A world lit only by fire_ the medieval m - William Manchester [82]
A Catholic historian notes that “a revolutionary spirit of hatred for the Church and the clergy had taken hold of the masses in various parts of Germany. … The cry ‘Death to the priests!’ which had long been whispered in secret, was now the watchword of the day.” Although the pope had remained ignorant of this festering discontent, the Curia knew of it. Rather than kindle an uprising there, the hierarchy had decided to exempt Germany from the Inquisition, and in 1516, the year before Luther posted his theses on the Castle Church door, one of the ablest men around the pontiff had warned him of imminent revolt in the heart of Europe.
HIS NAME WAS GIROLAMO ALEANDRO, Latinized to Hieronymus Aleander. Then just forty, he was a handsome Venetian whose arched brows, penetrating eyes, and thoughtful, pursed mouth suggested a professorial life. In part this was justified. Aleandro was an ecclesiastic of commanding intellect. A humanist and future cardinal, he was a celebrated member of Europe’s intelligentsia—rector of the University of Paris, a colleague of Erasmus, fluent in all classical tongues, and honored lecturer at Venice and Orleans. He was also a man of action, however, and as such he would become Luther’s first formidable Catholic adversary. Aleandro had anticipated the coming mutiny during an official visit to Austria. There, he told Pope Leo, he had repeatedly overheard men muttering that they yearned for the emergence of a man brave enough to lead them against Rome.
When the papacy issued a bull significant to one part of the Church’s vast realm, it was customary to dispatch eminent nuncios from Rome with bales of copies, which they would post in major population centers. Leo’s Exsurge Domine was such a document, and the dignitaries entrusted to inform all Germany of Luther’s shame were Aleandro and Johann Eck. To be chosen was regarded as an honor, and Eck, remembering his triumph over Luther in Leipzig the year before, set out with zest.
Aleandro, remembering his premonition, was less enthusiastic. Earlier in the week word had reached the Vatican that their reception would be, at best, mixed; Luther had been degraded in Rome, but he was no pariah to the north. Among his supporters were Franz von Sickingen, imperial chamberlain and one of the Holy Roman Empire’s seven electors; Philipp Melanchthon, the theologian; Lazaras Spengler, poet, and Stadtrat (councillor) of Nuremberg; and Willibald Pirkheimer, the translator of Greek classics into Latin. Albrecht Dürer was praying for Luther. Karlstadt, rallying to his cause, had published De canonicis scripturis libellus, a slender volume commending the Bible and derogating pontiffs, the Epistles, traditions, and ecumenical councils. In Mainz even Archbishop Albrecht was flirting with the rebels.
These were prominent, conservative Germans. Ulrich von Hutten was prominent, but no conservative; he was writing with the slashing, polemical pen of the new Lutherans. Calling for Germans to free themselves from Rome, he published an ancient German manuscript and noted pointedly: “While our forefathers”—the Goths and Huns—“thought it unworthy of them to submit to the Romans when Rome was the most martial nation in the world, we not only submit to these effeminate slaves of lust and luxury, but suffer ourselves to be plundered to minister to their sensuality.” Erasmus begged Hutten to mute his trumpet, but the poet laureate’s notes grew harder and harsher; that spring of 1520, demanding independence from Rome in Gespräche, a verse dialogue, he called the Vatican a “gigantic, bloodsucking worm,” adding: “The pope is a bandit chief, and his gang bears the name of the Church. … Rome is a sea of impurity, a mire of filth, a bottomless sink of iniquity. Should we not flock from all quarters to compass the destruction of this common curse of humanity?”
Eck and Aleandro