In the 16th century, printing allowed Luther's thought to be spread across all German states. Enough to pose a serious problem for Emperor Charles V. In this new episode of "At the heart of history", produced by Europe 1 Studio, Jean des Cars tells the story of the rise of Protestantism.
The Paris Book Fair should have been held in late March. Even if it is not because of coronavirus, Jean des Cars wanted to return in this new episode of "At the heart of history", produced by Europe 1 Studio, on the history of an invention: l 'printing works. In the 16th century, it spread the thought of the initiator of Protestantism, Luther.
When Charles V arrived in 1521 at the Diet of Worms (the Assembly of all the members of the Holy Empire), the very young Emperor had many concerns in mind. However, he is the most powerful man in Europe thanks to all the inheritances he has received. You could even say that he is overwhelmed with inheritance .... He is 21 years old. On the death of his father, in 1506, he was 6 years old, he became sovereign of the Netherlands.
Obviously, it was one of his aunts, Marguerite of Austria, who exercised the regency until 1515. A year later, in 1516, on the death of his grandfather Ferdinand of Aragon, this Habsburg became the first king of Spain, of the Two Sicilies and sovereign of the Americas. Then, on the death of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Maximilian I, in 1519, Charles V was elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, defeating his rival François 1er. The King of France is also worried because his kingdom is now caught between the possessions of Charles V. War is inevitable.
Charles V was crowned at Aix la Chapelle in 1520 but he hoped for another coronation by the pope so that his recognition would be universal. He will have to wait ten years to get it. He needs the anointing of the Pope because there are many problems to be settled with this Diet. Technical questions for the functioning of his new reign are to be organized with the German princes. He asks them for money to exercise his function. But for Charles V, the most worrying difficulty is the growing influence of a German monk protected by Prince Elector Frederick III of Saxony.
A questioning of the functioning of the Catholic Church
This religious is called Luther. He questions the functioning of the Catholic Church and the power of the Pope. Luther refused to give up his new doctrine. On January 3, 1521, Pope Leo X excommunicated him. However, the reform of Luther begins to spread in the German States. Charles V is worried because he will declare war on François 1er. It therefore needs the support of these states. He fears a revolt if he stops Luther. It is in this complicated context that Charles V summons Luther to the Diet of Worms on April 17 and 18, 1521.
Luther, 38. He comes to defend before his sovereign the three works which he published in 1520. They are called the three "Reformed Writings". The most famous of these pamphlets, the one which had the most echoes and which had spread thanks to the new technique of printing in all the German states, addressed directly to Charles Quint: "To his Serenissima and all powerful Majesty and to the Christian nobility of the German Nation: the grace and the strength of God be with you, Serene Majesty, and you, very gracious and dear Lords. The misery and the trials which weigh on all the States of Christendom and especially on the German countries and which did not incite me alone and led everyone to shout and to call, to see if God would give someone the inspiration necessary to reach out to the unhappy nation. ... God gave us as leader a noble young man (Charles V). He thus awakened in many hearts a good and a great hope. It will be appropriate that we contribute to make use of the graces of time ".
So far, nothing to complain about. Luther is respectful of his Emperor and places great hopes in him. The problem is a subsequent attack on the Pope and the Vatican. For Luther, the enemy is Rome. He goes so far as to write in his ninth proposition: "The Pope must have no power over the Emperor, except that he anoints him and crowns him at the altar, like a crown bishop a king. And we must no longer tolerate the diabolical arrogance which orders that the Emperor kisses the feet of the Pope, or sits at his feet, or holds the stirrup or the reins. "
This directly concerns the Emperor but in his following writings, Luther calls for the reform of the Curia and that of the organs of the Church, the abolition of celibacy for priests, a reform of teaching. He also attacks the sacraments of the Roman Church, of which he keeps only baptism and communion. In his third and last book, he gets to the point: Man is saved from condemnation and despair only by the grace of God. He receives it by faith and only by faith.
Luther faces a young knight who has become Emperor. Charles V is young but he knows that the Empire is booming. Much of Germany defends Luther. The Emperor, who is also the very Catholic King of Spain, knows that he must play with finesse even if he does not agree with him. He cannot do violence to her without putting part of Germany on her back. He replied to Luther: "I gave my word of knight. Free, he came. Free he will leave".
Luther's sentence "God has given us as leader a noble young man, he has awakened in many hearts a good and noble hope": this sentence will be printed in 100,000 copies, read aloud, repeated, passed from hand to hand hand. What should have been a violent confrontation becomes politically positive for the Emperor.
In fact, nothing is resolved. Charles V cannot accept Luther's reforming writings. However, he could not prevent the Reformation from imposing itself in writing, but not only. The people generally agree with the content. However, it should be noted that Luther is in a delicate position. When he left the Diet of Worms, his protector Frédéric de Saxe had him removed on the way back to Wittenberg and went to hide it for more than a year in Wartburg, a fortress. But who is Martin Luther?
Martin Luther: from submission to contestation
Martin Luther was born in 1483 in Thuringia into a fairly well-off peasant bourgeois family. He studied at the Latin School of Magdeburg in 1497 before entering philosophy at the University of Erfurt, from 1501 to 1505. His parents would like to make him a lawyer. Their son, already concerned about his salvation, joined the Augustinians of Erfurt in 1505.
Ordained a priest in 1507, he began the following year to give lessons at the University of Wittenberg, on the banks of the Elbe. In 1510, he was sent to Rome to settle the affairs of his order. The young monk is horrified by the sumptuousness and the laxity of the customs of the court of Pope Leo X. This is not the idea he had of Rome. He returns extremely troubled.
Two years later, he was received a doctor of theology. He taught the Holy Scriptures from 1513 and became vicar general of the Augustinians in Germany in 1515. Excellent religious, Luther immersed himself in penance, prayer, theological research. He seeks to achieve salvation everywhere in the Truth and begins to teach his students his personal doctrines.
If his teaching is so successful, it is because it responds to a historic expectation at a time when the Church is sclerosed in its institutions. Luther is a gifted speaker. He lets those who listen to him listen to the intensity of his inner exaltation. Its power of emotion, imagination and verb moves the crowds. They become his followers. The scandals of the Church had gradually detached them from Rome. It was then that the crisis of Indulgences broke out that would turn his life upside down.
Luther's 95 theses denounce the trade in indulgences
In March 1515, Pope Leo X promises indulgences to those who pay obols for the completion of the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. The preaching in Saxony is entrusted to Johannès Tetzel. He affirms that a pecuniary contribution for the purchase of an indulgence is infallible in order to save a soul from Purgatory.
Luther opposes this trafficking in indulgences. He is not the only one. Is this trade worthy of the Church? To show his disapproval, on October 31, 1517 Luther displayed at the door of the church of Wittenberg his famous 95 theses written in Latin. They are called closets. They are mainly directed against indulgences and they mark the beginning of the Reformation.
At this point, Luther had no intention of leaving the Church. He just wants to fight abuse and mistakes. He publishes numerous texts. He talks with theologians who do not agree with him, in particular with Johann Eck in Leipzig. In the meantime, he appealed to the Pope in 1518. Leo X invited him to retract in a Bull, that is to say, a pontifical decree, on June 15, 1520. Luther burned the Papal Bull publicly, on the place de Wittenberg on December 10, 1520. The Pope excommunicated him on January 3, 1521. Three months later, he was summoned to the Diet of Worms by Charles V, as I told you.
Luther gets down to translating the Bible
Exfiltrated by Frédéric de Saxe to the castle of Wartburg to protect him from possible reprisals, Luther will live ten months of semi-captivity. He is then in the grip of terrible anxieties about the legitimacy of his action. He is afraid he has gone too far. He thinks he is fighting against the Devil. And at the same time, he works a lot. He wrote pamphlets against the mass, against monastic vows and everything that seemed to him unbearable in the injunctions of the Church of Rome.
He will especially get down to the translation of the Bible. It begins with the New Testament. His work is considered to be the founding charter of the modern German language. The printing press will, of course, allow its rapid and triumphant distribution across all the territories of the Empire.
Meanwhile, the Lutheran aims upset the populations. Priests get married, monks and nuns defrock. There is even a movement called the Anabaptists which gives an anarchist and mad interpretation of the doctrine of Luther. Aware of the danger that this could entail, Luther left Wartburg on March 1, 1522 and returned to Wittenberg.
Hating disorder, he begins to organize his Church. He abolished many Catholic practices such as private mass, fasting and confession. In 1524, he abandoned the monastic habit. The following year, he married a defrocked Cistercian, Katharina von Bora. Many princes rallied to the Reformation.
The "peasant war", a bloody revolt
The country will then be confronted with the "peasant war". From 1524 to 1525, this bloody revolt in central and southern Germany. The peasants hear Luther preach freedom; they therefore consider that they have the right to revolt. They refuse to listen to calls for calm from Luther, who is trying to play the role of arbiter. After writing "Exhortation for Peace" in 1525, Luther then wrote a very harsh book, inviting the lords to ruthlessly chastise the rebels. Title of the book: "Against the homicide and pillaging hordes of peasants".
Ten years after the Diet of Worms, a new Diet was held in Augsburg in 1530. This time, Charles V was crowned in Bologna by the new Pope Clement VII, in February. But the Emperor is still faced with the spread of Luther's ideas. Many princes of the Holy Empire passed through the Reformation camp.
Luther did not go to the Augsburg Diet in June 1530 because he was banished from the Empire. He is represented there by his friend Mélancthon who will read what is called the Augsburg Confession. His emissary exposes the new dogmas in moderate terms. The Augsburg Confession was not only signed by Mélancthon but by seven princes and two cities of the Empire.
This Confession, after six weeks of examination by Catholic theologians, was rejected by the Emperor. This rejection will result in the formation of the League of Smalkalde. It was formed on February 27, 1531 between various princes of the Protestant Church in Germany against the Emperor. This League was led by the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Anhalt, of Brunswick and cities like Strasbourg, Constance, Ulm, Magdeburg, Lübeck and Bremen. Formed for six years, its goal was to resist any increase in imperial power as well as the defense of religious freedom. Charles V, as usual, will procrastinate but the fact remains that his Empire is divided.
His latest writing: a violent attack on the Papacy
In 1531 Luther was 48 years old. His protector Frédéric de Saxe is dead. His successor, Jean de Saxe as well as margrave Philippe de Hesse continue to support him. Luther, who must be stressed that he is a bon vivant, that he loves drinks and good food, that he thrives in marriage, will go far enough in his support for Philippe de Hesse in 1539: he do not hesitate to legitimize, in writing, the prince's bigamy!
Luther's final years were clouded by quarrels and annoyances between his disciples. Become obese, he likes to converse with his friends. They will draw from it a book entitled "About table". This book is a great success. Another triumph of printing! It helps to better understand the complex personality of the Father of the Reformation. His latest writing is going to be a violent attack on the Papacy.
Luther died in 1546. The reform succeeded rather in Germany, which had a prosperous economy and a dynamic demography. We think about it, we write about it, we publish it. But above all, in the midst of its various dialects, a language emerges which, thanks to the brilliant translation of the Bible by Luther, conquers German minds and hearts.
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"At the heart of history" is a Europe 1 Studio podcast
Author and presentation: Jean des Cars
Project manager: Adèle Ponticelli
Realization: Guillaume Vasseau
Diffusion and edition: Clémence Olivier
Graphics: Europe 1 Studio