the Netherlands; for example, the ones in Muenchen, Nuernberg, Erfurt, Gotha, Magdeburg, Dresden, Wittenberg, Nordhausen, Muehlhausen in Alsace, Bonn, Coeln, Haarlem, Dordrecht. This "German Congregation" at the time of Proles' death, in 1503, constituted a real power. Proles' successor as General-Vicar was the well-known Staupitz, who was elected at the meeting in Eschwege on the seventeenth of May, 1503, according to the wish of Proles. Thus through his entrance into the monastery at Erfurt Luther became one of the "Observantes," a member of the "German Congregation," and the noble-minded Staupitz came to be his first superior in Germany.
Since Denifle had cast so many aspersions on Luther's monastery life, it became necessary to study this period of the life of the Reformer more thoroughly. Outside of the brief answers made to Denifle by Kolde, Seeberg, Haussleiter, Brieger, Koehler, Harnack and Walther,36 we have here especially to consider Benrath, and even more so Braun.37 Because Denifle contends that since 1515, certainly since 1519, "the vow of chastity had proven itself irksome to Luther," and that the real motive for his defection from Rome is to be found in his weakness for carnal sins, Benrath takes into consideration the entire period from his entrance into the monastery up to his marriage. He discloses beyond contradiction the manipulations and distortions of facts exercised by Denifle, and permits us to see for ourselves how Luther during his monastery period outgrew the Mediaeval Church, and how the fundamentals were first laid in his own life. He shows that the position which Luther finally won over against the Roman Church can only be understood as the slowly matured result of religious de-
