At Kome these controversies, though they had be- come a matter of interest to all the German people, were looked upon with great indifference. Leo judged it sim- ply a wrangling of two mendicant orders, and he was determined to let the Augustinians and Dominicans set- tle their own quarrels. The adversaries of Luther, how- ever, feared for their cause, and they saw no other way b}^ which to secure anew peace to themselves, and the respect of the people, than by a wholesale slaughter of the Reformer and his friends. The solicitations of the Dominicans at the Vatican became daily more frequent and urgent; and when at last it became necessary for Leo to take some decided action, he simply commission- ed his cardinal legate Cajetan ((). v.) to bring the Au- gustinian friar to his senses, and Luther was summoned t(i and promptly appeared at the Diet of Augsburg, in October, 1518. If Leo ever committed a blunder, it was done in this instance by appointing to the task of con- verting Luther a monastic of the very, order he had so seriously attacked for its complicity in the indulgence tralHc. If Luther was ever so much inclined to yield, a Dominican was certainly not the proper agent to ac- comiilish such a purpose. Cajetan, moreover, treated Luther rather imperiously, and peremptorily required him to confess his errors, before the least attempt had been made to reply to his arguments, and of course our Augustiuian, high-spirited as he was, turned away in disgust, and appealed a pupa noii bene infurmato ad me- liits infoniuimhua ; and afterwards, when the whole doc- trine of indulgence, as it had been developed up to the )>resent time, was conlirmed by a papal bull, the new lieretic api)ealed from the pope to a general council (at WitK'nlKTg, \ov. 2.S, 1 0 |,s ). I5y this time, however, the strife had assumed m(jre gigantic proportions; around LutluT were now gathered the great, and the strong, and the learned of the Teutonic race. A special help- meet lie had found in liis colleagues of the lately founded high school of learning at Wittenberg; and as in the 13th century from Oxford and Prague had i)roccedcd the action against the Latin system, so it now proceeded from Wittenberg, until it terminated in the Reformation. A\'lien too late, the Roman court realized the mistake it had committed in intrusting Cajetan with the settle- ment of this difficulty, and another legate, the pope's own chamberlain, Charles of IMiltitz (q. v.), was dis- patclie<l in December (1.51H) to give assurances to the electoral prince Frederick, by the valuable present of the
consecrated golden rose (q. v.), of the good intentions of pope Leo towards Saxony, and at the same time, if pos- sible, to conciliate Luther, in whom was now seen the representative of Wittenberg University, and at whose back stood one to whom even his enemies confess but few men of any age can be compared, either for learning and luiowledge of both human and divine thmgs. or for richness, suavity, and facility of genius, or for industry as a scholar — Philip Melancthou (q. v.). Unfortunately for the cause of the Dominicans, this very elector of Saxony, who had identitied himself with and become the cliampion of the cause of the Wittenberg reform movement, was now, upon the death of JIaximilian I, made regent of the empire in northern Germany (Jan. 12, 1.519), and Miltitz saw only one way in which to set- tle the controversy — by appeasing the wrath of Luther. He accordingly flattered '• the friar of Wittenberg," as he was contemptuously called at Rome, by all manner of kindness, assured him that his case had been misrep- resented to Leo, and actually succeeded in inducing Lu- ther to promise, not, indeed, recantation, as he desired, but a promise to be silent if his opponents were silent, and an open declaration of obedience to the see of Rome : thus the whole matter apparently had reached its end. The opponents, however, were not silent; the contro- versy was renewed with greater animosity than before. See Carlstaijt; Eck; Leipsic Disputation. Lu- ther was forced to reply ; the primacy of the pope and other questions became involved, which obliged addi- tional research and study on the part of the reformers, and " in this way Luther gained so thorough an insight into the errors and corruption of the Roman Church that he gradually began to see the necessity of separating himself from it. He felt himself called as a soldier of God to fight against the wiles and deceit of the devil, by which the Church was corrupted" (Gieseler, iv, 42). This he did hereafter, fearless of consequences, by both his pen and tongue. Luther's was a nature that recoil- ed from no extremity. The result was " the bull of con- demnation," issued June 15, 1520, which brought about the formal abjuration of the papacy on the part of Lu- ther by the public burning of the bull, together with the papal law-books, Dec. 10 of this very year. January 3, 1521, came the bull of excommunication, and a demand for its execution by the Diet of Worms, the body to which Luther appealed. See Reformation.
While these religious disputes were carried on wnth great warmth in Germany, and threatened the very existence of Romanism, pope Leo was much more con- cerned with what occurred around him in Italy. A pol- itician of the best sort in the affairs of his native coun- try, ever solicitous for its welfare, he saw greater danger calling for ])rompter action on the political horizon than any that had yet appeared, in his estimation, on that of ecclesiasticism. Leo, indeed, trembled for Florence at the prospect of beholding the imperial crown placed on the head of the king of Spain and of Naples, and the master of the New World ; nor was he less afraid of see- ing the king of France, who was the duke of Milan and lord of Genoa, exalted to that dignity. He even fore- told that the election of either of them would be fatal to the independence of the holy see, to the peace of Italy, and pcrhajis to the lil)erties of Europe. Put June 28, 1519, the king of Spain was elected successor to Maximilian. This was, indeed, an event calculated to cause a series of infinite perplexities to God's -vicegerent on earth. So the important decision was taken, a .se- cret league, offensive and defensive, signed with the new Cffisar on July 8, 1521, by which it was stipulated that the duchy of jMilan was to be taken from the French and given to Francesco Maria Sforza, and Par- ma and I'iacenza to be restored to the pope. Leo subsidized a bodyof Swiss, and Prospero Colonna, with the Spaniards from Naples, joined the papal forces at Bologna, crossed the Po at Casalmaggiore, joined the Swiss, and drove the French governor Lautrec out of Milan. In a short time the duchy of Milan was once