LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

FRANCISCO: POLEMICAL WORKS AGAINST ISLAM, 1529-43 43
full view of their children; they yoke youths to the plough as if they were
oxen and they destroy the cultivated land. 9
It was clear to the Catholic mind that a crusade was more than justified.
Hence, by the closing session of the council Pope Leo X and the Church had
resolved to do everything within their power to launch a holy war against the
Turks. 10
Coincidentally, in 1518 an anonymous booklet was published entitled A
Project for a Campaign against the Turks, which optimistically predicted
that the re-conquest of Constantinople and the Holy Land as well as the
conversion of the Muslim world would only take one year. The author,
probably a Franciscan, wrote, “I hope to God Almighty that we will, in a
short year, have the Holy Grave and the Turkish dog under us Christians so
that we can bring them back to the Christian faith.” 11 He even offered, in
painstaking detail, suggestions for amassing troops and funds from the
various religious orders such that a total of 19 468 092 gulden and 140 000
men could be gathered for the task. However, in spite of its suggestions and
several other attempts to rally support, the call for a crusade fell largely upon
deaf ears. 12
An alternative to crusades, but a military response nonetheless, was
suggested by several of Europe’s political leaders, many who were
influenced by Lutheranism. A crusade, according to the weighty opinion of
Luther, was utterly blasphemous and misguided. The duty of fighting wars
fell to the emperor as governor of the secular realm (and not as head of
Christendom or defender of the Gospel). Further, this was limited to
defensive action and campaigns to liberate illegally occupied and oppressed
lands. 13 In his preface to a historical study of the Ottomans, Luther’s
colleague Philip Melanchthon wrote, “Secular kings and princes are
responsible with all their power to drive out all wickedness.” 14 War against
the Turks on the basis of their false religion was completely unjustified,
9 Max Kortepeter, “The Turkish Question in the Era of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512-
1517)”, in Essays on Islamic Civilization, ed. Little (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), 162-63.
10 Kenneth Setton, “Pope Leo X and the Turkish Peril”, Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 113.6 (1969): 402-3; Norman Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274-1580
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 125-26; Kortepeter, “The Turkish Question”, 170-
71.
11
Das ist ein anschlag eyns zugs wider die Türckenn Unnd alle die wyder den
christenlichen Glawbenn seyndt (Nürnberg: Gutknecht, 1518), b2r.
12 Attesting to its popularity, the Anschlag eyns zugs wider die Türckenn underwent several
republications from 1518 to 1542. Setton notes that it was printed in as early as 1474 (“Leo
X,” 414n180). Cf. Bohnstedt, “The Infidel Scourge”, 9.
13 See, for example, the suggestions of the Lutheran knight Hartmut Cronberg in his Eyn
sendbrieff an Bapst Adrianum (Wittenberg, 1523).
14 Philip Melanchthon, Ursprung des Turkishcen Reichs bis auff den itzigen Solyman
(Augsburg: Steiner, 1538), b4r-b4v.