Even higher protection was sometimes not wanting. When Adrian VI., in 1522, reproached the Diet of Nürnberg with the inobservance of the decree of Worms and the consequent growth of Lutheranism, and King Ferdinand, in the name of the German states, replied that a council for the reformation of the Church was the only remedy, the question of married priests arose for discussion. The German princes alleged that they could find in the civil and municipal laws no provisions for the punishment of such transgressions, and that the canons of discipline could only be enforced by the ecclesiastical authorities themselves, who ought not to be interfered with in the discharge of their duty by the secular authorities.1 This was scant encouragement, but even this was often denied in practice. When, in 1523, Conrad von Tungen, Bishop of Wurzburg, threw into prison two of his canons, the doctors John Apel and Frederic Fischer, for the crime of marrying nuns, the Council of Regency at Nürnberg forced him to liberate them in a few weeks.2 The latter fact is the more remarkable, since but a short time previously (6 March, 1523) the Imperial Diet at Nürnberg, under the auspices of the same Regency, had expressed its desire to give every assistance to the ecclesiastical authority in enforcing the canons. In a decree on the subject of the religious disturbances it adopted the canon law on celibacy as part of the civil law, pronouncing sentence of imprisonment and confiscation on all members of the clergy who should marry, and ordering the civil power in 1 Respons. S. R. I. Ordinum Norimb. cap. 18 (Goldast. op. cit. I. 455).—With this the Legate Cheregato professed himself to be content, but he bitterly complained of an intimation that if these apostate priests and nuns transgressed the laws in any other way, the secular tribunals would punish them. He held that, though apostates, they were still ecclesiastics, only amenable to the courts Christian, and he protested against any violation of the privileges and jurisdiction of the Church such as would be committed in bringing them before a civil magistrate. (Ibid. p. 456.) 2 Spalatin. ann. 1523. VOL. II. D all cases to assist the ecclesiastical in its efforts to punish offenders.1 In the Low Countries, under the Regency of Margaret of Austria, the civil power not only assisted but stimulated the ecclesiastical to its duty. A conspicuous case was that of Jan de Backer (Pistorius) of Woerden, who had married, abandoned the priesthood, and supported himself by manual labour, until the preaching of the St. Peter's indulgence in Woerden induced him to resume the tonsure and priestly functions in order to combat it. It illustrates the disciplinary looseness of the pre-Reformation period that he seems not to have been disturbed in his apostacy and marriage, but the Lutheran revolt had created a different temper. He was arrested and carried to The Hague, where he was tried by the inquisitors of Louvain, who earnestly endeavoured to induce him to abandon his wife and recant his errors as to papal authority, purgatory, &c., but in vain. There was nothing left to do with him but to burn him alive, which was executed accordingly, 15 September, 1525.2 The emancipation of nuns excited considerable public interest, and in many instances was effected by aid from without. A certain Leonhard Kopp, who was a determined enemy of monachism, rendered himself somewhat notorious by exploits of the kind. One of the earliest instances was that by which, on Easter Eve, 1523, at considerable risk, he succeeded in carrying off from the convent of Nimptschen, in Misnia, eight young virgins of noble birth, all of whom were subsequently married, and one of whom was Catharine von Bora.3 The example was contagious. Before the month was out six nuns, all of 1 Edict. Norimb. Convent. ann. 1523 c. 10, 18, 19 (Goldast. II. 151).—This illus trates well the vacillating conduct of the Council of Regency during this period. 2 Fredericq, Corpus Documentt. Inquisitionis Neerlandica, IV. 406–99. 3 Chron. Torgavia-Spalatin. Annal. ann. 1523. He conveyed them at once to Wittenberg, and Luther writes to Spalatin asking him to collect funds for their support until they can be permanently provided for. noble blood, left the abbey of Sormitz, and soon after eight escaped from that of Peutwitz, at Weissenfels.1 Monks enfranchised themselves with still less trouble. At Nürnberg, in 1524, the Augustinians in a body threw off their cowls and proclaimed themselves citizens.* Finally, Luther gave the last and most unquestionable proof of his adhesion to the practice of sacerdotal marriage by espousing Catharine von Bora, whom we have seen escaping, two years before, from the convent of Nimptschen. Scandal, it would seem, had been busy with the intimacy between the pious doctor and the fair renegade, who had spent nearly the whole period of her liberty at Wittenberg, and Luther, with the practical decision of character which distinguished him, suddenly resolved to put the most effectual stop to rumours which his enemies doubtless were delighted to circulate. On the evening of 13 June, 1525, without consulting his friends, he invited to supper Pomeranius, Lucas Cranach, and Apellus, and had the marriage ceremony performed. It took his followers completely by surprise; many of them disapproved of it, and Justus Jonas, in communicating the fact to Spalatin, characterises it as a startling event, and evidently feels that his correspondent will require the most incontrovertible evidence of the fact, when he declares that he himself had been present and had seen the bridegroom in the marriage bed. If the portraits after Lucas 1 Spalatin. ubi sup. 2 Spalatin. ann. 1524. * Melanchthon to Camerarius (ap. Mayeri Dissert. de Cath. Lutheri conjuge. pp. 25-6).—Melanchthon can only suggest that it was a mysterious act of Providence. -"Isto enim sub negotio fortasse aliquid occulti et quiddam divinius subest, de quo nos curiose quærere non decet.”—The whole letter is singularly apologetic in its tone. 4 Spalatin. ann. 1525. Pomeranius, a priest of Wittenberg, in writing to Spalatin, gives as the reason of Luther's marriage—" Maligna fama effecit ut Doct. Martinus insperato fieret conjunx"; and Luther, in a letter to the same, admits this even more distinctly-"Os obstruxi infamantibus me cum Catherina Borana." That his action was not generally approved by his friends is apparent from his asking Michael Stiefel to pray that Cranach given in Mayer's Dissertation on Catharine be faithful likenesses, it was scarcely the beauty of his bride that led Luther to take this step, for her features seem rather African than European.1 When Luther had once decided for himself on the propriety of sacerdotal marriage, he was not likely to stop half-way. Some of the reformers were disposed to adopt his new life may sanctify him-"Nam vehementer irritantur sapientes, etiam inter nostros."-Spalatin. ubi sup. That surprise should have been aroused is singular, when he had already proclaimed the most extreme views in favour of matrimony. As early as 1522 he delivered his famous “Sermo de Matrimonio," in which he enjoins it in the strictest manner as a duty incumbent upon all. Thus, in considering the impediments to marriage, he treats of vows, concerning which he says: "Sin votum admissum est, videndum tibi est, ut supra memoravi, num tribus eviratorum generibus comprehendaris, quæ conjugio ademit Deus, ubi te in aliquo istorum uno non repereris, votum rescindas, monasticen deseras oportet; moxque ad naturalem sociam adjungas te matrimonii lege.”—P. I. c. 8 (Opp. Ed. Vuitemberg. V. 121). To this must be added his decided opinions on the subject of conjugal rights, as developed in the well-known passage which has excited so much animadversion, and which, if we are to interpret it literally, conveys a doctrine which sounds so strangely as the precept of a teacher of morality. In treating of the causes of divorce, he remarks: "Tertia ratio est, ubi alter alteri sese subduxerit, ut debitam benevolentiam persolvere nolit, aut habitare cum renuerit. Reperiuntur enim interdum adeo pertinaces uxores, qui etiam si decies in libidinem prolabentur mariti pro sua duritia non curarent. Hic oportunum est ut maritus dicat ‘Si tu nolueris, alia volet.' Si domina nolit, adveniat ancilla, ita tamen ut antea iterum et tertio uxorem admoneat maritus, et corum aliis ejus etiam pertinaciam detegat, ut publice et ante conspectum ecclesiæ, duritia ejus et agnoscatur et reprehendatur. Si tum renuat, repudia eam, et in vicem Vasti Ester surroga, Assueri regis exemplo " (Ibid. p. 123). One conclusion at least can safely be drawn from this, that the morality of the age had impressed Luther with the belief that the self-restraint of chastity was impossible. That the Catholics should make themselves merry over the marriage of the apostate monk and nun was to be expected, and Jerome Emser did not think it beneath him to write an epithalamium on the wedding of his former friend, of which the following may be taken as a specimen Ad Priapum Lampsacenum Veneramur, et Silenum Septa claustri dissipamus, Sumptus unde suppetat cum jubilo. Mayeri Dissert. p. 22, 23. 1 Mayeri de Cath. Luth. conjug. Dissert. 4to, Hamburgi, 1702. Cranach, as we have seen, was one of the three witnesses present at the marriage. the principles of the early Church, and, while permitting married priests to officiate, denied to them the right to marry a second time or to espouse any but virgins, declaring all digami worthy of death and calling upon the people to drive them out. Against these Luther, in 1528, took up the cudgels vigorously, arguing the question in all its bearings, and arriving at the conclusion that only bigamists were to be shunned or deemed unworthy of holy orders.1 Yet at the same time his thoroughly practical mind prevented him from losing sight of some of the evils inseparable from the revolution which he had wrought in an institution so deeply affecting daily life as monasticism. As late as 1543, in a letter to Spalatin, while congratulating him on the desire expressed by some nuns to leave their convent, he cautions them not to do so unless they have a certainty or at least a speedy prospect of marriage. He complains of the number of such cases in which he had been obliged to support the fugitives, and he concludes by declaring that old women who had no chance of finding husbands had much better remain in their cloisters.2 It is not difficult to explain why there was so ready and general an acquiescence in the abrogation of a rule established by the veneration of so many centuries. Not only had the doctrines of the reformers taken a deep and firm hold of the popular heart throughout Germany, destroying the reverence for tradition and antiquity, and releasing the human mind from the crushing obligation of blind obedience, but there were other motives, natural if not particularly creditable. The ecclesiastical foundations had long neglected the duties of charity, hospitality, and education, on which were grounded their claims to their broad lands and rich revenues. While, therefore, the 1 Lutheri Opp. (Jenæ, 1564) T. I. fol. 496-500. |