German Culture Past and Present | Page 8

astrology: the discovery of the
philosopher's stone, of the transmutation of metals, of the elixir of life,
and of the correspondences between the planets and terrestrial bodies.
Among the most prominent exponents of these investigations may be
mentioned Philippus von Hohenheim or Paracelsus, and Cornelius
Agrippa of Nettesheim, in Germany, Nostrodamus in France, and
Cardanus in Italy. These men represent a tendency which was pursued
by thousands in the learned world. It was a tendency which had the
honour of being the last in history to embody itself in a distinct
mythical cycle. "Doctor Faustus" may probably have had an historical
germ; but in any case "Doctor Faustus," as known to legend and to
literature, is merely a personification of the practical side of the new
learning.
The minds of men were waking up to interest in nature. There was one
man, Copernicus, who, at least partially, struck through the traditionary
atmosphere in which nature was enveloped, and to his insight we owe
the foundation of astronomical science; but otherwise the whole
intellectual atmosphere was charged with occult views. In fact, the
learned world of the sixteenth century would have found itself quite at
home in the pretensions and fancies of our modern theosophist and
psychical researchers, with their notions of making erstwhile miracles
non-miraculous, of reducing the marvellous to being merely the result
of penetration on the part of certain seers and investigators of the secret
powers of nature. Every wonder-worker was received with open arms
by learned and unlearned alike. The possibility of producing that which
was out of the ordinary range of natural occurrences was not seriously

doubted by any. Spells and enchantments, conjurations, calculations of
nativities, were matters earnestly investigated at Universities and
Courts.
There were, of course, persons who were eager to detect impostors: and
amongst them some of the most zealous votaries of the occult arts--for
example, Trittheim and the learned Humanist, Conrad Muth or
Mutianus, both of whom professed to have regarded Faust as a
fraudulent person. But this did not imply any disbelief in the possibility
of the alleged pretensions. In the Faust-myth is embodied, moreover,
the opposition between the new learning on its physical side and the old
religious faith. The theory that the investigation of the mysteries of
nature had in it something sinister and diabolical which had been latent
throughout the Middle Ages, was brought into especial prominence by
the new religious movements. The popular feeling that the line between
natural magic and the black art was somewhat doubtful, that the one
had a tendency to shade off into the other, now received fresh stimulus.
The notion of compacts with the devil was a familiar one, and that they
should be resorted to for the purpose of acquiring an acquaintance with
hidden lore and magical powers seemed quite natural.
It will have already been seen from what we have said that the religious
revolt was largely economical in its causes. The intense hatred,
common alike to the smaller nobility, the burghers, and the peasants, of
the ecclesiastical hierarchy, was obviously due to its ever-increasing
exactions. The chief of these were the pallium or price paid to the Pope
for an ecclesiastical investiture; the annates or first year's revenues of a
church fief; and the tithes which were of two kinds, the great tithe paid
in agricultural produce, and the small tithe consisting in a head of cattle.
The latter seems to have been especially obnoxious to the peasant. The
sudden increase in the sale of indulgences, like the proverbial last straw,
broke down the whole system; but any other incident might have
served the purpose equally well. The prince-prelates were in some
instances, at the outset, not averse to the movement; they would not
have been indisposed to have converted their territories into secular
fiefs of the empire. It was only after this hope had been abandoned that
they definitely took sides with the Papal authority.

The opening of the sixteenth century thus presents to us mediæval
society, social, political, and religious, in Germany as elsewhere, "run
to seed." The feudal organization was outwardly intact; the peasant,
free and bond, formed the foundation; above him came the knighthood
or inferior nobility; parallel with them was the Ehrbarkeit of the less
important towns, holding from mediate lordship; above these towns
came the free cities, which held immediately from the empire,
organized into three bodies, a governing Council in which the
Ehrbarkeit usually predominated, where they did not entirely compose
it, a Common Council composed of the masters of the various guilds,
and the General Council of the free citizens. Those journeymen, whose
condition was fixed from their being outside the guild-organizations,
usually had guilds of their own. Above the free cities in the social
pyramid stood the Princes of the empire, lay