nts of the
Leipzig debate. Complete records of the speeches, taken by notaries,
were accordingly forwarded to Paris by Duke George of Saxony, with a
request for an opinion. After brief debate the condemnation of Luther
by the university was printed. [Sidenote: April 15, 1521]

Neither was the government long in taking a position. That it should
be hostile was a foregone conclusion. Francis hated Lutheranism
because he believed that it tended more to the overthrow of kingdoms
and monarchies than to the edification of souls. He told Aleander, the
papal nuncio, that he thought Luther a rascal and his doctrine
pernicious. [Sidenote: March, 1521]

[Sidenote: April 1523]

The king was energetically seconded by the Parlement of Paris. A royal
edict provided that no book should be printed without the imprimatur of
the university. The king next ordered the extirpation of the errors of
Martin Luther of Saxony, and, having begun by burning books, continued,
as Erasmus observed was usually the case, by burning people. The first
to suffer was John Valliere. At the same time Briconnet was summoned
to Paris, [Sidenote: 1523] sharply reprimanded for leniency to heretics
and fined two hundred livres, in {192} consequence of which he issued
two decrees against the heresy, charging it with attempting to subvert
the hierarchy and to abolish sacerdotal celibacy. [Sidenote: 1524]
When Lefevre's doctrines were condemned, he submitted; those of his
disciples who failed to do so were proscribed. But the efforts of the
government became more strenuous after 1524. Francis was at this time
courting the assistance of the pope against the emperor, and moreover
he was horrified by the outbreak of the Peasants' War in Germany.
Convinced of the danger of allowing the new sect to propagate itself
any further he commanded the archbishops and bishops of his realm to
"proceed against those who hold, publish and follow the heresies,
errors and doctrines of Martin Luther." [Sidenote: 1525] Lefevre and
some of his friends fled to Strassburg. Arrests and executions against
those who were sometimes called "heretics of Meaux," and sometimes
Lutherans, followed.

The theologians did not leave the whole burden of the battle to the
government. A swarm of anti-Lutheran tracts issued from the press.
Not only the heresiarch, but Erasmus and Lefevre were attacked. Their
translations of the Bible were condemned as blasphemies against Jerome
and a