Chapter XXXV: (Continued) (2)

As to the common opinion among Protestants, viz. that “Luther’s reformation gave a general stimulus to the schools and to education generally,” Schiele dismisses it in a sentence: “The alleged ‘stimulus’ is seen to melt away into nothing.”[83]

Eobanus Hessus, a Humanist friendly to Luther, who lectured at Erfurt University, was so overcome with grief at sight of the decline that was making itself felt there that, in 1523, he composed an Elegy on the decay of learning entitled “_Captiva_” and sent it to Luther. The melancholy poem of 428 verses was printed in the same year under the title “Circular letter from the sorrowful Church to Luther.” Luther replied, praising the poem and assuring the sender that he was favourably disposed towards the humanistic studies and practices. He even speaks as though still full of the expectation of a great revival; his depression is, however, apparent from the very reasons he gives for his hopes: “I see that no important revelation of the Word of God has ever taken place without a preliminary revival and expansion of languages and erudition.” The present decline might, however, he thought, be traced to the former state of things when they did not as yet possess the “pure theology.”[84]

But Hessus had complained, and with good reason, of the evil doings of the new believers, instances of which had come under his notice at Erfurt, and which had caused many to declare sadly: “We Germans are becoming even worse barbarians than before, seeing that, in consequence of our theology, learning is now going to the wall.”[85] At Erfurt the Lutheran theology had won its way to the front amidst tumults and revolts since the day when Crotus had greeted Luther on his way to Worms with his revolutionary discourse.[86] Since then there had been endless conflicts of the preachers with the Church of Rome and amongst themselves. Some were to be met with who inveighed openly against the profane studies at the Universities, and could see no educative value in anything save in their own theology and the Word of God. Attendance at the University had declined with giant strides since the spread of Lutheranism. Whereas from May 1520 to 1521 the names of 311 students had been entered, their number fell in the following year to 120 and in 1522 to 72; five years later there were only 14.

Hessus wrote quite openly in 1523: “On the plea of the Evangel the runaway monks here in Erfurt have entirely suppressed the fine arts … our University is despised and so are we.”

His colleague, Euricius Cordus, a learned partisan of Luther, expresses himself with no less disgust concerning the state of learning and decline of morals among the students.[87] “All those who have any talent,” we read in the Academic Year-Book in 1529, “are now forsaking barren scholarship in order to betake themselves to more remunerative professions, or to trade.”[88]

As at Erfurt, so also at other Universities, a rapid diminution in the number of students took place during those years. “It has been generally remarked,” a writer who has made a special study of this subject says, “that in the German Universities in the ’twenties of the 16th century a sudden decrease in the number of matriculations becomes apparent.” He proves from statistics that at the University of Leipzig from 1521 to 1530 the number of those studying dropped from 340 to 100, at the University of Rostock from 123 to 33, at Frankfurt-on-the-Oder from 73 to 32 and, finally, at Wittenberg from 245 to 174.[89] The attendance at Heidelberg reached its lowest figure between 1521 and 1565, “this being due to the religious and social movements of the Reformation which proved an obstacle to study.” Of the German Universities generally the following holds good: “The religious and social disturbances of the Reformation brought about a complete interruption in the studies. Some of the Universities were closed down, at others the hearers dwindled down to a few.”[90]

“The Universities, Erfurt, Leipzig and the others stand deserted,” Luther himself says as early as 1530, gazing from the Coburg at the ruins, “and likewise here and there even the boys’ schools, so that it is piteous to see them, and poor Wittenberg is now doing better than any of them. The foundations and the monasteries, in my opinion, are probably also feeling the pinch.”[91] He speaks at the same time of the decline of the Grammar schools and the lower-grade schools which also to some extent shared the fate of the Universities.

In the Catholic parts of Germany the clergy schools and monastic schools suffered severely under the general calamity, as Luther had shrewdly guessed. Nor was the set-back confined to the Universities, but even the elementary schools suffered.

It was practically the universal complaint of the monasteries, so Wolfgang Mayer, the learned Cistercian Abbot of Alderspach in Bavaria, wrote in 1529, that they were unable to continue for lack of postulants; “in consequence of the Lutheran controversy the schools everywhere are standing empty and no one is willing any longer to devote himself to study. The clerical and likewise the religious state is despised by all and no one is inclined to offer himself for this life.” “Oh, God who could ever have anticipated the coming of such a time! Everything is ruined, everything is in confusion, and there is nothing but sunderings, splits and heresies everywhere!” Yet these words come from the same author, who, in 1518, in the introduction to his Annals of Alderspach, had been so enthusiastic about the state of learning in Germany and had said: “Germany is richly blessed with the gifts of Minerva and disputes the palm in the literary arena with the Italians and the Greeks.” Whereas, between the years 1460-1514 no less than eighty brethren had entered Alderspach, Mayer, in his thirty years of office as Abbot, clothed only seventeen novices with the habit of St. Bernard, and, of these, five broke their vows and left the monastery. He expresses his fear that soon his religious house will be empty and ascribes the lack of novices largely to the fate which had overtaken the schools owing to the innovations.[92]

“Throughout the whole of the German lands,” as Luther himself admits: “No one will any longer allow his children to learn or to study.”[93] At the same time contemporaries bitterly bewailed the wildness of the students who still remained at the Universities. With regard to Wittenberg itself we have grievous complaints on this score from both Luther and Melanchthon.[94]

The disorder in the teaching institutions naturally had a bad effect on the education of the people, so that Luther’s efforts on behalf of the schools may readily be understood. The ecclesiastical Visitors of the Saxon Electorate had been forced to adopt stern measures in favour of the country schools. The Elector called to mind Luther’s admonitions, that he, as the “principal guardian of the young,” had authority to compel such towns and villages as possessed the means, to maintain schools, pulpits and parsonages, just as he might compel them to furnish bridges, high roads and footpaths.… “If, moreover, they have not the means,” so Luther had said, “there are the monastic lands which most of them were bestowed for this very purpose.”[95] But in spite of the measures taken by the Elector and the urgent demands of the theologians for State aid, even in towns like Wittenberg the condition of the intermediate educational institutions was anything but satisfactory. In the case of his own sons Luther had grudgingly to acknowledge that he was “at a loss to find a suitable school.”[96] He accordingly had recourse to young theologians as tutors.

The disappointment of the Humanists was keen and their lot a bitter one. They had cherished high hopes of the dawn of a new era for classical studies in Germany. Many had rejoiced at the alliance which had at first sprung up between the Humanist movement and the religious revolution, believing it would clear the field for learning. They now felt it all the more deeply seeing that the age, being altogether taken up with arid theological controversies and the pressing practical questions of the innovations, had no longer the slightest interest in the educational ideals of antiquity. The violent changes in every department of life which the religious upheaval brought with it could not but be prejudicial to the calm intellectual labours of which the Humanists had dreamed; the prospect of Mutian’s “_Beata tranquillitas_” had vanished.

Mutian, at one time esteemed as the leader of the Thuringian Humanists, retired into solitude and died in the utmost poverty (1526) after the Christian faith had, as it would appear, once more awakened in him. Eminent lawyers among the Humanists, Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg and Christopher Scheurl of Nuremberg, openly detached themselves from the Wittenbergers. Scheurl, who had once waxed so enthusiastic about the light which had dawned in Saxony, now declared confidentially to Catholic friends that Wittenberg was a cesspool of errors and intellectual darkness.[97] The reaction which the recognition of Luther’s real aims produced in other Humanists, such as Willibald Pirkheimer, Crotus Rubeanus, Ottmar Luscinius and Henricus Glareanus, has already been referred to.[98] It is no less true of the Humanists favourable to the Church than of those holding Lutheran views, that German Humanism was nipped in the bud by the ecclesiastical innovations. As Paulsen says: “Luther usurped the leadership [from the Humanists] and theology [that of the Protestants] drove the fine arts from the high place they had just secured; at the very moment of their triumph the Humanists saw the fruits of victory snatched from their grasp.”[99]

The event of greatest importance for the Humanists was, however, Erasmus’s open repudiation of Luther in 1523, and his attack on that point so closely bound up with all intellectual progress, viz. Luther’s denial of free-will.

Quite independent of this attack were the many and bitter complaints which the sight of the decline of his beloved studies drew from Erasmus: “The Lutheran faction is the ruin of our learning.”[100] “We see that the study of tongues and the love of fine literature is everywhere growing cold. Luther has heaped insufferable odium on it.”[101] He regrets the downfall of the schools at Nuremberg: “All this laziness came in with the new Evangel.”[102] He wished to have nothing more to do with these Evangelicals, he declares, because, through their doing, scholarship was everywhere being ruined. “These people [the preachers] are anxious for a living and a wife, for the rest they do not care a hair.”[103]

In the above year, 1523, at the beginning of his public estrangement with Erasmus, Luther had written: “Erasmus has done what he was destined to do; he has introduced the study of languages and recalled us from godless studies (‘_a sacrilegis studiis_’). He will in all likelihood die like Moses, in the plains of Moab [i.e. never see the Promised Land]. He is no leader to the higher studies, i.e. to piety”; in other words, unlike Luther, he was not able to lead his followers into the land of promise, where the enslaved will rules.[104]

Luther’s use of the term “_sacrilega studia_” invites us to cast a glance on the state of education before his day.

_Higher Education before Luther’s Day_

The condition of the schools before Luther, as described in our available sources, was very different from what Luther pictured to his readers in his works.

According to Luther’s polemical writings, learning in earlier days could not but be sacrilegious because Satan “was corrupting the young” in “his own nests, the monasteries and clerical resorts”; “he, the prince of this world, gave the young his good things and delights; the devil spread out his nets, established monasteries, schools and callings, in such a way that no boy could escape him.”[105] With this fantastic view, met with only too frequently in Luther under all sorts of shapes, goes hand in hand his wholesale reprobation and belittling of the olden methods and system of education. The professors at the close of the Middle Ages were only able, according to Luther, to “train up profligates and greedy bellies, rude donkeys and blockheads; all they could teach men was to be asses and to dishonour their wives, daughters and maids.” “People studied twenty or forty years and yet at the end of it all knew neither Latin nor German.” “Those ogres and kidnappers” set up libraries, but they were filled “with the filth and ordure of their obscene and poisonous books”; “the devil’s spawn, the monks and the spectres of the Universities” when conferring doctorates decked out “great fat loutish donkeys in red and brown hoods, like a sow pranked out with gold chains and pearls.” “The pupils and professors were as mad as the books on which they lectured. A jackdaw does not hatch out doves nor can a fool beget wise offspring.”

It is in his “An die Radherrn,” the object of which was to raise the standard of education, that we find such coarse language.

What is of more importance is that Luther seems here to be seeking to conceal the decline in learning which he had brought about, and to lay the blame solely on the olden schools. If the corruption had formerly been so great then some excuse might be found for the ruin which had followed his struggle with the Church.—Such an excuse, however, does not tally with the facts.

That, on the contrary, education, not only at the Universities, but also in the Latin schools, which Luther had more particularly in view, was in a flourishing condition and full of promise before it was so rudely checked by the religious disturbances which emptied all the schools, has been fully confirmed to-day by learned research. “The increased attendance at the Universities in the course of the 15th and the commencement of the 16th century is a very rapid one,” writes Franz Eulenburg. “Hence the decline in the ’twenties of the latter century is all the more noticeable.”[106] “At the beginning of the 16th century,” says Friedrich Paulsen, “everyone of any influence or standing, strength or courage, devoted himself to the new learning: prelates, sovereigns, the townships and, above all, the young”; but, shortly after the outbreak of the ecclesiastical revolution, “everything became changed.”[107]

What had contributed principally to a salutary revival had been the sterling work of the older Humanists. Eminent and thoroughly religious men of the schools—men like Alexander Hegius and his pupils and successors Rudolf von Langen, Ludwig Dringenberg, Johannes Murmellius and, particularly, Jakob Wimpfeling, who, on account of his epoch-making pedagogic work, was called the teacher of Germany—zealously made their own the humanistic ideal of making of the classics the centre of the education of the young, and of paving the way for a new intellectual life, by means of the instruction given in the schools.[108] An attempt was made to combine classical learning with devotion to the old religion and respect for the Church. They also strove to carry out—though not always successfully—the task which was assigned to the schools by the Lateran Council held under Leo X; the aim of the teacher was to be not merely to impart grammar, rhetoric and the other sciences, but at the same time to instil into those committed to their charge the fear of God and zeal for the faith.[109] The sovereigns and the towns placed their abundant means at the disposal of the new movement and so did the Church, which at that time was still a wealthy organisation.

The number of the schools and scholars in itself proves the interest taken by the nation in the relative prosperity of its education.

To take some instances from districts with which Luther must have been fairly well acquainted: Zwickau had a flourishing Latin school which, in 1490, numbered 900 pupils divided into four classes. In 1518 instruction was given there in Greek and Hebrew, and bequests, ecclesiastical and secular, for its maintenance continued to be made. The town of Brunswick had two Latin schools and, besides, three schools belonging to religious communities. At Nuremberg, towards the close of the 15th century, there were several Latin schools controlled by four rectors and twelve assistants; a new “School of Poetry” was added in 1515 under Johann Cochlæus. Augsburg also had five Church schools at the commencement of the 16th century, and besides this private teachers with a humanistic training were engaged in teaching Latin and the fine arts. At Frankfurt-on-the-Main there were, in 1478, three foundation schools with 318 pupils; the college at Schlettstadt in Alsace numbered 900 pupils in 1517 and Geiler of Kaysersberg and Jakob Wimpfeling were both educated there. At Görlitz in Silesia, at the close of the 15th century, the number of scholars varied between 500 and 600. Emmerich on the lower Rhine had, in 1510, approximately 450 pupils in its six classes, in 1521 about 1500. Münster in Westphalia, owing to the labours of its provost, Rudolf von Langen, became the focus and centre of humanistic effort, and, subsequent to 1512, had also its pupils divided into six classes.[110]

The “Brothers of the Common Life” established their schools over the whole of Northern Germany. Their institutions, with which Luther himself had the opportunity of becoming acquainted at Magdeburg, sent out some excellent schoolmasters. The schools of these religious at Deventer, Zwolle, Liège and Louvain were famous. The school of the brothers at Liège numbered in 1521 1600 pupils, assorted into eight classes.

In the lands of the Catholic princes many important grammar-schools withstood the storms of the religious revulsion, so that Luther’s statements concerning the total downfall of education cannot be accepted as generally correct, even subsequent to the first decades of the century.

Nor were even the elementary schools neglected at the close of the Middle Ages in most parts of the German Empire. Fresh accounts of such schools, in both town and country, are constantly cropping up to-day in the local histories. Constant efforts for their improvement and multiplication were made at this time. About a hundred regulations and charters of schools either in German, or in Dutch, dating from 1400-1521 have been traced. The popular religious handbooks were zealous in advocating the education of the people.[111] Luther himself tells us it was the custom to stir up the schoolmasters to perform their duty by saying that “to neglect a scholar is as bad as to seduce a maid.”[112]

_Luther’s Success_

Did Luther, by means of the efforts described above, succeed in bringing about any real improvement in the schools, particularly the Latin schools? The affirmative cannot be maintained. At least it was a long time before the reform which he desiderated came, and what reform took place seems to have been the result less of Luther’s exhortations than of Melanchthon’s labours.

On the whole his hopes were disappointed. The famous saying of Erasmus: “Wherever Lutheranism prevails, there we see the downfall of learning,”[113] remained largely true throughout the 16th century, in spite of all Luther’s efforts.

Schiele says: Where Melanchthon’s school-regulations for the Saxon Electorate were enforced without alteration, Latin alone was taught, “but neither German nor Greek nor Hebrew,” that the pupils might not be overtaxed. Instruction in history and mathematics was not insisted on at all. Bugenhagen added the rudiments of Greek and mathematics. Only about twenty years after Luther’s “An die Radherrn” do we hear something of attempts being made to improve matters in the Lutheran districts. As a rule all that was done even in the large towns was to amalgamate several moribund schools and give them a new charter. “Even towns like Nuremberg and Frankfurt were unable, in spite of the greatest sacrifices, to introduce a well-ordered system into the schools. The two most eminent, practical pedagogues of the time, Camerarius and Micyllus, could not check the decline of their council schools.”[114]

Nuremberg, the highly praised home of culture, may here be taken as a case in point, because it was to the syndic of this city that Luther addressed his second writing, praising the new Protestant gymnasium which had been established there (above, p. 6). Yet, in 1530, after it had been in existence some years, this same syndic, Lazarus Spengler, sadly wrote: “Are there not any intelligent Christians who would not be highly distressed that in a few short years, not Latin only, but all other useful languages and studies have fallen into such contempt? Nobody, alas, will recognise the great misfortune which, as I fear, we shall soon suffer, and which even now looms in sight.”[115] In the Gymnasium, which he had so much at heart, instruction was given free owing to the rich foundations, nevertheless but very few pupils were found to attend it. Eobanus Hessus, who was to have lent his assistance to promoting the cause of Humanism, left the town again in 1533. When Hessus before this complained to Erasmus that he had given offence to the town by his complaints of the low standard to which the school had fallen (above, p. 32), the latter replied in 1531, that he had received his information from the learned Pirkheimer and other friends of the professors there. He had indeed written that learning seemed to be only half alive there, in fact, at its last gasp, but he had done so in order by publishing the truth to spur them on to renewed zeal. “This I know, that at Liège and Paris learning is flourishing as much as ever. Whence then comes this torpor? From the negligence of those who boast of being Evangelicals. Besides, you Nurembergers have no reason to think yourselves particularly offended by me, for such complaints are to be heard from the lips of every honest man of every town where the Evangelicals rule.”[116] Camerarius, whom Melanchthon wished to be the soul of the school, turned his back on it in 1535 on account of the hopeless state of things. J. Poliander said in 1540: In Nuremberg, that populous and well-built city, there are rich livings and famous professors, but owing to the lack of students the institution there has dwindled away. “The lecturers left it, which caused much disgrace and evil talk to the people of Nuremberg, as everybody knows.”[117] When Melanchthon stayed for a while at Nuremberg in 1552 by order of the Elector, the Gymnasium was a picture of desolation. In the school regulations issued by the magistrates the pupils were reproached with contempt of divine service, blasphemy, persistent defiance of school discipline, etc., and with being “barbarous, rude, wild, wanton, bestial and sinful.” Camerarius even wrote from Leipzig advising the town-council to break up the school.[118]

There is no doubt that in other districts where Lutheranism prevailed Latin schools were to be found where good discipline reigned and where masters and pupils alike worked with zeal; the records, however, have far more to say of the decline.

Many statements of contemporaries well acquainted with the facts speak most sadly of the then conditions. Melanchthon complained more and more that shortsighted Lutheran theologians stood in the way of the progress of the schools. Camerarius, in a letter to George Fabricius, rector of Meissen, said in 1555 that it was plain everything was conspiring for the destruction of Germany, that religion, learning, discipline and honesty were doomed. As one of the principal causes he instances “the neglect and disgust shown for that learning, which, in reality, is the glory and ornament of man.” “It is looked upon as tomfoolery and a thing fit only for children to play with.” “Education, and life in general, too, has become quite other from what we were accustomed to in our boyhood.” Of the Catholic times he speaks with enthusiasm: “What zeal at one time inspired the students and in what honour was learning held; what hardships men were ready to endure in order to acquire but a modicum of scholarship is still to-day a matter of tradition. Now, on the other hand, learned studies are so little thought of owing to civil disturbances and inward dissensions that it is only here and there that they have escaped complete destruction.”[119]

What he says is abundantly confirmed by the accounts of the failure of educational effort at Augsburg, Esslingen, Basle, Stuttgart, Tübingen, Ansbach, Heilbronn and many other towns.

The efforts made were, however, not seldom ill-advised. If it be really a fact that the Latin “_Colloquia_” of Erasmus, which Luther himself had condemned for its frivolity, “played a principal part in the education of the schoolboys,”[120] then, indeed, it is not surprising that the results did not reach expectations. The crude polemics against the olden Church and the theological controversies associated with the names of Luther and Melanchthon, which penetrated into the schools owing to the squabbles of the professors and preachers, also had a bad effect. Again education was hampered by being ever subordinated to the interests of a “pure faith” which was regarded as its mainstay, but which was itself ever changing its shape and doctrines.[121]

“The form of education required for future ministers,” says Schiele, “became the chief thing, and education as such was consequently obliged to take a back seat.” “At the Universities it was only theology that flourished,” the olden Hellenists died out and the young were, in many places, only permitted to attend the “orthodox” Universities. Among the Lutherans the Latin schools were soon no longer able to compete with the colleges of the Jesuits and the Calvinists. Not a single Lutheran rector or master of note is recorded in the annals of the history of education. It is true that the so-called Küster-schools spread throughout the land simultaneously with the spread of orthodoxy. But when we see how the orthodox clergy despised their catechetical duties as of secondary importance, and hastened to delegate them as far as possible to the Küster [parish-clerk], it becomes impossible for us to regard such schools as a proof of any interest in education on the part of the orthodox, rather the contrary. How otherwise can we explain, even when we take into account the unfavourable conditions of the age, that, a hundred years after Luther’s day, far fewer people were able to read his writings than at the time when he first came forward.[122]

In the elementary schools which gradually came into being the parish-clerk gave instruction in reading and writing, and, in addition, tried to teach the catechism by reciting it aloud and making the children repeat it after him. The earliest definite regulations which imposed this duty on the clerk in addition to the catechism were those issued by Duke Christopher of Würtemberg in 1559, who also devoted his attention to the founding of German schools. The latter, however, were not intended for the smaller villages, nor did they receive any support from the “poor box.” Nor did all the children attend the schools kept by the clerk. The school regulations issued by the Protestant Duke were in themselves good, but their effect was meagre.[123] In the Saxon Electorate it was only in 1580 that the parish-clerks of the villages were directed to keep a school.[124]

Finally, to come to the Protestant Universities; it was only in the latter part of the 16th century that the attendance, which, as we saw above, had fallen so low, began once more to make a better show.

In 1540 Melanchthon expressed himself as satisfied with the condition of learning which prevailed in them.[125] But among others whose opinion was less favourable we find Luther’s friend Justus Jonas, who, two years before this, in 1538, wrote, that, since the Evangel had begun to make its way through Germany, the Universities were silent as the grave.[126] The testimony of Rudolf Walther, a Swiss, who had visited many German Universities and been on terms of intimacy with eminent Protestant theologians, must also receive special attention. In 1568 he wrote—though his words may perhaps be somewhat discounted by his own theological isolation—“The German Universities are now in such a state that, to say nothing of the conceit and carelessness of the professors and the impudent immorality which prevails, they are in no way remarkable. Heidelberg, however, is praised more than the others, for the attacks which menace her on all sides do not allow this University to slumber.”[127]

Heidelberg was the chief educational centre of those who held Calvinistic views. Since 1580 the attendance at the University had notably increased owing to the influx of students from abroad. Towards the close of the century, with Wittenberg and Jena, it headed the list of the Universities of the new faith in respect of the number of matriculations. Jena, like its sister Universities of Marburg, Königsberg and Helmstädt, had been founded as a seminary of Protestant theology and at the same time of Roman law, which served to strengthen the absolutism of the princes. Since the appointment of Flacius Illyricus in 1557 it had become a stronghold of pure Lutheranism. The theological squabbles within the bosom of Protestantism, here as in the other Universities, were, however, disastrous to peace, and any healthy progress. Characteristic of the treatment meted out to the professors by Protestant statesmen of a different opinion, even when they were not summarily dismissed, is the discourse of the Saxon Chancellor, Christian Brück, to the professors of the theological Faculty at Jena in 1561: “You black, red and yellow knaves and rascals! A plague upon you all you shameless scamps and rebels! Would that you were knocked on the head, disgraced and blinded!”[128]

The University of Wittenberg now registered the largest number of students. Although on Luther’s first public appearance crowds of students had been attracted by the fame of his name, yet these decreased to such an extent that between 1523 and 1533 not a single theological degree was conferred. About 1550, however, the Faculties again numbered about 2000 students, thanks chiefly to Melanchthon. In 1598 the number is even given as exceeding 2000. Throughout the whole of the century, from the beginning of the ecclesiastical schism, a considerable percentage of students had poured in from abroad. Of the wantonness of the Wittenberg students of the various Faculties, contemporaries as well as official documents wax so eloquent that the University would seem to have enjoyed an unenviable notoriety in this respect among the Protestant educational establishments.[129] The fact that, as just mentioned, the students were largely recruited from other countries must be taken into account. Wittenberg suffered more than the other Universities from the quarrels which, according to Luther, tore to pieces Protestant theology. What was said in a sermon in 1571 on the words “Peace be with you” is peculiarly applicable to Wittenberg: “Only see what quarrelling and envy, hatred, and persecution, and expulsion there has been, and still is, among the professors at Wittenberg, Jena, Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, Königsberg and indeed all the Universities which really should be flourishing in the light of our beloved Evangel; it would indeed be a great and heavenly work of God if all the young men at these Universities did not fall into such vices, and even become utterly corrupted.”[130]

4. Benevolence and Relief of the Poor

Luther’s attitude towards poor relief, which ever since the rise of Protestantism has been the subject of extravagant eulogies, can only be put in its true light by a closer examination of the state of things before his day.[131]

_At the Close of the Middle Ages_

Indications of the provision made by the community for relief of the poor are found in the Capitularies of Charles the Great, indeed even in the 6th century in the canons of a Council held at Tours in 567. Corporate relief of the poor, later on carried out by means of the guilds, and the care of the needy in each particular district undertaken by unions of the parishes, were of a public and organised character. It has been justly remarked concerning the working of the mediæval institutions: “The results achieved by our insurance system were then attained by means of family support, corporations, village clubs and unions of the lords of the manors.… Such organised relief of the poor made any State relief unnecessary. The State authorities concerned themselves only negatively, viz. by prohibiting mendicancy and vagabondage.”[132] Private benevolence occupied the first place, since the very nature of Christian charity involves love of our neighbour. Its work was mainly done by means of the ecclesiastical institutions and the monasteries. Special arrangements also were made, under the direction of the Church, to meet the various needs, and such were to be found in considerable numbers both in large places and in small; all, moreover, was carried out on the lines of a careful selection of deserving cases and a wise control of expenditure.

The share taken by the Church in the whole work of charity was, generally speaking, a guarantee that the work was managed conscientiously.

Though among both monks and clergy scandalous instances of greed and self-seeking were not wanting, yet there were many who lived up to their profession and were zealous in assisting in the development of works of charity. The mendicant Orders, by the very example of the poverty prescribed by their rule, helped to combat all excessive avarice; their voluntary privations taught people how to endure the trials of poverty and they showed their gratitude for the alms bestowed on them by their labours for souls in the pulpit and in the school, and by doing their utmost to promote learning.

Every Order was exhorted by its Rule to fly idleness and to perform works of neighbourly charity.

There are plentiful sermons and works of piety dating from the close of the Middle Ages which prove how the faithful were not only urged to be charitable to the needy, but also to obey God’s command and to labour, this exhortation referring particularly to the poor themselves, who were not unnecessarily to become a burden to others. Again and again are the words of the Bible emphasised: “In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread,” and “Whoever will not work neither let him eat” (Gen. iii. 19; 2 Thes. iii. 10).

In spite of this, lack of industrial occupation, the difficulty and even sometimes the entire absence of public supervision, and, in part also, the ease with which alms were to be had, bred a large crop of beggars, who moved about from place to place and who, in late mediæval times, became a perfect plague throughout the whole of Germany. Hence all the greater towns in the 15th century and early years of the 16th issued special regulations to deal with the poor. In the matter of these laws for the regulation of charity the city-fathers acted independently, strong in the growing consciousness of their standing and duties. Lay Guardians of the Poor were appointed by the magistrates and poor-boxes were established, the management of which devolved on the municipal authorities. The Catholic Netherlands set an excellent example in this respect by utilising the old hospital regulations and, with their help, drawing up new and independent organisations. Antwerp, Brussels, Louvain, Mechlin, Ghent, Bruges, Namur and other towns already possessed a well-developed system of poor relief.

“The admirable regulations for the relief of the poor at Ypres” (1525), to which reference is so often made, “a work of social reform of the first rank” (Feuchtwanger), sprang from such institutions, and these, in turn, were by Charles V in 1531 made the basis of his new Poor Law for the whole of the Netherlands. The Ypres regulations declared, that, according to the divine command, everyone is obliged to gain his living as far as he can. All begging was strictly prohibited, charitable institutions and private almsgiving were not allowed to have their way unchecked, admission of strangers was made difficult and other salutary restrictions were enforced, yet, on the other hand, Christian charity towards those unable to earn a living was warmly welcomed and set in the right channels.[133]

In the Netherlands, Humanism, which had made great progress in Erasmus’s native land, co-operated in the measures taken, and it was here that the important “_De subventione pauperum_” of Juan Ludovico de Vives, a friend of Erasmus, of Pope Hadrian IV and of Sir Thomas More, and a zealous opponent of Lutheranism, was published in 1526.

In the Catholic towns of Germany, particularly in the south, it was not merely the stimulus of Humanism but still more the economic and political development which, towards the end of the Middle Ages and during the transition to modern times, led to constant fresh efforts in the domain of the public relief of the poor. The assistance of the poor was, in fact, at that time “one of the principal social questions, poor relief being identical with social politics. To provide for the sick members of the guilds, for the serf incapable of work, for the beggar in the street, for the guest in the hostel, for the poor artisan to whom the city magistrates gave a loan free of interest, for the burgher who received cheap grain from the council, all this was, to give freely, to bestow alms and to perform works well pleasing to God.”[134]

The gaping rift in the German lands and the chaotic conditions which accompanied the transition from the agrarian to the commercial system of economy were naturally not favourable to the peaceful work of alleviating poverty. It was, however, eventually to the advantage of the towns to form themselves into separate administrations, able to safeguard their own charitable institutions by means of an efficient police system. Thus the town councils took over what had been formerly to a great extent the function of the Church, but this they did without any animosity towards her. They felt themselves to be acting as beseemed “Christian authorities.” They were encouraged in this by that interference, in what had once been the domain of the Church, of the territorial princes and the cities, which had become the rule in the 15th century. The more or less extensive suzerainty in Church matters which had prevailed even previous to the religious schism in Saxony, Brandenburg and many of the Imperial cities may be called to mind. In towns such as Augsburg, Nuremberg, Strasburg and Ratisbon the overwhelming increase which had taken place in the class which lived from hand to mouth, called for the prohibitive measures against beggary and the other regulations spoken of above.

At Augsburg the town council issued orders concerning the poor-law system in 1459, 1491 and 1498. Those of 1491 and 1498 sought to regulate and prevent any overlapping in the distribution of the municipal doles, the “holy alms which are compassionately given and bestowed daily in many different parts and corners of the city”; to these were subjoined measures for enforcing strict supervision of those who received assistance and for excluding the undeserving; whoever was able to work but refused to do so was shut out, in order that the other poor people might not “be deprived of their bodily sustenance.” A third and still better set of poor-law regulations appeared in 1522. They provided for a stricter organisation of the distribution of the monies, and made the supervision of those in receipt of help easier by the keeping of registers of the poor and by house to house visitations. Beggars at the church doors were placed under special control. No breach with the ecclesiastical traditions of the past is apparent in the rules of 1522, in spite of the influence of the religious innovations in this town. From the civil standpoint, however, they, like the poor laws generally drawn up at the close of the Middle Ages, display a “thorough knowledge of the conditions and are true to a well-tried tradition of communal policy.” The principal author of this piece of legislation was Conrad Peutinger, the famous lawyer and statesman who since 1497 had been town clerk. He died greatly esteemed in 1547, after having done more to further than to check the religious innovations in his native town by his uncertain and vacillating behaviour.

From the Nuremberg mendicancy regulations Johannes Janssen quotes certain highly practical enactments which belong to the latter half of the 14th century. The so-called “meat and bread foundations,” which had been enriched by the Papal Indulgences granted to benefactors, were not available for any public beggars, but only for the genuine poor. In 1478 the town council issued a more minute mendicant ordinance. Here we read: “Almsgiving is a specially praiseworthy, virtuous work, and those who receive alms unworthily and unnecessarily lay a heavy burden of guilt on themselves.” Those allowed to beg were also obliged at least “to spin or perform some other work according to their capacity.” Beggars from foreign parts were only permitted to beg on certain fixed days in the year. Conrad Celtes, the Humanist, in his work on Nuremberg printed in 1501, boasts of the ample provision for widows and orphans made by the town, the granaries for the purpose of giving assistance and other arrangements whereby it was distinguished above all other towns; families of the better class who had met with misfortunes received yearly a secret dole to tide them over their difficult time.[135]

New regulations concerning the poor, more comprehensive than the former, appeared at Nuremberg in 1522. These deal with the actual needs and are in close touch with the maxims of government and old traditions of the Imperial cities. In them all the earlier charitable, social and police measures are codified: the restriction of begging, the management of the hospitals, the provision of work and tools, advances to artisans in difficulties, granaries for future famines, the distribution of alms, badges for privileged beggars, etc. The whole is crowned by the Bible text, so highly esteemed in the Catholic Middle Ages: “Blessed is he that hath pity on the poor and needy, for the Lord will deliver him in the evil day.” “Our salvation,” so we read when mention is made of the relief funds, “rests solely in keeping and performing the commandments of God which oblige every Christian to give such help and display such fraternal charity towards his neighbour.”[136] At Nuremberg the new teaching had already taken firm footing yet the olden Catholic conception of the meritorious character of almsgiving is nevertheless recognisable in the regulations of 1522.[137]

At Strasburg a new system, dating from 1523, for regulating the distribution of the “common alms” was established in harmony with the great traditions of the 15th century, and above all with the spirit and labours of the famous Catholic preacher Geiler of Kaysersberg (†1510). Janssen has given us a fine series of witnesses, from Geiler’s sermons and writings, of the nature at once religious and practical of his exhortations to charity.[138] Charity, he insists, must show itself not merely in the bestowal of temporal goods; it is concerned above all with the “inward and spiritual goods, the milk of sound doctrine, and instruction of the unlearned, the milk of devotion, wisdom and consolation.” He repeatedly exhorts the authorities to stricter regulations on almsgiving.

After various improvements had been introduced in the poor law at Strasburg subsequent to 1500, the magistrates—the clergy and the monasteries not having shown themselves equal to their task—issued a new enactment, though even this relied to a great extent on the help of the clergy. The regulations of Augsburg and Nuremberg were the most effectual. It was only later, after the work of Capito, Bucer and Hedio at Strasburg, that, together with the new spirit, changes crept into the traditional poor-law system of the town.

All the enactments, dating from late mediæval times prior to the religious innovations, for the poor of the other great German towns, for instance, of Ratisbon (1523), Breslau (1525) and Würzburg (1533) are of a more or less similar character. Thus, thanks to the economic pressure, there was gradually evolved, in the centres of German prosperity and commercial industry, a sober but practical and far-sighted poor-law system.[139]

It was not, indeed, so easy to get rid of the existing disorders; to achieve this a lengthy struggle backed by the regulations just established would have been necessary. Above all, the tramps and vagabonds, who delighted in idleness and adventure and who often developed dangerous proclivities, continued to be the pest of the land. The cause of this economic disorder was a deep-seated one and entirely escapes those who declare that beggary sprang solely from the idea foisted on the Church, viz. that “poverty was meritorious and begging a respectable trade.”

_Luther’s Efforts. The Primary Cause of their Failure_

The spread of Lutheranism had its effect on the municipal movement for the relief of the poor, nor was its influence all for the good.

In 1528 and 1529 Luther twice published an edition of the booklet “On the Roguery of the False Beggars” (“_Liber vagatorum_”), a work dating from the beginning of the 16th century; in his preface to it he says, that the increase in fraudulent vagrancy shows “how strong in the world is the rule of the devil”; “Princes, lords, town-magistrates and, in fact, everybody” ought to see that alms were bestowed only on the beggars and the needy in their own neighbourhood, not on “rogues and vagabonds” by whom even he himself (Luther) had often been taken in. Everywhere in both towns and villages registers should be kept of the poor, and strange beggars not allowed without a “letter or testimonial.”[140]

He was, however, not always so circumspect in his demands and principles. In a passage of his work “An den Adel” he makes a wild appeal, which in its practicability falls short of what had already been done in various parts of Germany. The only really new point in it is, that, in order to make an end of begging and poverty, the mendicant Orders should be abolished, and the Roman See deprived of their collections and revenues. Of the ordinary beggars he says, without being sufficiently acquainted with the state of the case, that they “might easily be expelled,” and that it would be an “easy matter to deal with them were we only brave and in earnest enough.” To the objection that the result of violent measures would be a still more niggardly treatment of the poor he replied in 1520: “It suffices that the poor be fairly well provided for, so that they die not of hunger or cold.” With a touch of communism he exaggerates, at the expense of the well-to-do and those who did no work, an idea in itself undoubtedly true, viz. that work is man’s portion: “It is not just that, at the expense of another’s toil, a man should go idle, wallow in riches and lead a bad life, whilst his fellow lives in destitution, as is now the perverted custom.… It was never ordained by God that anyone should live on the goods of another.”[141]

In itself it could only have a salutary effect when Luther goes on to speak, as he frequently does, against begging among the class whose duty it was to work with their hands, and when he attempts both to check their idleness and to rouse a spirit of charity towards the deserving.[142] He even regards the Bible text, “Let there be no beggar or starving person amongst you,” as universally binding on Christians. Only that he is oblivious of the necessary limitations when he exclaims: “If God commanded this even in the Old Testament how much more is it incumbent on us Christians not to let anyone beg or starve!”[143]

The latter words refer to those who are really poor but quite willing to work (a class of people which will always exist in spite of every effort); as for those who “merely eat” he demands that they be driven out of the land. This he does in a writing of 1526 addressed to military men; here he divides “all man’s work into two kinds,” viz. “agricultural work and war work.” A third kind of work, viz. the teaching office, to which he often refers elsewhere, is here passed over in silence. “As for the useless people,” he cries, “who serve neither to defend us nor to feed us, but merely eat and pass away their time in idleness, [the Emperor or the local sovereign] should either expel them from the land or make them work, as the bees do, who sting to death the drones that do not work but devour the honey of the others.”[144] His unmethodical mind failed to see to what dire consequences these hastily penned words could lead.

With the object of alleviating poverty he himself, however, lent a hand to certain charitable institutions, which, though they did not endure, have yet their place in history. Such were the poor-boxes of Wittenberg, Leisnig, Altenburg and some other townships. This institution was closely bound up with his scheme of gathering together the “believing Christians” into communities apart. These communities were not only to have their own form of divine worship and to use the ecclesiastical penalties, but were also to assist the poor by means of the common funds in a new and truly Evangelical fashion.

The olden poor-law ordinances of mediæval times had been revised at Wittenberg and embodied in the so-called “Beutelordnung.”[145] Carlstadt and the town-council, under the influence of Luther’s earlier ideas, substituted for this on Jan. 24, 1522, a new “Order for the princely town of Wittenberg”; at the same time they reorganised the common funds.[146] These regulations Luther left in force, when, on his return from the Wartburg, he annulled the rest of Carlstadt’s doings; the truth is, that they were not at variance even with his newer ideals.

In 1523 he himself promoted a similar but more highly developed institution for the relief of the poor in the little Saxon town of Leisnig on the Freiberg Mulde; this was to be in the hands of the community of true believers into which the inhabitants had formed themselves at the instigation of the zealous Lutheran, Sebastian von Kötteritz. At Altenburg also, doubtless through Luther’s doing, his friend Wenceslaus Link, the preacher in that town, made a somewhat similar attempt to establish a communal poor-box. In many other places efforts of a like nature were made under Lutheran auspices.

How far such undertakings spread throughout the Protestant congregations cannot be accurately determined. We know, however, the details of the scheme owing to our still having the rules drawn up for Leisnig.[147]

According to this the whole congregation, town-councillors, aldermen, elders and all the inhabitants generally, were to bind themselves to make a good use of their Christian freedom by the faithful keeping of the Word of God and by submitting to good discipline and just penalties. Ten coffer-masters were to be appointed over the “common fund” and these were three times a year to give an account to the “whole assembly thereto convened.” Into this fund was to be put not merely the revenue of the earlier institutions which hitherto had been most active in the relief of the poor, viz. the brotherhoods and benevolent associations, as also that of most of the guilds, and, moreover, the whole income drawn by the parish from the glebes, pious foundations, tithes, voluntary offerings, fines, bridge dues and private industrial concerns. Thus it was not merely a relief fund but practically a trust comprising all the wealth of the congregation, which chiefly consisted in the extensive Church property it had annexed. In keeping with this is the manner in which the income was to be apportioned. Only a part was devoted to the relief of the poor, i.e. to the hospital, orphanage and guest-houses. Most of the money was to go to defray the stipend of the Lutheran pastor and his clerk, to maintain the schools and the church, and to allow of advances being made to artisans free of interest; the rest was to be put by for times of scarcity. The members of the congregation were also exhorted to make contributions out of charity to their neighbour.

The scheme pleased Luther so well that he advised the printing of the rules, and himself wrote a preface to the published text in which he said, he hoped that “the example thus set would prove a success, be generally followed, and lead to a great ruin of the earlier foundations, monasteries, chapels and all other such abominations which hitherto had absorbed all the world’s wealth under a show of worship.”

Hence here once more his chief motive is a polemical one, viz. his desire to injure Popery.

He invites the authorities on this occasion to “lay hands on” such property and to apply to the common fund all that remained over after the obligations attaching to the property had been complied with, and restitution made to such heirs of the donors as demanded it on account of their poverty. In giving this advice he was anxious, as he says, to disclaim any responsibility in the event of “such property as had fallen vacant being plundered owing to the estates changing hands and each one laying hold on whatever he could seize.” “Should avarice find an entry what then can be done? It must not indeed be given up in despair. It is better that avarice should take too much in a legal way than that there should be such plundering as occurred in Bohemia. Let each one [i.e. of the heirs of the donors] examine his own conscience and see what he ought to take for his own needs and what he should leave for the common fund!”[148]