HUTTEN, ULRICH von. — Reformer, born at the castle of Steckelberg on 21 April 1488 into a family of ancient Franconian knights, died at Utenheim on 31 August 1523. Destined by his father for an ecclesiastical career, in 1505 he left the monastery of Fulda; it is unknown whether he had already taken vows, but his hatred of the clergy was already well developed at that time. He continued his studies at the universities of Cologne and Erfurt and traveled 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, whom he accused of stifling the freedom of the knightly class to which he belonged.
In 1519 he aligned the cutting edge of his polemical pen with Luther’s attack on indulgences, and thereafter, through his various pamphlets and dialogues, with the struggle that Protestantism waged against the Curia and the clergy. His adherence to the Protestant cause was not theological or dogmatic but rather political and social in nature. While his opposition to the Roman Curia was linked to the polemics of Italian Humanism, it also sprang from the proud consciousness of a “knight” who sought to resist the economic and political influence of the Curia in the German world and the complicity of certain princes with II. Against Romanism, H. hypostasized the figure of Arminius as the hero of the German nation: the Arminius myth, which lies at the origin of the concept of German national freedom, would be transmitted through all German literature down to Romanticism and racist neo-paganism.
His work as a pamphleteer was highly significant in sixteenth-century Germany, even if his attempt to serve as the authorized intermediary between the knights and the Protestant Reformation did not achieve the practical success he hoped for. Moreover, apart from the anti-Roman political-national aspect, his interest in a genuine religious reform was superficial. For example, he was not directly concerned with the inner problem of the soul or a theological revision of Catholicism, but rather with more mundane issues, such as the marriage of the clergy. The bulk of his activity was carried out under the protection of Franz von Sickingen, the condottiere and friend who shared his ideas in the struggle against the territorial princes.