Charles Beard: "Martin Luther & the German Reformation," 7:318ff-1520: L...

1.     The Year 1520: Luther’s Appeal to the Nation, 319-378. Prof. Beard raises the unsettled question—how much did the culture “affect” Luther himself while, as an effect, giving voice to contemporary objections to the Church? And/or how much did Luther himself, as a cause, give shape and voice to disaffections with the Church? While difficult perhaps, it is both. There was plenty of anger and disgust with clerical vices, clerical corruptions, fiscal taxations and exactions, academic obfuscations in scholasticism, monkish and clerical sloth and more. That predates Luther and Erasmus is exhibit 1 of many other exhibits. Collaborative forces were present in 1520, a decisive period for the Reformation.  “It was that year which saw the publication of the books in which Luther laid down the principles of the revolt : the Address to the Ger- man Nobility, the Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, the tractate on the Freedom of a Christian Man. In June 1520 the Pope solemnly anathematizes him in a Bull, which he no less solemnly burns in December. In April 1521 he appears before the Emperor and the States of Germany at the Diet of Worms (319).” No more unctuousness from Luther after 1521 that was present in earlier years—a submissive sycophancy giving way to a violent rebel. By 1520, Luther’s writings were in wide circulation—England, Spain, Italy, France and, of course, Germany. Prof. Beard addresses the varied editions from 1517-1525. “Froben writes to Luther (February 14th, 1519) `that all the editions, with the exception of ten copies, were already exhausted; he had never made a more fortunate venture in any book. Six hundred copies had been sent into France and Spain; others had been distributed through Italy; others again had gone to England and to Brabant. The Cardinal of Sion, Matthias Schinner, had been loud in his approbation; so too the Bishop of Basel, Christopher von Uttenheim, was an admirer of Luther (320).’” Leo, Eck, Cajetan, Warham, Fisher, Wolsey, More and others will not be amused. Cool-hand Erasmus, the perennial patron-seeker and sycophant himself when advantageous, yet linked to Wittenberg by street-talk, walks-back and tries to distance himself from the violent Wittenbergian—Luther is bad for business. Luther was a combat veteran and a theologian. For Luther, it was telling that Erasmus preferred and exalted Jerome rather than Augustine. An interesting discussion of an Oxford bookseller lists 14 volumes by Luther, but little else emerges there than this note. Luther pens his appeal to the nation. Beard characterizes Luther by 1520: “As time went on it became more and more evident that Luther was at the head of a really national movement, and that he was formidable to Emperor and Pope, because, more than any other man, he represented the desires and purposes of the people of Germany” (323).