In form it is a series of epistles from monks and hedge-priests to Ortuin Gratius.

[Sidenote: _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_] Writing in the most barbarous Latin, they express their admiration for his attack on Reuchlin and the cause of learning, gossip about their drinking-bouts and pot-house amours, expose their ignorance and gullibility, and ask absurd questions, as, whether it is a mortal sin to salute a Jew, and whether the worms eaten with beans and cheese should be considered meat or fish, lawful or not in Lent, and at what stage of development a chick in the egg becomes meat and therefore prohibited on Fridays.

The satire, coarse as it was biting, failed to win the applause of the finer spirits, but raised a shout of laughter from the students, and was no insignificant factor in adding to contempt for the church.

The first book of these _Letters_, published in 1515, was followed two years later by a second, even more caustic than the first.

This supplement, also published without the writer's name, was from the pen of Ulrich von Hutten.
[Sidenote: Hutten, 1488-1523] This brilliant and passionate writer devoted the greater part of his life to war with Rome.