So, he dithered, not knowing whom to defy: the pope or the elector.
Luther took advantage of the cardinal’s indecision. He was smuggled out of Augsburg in literal fly-by-night circumstances. He then undertook the most perilous physical journey of his life, on an ill-tempered and unsaddled horse, to the relative safety of Monheim, about fifty miles away. The story goes that, when he reached the town, he fell from the horse, utterly exhausted, on to a heap of straw.
By the end of October, he was back in Wittenberg, where the whole rumpus had started exactly a year earlier. From then on, everything moved at a giddy pace. Up until this point, Luther had not been directing events. He had wanted to purify his Church, no more; he had no idea that he could lead a huge popular wave of protest. Now, as he was discovering his extraordinary talent as a writer and mass communicator, he took off. Pamphlets followed each other in a kind of furious spate. Then, in 1520, he wrote his three great ‘Reformation Treatises’. One of his themes was that the princes and magistrates of Germany should reform the Church. By now, he was blatantly bypassing the bishops and cardinals; he was trying to destroy the power of the pope himself. He wanted the princes to preside over a great moral cleansing: closing the brothels, controlling the usurers and so on.
1520 was altogether a momentous year. Across Germany, people would go up to strangers and ask: ‘Are you for Martin?’ It appeared as if the majority were uniting behind him. South of the Alps, few could comprehend what was happening. In the summer, the pope issued his bull Exsurge Domine, which started rather fancifully, saying that a wild boar had blundered into the vineyard. It condemned Luther as a heretic and ordered people to burn his books. And there was indeed to be burning, but not of Luther’s books. Mobs were soon on the rampage, not just burning copies of the bull but also demonstrating raucously.
Luther himself, never one to resist the temptation of rousing a rabble, presided over one such burning, just outside the walls of Wittenberg, near the River Elbe. When the mob had thrown copies of the bull into the flames, they marched back to Wittenberg, led by a brass band, and found copies of books by Eck and other anti-Luther theologians. These were taken back outside the walls, and a second bonfire consigned more printed material to ashes. Luther was no longer an obscure friar. He was the man of the moment; and he was enjoying it. It was not until the beginning of 1521 that Luther’s excommunication was made formal, by another bull which significantly stated that those who protected him would themselves become heretics. This had no effect on Frederick.
The new, young and inexperienced Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (born in 1500, elected in 1519), now had an immense problem before him. This was his great test, and he knew Pope Leo to be his enemy. He also knew that at least some of the Electoral College who had recently chosen him as emperor were sympathetic to Luther. On the other hand, he feared a huge popular uprising in Germany. There was perhaps still time to put Luther down. He was well aware that real power in Germany rested with the electors and the princes. His own base was in Spain, and to a lesser extent southern Italy.
So, Charles summoned Luther to the imperial diet, meeting in Worms. This in itself was regarded by the papacy as a provocative act. Since the Church had unequivocally denounced Luther as a heretic, all the secular authority had to do was to carry out the papal sentence. No more confrontations or hearings were necessary. Charles was having none of this. At the same time, he did not wish to deal with Luther personally. Luther’s reputation was by now such that nobody on earth would have been confident in confronting him; and the German princes were starting to realise that matters were getting out of control. They reckoned there might be uprisings if Luther did not receive a personal hearing. So, Charles compromised; Luther would have his hearing, but there was to be no disputation.
On 17 April 1521, Luther appeared before the emperor, the electors, the princes and all the senior functionaries of the empire. Faced with this considerable assemblage of the great and the good, the patriotic German’s confidence deserted him. Asked straightforward questions, he mumbled incoherently. He was treated with respect and given a day to recover. His prayers were answered – and, when he appeared the next day, he was a changed man, resolute and eloquent. Asked whether he was willing to recant, he replied with humility. His conscience was captive to the Word of God. He could not, he would not recant anything. ‘For it is neither safe nor right to act against one’s conscience. God help me.’
This was not what the emperor wanted. Luther was a man of eloquence; Charles himself now showed no mean eloquence when he reminded the people that he was descended from a long line of emperors of the noble German nation. They had been faithful, to the death, to the Church of Rome; he was resolved to follow them. A single friar who went against all the Christianity of 1,000 years and more had to be wrong. He was determined therefore to stake his life and his soul, so that the German nation was not disgraced.
Fine words – but the emperor remained in a quandary. He knew that at least some members of the Electoral College, including Frederick the Wise, were unhappy with the outcome. So, he changed tack. He convened a private meeting, which lasted several days, during which Luther was examined by a group of German theologians. They were reasonable and non-confrontational in their approach. But Luther stood firm.
Eventually, he was allowed to leave Worms with a safe conduct. Shortly afterwards, Charles issued the Edict of Worms. No-one was to assist or even communicate with Luther. If they did, they would be arrested and they would lose all their property. Luther’s writings were to be burned. Luther himself was an outlaw, under sentence of death.
All this was far too late. Luther had not been, and would not be, silenced. Nor would he be killed. His steadfast protector, the Elector of Saxony, arranged for him to be ‘abducted’ by five horsemen in a forest near Morha as he progressed northwards with his safe conduct, though that of course was now of doubtful value. Frederick’s men accomplished this phony kidnapping swiftly and competently. Luther, still clutching some books, was disguised and spirited off to the safety of Wartburg Castle, near Eisenach. This was derring-do, but the reality was that Germany was behind Luther. He might now be effectively imprisoned in a castle. But he was alive, and he was writing. The great communicator was just beginning.
Luther, usually on an emotional switchback, now became depressed. The confidence, the relish in his own celebrity, the truculence – all these evaporated into the Wartburg mist. He did not like living in what was virtual imprisonment. He fretted with his disguise. He suffered from constipation and insomnia. Ravens and magpies, flying round the battlements, disturbed him. He found himself, once again, battling with Satan. For a time, he discovered the Devil everywhere: he heard him on the roof, he heard him on the stairs; the Devil appeared as a black dog on Luther’s bed.
The warden of the castle, seriously concerned for Luther’s mental health, took him hunting. But Luther could see no point in pursuing a harmless little creature like a rabbit. Then, one day, a hunted hare, seeing Luther as a friend, sought sanctuary in the reformer’s cloak; but the hounds appeared and bit through to their prey. Had God deserted him again? Luther missed his friends and supporters, the adulation of his students at Wittenberg. He fell into the slough.
And yet, despite all these travails, which were real enough, this amazing man did not sulk or succumb. Instead, he rallied and literally wrote himself out of depression. His productivity was awesome. During his period of detention at Wartburg, which lasted less than a year, he wrote no fewer than twelve books, as well as translating the New Testament into German. This last was a masterpiece – a true and honest translation, but presented in vibrant, demotic German prose. It was at last a book for the common people. More than 200,000 copies were to be sold over the next decade.
Luther’s revolution was supremely a revolution of words. Between 1518 and 1523, the number of books published in the German language increased tenfold. This was almost entirely down to Luther. Printing presses were established all over Germany. And Luther’s ideas spread not just through the printed word but also through word of mouth. People were not now simply asking strangers if they were ‘for Martin’. They talked about his ideas and discussed his simple, straightforward version of Christianity.
Above all, he gave the people their Bible. At last, the Bible was becoming what it should always have been, the bedrock of Christianity.
In 1522, Frederick,