Ulrich von Hutten and the German Reformation PDF
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ULRICH VON HUTTEN AND THE GERMAN REFORMATION ULRICH VON HUTTEN AND THE GERMAN REFORMATION BY HAJO HOLBORN TRANSLATED BY ROLAND H. BAINTON GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Holborn, Hajo, I902-I969. Ulrich von Hutten and the German Reformation. A rev. and expanded translation of Ulrich von Hutten. Reprint of the ed. published by Yale University Press, New Haven, which was issued as no. 11 of Yale historical publications studies. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Hutten, Ulrich von, 1488-1523. 2. Reformation —Germany—Biography. I. Title. II. Series: Yale historical publications : Studies ; 11. BR35O.h8h6U13 1978 27O.6,O92’4 [B] 77-25067 ISBN O-3I3-2OI25-O Nos omnia dura et adversa facere et pati, ut constet Ubertas, par est. Hutten to Erasmus, 1523. p. 194 of this volume. Copyright, 1937, by Yale University Press Copyright renewed © 1965 by Ronald H. Bainton This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade, be lertf;, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise disposed of without the publisher’s consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. Reprinted with the permission of Roland H. Bainton Reprinted in 1978 by Greenwood Press, Inc. 51 Riverside Avenue, Westport, CT 06880 Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS List of Illustrations vi Preface vii Introduction . 1 I. Ancestry and Youth . 16 II. The Wandering Scholar . 29 III. In the Camp of Maximilian. First Period in Italy.............. . 39 IV. Polemic against Scholasticism. Acquaintance with Erasmus . . 49 V. Termination of Studies in Italy, 1515-1517 73 VI. Poet Laureate, 1517-1518 87 VII. Politics and Pamphleteering, 1518-1519 101 VIII. Expectation and Preparation for the Reform in 1520 . . 117 IX. Hutten and Luther 135 X. Worms, 1521 ... 162 XI. Hutten's War on the Romanists . 174 XII. Hutten's Controversy with Erasmus. Last Days .... 188 Bibliographical Note . 203 Index of Names 211 ILLUSTRATIONS Ulrich von Hutten, 1520 Frontispiece The woodcut first appeared in the German edition of his dia logues which he dedicated to Frans von Sickingen on Decem ber 81, 1520.—Copy in the Library of Congress. The following illustrations will be found in a group, following page 120, Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1523 The medallion by Hans Weiditz appeared first in the year 1523 in the new edition of Hutten’s Expostulation which Otto Brun- fels published after the death of Hutten together with a reply to the Sponge of Erasmus.—Copy in the Yale University Li brary. Title-page of Hutten’s Dialogi, 1520 The book was printed by John Schöffer in Mainz in April, 1520. —Copy in the Yale University Library. Martin Luther, 1521 The woodcut by Hans Baldung Grien was between 1520 and 1530 probably the most widely distributed picture of the re former. The papal legate, Hieronymus Aleander, refers to it in his report to Rome, sent from Worms on February 8, 1521. He wrote: “Lately they sold in Augsburg the picture of Luther surrounded with a Saint’s halo, here they offered it without it, and such a large crowd assembled that the pictures were sold out before I could get one. Yesterday I saw on one sheet the picture of Luther with a book in his hand and the picture of Hutten in arms with his hand at the sword and above in beau tiful letters Christianae libertatis propugnatoribus. Under neath was an elegant tetrastich to each of them, but that refer ring to Hutten menaced with his sword.” The second part of Aleander’s statement discusses a woodcut very similar to the one given as the last illustration to this volume. The picture of Luther has been taken from Bruder Michael Styfel Augustiner von Esszlingen Von der Christförmigen rechtgegründeten leer Doctoris Martini Luthers [1522?].—Copy in the Yale Univer sity Library. Triumph of Truth, 1521 First published in Triumphus veritatis; Sick der warheyt. Mitt dem schwert des geysts durch die Wittenbergsche Nacht gall erobert. For further description see p. 168. Title-page of Hutten’s German Dialogues, 1521 The title-page of the same book from which the frontispiece to this volume has been taken. See also the comment on the por trait of Luther above. PREFACE HE present book is a thorough revision and expan T sion of my biography of Ulrich von Hutten, which appeared in German in 1929. The essential features of my former position have scarcely been altered. On the con trary the friendly reception accorded the book has led me to draw the lines with greater confidence and to relieve the text of critical discussions with my predecessors in the field. At the same time further studies in humanism and the Reforma tion have enabled me to invest the portrayal alike with more color and accuracy. The enlargements are greatest in the sec tions dealing with Erasmus, with Hutten’s life from 1521 to 1523, and with his literary activity and significance. The changes have been dictated especially by consideration for the English reader. For his sake the account of Hutten research since Herder and Goethe has given place to an in troduction to the general condition of Germany at the begin ning of the sixteenth century. All along the line insertions have been made for the benefit of those less at home in Ger man relations. I am heartily grateful to my friend and colleague, Roland H. Bainton, for the great care expended on the translation, which involved no mere rendering of the printed German text, but rather an attempt on the part of us both in collaboration to achieve a better garment for the ideas. The present Eng lish version, therefore, is not always a rendering of the origi nal. All the citations are based directly on the German or Latin of the sixteenth century. The translations of Hutten’s poetry into English verse merit especial mention. A grant from the General Education Board Fund for Re search in Language and Literature lightened the mechanical labor involved in preparing the translation. In connection viii ULRICH VON HUTTEN with the publication I am indebted to the Yale Historical Series in which the work appears, and to the Yale Graduate School for financial assistance, as well as to Messrs. Quelle and Meyer of Leipsic, the publishers of the German original, for permission to produce the translation. The editor of the series, Professor Leonard W. Labaree, merits my warm grati tude for his many suggestions and careful supervision of the printing. A more competent guide to the art of English book making I could not have desired. The Yale University Press spared itself no pains in achieving an artistic product. To the library of Yale University and to the Library of Congress I am indebted for permission to reproduce illustrations. My wife, Annemarie Holborn, has accompanied this book from the outset with counsel and help. In every stage of the present edition she has had a part. H. H. New Haven, Connecticut, October 19,1937. INTRODUCTION ERMAN history in no period displayed such crea- G - tive power and prodigality of talent as the opening years of the sixteenth century. The only age which can in any sense be compared with it is the classical epoch of German philosophy and literature around 1800, and even this time, though closer and more comprehensible to us, does not exhibit the native German genius in so un trammeled a fashion as does the age of the Reformation. The generation of 1500 spanned a mightier range of ideas and passions, religious revelations, and human dreams than did its descendants. And if we are assessing the con tribution of Germany to the development of Western cul ture we must assign the first place to the birth of Protes tantism. The Renaissance in Italy and the Reformation in Germany constitute the decisive emergence of the modern world. Along with these two a third must be mentioned, which has likewise exercised a crucial rôle, namely the idea of nationalism. Its rise is not so intimately associated with any one land but is a comparatively common development throughout West and Middle Europe. The German Ref ormation and the Italian Renaissance are themselves in large measure the expressions of a nascent nationalism to which in turn both contributed resilience and power. Early the three elements coalesced and since then in European history they have been now allied and now at war. Humanism, nationalism, and Protestantism in the Ger many of the Reformation constitute the real theme of this book and no life is better able to exemplify their interrela tions than that of the German poet and knight, Ulrich von Hutten, who first attempted to bring them into a living synthesis. The great interpreter of German intellectual history, Wilhelm Dilthey, called Ulrich von Hutten the 2 ULRICH VON HUTTEN first modern German1 and Kuno Francke in his valuable study on Personality in German Literature before Lu ther2 saw in Hutten the consummation of the development of German individualism after the late Middle Ages. Both judgments mean essentially the same thing. Hutten is the first German to achieve free and open expression not for the stereotyped thoughts of a class or calling, but for the spontaneous feelings and yearnings of a marked individu ality. This does not mean, of course, that he was not so cially and historically conditioned. On the contrary he was distinctly a man of his time. His peculiarity is that he wrestled with the problems of his day in an effort to achieve a solution of his own. This conscious effort to realize a personality, this life long concern for self-education appears first in German history in Ulrich von Hutten. He is for that reason more alluring to the historian than Martin Luther, partly be cause we lack the sources for Luther’s inner personal struggle in the early decisive years, and partly because God’s spokesman must speak less of self-development than of the eternal truth of the Gospel. In spite of the titanic human power in Luther his work overshadows his person ality. Even though the course of his inner life was as dra matic as the outer, nevertheless there clings to him still something of the anonymity of the theologian of the Middle Ages. Hutten’s whole life is a struggle for self-realization, not in the sense of a superpersonal religious norm, but in the sense of the formation of his own personality in accord with his native gifts and character. His life was short and turbulent. He was born in the year 1488 and died in 1523. From his student days we can follow this career through a mass of telling deeds and intimate confessions. A master of 1. W. Dilthey, “Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen seit Re naissance und Reformation/’ in his Gesammelte Schriften (Leipsic, 1921), II, 49. 2. Cambridge, 1916. Compare his article “Ulrich von Huttens Lebens ideale,” International» Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Tech nik, VII (1918), 161 ff.
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