Furthermore, Frederick was grateful for the fame and prestige that Luther had single-handedly gained for his little university. And maybe his ‘wisdom’ persuaded him that, deep down, Luther was less radical than he seemed. If so, Frederick was correct.
As soon as the returning hero was back in Wittenberg, he showed the conservative side of his nature. Luther began to take issue with the more extreme reformers. He was never a Wycliffe or a Savonarola. He had relied on the protection of Frederick; increasingly, he saw his Reformation as being linked to secular power and authority.
While he had been at Wartburg Castle, the students at Wittenberg had become over-excited. They had destroyed an altar in the Franciscan church. They had rioted during a Christmas Eve service. Luther now made it clear that he would have no truck with such behaviour – despite the fact that he had come close to inciting riots himself just a year or so earlier. Luther always detested social disorder.
In late 1523, a series of frenzied peasant risings swept across southern Germany. The peasants were relatively poor people in a wealthy country. But they had been enjoying a new-found prosperity. Their self-confidence was also growing. At least part of their new aggression could be attributed to Luther’s Reformation. The peasants were inflamed not just by the acts of unjust and oppressive landlords but also by a virulent anticlericalism. They were joined by craftsmen and tradesmen; indeed, actual peasants became a minority in the revolt.
Amid the ferment was the extremist Thomas Müntzer, a wild, radical preacher much given to bloodthirsty incitement. Müntzer would have been a dangerous man in any context; in those times, he was in his element. We have noted that Luther was not as reasonable a man as Erasmus; compared to Müntzer, Luther was the very model of reasonableness.
Müntzer was a well-educated, intelligent priest who had imbibed the ideas of Hus but had gone on a wild cerebral journey which led him to believe in the necessity of revolution. He wanted the people to be free and God alone to rule over them. He was not afraid of violence; indeed, he revelled in it. He claimed that God was ‘sharpening his scythe’ within him, though he called himself not ‘the scythe’ but ‘the hammer’. His sign combined a red cross with a sword. He was given to saying: ‘Let not the sword of the saint get cold.’ In truth, he was a maniac. He was also an outspoken enemy of Luther. Erasmus had called Luther a harsh and severe doctor; Müntzer called him ‘Dr Liar’. Further, Luther was accused of being ‘soft-living and spiritless’.
It is difficult to assess whether Müntzer was a marginal figure in the peasants’ revolt or whether his hellfire ranting played a significant part in whipping up the discontent. What is important is his clash with Luther, for Martin now began to worry about what he had unleashed. He had no direct responsibility for the uprising; indeed, he was concerned to put it down. But the climate he had created undoubtedly encouraged the subversive, the rebellious and the fanatical. Müntzer was just the most prominent exemplar of this last category. There were many others.
The actual revolt was uncoordinated. It took the form of a series of sporadic uprisings. These were often sullied by an unusual cruelty, on a scale that became horrific, even for those violent times. Castles and monasteries alike were attacked; nuns were raped. Feral gangs of men, drunk on beer and wine they had looted, roamed around the country lanes. When the princes and magistrates regained control, the repression was brutal. About 100,000 died, leaving behind many more widows and children.
Luther, always brave, had travelled into what were combat zones, preaching against the uprisings and denouncing the deranged zealot Müntzer. Once again, his life was in danger, but now from different enemies and for different reasons. He could not control his pen. He could not stop himself writing with savagery. In 1525, he wrote a lamentable and deplorable tract, Against the Murdering Thieving Hordes of Peasants. His language was vile. He incited not the peasants but the princes ‘to brandish their swords, to smite and slay the wicked’. This was bad enough, indeed it was unforgivable – but Luther sometimes dashed off crude polemics without much reflection. However, did there lie underneath his furious words a sinister, calculating motivation? Was Luther now fully aware that his Reformation depended on the civil authorities – that it was really a revolution not of the people but of the masters?
In any event, Luther could now be fairly branded as a counter-revolutionary, a man who wrote that you could not deal reasonably with a rebel; rather, you had to ‘punch him in the face until he has a bloody nose’. So, Luther became wholly identified with the ruling class, with the princes, with the rich, the powerful and the strong. Many of the innocent survivors of the revolt did not forget. They had been taught hard lessons. Luther’s Reformation was no longer for them. Some turned back to the old Church; some turned to the growing number of radical sects that the Reformation had spawned.
In those violent times, many of the new Lutheran ministers found themselves martyred when they had barely begun their ministry. In many parts of Germany, the Roman Catholic Church recovered its authority, and it was not slow in exacting reprisals. Whoever was now in control of the Reformation, it was not its begetter.
Luther himself was not to be martyred. Revolutions often devour those who start them. But Luther was to prove a great survivor. And, for some, he was also to prove a great betrayer.
CHAPTER 5
Early Reform in England
WE have seen that Luther’s impact on Germany, in the years 1518–24, was colossal. His impact on England was to be less dramatic, but highly significant nonetheless, while his immediate impact on Scotland was almost negligible.
Both social instability and spiritual dissatisfaction had been widespread across Europe before Luther produced his theses in 1517. So, Luther’s ideas were discussed eagerly in many countries beyond Germany – and that was about as far as it went, for the time being. This was because the powers-that-be were aware that social instability mingled with religious reform was a potent mixture. And, once Luther had challenged the old orthodoxies and directed ordinary people to draw their own conclusions from Scripture, his Reformation was unlikely to cohere as a united movement. It was bound to start breaking into sects and dissident groupings.
So, the authorities wanted to keep the desire for reform under control; and those who pushed most avidly for reform could not hold together. In some ways, it is remarkable that the Reformation ever happened.
England had a powerful but wilful king. Henry VIII was always keen, whenever possible, to play the part of the showman king. Latterly, he became more and more erratic and violent, savagely so. But most of the English people, particularly in the south and east, stayed loyal to him. And, when this king became the supreme head of the Church, that made for a very English and altogether a very curious Reformation.
Thus, the Reformation in England cannot be discussed without first examining the career and persona of the monarch who presided over it, Henry VIII. Indeed, here we have one of history’s great ironies, because Henry regarded himself, with some justification, as a great defender of the papacy and a devout and strong Catholic. Luther’s impact on England might have been very different had Henry decided to embrace Lutheranism. But the king’s initial response to Luther was wholly negative.
Lutheran ideas were eagerly discussed by a scattering of English intellectuals – particularly a group who met at the White Horse Tavern in Cambridge – and humanists. The leading English humanist, however, was Sir Thomas More – a man who detested Lutheranism with an almost deranged, scatological intensity.
The greatest English non-political reformer was William Tyndale, who was doggedly independent. He was, essentially, a loner. He had the protection of no king or prince; he had no devotees and followers. A brilliant scholar from Gloucestershire, Tyndale was educated at Oxford. He was arguably the finest writer of English prose there has ever been, bar none. Tyndale’s