§ 69. REUCHLIN AND ERASMUS. 629
genspiegel, — which in its turn was answered by his antagonist in the Burning Glass — Brandspiegel. The sale of the Spectacles was forbidden in Frankfurt. Reuchlin followed in a Defense against all Calumniators, 1513, and after the manner of the age cudgelled them with such epithets as goats, biting dogs, raving wolves, foxes, hogs, sows, horses, asses and children of the devil. 1 An appeal he made to Frederick the Wise called forth words of support from Carlstadt and Luther. The future Reformer spoke of Reuchlin as a most innocent and learned man, and condemned the inquisitorial zeal of the Cologne theologians who " might have found worse occasions of offence on all the streets of Jerusalem than in the extraneous Jewish question." Tlie theological faculty of Cologne, which consisted mostly of Dominicans, denounced 43 sentences takgn from Reuchlin as heretical, J^14. The Paris university followed suit. Cited before the tribunal of the Inquisition by Hoogstraten, Reuchlin appealed to the pope. Hoogstraten had the satisfaction of seeing the Augenspiegel publicly burnt at Cologne, Feb. 10, 1514. The young bishop of Spires, whom LeoX. appointed to adjudicate the case, cleared Reuchlin and condemned Hoogstraten to silence and the payment of the costs, amounting to 111 gulden, April 24, 1514. ^ But the indomitable inquisitor took another appeal, and Leo appointed Cardinal Grimani and then a commission of 24 to settle the dispute. All the members of the commission but Sylvester Prierias favored Reuchlin, who was now suj)ported by the court of Maximilian, by the German "poets" as a body and by Ulrich von Hatten, but opposed by the Dominican order. When a favorable decision was about to be rendered, Leo interposed, June 23, 1520, and condemned Reuchlin'sbook, the Spectacles, as a work friendly to the Jews, and obligated the author to pay the costs of trial and thereafter to keep silence. The monks had won and Pfefferkorn, with papal au-
1 Janssen, II. 51, in justifying the inquisitorial process and the action of the Un. of Cologne against Reuchlin, makes a great deal of these epithets.
2 For an account of Hoogstraten, d. 1527, who came from Brabant, see Paulus : Die deutschen Dominikaner, etc. , pp. 86-106. Among other writings, he wrote a book on witchcraft and two books, 1525, 1526, against Luther's tracts, the Babylonian Captivity and Christian Freedom, Taulus, p. 105.
630 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1204-1617.
thority on his side, could celebrate his triumph over scholarship and toleration in a special tract, 1521.
With the Reformation, which in the meantime had broken out at Wittenberg, the great Hebrew scholar showed no sympathy. He even turned away from Melanchthon and cancelled the bequest of his library, which he had made in his favor, and gave it to his native town, Pforzheim. He prevented, however, Dr. Eck, during his brief sojourn at Ingolstadt, from burning Luther's writings. His controversy with Pfefferkorn had shown how strong in Germany the spirit of obscurantism was, but it had also called forth a large number of pamphlets and letters in favor of Reuchlin. The Hebrew pathfinder prepared a collection of such testimonies from Erasmus, Mutianus, Peutinger, Pirkheimer, Busch, Vadianus, Glareanus, Melanchthon, ^colampadius, Hedio and others, — in all, 43 eminent scholars who were classed as Reuchlinists.
Among the writings of the Reuchlinists against the opponents of the new learning, the Letters of Unfamed Men — Epistolce virorum obscurorum — occupy the most prominent, plac^* These epistles are a fictitious correspondence of Dominican monks who expose their own old-fogyism, ignorance and vulgarity to public ridicule in their barbarous German-Latin jargon, which is called kitchen-Latin, Kuchenlatein, and which admits of no adequate translation. They appeared anonymously, but were chiefly written by Ulrich von Hutten and Crotus Rubeanus whose German name was Johannes Jasrer. The authors were friends of Luther, but Crotus afterwards fell out with the Reformation, like Erasmus and other Humanists.
Ulrich vojiJJutten, 1488-1523j^after breaking away from the convent in which his father liad placed him six years before, pursued desultory studies in the University of Cologne, developed a taste for tlie Humanistic culture and travelled in Italy. In 1517, he returned to Germany and had a position at the court of the pleasure-loving Albrecht, archbishop of Mainz, a patron of the new learning. He was crowned with the poet's crown by Maximilian and wasTiailed as the future great epic poet of Germany ])y Erasnms, but later incurred