§ 67. THE REVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 617
trologer. Ludovico of Milan waited upon favorable signs in the heavens before taking an important step.^
On^the other hand, Savonarola condemned the belief, and was followed by Pico della Mirandola and Erasmus. ^ To the^ freedom of human actioiL astrology opposed a fatalistic view of the world. This was felt at the time, and Matteo Villani said more than once that "no constellation is able to compel the free-will of man or thwart God's decree." Before the 15th century had come to a close, the cult was condemned to extinction in France, 1494, but in Germany, in spite of the spread of the Copernican system, it continued to have its followers for more than a century. The great Catholic leader in the Thirty Years' War, Wallenstein, continued, in the face of reverses, to follow the supposed indications of the heavenly bodies, and Schiller puts into his mouth the words : —
The stars lie not ; what's happened
Has turned out against the course of star and fate ;
Art does not play us false. The false heart
'Tis, which drags falsehood into the trath-telling heavens.
The revolt against the ascendancy of mediaeval priestcraft and scholastic dialectic was a great and necessary movement demanded by the sane intents of mankind. The Italian Renaissance led the revolt. It gave liberty to the individual and so far its work was wholesome, but it was liberty not bound by proper restraints. It ran wild in an excess of indulgence, so that Machiavelli could say, "■ Italy is the corruption of the world." When the restraint came, it came from the North as it had come centuries before, in the days of the Ottos, in the 10th century. When studies in Italy set aside the ideals of Christianity, when religion seemed to be in danger of expiring and social virtue of altogether giving way, then the voice
1 Villari, Machiavelli, I. 275.
2 Villari, Life and Times of Savonarola, p. 183. Savonarola, in a sermon, said : " Wouldst thou see how the Church is ruled by the hands of astrologers ? There is no prelate or great lord that hath not intimate dealings with some astrologer, who fixeth the hour and the moment in which he is to ride out or undertake some piece of business. For these great lords venture not to stir a step save at their astrologer's bidding." See the remarks of Baudrillai-t, p. 507, on the powerlessness of culture to restrain the delusion of asti'ology.
618 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
was raised in Wittenberg which broke with monastic asceticism and scholasticism and, at the same time, asserted an individualism under the control of conscience and reverence for God.
§ 68. Humanism in G-ermany.
Humanistic studieswere late in finding entrance into Germany. They were opposed not solnuch by priestly ignorance and prejudice, as was the case in Italy, as by the scholastic theology which reigned at the universities. German Huinanism may be dated from the invention of the printing-press about 1450. Its flourishing period began at the close of tlie 15th century and lasted only till about 1520, when it was absorbed by the more popular and powerful religious movement, the Reformation, as Italian Humanism was superseded by the papal counter-Reformation. Marked features distinguished the new culture north of the Alps from the culture of the Italians. The university and school played a much more important part than in the SoutliT TEeTepresentatives of the new scholarship were teachers, even Erasmus, who taught in Cambridge, and was on intimate terms with the professors at Basel. During the progress of the movement new universities sprang up, from Basel to Rostock. Again, in Germany, there were no princely patrons of arts and learning to be compared in intelligence and munificence to the Renaissance popes and the Medici. Nor was the new culture here exclusive and aristocratic^__ It sought the" general spread of intelligence, and was active in the development of primary and grammar schools. In fact, when the currents of the Italian Renaissance began to set toward the North, a strong, independent, intellectual current was pushing down from the flourishing schools conducted by the Brothers of the Common Life. In the Humanistic movement, the German people was far from being a slavish imitator. It received an impulse from the South, but made its own path. Had Italy been careful to take lessons from the pedagogy of the North, it is probable her people would to-day be advanced far beyond what they are in intelligence and letters.