superior, Staupitz, yielded to the entreaties of Spalatin, the court
chaplain, and of the professors of Wittenberg, and declined to take
any steps to compel Luther to submit. Fearful, however, lest his
patron might not be able to shield him from the censures of Rome,
Luther determined to anticipate the expected condemnation by issuing
an appeal to a future General Council (28 Nov., 1518).

In the meantime Leo X. who had learned from his representative the
result of the Augsburg interviews, issued the Bull, /Cum postquam/ (9
Nov., 1518), in which he explained authoritatively the Catholic
doctrine on Indulgences, and threatened excommunication against all
who refused to accept it. This document was deprived of much of its
effect owing to the misrepresentations of Luther and his friends, who
announced that it owed its origin to the schemes and intrigues of
their Dominican opponents at Rome and in Germany. The occasion called
for speedy and decisive action. But the impending imperial election,
in which Charles I. of Spain (1516-56) and Francis I. of France (1515-
47) were to be rival candidates, made it necessary for the Pope to
proceed cautiously, and above all, to do nothing that might antagonise
the Elector of Saxony, whose influence would be of the greatest
importance in deciding the votes of the electoral college, if, indeed,
it did not secure his own election. Had the appointment of a successor
to Maximilian I. rested with Leo X. it can hardly be doubted that, in
the hope of preserving the balance of power and of securing the
freedom of the Holy See, he would have favoured the claims of the
Elector against either or both the rival monarchs.[15]

In these circumstances it was decided to send Karl von Miltitz,[16]
who was by birth a Saxon nobleman and at that period a chamberlain at
the Papal Court, to present Frederick with the Golden Rose, and to