Kaspar Sturm by Dürer
Emperor Karl V summoned Martin Luther to the great Reichstag at Worms at the end of March 1521. Led by the burly imperial herald Kaspar Sturm he left Wittenberg on April 2 in a covered wagon. Sturm suffered no fools and did not hesitate to use force. Fortunately for Luther he liked him. At least four colleagues of Luther, the most notable being Nicholas von Amsdorf, went along. In Weimar the brother of the very powerful Saxon elector Frederick the Wise, Duke Johann, provided Luther money for expenses. On April 6 in Erfurt Luther’s jurist friend from Wittenberg Justas Jonas on horse joined them.
Karl V
Luther learned of an imperial mandate condemning his books before his hearing; Sturm sympathetically asked him if he wanted to continue. It sounded like a death sentence engineered by the papal nuncio Aleander (Girolamo Aleandro). It sounded like almost the exact circumstances that had controversial Jan Huss burned at the stake in 1415. Unknown to the travelers from Wittenberg, a much more severe mandate had never materialized. Why? Fear that it would offend Frederick the Wise. Karl V was young but he had learned from his deceased grandfather Maximilian that Frederick the Wise had such a powerful influence on the German estates he could virtually paralyze any imperial plan. In fact Karl V did not want Luther in Worms.
Luther nevertheless continued on. He wrote his friend Spalatin that he would “enter Worms in spite of all gates of hell and the powers of the air.” Outwardly the journey was one of triumph. He was feted. He preached in several cities. He played the lute. He was intermittently sick. He suffered severe constipation.
Luther nevertheless continued on. He wrote his friend Spalatin that he would “enter Worms in spite of all gates of hell and the powers of the air.” Outwardly the journey was one of triumph. He was feted. He preached in several cities. He played the lute. He was intermittently sick. He suffered severe constipation.
Karl Brandi
Imperial operatives had an alternate plan. The emperor’s father confessor, an oily Franciscan priest Jean Glapion, had spoken to Saxon officials for weeks about how he liked Luther’s reform (“with an eloquence only matched by his duplicity” according to Karl Brandi). All Luther had to do was withdraw his violent tract ‘On the Babylonian Captivity’ and all else could be amiably negotiated. The Saxon officials were as unmovable as their great prince. Luther must have his hearing and confront his accusers. On April 5 Glapion and the imperial chamberlain Paul von Armerstorff showed up at the great fortress Ebernburg. The fortress was the favored castle of the most feared knight in Germany, Franz von Sickingen. The imperial officials had a clever plan. First they made Sickingen and his gadfly Ulrich von Hutten an offer of nice fat retainers. They didn’t refuse. So the two Luther sympathizers found themselves in the service of the emperor.
Martin Bucer at 53
Then they debated theology in a friendly way for many hours. The Lutheran side was championed by Sickingen’s chaplain, Martin Bucer. The two imperial officials assured everyone they appreciated Luther’s much needed reform but he did have some incendiary tracts. They slipped in their plan to negotiate with Luther. What safer place than the Ebernburg? Bucer was a mere 20 years old. His experience as a monk was not worldly. Vanity must have made Sickingen and Hutten agree to such a plan. Incredibly, Bucer who had once met Luther, intercepted his caravan at Oppenheim on April 15. He invited Luther to the Ebernburg, emphasizing that location would be safer than Worms.
Justas Jonas
Luther remembered later that he instinctively smelled a trap. Why could Glapion not talk to him at Worms? It seems much more likely, scholar Irmgard Höß notes, that Spalatin had already warned Luther. Moreover Luther had his jurist friend Justas Jonas with him as well as the sympathetic imperial herald Kaspar Sturm. They would surely have pointed out to Luther that he would void his imperial safe conduct granted by the emperor to get to Worms. After that rash action he would be many days from safety in Saxony and fair game for every assassin in the rest of the empire. He might have been safe in the Ebernburg but perhaps not. Sickingen was in service now to the emperor. Even so, Luther would be in a form of exile.
Luther refused and continued on to Worms.
The murder plot failed.
Just three days later Luther shook Europe with “I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me.”
Shortly after that, in a letter to Lucas Cranach Luther breezily mocked the proceedings in Worms, “Nothing else was done there than this:
Are these your books?
Yes.
Do you want to renounce them or not?
No.
Then go away!”
Main Sources:
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation, 1483-1521 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1985)
Karl Brandi, The Emperor Charles V (NY: Knopf, 1939) translation of Kaiser Karl V (München: Bruckmann , 1937).
Irmgard Höß, Georg Spalatin. Ein Leben in der Zeit des Humanismus und der Reformation (Weimar, 1956; 2. edition, 1989).Q: Do you think Karl V knew of the murder plot?
