Ulrich von Hutten

The German imperial knight and humanist Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523) advocated the dissolution of Germany's ties with the papacy. He advanced an unrealistic program, however, for solving German national problems by reversion to medieval knighthood and feudalism.

Ulrich von Hutten, born in a castle near Fulda in Hesse, was sent at age 11 to a monastery to become a Benedictine monk. After 6 years he escaped and led a vagabond life, attending four German universities. In Erfurt he befriended Crotus Rubianus and other humanists. He went to Italy, took service as a soldier, and attended universities, spending some time in Pavia and Bologna. In Germany he served in the imperial army (1512). Because of the death of a cousin, Hans, at the hands of Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, he published sharp Latin diatribes against the duke, which have been compared with the Philippics of Demosthenes and which brought him fame. In 1519 he played a part in the expulsion of the duke.

A second visit to Italy took Hutten to Bologna and Rome (1515-1517). In 1517 he was crowned poet laureate by Emperor Maximilian I in Augsburg for his Latin poems. His protector was Archbishop-Elector Albrecht of Mayence, at whose court he often appeared. In 1517 too he played a part in the defense of Johann Reuchlin against the Cologne Dominicans; he probably wrote the second part of the famous Epistolae obscurorum virorum. His Colloquia followed in 1518 (in German, 1520-1521). The bitter dialogues Vadiscus (1520), directed against the papacy, cost him the protection of Albrecht. His German work Aufwecker der teutschen Nation (1520; Arouser of the German Nation), which opens with his motto "Ich hab's gewagt" (I have dared to do it), was bold and forward-looking and announced his support of Martin Luther. The hostility aroused by this work forced him to flee to Basel.

In Basel, Hutten hoped to find help from Erasmus, but the two humanists soon feuded. His dream of enlisting Luther and the unsuccessful freedom fighter Franz von Sickingen in his struggle for a stronger, independent empire also failed, as did attempts to interest Maximilian and his successor, Charles V. Efforts to war against the Catholic clergy had degenerated into a robber-baron adventure. In Switzerland, Huldreich Zwingli took an interest in him and sheltered him on the island of Ufenau in Lake Zurich, where Hutten died in 1523.

Further Reading

Two biographical studies of Hutten are David Friedrich Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten, translated by Mrs. George Sturge (1874; new ed. 1927), and Hajo Holborn, Ulrich von Hutten and the German Reformation, translated by Roland H. Bainton (1937). Recommended for general background is Harold J. Grimm, The Reformation Era, 1500-1650 (1954; rev. ed. 1965).

Additional Sources

Holborn, Hajo, Ulrich von Hutten and the German Reformation, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978, 1937.

Hutten, Ulrich von (Burg Steckelberg nr. Fulda, 1488-1523, Ufenau nr. Zurich), was the most dynamic personality among the German humanists. Born of impoverished noble parents, he was at first intended for a monastic life. At 17 he ran away and wandered for some years from university to university, visiting among others Cologne, Erfurt, Greifswald, Wittenberg, Pavia, and Bologna. Frequently destitute, he served for a time as an ordinary soldier. In 1514 he was in favour at the court of Mainz, and seemed likely to devote himself to learning. In 1516, however, his cousin was murdered by Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, and Hutten embarked on a feud against this powerful prince. He directed against Ulrich a Latin dialogue (Phalarismus, 1517), which developed into a general denunciation of tyrants. His pugnacity soon extended to other fields, and he plunged into the controversy between the Cologne Dominicans and Reuchlin, siding with the latter and taking a considerable hand in the second part of the Epistolae virorum obscurorum.

Hutten was for a time protected by the Emperor Maximilian I, and was crowned as a poet by him at Augsburg. In 1519 he participated in the war which evicted Duke Ulrich from his dominions. His quickly stirred aggressive resentment of wrongs led him to attack the Papacy in the Latin dialogue Vadiscus (1520). His lively nationalism found expression in Arminius (1529). He applied the dialogue also to his personal desires (Fortuna, 1519) and misfortunes, especially his sickness (Febris, 1519). From 1517 onwards, Hutten translated some of his dialogues into the vernacular and wrote new ones in fluent, vigorous German (Gesprächsbüchlein, 1521). Constantly entangled in conflicts with powerful forces, he became involved in the defeat of Sickingen, and eventually took refuge with Zwingli in Switzerland, where he died of syphilis which had afflicted him for several years.

Hutten supported the Reformation, but his services to it were not as great as was formerly supposed. A man of frail constitution but tremendous energy, he was by temperament ready to defend the weak and oppose the strong; his aggressiveness and combativeness went hand in hand with recklessness and lack of judgement. His mottoes ‘Alea jacta est’ and ‘Ich hab's gewagt’ are characteristic.

A fierce and feared satirist, Hutten is notable for his development of the dialogue form borrowed from Lucian and, in his last years, for his racy German style. A select edition of his works, Huttens deutsche Schriften (2 vols.), ed. H. Mettke, appeared 1972-4 and in 1963 a reprint of the critical edition by E. Böcking, Opera quae reperiri potuerunt omnia (5 vols. and 2 suppl. vols., 1859-70).

Ulrich von Hutten
Ulrich von Hutten (by Erhard Schön, ca. 1522)
Born	April 21, 1488 Burg Steckelberg, near Schlüchtern, Hesse
Died	August 29, 1523 Ufenau on Lake Zurich
Occupation	monk, knight, writer
Nationality	German
Education	theology
Alma mater	University of Greifswald
Writing period	Reformation
Literary movement	Reformation, Humanism
Influences Johannes Reuchlin, Martin Luther

Lake Zürich, Ufenau island: St Peter & Paul church, where Ulrich von Hutten is buried

Hutten's gravestone on Ufenau island

Ulrich von Hutten (21 April 1488 - 29 August 1523), was an outspoken German critic of the Roman Catholic Church and adherent of the Lutheran Reformation.

Contents 1 Life 2 Seclusion and Death 3 Works 4 Legacy 5 Notes 6 References

Life

Hutten was born in Burg Steckelberg, now in Schlüchtern, Hessen. He studied theology at the University of Greifswald. He was a leader of the Imperial Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and a great Humanist thinker.

Hutten is well known as one of the contributors to The Letters of Obscure Men. This book was written in support of Hutten's mentor, the prominent humanist Johannes Reuchlin, who was engaged in a struggle to prevent the confiscation of Hebrew texts. The Letters contained a series of fictitious letters addressed to Hardwin von Grätz, which sarcastically attacked the scholastic theologians who were acting against Reuchlin.

In 1519, Hutten became a supporter of Martin Luther and his calls for religious reform. Unlike Luther, Hutten tried to enforce reformation by military means when he, along with Franz von Sickingen attempted to begin popular crusade within the Holy Roman Empire against the power of the Roman Catholic Church in favour of Luther's reformed religion. In what is known as the Knights' Revolt, they attacked the lands of the Archbishop of Trier in 1522. The archbishop held out, however, and the knights were eventually defeated in 1523, destroying them as a significant political force within the empire.

Following his defeat, Hutten tried to convince Erasmus of Rotterdam to side with the Reformation. Erasmus refused to take sides, and he also refused to see Hutten when the latter came to Basel in 1523, ill and impoverished, to see him.

Seclusion and Death

For the final 15 years of his life, Hutten suffered from syphilis, of which he died in seclusion on the isle Ufenau on Lake Zurich. He wrote a text in 1519, De morbo gallico [On the French disease] about the treatment of syphilis, which is now regarded as one of the first patient narratives in the history of medicine.

Hutten's refuge in Ufenau and his death are the subject of a poem by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Huttens letzte Tage.

Works

His chief works were his Ars versificandi (1511); the Nemo (1518); a work on the Morbus Gallicus (1519); the volume of Steckelberg complaints against Duke Ulrich (including his four Ciceronian Orations, his Letters and the Phalarismus) also in 1519; the Vadismus (1520); and the controversy with Erasmus at the end of his life. Besides these were many admirable poems in Latin and German. It is not known with certainty how far Hutten was the parent of the celebrated Epistolae obscurorum virorum, that famous satire on monastic ignorance as represented by the theologians of Cologne with which the friends of Reuchlin defended him. At first the cloister-world, not discerning its irony, welcomed the work as a defence of their position; though their eyes were soon opened by the favour with which the learned world received it. The Epistolae were eagerly bought up; the first part (41 letters) appeared at the end of 1515; early in 1516 there was a second edition; later in 1516 a third, with an appendix of seven letters; in 1517 appeared the second part (62 letters), to which a fresh appendix of eight letters was subjoined soon after. In 1909 the Latin text of the Epistolae with an English translation was published by F. G. Stokes. Hutten, in a letter addressed to Robert Crocus, denied that he was the author of the book, but there is no doubt as to his connexion with it. Erasmus was of opinion that there were three authors, of whom Crotus Rubianus was the originator of the idea, and Hutten a chief contributor. D. F. Strauss, who dedicates to the subject a chapter of his admirable work on Hutten, concludes that he had no share in the first part, but that his hand is clearly visible in the second part, which he attributes in the main to him. To him is due the more serious and severe tone of that bitter portion of the satire. See W. Brecht, Die Verfasser der Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1904).^[1]

For a complete catalogue of the writings of Hutten, see E. Böcking's Index Bibliographicus Huttenianus (1858). Böcking is also the editor of the complete edition of Hutten's works (7 vols., 1859-1862). A selection of Hutten's German writings, edited by G. Balke, appeared in 1891. Cp. S. Szamatolski, Huttens deutsche Schriften (1891). The best biography (though it is also somewhat of a political pamphlet) is that of D. F. Strauss (Ulrich von Hutten, 1857; 4th ed., 1878; English translation by G. Sturge, 1874), with which may be compared the older monographs by A. Wagenseil (1823), A. Bürck (1846) and J. Zeller (Paris, 1849). See also J. Deckert, Ulrich von Huttens Leben und Wirken. Eine historische Skizze (1901).^[1]

Legacy

A line from the third of Hutten's three essays collectively entitled 'Invectives', videtis illam spirare libertatis auram, was the inspiration for the motto of Stanford University, Die Luft der Freiheit weht.

As a student at the University of Bonn, Carl Schurz began work on a tragedy based on Hutten's life. He abandoned it, never to return to finish the work, when the 1848 revolution broke out in Germany.^[2]

He is strangely included in the canon of saints of the Gnostic Mass or Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica^[3] of the the Ordo Templi Orientis, penned by the infamous Aleister Crowley.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain..
2. ^ Carl Schurz, Reminiscences, Volume I, Chapters IV and V, pp. 110-112.
3. ^ Liber XV, Ecclesiæ Gnosticæ Catholicæ Canon Missæ http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/gnostic_mass.htm

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ulrich von Hutten

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Hutten, Ulrich von.

• Origins of Syphilis NYTimes April 29, 2008
• Die Luft der Freiheit weht - History of Stanford University's motto, mentioning its origins in a speech about Hutten.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)