§ 68. HUMANISM IN GERMANY. 621
slow to give their assent to the sanction of the theological department, as in the case of Vienna and Rostock, where the charter of the secular prince authorized their establishment. Strong as the religious influences of the age were, the social and moral habits of the students were by no means such as to call for praise. Parents, Luther said, in sending their sons to the universities, were sending them to destruction, and an act of the Leipzig university, dating from the close of the 15th century, stated that students came forth from their homes obedient and pious, but " how they returned, God alone knew."i In 1510, the student-body at Erfurt were so turbulent that the citizens and the peasant-folk turned cannons upon the collegiate building and, after the students had fled, battered down its walls and did great damage to university archives and library.
The theological teaching was ruled by the Schoolmen, and the dialectic method prevailed in all departments. In clashing with the scholastic method and curricula, the new teaching met with many a repulse, and in no case was it thoroughly triumphant till the era of the Reformation opened. Erfurt may be_regarded^as having_been the fij^ to ^i ye the new culture a welcome. In 1466, it received Peter Luder of Kislau, who had visited Greece and Asia Minor, and had been previously appointed to a chair in Heidelberg, 1456. He read on Virgil, Jerome, Ovid and other Latin writers. There Agricola studied and there Greek was taught by Nicolas Marschalck, under whose supervision the first Greek book printed in Germany issued from the press, 1501. There John of Wesel taught. It was Luther's alma mater and, among his professors, he singled out Trutvetter for special mention as the one who directed him to the study of the Scriptures. ^
Heidelberg, chartered by the elector Ruprecht I. and Pope Urban VI., showed scant sympathy with the new movement.
1 Schmid, 11. 83.
2 Kostlin, Leben Luthers, I. 45. Rashdall, II., pp. 245, speaks of Erfurt as the first university formed after the model of Paris in which the organization by nations does not appear. It was abolished 1816. The endowments of the German universities came largely through the appropriation of prebends.
622 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
However, the elector-palatine, Philip, 1476-1508, gathered at his court some of its representatives, among them Reuchlin. Ingolstadt for a time had Reuchlin as professor and, in 1492, Konrad Celtis was appointed professor of poetry and eloquence.
In 1474, a chair of poetry was established at Basel. Founded by Pius II., it had among its early teachers two Italians, Finariensis and Publicius. Sebastian Brant taught there at the close of the century and among its notable students were Reuchlin and the Reformers, Leo Jud and Zwingli. In 1481, Tiibingen had a stipend of oratoria. Here Gabriel Biel taught till very near the close of the century. The year after Biel's death, Heinrich Bebel was called to lecture on poetry. One of Bebel's distinguished pupils was Philip Melanchthon, who studied and taught in the university, 1512-1518. Reuchlin was called from Ingolstadt to Tiibingen, 1521, to teach Hebrew and Greek, but died a few months later.
Leipzig and Cologne remained inaccessible strongholds of scholasticism, till Luther appeared, when Leipzig changed front. The last German university of the Middle Ages, Wittenberg, founded by Frederick the Wise and placed under the patronage of the Virgin Mary and St. Augustine, acquired a world-wide influence througli its professors, Luther and Melanchthon. Not till 1518, did it have instruction in Greek, when Melanchthon, soon to be the chief Greek scholar in Germany, was called to one of its chairs at the age of 21. According to Luther, his lecture-room was at once filled brimful, theologians high and low resorting to it.
As seats of the new culture, Niirnberg and Strassburg occupied, perhaps, even a more prominent place than any of the university towns. These two cities, with Basel and Augsburg, had the most prosperous German printing establishments. At the close of the 15th century, Niirnberg, the fountain of inventions, had four Latin schools and was the home of Albrecht Diirer the painter and Willibald Pirkheimer, a patron of learning.
Popular^ducation^ during the century before the Reformation, was far more advancedlnTjermany than in other nations^