEND.
The tale of Luther’s suicide, of the disappearance of
his body, etc. Who was responsible for the habit of
concocting such stories _pages_ 381-386
CHAPTER XL. AT THE GRAVE _pages_ 387-462
1. LUTHER’S FAME AMONG THE FRIENDS HE LEFT BEHIND.
Extracts from the panegyrics and early biographies;
medals struck in his honour; his epitaphs _pages_ 387-394
2. LUTHER’S MEMORY AMONG THE CATHOLICS. THE QUESTION
OF HIS GREATNESS.
Luther’s defiance of the whole world, whilst evoking
their wonder, failed to secure the admiration of
Catholics. Whether Luther’s undoubted strength of will
makes of him a “great man.” The part played by other
factors in the movement he inaugurated _pages_ 394-407
3. LUTHER’S FATE IN THE FIRST STRUGGLES FOR HIS
SPIRITUAL HERITAGE.
Defeat of the Schmalkalden Leaguers. Osiandric,
Majorite, Adiaphoristic, Synergistic and
Cryptocalvinist controversies _pages_ 407-423
4. MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF THE TWO CAMPS. GROWING
STRENGTH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
The Lutherans are induced to adopt the Formula of
Concord as a counterblast against the Council of Trent.
Catholic theology benefits by the new controversies;
the Church’s religious life is deepened; progress in
catechetical instruction, in matters educational,
Bible-study and Church-history _pages_ 423-439
5. LUTHER AS DESCRIBED BY THE OLDEN “ORTHODOX”
LUTHERANS.
Their “mediæval” attitude. Luther the “Prophet of the
Germans,” a New Elias and John the Baptist _pages_ 440-444
6. LUTHER AS SEEN BY THE PIETISTS AND RATIONALISTS.
Each in their own way make of Luther their forerunner
and breathe into him their own ideals _pages_ 444-448
7. THE MODERN PICTURE OF LUTHER.
The Romanticists; liberal theologians; independent
historians; the Janus-Luther, with one face looking
back on the Middle Ages and the other turned to the
coming world. Ritschl, E. M. Arndt. Luther the hero
of Kultur? Houston S. Chamberlain’s picture of the
“Political Luther.” Conclusion _pages_ 449-462
XLI. APPENDIX I. LUTHER’S WRITINGS AND THE
EVENTS OF THE DAY, ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL
ORDER _pages_ 465-495
XLII. APPENDIX II. ADDITIONS AND EMENDATIONS _pages_ 496-516
1-2. LUTHER’S VISIT TO ROME.
The Scala Santa; the General Confession; Oldecop’s
account of Luther’s petition to be secularised; the
outcome for the Order of Luther’s visit to Rome _pages_ 496-497
3. LUTHER’S CONCEPTION OF “OBSERVANCE” AND HIS
CONFLICT WITH HIS BROTHER FRIARS _pages_ 497-501
4. ATTACK UPON THE “SELF-RIGHTEOUS” _pages_ 501-503
5. THE COLLAPSE OF THE AUGUSTINIAN CONGREGATION _pages_ 503-504
6. THE TOWER INCIDENT _pages_ 504-510
7. THE INDULGENCE-THESES _page_ 510
8. THE TEMPTATIONS AT THE WARTBURG _page_ 511
9. PRAYER AT THE WARTBURG _pages_ 511-512
10. LUTHER’S STATE DURING HIS STAY AT THE COBURG _page_ 512
11. LUTHER’S MORAL CHARACTER _pages_ 512-513
12. LUTHER’S VIEWS ON LIES _pages_ 513-515
13. LUTHER’S LACK OF THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT _pages_ 515-516
14. Notes: Pope Alexander VI “the Maraña”; from Bishop
Maltitz’s letters to Bishop Fabri _page_ 516
General Index to the six volumes _pages_ 517-551
VOL. VI
SURVEY OF LUTHER’S WORK. HIS AILMENTS. HIS DEATH
LUTHER
CHAPTER XXXV (_Continued_)
LUTHER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOCIETY AND EDUCATION
3. Elementary Schools and Higher Education
_Luther’s Appeals on Behalf of the Schools_
In a pamphlet of 1524, on the need of establishing schools, Luther spoke
some emphatic and impressive words.[1]
There could be nothing worse, he declared, than to abuse and neglect the
precious souls of the little ones; even a hundred florins was not too
much to pay to make a good Christian of a boy; it was the duty of the
magistrates and authorities to whom the welfare of the town was confided
to see to this, the parents being so often either not pious or worthy
enough to perform this office, or else too unlearned or too much hampered
by their business or the cares of their household. The well-being of
a town was not to be gauged by its fine buildings, but rather by the
learning, good sense, and honourable behaviour of the burghers; given
this the other sort of prosperity would never be lacking. Luther dwells
on the urgent need of studying languages and sees an act of Providence
in the dispersion of the Greeks whose presence in the West had been the
means of giving a fresh stimulus to the study of Greek, and even to the
cultivation of other languages. Without schools and learning no men would
be found qualified to rule in the ecclesiastical or even in the secular
sphere; even the management of the home and the duties of women to their
families and households called for some sort of instruction.[2]
Owing to their innate leaning to savagery the German people, above all
others, could ill afford to dispense with the discipline of the school.
All the world calls us “German beasts”; too long have we been German
beasts, let us therefore now learn to use our reason.[3]
He speaks of the educational value not only of languages but of history,
mathematics and the other arts, but above all of religion, which, now
that the true Evangel is preached, must take root in the hearts of the
young, but which could not be maintained unless care was taken to ensure
a supply of future preachers.
He gives an excellent answer to the objection: “What is the good of going
to school unless we are thinking of becoming parsons?” The wholesale
secularisation of ecclesiastical benefices had resulted in a great
falling off in the number of scholars, the parents often thinking too
much of the worldly prospects of their children. Luther, however, points
out that even the secular offices deserve to be filled with men of
education. “How useful and called for it is, and how pleasing to God,
that the man destined to govern, whether as Prince, lord, councillor
or otherwise, should be learned and capable of performing his duty as
becomes a Christian.”[4]
* * * * *
This booklet, which is of great interest for the history of the schools,
was translated into Latin in the same year by Vincentius Obsopœus (Koch)
and published at Hagenau, with a preface by Melanchthon.[5] It also
became widely known throughout Germany, being frequently reprinted in the
original tongue. As the title shows, Luther addressed himself in the work
“To the Councillors of _all_ the townships,” viz. even to the Catholic
magistrates among whom he stood in disfavour. He declares that it was a
question of the “salvation and happiness of the whole German land. And
were I to hit upon something good, even were I myself a fool, it would be
no disgrace to anyone to listen to me.”[6]
In thus calling for the founding of schools Luther was but reiterating
the admonition contained in his writing “To the German Nobility.” Such
exhortations were always sure to win applause, and served to recommend
not only his own person but even, in the case of many, his undertaking
as a whole.[7] In his rules for the administration of the poor-box
at Leisnig Luther had been mindful of the claims of the schools, nor
did he forget them in the other regulations he drew up later. In his
sermons, too, he also dwelt repeatedly on the needs of the elementary
schools; when complaining of the decay of charity he is wont to instance
the straits, not only of the parsonages and the poor, but also of
the schools. “Only reckon up and count on your fingers what here [at
Wittenberg] and elsewhere those who bask in the Evangel give and do for
it, and see whether, were it not for us who are still living, there would
remain a single preacher or student.… Are there then no poor scholars who
ought to be studying and exercising themselves in the Word of God?” But
“hoarding and scraping” are now the rule, so that hardly a town can be
found “that collects enough to keep a schoolmaster or parson.”[8]
Many wealthy towns had, however, to Luther’s great joy, taken in hand the
cause of the schools. Their efforts were to prove very helpful to the new
religious system.
In the same year that the above writing appeared steps were taken at
Magdeburg for the promotion of education, and Cruciger, Luther’s own
pupil, was summoned from Wittenberg to assume the direction. Melanchthon
and Luther repaired to Eisleben in 1525, where Count Albert of Mansfeld
had founded a Grammar School. In some towns the Councillors carried
out Luther’s proposals, in others, where the town-council was opposed
to the innovators and their schools, the burghers “set at naught the
Council,” as Luther relates, and erected “schools and parsonages”; in
other words, they established schools as the best means to further
the new Evangel.[9] At Nuremberg Melanchthon, a zealous promoter of
education, exerted himself for the foundation of a “Gymnasium” which was
to serve as a model of the new humanistic schools of the Evangelicals,
and which was generously provided for by the town. May 6, 1526, saw the
opening of this new school. Learned masters were appointed, for instance,
Melanchthon’s friend Camerarius, the poet Eobanus Hessus and the humanist
Michael Roting. In 1530 Luther speaks of it in words meant to flatter the
Nurembergers as “a fine, noble school,” for which the “very best men”
had been selected and appointed. He even tells all Germany, that “no
University, not even that of Paris itself, was ever so well provided in
the way of lecturers”; it was in no small measure owing to this school
that “Nuremberg now shone throughout the whole of Germany like a sun,
compared with which others were but moon and stars.”[10]
Yet it was certain disagreeable happenings at Nuremberg itself which
led him to write in 1530 his second booklet in favour of the schools.
In the flourishing commercial city there were many wealthy burghers who
refused to send their children to the “Gymnasium,” thinking that, instead
of learning ancient languages, they would be more usefully occupied in
acquiring other elements of knowledge more essential to the mercantile
calling; by so doing they had raised a certain feeling against the new
school. Many were even disposed to scoff at all book-learning and roundly
declared, as Luther relates, “If my son knows how to read and reckon then
he knows quite enough; we now have plenty German books,” etc.[11]
In July of the above year, Luther, in the loneliness of the Coburg,
penned a sermon having for its title “That children must be kept at
school.” The sermon grew into a lengthy work; Luther himself was, later
on, to bewail its long-windedness.[12] This writing, taken with that of
1524, supplies the gist of Luther’s teaching with regard to the schools.
In the preface, printed before the body of the work, he dedicates the
writing to the Nuremberg “syndic” or town-clerk, Lazarus Spengler,
an ardent promoter of the new teaching. A town like Nuremberg, he
there says, “must surely contain more men than merchants, and also
others who can do more than merely reckon, or read German books.
German books are principally intended for the common people to read at
home; but for preaching, governing and administering justice in both
ecclesiastical and temporal sphere all the arts and languages in the
world are not sufficient.” Already in the preface he inveighs against
those who assert that arithmetic and a knowledge of German were quite
enough: These small-minded worshippers of Mammon failed to take into
consideration what was essential for “ruling”; both the civil and the
ecclesiastical office would suffer under such a system.[13]
In this writing his style follows his mood, being now powerful, now
popular and not seldom wearisome. He dwells longest on the spiritual
office, expressing his fear, that, should the lack of interest in
the schools become general, and the people continue so niggardly in
providing for their support, there would result such a spiritual
famine with regard to the Word of God, that ten villages would be left
in the charge of a single parson. Passing on to the secular office
he points out how the latter upholds the “temporal, fleeting peace,
life and law.… It is an excellent gift of God Who also instituted and
appointed it and Who demands its preservation.” Of this office “It is
the work and glory that it makes wild beasts into men and keeps them
in this state.… Do you not think that if the poor birds and beasts
could speak and were able to see the action of the secular rule among
men they would say: Dear fellows, you are no men but gods compared
with us; how secure you sit and live, enjoying all good things,
whereas we are not safe from each other for a single hour as regards
our life, our home or our food.”[14]
“Such rule cannot continue, but must go to rack and ruin unless the
law [the Roman law and the law of the land] is maintained. And what
is to maintain it? Fists and blustering cannot do so, but only brains
and books; we must learn to understand the wisdom and justice of our
secular rule.” Speaking of the lawyers’ office for which the young
must prepare themselves, he groups under it the “chancellors, clerks,
judges, advocates, notaries and all others who are concerned with
the law, not to speak of the great Johnnies who sport the title of
Hofrat.”[15] On the calling of the physician he only touches lightly,
showing that this “useful, consoling and health-giving” profession
demands the retention of the Latin schools, short of which it must
fall into decay.
The following hint was a practical one: Seeing that, in Saxony
alone, about 4000 men of learning were needed—what with chaplains,
schoolmasters and readers—those who wished to study had good prospects
of “great honours and emoluments since two Princes and three townships
were all ready to fight for the services of one learned man.” He urges
that assistance should be given to poor parents out of the Church
property so as to enable them to send their children to school, and
that the rich should make foundations for this purpose.
In this writing, as in that of 1524, he addresses himself to the
secular authorities and even demands that they should compel their
subjects to send their children to school in order that the supply
of capable men might not fail in the future. I consider, he says,
“that the authorities are bound to force those under them to see to
the schooling of their children, more particularly those just spoken
of [the more gifted]; for it is undoubtedly their duty to see to the
upkeep of the above-mentioned offices and callings.” If in time of war
they could compel their subjects to render assistance and resist the
enemy, much more had they the right to coerce them in respect of the
children, seeing that this was a war against the devil who wished to
despoil the land and the townships of able men, so as to be able “to
cheat and delude them as he pleased.”[16]
As regards the question whether _all_ children were to be forced to
go to school, in this writing Luther does not speak of any universal
compulsion; only “when the authorities see a capable lad”[17] does he
wish coercion to be applied to the parents. In his first writing on the
schools likewise, he had not advocated universal compulsion but had
merely pointed out that it was “becoming” that the authorities should
interfere where the parents neglected their duty;[18] he does not
say how they are to “interfere,” but merely suggests that one or two
“schoolmasters” should be provided whose salary should not be grudged.
“Hence it is incorrect,” rightly remarks Kawerau, “to represent Luther as
the harbinger of universal compulsory education.”[19]
Fr. Lambert of Avignon, in his ecclesiastical regulations dating from
1526, indeed sought to establish national schools throughout Hesse, but
his proposals were never enforced. It was only at the beginning of the
17th century that Wolfgang Ratke (Ratichius, †1635), a pedagogue educated
in the Calvinistic schools, established the principle of universal
education which then was incorporated in the educational regulations
of Weimar in 1619.[20] But the Thirty Years’ War put an end to these
attempts, and it was only in the 18th century that the principle of
compulsory State education secured general acceptance, and then, too,
owing chiefly to non-Lutheran influences.
Before entering further into the details of Luther’s educational plans
we must cast a glance at a factor which seems to permeate both the above
writings.
_Polemical Trend of Luther’s Pedagogics_
If we seek to characterise both the writings just spoken of we find
that they amount to an appeal called forth by the misery of those times
for some provision to be made to ensure a supply of educated men for
the future. Frederick Paulsen describes them, particularly the earlier
one, as nothing more than a “cry for help, wrung from Luther by the
sudden, general collapse of the educational system which followed on the
ecclesiastical upheaval.”[21] They were not dictated so much by a love
for humanistic studies as such or by the wish to further the interests
of learning in Germany, as by the desire to fill the secular-government
berths with able, “Christian” men, and, above all, to provide preachers
and pastors for the work Luther had commenced and for the struggle
against Popery. The schools themselves were unobtrusively to promote
the new Evangel amongst the young and in the home. Learning, according
to Luther, as a Protestant theologian expressed it, was to enter “into
the service of the Evangel and further its right understanding”; “the
religious standpoint alone was of any real interest to him.”[22]
Melanchthon’s attitude to the schools was more broadminded. To some
extent his efforts supplied what was wanting in Luther.[23] His
object was the education of the people, whereas, in Luther’s eyes,
the importance of the schools chiefly lay in their being “_seminaria
ecclesiarum_,” as he once calls them. With him their aim was too much
the mere promoting of his specific theological interests, to the
“preservation of the Church.”[24]
According to Luther the first and most important reason for
promoting the establishment of schools, was, as he points out to the
“Councillors of all the Townships,” to resist the devil, who, the
better to maintain his dominion over the German lands, was bent on
thwarting the schools; “if we want to prick him on a tender spot then
we may best do so by seeing that the young grow up in the knowledge of
God, spreading the Word of God and teaching it to others.”[25] “The
other [reason] is, as St. Paul says, that we receive not the grace of
God in vain, nor neglect the accepted time.” The “donkey-stables and
devil-schools” kept by monks and clergy had now seen their day; but,
now that the “darkness” has been dispelled by the “Word of God,” we
have the “best and most learned of the youths and men, who, equipped
with languages and all the arts, can prove of great assistance.” “My
dear, good Germans, make use of God’s grace and His Word now you have
it! For know this, the Word of God and His grace is indeed here.”[26]
In many localities preachers of the new faith were in request,
moreover, many of the older clergy, who had passed over to Luther’s
side, had departed this life or had been removed by the Visitors on
account of their incapacity or moral shortcomings. Those who had
replaced them were often men of no education whatever. The decline of
learning gave rise to many difficulties. Schoolmasters were welcomed
not only as simple ministers but, as we have heard Luther declare,
even as the candidates best fitted for the post of superintendent.[27]
How frequently people of but slight education were appointed pastors
is plain from the lists of those ordained at Wittenberg from 1537
onwards; amongst these we find men of every trade: clerks, printers,
weavers, cobblers, tailors, and even one peasant. Seven years later,
when the handicraftsmen had disappeared, we constantly find sextons
and schoolmasters being entrusted with the ministerial office.[28]
This sad state of things must be carefully kept in mind if we are to
understand the ideas which chiefly inspired the above writings, and as
these have not so far been sufficiently emphasised we may be permitted
to make some reference to them.
“We must have men,” says Luther in his first writing, viz. that
addressed to the councillors, “men to dispense to us God’s Word and
the sacraments and to watch over the souls of the people. But whence
are we to get them if the schools are allowed to fall to ruin and
other _more Christian_ ones are not set up?”[29] “Christendom has
always need of such prophets to study and interpret the Scriptures,
and, when the call comes, to conduct controversy.”[30] Similar appeals
occur even more frequently in the other writing, viz. that dedicated
by Luther to his friend at Nuremberg. Already in his first writing,
Luther, as the ghostly counsellor of Germany “appointed” in Christ’s
name, boldly faces all other teachers, telling the Catholics, that
what he was seeking was merely the “happiness and salvation” of
the Fatherland.[31] In the second he expressly states that it is
to all the German lands that he their “prophet” is speaking: “My
dear Germans, I have told you often enough that you have heard your
prophet. God grant that we may obey His Word.”[32] So entirely does
he identify the interests of his Church with those of the schools.
Well might those many Germans who did not hold with him—and at that
time Luther was an excommunicate outlaw—well might they have asked
themselves with astonishment whence he had the right to address them
as though he were the representative and mouthpiece of the whole of
Germany. Such exhortations have, however, their root in his usual
ideas of religion and in the anxiety caused by the urgent needs of the
time.
At the Coburg the indifference, coldness and avarice of his followers
appears to him in an even darker light than usual. He well sees that
if the schools continue to be neglected as they have been hitherto
the result will be a mere “pig sty,” a “hideous, savage horde of
‘Tatters’ and Turks.” Hence he fulminates against the ingratitude
displayed towards the Evangel and against the stinginess which, though
it had money for everything, had none to spare for the schools and the
parsons; the imagery to which he has recourse leaves far behind that
of the Old Testament Prophets.
Here we have the real Luther whom, as he himself admits, though in
a different sense, stands revealed in this writing penned at the
Coburg.[33] “Is this not enough to arouse God’s wrath?… Verily it
would be no wonder were God to open wide the doors and windows of hell
and rain and hail on us nothing but devils, or were He to send fire
and brimstone down from heaven and plunge us all into the abyss of
hell like Sodom and Gomorrha … for they were not one-tenth as wicked
as Germany is now.”[34] Has then Christ, the Son of God, deserved
this of us, he asks, that so many care nothing for the schools and
parsonages, and “even dissuade the children from becoming ministers,
that this office may speedily perish, and the blood and passion of
Christ be no longer of any avail.”[35] Here again his chief reason
for maintaining the schools is his anxiety: “What is otherwise to
become of the ghostly office and calling.”[36] Only after he has
considered this question from all sides and demonstrated that his
Church’s edifice stands in need not merely of “worked stones” but
also of “rubble,” i.e. both of clever men and of others less highly
gifted,[37] does he come in the second place to the importance of
having learned men even in the secular office.
He had begun this writing with an allusion to the devil, viz. to “the
wiles of tiresome Satan against the holy Evangel”; he also concludes
it in the same vein, speaking of the “tiresome devil,” who secretly
plots against the schools and thereby against the salvation of both
town and country.[38]
The author goes at some length into the question of languages and
declares that the main reason for learning them was a religious one.
Languages enable us “to understand Holy Scripture,” he says, “this was
well known to the monasteries and universities of the past, hence they
had always frowned on the study of languages”; the devil was afraid
that languages would make a hole “which afterwards it would not be
easy for him to plug.” But the providence of God has outreached him,
for, by “making over Greece to the Turks and sending the Greeks into
exile, their language was spread abroad and an impetus was given even
to the study of other tongues.” And now, thanks to the languages, the
Gospel has been restored to its “earlier purity.” Hence, for the sake
of the Bible and the Word of God, let us hark back to the languages.
His excellent observations on the importance of the study of languages
for those in secular authority, though perfectly honest, hold merely a
secondary place. The chief use of the languages is as a weapon against
the Papacy. “The dearer the Evangel is to us, the more let us hold
fast to the languages!”
So anxious is he to see the future schools thoroughly “Christian,”
i.e. Evangelical and all devoted to the service of his cause, that he
expressly states that otherwise he “would rather that not a single
boy learnt anything but remained quite dumb.” Hence the earlier
“universities and monasteries” must be made an end of. Their way of
teaching and living “is not the right one for the young.” “It is
my earnest opinion, prayer and wish that these donkey-stables and
devil-schools should either sink into the abyss or else be transformed
into Christian schools. But now that God has bestowed His grace upon
us so richly and provided us with so many well able to teach and bring
up the young, we are actually in danger of flinging the grace of God
to the winds.” “I am of opinion that Germany has never heard so much
of God’s Word as now.… God’s Word is a streaming downpour, the like of
which must not be expected again.”[39]
Hence the two writings differ but little from his usual polemical and
hortatory works. They do not make of Luther the “father of the national
schools,” as he has been erroneously termed, because, what he was after
was not the real education of the masses but something rather different;
still less do the booklets, with their every page reeking of the Word of
God which he preached, make him the father of the modern undenominational
schools.[40]
In fact, elementary schools as such have scarcely any place in these
writings. What concerns him is rather the Latin grammar schools, and only
as an afterthought does he passingly allude to the other schools in which
children receive their first grounding.[41]
Luther’s standpoint as to the Church’s need of Grammar Schools is always
the same, even when he speaks of them in the Table-Talk.
“When we are dead,” he says for instance, “where will others be
found to take our place unless there are schools? For the sake of the
Churches we must have Christian schools and maintain them.”[42]—“When
the schools multiply, things are going well and the Church stands
firm.”[43]—“By means of such cuttings and saplings is the Church sown and
propagated.”—“The schools are of great advantage in that they undoubtedly
preserve the Churches.”[44]
“Hence a reformation of the schools and universities is also called for,”
so he writes in a memorandum,[45] immediately after having declared, that
“it is necessary to have good and pious preachers; all will depend on men
who must be educated in the schools and universities.”[46]
For this reason, viz. on account of the preparation they furnished, he
even has a kind word for the schools of former days.
He recalls to mind, that, even in Popery “the schools supplied parsons
and preachers.” “In the schools the little boys learnt at least the Our
Father and the Creed and the Church was wonderfully preserved by means of
the tiny schools.”[47]—Of a certain hymn he remarks, that it was “very
likely written and kept by some good schoolmaster or parson. The schools
were indeed the all-important factor in the Church and the ‘_ecclesia_’
of the parson.”[48]
_Luther’s Educational Plans_
When, in his exhortations, Luther so warmly advocated the study of
Latin and of languages generally, he was merely keeping to the approved
traditional lines. Although he values ancient languages chiefly as a
means for the better understanding of Scripture, he is so prepossessed
in their favour in “worldly matters” that he even praises Latin at the
expense of German. He is particularly anxious that Latin works should
be read; among themselves the boys were to speak Latin. Recommending
the study of tongues, he says: “If we make such a mistake, which God
forbid, as to give up the study of languages, we shall not only lose the
Gospel but come to such straits as to be unable to read or write aright
either Latin or German.” The education of earlier days had not only led
men away from the Gospel owing to the neglect of languages, but “the
wretched people became mere brutes, unable to read or write either Latin
or German correctly, nay, had almost lost the use of their reason.”
It was statements such as these which drew from Friedrich Paulsen the
exclamation: “Hence Christianity and education, nay, even sound common
sense itself, all depend on the knowledge of languages!”[49]
Well founded as were Luther’s demands for a Latin education, yet we find
in him a notable absence of discrimination between schools and schools.
Even in the preparatory schools he was anxious to see the study of
languages introduced, and that for the girls too. Boys and girls, he
says, ought to be instructed “in tongues and other arts and subjects.”
He was of opinion, that, in this way, it would be possible from the very
first to pick out those best fitted to pursue the study of languages and
to become later “schoolmasters, schoolmistresses or preachers.”[50] He
even appeals to the example of olden Saints such as Agnes, Agatha and
Lucy when urging that the more talented girls should receive a grounding
in languages.[51] “It would undoubtedly have been quite enough had the
less ambitious children been taught merely to reckon, and to read and
write German.” “Luther’s action in having as many children of the people
as possible taught languages … and his warfare against the use of German
in the schools, whether in the towns, the villages, or the hamlets, was
all very unpractical.… He had come to the conclusion that German schools,
for one reason or another, were unsuited to be nurseries for the Church
(‘_seminaria ecclesiæ_’), hence his effort to transplant into the Latin
grammar schools every sapling on which he could lay hands.”[52]
The injunctions appended to Melanchthon’s Visitation rules (1538),
which were sanctioned and approved of by Luther, lay such stress on
the teaching of languages that the humbler schools were bound to
suffer. When dealing with “the schools” their only object seems to
be the “upbringing of persons fit to teach in the churches and to
govern.” And this aim, moreover, is pursued onesidedly enough, for
we read: “The schoolmasters are in the first place to be diligent
to teach the children only Latin, not German, or Greek, or Hebrew,
as some have hitherto done, thus overburdening the poor children’s
minds.” The regulations then proceed to prescribe in detail the
studies to be undertaken in the lowest form: “In order that the
children may get hold of many Latin words, they are to be made to
learn some words every evening, as was the way in the schools in
former days.” After the children have learnt to spell out the handbook
containing the “Alphabet, the Our Father, Creed and other prayers they
are to be set to Donatus and Cato … so that they may thus learn a
number of Latin words and gain a certain readiness of speech (‘_copia
dicendi_’).” Apart from this the lowest form is to be taught only
writing and “music.”
The next class was to learn grammar (needless to say Latin grammar)
and to be exercised in Æsop’s Fables, the “_Pedologia_” of Mosellanus
and the “_Colloquia_” of Erasmus, such of the latter being selected
“as are useful for children and not improper.” “Once the children have
learnt Æsop they are to be given Terence, which they must learn by
heart.” There is no mention made here of any selection, this possibly
being left to the teacher; in the case of Plautus, who was to follow
Terence, this is expressly enjoined.—Of the religious instruction we
read: Seeing it is necessary to teach the children the beginnings of
a Godly, Christian life, “the schoolmaster is to catechise the whole
[2nd] class, making the children recite one after the other the Our
Father, the Creed and the Ten Commandments.” The schoolmaster was to
“explain” these and also to instil into the children such points as
were essential for living a good life, such as the “fear of God,
faith and good works.” The schoolmaster was not to get the children
into the habit of “abusing monks or others, as many incompetent
masters do.” Finally, it was also laid down that those Psalms which
exhort to the “fear of God, faith and good works” were to be learnt
by heart, especially Psalms cxii., xxxiv., cxxviii., cxxv., cxvii.,
cxxxiii. (cxi., xxxiii., cxxvii., cxxiv., cxxvi., cxxxii.), the Gospel
of St. Matthew was also to be explained and perhaps likewise the
Epistles of Paul to Timothy, the 1st Epistle of John and the Book of
Proverbs.
In the 3rd class, in addition to grammar, versification, dialectics
and rhetoric had to be studied, the boys being exercised in Virgil and
Cicero (the “_Officia_” and “_Epistolæ familiares_”). “The boys are
also to be made to speak Latin and the schoolmasters themselves are as
far as possible to speak nothing but Latin with them in order thus to
accustom and encourage them in this practice.”[53]
In his two appeals for the schools in 1524 and 1530 Luther is less
explicit in his requirements than the regulations for the Visitation.
According to him, apart from the languages, it is the text of Scripture
which must form the basis of all the instruction.
Holy Scripture, especially the Gospel, was to be everywhere “the chief
and main object of study.” “Would to God that every town had also a
school for girls where little maids might hear the Gospel for an hour a
day, either in German or in Latin.… Ought not every Christian at the age
of nine or ten to be acquainted with the whole of the Gospel? Young folk
throughout Christendom are pining away and being pitiably ruined for want
of the Gospel, in which they ought always to be instructed and exercised.”
“I would not advise anyone to send his child where Holy Scripture is not
the rule. Where the Word of God is not constantly studied everything must
needs be in a state of corruption.”[54]
In the event, the Bible, together with Luther’s Catechism which had to
be committed to memory, and the hymn-book, became the chief manuals in
the Lutheran schools. On these elements a large portion of the young
generation of Germany was brought up.
For the study of languages Luther, like Melanchthon, recommended
the “_Disticha_” ascribed to Cato and Æsop’s Fables. “It is by the
special mercy of God,” he says, “that Cato’s booklet and the Fables
of Æsop have been preserved in the schools.”[55] We shall describe
elsewhere the efforts he himself made to expurgate the editions of
Æsop which had become corrupted by additions offensive to good morals.
Various Latin classics which Humanists were wont to put in the hands
of the scholars he characterised in his Table-Talk as unsuitable for
school use. “It would be well that the books of Juvenal, Martial,
Catullus and also Virgil’s ‘_Priapeia_’ were weeded out of the land
and the schools, banished and expelled, for they contain coarse and
shameless things such as the young cannot study without grievous
harm.”[56] Of the Roman writers (with the Greeks he is much less at
home) he extols Cicero, Terence and Virgil as useful and improving.
As a whole, however, Luther always remained “at heart a stranger to
true Humanism.… Though not altogether inappreciative of elegance of
style, he is far from displaying the enthusiasm of the Humanists.”[57]
Although he shows himself fairly well acquainted with the writings of
the three authors just mentioned, and though he owed this education
to his early training, yet, in his efforts to belittle the olden
schools, he complains, that “no one had taught him to read the poets
and historians,” but, that, on the other hand, he had been obliged to
study the “devil’s ordure and the philosophers.”[58]
It must not be overlooked that he, like the Instructions for the
Visitors, recommends that Terence and other olden dramatists should
be given to the young to be read, and even acted, though, as he
admits, they “sometimes contain obscenities and love stories.” This
advice he further emphasised in 1537 by declaring that a Protestant
schoolmaster of Bautzen was in the right, when, regardless of the
scandal of many, he had Terence’s “_Andria_” performed. Luther agreed
with Melanchthon in thinking that the picture of morals given in this
piece was improving for the young; also that the disclosure of the
“cunning of women, particularly of light women,” was instructive;
the boys would thus learn how marriages were arranged, and, after
all, marriage was essential for the continuance of society: Even Holy
Scripture contained some love stories. “Thus our people ought not to
accuse these plays of immorality or declare that to read or act them
was prohibited to a Christian.”[59]
The regulations for the Protestant schools, in following Luther
in this matter, merely trod in the footsteps of the older German
Humanists, who had likewise placed Terence and Plautus in the hands
of their pupils. On the contrary Jakob Wimpfeling, the “Teacher of
Germany,” was opposed to them and wished to see Terence banished from
the schools in the interests of morality. At a later date in the
Catholic Grammar schools this author was on moral grounds forbidden to
the more youthful pupils, and only read in excerpts.[60]
In his suggestions on the instruction to be given in the Latin schools
(for in reality it was only of these that he was thinking) Luther
classes with languages and other arts and sciences “singing, music
and mathematics as a whole.”[61] Greek and Hebrew no less than Latin
would also be indispensable for future scholars. He further wished
the authorities to establish “libraries” to further the studies; not,
however, such libraries as the olden ones, containing “mad, useless,
harmful, monkish books”—“donkey’s dung introduced by the devil”—“but Holy
Scripture in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and German, and any other languages
in which it might have been published; besides these the best and
oldest commentaries in Greek, Hebrew and Latin, and furthermore such
books as served for the study of languages, for instance, the poets and
orators,” etc. “The most important of all were, however, the chronicles
and histories … for these are of wonderful utility in enabling us to
understand the course of events, for the art of governing, as also for
perceiving the wonderful works of God. Oh, how many fine stories we ought
to have about what has been done and enacted in the German lands, of
which we, sad to say, know nothing.” In his appreciation of the study
of history and of the proverbial philosophy of the people Luther was in
advance of his day.
Owing to his polemics the judgment he passed on the olden libraries was
very unjust; the remaining traces of them and the catalogues which have
been published of those that have been dispersed show that, particularly
from the early days of Humanism, the better mediæval collections of books
had reached and even passed the standard Luther sets up in the matter of
history and literature.
Very modest, not to say entirely inadequate, is the amount of time
Luther proposes that the children should daily spend in the schools. Of
the lower schools, in which Latin was already to be taught, he says, it
would be enough for “the boys to go to such a school every day for an
hour or two and work the rest of their time at learning a trade, or doing
whatever was required of them.… A little girl, too, could easily find
time to attend school for an hour daily and yet thoroughly perform her
duties in the house.” Only the “pick” of the children, those, namely,
who gave good promise, were to spend “more time and longer hours” in
study.[62]
From all the above it is plain that there is good reason for not
accepting the extravagant statement that Luther’s writings on education
constitute the “charter of our national schools.” Others have extolled
him as the founder of the “Gymnasium” on account of his reference in
these works to the Latin schools. But even this is scarcely true, for, in
them, the author either goes beyond the field covered by the Gymnasium or
else fails to reach it. The Protestant pastor, Julius Boehmer, says in
the popular edition of Luther’s works:[63] “It will not do to regard the
work (”An die Radherrn“) as the ‘Charter of the Gymnasium,’ as has often
been done, seeing that, as stated above, it is concerned with both the
Universities and the lower-grade schools.”[64]
As to attendance at the Universities, of which Luther also speaks, he
asks the authorities to forbid the matriculation of any but the “clever
ones,” though among the masses “every fellow wanted a doctorate.”[65]
What he says of the various Faculties at the Universities is also
noteworthy. With the object of reforming philosophy and the Arts
course he wishes that of all the writings of Aristotle, that blind
heathen master, who had hitherto led astray the Universities, only the
“_Logica_,” “_Rhetorica_” and “_Poetica_” should be retained; “the
books: ‘_Physicorum_,’ ‘_Metaphysicæ_,’ ‘_De anima_’ and ‘_Ethicorum_’
must be dropped”; curiously enough these are the very works on which
Melanchthon was later on to bestow so much attention. We know how hateful
Aristotle was to Luther, because, in his heathen way, he teaches nothing
of grace and faith, but, on the other hand, extols the natural virtues.
Luther’s impulsive and unmethodical mode of thought was also, it must be
said, quite at variance with the logical mind of the Stagirite.
According to Luther “artistic education must be wholly rooted out as a
work of the devil; the very most that can be tolerated is the use of
those works which deal with form, but even these must not be commented on
or explained.”[66]
“The physicians,” he says, “I leave to reform their own Faculty; I shall
see myself to the lawyers and theologians; and, first of all, I say
that it would be a good thing if the whole of Canon Law from the first
syllable to the last were expunged, more particularly the Decretals.
We are told sufficiently in the Bible how to conduct ourselves in all
matters.” Secular law, so he goes on, has also become a “wilderness,” and
accordingly he is in favour of drastic reforms. “Of sensible rulers in
addition to Holy Scripture there are plenty”; national law and national
usage ought certainly not to be subordinated to the Imperial common law,
or the land “governed according to the whim of the individual.… Justice
fetched from far afield was nothing but an oppression of the people.”
Theology, according to him, must above all be Biblical, though now
everything is made to consist in the study of the Book of Sentences of
the schoolman, Peter Lombard, and of his commentators, the Gospel in both
schools and courts of justice being left “forlorn” in the dust under the
bench.[67]
He rightly commends the Disputations, sometimes termed “_circulares_,”
held at the Universities by the students under the direction of their
professor; it pleased him well that the students should bring forward
their own arguments, even though they were sometimes not sound; for
“stairs can only be ascended step by step.” The Disputations, in his
view, also accustomed young men to “reflect more diligently on the
subjects discussed.”[68]
To conclude, we may say a few words concerning the incentives he uses
when urging parents to entrust their children to the schools.
Here Luther considerably oversteps the limits. In one passage, for
instance, he thinks it his right to threaten the parents with the worst
punishments of hell should they refuse to allow gifted children to study,
in order to place them later at the service of the pure Word of God, or
of the Christian rulers, as though forsooth parents and children had no
right in the sight of God to choose their own profession. “Tell me what
hell can be deep and hot enough for such shameful wickedness as yours?”
“If you have a child who studies well, you are not free to bring him up
as you please, nor to treat him as you will, but must bear in mind that
you owe it to God to promote His two rules.” Should the father refuse to
allow the boy to become a preacher, he says, then, so far as in him lies,
he was really consigning to hell all those whom the budding preacher
might have assisted; compared with such a crime against the common weal
the “outbreaks of the rebellious peasants were mere child’s play.” This
he says in a printed letter addressed in 1529 to the town commandant,
Hans Metzsch of Wittenberg, which served as a prelude to his pamphlet
“Das man Kinder zur Schulen halten solle.”[69] The writing is solely
dictated by Luther’s bitter annoyance at the dearth of pastors and the
indifference displayed within his fold.
In this letter, as in both his works on the schools, Luther, whilst
dealing with the excuses of the parents, at the same time throws some
interesting sidelights on the decline in learning and its causes.
_The Decline of the Schools Following in the Wake of the Innovations_
In the above letter to Metzsch Luther briefly gives as follows the
principal reason for the decay of learning: People were in the habit of
saying, “If my son has learnt enough to gain his living then he is quite
learned enough.”[70]
The contempt for learned studies was “largely due to the strongly
utilitarian temper of the age.” “Owing in the first place to the
flourishing state of the towns in the 13th and 14th century, and further
to the influence of the great political upheaval which resulted from
the discoveries and inventions of the day, a sober, practical spirit,
directed solely to material gain, had been aroused throughout a wide
section of the German nation. Preference was shown for the German schools
where writing and reckoning were taught and which prepared children for
the calling of the handicraftsman or the merchant.”[71] Against this
tendency of the day Luther enters the lists particularly in his second
work on the schools dedicated to the syndic of Nuremberg; at the same
time he deals, not in the best of tempers, with the objections advanced
by the merchant and industrial classes.[72] He speaks so harshly as
almost to place in the same category those who refused to bring up their
children “to art and learning” and those who turned them “into mere
gluttons and sucking pigs, intent on food alone” (to Metzsch). “The world
would thus become nothing but a pig-sty”; these “gruesome, noxious,
poisonous parents were bent on making simple belly servers of their
children,” etc.[73]
It is a question, however, whether the development of the material trend,
so surprisingly rapid, with its destructive influence on study was not
furthered by the religious revolution with which it coincided. Luther had
sapped the respect which had obtained for the clerical life and for those
callings which aimed at perfection, while at the same time, by belittling
good works he loosened the inclinations of the purely natural man; by his
repudiation of authority he had produced an intellectual self-sufficiency
or rather self-seeking, which, in the case of many, passed into mere
material egotism, though, of course, Luther’s work cannot be directly
charged with the utilitarianism of the day.
What, however, made his revolt to contribute so greatly to the decline
of learning was its destruction of the wealth of clergy and monks, and
its confiscation of so many livings and foundations established for
educational purposes. By far the greater number of students had always
consisted of such as wished to obtain positions in the Church among
her secular clergy, or to become priests in some monastery. The ranks
of these students had been thinned of late years now that the Catholic
posts no longer existed, that the foundations which formerly provided for
the upkeep of students had disappeared and that an avalanche of calumny
and abuse had descended on the monasteries, priests and monks.[74] In
addition to this there was the fear aroused in Catholic parents and
pastors by the unhappy controversies on religion, lest the young should
be infected in the higher schools these being so frequently hot-beds of
the modern spirit, of hypercriticism and apostasy. Then, again, there
was the distrust, springing from a similar motive, felt by the Catholic
authorities for the centres of learning, and their niggardliness in
making provision for them, an attitude which we meet with, for instance,
in Duke George of Saxony. This was encouraged in the case of the rulers
by the fear of social risings, such as they had experienced in the
Peasant War, and which they laid to the charge of the new ideas on
religion.
Among those favourable to Lutheranism the Wittenberg professor himself
awakened a distaste for the Universities by telling them they must
not allow their sons to study where Holy Scripture “did not rule” and
“where the Word of God was not unceasingly studied.”[75] No one ever
depreciated the Universities as much as Luther, who principally because
their character was still Catholic, was never tired of calling them the
“gates of hell,” and places worse than Sodom and Gomorrha.[76] Nor did
he stop short at the condemnation of their religious attitude. Luther’s
antagonism to the whole system of philosophy, which the Universities,
following the example of Aristotle and the schoolmen, had been so
criminal as to admit, to the liberty they allowed to crazy human reason
in spiritual matters, and to their championship of natural truth and
natural morality as the basis of the life of faith, all this, when
carried to its logical conclusion, necessarily brought Lutheranism into
fatal conflict with the learned institutions.
As Friedrich Paulsen points out: “Luther shared all the superstitions
of the peasant in their most pronounced form; the methods of natural
science were strange to him and any scattering of the prevalent
delusions he would have looked upon as an abomination.”[77] The latter
part of the quotation certainly holds good in those cases where Luther
fancied that Holy Scripture or his explanation of it was ever so
slightly impugned. When, on June 4, 1539, the conversation at table
turned on Copernicus and his new theory concerning the earth, of which
the latter had been convinced since 1507, Luther appealed (just as
later opponents of the theory were to do) to Holy Scripture, according
to which “Josue bade _the sun_ to stand still and _not the earth_.”
The new astronomer wants to prove that the earth moves. “But that is
the way nowadays: whoever wishes to seem clever, pays no attention to
what others do, but must needs advance something of his own; and what
he does must always be the best. The idiot is bent on upsetting the
whole art of astronomy.”[78]
Luther’s condemnation of philosophy found a strong echo among the
Pietists, who were an offshoot of Lutheranism, and even claimed to
be its truest representatives. The loud denunciations of Aristotle
were, for instance, taken up by the theologian Zierold.[79] But even
from the common people who looked up to him we hear such sayings as
the following: “What is the use of our learning the Latin, Greek
and Hebrew tongues and other fine arts seeing we might just as well
read in German the Bible and the Word of God which suffices for our
salvation?” Luther was not at a loss for an answer. He says first:
“Yes, I know, alas, that we Germans must always remain beasts and
senseless animals.” Then he falls back on his usual plea, viz. that
languages “are profitable and advantageous” for a right understanding
of Scripture; he forgets that he has here to do with the common
people, and that a critical or philosophical interpretation of the
Bible was of small use to them. Such a thing might be profitable to
those who were being trained for the ministry, though many even of
the preachers themselves declared that the illumination from above
sufficed, together with the reading of the Bible.[80]
Carlstadt was even opposed to the Wittenberg graduations because they
promoted pride of learning and the worldly spirit instead of humble
Bible faith. Melanchthon, at a time when he was still full of Luther’s
early ideas, i.e. in Feb., 1521, in a work written under the pseudonym
of Didymus Faventinus, attempted to vindicate against Hieronymus Emser
his condemnation of the whole philosophy of the universities; physics
as taught there consisted merely of monstrous terms and contradicted
the teaching of the Bible; metaphysics were but an impudent attempt
to storm the heavens under the leadership of the atheist Aristotle.
“My complaint is against that wisdom by which you have drawn away
Christians from Scripture to reason. Go on, he-goat,” he says to
Emser, “and deny that the philosophy of the schools is idolatry”; your
ethics is diametrically opposed to Christ; at the Universities human
reason had degraded the Church to Sodomitic vices. Nothing more wicked
and godless than the Universities had ever been invented; no pope, but
the devil himself was their author; this even Wiclif had declared, and
he could not have said anything wiser or more pious. The Jews offered
young men to Moloch, a prelude to our Universities where the young are
sacrificed to heathen idols.[81]
To such an extent had the darksome pseudo-mysticism which seethed in
Luther’s mind laid hold for a while upon his comrade—glaringly though
it contradicted the humanistic tendency found in him both earlier and
later.
If we look more closely into the decline of the schools, we shall find
that it came about with extraordinary rapidity, a fact which proves it to
have been the result of a movement both sudden and far-reaching.
“The immediate effect of the Wittenberg preaching,” wrote in 1908 the
Protestant theologian F. M. Schiele in the “Preussische Jahrbücher”
of Berlin, in a strongly worded but perfectly true account of the
situation, “was the collapse of the educational system which had
flourished throughout Germany; the new zeal for Church reform, the
growth of prosperity, the ambition in the burghers, the pride and
fatherly solicitude of the sovereigns who were ever gaining strength,
had resulted in the foundation on all sides of school after school,
university after university. Students flocked to them in multitudes,
for the prospects of future gain were good. Scholasticism provided a
capable teaching staff, Humanism a brilliant one. Humanism also set up
as the new ideal of education a return to the fountain-head and the
reproduction of ancient civilisation by means of original effort on
similar lines. Wide tracts of Germany lay like a freshly sown field,
and many a harvest seemed to be ripening. Then, suddenly, before it
was possible to determine whether the new crops consisted of wheat
or of tares, a storm burst and destroyed all prospects of a harvest.
The upheaval that followed in the wake of the Reformation, and other
external causes which coincided with it, above all the reaction among
the utilitarian-minded laity against the unpopular scholarship of
the Humanists emptied the class rooms and lecture halls.… Now all is
over with the priestlings; why then should we bind our future to a
lost and despised cause?… Nor was this merely the passing result of a
misapprehension of Luther’s preaching, for it endured for scores of
years.”[82]
As to the common opinion among Protestants, viz. that “Luther’s
reformation gave a general stimulus to the schools and to education
generally,” Schiele dismisses it in a sentence: “The alleged
‘stimulus’ is seen to melt away into nothing.”[83]
Eobanus Hessus, a Humanist friendly to Luther, who lectured at Erfurt
University, was so overcome with grief at sight of the decline that was
making itself felt there that, in 1523, he composed an Elegy on the decay
of learning entitled “_Captiva_” and sent it to Luther. The melancholy
poem of 428 verses was printed in the same year under the title “Circular
letter from the sorrowful Church to Luther.” Luther replied, praising the
poem and assuring the sender that he was favourably disposed towards the
humanistic studies and practices. He even speaks as though still full of
the expectation of a great revival; his depression is, however, apparent
from the very reasons he gives for his hopes: “I see that no important
revelation of the Word of God has ever taken place without a preliminary
revival and expansion of languages and erudition.” The present decline
might, however, he thought, be traced to the former state of things when
they did not as yet possess the “pure theology.”[84]
But Hessus had complained, and with good reason, of the evil doings
of the new believers, instances of which had come under his notice at
Erfurt, and which had caused many to declare sadly: “We Germans are
becoming even worse barbarians than before, seeing that, in consequence
of our theology, learning is now going to the wall.”[85] At Erfurt the
Lutheran theology had won its way to the front amidst tumults and revolts
since the day when Crotus had greeted Luther on his way to Worms with his
revolutionary discourse.[86] Since then there had been endless conflicts
of the preachers with the Church of Rome and amongst themselves. Some
were to be met with who inveighed openly against the profane studies at
the Universities, and could see no educative value in anything save in
their own theology and the Word of God. Attendance at the University had
declined with giant strides since the spread of Lutheranism. Whereas from
May 1520 to 1521 the names of 311 students had been entered, their number
fell in the following year to 120 and in 1522 to 72; five years later
there were only 14.
Hessus wrote quite openly in 1523: “On the plea of the Evangel the
runaway monks here in Erfurt have entirely suppressed the fine arts … our
University is despised and so are we.”
His colleague, Euricius Cordus, a learned partisan of Luther, expresses
himself with no less disgust concerning the state of learning and
decline of morals among the students.[87] “All those who have any
talent,” we read in the Academic Year-Book in 1529, “are now forsaking
barren scholarship in order to betake themselves to more remunerative
professions, or to trade.”[88]
As at Erfurt, so also at other Universities, a rapid diminution in the
number of students took place during those years. “It has been generally
remarked,” a writer who has made a special study of this subject says,
“that in the German Universities in the ’twenties of the 16th century
a sudden decrease in the number of matriculations becomes apparent.”
He proves from statistics that at the University of Leipzig from 1521
to 1530 the number of those studying dropped from 340 to 100, at the
University of Rostock from 123 to 33, at Frankfurt-on-the-Oder from 73
to 32 and, finally, at Wittenberg from 245 to 174.[89] The attendance
at Heidelberg reached its lowest figure between 1521 and 1565, “this
being due to the religious and social movements of the Reformation which
proved an obstacle to study.” Of the German Universities generally the
following holds good: “The religious and social disturbances of the
Reformation brought about a complete interruption in the studies. Some of
the Universities were closed down, at others the hearers dwindled down to
a few.”[90]
“The Universities, Erfurt, Leipzig and the others stand deserted,” Luther
himself says as early as 1530, gazing from the Coburg at the ruins, “and
likewise here and there even the boys’ schools, so that it is piteous to
see them, and poor Wittenberg is now doing better than any of them. The
foundations and the monasteries, in my opinion, are probably also feeling
the pinch.”[91] He speaks at the same time of the decline of the Grammar
schools and the lower-grade schools which also to some extent shared the
fate of the Universities.
In the Catholic parts of Germany the clergy schools and monastic schools
suffered severely under the general calamity, as Luther had shrewdly
guessed. Nor was the set-back confined to the Universities, but even the
elementary schools suffered.
It was practically the universal complaint of the monasteries, so
Wolfgang Mayer, the learned Cistercian Abbot of Alderspach in Bavaria,
wrote in 1529, that they were unable to continue for lack of postulants;
“in consequence of the Lutheran controversy the schools everywhere are
standing empty and no one is willing any longer to devote himself to
study. The clerical and likewise the religious state is despised by all
and no one is inclined to offer himself for this life.” “Oh, God who
could ever have anticipated the coming of such a time! Everything is
ruined, everything is in confusion, and there is nothing but sunderings,
splits and heresies everywhere!” Yet these words come from the same
author, who, in 1518, in the introduction to his Annals of Alderspach,
had been so enthusiastic about the state of learning in Germany and had
said: “Germany is richly blessed with the gifts of Minerva and disputes
the palm in the literary arena with the Italians and the Greeks.”
Whereas, between the years 1460-1514 no less than eighty brethren had
entered Alderspach, Mayer, in his thirty years of office as Abbot,
clothed only seventeen novices with the habit of St. Bernard, and, of
these, five broke their vows and left the monastery. He expresses his
fear that soon his religious house will be empty and ascribes the lack of
novices largely to the fate which had overtaken the schools owing to the
innovations.[92]
“Throughout the whole of the German lands,” as Luther himself admits: “No
one will any longer allow his children to learn or to study.”[93] At the
same time contemporaries bitterly bewailed the wildness of the students
who still remained at the Universities. With regard to Wittenberg
itself we have grievous complaints on this score from both Luther and
Melanchthon.[94]
The disorder in the teaching institutions naturally had a bad effect on
the education of the people, so that Luther’s efforts on behalf of the
schools may readily be understood. The ecclesiastical Visitors of the
Saxon Electorate had been forced to adopt stern measures in favour of the
country schools. The Elector called to mind Luther’s admonitions, that
he, as the “principal guardian of the young,” had authority to compel
such towns and villages as possessed the means, to maintain schools,
pulpits and parsonages, just as he might compel them to furnish bridges,
high roads and footpaths.… “If, moreover, they have not the means,”
so Luther had said, “there are the monastic lands which most of them
were bestowed for this very purpose.”[95] But in spite of the measures
taken by the Elector and the urgent demands of the theologians for State
aid, even in towns like Wittenberg the condition of the intermediate
educational institutions was anything but satisfactory. In the case of
his own sons Luther had grudgingly to acknowledge that he was “at a loss
to find a suitable school.”[96] He accordingly had recourse to young
theologians as tutors.
The disappointment of the Humanists was keen and their lot a bitter one.
They had cherished high hopes of the dawn of a new era for classical
studies in Germany. Many had rejoiced at the alliance which had at first
sprung up between the Humanist movement and the religious revolution,
believing it would clear the field for learning. They now felt it all
the more deeply seeing that the age, being altogether taken up with arid
theological controversies and the pressing practical questions of the
innovations, had no longer the slightest interest in the educational
ideals of antiquity. The violent changes in every department of life
which the religious upheaval brought with it could not but be prejudicial
to the calm intellectual labours of which the Humanists had dreamed; the
prospect of Mutian’s “_Beata tranquillitas_” had vanished.
Mutian, at one time esteemed as the leader of the Thuringian Humanists,
retired into solitude and died in the utmost poverty (1526) after the
Christian faith had, as it would appear, once more awakened in him.
Eminent lawyers among the Humanists, Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg and
Christopher Scheurl of Nuremberg, openly detached themselves from the
Wittenbergers. Scheurl, who had once waxed so enthusiastic about the
light which had dawned in Saxony, now declared confidentially to Catholic
friends that Wittenberg was a cesspool of errors and intellectual
darkness.[97] The reaction which the recognition of Luther’s real aims
produced in other Humanists, such as Willibald Pirkheimer, Crotus
Rubeanus, Ottmar Luscinius and Henricus Glareanus, has already been
referred to.[98] It is no less true of the Humanists favourable to the
Church than of those holding Lutheran views, that German Humanism was
nipped in the bud by the ecclesiastical innovations. As Paulsen says:
“Luther usurped the leadership [from the Humanists] and theology [that of
the Protestants] drove the fine arts from the high place they had just
secured; at the very moment of their triumph the Humanists saw the fruits
of victory snatched from their grasp.”[99]
The event of greatest importance for the Humanists was, however,
Erasmus’s open repudiation of Luther in 1523, and his attack on that
point so closely bound up with all intellectual progress, viz. Luther’s
denial of free-will.
Quite independent of this attack were the many and bitter complaints
which the sight of the decline of his beloved studies drew from Erasmus:
“The Lutheran faction is the ruin of our learning.”[100] “We see that the
study of tongues and the love of fine literature is everywhere growing
cold. Luther has heaped insufferable odium on it.”[101] He regrets the
downfall of the schools at Nuremberg: “All this laziness came in with
the new Evangel.”[102] He wished to have nothing more to do with these
Evangelicals, he declares, because, through their doing, scholarship was
everywhere being ruined. “These people [the preachers] are anxious for a
living and a wife, for the rest they do not care a hair.”[103]
In the above year, 1523, at the beginning of his public estrangement with
Erasmus, Luther had written: “Erasmus has done what he was destined to
do; he has introduced the study of languages and recalled us from godless
studies (‘_a sacrilegis studiis_’). He will in all likelihood die like
Moses, in the plains of Moab [i.e. never see the Promised Land]. He is
no leader to the higher studies, i.e. to piety”; in other words, unlike
Luther, he was not able to lead his followers into the land of promise,
where the enslaved will rules.[104]
Luther’s use of the term “_sacrilega studia_” invites us to cast a glance
on the state of education before his day.
_Higher Education before Luther’s Day_
The condition of the schools before Luther, as described in our available
sources, was very different from what Luther pictured to his readers in
his works.
According to Luther’s polemical writings, learning in earlier days
could not but be sacrilegious because Satan “was corrupting the young”
in “his own nests, the monasteries and clerical resorts”; “he, the
prince of this world, gave the young his good things and delights;
the devil spread out his nets, established monasteries, schools and
callings, in such a way that no boy could escape him.”[105] With this
fantastic view, met with only too frequently in Luther under all sorts
of shapes, goes hand in hand his wholesale reprobation and belittling
of the olden methods and system of education. The professors at the
close of the Middle Ages were only able, according to Luther, to
“train up profligates and greedy bellies, rude donkeys and blockheads;
all they could teach men was to be asses and to dishonour their wives,
daughters and maids.” “People studied twenty or forty years and yet
at the end of it all knew neither Latin nor German.” “Those ogres and
kidnappers” set up libraries, but they were filled “with the filth and
ordure of their obscene and poisonous books”; “the devil’s spawn, the
monks and the spectres of the Universities” when conferring doctorates
decked out “great fat loutish donkeys in red and brown hoods, like
a sow pranked out with gold chains and pearls.” “The pupils and
professors were as mad as the books on which they lectured. A jackdaw
does not hatch out doves nor can a fool beget wise offspring.”
It is in his “An die Radherrn,” the object of which was to raise the
standard of education, that we find such coarse language.
What is of more importance is that Luther seems here to be seeking to
conceal the decline in learning which he had brought about, and to lay
the blame solely on the olden schools. If the corruption had formerly
been so great then some excuse might be found for the ruin which had
followed his struggle with the Church.—Such an excuse, however, does
not tally with the facts.
That, on the contrary, education, not only at the Universities, but
also in the Latin schools, which Luther had more particularly in view,
was in a flourishing condition and full of promise before it was so
rudely checked by the religious disturbances which emptied all the
schools, has been fully confirmed to-day by learned research. “The
increased attendance at the Universities in the course of the 15th and
the commencement of the 16th century is a very rapid one,” writes Franz
Eulenburg. “Hence the decline in the ’twenties of the latter century is
all the more noticeable.”[106] “At the beginning of the 16th century,”
says Friedrich Paulsen, “everyone of any influence or standing, strength
or courage, devoted himself to the new learning: prelates, sovereigns,
the townships and, above all, the young”; but, shortly after the outbreak
of the ecclesiastical revolution, “everything became changed.”[107]
What had contributed principally to a salutary revival had been the
sterling work of the older Humanists. Eminent and thoroughly religious
men of the schools—men like Alexander Hegius and his pupils and
successors Rudolf von Langen, Ludwig Dringenberg, Johannes Murmellius
and, particularly, Jakob Wimpfeling, who, on account of his epoch-making
pedagogic work, was called the teacher of Germany—zealously made their
own the humanistic ideal of making of the classics the centre of the
education of the young, and of paving the way for a new intellectual
life, by means of the instruction given in the schools.[108] An attempt
was made to combine classical learning with devotion to the old religion
and respect for the Church. They also strove to carry out—though not
always successfully—the task which was assigned to the schools by the
Lateran Council held under Leo X; the aim of the teacher was to be not
merely to impart grammar, rhetoric and the other sciences, but at the
same time to instil into those committed to their charge the fear of God
and zeal for the faith.[109] The sovereigns and the towns placed their
abundant means at the disposal of the new movement and so did the Church,
which at that time was still a wealthy organisation.
The number of the schools and scholars in itself proves the interest
taken by the nation in the relative prosperity of its education.
To take some instances from districts with which Luther must have
been fairly well acquainted: Zwickau had a flourishing Latin school
which, in 1490, numbered 900 pupils divided into four classes. In
1518 instruction was given there in Greek and Hebrew, and bequests,
ecclesiastical and secular, for its maintenance continued to be made.
The town of Brunswick had two Latin schools and, besides, three
schools belonging to religious communities. At Nuremberg, towards
the close of the 15th century, there were several Latin schools
controlled by four rectors and twelve assistants; a new “School of
Poetry” was added in 1515 under Johann Cochlæus. Augsburg also had
five Church schools at the commencement of the 16th century, and
besides this private teachers with a humanistic training were engaged
in teaching Latin and the fine arts. At Frankfurt-on-the-Main there
were, in 1478, three foundation schools with 318 pupils; the college
at Schlettstadt in Alsace numbered 900 pupils in 1517 and Geiler of
Kaysersberg and Jakob Wimpfeling were both educated there. At Görlitz
in Silesia, at the close of the 15th century, the number of scholars
varied between 500 and 600. Emmerich on the lower Rhine had, in 1510,
approximately 450 pupils in its six classes, in 1521 about 1500.
Münster in Westphalia, owing to the labours of its provost, Rudolf
von Langen, became the focus and centre of humanistic effort, and,
subsequent to 1512, had also its pupils divided into six classes.[110]
The “Brothers of the Common Life” established their schools over the
whole of Northern Germany. Their institutions, with which Luther
himself had the opportunity of becoming acquainted at Magdeburg, sent
out some excellent schoolmasters. The schools of these religious at
Deventer, Zwolle, Liège and Louvain were famous. The school of the
brothers at Liège numbered in 1521 1600 pupils, assorted into eight
classes.
In the lands of the Catholic princes many important grammar-schools
withstood the storms of the religious revulsion, so that Luther’s
statements concerning the total downfall of education cannot be
accepted as generally correct, even subsequent to the first decades of
the century.
Nor were even the elementary schools neglected at the close of the
Middle Ages in most parts of the German Empire. Fresh accounts of such
schools, in both town and country, are constantly cropping up to-day
in the local histories. Constant efforts for their improvement and
multiplication were made at this time. About a hundred regulations
and charters of schools either in German, or in Dutch, dating from
1400-1521 have been traced. The popular religious handbooks were
zealous in advocating the education of the people.[111] Luther himself
tells us it was the custom to stir up the schoolmasters to perform
their duty by saying that “to neglect a scholar is as bad as to seduce
a maid.”[112]
_Luther’s Success_
Did Luther, by means of the efforts described above, succeed in bringing
about any real improvement in the schools, particularly the Latin
schools? The affirmative cannot be maintained. At least it was a long
time before the reform which he desiderated came, and what reform took
place seems to have been the result less of Luther’s exhortations than of
Melanchthon’s labours.
On the whole his hopes were disappointed. The famous saying of
Erasmus: “Wherever Lutheranism prevails, there we see the downfall of
learning,”[113] remained largely true throughout the 16th century, in
spite of all Luther’s efforts.
Schiele says: Where Melanchthon’s school-regulations for the Saxon
Electorate were enforced without alteration, Latin alone was taught,
“but neither German nor Greek nor Hebrew,” that the pupils might not be
overtaxed. Instruction in history and mathematics was not insisted on at
all. Bugenhagen added the rudiments of Greek and mathematics. Only about
twenty years after Luther’s “An die Radherrn” do we hear something of
attempts being made to improve matters in the Lutheran districts. As a
rule all that was done even in the large towns was to amalgamate several
moribund schools and give them a new charter. “Even towns like Nuremberg
and Frankfurt were unable, in spite of the greatest sacrifices, to
introduce a well-ordered system into the schools. The two most eminent,
practical pedagogues of the time, Camerarius and Micyllus, could not
check the decline of their council schools.”[114]
Nuremberg, the highly praised home of culture, may here be taken as a
case in point, because it was to the syndic of this city that Luther
addressed his second writing, praising the new Protestant gymnasium which
had been established there (above, p. 6). Yet, in 1530, after it had
been in existence some years, this same syndic, Lazarus Spengler, sadly
wrote: “Are there not any intelligent Christians who would not be highly
distressed that in a few short years, not Latin only, but all other
useful languages and studies have fallen into such contempt? Nobody,
alas, will recognise the great misfortune which, as I fear, we shall
soon suffer, and which even now looms in sight.”[115] In the Gymnasium,
which he had so much at heart, instruction was given free owing to the
rich foundations, nevertheless but very few pupils were found to attend
it. Eobanus Hessus, who was to have lent his assistance to promoting
the cause of Humanism, left the town again in 1533. When Hessus before
this complained to Erasmus that he had given offence to the town by his
complaints of the low standard to which the school had fallen (above, p.
32), the latter replied in 1531, that he had received his information
from the learned Pirkheimer and other friends of the professors there.
He had indeed written that learning seemed to be only half alive there,
in fact, at its last gasp, but he had done so in order by publishing the
truth to spur them on to renewed zeal. “This I know, that at Liège and
Paris learning is flourishing as much as ever. Whence then comes this
torpor? From the negligence of those who boast of being Evangelicals.
Besides, you Nurembergers have no reason to think yourselves particularly
offended by me, for such complaints are to be heard from the lips of
every honest man of every town where the Evangelicals rule.”[116]
Camerarius, whom Melanchthon wished to be the soul of the school, turned
his back on it in 1535 on account of the hopeless state of things. J.
Poliander said in 1540: In Nuremberg, that populous and well-built city,
there are rich livings and famous professors, but owing to the lack
of students the institution there has dwindled away. “The lecturers
left it, which caused much disgrace and evil talk to the people of
Nuremberg, as everybody knows.”[117] When Melanchthon stayed for a
while at Nuremberg in 1552 by order of the Elector, the Gymnasium
was a picture of desolation. In the school regulations issued by the
magistrates the pupils were reproached with contempt of divine service,
blasphemy, persistent defiance of school discipline, etc., and with being
“barbarous, rude, wild, wanton, bestial and sinful.” Camerarius even
wrote from Leipzig advising the town-council to break up the school.[118]
There is no doubt that in other districts where Lutheranism prevailed
Latin schools were to be found where good discipline reigned and where
masters and pupils alike worked with zeal; the records, however, have
far more to say of the decline.
Many statements of contemporaries well acquainted with the facts speak
most sadly of the then conditions. Melanchthon complained more and
more that shortsighted Lutheran theologians stood in the way of the
progress of the schools. Camerarius, in a letter to George Fabricius,
rector of Meissen, said in 1555 that it was plain everything was
conspiring for the destruction of Germany, that religion, learning,
discipline and honesty were doomed. As one of the principal causes
he instances “the neglect and disgust shown for that learning,
which, in reality, is the glory and ornament of man.” “It is looked
upon as tomfoolery and a thing fit only for children to play with.”
“Education, and life in general, too, has become quite other from what
we were accustomed to in our boyhood.” Of the Catholic times he speaks
with enthusiasm: “What zeal at one time inspired the students and in
what honour was learning held; what hardships men were ready to endure
in order to acquire but a modicum of scholarship is still to-day a
matter of tradition. Now, on the other hand, learned studies are so
little thought of owing to civil disturbances and inward dissensions
that it is only here and there that they have escaped complete
destruction.”[119]
What he says is abundantly confirmed by the accounts of the failure of
educational effort at Augsburg, Esslingen, Basle, Stuttgart, Tübingen,
Ansbach, Heilbronn and many other towns.
The efforts made were, however, not seldom ill-advised. If it be
really a fact that the Latin “_Colloquia_” of Erasmus, which Luther
himself had condemned for its frivolity, “played a principal part
in the education of the schoolboys,”[120] then, indeed, it is not
surprising that the results did not reach expectations. The crude
polemics against the olden Church and the theological controversies
associated with the names of Luther and Melanchthon, which penetrated
into the schools owing to the squabbles of the professors and
preachers, also had a bad effect. Again education was hampered by
being ever subordinated to the interests of a “pure faith” which was
regarded as its mainstay, but which was itself ever changing its shape
and doctrines.[121]
“The form of education required for future ministers,” says Schiele,
“became the chief thing, and education as such was consequently
obliged to take a back seat.” “At the Universities it was only
theology that flourished,” the olden Hellenists died out and the
young were, in many places, only permitted to attend the “orthodox”
Universities. Among the Lutherans the Latin schools were soon no
longer able to compete with the colleges of the Jesuits and the
Calvinists. Not a single Lutheran rector or master of note is recorded
in the annals of the history of education. It is true that the
so-called Küster-schools spread throughout the land simultaneously
with the spread of orthodoxy. But when we see how the orthodox clergy
despised their catechetical duties as of secondary importance,
and hastened to delegate them as far as possible to the Küster
[parish-clerk], it becomes impossible for us to regard such schools
as a proof of any interest in education on the part of the orthodox,
rather the contrary. How otherwise can we explain, even when we take
into account the unfavourable conditions of the age, that, a hundred
years after Luther’s day, far fewer people were able to read his
writings than at the time when he first came forward.[122]
In the elementary schools which gradually came into being the
parish-clerk gave instruction in reading and writing, and, in addition,
tried to teach the catechism by reciting it aloud and making the children
repeat it after him. The earliest definite regulations which imposed this
duty on the clerk in addition to the catechism were those issued by Duke
Christopher of Würtemberg in 1559, who also devoted his attention to the
founding of German schools. The latter, however, were not intended for
the smaller villages, nor did they receive any support from the “poor
box.” Nor did all the children attend the schools kept by the clerk. The
school regulations issued by the Protestant Duke were in themselves good,
but their effect was meagre.[123] In the Saxon Electorate it was only
in 1580 that the parish-clerks of the villages were directed to keep a
school.[124]
Finally, to come to the Protestant Universities; it was only in the
latter part of the 16th century that the attendance, which, as we saw
above, had fallen so low, began once more to make a better show.
In 1540 Melanchthon expressed himself as satisfied with the condition of
learning which prevailed in them.[125] But among others whose opinion
was less favourable we find Luther’s friend Justus Jonas, who, two
years before this, in 1538, wrote, that, since the Evangel had begun
to make its way through Germany, the Universities were silent as the
grave.[126] The testimony of Rudolf Walther, a Swiss, who had visited
many German Universities and been on terms of intimacy with eminent
Protestant theologians, must also receive special attention. In 1568
he wrote—though his words may perhaps be somewhat discounted by his
own theological isolation—“The German Universities are now in such
a state that, to say nothing of the conceit and carelessness of the
professors and the impudent immorality which prevails, they are in no way
remarkable. Heidelberg, however, is praised more than the others, for the
attacks which menace her on all sides do not allow this University to
slumber.”[127]
Heidelberg was the chief educational centre of those who held Calvinistic
views. Since 1580 the attendance at the University had notably increased
owing to the influx of students from abroad. Towards the close of the
century, with Wittenberg and Jena, it headed the list of the Universities
of the new faith in respect of the number of matriculations. Jena, like
its sister Universities of Marburg, Königsberg and Helmstädt, had been
founded as a seminary of Protestant theology and at the same time of
Roman law, which served to strengthen the absolutism of the princes.
Since the appointment of Flacius Illyricus in 1557 it had become a
stronghold of pure Lutheranism. The theological squabbles within the
bosom of Protestantism, here as in the other Universities, were,
however, disastrous to peace, and any healthy progress. Characteristic
of the treatment meted out to the professors by Protestant statesmen
of a different opinion, even when they were not summarily dismissed,
is the discourse of the Saxon Chancellor, Christian Brück, to the
professors of the theological Faculty at Jena in 1561: “You black, red
and yellow knaves and rascals! A plague upon you all you shameless
scamps and rebels! Would that you were knocked on the head, disgraced and
blinded!”[128]
The University of Wittenberg now registered the largest number of
students. Although on Luther’s first public appearance crowds of students
had been attracted by the fame of his name, yet these decreased to such
an extent that between 1523 and 1533 not a single theological degree
was conferred. About 1550, however, the Faculties again numbered about
2000 students, thanks chiefly to Melanchthon. In 1598 the number is even
given as exceeding 2000. Throughout the whole of the century, from the
beginning of the ecclesiastical schism, a considerable percentage of
students had poured in from abroad. Of the wantonness of the Wittenberg
students of the various Faculties, contemporaries as well as official
documents wax so eloquent that the University would seem to have enjoyed
an unenviable notoriety in this respect among the Protestant educational
establishments.[129] The fact that, as just mentioned, the students
were largely recruited from other countries must be taken into account.
Wittenberg suffered more than the other Universities from the quarrels
which, according to Luther, tore to pieces Protestant theology. What was
said in a sermon in 1571 on the words “Peace be with you” is peculiarly
applicable to Wittenberg: “Only see what quarrelling and envy, hatred,
and persecution, and expulsion there has been, and still is, among the
professors at Wittenberg, Jena, Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, Königsberg and
indeed all the Universities which really should be flourishing in the
light of our beloved Evangel; it would indeed be a great and heavenly
work of God if all the young men at these Universities did not fall into
such vices, and even become utterly corrupted.”[130]
4. Benevolence and Relief of the Poor
Luther’s attitude towards poor relief, which ever since the rise of
Protestantism has been the subject of extravagant eulogies, can only be
put in its true light by a closer examination of the state of things
before his day.[131]
_At the Close of the Middle Ages_
Indications of the provision made by the community for relief of the poor
are found in the Capitularies of Charles the Great, indeed even in the
6th century in the canons of a Council held at Tours in 567. Corporate
relief of the poor, later on carried out by means of the guilds, and
the care of the needy in each particular district undertaken by unions
of the parishes, were of a public and organised character. It has been
justly remarked concerning the working of the mediæval institutions: “The
results achieved by our insurance system were then attained by means of
family support, corporations, village clubs and unions of the lords of
the manors.… Such organised relief of the poor made any State relief
unnecessary. The State authorities concerned themselves only negatively,
viz. by prohibiting mendicancy and vagabondage.”[132] Private benevolence
occupied the first place, since the very nature of Christian charity
involves love of our neighbour. Its work was mainly done by means of the
ecclesiastical institutions and the monasteries. Special arrangements
also were made, under the direction of the Church, to meet the various
needs, and such were to be found in considerable numbers both in large
places and in small; all, moreover, was carried out on the lines of a
careful selection of deserving cases and a wise control of expenditure.
The share taken by the Church in the whole work of charity was, generally
speaking, a guarantee that the work was managed conscientiously.
Though among both monks and clergy scandalous instances of greed and
self-seeking were not wanting, yet there were many who lived up to their
profession and were zealous in assisting in the development of works
of charity. The mendicant Orders, by the very example of the poverty
prescribed by their rule, helped to combat all excessive avarice; their
voluntary privations taught people how to endure the trials of poverty
and they showed their gratitude for the alms bestowed on them by their
labours for souls in the pulpit and in the school, and by doing their
utmost to promote learning.
Every Order was exhorted by its Rule to fly idleness and to perform works
of neighbourly charity.
There are plentiful sermons and works of piety dating from the close of
the Middle Ages which prove how the faithful were not only urged to be
charitable to the needy, but also to obey God’s command and to labour,
this exhortation referring particularly to the poor themselves, who were
not unnecessarily to become a burden to others. Again and again are the
words of the Bible emphasised: “In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat
thy bread,” and “Whoever will not work neither let him eat” (Gen. iii.
19; 2 Thes. iii. 10).
In spite of this, lack of industrial occupation, the difficulty and even
sometimes the entire absence of public supervision, and, in part also,
the ease with which alms were to be had, bred a large crop of beggars,
who moved about from place to place and who, in late mediæval times,
became a perfect plague throughout the whole of Germany. Hence all the
greater towns in the 15th century and early years of the 16th issued
special regulations to deal with the poor. In the matter of these laws
for the regulation of charity the city-fathers acted independently,
strong in the growing consciousness of their standing and duties. Lay
Guardians of the Poor were appointed by the magistrates and poor-boxes
were established, the management of which devolved on the municipal
authorities. The Catholic Netherlands set an excellent example in this
respect by utilising the old hospital regulations and, with their help,
drawing up new and independent organisations. Antwerp, Brussels, Louvain,
Mechlin, Ghent, Bruges, Namur and other towns already possessed a
well-developed system of poor relief.
“The admirable regulations for the relief of the poor at Ypres”
(1525), to which reference is so often made, “a work of social reform
of the first rank” (Feuchtwanger), sprang from such institutions,
and these, in turn, were by Charles V in 1531 made the basis of his
new Poor Law for the whole of the Netherlands. The Ypres regulations
declared, that, according to the divine command, everyone is obliged
to gain his living as far as he can. All begging was strictly
prohibited, charitable institutions and private almsgiving were not
allowed to have their way unchecked, admission of strangers was made
difficult and other salutary restrictions were enforced, yet, on the
other hand, Christian charity towards those unable to earn a living
was warmly welcomed and set in the right channels.[133]
In the Netherlands, Humanism, which had made great progress in
Erasmus’s native land, co-operated in the measures taken, and it was
here that the important “_De subventione pauperum_” of Juan Ludovico
de Vives, a friend of Erasmus, of Pope Hadrian IV and of Sir Thomas
More, and a zealous opponent of Lutheranism, was published in 1526.
In the Catholic towns of Germany, particularly in the south, it was
not merely the stimulus of Humanism but still more the economic and
political development which, towards the end of the Middle Ages and
during the transition to modern times, led to constant fresh efforts
in the domain of the public relief of the poor. The assistance of
the poor was, in fact, at that time “one of the principal social
questions, poor relief being identical with social politics. To
provide for the sick members of the guilds, for the serf incapable
of work, for the beggar in the street, for the guest in the hostel,
for the poor artisan to whom the city magistrates gave a loan free of
interest, for the burgher who received cheap grain from the council,
all this was, to give freely, to bestow alms and to perform works well
pleasing to God.”[134]
The gaping rift in the German lands and the chaotic conditions which
accompanied the transition from the agrarian to the commercial system
of economy were naturally not favourable to the peaceful work of
alleviating poverty. It was, however, eventually to the advantage of
the towns to form themselves into separate administrations, able to
safeguard their own charitable institutions by means of an efficient
police system. Thus the town councils took over what had been formerly
to a great extent the function of the Church, but this they did
without any animosity towards her. They felt themselves to be acting
as beseemed “Christian authorities.” They were encouraged in this by
that interference, in what had once been the domain of the Church, of
the territorial princes and the cities, which had become the rule in
the 15th century. The more or less extensive suzerainty in Church
matters which had prevailed even previous to the religious schism in
Saxony, Brandenburg and many of the Imperial cities may be called to
mind. In towns such as Augsburg, Nuremberg, Strasburg and Ratisbon
the overwhelming increase which had taken place in the class which
lived from hand to mouth, called for the prohibitive measures against
beggary and the other regulations spoken of above.
At Augsburg the town council issued orders concerning the poor-law
system in 1459, 1491 and 1498. Those of 1491 and 1498 sought to
regulate and prevent any overlapping in the distribution of the
municipal doles, the “holy alms which are compassionately given and
bestowed daily in many different parts and corners of the city”; to
these were subjoined measures for enforcing strict supervision of
those who received assistance and for excluding the undeserving;
whoever was able to work but refused to do so was shut out, in order
that the other poor people might not “be deprived of their bodily
sustenance.” A third and still better set of poor-law regulations
appeared in 1522. They provided for a stricter organisation of the
distribution of the monies, and made the supervision of those in
receipt of help easier by the keeping of registers of the poor and by
house to house visitations. Beggars at the church doors were placed
under special control. No breach with the ecclesiastical traditions of
the past is apparent in the rules of 1522, in spite of the influence
of the religious innovations in this town. From the civil standpoint,
however, they, like the poor laws generally drawn up at the close of
the Middle Ages, display a “thorough knowledge of the conditions and
are true to a well-tried tradition of communal policy.” The principal
author of this piece of legislation was Conrad Peutinger, the famous
lawyer and statesman who since 1497 had been town clerk. He died
greatly esteemed in 1547, after having done more to further than to
check the religious innovations in his native town by his uncertain
and vacillating behaviour.
From the Nuremberg mendicancy regulations Johannes Janssen quotes
certain highly practical enactments which belong to the latter half of
the 14th century. The so-called “meat and bread foundations,” which
had been enriched by the Papal Indulgences granted to benefactors,
were not available for any public beggars, but only for the genuine
poor. In 1478 the town council issued a more minute mendicant
ordinance. Here we read: “Almsgiving is a specially praiseworthy,
virtuous work, and those who receive alms unworthily and unnecessarily
lay a heavy burden of guilt on themselves.” Those allowed to beg were
also obliged at least “to spin or perform some other work according to
their capacity.” Beggars from foreign parts were only permitted to beg
on certain fixed days in the year. Conrad Celtes, the Humanist, in his
work on Nuremberg printed in 1501, boasts of the ample provision for
widows and orphans made by the town, the granaries for the purpose of
giving assistance and other arrangements whereby it was distinguished
above all other towns; families of the better class who had met with
misfortunes received yearly a secret dole to tide them over their
difficult time.[135]
New regulations concerning the poor, more comprehensive than the
former, appeared at Nuremberg in 1522. These deal with the actual
needs and are in close touch with the maxims of government and old
traditions of the Imperial cities. In them all the earlier charitable,
social and police measures are codified: the restriction of begging,
the management of the hospitals, the provision of work and tools,
advances to artisans in difficulties, granaries for future famines,
the distribution of alms, badges for privileged beggars, etc. The
whole is crowned by the Bible text, so highly esteemed in the Catholic
Middle Ages: “Blessed is he that hath pity on the poor and needy,
for the Lord will deliver him in the evil day.” “Our salvation,” so
we read when mention is made of the relief funds, “rests solely in
keeping and performing the commandments of God which oblige every
Christian to give such help and display such fraternal charity
towards his neighbour.”[136] At Nuremberg the new teaching had
already taken firm footing yet the olden Catholic conception of the
meritorious character of almsgiving is nevertheless recognisable in
the regulations of 1522.[137]
At Strasburg a new system, dating from 1523, for regulating the
distribution of the “common alms” was established in harmony with the
great traditions of the 15th century, and above all with the spirit
and labours of the famous Catholic preacher Geiler of Kaysersberg
(†1510). Janssen has given us a fine series of witnesses, from
Geiler’s sermons and writings, of the nature at once religious and
practical of his exhortations to charity.[138] Charity, he insists,
must show itself not merely in the bestowal of temporal goods; it
is concerned above all with the “inward and spiritual goods, the
milk of sound doctrine, and instruction of the unlearned, the milk
of devotion, wisdom and consolation.” He repeatedly exhorts the
authorities to stricter regulations on almsgiving.
After various improvements had been introduced in the poor law at
Strasburg subsequent to 1500, the magistrates—the clergy and the
monasteries not having shown themselves equal to their task—issued a
new enactment, though even this relied to a great extent on the help
of the clergy. The regulations of Augsburg and Nuremberg were the most
effectual. It was only later, after the work of Capito, Bucer and
Hedio at Strasburg, that, together with the new spirit, changes crept
into the traditional poor-law system of the town.
All the enactments, dating from late mediæval times prior to the
religious innovations, for the poor of the other great German towns, for
instance, of Ratisbon (1523), Breslau (1525) and Würzburg (1533) are of
a more or less similar character. Thus, thanks to the economic pressure,
there was gradually evolved, in the centres of German prosperity and
commercial industry, a sober but practical and far-sighted poor-law
system.[139]
It was not, indeed, so easy to get rid of the existing disorders;
to achieve this a lengthy struggle backed by the regulations just
established would have been necessary. Above all, the tramps and
vagabonds, who delighted in idleness and adventure and who often
developed dangerous proclivities, continued to be the pest of the land.
The cause of this economic disorder was a deep-seated one and entirely
escapes those who declare that beggary sprang solely from the idea
foisted on the Church, viz. that “poverty was meritorious and begging a
respectable trade.”
_Luther’s Efforts. The Primary Cause of their Failure_
The spread of Lutheranism had its effect on the municipal movement for
the relief of the poor, nor was its influence all for the good.
In 1528 and 1529 Luther twice published an edition of the booklet “On the
Roguery of the False Beggars” (“_Liber vagatorum_”), a work dating from
the beginning of the 16th century; in his preface to it he says, that
the increase in fraudulent vagrancy shows “how strong in the world is
the rule of the devil”; “Princes, lords, town-magistrates and, in fact,
everybody” ought to see that alms were bestowed only on the beggars and
the needy in their own neighbourhood, not on “rogues and vagabonds” by
whom even he himself (Luther) had often been taken in. Everywhere in both
towns and villages registers should be kept of the poor, and strange
beggars not allowed without a “letter or testimonial.”[140]
He was, however, not always so circumspect in his demands and principles.
In a passage of his work “An den Adel” he makes a wild appeal, which in
its practicability falls short of what had already been done in various
parts of Germany. The only really new point in it is, that, in order
to make an end of begging and poverty, the mendicant Orders should be
abolished, and the Roman See deprived of their collections and revenues.
Of the ordinary beggars he says, without being sufficiently acquainted
with the state of the case, that they “might easily be expelled,” and
that it would be an “easy matter to deal with them were we only brave and
in earnest enough.” To the objection that the result of violent measures
would be a still more niggardly treatment of the poor he replied in 1520:
“It suffices that the poor be fairly well provided for, so that they die
not of hunger or cold.” With a touch of communism he exaggerates, at the
expense of the well-to-do and those who did no work, an idea in itself
undoubtedly true, viz. that work is man’s portion: “It is not just that,
at the expense of another’s toil, a man should go idle, wallow in riches
and lead a bad life, whilst his fellow lives in destitution, as is now
the perverted custom.… It was never ordained by God that anyone should
live on the goods of another.”[141]
In itself it could only have a salutary effect when Luther goes on to
speak, as he frequently does, against begging among the class whose duty
it was to work with their hands, and when he attempts both to check their
idleness and to rouse a spirit of charity towards the deserving.[142]
He even regards the Bible text, “Let there be no beggar or starving
person amongst you,” as universally binding on Christians. Only that
he is oblivious of the necessary limitations when he exclaims: “If God
commanded this even in the Old Testament how much more is it incumbent on
us Christians not to let anyone beg or starve!”[143]
The latter words refer to those who are really poor but quite willing
to work (a class of people which will always exist in spite of every
effort); as for those who “merely eat” he demands that they be driven out
of the land. This he does in a writing of 1526 addressed to military men;
here he divides “all man’s work into two kinds,” viz. “agricultural work
and war work.” A third kind of work, viz. the teaching office, to which
he often refers elsewhere, is here passed over in silence. “As for the
useless people,” he cries, “who serve neither to defend us nor to feed
us, but merely eat and pass away their time in idleness, [the Emperor or
the local sovereign] should either expel them from the land or make them
work, as the bees do, who sting to death the drones that do not work but
devour the honey of the others.”[144] His unmethodical mind failed to see
to what dire consequences these hastily penned words could lead.
With the object of alleviating poverty he himself, however, lent a hand
to certain charitable institutions, which, though they did not endure,
have yet their place in history. Such were the poor-boxes of Wittenberg,
Leisnig, Altenburg and some other townships. This institution was closely
bound up with his scheme of gathering together the “believing Christians”
into communities apart. These communities were not only to have their own
form of divine worship and to use the ecclesiastical penalties, but were
also to assist the poor by means of the common funds in a new and truly
Evangelical fashion.
The olden poor-law ordinances of mediæval times had been revised at
Wittenberg and embodied in the so-called “Beutelordnung.”[145] Carlstadt
and the town-council, under the influence of Luther’s earlier ideas,
substituted for this on Jan. 24, 1522, a new “Order for the princely town
of Wittenberg”; at the same time they reorganised the common funds.[146]
These regulations Luther left in force, when, on his return from the
Wartburg, he annulled the rest of Carlstadt’s doings; the truth is, that
they were not at variance even with his newer ideals.
In 1523 he himself promoted a similar but more highly developed
institution for the relief of the poor in the little Saxon town of
Leisnig on the Freiberg Mulde; this was to be in the hands of the
community of true believers into which the inhabitants had formed
themselves at the instigation of the zealous Lutheran, Sebastian von
Kötteritz. At Altenburg also, doubtless through Luther’s doing, his
friend Wenceslaus Link, the preacher in that town, made a somewhat
similar attempt to establish a communal poor-box. In many other places
efforts of a like nature were made under Lutheran auspices.
How far such undertakings spread throughout the Protestant congregations
cannot be accurately determined. We know, however, the details of the
scheme owing to our still having the rules drawn up for Leisnig.[147]
According to this the whole congregation, town-councillors, aldermen,
elders and all the inhabitants generally, were to bind themselves to
make a good use of their Christian freedom by the faithful keeping
of the Word of God and by submitting to good discipline and just
penalties. Ten coffer-masters were to be appointed over the “common
fund” and these were three times a year to give an account to the
“whole assembly thereto convened.” Into this fund was to be put not
merely the revenue of the earlier institutions which hitherto had
been most active in the relief of the poor, viz. the brotherhoods and
benevolent associations, as also that of most of the guilds, and,
moreover, the whole income drawn by the parish from the glebes, pious
foundations, tithes, voluntary offerings, fines, bridge dues and
private industrial concerns. Thus it was not merely a relief fund but
practically a trust comprising all the wealth of the congregation,
which chiefly consisted in the extensive Church property it had
annexed. In keeping with this is the manner in which the income was
to be apportioned. Only a part was devoted to the relief of the poor,
i.e. to the hospital, orphanage and guest-houses. Most of the money
was to go to defray the stipend of the Lutheran pastor and his clerk,
to maintain the schools and the church, and to allow of advances being
made to artisans free of interest; the rest was to be put by for times
of scarcity. The members of the congregation were also exhorted to
make contributions out of charity to their neighbour.
The scheme pleased Luther so well that he advised the printing of the
rules, and himself wrote a preface to the published text in which
he said, he hoped that “the example thus set would prove a success,
be generally followed, and lead to a great ruin of the earlier
foundations, monasteries, chapels and all other such abominations
which hitherto had absorbed all the world’s wealth under a show of
worship.”
Hence here once more his chief motive is a polemical one, viz. his
desire to injure Popery.
He invites the authorities on this occasion to “lay hands on” such
property and to apply to the common fund all that remained over after
the obligations attaching to the property had been complied with, and
restitution made to such heirs of the donors as demanded it on account
of their poverty. In giving this advice he was anxious, as he says,
to disclaim any responsibility in the event of “such property as had
fallen vacant being plundered owing to the estates changing hands
and each one laying hold on whatever he could seize.” “Should avarice
find an entry what then can be done? It must not indeed be given up in
despair. It is better that avarice should take too much in a legal way
than that there should be such plundering as occurred in Bohemia. Let
each one [i.e. of the heirs of the donors] examine his own conscience
and see what he ought to take for his own needs and what he should
leave for the common fund!”[148]
The setting up of such a “common fund” was also suggested in other
Lutheran towns as a means of introducing some sort of order into the
confiscation of the Church’s property. The direct object of the funds
was not the relief of the poor. This was merely included as a measure
for palliating and justifying the bold stroke which the innovators
were about to take in secularising the whole of the Church’s vast
properties.