Hutten, Ulrich von 1488-1523
German humanist

Born in the castle of Steckelberg, he was sent to the Benedictine monastery of Fulda in 1499, but left it in 1504. He studied at various universities, and then moved to Italy (1512). Returning to Germany (1517), he was made Poet Laureate by Emperor Maximilian I, entered the service of Albert, Archbishop of Mainz, and shared in the famous satires against the ignorance of the monks, the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum ('Letters of Obscure Men'). Eager to see Germany free from foreign and priestly domination, he took part in the campaign of the Swabian League against Ulrich of W�rttemberg (1519). His support of Martin Luther and a set of dialogues (1520) containing a formal manifesto against Rome caused the pope to have him dismissed from the archbishop's service. He was given shelter by Franz von Sickingen in his castle of Ebernburg, where he engaged in virulent polemics against the papal party to rouse the German emperor, nobles and people. His earliest work in German, Aufwecker der teutschen Nation (1520), is a satiric poem. Driven to flee to Basle in 1522, and rejected by Erasmus, he finally found a resting place through Huldreich Zwingli's assistance on the island of Ufnau in Lake Zurich. Hutten was the uncle of the explorer Philip von Hutten (c.1511-1546).