Here is a specimen: A fat and drunken monk knocks at the gate, and is angry that he is not at once
admitted; Peter tells him first to get sober, and laughs at his foolish dress. Then he catechises him;
the monk enumerates all his fasts, self-mortifications, and pious exercises; Peter orders that his
belly be cut open, and, behold! chickens, wild game, fish, omelets, wine, and other contents come
forth and bear witness against the hypocrite, who is forthwith sent to the place of punishment.
The writer of a pamphlet entitled "Doctor Martin Luther’s Passion," draws an irreverent
parallel between Luther’s treatment by the Diet, with Christ’s crucifixion: Luther’s entry into
Worms is compared to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, the Diet to the Sanhedrin, Archbishop Albrecht
to Caiaphas, the papal legates to the Pharisees, the Elector of Saxony to Peter, Eck and Cochlaeus
to the false witnesses, the Archbishop of Treves to Pilate, the German nation to Pilate’s wife; at
last Luther’s books and likeness are thrown into the fire, but his likeness will not burn, and the
spectators exclaim, "Verily, he is a Christian."
The same warfare was going on in German Switzerland. Nicolas Manuel, a poet and painter
(died 1530), in a carnival play which was enacted at Berne, 1522, introduces first the whole hierarchy,
confessing one after another their sins, and expressing regret that they now are to be stopped by
the rising opposition of the people; then the various classes of laymen attack the priests, expose
their vices, and refute their sophistries; and at last Peter and Paul decide in favor of the laity, and
charge the clergy with flatly contradicting the teaching of Christ and the Apostles.^402
These pamphlets and fugitive papers were illustrated by rude woodcuts and caricatures of
obnoxious persons, which added much to their popular effect. Popes, cardinals, and bishops are
represented in their clerical costume, but with faces of wolves or foxes, and surrounded by geese
praying a Paternoster or Ave Maria. The "Passion of Christ and Antichrist" has twenty-six woodcuts,
from the elder Lucas Cranach or his school, which exhibit the contrast between Christ and his
pretended vicar in parallel pictures: in one Christ declines the crown of this world, in the other the
Pope refuses to open the gate to the Emperor (at Canossa); in one Christ wears the crown of thorns,
in the other the Pope the triple crown of gold and jewels; in one Christ washes the feet of his
disciples, in the other the Pope suffers emperors and kings to kiss his toe; in one Christ preaches
the glad tidings to the poor, in the other the Pope feasts with his cardinals at a rich banquet; in one
Christ expels the profane traffickers, in the other the Pope sits in the temple of God; in one Christ
rides meekly on an ass into Jerusalem, in the other the Pope and his cardinals ride on fiery steeds
into hell.^403
The controversial literature of the Roman-Catholic Church was far behind the Protestant in
ability and fertility. The most popular and effective writer on the Roman side was the Franciscan
monk and crowned poet, Thomas Murner. He was an Alsatian, and lived in Strassburg, afterwards
at Luzern, and died at Heidelberg (1537). He had formerly, in his Narrenbeschwörung (1512) and
other writings, unmercifully chastised the vices of all classes, including clergy and monks, and had
sided with Reuchlin in his controversy with the Dominicans, but in 1520 he turned against Luther,
(^402) See Grüneisen’s Nicolaus Manuels Leben und Werke (1837), pp. 339-392.
(^403) Passional Christi und Antichristi, mit Luther’s Nachrede, 1521, in the Frkf. ed., LXIII., 240-248. Luther accompanied the pictures
with texts.