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HUTTEN, ULRICH VON (1488—1523)

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 15 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HUTTEN, See also:ULRICH VON (1488—1523) , was See also:born on the 21st of See also:April 1488, at the See also:castle of Steckelberg, near See also:Fulda, in See also:Hesse. Like See also:Erasmus or Pirckheimer, he was one of those men who See also:form the See also:bridge between Humanists and Reformers. He lived with both, sympathized with both, though he died before the See also:Reformation had See also:time fully to develop. His See also:life may be divided into four parts: his youth and See also:cloister-life (1488—1504); his wanderings in pursuit of knowledge (1504—1515); his strife with Ulrich of See also:Wurttemberg (1515—1519); and his connexion with the Reformation (1519—1523). Each of these periods had its own See also:special antagonism, which coloured Hutten's career: in the first, his horror of dull monastic routine; in the second, the See also:ill-treatment he met with at Greifswald; in the third, the See also:crime of See also:Duke Ulrich; in the See also:fourth, his disgust with See also:Rome and with Erasmus. He was the eldest son of a poor and not undistinguished knightly See also:family. As he was mean of stature and sickly his See also:father destined him for the cloister, and he was sent to the See also:Benedictine See also:house at Fulda; the thirst for learning there seized on him, and in 1505 he fled from the monastic life, and won his freedom with the See also:sacrifice of his worldly prospects, and at the cost of incurring his father's undying anger. From the Fulda cloister he went first to See also:Cologne, next to See also:Erfurt, and then to See also:Frankfort-on-See also:Oder on the opening in 1506 of the new university of that See also:town. For a time he was in See also:Leipzig, and in 15o8 we find him a shipwrecked See also:beggar on the Pomeranian See also:coast. In 1509 the university of Greifswald welcomed him, but here too those who at first received him kindly became his foes; the sensitive ill-regulated youth, who took the liberties of See also:genius, wearied his burgher patrons; they could not See also:brook the poet's airs and vanity, and ill-timed assertions of his higher See also:rank. Wherefore he See also:left Greifswald, and as he went was robbed of clothes and books, his only baggage, by the servants of his See also:late See also:friends; in the dead of See also:winter, See also:half starved, frozen, penniless, he reached See also:Rostock. Here again the Humanists received him gladly, and under their See also:protection he wrote against his Greifswald patrons, thus beginning the See also:long See also:list of his satires and fierce attacks on See also:personal or public foes.

Rostock could not hold him long; he wandered on to See also:

Wittenberg and Leipzig, and thence to See also:Vienna, where he hoped to win the See also:emperor See also:Maximilian's favour by an elaborate See also:national poem on the See also:war with See also:Venice. But neither Maximilian nor the university of Vienna would lift a See also:hand for him, and he passed into See also:Italy, where, at See also:Pavia, he sojourned throughout 1511 and See also:part of 1512. In the latter See also:year his studies were interrupted by war; in the See also:siege of Paviaby papal troops and Swiss, he was plundered by both sides, and escaped, sick and penniless, to See also:Bologna; on his recovery he even took service as a private soldier in the emperor's See also:army. This dark See also:period lasted no long time; in 1514 he was again in See also:Germany, where, thanks to his poetic gifts and the friendship of Eitelwolf von See also:Stein (d. 1515), he won the favour of the elector of See also:Mainz, See also:Archbishop See also:Albert of See also:Brandenburg. Here high dreams of a learned career See also:rose on him; Mainz should be made the See also:metropolis of a See also:grand Humanist See also:movement, the centre of See also:good See also:style and See also:literary form. But the See also:murder in 1515 of his relative Hans von Hutten by Ulrich, duke of Wurttemberg, changed the whole course of his life; See also:satire, See also:chief See also:refuge of the weak, became Hutten's weapon; with one hand he took his part in the famous Epistolae obscurorum virorum, and with the other launched scathing letters, eloquent Ciceronian orations, or biting satires against the duke. Though the emperor was too lazy and indifferent to smite a See also:great See also:prince, he took Hutten under his protection and bestowed on him the See also:honour of a See also:laureate See also:crown .in 1517. Hutten, who had meanwhile revisited Italy, again attached himself to the electoral See also:court at Mainz; and he was there when in 1518 his friend Pirckheimer wrote, urging See also:trim to abandon the court and dedicate himself to letters. We have the poet's long reply, in an See also:epistle on his " way of life," an amusing mixture of earnestness and vanity, self-See also:satisfaction and satire; he tells his friend that his career is just begun, that he has had twelve years of wandering, and will now enjoy himself a while in patriotic literary See also:work; that he has by no means deserted the humaner studies, but carries with him a little library of See also:standard books. Pirckheimer in his burgher life may have ease and even luxury; he, a See also:knight of the See also:empire, how can he condescend to obscurity? He must abide where he can shine.

In 1519 he issued in one See also:

volume his attacks on Duke Ulrich, and then, See also:drawing See also:sword, took part in the private war which overthrew that prince; in this affair he became intimate with See also:Franz von See also:Sickingen, the See also:champion of the knightly See also:order (Ritterstand). Hutten now warmly and openly espoused the Lutheran cause, but he was at the same time mixed up in the See also:attempt of the " Ritterstand " to assert itself as the See also:militia of the empire against the See also:independence of the See also:German princes. Soon after this time he discovered at Fulda a copy of the manifesto of the emperor See also:Henry IV. against See also:Hildebrand, and published it with comments as an attack on the papal claims over Germany. He hoped thereby to See also:interest the new emperor See also:Charles V., and the higher orders in the empire, in behalf of German liberties; but the See also:appeal failed. What See also:Luther had achieved by speaking to cities and See also:common folk in homely phrase, because he touched See also:heart and See also:conscience, that the far finer weapons of Hutten failed to effect, because he tried to See also:touch the more cultivated sympathies and dormant patriotism of princes and bishops, nobles and knights. And so he at once gained an undying name in the See also:republic of letters and ruined his own career. He showed that the artificial See also:verse-making of the Humanists could be connected with the new outburst of genuine German See also:poetry. The Minnesinger was gone; the new national See also:singer, a Luther or a Hans See also:Sachs, was heralded by the stirring lines of Hutten's See also:pen. These have in them a splendid natural See also:swing and See also:ring, strong and patriotic, though unfortunately addressed to knight and See also:landsknecht rather than to the German See also:people. The poet's high See also:dream of a knightly national regeneration had a See also:rude awakening. The attack on the papacy, and Luther's vast and sudden popularity, frightened Elector Albert, wwh9 dismissed Hutten from his court. Hoping for imperial favour, he betook himself to Charles V.; but that See also:young prince would have none of him.

So he returned to his friends, and they rejoiced greatly to see him still alive; for See also:

Pope See also:Leo X. had ordered him to be arrested and sent to Rome, and assassins dogged his steps. He now attached himself more closely to Franz von Sickingen and the knightly movement. This also came to a disastrous end in the See also:capture of the Ebernberg, and Sickingen's See also:death; the higher nobles had triumphed; the archbishops avenged themselves on Lutheranism as interpreted by the knightly order. With Sickingen Hutten also finally See also:fell. He fled to See also:Basel, where Erasmus refused to see him, both for fear of his loathsome diseases, and also because the beggared knight was sure to See also:borrow See also:money from him. A See also:paper war consequently See also:broke out between the two Humanists, which embittered Hutten's last days, and stained the memory of Erasmus. From Basel Ulrich dragged himself to See also:Mulhausen; and when the vengeance of Erasmus drove him thence, he went to See also:Zurich. There the large heart of See also:Zwingli welcomed him; he helped him with money, and found him a quiet refuge with the pastor of the little isle of Ufnau on the Zurich See also:lake. There the frail and worn-out poet, See also:writing See also:swift satire to the end, died at the end of See also:August or beginning of See also:September 1523 at the See also:age of See also:thirty-five. He left behind him some debts due to compassionate friends; he did not even own a single See also:book, and all his goods amounted to the clothes on his back, a bundle of letters, and that valiant pen which had fought so many a See also:sharp See also:battle, and had won for the poor knight-errant a sure See also:place in the See also:annals of literature. Ulrich von Hutten is one of those men of genius at whom propriety is shocked, and whom the mean-spirited avoid. Yet through his See also:short and buffeted life he was befriended, with wonderful charity and See also:patience, by the chief leaders of the Humanist movement.

For, in spite of his irritable vanity, his immoral life and habits, his odious diseases, his painful restlessness, Hutten had much in him that strong men could love. He passionately loved the truth, and was ever open to all good influences. He was a patriot, whose soul soared to ideal schemes and a grand utopian restoration of his See also:

country. In spite of all, his was a See also:frank and See also:noble nature; his faults chiefly the faults of genius ill-controlled, and of a life See also:cast in the eventful changes of an age of novelty. A swarm of writings issued from his pen; at first the smooth elegance of his Latin See also:prose and verse seemed strangely to See also:miss his real See also:character; he was the See also:Cicero and See also:Ovid of Germany before he became its See also:Lucian. See also:Heidelberg and See also:Jena. In 1594 he began to give theological lectures at Jena, and in 1596 accepted a See also:call as See also:professor of See also:theology at Wittenberg, where he died on the 23rd of See also:October 1616. See also:Hutter was a stern champion of Lutheran orthodoxy, as set down in the confessions and embodied in his own Compendium locorum theologicorum (161o; reprinted 1863), being so faithful to his See also:master as to win the See also:title of " Luther redonatus." In reply to See also:Rudolf Hospinian's See also:Concordia discors (1607), he wrote a work, See also:rich in See also:historical material but one-sided in its See also:apologetics, Concordia concors (1614), defending the See also:formula of See also:Concord, which he regarded as inspired. His Irenicum See also:vere christianum is directed against See also:David Pareus (1548-1622), professor primariusat Heidelberg, who in Irenicum sire de unione et synodo Evangelicorum (1614) had pleaded for a reconciliation of Lutheranism and Calvinism; his Calvinista aulopoliticus (161o) was written against the " damnable Calvinism " which was becoming prevalent in See also:Holstein and Brandenburg. Another work, based on the formula of Concord, was entitled Loci communes theologici.

End of Article: HUTTEN, ULRICH VON (1488—1523)

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