CHAPTER XV

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THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL SATIRES.--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY.--HANS SACHS.--THE TRAP FOR FOOLS.--ATTACKS ON LUTHER.--THE POPE AS ANTICHRIST.--THE POPE-ASS AND THE MONK-CALF.--OTHER CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE.--THE GOOD AND BAD SHEPHERDS.

The reign of Folly did not pass away with the fifteenth century--on the whole the sixteenth century can hardly be said to have been more sane than its predecessor, but it was agitated by a long and fierce struggle to disengage European society from the trammels of the middle ages. We have entered upon what is technically termed the _renaissance_, and are approaching the great religious reformation. The period during which the art of printing began first to spread generally over Western Europe, was peculiarly favourable to the production of satirical books and pamphlets, and a considerable number of clever and spirited satirists and comic writers appeared towards the end of the fifteenth century, especially in Germany, where circumstances of a political character had at an early period given to the intellectual agitation a more permanent strength than it could easily or quickly gain in the great monarchies. Among the more remarkable of these satirists was Thomas Murner, who was born at Strasburg, in 1475. The circumstances even of his childhood are singular, for he was born a cripple, or became one in his earliest infancy, though he was subsequently healed, and it was so universally believed that this malady was the effect of witchcraft, that he himself wrote afterwards a treatise upon this subject under the title of "De Phitonico Contractu." The school in which he was taught may at least have encouraged his satirical spirit, for his master was Jacob Locher, the same who translated into Latin verse the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt. At the end of the century Murner had become a master of arts in the University of Paris, and had entered the Franciscan order. His reputation as a German popular poet was so great, that the emperor Maximilian[ ]I., who died in 1519, conferred upon him the crown of poetry, or, in other words, made him poet-laureat. He took the degree of doctor in theology in 1509. Still Murner was known best as the popular writer, and he published several satirical poems, which were remarkable for the bold woodcuts that illustrated them, for engraving on wood flourished at this period. He exposed the corruptions of all classes of society, and, before the Reformation broke out, he did not even spare the corruptions of the ecclesiastical state, but soon declared himself a fierce opponent of the Reformers. When the Lutheran revolt against the Papacy became strong, our king, Henry VIII., who took a decided part against Luther, invited Murner to England, and on his return to his own country, the satiric Franciscan became more bitter against the Reformation than ever. He advocated the cause of the English monarch in a pamphlet, now very rare, in which he discussed the question whether Henry VIII. or Luther was the liar--"Antwort dem Murner uff seine frag, ob der künig von Engllant ein Lügner sey oder Martinus Luther." Murner appears to have divided the people of his age into rogues and fools, or perhaps he considered the two titles as identical. His "Narrenbeschwerung," or Conspiracy of Fools, in which Brandt's idea was followed up, is supposed to have been published as early as 1506, but the first printed edition with a date, appeared in 1512. It became so popular, that it went through several editions during subsequent years; and that which I have before me was printed at Strasburg in 1518. It is, like Brandt's "Ship of Fools," a general satire against society, in which the clergy are not spared, for the writer had not yet come in face of Luther's Reformation. The cuts are superior to those of Brandt's book, and some of them are remarkable for their design and execution. In one of the earliest of them, copied in the cut No. 139, Folly is introduced in the garb of a husbandman, scattering his feed over the earth, the result of which is a very quick and flourishing crop, the fool's heads rising above ground, almost instantaneously, like so many turnips. In a subsequent engraving, represented in our cut No. 140, Folly holds out, as an object of emulation, the fool's cap, and people of all classes, the pope himself, and the emperor, and all the great dignitaries of this world, press forward eagerly to seize upon it.

[Illustration: _No. 139. Sowing a Fruitful Crop._]

The same year (1512) witnessed the appearance of another poetical, or at least metrical, satire by Murner, entitled "Schelmenzunft," or the Confraternity of Rogues, similarly illustrated with very spirited engravings on wood. It is another demonstration of the prevailing dominion of folly under its worst forms, and the satire is equally general with the preceding. Murner's satire appears to have been felt not only generally, but personally; and we are told that he was often threatened with assassination, and he raised up a number of literary opponents, who treated him with no little rudeness; in fact, he had got on the wrong side of politics, or at all events on the unpopular side, and men who had more talents and greater weight appeared as his opponents--men like Ulrich von Utten, and Luther himself.

[Illustration: _No. 140. An Acceptable Offering._]

Among the satirists who espoused the cause to which Murner was opposed, we must not overlook a man who represented in its strongest features, though in a rather debased form, the old spontaneous poetry of the middle ages. His name was Hans Sachs, at least that was the name under which he was known, for his real name is said to have been Loutrdorffer. His spirit was entirely that of the old wandering minstrel, and it was so powerful in him, that, having been apprenticed to the craft of a weaver, he was no sooner freed from his indentures, than he took to a vagabond life, and wandered from town to town, gaining his living by singing the verses he composed upon every occasion which presented itself. In 1519, he married and settled in Nüremberg, and his compositions were then given to the public through the press. The number of these was quite extraordinary--songs, ballads, satires, and dramatic pieces, rude in style, in accordance with the taste of the time, but full of cleverness. Many of them were printed on broadsides, and illustrated with large engravings on wood. Hans Sachs joined in the crusade against the empire of Folly, and one of his broadsides is illustrated with a graceful design, the greater part of which is copied in our cut No. 141. A party of ladies have set a bird-trap to catch the fools of the age, who are waiting to be caught. One fool is taken in the trap, while another is already secured and pinioned, and others are rushing into the snare. A number of people of the world, high in their dignities and stations, are looking on at this remarkable scene.

[Illustration: _No. 141. Bird-Traps._]

The evil influence of the female sex was at this time proverbial, and, in fact, it was an age of extreme licentiousness. Another poet-laureat of the time, Henricus Bebelius, born in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and rather well known in the literature of his time, published, in 1515, a satirical poem in Latin, under the title of "Triumphus Veneris," which was a sort of exposition of the generally licentious character of the age in which he lived. It is distributed into six books, in the third of which the poet attacks the whole ecclesiastical state, not sparing the pope himself, and we are thereby perfectly well initiated into the weaknesses of the clergy. Bebelius had been preceded by another writer on this part of the subject, and we might say by many, for the incontinence of monks and nuns, and indeed of all the clergy, had long been a subject of satire. But the writer to whom I especially allude was named Paulus Olearius, his name in German being Oelschlägel. He published, about the year 1500, a satirical tract, under the title of "De Fide Concubinarum in Sacerdotes." It was a bitter attack on the licentiousness of the clergy, and was rendered more effective by the engravings which accompanied it. We give one of these as a curious picture of contemporary manners; the individual who comes within the range of the lady's attractions, though he may be a scholar, has none of the characteristics of a priest. She presents a nosegay, which we may suppose to represent the influence of perfume upon the senses; but the love of the ladies for pet animals is especially typified in the monkey, attached by a chain. A donkey appears to show by his heels his contempt for the lover.

[Illustration: _No. 142. Courtship._]

From an early period, the Roman church had been accustomed to treat contemptuously, as well as cruelly, all who dissented from its doctrines, or objected to its government, and this feeling was continued down to the age of the Reformation, in spite of the tone of liberalism which was beginning to shine forth in the writings of some of its greatest ornaments. Some research among the dusty, because little used, records of national archives and libraries would no doubt bring to light more than one singular caricature upon the "heretics" of the middle ages, and my attention has been called to one which is possessed of peculiar interest. There is, among the imperial archives of France, in Paris, among records relating to the country of the Albigeois in the thirteenth century, a copy of the bull of pope Innocent IV. giving directions for the proceedings against dissenters from Romanism, on the back of which the scribe, as a mark of his contempt for these arch-heretics of the south, has drawn a caricature of a woman bound to a stake over the fire which is to burn her as an open opponent of the church of Rome. The choice of a woman for the victim was perhaps intended to show that the proselytism of heresy was especially successful among the weaker sex, or that it was considered as having some relation to witchcraft. It is, by a long period, the earliest known pictorial representation of the punishment of burning inflicted on a heretic.

[Illustration: _No. 143. Burning a Heretic._]

The shafts of satire were early employed against Luther and his new principles, and men like Murner, already mentioned, Emser, Cochlæus, and others, signalised themselves by their zeal in the papal cause. As already stated, Murner distinguished himself as the literary ally of our king Henry VIII. The taste for satirical writings had then become so general, that Murner complains in one of his satires that the printers would print nothing but abusive or satirical works, and neglected his more serious writings.

_Da sindt die trucker schuld daran, Die trucken als die Gauchereien, Und lassen mein ernstliche bücher leihen._

Some of Murner's writings against Luther, most of which are now very rare, are extremely violent, and they are generally illustrated with satirical woodcuts. One of these books, printed without name of place or date, is entitled, "Of the great Lutheran Fool, how Doctor Murner has exorcised him" (_Von dem grossen Lutherisschen Narren, wie in Doctor Murner beschworen hat_). In the woodcuts to this book Murner himself is introduced, as is usually the case in these satirical engravings, under the character of a Franciscan friar, with the head of a cat, while Luther appears as a fat and jolly monk, wearing a fool's cap, and figuring in various ridiculous circumstances. In one of the first woodcuts, the cat Franciscan is drawing a rope so tight round the great Lutheran fool's neck, that he compels him to disgorge a multitude of smaller fools. In another the great Lutheran fool has his purse, or pouch, full of little fools suspended at his girdle. This latter figure is copied in the cut No. 144, as an example of the form under which the great reformer appears in these satirical representations.

[Illustration: _No. 144. Folly in Monastic Habit._]

In a few other caricatures of this period which have been preserved, the apostle of the Reformation is attacked still more savagely. The one here given (Fig. 145), taken from a contemporary engraving on wood, presents a rather fantastic figure of the demon playing on the bagpipes. The instrument is formed of Luther's head, the pipe through which the devil blows entering his ear, and that through which the music is produced forming an elongation of the reformer's nose. It was a broad intimation that Luther was a mere tool of the evil one, created for the purpose of bringing mischief into the world.

[Illustration: _No. 145. The Music of the Demon._]

The reformers, however, were more than a match for their opponents in this sort of warfare. Luther himself was full of comic and satiric humour, and a mass of the talent of that age was ranged on his side, both literary and artistic. After the reformer's marriage, the papal party quoted the old legend, that Antichrist was to be born of the union of a monk and a nun, and it was intimated that if Luther himself could not be directly identified with Antichrist, he had, at least, a fair chance of becoming his parent. But the reformers had resolved, on what appeared to be much more conclusive evidence, that Antichrist was only emblematical of the papacy, that under this form he had been long dominant on earth, and that the end of his reign was then approaching. A remarkable pamphlet, designed to place this idea pictorially before the public, was produced from the pencil of Luther's friend, the celebrated painter, Lucas Cranach, and appeared in the year 1521 under the title of "The Passionale of Christ and Antichrist" (_Passional Christi und Antichristi_). It is a small quarto, each page of which is nearly filled by a woodcut, having a few lines of explanation in German below. The cut to the left represents some incident in the life of Christ, while that facing it to the right gives a contrasting fact in the history of papal tyranny. Thus the first cut on the left represents Jesus in His humility, refusing earthly dignities and power, while on the adjoining page we see the pope, with his cardinals and bishops, supported by his hosts of warriors, his cannon, and his fortifications, in his temporal dominion over secular princes. When we open again we see on one side Christ crowned with thorns by the insulting soldiery, and on the other the pope, enthroned in all his worldly glory, exacting the worship of his courtiers. On another we have Christ washing the feet of His disciples, and in contrast the pope compelling the emperor to kiss his toe. And so on, through a number of curious illustrations, until at last we come to Christ's ascension into heaven, in contrast with which a troop of demons, of the most varied and singular forms, have seized upon the papal Antichrist, and are casting him down into the flames of hell, where some of his own monks wait to receive him. This last picture is drawn with so much spirit, that I have copied it in the cut No. 146.

[Illustration: _No. 146. The Descent of the Pope._]

[Illustration: _No. 147. The Pope-ass._]

The monstrous figures of animals which had amused the sculptors and miniaturists of an earlier period came in time to be looked upon as realities, and were not only regarded with wonder as physical deformities, but were objects of superstition, for they were believed to be sent into the world as warnings of great revolutions and calamities. During the age preceding the Reformation, the reports of the births or discoveries of such monsters were very common, and engravings of them were no doubt profitable articles of merchandise among the early book-hawkers. Two of these were very celebrated in the time of the Reformation, the Pope-ass and the Monk-calf, and were published and republished with an explanation under the names of Luther and Melancthon, which made them emblematical of the Papacy and of the abuses of the Romish church, and, of course, prognostications of their approaching exposure and fall. It was pretended that the Pope-ass was found dead in the river Tiber, at Rome, in the year 1496. It is represented in our cut No. 147, taken from an engraving preserved in a very curious volume of broadside Lutheran caricatures, in the library of the British Museum, all belonging to the year 1545, though this design had been published many years before. The head of an ass, we are told, represented the pope himself, with his false and carnal doctrines. The right hand resembled the foot of an elephant, signifying the spiritual power of the pope, which was heavy, and stamped down and crushed people's consciences. The left hand was that of a man, signifying the worldly power of the pope, which grasped at universal empire over kings and princes. The right foot was that of an ox, signifying the spiritual ministers of the papacy, the doctors of the church, the preachers, confessors, and scholastic theologians, and especially the monks and nuns, those who aided and supported the pope in oppressing people's bodies and souls. The left foot was that of a griffin, an animal which, when it once seizes its prey, never lets it escape, and signified the canonists, the monsters of the pope's temporal power, who grasped people's temporal goods, and never returned them. The breast and belly of this monster were those of a woman, and signified the papal body, the cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, &c., who spent their lives in eating, drinking, and incontinence; and this part of the body was naked, because the popish clergy were not ashamed to expose their vices to the public. The legs, arms, and neck, on the contrary, were clothed with fishes' scales; these signified the temporal princes and lords, who were mostly in alliance with the papacy. The old man's head behind the monster, meant that the papacy had become old, and was approaching its end; and the head of a dragon, vomiting flames, which served for a tail, was significative of the great threats, the venomous horrible bulls and blasphemous writings, which the pontiff and his ministers, enraged at seeing their end approach, were launching into the world against all who opposed them. These explanations were supported by apt quotations from the Scriptures, and were so effective, and became so popular, that the picture was published in various shapes, and was seen adorning the walls of the humblest cottages. I believe it is still to be met with in a similar position in some parts of Germany. It was considered at the time to be a masterly piece of satire. The picture of the Monk-calf, which is represented in our cut No. 148, was published at the same time, and usually accompanies it. This monster is said to have been born at Freyburg, in Misnia, and is simply a rather coarse emblem of the monachal character.

[Illustration: _No. 148. The Monk-Calf._]

[Illustration: _No. 149. The Head of the Papacy._]

The volume of caricatures just mentioned contains several satires on the pope, which are all very severe, and many of them clever. One has a movable leaf, which covers the upper part of the picture; when it is down, we have a representation of the pope in his ceremonial robes, and over it the inscription ALEX · VI · PONT · MAX. Pope Alexander VI. was the infamous Roderic Borgia, a man stained with all the crimes and vices which strike most horror into men's minds. When the leaf is raised, another figure joins itself with the lower part of the former, and represents a papal demon, crowned, the cross being transformed into an instrument of infernal punishment. This figure is represented in our cut No. 149. Above it are inscribed the words EGO · SVM · PAPA, "I am the Pope." Attached to it is a page of explanation in German, in which the legend of that pope's death is given, a legend that his wicked life appeared sufficient to sanction. It was said that, distrusting the success of his intrigues to secure the papacy for himself, he applied himself to the study of the black art, and sold himself to the Evil One. He then asked the tempter if it were his destiny to be pope, and received an answer in the affirmative. He next inquired how long he should hold the papacy, but Satan returned an equivocal and deceptive answer, for Borgia understood that he was to be pope fifteen years, whereas he died at the end of eleven. It is well known that Pope Alexander VI. died suddenly and unexpectedly through accidentally drinking the poisoned wine he had prepared with his own hand for the murder of another man.

[Illustration: _No. 150. The Pope's Nurse._]

An Italian theatine wrote a poem against the Reformation, in which he made Luther the offspring of Megæra, one of the furies, who is represented as having been sent from hell into Germany to be delivered of him. This sarcasm was thrown back upon the pope with much greater effect by the Lutheran caricaturists. One of the plates in the above-mentioned volume represents the "birth and origin of the pope" (_ortus et origo papæ_), making the pope identical with Antichrist. In different groups, in this rather elaborate design, the child is represented as attended by the three furies, Megæra acting as his wet-nurse, Alecto as nursery-maid, and Tisiphone in another capacity, &c. The name of Martin Luther is added to this caricature also.

_Hie wird geborn der Widerchrist. Megera sein Seugamme ist; Alecto sein Keindermeidlin, Tisiphone die gengelt in._--M. Luth., D. 1545.

One of the groups in this plate, representing the fury Megæra, a becoming foster-mother, suckling the pope-infant, is given in our cut, No. 150.

In another of these caricatures the pope is represented trampling on the emperor, to show the manner in which he usurped and tyrannised over the temporal power. Another illustrates "the kingdom of Satan and the Pope" (_regnum Satanæ et Papæ_), and the latter is represented as presiding over hell-mouth in all his state. One, given in our cut No. 151, represents the pope under the form of an ass playing on the bagpipes, and is entitled _Papa doctor theologiæ et magister fidei_. Four lines of German verse beneath the engraving state how "the pope can alone expound Scripture and purge error, just as the ass alone can pipe and touch the notes correctly."

[Illustration: _No. 151. The Pope giving the Tune._]

_Der Bapst kan allein auslegen Die Schrifft, und irthum ausfegen; Wie der esel allein pfeiffen Kan, und die noten recht greiffen._--1545.

This was the last year of Luther's active labours. At the commencement of the year following he died at Eissleben, whither he had gone to attend the council of princes. These caricatures may perhaps be considered as so many proclamations of satisfaction and exultation in the final triumph of the great reformer.

Books, pamphlets, and prints of this kind were multiplied to an extraordinary degree during the age of the Reformation, but the majority of them were in the interest of the new movement. Luther's opponent, Eckius, complained of the infinite number of people who gained their living by wandering over all parts of Germany, and selling Lutheran books.[78] Among those who administered largely to this circulation of polemic books was the poet of farces, comedies, and ballads, Hans Sachs, already mentioned. Hans Sachs had in one poem, published in 1535, celebrated Luther under the title of "the Wittemberg Nightingale:"--

_Die Wittembergisch' Nachtigall, Die man jetzt höret überall_;

and described the effects of his song over all the other animals; and he published, also in verse, what he called a Monument, or Lament, on his death ("Ein Denkmal oder Klagred' ob der Leiche Doktors Martin Luther"). Among the numerous broadsides published by Hans Sachs, one contains the very clever caricature of which we give a copy in our cut No. 152. It is entitled "Der gut Hirt und böss Hirt," the good shepherd and bad shepherd, and has for its text the opening verses of the tenth chapter of the gospel of St. John. The good and bad shepherds are, as may be supposed, Christ and the pope. The church is here pictured as a not very stately building; the entrance, especially, is a plain structure of timber. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the flock." In the engraving, the pope, as the hireling shepherd, sits on the roof of the stateliest part of the building, pointing out to the Christian flock the wrong way, and blessing the climbers. Under him two men of worldly distinction are making their way into the church through a window; and on a roof below a friar is pointing to the people the way up. At another window a monk holds out his arms to invite people up; and one in spectacles, no doubt emblematical of the doctors of the church, is looking out from an opening over the entrance door to watch the proceedings of the Good Shepherd. To the right, on the papal side of the church, the lords and great men are bringing the people under their influence, till they are stopped by the cardinals and bishops, who prevent them from going forward to the door and point out very energetically the way up the roof. At the door stands, the Saviour, as the good shepherd, who has knocked, and the porter has opened it with his key. Christ's true teachers, the evangelists, show the way to the solitary man of worth who comes by this road, and who listens with calm attention to the gospel teachers, while he opens his purse to bestow his charity on the poor man by the road side. In the original engraving, in the distance on the left, the Good Shepherd is seen followed by his flock, who are obedient to his voice; on the right, the bad shepherd, who has ostentatiously drawn up his sheep round the image of the cross, is abandoning them, and taking to flight on the approach of the wolf. "He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.... But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep." (John x. 2-4, 12.)

[78] "Infinitus jam erat numerus qui victum ex Lutheranis libris quæritantes, in speciem bibliopolarum longe lateque per Germaniæ provincias vagabantur."--Eck., p. 58.

[Illustration: _No. 152. The Two Shepherds._]

[Illustration: _No. 153. Murner and Luther's Daughter._]

The triumph of Luther is the subject of a rather large and elaborate caricature, which is an engraving of great rarity, but a copy of it is given in Jaime's "Musée de Caricature." Leo X. is represented seated on his throne upon the edge of the abyss, into which his cardinals are trying to prevent his falling; but their efforts are rendered vain by the appearance of Luther on the other side supported by his principal adherents, and wielding the Bible as his weapon, and the pope is overthrown, in spite of the support he receives from a vast host of popish clergy, doctors, &c.

The popish writers against Luther charged him with vices for which there was probably no foundation, and invented the most scandalous stories against him. They accused him, among other things, of drunkenness and licentiousness. and there may, perhaps, be some allusion to the latter charge in our cut No. 153, which is taken from one of the comic illustrations to Murner's book, "Von dem grossen Lutherischen Narren," which was published in 1522; but, at all events, it will serve as a specimen of these illustrations, and of Murner's fancy of representing himself with the head of a cat. In 1525, Luther married a nun who had turned Protestant and quitted her convent, named Catherine de Bora, and this became the signal to his opponents for indulging in abusive songs, and satires, and caricatures, most of them too coarse and indelicate to be described in these pages. In many of the caricatures made on this occasion, which are usually woodcut illustrations to books written against the reformer, Luther is represented dancing with Catherine de Bora, or sitting at table with a glass in his hand. An engraving of this kind, which forms one of the illustrations to a work by Dr. Konrad Wimpina, one of the reformer's violent opponents, represents Luther's marriage. It is divided into three compartments; to the left, Luther, whom the Catholics always represented in the character of a monk, gives the marriage ring to Catherine de Bora, and above them, in a sort of aureole, is inscribed the word _Vovete_; on the right appears the nuptial bed, with the curtains drawn, and the inscription _Reddite_; and in the middle the monk and nun are dancing joyously together, and over their heads we read the words--

Discedat ab aris Cui tulit hesterna gaudia nocte Venus.

While Luther was heroically fighting the great fight of reform in Germany, the foundation of religious reform was laid in France by John Calvin, a man equally sincere and zealous in the cause, but of a totally different temper, and he espoused doctrines and forms of church government which a Lutheran would not admit. Literary satire was used with great effect by the French Calvinists against their popish opponents, but they have left us few caricatures or burlesque engravings of any kind; at least, very few belonging to the earlier period of their history. Jaime, in his "Musée de Caricature," has given a copy of a very rare plate, representing the pope struggling with Luther and Calvin, as his two assailants. Both are tearing the pope's hair, but it is Calvin who is here armed with the Bible, with which he is striking at Luther, who is pulling him by the beard. The pope has his hands upon their heads. This scene takes place in the choir of a church, but I give here (cut No. 154) only the group of the three combatants, intended to represent how the two great opponents to papal corruptions were hostile at the same time to each other.

[Illustration: _No. 154. Luther and Calvin._]

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