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The First German Movement In Its European Setting (1270-1350)
Page 16
The first German movement was, despite its deep penetration at the popular level, unable to achieve an agreement with the governing forces of the land, or to co-operate in reshaping political, social and national affairs [65]. Even the Emperor, Ludwig of Bavaria, the "Saviour", "Redeemer" and "Prince of Peace" [66] as the Italians called him, won no real support in Germany. Western spiritual Franciscans, lawyers and humanists gathered at his court. It was they who cited Otto I to justify the deposition of John XXII, they who revived the old imperial literature and who supported the Emperor's stewardship of the Church. There were potential points of contact between political affairs and the first German movement, but they were not taken up. Only in combating the Flagellant࠭ovement did the Gennan mystics play any active role in affairs. (Note of the author: The Flagellant movement, which poured out of Italy, overran Germany and Bohemia in two successive waves in 1260 and 1349. The movement was a kind of inner crusade against a decadent Church. The Flagellists wanted a geswinden kêr, a sudden and total conversion, which was to be done by directly imitating the Passion of Christ: God desired to renew himself in each penitent. This explosive movement was exterminated according to the directive of Clement VI of 20 October 1349, but in reality it had gone underground to re-emerge in the Hussites of Bohemia, the devotio moderna of the Low Countries and the raving enthusiasts of Luther's day. For the content of their ideas, see A. Hübner, Die Deutschen Geisslerlieder, Berlin-Leipzig, 1931.) Tauler and Suso defended themselves against this perversion of their ideas, but they would go no further. The way of salvation of the inward men must never be an external one. It can never save a society or reform a people. In effect, the first great German movement washed its hands of politics and society. By this abdication it handed over all possible aspirations for religious and political renewal to the princes and their Church. The fate of the Reformation and the counter-Reformation was decided in advance. The princes would have to assume the task of renewing the world. They would construct their own ecclesiastical domains, as executive agents of the Holy Spirit. There was no other way. The decision had been taken already by the first German movement, when it refused to see the task of renewal in the political and social sphere as a valid spiritual objective.
Cf. Meister Eckhart von Friedrich Heer ||| Mail: Heer, Tauler & nazism
