revival, supported the contentions of Reuchlin. It was a war between
two opposing schools--the Theologians and the Humanists; and,
unfortunately for the Theologians, they had selected their ground
badly, and were but poorly equipped for a battle in which victory was
to be decided by popular opinion.

Reuchlin was summoned to appear before the Inquisitor to answer for
the views put forward in his /Augenspeigel/ (1511), and was condemned.
He appealed to Rome, and the Bishop of Speier was ordered to
investigate the case. The result was the acquittal of Reuchlin (1514),
but his adversaries, having objected to the mode of trial, the case
was transferred once more to the Roman courts. Meanwhile the
controversy was carried on in Germany with great bitterness. Reuchlin
published a volume of sympathetic letters[13] received by him from the
leading scholars of Germany, and Erasmus issued a new edition (1515)
of his /Praise of Folly (Encomium Moriae)/ in which he ridiculed
especially the monks and theologians.

But the book which was most damaging to the opponents of Humanism was
beyond doubt the /Epistolae virorum obscurorum/. It was a work
consisting of two volumes, the first brought out by Grotus Rubeanus in
1514, and the second mostly from the pen of Urich von Hutten (1517).
Like Reuchlin's work it purported to be a collection of letters
addressed by the theologians to Ortwin Gratius, the champion of
Cologne university and, indeed, of the whole Scholastic party. It was
full of bitterness and vulgarity, but, as a humorous caricature of the
theologians, their arguments and modes of expression, it was
calculated to make them ridiculous especially in the eyes of the
university students. Against an attack of this kind serious arguments
were unavailing, and, unfortunately, there was no apologist of