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Meanwhile, Johannes von Eck, professor of theology at Ingolstadt in Bavaria labeled Luther a "Bohemian" heretic. Moreover, Johan Tetzel had succeeded in gaining the support of the Saxon Dominican chapter who in January 1518 sent a formal denunciation of Luther to Rome. The papacy was provoked to action when the receipts of the indulgence distribution seemed to be dwindling rapidly. Strings were pulled and Luther was called to appear before the council of the general chapter of the Saxon province of the Augustinians meeting in Heidelberg in April, 1518. Here he made a energetic defense of his new theology, attacked the doctrine of the freedom of the will and Aristotle's influence in theology. He also made a defiant refusal to recant his views. Many were impressed. In the audience was Martin Bucer.
Luther's written response to his critics was entitled Resolutions Concerning the Virtue of Indulgences. This was an explication of the 95 theses. It appeared before the end of the year. It was dedicated to the pope, whom Luther still thought was not aware the aggressive actions of Tetzel. He sent it off to Rome with a cover letter in which he denied the allegations of his enemies and appealed to his license as a teacher as a justification for discussing theological issues with freedom.
It was not so much his challenging of the indulgence doctrines and practices as his challenge of papal authority that caused the sudden upheaval. After Albert of Mainz received a copy--evidently posted--he sent it on to Rome. The papacy handed it off to the papal theologian, the Dominican, Sylvester Mazzolini from Prierio (hence, his nickname Prierias). Prierias and his fellow Dominicans were still sore about the drubbing the Humanists had given them in the Pfefferkorn affair with Johan Reuchlin, and their first reaction was to interpret Luther's attack on indulgences as arising from the rivalry between the Augustinians and the Dominicans over university curricular reform. The Augustinians had converted the curriculum at Wittenberg from Thomistic scholasticism to the Bible and Augustine. The Dominicans proudly claimed a very prominent place in the papal curia as defenders of Catholic doctrine against heresy and papal authority against challenge. They now saw Luther's action as a challenge to their role in the curia and to the authority of the papacy. In any case Prierias was now the first to challenge Luther.
Prierias' answer to Luther was titled Dialogue Against the Arrogant Theses of Martin Luther Concerning the Power of the Pope. He asserted the four fundamentals of papal power. First the pope is "virtually ... the head of the Church, though in another manner than Christ." Secondly, "the pope cannot err when he in his capacity as pope comes to a decision." Thirdly, "he who does not hold to the teachings of the Roman church and the pope as an infallible rule of faith, from which even Holy Scripture draws its power and authority, is a heretic". And finally, "the Roman Church can establish something with regard to faith and ethics not only through word but also through deed.... [And it follows that anyone is a] "heretic who wrongly interprets the teachings and actions of the church in so far as they relate to faith and ethics." (Quoted from Lindberg, The European Reformations, p.78.)
Luther was quite surprised and frightened when he realized that the papal court was even aware of what he considered an interesting academic exercise. Prierias' Dialogue accompanied by a papal summons demanding Luther's appearance in Rome within 60 days arrived together in Wittenberg in August 7, 1518. Luther was not long in realizing that he needed help, so he turned to Frederick the Wise, ruler of Saxony and Elector. He wrote persuasively to Frederick who was in Augsburg to attend the Imperial Diet, asking him to arrange to have his hearing in Augsburg following the imperial Diet in September 1518.
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Cardinal Cajetan (Thomas de Vio), the Master-General of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) attended the Imperial Diet as papal legate and was able to perceive the need to be extremely tactful in the light of the various conditions in Germany. Emperor Maximilian was very sick and surely would not live much longer. This meant there would be an election that could potentially greatly reduce the papal influence in Germany, especially if Maximilian's grandson, Charles were to be elected. By this point the electors had done their homework and six of them were already committed to Charles. Only the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, remained undecided. Hence the papacy needed to treat Frederick with kid gloves, most of all not wanting to alienate him.
Members of the Imperial Diet had not changed their frequently expressed negative attitudes toward the flow of Germany money to the papal treasury. Cajetan's major message to the Diet was a request for a 20% tax to defend Christendom from the Ottoman threat. The Diet's response was evasive. Cajetan seems to have sensed that a decree to condemn Luther for criticizing indulgence distribution (to raise more funds from Germany) would be difficult to secure given this climate of opinion.
Hence when Frederick asked that Cajetan give Luther a hearing after the Diet, Cajetan evidently both hoped to ingratiate Frederick and to be able to bypass the issue by getting Luther to recant without further formal proceedings and possible political repercussions. Hence despite orders from Rome and the recommendation of the Minister Provincial of the Augustinian order in Saxony, Luther's own superior, urging Caietan to expedite formal public proceedings against Luther, Cajetan agreed to see him privately on October 12, 13, and 14.
Luther, for his part, was unaware of Cajetan's disposition to proceed in an informal manner. He seems to have fully expected to be arrested and condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake; his one slim hope was that the highly educated Cardinal might understand the reasoning behind his position. As a further defense Frederick extracted from Cajetan an agreement to some guarantees that Luther would be allowed to defend himself and that no final decision should be made as a result of the hearing. Moreover, Frederick secured for Luther a letter of safe conduct letter from the Emperor.
While Luther had great respect for the learned Cardinal, he was quite taken aback by Cajetan's friendly demeanor at the beginning of their first session. Luther responded with a suitable humility expressing his certainty that Cajetan would be competent to instruct him if he were wrong. Apparently Cajetan hoped that Luther would voluntarily recant the statements of the seventh and the fifty-eighth thesis dealing with penance and the treasury of merits respectively. Cajetan however was not prepared to refute those theses by instructing Luther with documentation from Scripture, the Fathers, and papal canons. As the most highly educated of the current advisors of the papacy, Cajetan probably understood that such refutation would be nearly impossible to produce. Of course as legate, Cajetan could not have made any concessions to Luther, even if he had sincerely wanted to do so. While Luther waited for instruction or at least discussion, Cajetan waited for a voluntary surrender. Finally, Cajetan angrily cut the third session off sending Luther away telling him not to return unless he had recanted. Expecting at any moment to be arrested, days passed without any word from the Cardinal. Finally, his friends prevailed, they escorted him out of Augsburg on a borrowed horse in the middle of the night of October 20. In Nuremberg he was shown a copy of the instructions Pope Leo had sent to Cajetan dated August 23. The document referred to Luther as a notorious heretic. Luther seriously though it was a forgery.
On returning to Wittenberg, Luther prepared his account of the hearing with Cajetan, and prepared an appeal requesting a general church council to hear his case. Meanwhile, Cajetan began to put pressure on the Elector Frederick to arrest and deliver Luther. Cajetan made a point of complaining to Frederick about Luther's alleged insolence. Frederick wrote and asked Luther about this accusation. Luther defended himself pointing out that Cajetan had broken his promise to discuss the issues. Thereupon Luther began preparations to leave Saxony and seek asylum at the University of Paris. Preparations seem to have begun by the end of October, but moved slowly.
At a farewell dinner with his friends at Wittenberg on December 1, two letters arrived, both posted from Altenberg by Frederick. The first expressed Frederick's surprise that Luther was still in Saxony! The second letter, with a very different tone, insisted that Luther remain in Wittenberg!
It is probable that Karl von Miltitz arrived from Rome catching up with Frederick at Altenberg in southern Saxony the day Frederick posted the letters. Miltitz, a Saxon nobleman, was papal secretary and chamberlain. His mission was first of all to assist Cajetan in buttering up Frederick by presenting him valuable tokens of good will. The award of the "golden rose" was given each year to a single ruler for outstanding service to the church. In addition, papal bulls authorizing the enlargement of the relic collection in the Elector's Palace Church in Wittenberg. Secondly, to explore the likelihood of Luther's retraction or of Frederick's willingness to hand Luther over.
Frederick wrote his response to the latter question on December 8, refusing to surrender jurisdiction over Luther unless he were proven guilty of heresy by an impartial judge or council--in which case Frederick would proceed against him personally.
Miltitz decided to go beyond his commission and talk with Luther directly. The two met as houseguests of Georg Spalatin, Frederick's chaplain and private secretary, at his home in Schlossberg early in January, 1519. The two communicated sympathetically. Luther agreed not only to be silent if his critics remained silent but also to take some further moderating steps, namely: apologize to the papacy for bringing harm to the church; urge people publicly to remain loyal to the church; and submit his case to the archbishop of Salzburg. Miltitz carried Luther's apology back to Rome but did not present it to the papacy. He reported a highly distorted account of his conversations with Luther apparently convincing Leo that Luther was sorry for his heretical statements and could be induced to recant.
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Maximilian Hapsburg died January 12, 1519, and all the proceedings against Luther were put on hold. The big problem was that the Electors had not yet voted on Maximilian's successor. Five of the seven electors had agreed at the Augsburg Diet in September 1518 that they would meet for that purpose at Frankfort in the Spring. So the transition was thrust upon them prematurely. They finally met at Frankfort and announced their decision on the 28 June, 1519. At first five of the electors had reason to be positive about the candidacy of young Francis I, King of France. However, his boastful talk of the roads he would build, the wars he would lead against the Ottomans to say nothing of his promises of an aggressive defense of law and order in the Empire did not ingratiate him with the electors. Indeed such talk coupled with his considerable wealth and the support of Pope Leo X inspired rather a fear of his capability to effectively limit their freedoms. Henry VIII of England was also a candidate, but the one with least going for him.
The candidate that won the day was the nineteen-year-old Charles I, King of Spain and Duke of Burgundy, the grandson of Maximilian. The electors of the Palatinate and Saxony were both opposed to electing another Hapsburg from the start. Charles' bribes surprised the electors by exceeding those of wealthy Francis I who seems to have had credit problems in releasing sufficient German cash. Since none of the electors really knew enough about Charles to satisfy their anxieties, they decided to negotiate some guidelines as a quid pro quo for their votes. Charles agreed to bring no foreign troops into the Empire, respect all their rights and privileges both in their respective realms and in the Imperial Diet, appoint only Imperial natives to all offices, and carry out all government business in either German or Latin. Charles came to the Empire in 1520 and was crowned Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, at Aachen (=Aix-la-Chapelle) in October. He announced his first Diet to be held at Worms in 1521.
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Intercollegiate competitions dont't generate any more excitment today than they did in Luther's day. The Andreas Carlstadt of the faculty of Wittenberg University had accepted the challenge of Johann Eck, of the University at Ingolstadt. The debate was to be held on neutral turf at Leipzig on June 27, 1519. Luther agreed to assist Carlstadt under the constraint of his agreement with Miltitz. As the months of preparation followed, it appeared to Luther that Eck's proposed theses on the authority of the Scripture and the freedom of the will were an attack directed at him. His agreement to remain silent had depended on the silence of the opposition. Consequently, Luther readily entered the fray by publishing his own counter-theses against Eck. In the last of these he challenged the historicity of papal power. Carlstadt took the first round and with considerable effort did little more than hold his ground against Eck. Luther stepped to the rostrum on July fourth and did not relinquish his turn until the fourteenth. In part Luther challenged papal authority and the authority of councils as exercised on human grounds rather than as a divine ordination. He went on to claim for Scripture the ultimate, divine authority in all religious matters. In line with typical competitions, the debate was recorded verbatim by four notaries and the written arguments submitted to the faculties of theology and canon law at Erfurt and at Paris for a ruling. Neither responded immediately. When Paris finally did respond two years later they failed to mention anything about the arguments at Leipzig choosing rather to condemn those doctrines of Luther that identified him with known heretics in the past. His books should be burned and he must publicly confess and retract his heresies.
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The bull, Exsurge domine et judica causam tuam ..., "Arise, O Lord and judge thy cause.... A wild boar out of the wood doeth waste ... and devour[thy vineyard] ...", condemned Luther for teaching doctrines contrary to the Scriptures as interpreted by the Church Fathers, the Popes and the Councils. Luther must retract within sixty days or be duly excommunicated. It also commanded that Christians everywhere burn Luther's books, or burn only the books where his heresies were found, and reject said heresies. Luther's heretical doctrines were represented by forty-one quoted sentences, some of which were actually scattered sentence fragments taken out of context and re-cast into a coherent but obviously heretical or ridiculous assertion. Knowledgeable German scholars immediately realized that Luther's actual teachings were very poorly represented and perhaps misunderstood.
Although published in June in Italy, Johann Eck did not publish it in Germany until late September--it stirred such a popular uproar at Ingolstadt that Eck had to go into hiding. Posted copies of the bull in several cities were defaced or destroyed. The mood was very much with Luther. Luther himself did not see the bull until early October. He promptly penned more than one rejoinder. One he called his "anti-bull" was titled "Against the Detestable Bull of Antichrist" and characterized its content "as sacrilege and blasphemy of Christ" (R. Bainton, Here I Stand, p. 114.) Sixty days from the date it appeared in Wittenberg, on December 10, 1520, Luther and his followers burned the books of his opponents including a complete set of the corpus juris cononici and threw the papal bull in for good measure.
The bull, Decet pontificem romanum ..., It is Fitting that the Roman Pope ..., which was issued 3 January 1521, officially excommunicated Luther.
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The Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. This publication in August of 1520 was a forcefully worded document in German appealing to the Emperor and condemning the Pope and the papal court in no uncertain terms. He called on the Emperor and the German people to take the lead in reforming the church since the papacy and the councils had failed.
The Babylonian Captivity of the Church , appeared in October, 1520. It was a treatise aimed at theologians and scholars; hence, it was written in Latin. It was an attack on the papacy whom he accused of holding the church in captivity by distorting the clear and plain statements of Scripture with regard to the sacraments.
The Freedom of the Christian Man, appeared first in Latin in October, 1520, and was addressed to the Pope. A German translation appeared the following month. This was Luther's last attempt to seek peace with the church. There was no ground given up on any of his doctrines, but it was a confession of his faith and it was conciliatory in tone.
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Charles V's first imperial diet as Holy Roman Emperor was held at Worms beginning January 6, 1521 and adjourning on 25 May. Charles hesitated before calling Luther to the diet. His papal advisors urged him to merely enforce the papal bull condemning Luther's teachings as heresy, Exsurge domine, by publishing an edict to enforce the bull in the Empire as he had already done in the Netherlands. The bull confirming the excommunication of Luther, Decet pontificem romanum, and requesting that he be put under the imperial ban was not issued until January 3, 1521 and did not reach Charles until March 6.
Meanwhile Frederick the Wise, Electoral prince of Saxony and Luther's patron pressed the Emperor to bring Luther to Worms for a hearing. Charles had, after all, promised the electors he would condemn no one without a hearing. A number of other Princes and Electors chimed in with Frederick.
Charles' desire to keep his relationship with the princes on a solid foundation of mutual trust, agreed to call Luther for a hearing with respect to the doctrines expressed in his published books; however, he would have no right to argue in behalf of those views. Charles further agreed that if Luther recanted he would personally intercede with the Pope in his behalf.
Luther was notified of the summons by imperial messengers and returned to Worms with them protected by an imperial "safe conduct" pass. One fellow faculty member at Wittenberg, a monk, a student and a canon from the Cathedral at Erfurt escorted him. He rejected an armed guard offered him by the German prince/humanist Ulrich von Hutten.
The entourage arrived in Worms on 16 April, and Frederick's advisors began at once to coach him on a strategy of delay in order to gain more exposure before the assembled diet. He first appeared before the diet on the afternoon of April 17
The princes and prelates were seated and standing around the edges of an audience chamber. Charles and his advisors sat at the end of the room. In the middle of the room stood a table piled high with bound volumes and pamphlets. Charles and his papal advisor were overheard remarking they were dubious that anybody could write so much in such a short time. They put two questions to Luther:
After some moments of pregnant pause while Luther examined the materials on the table Luther responded in the affirmative, but hastened to point out that some of his publications were missing.
Luther's response surprised them! He requested time to prepare his answer. They granted him twenty-four hours.
On April 18 the diet convened in a larger hall, but it was still crowded. They put the formal question to him once more. Luther's answered first in Latin and repeated himself in German. He began by apologizing for the complexity of his answer. Proceeding from that he made the following points:
Luther's answer was, needless to say, unsatisfactory. When he was finished they restated the question--would he retract his heresies or not? Speaking without notes he gave a brave but blunt reply, summarizing what he had already said. Various divergent reconstructions have survived and modern scholars have assessed them all without unanimity. Seemingly he refused to recant unless convinced of his error by testimony of Scripture or by clear reason. He made some reference to his conscience. A retort was offered that if he were before a Church Council his conscience would not be considered. Luther's reply to that shocked the assembly; he could demonstrate that general councils of the Church had erred.
Emperor Charles had grown increasingly impatient listening to Luther's careful presentation--understanding only the Latin part. Luther's final outburst had so provoked Charles that he hurried from the room ready to publish a condemnation immediately without further discussion. The lay members of the diet, however, agreed among themselves that scholars should be able to refute Luther's logic and save him. Luther had assured them he was amenable to clear logic. They finally convinced Charles to establish a commission to study Luther's writings and refute them. We see no hint that anyone seriously considered looking for Scripture statements that might refute Luther's position.
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Charles V did nothing against Luther until he had gotten the diet to grant him military and financial aid in his war with Francis I of France. After that success he dismissed the diet on May 25. Next day he published the edict against Luther predated on May 6, 1521. The Edict of Worms initiated enforcement of the papal bulls against Luther throughout the Empire, and ordered his books to be burned. As an excommunicated person he was placed under the imperial ban which meant that anyone who failed upon recognizing Luther to promptly take him captive and turn him over to imperial agents would be exposing himself to very serious penalties.
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Luther left Worms in 26 April, 1521, but did not publicly appear at Wittenberg until 6 March, 1522. Meantime Luther was secreted away by orders of Elector Frederick at Wartburg Castle near Eisenach. Luther was known to his associates at Wartburg as "Squire George".
Luther at Wartburg was lonesome and miserable; only his industry saved his sanity. He was able secretly to issue a number of publications while preserving his disguise.
Having made a quick, incognito journey to Wittenberg and back to Wartburg Luther was very concerned about the tumult he had witnessed. On returning he promptly wrote some guidelines, A Faithful Exhortation to Guard against Revolt and Tumult, which was a summary of his agenda for change. Individuals should initiate no change in religious practice without the approval of the political authorities. He admonished the impatient to study the Gospel, pray fervently, and request the established authorities to authorize reforms. While in Wittenberg he had expedited the publication of his most recent writings. What he had found at Wittenberg is discussed below.
After only 11 weeks with Erasmus' second edition of the Greek New Testament that was published in 1519 he translated the entire New Testament from the Greek. There had been several other translations of the Vulgate New Testament into the scholarly high German, but Luther's translation was in the official standard German of the Saxon chancery. It was not scholarly German nor was it Luther's everyday colloquial Saxon. It can perhaps be described as the standard language of business and commerce in central Germany. Das Newe Testament Deutzsch was first published in September, 1522, after Luther had returned to Wittenberg. He asked that his name not appear as the translator. The handsome text contained woodcuts from both Lucas Cranach and Albrecht Dürer. Five thousand copies sold in two months and the records show that nearly 200,000 sold in the next dozen years.
Luther also published a series of short sermons directed toward the literate German laymen. Some of these pamphlet-sized publications saw many reprintings in the early 1520's. This appeal to the laymen was part of the foundation providing the widespread, ongoing support for reviving and redirecting the north German Church, a task eventually reaching a degree of realization by the middle of the century.
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Meanwhile during Luther's Wartburg period things at Wittenberg were not happy. Frederick the Wise was unhappy with so much furor about Luther and didn't want anything or anyone else to stir up controversy. Some of the Luther's supporters like the humanist theologian, Nicholas von Amsdorf, and the new professor of Greek, Philip Melanchthon, wanted to let things cool down. Others like Andreas Carlstadt, Archdeacon of the Church of All Saints, and Gabriel Zwilling, the head of the Augustinian house, were enthusiastic and impatient about continuing with the reform without delay. Sudden unannounced changes and innovations introduced willy-nilly by the Carlstadt and Zwilling caused confusion and alarm. The cup began to be passed to the laity, vestments were left in the vestery, some images were destroyed, and fasting was denounced. Monks, Nuns and ordained clergy were admonished to marry. Luther's clandestine visit to Wittenberg both calmed the bolder leadership and encouraged the timid. However, we should not fail to realize that Luther was, indeed, only an important part of a popular movement whose time had come. Ultimately thousands of German laymen and churchmen marched beside, and some ahead of, Luther. When we lionize Luther as the one man responsible for the German Reformation we are indulging in mythology, not history.
As the months went by the situation at Wittenberg grew more turbulent threatening to disrupt normal life.
The origin and nature of the Zwickau Prophets is discussed in the lecture/essay sixteen, below. They added urgency to the situation with their repeated enthusiastic announcements that God was soon to intervene in history. He would certainly punish the wicked, and establish His kingdom abolishing all man-made social distinctions. Some were ready to act in anticipation of what God was about to do. The City Council tried to intercede with little success. The Elector, alarmed with the threat of a social revolt took action on February 17, 1522. He ordered Carlstadt to stop preaching and threatened to take whatever steps were necessary to restore tranquility even if it meant eliminating all the religious changes. It was at this moment that the city council, without the Elector's approval, sent an urgent plea to Luther at Wartburg.
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At great risk to his personal safety and in spite of the Elector's direct orders Luther returned to Wittenberg in early March 1522 and began preaching daily (for 8 days), displaying no ordinary oratorical skill and repudiating the radical iconoclasm of Carlstadt and Zwilling as well as the personal inspiration of the Prophets. Confession was restored; pictures and images were permitted, and the mass was restored to its one kind, less only passages referring to it as a sacrifice. Issues such as marriage of clergy, monasticism, and fasting were to be left to individual conscience. As the dust began to settle these discredited leaders moved to other fields to continue their radical ministries and peace was restored to Wittenberg. Luther then began orderly reforms.
In the next months the shape of Luther's reformed church began to emerge at Wittenberg. The administration and business of the church was in the hands of civil governors, i.e. the city council. The clergy's power was limited to the field of doctrinal issues. The local congregation called their own pastors and teachers. Both the chief pastor and the City Council followed the congregation's wishes on the spending of ecclesiastical revenues for the good of the community. No change was to be made without government's consent. Luther appears to operate on the principle that anything in the existing church that was not clearly prohibited in Scripture, not obviously in error, and not placing faith in jeopardy might remain.
Henceforth, preaching, singing and Scripture reading in German became a regular part of the services. The daily mass was replaced with daily Bible exposition. Sunday mass was replaced by Gospel preaching in German and the celebration of the Lord's Supper using both kinds. German texts of the Gloria, The Hallelujah, The Sanctus, and Agnus Dei and German hymns were added. The Nicene Creed was also translated into German. Only two of the traditional sacraments survived. The baptismal service was tanslated into German for the benefit of the parents.
Although Luther counseled with a number of monks and nuns encouraging them about ignoring their vows. In a society where the respectable young woman typically married the man her father choose for her, these nuns found themselves in a very awkward position. Luther acted as a father figure and picked out husbands for a number of nuns. He thought his personal situation special enough and precarious enough--he had long assumed that he would die as a martyr--to justify his remaining celibate. Several of his friends and colleagues had already married. It was Leonhard Kopp, a businessman of Torgau, who brought a wagon-load of nuns (a dozen including Leonhard's daughter), escapees from the cloister of Nimbschen near Grimma, to Wittenberg in April 1523. In Wittenberg they were housed temporarily in an empty wing of the Black Cloister that Luther and his associates used as a headquarters. Just days later Luther published a pamphlet entitled Basis and Rationale for Permitting Young Women to Leave the Convent, in which he praised Kopp as an example for all Christian parents. Now he and his colleagues set about finding husbands or livings (domestic service positions for the most mature) for these respectable women.
One of these repatriated young ladies was first "given" to a young man from Nuernberg, but that match fissled short of the wick and Luther patiently sought another suitable mate for her. His efforts this time were rejected even sooner, again because, as the discerning and perhaps desperate 26 year-old confided to Luther's noble associate, Nicholas von Amsdorf, she would be happy only to marry someone like Amsdorf or (now 41 year-old) Luther! So Katherine von Bora married Martin Luther, on June 13 1525, but only after Martin's parents pleaded her case.
Four of Martin and Katherine's six children reached adulthood. Hans, Paul and Martin Jr. and their youngest sister, Margaret. One sister died in infancy and the other did not survive her fourteenth year. Almost 43 when his first child was born, Luther was 52 when the sixth arrived.
Katherine's mother had died when she was a child and her father had remarried. Her name, von Bora, suggests that her family were landowners.
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Charles V left the Empire under the watchcare of his younger brother, Ferdinand, King of Austria in 1522. Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio instigated an alliance between Ferdinand and the south Germany princes against the religious changes taking place elsewhere. However; no action whatsoever was taken against Luther or his political backers, principally the Electoral Duke of Saxony, because of the urgent need of their cooperation in providing troops for Charles V's war in Italy and the Ottoman threat which became acute.
The war in Italy (1521-1526) was the first Hapsburg-Valois War. Charles V was allied with the Papacy, the Duchy of Mantua and the Republic of Florence. Francis I, had taken Milan from the Swiss in 1515. Then in 1520-21 he had assisted Charles' rebellious subjects in Spain hoping to annex some territory south of the Pyrennes. Charles left his brother Ferdinand in charge north of the Alps, came to Italy and took Milan in 1522 turning it over Francisco Sforza. Then he campaigned into southeastern France during 1523-24. Francis I counterattacked and retook Milan before the two armies faced off against one another at Pavia in February, 1525. Francis was defeated, captured and taken to Madrid in chains where he agreed to abandon all his claims over Italian territory and cede some pieces of real-estate to Charles V in the Netherlands.
In the east, meanwhile significant new developments came about. Suleiman I the Magnificant, ottoman emperor at Constantinople after 1520 marched and captured Belgrade in 1521 threatened central Europe. Louis, King of Hungary, was killed and his army was defeated by Suleiman at the battle of Mohacs, August, 1526, leaving the highway into Germany wide open.
These developments explain why Charles V did not move immediately against the Elector of Saxony and his famous monk after 1520. It would have been unwise to foment a civil war in Germany when you need German troops to fight Francis I and Suleiman. The First Diet of Speyer in the summer of 1526 decided to postpone the Luthern problem until a general council--or at least a council of the German Church--could be called. This action of the Diet, called the "Recess" of Speyer, provided that each German prince should conductthe religious affairs in his state in accord with his obligations to God and the Emperor. This established a precident foreshadowing the type of settlement Germany would eventually achieve.
Francis I, meanwhile, recently released from the dungeon in Madrid, promptly began forging an alliance against Charles V. The League of Cognac came to embody several Italian states including the Papacy. This lead to the Second Hapsburg-Valois War which lasted from 1527-29. Francis was forced once again to give up his claims to Italian real estate. Charles gave up some land in the Netherlands. Since the treaty was arranged by Charles' aunt and Francis' mother it was known as the Ladies' Peace. Then in Hungary a dispute developed over the successor of Louis. Transylvania (eastern Hungary) chose John Zapolya as the King while at Pressburg in the west Ferdinand Hapsburg was crowned in accordance with a treaty. In a test of forces against one another Zapolya asked the Ottomans for assistance. Hence Suleiman's forces marched toward Vienna (the Hapsburg seat of power) and besieged the city in the late Summer of 1529.
Return to the Lecture/Essay Table of Contents for Part III
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