Hutten, Ulrich Von

Hutten, Ulrich von a German knight and Reformer, was born April 20 (or 22), 1488, at Castle Steckelberg, in Hesse-Cassel, and entered the monastery of Fulda in 1498, intending to become a monk, but fled in 1504 to Erfurt, where he continued his theological studies for a while. In 1505 he went to Cologne, and the following year to Frankfort on the Oder, where the new university had recently been established. Here he applied himself to the study of philology and poetry. From Frankfort he went to Greifswald, and afterwards to Rostock, where he lectured on philosophy. In 1510 he went to Wittenberg, and thence to Vienna, where he remained until 1512. He afterwards visited Pavia and Bologna, studied law, and devoted himself particularly to the humanities and poetry. What he saw in Italy had the effect of making him an enlightened opponent of popery. Later he joined the army of the emperor Maximilian, and returned to Germany in 1517.. Taking part in Reuchlin's quarrel against the Dominicans of Cologne, he wrote against the state of the Romish Church, and particularly against the pontiff. Bolder, and more open in the expression of his opinions than most men of his age, he did much to prepare the way for the Reformation, though he sympathized with Luther only in his attack upon the pope, his great aim being not so much to change the Church as to free Germany from the tyranny of which popery was the basis. In 1522 he made an alliance with Franz von Sickingen, who was chosen chief of the nobility of the Upper Rhine at Landau. In that year, as the German princes did not approve of Sickingen's plan of freeing Germany from the Romish rule, he appealed to the States, and endeavored to make them side with the nobility against the princes. But Sickingen succumbed in 1523, and Hutten was obliged to flee from Germany. In Switzerland, his former friend Erasmus withdrew from him, and the Council of Zurich drove him out of their territory. He then retired to the island of Ufnau, on the lake of Zutrich, where he died, Aug. 29, 1523. Hutten has been very variously judged, according to the different stand-points of his critics; yet it is certain that he was honest in his convictions, and, though not a partisan of the Reformation from any religious feeling, he did all he' could to free his native land from the subjection to the papacy. For that end he gave Luther all the aid in his power. He was one of the authors of the greater part of the Epistolce obscurorum virorum, and most of his writings were satires against the pope, the monks, and the clergy. Several editions of his works have been published; the principal are Munch's (Berlin, 1821-23, 6 vols.) and Ed. Bocking's (Lpz. 1859 sq., 7 vols.). See Epistolce U. ab Hutten ad R. Crocum (Leipzig, 1801); Bocking, Ein Verzeichniss der Schriften Hutten's, Index bibliographicus Huttenianus (Leipz. 1858); Schubart, Biographie (Lpz. 1791); Tischer, Biographie (Lpz. 1803); Panzer, Ulrich von Hutten, in literarischer Hinsicht (Nirnburg, 1798); Giess, H. u. sein Zeitalter (1813); E. von Brunnow, Ulrich von H. (Lpz. 1842, 3 vols.); Burck, Ulrich v. H. (Dresden u. Lpz. 1846); David Friedrich Strauss, Ulrich v. H. (Lpz. 1857, 2 vols.); Revite Germanique, March, 1858; Eclectic Review (Lond.), July, 1858, p. 54 sq.; Pierer, Universal Lexikon, vol. 8; Hase, Ch. History, § 314. Ulrich von Hutten, transl. from Chauffour-Kestner's Etudes sur les Réformateurs du 16me siecle, by A. Young (Lond. 1863); Lecky, Hist. of Rationalism, 2, 188; Hardwick, Reformation, p. 32 sq.; National Magazine, 1858, p. 243 sq.; Lond. Quart. Rev. 1857 (April); 1867 (April).