At this time Reuchlin published a volume called "_Epistolae Clarorum Virorum_" ("letters of illustrious men"). It was made up of letters written by the various learned men of Europe to Reuchlin, in sympathy with him in his struggle. The title of this work gave the keynote to a series of letters called "_Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_" ("letters of obscure men")--that is, of Obscurantists. These letters, written by different persons, but largely by Hutten, are the most remarkable of all satires of that time. They are a series of imaginary epistles, supposed to be addressed by various Obscurantists to a poet named Ortuinus. They are written with consummate skill, in the degenerate Latin used by the priests in those days, and they are made to exhibit all the secret meanness, ignorance, and perversity of their supposed writers. The first of these epistles of the "obscure men" were eagerly read: by their supposed associates, the Obscurantists. Here were men who felt as they felt, and who were not afraid to speak. The mendicant friars in England had a day of rejoicing, and a Dominican friar in Flanders bought all the copies of the letters he could find to present to his bishop. But in time even the dullest began to feel the severity of the satire. The last of these letters formed the most telling blows ever dealt at the schoolmen by the men of learning. In one of the earlier letters we find this question, which may serve as a type of many others: A man ate an egg in which a chicken was just beginning to form, ignorant of that fact, and forgetting that it was Friday. A friend consoles him by saying that a chicken in that stage counts for no more than worms in cheese or in cherries, and these can be eaten even in fasting-time. But the writer is not satisfied. Worms, he had been told by a physician, who was also a great naturalist, are reckoned as fishes, which one can eat on fast-days. But with all this, he fears that a young chicken may be really forbidden food, and he asks the help of the poet Ortuinus to a righteous decision.