The Renaissance movement in Germany is due largely to the influence of Italian scholars and to the teaching of the Brothers of the Common Life in their school at Deventer.[11] The close political relations existing between the German States and the cities of Northern Italy, the mission of Petrarch to the court of Charles IV., the intermingling of German and Italian scholars at the councils of Constance, Florence, and Basle, and the exertions of Aeneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius II., during his term of office as Chancellor of Frederick III., helped largely to promote the study of the classics in Germany, especially when the invention and development of the art of printing had solved the difficulty of procuring manuscripts. As in Italy, Humanism owes much of its success to the generosity of powerful patrons such as the Emperor Maximilian I., Frederick Elector of Saxony and his kinsman, Duke George, Joachim I. of Brandenburg, and Philip of the Palatinate, Bishop John von Dalberg of Worms, and Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz;and as in Italy the academies were the most powerful means of disseminating classical culture, so also in Germany learned societies like the /Rhenana/, founded by Bishop Dalberg, and the /Danubiana/ in Vienna, were most successful in promoting the literary propaganda.
But, unlike the Italian, the German revival was assisted largely by the universities. Basle, Erfurt, Heidelburg, and Leipzig showed unmistakably their sympathy towards the movement, and in a short time the programmes of university studies in nearly all the leading centres were modified in accordance with the new ideas of education.
Scholasticism was obliged to make way for the classics and natural science. Cologne, alone in Germany, refused to abandon its old system, and, though not unfriendly to the classics, as is evident by the presence of Ortwin Gratius on its list of professors, still it showed itself highly distrustful of the tendencies of some of the Humanist leaders. Yet German Humanism had little, if anything, in common with the flagrant irreligion and immorality of the Italian school. With one or two exceptions German Humanists never assailed revealed religion as such, but attacked instead the prevailing educational system, which they held to be responsible for the widespread ignorance and general decline of the religious spirit. Many of the leading German scholars were exemplary in their moral character and in their loyalty to the Church, and few, even of those who were regarded as hostile, showed any sympathy with Luther once they understood that he aimed at revolt rather than reform.
Some of the greatest of the German Humanists differed from their Italian contemporaries also in the fact that they turned the intellectual revival into scientific channels, and made the study of the classics subservient to mathematical and astronomical research.
Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1400-64), George Peurbach of Vienna (d.
1461), John Muller of Konigsberg (1436-76), better known by his Latin name Regiomontanus, and the great churchman and astronomer Copernicus (1473-1543) belonged to this section, which prepared the way for modern scientific developments. With these men religion and science went hand in hand.
On the purely literary side the most famous of the German Humanists were Conrad Celtes (1459-1508) the most active of the promoters of the classical revival beyond the Alps and one of the earliest of the German poets; Pirkeimer (1470-1528), who hoped for great things from the Lutheran movement at first, but having realised its real nature remained loyal to the Church; Mutianus Rufus (1471-1526), a canon of Gotha and at the same time a well-known free-thinker; Grotus Rubeanus (1480-1504), who at first favoured Luther; Jakob Wimpheling (1450-1528), and Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516), the learned historian and abbot of Sponheim; Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), and Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522).
Of these the most important from the point of view of ecclesiastical history are von Hutten[12] and Reuchlin. The former was born in the year 1488 and was sent for his education to the monastery of Fulda, from which he fled with very little mental equipment except a lasting hatred and distrust for all monks and ecclesiastics. As a wandering student he visited the leading centres of learning in Germany and Northern Italy, where he was particularly remarkable for his dissolute life, his ungovernable temper, and his biting sarca**. Taking advantage of the rising spirit of unfriendliness between the Teuton and the Latin countries, he posed as a patriot burning with love for Germany and the Germans, and despising the French, the Italians, and in particular the Pope. Against the monks and theologians he directed his bitterest satires, to the delight of many, who did not foresee the dangers of such attacks at a time when the German nation generally was growing less friendly to the Papacy.