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Excerpt from Epistole Obscurorum Virorum: The Latin d104 With an English Rendering, Notes, and an Historical Introduction <p>The contemporary inuence of the Satire itself in sapping the foundations of an already crumbling schol asticism, and laying bare ecclesiastical abuses, will be touched upon in the Introduction but for the student of modern history to-day, its value lies in the fact that it teems with references to the protagonists in the great controversy which raged round Reuchlin during the early years of the Sixteenth century, dividing Western Europe in two hostile camps, and that it is pregnant with presage of the mighty change soon to sweep over Teutonic Christendom. The Side-lights, moreover, that it throws upon the social life of the period - its manners and its morals - are of no small interest. The reader feels that the corner of a curtain has been lifted, and that he is permitted actually to peep at a phase of the life of four centuries ago which if we had had to rely solely upon prim and formal history might have been lost to us for ever, but that history must take into account if it is to render intelligible the remarkable phenomena that attended the dawn of the Renaissance north of the Alps. <p>It is, however, in their literary aspect that the Epis tolae must claim their place among the immortals. <p>About the Publisher <p>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com <p>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.