qiiae  reperiri  potuerant  omnia.    Edidit


104  THE  RENAISSANCE  IN  GERMANY  chap.
poured  itself  into  the  fresh  moulds.  There  was  an  enthusiasm  for
the  new  learning  to  which  the  advocates  of  the  old  could  show
nothing  similar.  Almost  everywhere  the  battle  raged  more  or  less
fiercely.  Many  of  the  older  humanists  were  devout  sons  of  the
Church  and  never  ceased  to  be  her  defenders ;  what  suspicion
of  heresy  they  fell  into  was  unwittingly  incurred.  Others
went  on  their  way,  careless  of  ecclesiastical  approval  or  censure,
and  when  struck  were  prompt  to  strike  again.  Every  uni-
versity had  its  humanists,  by  friends  and  enemies  alike  called
"  poets,"  who,  believing  in  literary  culture,  mocked  at  both  the
via  Thomae  and  the  via  Scoti,  and  strove  to  substitute  the
classics  for  the  schoolmen.  They  were  denounced  as  teachers
who  desired  to  corrupt  the  purity  of  youth  by  the  study  of
obscene  pagan  poets  ;  as  heretics  who  denied  the  aU-sufficient
authority  of  the  Church ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  retorted  upon
their  monkish  adversaries  with  the  charge  of  purblind  obscur-
antism, of  ludicrous  ignorance  of  even  their  own  books,  of  bad
logic  and  worse  Latin.  Gradually  the  two  parties  of  the  old  and
the  new  learning  separated  themselves,  and  took  up  hostile  posi-  •
tions  :  it  was  well  known  to  which  of  the  two  any  distinguished
churchman  or  scholar  belonged,  and  it  seemed  as  if  each  were
only  waiting  for  the  signal  to  engage  in  pitched  battle.  There
was  a  preliminary  skirmish  in  1505  and  the  succeeding  years.
