Table Of ContentULRICH VON HUTTEN
AND THE
GERMAN REFORMATION
ULRICH VON HUTTEN
AND THE
GERMAN REFORMATION
BY
HAJO HOLBORN
TRANSLATED BY
ROLAND H. BAINTON
GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS
WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Holborn, Hajo, I902-I969.
Ulrich von Hutten and the German Reformation.
A rev. and expanded translation of Ulrich von
Hutten.
Reprint of the ed. published by Yale University
Press, New Haven, which was issued as no. 11 of Yale
historical publications studies.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Hutten, Ulrich von, 1488-1523. 2. Reformation
—Germany—Biography. I. Title. II. Series: Yale
historical publications : Studies ; 11.
BR35O.h8h6U13 1978 27O.6,O92’4 [B] 77-25067
ISBN O-3I3-2OI25-O
Nos omnia dura et adversa facere et pati,
ut constet Ubertas, par est.
Hutten to Erasmus, 1523.
p. 194 of this volume.
Copyright, 1937, by Yale University Press
Copyright renewed © 1965 by Ronald H. Bainton
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade, be lertf;, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise disposed
of without the publisher’s consent, in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published.
Reprinted with the permission of Roland H. Bainton
Reprinted in 1978 by Greenwood Press, Inc.
51 Riverside Avenue, Westport, CT 06880
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vi
Preface vii
Introduction . 1
I. Ancestry and Youth . 16
II. The Wandering Scholar . 29
III. In the Camp of Maximilian. First Period in
Italy.............. . 39
IV. Polemic against Scholasticism. Acquaintance
with Erasmus . . 49
V. Termination of Studies in Italy, 1515-1517 73
VI. Poet Laureate, 1517-1518 87
VII. Politics and Pamphleteering, 1518-1519 101
VIII. Expectation and Preparation for the Reform
in 1520 . . 117
IX. Hutten and Luther 135
X. Worms, 1521 ... 162
XI. Hutten's War on the Romanists . 174
XII. Hutten's Controversy with Erasmus. Last
Days .... 188
Bibliographical Note . 203
Index of Names 211
ILLUSTRATIONS
Ulrich von Hutten, 1520 Frontispiece
The woodcut first appeared in the German edition of his dia
logues which he dedicated to Frans von Sickingen on Decem
ber 81, 1520.—Copy in the Library of Congress.
The following illustrations will be found in a group,
following page 120,
Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1523
The medallion by Hans Weiditz appeared first in the year 1523
in the new edition of Hutten’s Expostulation which Otto Brun-
fels published after the death of Hutten together with a reply
to the Sponge of Erasmus.—Copy in the Yale University Li
brary.
Title-page of Hutten’s Dialogi, 1520
The book was printed by John Schöffer in Mainz in April, 1520.
—Copy in the Yale University Library.
Martin Luther, 1521
The woodcut by Hans Baldung Grien was between 1520 and
1530 probably the most widely distributed picture of the re
former. The papal legate, Hieronymus Aleander, refers to it in
his report to Rome, sent from Worms on February 8, 1521. He
wrote: “Lately they sold in Augsburg the picture of Luther
surrounded with a Saint’s halo, here they offered it without it,
and such a large crowd assembled that the pictures were sold
out before I could get one. Yesterday I saw on one sheet the
picture of Luther with a book in his hand and the picture of
Hutten in arms with his hand at the sword and above in beau
tiful letters Christianae libertatis propugnatoribus. Under
neath was an elegant tetrastich to each of them, but that refer
ring to Hutten menaced with his sword.” The second part of
Aleander’s statement discusses a woodcut very similar to the
one given as the last illustration to this volume. The picture of
Luther has been taken from Bruder Michael Styfel Augustiner
von Esszlingen Von der Christförmigen rechtgegründeten leer
Doctoris Martini Luthers [1522?].—Copy in the Yale Univer
sity Library.
Triumph of Truth, 1521
First published in Triumphus veritatis; Sick der warheyt. Mitt
dem schwert des geysts durch die Wittenbergsche Nacht gall
erobert. For further description see p. 168.
Title-page of Hutten’s German Dialogues, 1521
The title-page of the same book from which the frontispiece to
this volume has been taken. See also the comment on the por
trait of Luther above.
PREFACE
HE present book is a thorough revision and expan
T
sion of my biography of Ulrich von Hutten, which
appeared in German in 1929. The essential features
of my former position have scarcely been altered. On the con
trary the friendly reception accorded the book has led me to
draw the lines with greater confidence and to relieve the text
of critical discussions with my predecessors in the field. At
the same time further studies in humanism and the Reforma
tion have enabled me to invest the portrayal alike with more
color and accuracy. The enlargements are greatest in the sec
tions dealing with Erasmus, with Hutten’s life from 1521 to
1523, and with his literary activity and significance.
The changes have been dictated especially by consideration
for the English reader. For his sake the account of Hutten
research since Herder and Goethe has given place to an in
troduction to the general condition of Germany at the begin
ning of the sixteenth century. All along the line insertions
have been made for the benefit of those less at home in Ger
man relations.
I am heartily grateful to my friend and colleague, Roland
H. Bainton, for the great care expended on the translation,
which involved no mere rendering of the printed German text,
but rather an attempt on the part of us both in collaboration
to achieve a better garment for the ideas. The present Eng
lish version, therefore, is not always a rendering of the origi
nal. All the citations are based directly on the German or
Latin of the sixteenth century. The translations of Hutten’s
poetry into English verse merit especial mention.
A grant from the General Education Board Fund for Re
search in Language and Literature lightened the mechanical
labor involved in preparing the translation. In connection
viii ULRICH VON HUTTEN
with the publication I am indebted to the Yale Historical
Series in which the work appears, and to the Yale Graduate
School for financial assistance, as well as to Messrs. Quelle
and Meyer of Leipsic, the publishers of the German original,
for permission to produce the translation. The editor of the
series, Professor Leonard W. Labaree, merits my warm grati
tude for his many suggestions and careful supervision of the
printing. A more competent guide to the art of English book
making I could not have desired. The Yale University Press
spared itself no pains in achieving an artistic product. To the
library of Yale University and to the Library of Congress I
am indebted for permission to reproduce illustrations.
My wife, Annemarie Holborn, has accompanied this book
from the outset with counsel and help. In every stage of the
present edition she has had a part.
H. H.
New Haven, Connecticut,
October 19,1937.
INTRODUCTION
ERMAN history in no period displayed such crea-
G
- tive power and prodigality of talent as the opening
years of the sixteenth century. The only age which
can in any sense be compared with it is the classical epoch
of German philosophy and literature around 1800, and
even this time, though closer and more comprehensible to
us, does not exhibit the native German genius in so un
trammeled a fashion as does the age of the Reformation.
The generation of 1500 spanned a mightier range of ideas
and passions, religious revelations, and human dreams
than did its descendants. And if we are assessing the con
tribution of Germany to the development of Western cul
ture we must assign the first place to the birth of Protes
tantism. The Renaissance in Italy and the Reformation in
Germany constitute the decisive emergence of the modern
world. Along with these two a third must be mentioned,
which has likewise exercised a crucial rôle, namely the idea
of nationalism. Its rise is not so intimately associated with
any one land but is a comparatively common development
throughout West and Middle Europe. The German Ref
ormation and the Italian Renaissance are themselves in
large measure the expressions of a nascent nationalism to
which in turn both contributed resilience and power. Early
the three elements coalesced and since then in European
history they have been now allied and now at war.
Humanism, nationalism, and Protestantism in the Ger
many of the Reformation constitute the real theme of this
book and no life is better able to exemplify their interrela
tions than that of the German poet and knight, Ulrich von
Hutten, who first attempted to bring them into a living
synthesis. The great interpreter of German intellectual
history, Wilhelm Dilthey, called Ulrich von Hutten the
2 ULRICH VON HUTTEN
first modern German1 and Kuno Francke in his valuable
study on Personality in German Literature before Lu
ther2 saw in Hutten the consummation of the development
of German individualism after the late Middle Ages. Both
judgments mean essentially the same thing. Hutten is the
first German to achieve free and open expression not for
the stereotyped thoughts of a class or calling, but for the
spontaneous feelings and yearnings of a marked individu
ality. This does not mean, of course, that he was not so
cially and historically conditioned. On the contrary he was
distinctly a man of his time. His peculiarity is that he
wrestled with the problems of his day in an effort to achieve
a solution of his own.
This conscious effort to realize a personality, this life
long concern for self-education appears first in German
history in Ulrich von Hutten. He is for that reason more
alluring to the historian than Martin Luther, partly be
cause we lack the sources for Luther’s inner personal
struggle in the early decisive years, and partly because
God’s spokesman must speak less of self-development than
of the eternal truth of the Gospel. In spite of the titanic
human power in Luther his work overshadows his person
ality. Even though the course of his inner life was as dra
matic as the outer, nevertheless there clings to him still
something of the anonymity of the theologian of the
Middle Ages.
Hutten’s whole life is a struggle for self-realization, not
in the sense of a superpersonal religious norm, but in the
sense of the formation of his own personality in accord
with his native gifts and character. His life was short and
turbulent. He was born in the year 1488 and died in 1523.
From his student days we can follow this career through a
mass of telling deeds and intimate confessions. A master of
1. W. Dilthey, “Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen seit Re
naissance und Reformation/’ in his Gesammelte Schriften (Leipsic,
1921), II, 49.
2. Cambridge, 1916. Compare his article “Ulrich von Huttens Lebens
ideale,” International» Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Tech
nik, VII (1918), 161 ff.
