This was the case even in Saxony and at Wittenberg, the nursery of the new state of things.
Luther himself did not at first contemplate any outward change. He labored and hoped for a
reformation of faith and doctrine within the Catholic Church, under the lead of the bishops, without
a division, but he was now cast out by the highest authorities, and came gradually to see that he
must build a new structure on the new foundation which he h ad laid by his writings and by the
translation of the New Testament.
The negative part of these changes, especially the abolition of the mass and of monasticism,
was made by advanced radicals among his disciples, who had more zeal than discretion, and mistook
liberty for license.
While Luther was confined on the Wartburg, his followers were like children out of school,
like soldiers without a captain. Some of them thought that he had stopped half way, and that they
must complete what he had begun. They took the work of destruction and reconstruction into their
own inexperienced and unskillful hands. Order gave way to confusion, and the Reformation was
threatened with disastrous failure.
The first disturbances broke out at Erfurt in June, 1521, shortly after Luther’s triumphant
passage through the town on his way to Worms. Two young priests were excommunicated for
taking part in the enthusiastic demonstrations. This created the greatest indignation. Twelve hundred
students, workmen, and ruffians attacked and demolished in a few days sixty houses of the priests,
who escaped violence only by flight.^475
The magistrate looked quietly on, as if in league with the insurrection. Similar scenes of
violence were repeated during the summer. The monks under the lead of the Augustinians, forgetting
their vows, left the convents, laid aside the monastic dress, and took up their abode among the
people to work for a living, or to become a burden to others, or to preach the new faith.
Luther saw in these proceedings the work of Satan, who was bringing shame and reproach
on the gospel.^476 He feared that many left the cloister for the same reason for which they had entered,
namely, from love of the belly and carnal freedom.^477
During these troubles Crotus, the enthusiastic admirer of Luther, resigned the rectorship of
the university, left Erfurt, and afterwards returned to the mother Church. The Peasants’ War of
1525 was another blow. Eobanus, the Latin poet who had greeted Luther on his entry, accepted a
call to Nürnberg. The greatest celebrities left the city, or were disheartened, and died in poverty.
From this time dates the decay of the university, once the flourishing seat of humanism and
patriotic aspirations. It never recovered its former prosperity.
§ 66. The Revolution at Wittenberg. Carlstadt and the New Prophets.
See Lit. in § 65.
In Wittenberg the same spirit of violence broke out under the lead of Luther’s older colleague,
Andreas Carlstadt, known to us from his ill success at the Leipzig disputation. He was a man of
(^475) Kampschulte, l.c., II. 117 sqq., gives a full account of this Pfaffenstum and its consequences.
(^476) See his letters to Melanchthon and Spalatin, in De Wette, II. 7sq., 31. To the latter he wrote: "Erfordiae Satanas suis studiis nobis
insidiatus est, ut nostros mala fama inureret, sed nihil proficiet: non sunt nostri, qui haec faciunt."
(^477) Letter to Lange, March 28, 1522, in De Wette, II. 175.