Gesch." Göttingen, 1868, VIII. pp. 21–44. Dan. Schenkel: Luther in Worms. Elberfeld, 1870.
Jul. Köstlin: Luther’s Rede in Worms am 18. April, 1521. Halle, 1874 (the best on Luther’s
famous declaration). Maurenbrecher: Der Wormser Reichstag von 1521, in his "Studien und
Skizzen zur Gesch. der Reform. Zeit," Leipzig, 1874 (pp. 241–275); also in his Gesch. der
kathol. Reformation, Nördlingen, 1880, vol. I., pp. 181–201. Karl Jansen (not to be confounded
with the Rom.-Cath. Janssen): Aleander am Reichstage zu Worms, 1521. Kiel, 1883 (72 pages).
Corrects Friedrich’s text of Aleander’s letters. Th. Kolde: Luther und der Reichstag zu Worms.
2d ed. Halle, 1883. Brieger: Neue Mittheilungen über L. in Worms. Program to the Luther
jubilee, Marburg, 1883 (a critique of Balan’s Monumenta). Kalkoff: Germ. transl. of the Aleander
Dispatches, Halle, 1886. Elter: Luther u. der Wormser Reichstag. Bonn, 1886.
III. Ranke, I. 311–343. Gieseler, IV. 56–58 (Am. ed.). Merle D’aub., bk. VII. chs. I. -XI. Hagenbach,
III. 103–109. G. P. Fisher, pp. 108–111. Köstlin, chs. XVII. and XVIII. (I. 411–466). Kolde,
I. 325 sqq. Janssen (R. Cath.), II. 131–166. G. Weber: Das Zeitalter der Reformation (vol. X.
of his Weltgeschichte), Leipzig, 1886, pp. 162–178. Baumgarten: Gesch. Karls V. Leipzig,
l885, vol. I. 379–460.
On the 28th of January, 1521, Charles V. opened his first Diet at Worms. This was a free imperial
city on the left bank of the Rhine, in the present grand-duchy of Hesse.^329 It is famous in German
song as the scene of the Niebelungenlied, which opens with King Günther of Worms and his sister
Chriemhild, the world’s wonder for grace and beauty. It is equally famous in ecclesiastical history
for "the Concordat of Worms," which brought to an end the long contest between the Emperor and
the Pope about investiture (Sept. 23, 1122). But its greatest fame the city acquired by Luther’s
heroic stand on the word of God and the rights of conscience, which made the Diet of 1521 one of
the most important in the history of German Diets. After that event two conferences of Protestant
and Roman-Catholic leaders were held in Worms, to heal the breach of the Reformation,—one in
1541, and one in 1557; but both failed of their object. In 1868 (June 25) a splendid monument to
Luther and his fellow-laborers by Rietschel was erected at Worms, and dedicated with great national
enthusiasm.^330
The religious question threw all the political and financial questions into the background,
and absorbed the attention of the public mind.
At the very beginning of the Diet a new papal brief called upon the Emperor to give, by an
imperial edict, legal force to the bull of January 3, by which Luther was finally excommunicated,
and his books condemned to the flames. The Pope urged him to prove his zeal for the unity of the
Church. God had girded him with supreme earthly power, that he might use it against heretics who
were much worse than infidels.^331 On Maundy Thursday, March 28, the Pope, in proclaiming the
terrible bull In Coena Domini, which is annually read at Rome, expressly condemned, among other
(^329) Worms is 26 miles S. S. E. of Mainz (Mayence or Mentz, the ancient Moguntiacum, the capital of Rhenish Hesse since 1815), and
has now over 20,000 inhabitants, about one-half of them Protestants, but in the beginning of the seventeenth century it had 70,000. It was
almost destroyed under Louis XIV. (1683). The favorite German wine, Liebfrauenmilch, is cultivated in its neighborhood. H. Boos,
Urkundenbuch der Stadt Worms, Berlin, 1886.
(^330) See description of the celebration by Dr. Friedrich Eich, Gedenkblätter, Worms, 1868; and his book on the controversy about the
locality of the Diet, In welchem Locale stand Luther zu Worms vor Kaiser und Reich? Leipzig, 1863. He decides for the Bishofshof (against
the Rathhaus).
(^331) "Multo deteriores haereticos." The new papal bull of condemnation, together with a brief to the Emperor, arrived in Worms the 10th
of February. Aleander addressed the Diet three days after, on Ash Wednesday. Ranke, I. 329. Köstlin, I., 422 sq.