According to Schwegler, the puteal originally indicated that the place had been struck by lightning, and the story is a reminiscence of the early struggle between the state and ecclesiasticism.
This ecclesiasticism violates every principle of morality, and hardens the conscience that has to do with it.
It was the age when the papacy was growing out of the ruins of the old Roman Empire, and the best talents were devoted to the organization of ecclesiasticism rather than to the preaching of the Word.
Instead of the simplicity of Luther's earlier writings, a dogmatic theology was formed, and a Protestant ecclesiasticism established, indistinguishable from the Roman Church in principle.
He was in the fullness of his powers, his studies had fed his natural aversion to the principles of authority and ecclesiasticism, and at a moment when the revived activity of the Jesuits caused some real and more pretended alarm he was appointed to the chair of history at the College de France.