The Diet of Worms

Worms, on the Rhine · Luther entered the city April 16, 1521, and answered the Emperor on the 18th · the Edict was signed on May 26.

monk stood before the heir of Charlemagne and would not take back what he had written. Everyone knows the scene. Yet fewer know that he asked for a day to think about it first, that his voice on the first afternoon was barely audible, and that the hardest part of the ordeal came afterward, in a committee room, when men who wished him well tried gently to talk him down.

What follows leans chiefly on Roland Bainton's Here I Stand, still the best narrative of these days in English.¹

Six Months of Delay

Rome had settled the case. A formal ban was inevitable. The only open question was whether the state would add a penalty of its own, and that question the state would have to decide. Meanwhile, as Bainton observes, Luther could do no more than preach, teach, and pray, and wait for others to determine the disposition to be made of his case.

Six months passed before an answer came — brief enough beside the four years of dallying on the part of the church, but slower than one might expect from a young emperor steeped in the orthodoxy of Spain. Charles was not free to do as he pleased. He had signed the imperial constitution, two clauses of which provided that no German of any rank should be taken for trial outside Germany, and that none should be outlawed without cause and without a hearing. Bainton is careful here: whether those provisions were really meant to protect a monk accused of heresy is extremely dubious, and neither Frederick nor Luther ever appealed to them in any surviving document. But Charles was a constitutional monarch, and whatever his convictions he could not govern Germany by arbitrary fiat.

A Divided Germany

Aleander, the papal nuncio, reported that nine tenths of the Germans were crying “Luther,” and the other tenth “Death to the pope.” Bainton calls that unquestionably an exaggeration, and then adds that Luther's following was not contemptible.

Three parties faced each other. The papalists, led on the ground by Aleander, whose aim was to have the case settled arbitrarily by the emperor without consulting the German estates, and above all to prevent a hearing before a secular tribunal: Luther had been condemned by the church, and the laity should simply implement that decision, not re-examine its grounds. The middle party, headed by Erasmus, still proposing mediation and an impartial tribunal. And Luther's supporters — numerous, powerful, and vocal — among them Franz von Sickingen, who controlled the Rhine valley from the Ebernburg, and Ulrich von Hutten, who fulminated from the same fortress and asked whether an edict extracted by guile from the emperor could separate Germany from liberty, faith, religion, and truth, adding that the question would be settled not by the pen but by the sword.

The most important of them was Frederick the Wise, who had refused the golden rose and every other inducement. Bainton notes that the elector repeatedly insisted he was not espousing Dr. Martin's opinions but merely demanding a fair hearing — and then adds the sentence that explains everything: Frederick's notion of a fair hearing meant that Luther should be convicted out of the Scriptures. Frederick was often murky as to the issues; but when clear, he was dogged.

The First Hearing

Luther entered Worms on April 16 in a Saxon two-wheeled cart with a few companions, the imperial herald riding before him with the eagle on his cloak. Though it was the dinner hour, two thousand people turned out to conduct him to his lodging.

The next afternoon at four he was taken by the herald and the imperial marshal — furtively, to avoid the crowds — before the emperor, the electors, and part of the estates. Charles looked at him and said, “That fellow will never make a heretic of me.”

Bainton pauses here for the contrast, and it is worth quoting his framing at length in substance. Here was Charles, heir of a long line of Catholic sovereigns, lord of Austria, Burgundy, the Low Countries, Spain, and Naples, ruling a vaster domain than any save Charlemagne, the symbol of the medieval unities; and before him a simple monk, a miner's son, with nothing to sustain him but his own faith in the Word of God. Some would see at this point the beginning of modern times.

And then Bainton immediately corrects the romance of it. Luther himself was sensible of the contrast in a measure. But what overpowered him was not so much that he stood in the presence of the emperor as this: that he and the emperor alike were called upon to answer before Almighty God.

An official of the Archbishop of Trier, also named Eck — not the Eck of the Leipzig debate — pointed to a pile of books and asked whether they were his. In a voice barely audible Luther answered that the books were all his, and that he had written more. Asked whether he defended them all or would reject a part, he reflected aloud that this touched God and his Word and the salvation of souls, that to say too little or too much would be dangerous, and begged for time to think it over.

He was given until the morrow. Bainton weighs the suggestion of some historians that the request was a preconcerted stalling tactic, and rejects it: anyone who recalls Luther's tremors at his first mass will scarcely so interpret this hesitation. Just as then he wished to flee from the altar, so now he was too terrified before God to give an answer to the emperor.

Then the observation that gives the whole episode its shape. Luther's tremor before the Divine Majesty served actually to bring him before a plenary session of the diet: a larger hall was chosen for the next day, so crowded that scarcely anyone save the emperor could sit. In Bainton's phrase, the terror of the Holy conspired to give Luther a hearing before the German nation.

The Second Hearing

He had been summoned for four o'clock on the eighteenth; business delayed him until six. This time, Bainton records, his voice was ringing.

He began by apologizing for any failure of courtly address, since he was not a courtier but a monk, and then made the move that turned an interrogation into a speech: the books were all his, but they were not all of one sort. Some dealt with faith and life so simply and evangelically that even his enemies were compelled to regard them as worthy of Christian reading; to renounce those would be to damn the truth confessed alike by friends and foes. A second class inveighed against the desolation of the Christian world by the evil lives and teaching of the papists — and who could deny it, when universal complaint testified that by the laws of the popes the consciences of men were racked?

“No!” broke in the emperor.

Luther went on unruffled, speaking of the incredible tyranny by which the German nation was devoured, and warning that to recant at that point would open the door to more of it. A third class attacked private individuals; he confessed he had been more caustic than befitted his profession, but he was being judged for the teaching of Christ and not for his life. Then the appeal that is the heart of the matter: when Christ stood before Annas he said, produce witnesses. If our Lord, who could not err, made that demand, why may not a worm like me ask to be convicted of error from the prophets and the Gospels? If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire.

Eck's reply was the strongest case the old church could make, and it deserves to be heard. The plea to be heard from Scripture, he said, is the one always made by heretics. How can you assume that you are the only one to understand the sense of Scripture? Would you put your judgment above so many famous men and claim you know more than they all? You have no right to call into question the most holy orthodox faith, instituted by Christ, proclaimed by the apostles, sealed by the red blood of the martyrs, confirmed by the sacred councils, and given to us by our fathers as an inheritance. Answer candidly and without horns: do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors they contain?

Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason — I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other — my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.² Martin Luther

Luther had spoken in German and was asked to repeat it in Latin. He was sweating. A friend called out that if he could not do it, he had done enough. He made the affirmation again in Latin, threw up his arms in the gesture of a victorious knight, and slipped out of the darkened hall amid the hisses of the Spaniards.

Frederick the Wise went to his own lodging and remarked that Dr. Martin had spoken wonderfully before the emperor and the princes and the estates, in Latin and in German — but that he was too daring for him.

The Emperor's Answer

Charles called in the electors and princes for their opinions. They asked for time. In resposne, he gave them his own opinion, and read out a paper he had written himself in French — not a speech composed by a secretary, Bainton notes, but a young Hapsburg confessing his faith.

I am descended from a long line of Christian emperors of this noble German nation, and of the Catholic kings of Spain, the archdukes of Austria, and the dukes of Burgundy. They were all faithful to the death to the Church of Rome, and they defended the Catholic faith and the honor of God. I have resolved to follow in their steps. A single friar who goes counter to all Christianity for a thousand years must be wrong. Therefore I am resolved to stake my lands, my friends, my body, my blood, my life, and my soul. Not only I, but you of this noble German nation, would be forever disgraced if by our negligence not only heresy but the very suspicion of heresy were to survive. After having heard yesterday the obstinate defense of Luther, I regret that I have so long delayed in proceeding against him and his false teaching. I will have no more to do with him. He may return under his safe conduct, but without preaching or making any tumult I will proceed against him as a notorious heretic, and ask you to declare yourselves as you promised me. Emperor Charles V

Many of his hearers, says Bainton, took on the hue of death.

The following day the electors declared themselves in accord with the emperor, but of six, only four signed. The dissenters were Ludwig of the Palatinate and Frederick of Saxony.

The Harder Ordeal

A placard stamped with the Bundschuh, the peasant's clog, appeared overnight on the town hall door, implying that if Luther were condemned the peasants would rise. Albert of Mainz panicked, and at his urging the estates petitioned for Luther to be examined once more. The emperor wanted nothing to do with it but allowed three days.

Bainton's assessment of what followed is the most valuable thing in his chapter, and it is the part almost never preached. The ordeal, though less dramatic, was more crucial than the public appearance. He who is able to give a ringing No before a public assembly may find it harder, if he is at all sensitive, to resist the kindly remonstrances of men concerned to prevent the disruption of Germany and the disintegration of the Church.³

The committee was headed by Richard of Greiffenklau, Archbishop of Trier, custodian of the seamless robe of Christ. They praised what was good in Luther's work. They warned that The Freedom of the Christian Man would prompt the masses to reject all authority; Luther answered that he intended nothing of the sort and would counsel obedience even to evil magistrates. Trier besought him not to rend the seamless robe of Christendom. He answered with the counsel of Gamaliel: wait and see whether the teaching is of God or of man.

Then they told him that if he went down, Melanchthon would be pulled after him. At this, Bainton records, his eyes welled with tears.

But asked to name a judge he would accept, he stiffened and said he would name a child of eight or nine years — and that the pope is no judge of matters pertaining to God's Word and faith, but a Christian man must examine and judge for himself.

The committee reported failure.

The Edict of Worms

On May 6 the emperor laid before a diminishing diet the final draft of the Edict, prepared by Aleander. It charged Luther with attacking the seven sacraments after the manner of the damned Bohemians, with denying free will, with encouraging the laity to wash their hands in the blood of the clergy. This devil in the habit of a monk, it said, had brought together ancient errors into one stinking puddle and invented new ones. He was to be regarded as a convicted heretic; when his safe-conduct expired no one was to harbor him; his followers were to be condemned; his books were to be eradicated from the memory of man.

Aleander brought it for signature. Charles took up the pen — and, Aleander wrote, for no reason he could guess, laid it down again and said he must submit the edict to the diet.

Bainton's comment: the emperor knew why. The members were going home. Frederick the Wise had left. Ludwig of the Palatinate had left. Those who remained were a rump ready to condemn Luther. The edict was dated May 6 but not issued until the twenty-sixth, by which time the diet was sufficiently reduced to consent. Charles then signed both the Latin and the German, and said to Aleander with a smile, “You will be content now.”

Bainton's Final Irony

The chapter closes on an observation that belongs at the center of any account of these assemblies.

The Edict of Worms was passed by a secular tribunal entrusted with a case of heresy — at the instance of the Lutherans, and against the opposition of the papalists. It was at once repudiated by the Lutherans as having been passed by only a rump, and sponsored by the papalists because it confirmed the Catholic faith. The Church of Rome, which had so strenuously sought to prevent the Diet of Worms from becoming an ecclesiastical council, became in the light of the outcome the great vindicator of the pronouncement of a secular tribunal on heresy.⁴

Both sides had asked a civil assembly to settle a question of doctrine, and both then claimed the answer only insofar as it suited them. That is the question this whole section of the site keeps returning to — at Zurich two years later, at Augsburg in 1530, at Dordrecht in 1578, at Westminster in 1646. Worms is where it was first asked, and neither party gave a consistent answer.

Why It Matters

It put sola Scriptura on trial in public. Luther's demand was not that he be believed but that he be refuted from Scripture and plain reason. Eck's answer — that this is the plea heretics always make, and that no man may set his judgment above the councils and the fathers — states the alternative with perfect clarity. The two positions were laid before the assembled empire and could not be reconciled.

It made the Reformation a public and political fact. Before Worms this was a theological dispute among clergy. After Worms, Luther was an imperial outlaw whose books were to be burned and whose protection made Frederick the Wise a rebel. The religious question had become a question of state, and it stayed one for a century.

It bound conscience to the Word rather than to itself. The modern reading of Luther at Worms as a champion of individual conscience gets him almost exactly backwards. He did not say his conscience was free. He said it was captive — captive to the Word of God — and that to act against a conscience so bound is neither right nor safe. That is not autonomy. It is the opposite of it.

It produced the Wartburg, and the German Bible. Frederick had Luther seized on the road home and hidden at the Wartburg, where in eleven weeks he translated the New Testament into German — the direct parallel to what Tyndale would attempt in English five years later. The Edict intended to eradicate Luther's books from the memory of man. It occasioned the most consequential book he ever made.

Councils and Synods