Charles Beard: "Martin Luther & the German Reformation," 7:330ff-1520: L...

Luther’s appeal to the nation was theological, biblical, economic, political and social, influencing Erfurt and Wittenberg, but passing to notable and less notable German cities. The bonfires were being lit widely, including the well-heeled, literate, educated and less-to-non educated classes. Luther spoke, our words, in the language of the tavern and, yet, could cycle in academic circles, although over time, with less caution and slowness as is needed in a plodding and industrious academic. Luther could and did operate on the Bridge with Admirals, but never forget the Seaman in the bilges. Even humanists, previously suspicious, were conjoining to the Lutheran cause. Younger men were joining. “Some of these, Bucer, Brenz, Schnepf, at Heidelberg; Hedio and Capito, at Mainz; Oekolampadius, at Augsburg, were afterwards chief instruments of the Reformation either in Germany or Switzerland, men who, though at a distance from Wittenberg, owed their first religious inspiration to Luther's writings and took the tone of their life from him. At Leipzig we find Mosellanus, a professed humanist, lecturing in 1519 on the letters of St. Paul, and declaring that " all the studious youths are eager in the pursuit of sacred literature” (335). Augsburg and Nurnberg, cities of money and imperial force, were going Lutheran. German patriotism was in play— (our words) “No more money for you, Mr. Pope. Those days are over.”