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 sarcasm. 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.

A dispute, which broke out about the destruction or suppression of
Jewish books, afforded him a splendid opportunity of venting his
spleen against the Church. A converted Jew of Cologne named
Pfefferkorn advocated the suppression of all Jewish religious books
except the Old Testament, as the best means of converting his former
co-religionists. The Emperor, Maximilian, was not unwilling to listen
to such advice supported as it was by the universities of Cologne,
Mainz, and Erfut. Reuchlin, a professor of Heidelberg and himself a
well-known Hebrew scholar, opposed such a policy as bad in itself and
as injurious to the proper understanding of the Old Testament. A warm
controversy thereupon ensued. The Dominicans of Cologne espoused the
cause of Pfefferkorn, while the Humanists, scenting in the attack upon
Jewish literature an onslaught directed against the entire literary