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Updated: May 21, 2025
"Not Wittenberg alone," said the Elector, when he received this answer, and hurried back his minister to the Swedish camp, "not Wittenberg alone, but Torgau, and all Saxony, shall be open to him; my whole family shall be his hostages, and if that is insufficient, I will place myself in his hands.
Even then I was startled, forgetting for the moment the religious revolutions of south Germany, to catch sight of a window showing Luther as he affixed his thesis on the door at Wittenberg, the picture shining clear in the midst of the older glass of saint and symbol.
Wittenberg was in the minority, and the hundred students who had accompanied Luther were mostly relegated to places outside, under the windows their ardor to cut off coat-tails had quite abated. The proceedings were orderly and dignified, save for the marked prejudice against Luther displayed by Duke George and the nobility.
In 1546, Luther had promised to settle a dispute between two nobles, and set out on his journey, feeling a presentiment that the end of worldly strife was come for him. On the way, he visited Eisleben, where he had been born, and there died. His body was taken to Wittenberg, the scene of his real life-work.
But the painful experiences he had made at Wittenberg pursued him on his travels, and were aggravated by much that he heard about his own town.
It was apparent how powerless was his enforced absence to suppress it. Soon too it was to be seen how much on the other hand it depended on him that the movement should not bring real danger and destruction. At Wittenberg his friends continued labouring faithfully and undisturbed.
We cannot fancy Ragnar Lodbrog or Eric the Red matriculating at Wittenberg, but it was essential that Hamlet should be a scholar, and Shakespeare sends him thither without more ado.
He was the presumptive successor to all his crowns, had not approved of the movements of Matthias in the lifetime of his brother, and hated the Vienna Protestant baker's son, Cardinal Clesel, by whom all those movements had been directed. Professor Taubmann, of Wittenberg, ponderously quibbling on the name of that prelate, had said that he was of "one hundred and fifty ass power."
Tycho observed with him for some time, the two forming a firm friendship, and then visited successively Frankfort, Basle, and Venice, returning by way of Augsburg, Ratisbon, and Saalfeld to Wittenberg; on the way he acquired various astronomical manuscripts, made friends among practical astronomers, and examined new instruments.
But it was not possible that so brave, honest, and self-sacrificing a man should long pursue his convictions without coming into collision with the Roman high priesthood. Though far off at Wittenberg, and trying to do his own duty well in his own legitimate sphere, it soon came athwart his path in a form so foul and offensive that it forced him to assault it.
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