HUTTEN, ULRICH von. – Reformer, born at Stackelberg Castle on 21 April 1488 into a family of ancient Franconian knights, died at Hufnau on 31 August 1523. Destined by his father for an ecclesiastical career, he abandoned the Convent of Fulda in 1505; it is not known whether he had already taken his vows: certainly, his hatred of the clergy was already well developed at that time; he continued his studies at the University of Cologne and at Erfurt; he travelled in Italy (1512–13; 1513–17). In 1518, at the Diet of Augsburg, he raised his cry against Rome and against the princes of Germany, who stifled the freedom of that knightly class to which he belonged.
In 1519 he linked the destiny of his pungent polemical pen to the Lutheran attack on indulgences, and then, through his various pamphlets and dialogues, to the struggle that Protestantism was waging against the Curia and the clergy. His adherence to the Protestant revolution was not theological-dogmatic so much as political-social: although his aversion to the Roman Curia was connected with the polemics of the Italian Humanism, it nevertheless struck its roots in the conscience of a proud «knight» who wished to react against the Curia’s economic and political influence in the German world and against the collusion that certain princes had had with II. Against Romanism, H. hypostatizes the figure of Arminius as the hero of the natio germanica: the myth of Arminius that lies at the origins of the concept of German national freedom and that would be transmitted throughout German journalism up to Romanticism and racist neo-paganism. His work as a pamphleteer was highly significant in sixteenth-century Germany, even though his attempt to be the authorized intermediary between the knights and the Protestant Reformation did not achieve the practical successes he had hoped for. Moreover, apart from the anti-Roman political-national aspect, his interest in a genuine religious reform was slight: for example, he was not directly concerned with the inner problem of the soul or with a theological revision of Catholicism, but rather with more immediate issues, such as, for example, the marriage of the clergy. Most of his activity was carried out under the protection of Franz von Sickingen, his friend and military commander, his companion in ideas in the struggle against the territorial princes.
Clemen, Lipsia 1927; P. Held, U. von H., ibid. 1948; F. Walser, Die politische Entwicklung Ulrich von H. während der Entscheidungsjahre der Reformation, Monaco 1928; O. Flake, U. von H., die tragische Historie des ersten politischen Deutschen, Berlino 1929; H. Holborn, U. von H., Lipsia 1929; D. Cantimori, U. von H. e i rapporti tra Rinascimento e riforma, Pisa 1930; H. Grimm, Huttens Lehrjahre, Francoforte-Berlino 1938; M. Gravier, Luther et l'opinion publique, Parigi 1942, passim; H. Drewine, Vier Gestalten aus dem Zeitalter des Humanismus, S. Gallo 1946, pp. 215-84. Massimo Petrocchi