674 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
university in that city.^ Among the notable preachers who preached in German were Jolm Herolt of Basel, already mentioned; the Franciscan John Gritsch whose sermons reached 26 editions before 1500; the Franciscan, John Meder of Basel whose Lenten discourses on the Prodigal Son of the year 149-4 reached 36 editions and Ulrich Krafft, pastor in Ulm, 1500 to 1516, and author of the two volumes. The Spiritual Battle and Noalis Ark.
More famous than all others was Geiler of Strassbuj^, usually called from his father's birthplace, Geiler of Kaisersberg, born in Schaffhausen, 1445, died in Strassburg, 1510. He and his predecessor, T5ertholdt of Regensburg, have the reputation of being the most powerful preachers of mediaeval Germany. For more than a quarter of a century he stood in the cathedral palpit of Strassburg, the monarch of preachers in the North. After pursuing his university studies in Freiburg and Basel, Geiler was made professor at Freiburg, 1476. His pulpit efforts soon made him a marked man. In accepting the call as preacher in the cathedral at Strassburg, he entered into a contract to preach every Sunday and on all festival and fast days. He continued to fill the pulpit till within two months of his death and lies interred in the cathedral where he preached. ^
" XJie Trumpet of Strassburg," as Geiler was called, gained his fame as a preacher of moral and social reforms. He advocated no doctrinal changes. Called upon, 1500, to explain his public declaration that the city councillors were " all of the devil," he issued 21 articles demanding that games of chance be prohibited, drinking halls closed, the Sabbath and festival days observed, the hospitals properly cared for and monkish mendicancy regulated.
1 Ullman : lieforniers, etc., I. 229 sqq., classes hiin with the Reformers before the Reformation, and chieliy on tlie basis of his tract, De septem ecclesiae statibus.
2 Lives of Geiler by Abb6 L. Dacheux, 1876, and Lindemann, 1877. For earlier biographies by Beatiis Rhenanus, etc., .see Lorenzi, I. 1. Geiler's sermons have been i.ssned by Dacheux : Die altesten Schriften G.'s, Freib., 1882, and by Ph. de Lorenzi, 4 vols.. Treves, 1881-1883, with a Life. See also Cruel, Deutsche, Predigt, pp. 538-576 ; H. Hering : Lehrbitch de.r Homiletik, p. 81 sq., and Kawerau, in Herzog VI. 427-432, Janssen, I. 136 sqq.
§ 74. PREACHING. 675
He was a preacher of the people and now amused, now stung them, by anecdotes, plays on words, descriptions, proverBs, sallies of wit, humor and sarcasm. ^^ He attacked popular follies and fashions and struck at the priests " many of whom never said mass," and at the convents in which " neither religion nor virtue was found and the living was lax, lustful, dissolute and full of all levity." ^ Mediaeval superstition he served up to his hearers in good doses. He was a firm believer in astrology, ghosts and witches.
Geiler's style may seem rude to the polite age in which we live, but it reached the ear of his own time. The high as well as the low listened. Maximilian went to hear Geiler when he was in Strassburg. No one could be in doubt about the preacher's meaning. In a series of 65 passion sermons, he elaborated a comparison between Christ and a ginger cake
— the German Lehkuchen. Christ is composed of the bean meal of the deity, the old fruit meal of the body and the wheat meal of the soul. To these elements is added the honey of compassion. He was thrust into the oven of affliction and is divided by preachers into many parts and distributed among the people. In other sermons, he compared perfect Christians to sausages.
In seven most curious discourses on Der Hase im Pfeffer — an idiomatic expression for That's the Rub — based on Pro v. 30 : 26, " The coney is a weak folk," he made 14 comparisons between the coney and the good Christian. The coney runs better up hill than down, as a good Christian should do. The coney has long ears as also a Christian should have, especially monastics, attending to what God has to say. The coney must be roasted; and so must also the Christian pass through the furnace of trial. The coney being a lank beast must be cooked in lard, so also must the Christian be surrounded with love and devotion lest he be scorched in the furnace. In
1 A remarkable specimen of his power to play on words is given in his use of the word Affe, monkey, which he applied to ten different classes of the devil's dupes. See Cruel, p. 543. Bischof, bishop, he derived from Beiss-schaf
— bite-sheep — because prelates bit the sheep instead of taking them to pasture.
2 Kawerau, VI. 428.