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Updated: May 10, 2025
"Greece has crossed the Alps," cried the exiled Argyropulos on hearing a translation of Thucydides by the German Reuchlin; but the glory, whether of Reuchlin or of the Teutonic scholars who followed him, was soon eclipsed by that of Erasmus. His enormous industry, the vast store of classical learning which he gradually accumulated, Erasmus shared with others of his day.
It became more and more clear that the mediating and conciliatory position which Erasmus wished to take up would soon be altogether untenable. The inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraten had come from Cologne, where he was a member of the University, to Louvain, to work against Luther there, as he had worked against Reuchlin.
We may learn something of the temper of the times by observing that, in a single pamphlet, as quoted by Strauss, the epithets that the dignified Reuchlin applies to Pfefferkorn are: "A poisonous beast," "a scarecrow," "a horror," "a mad dog," "a horse," "a mule," "a hog," "a fox," "a raging wolf," "a Syrian lion," "a Cerberus," "a fury of hell." In this matter Reuchlin was finally triumphant.
In the ranks of the humanistic movement Reuchlin alone stood forth prominently as the advocate of the Jews, and he was powerless before the prejudices of the populace. The Reformation in Germany and elsewhere had illuminated the minds of the people, but had not softened their hearts. Luther himself, the creator of the Reformation, was not innocent of hating the followers of an alien faith.
It was not only in Italy, however, that there was a wonderful outburst of genius at this time, for Germany also saw the rise of a number of great men during this period. Jacob Wimpheling, the "Schoolmaster of Germany," as he has been called, whose educational work did much to determine the character of German education for two centuries, was born in 1450. Rudolph Agricola, who influenced the intellectual Europe of this time deeply, was born in 1443. Erasmus, one of the greatest of scholars, of teachers, and of controversialists, was born in 1467. Johann Reuchlin, the great linguist, who, next to Erasmus, is the most important character in the German Renaissance, was born in 1455. Then there was Sebastian Brant, the author of "The Ship of Fools," and Alexander Hegius, both of this same period. The most influential of them all, Thomas
Grocyn and Linacre, as well as Reuchlin, testify to the wise generosity of the great Magnifico, and all three declare that to him, more than to any other man, the Renaissance owed not only its development, but even the character it assumed in Italy in the second last decade of the fifteenth century. The end came when he was literally in his prime.
Every movement in Germany, even the least, since the Reformation, whose chief propagators were professors in the universities, Luther, Reuchlin, Melancthon, every permanent and pervading conquest of the new and good over the old and worn-out, has issued from the lecture-room. Whatever sticklers for old forms and crab-like progress may be found, there is always an overbalancing power.
A general war of words between the Humanists and Obscurantists began, which, in time, came before the Pope and the Emperor. Reuchlin was regarded in those days as a man of unusual calmness and dignity. Next to Erasmus, he was the most learned scholar in Europe. He would never condescend in his controversies to the coarse terms used by his adversaries.
One or two of the statues may be somewhat grander, but no other seemed to me so handsome, as it stood colossal on its pillar, the scholar's gown falling from the stately shoulders, and the face so fine there in the bronze, under the abundant hair and cap. Reuchlin is said to be the proper founder of the German drama.
Nay, after he had taken his seat, he ordered the landlord, as if he were the master, to see that this and that thing in the kitchen was not forgotten. Unwelcome as his presence doubtless was to his table companions, as sympathizers with Reuchlin and other innovators, well as he doubtless remembered their scornful attacks upon his Latin he was a man to maintain his place.
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