February 1, 1530.
1. to the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg.
To the Most Serene, Highborn Prince and Lord, Lord Joachim, Margrave of Brandenburg, Elector etc., Duke of Stettin, Pomerania etc., my gracious Lord.
1. grace and peace in Christ. Most Serene, Highborn Prince, Most Gracious Lord. I have just sent E. C. F. G. many times with secret, lately also with open writing, humbly and diligently asked for the poor journeyman Wolf Hornung, that E. C. F. G. would graciously move his poverty and misery, his youth and danger, and help as a sovereign, who owes it to God and the world, that his wife and child, house and goods would be restored to him etc., which are withheld from him with all injustice and inequity: to which no answer has been given to me, though I have
long enough. Therefore, my conscience compels me once again to serve the poor journeyman with whatever I can, and I come once again with this public writing, begging, pleading and admonishing once again for God's sake and for the sake of all that is right, that E. C. F. G. should help the good journeyman to regain his wife, child and his own. For it has now granted long enough. He can and should no longer go on like this in misery and danger, and I also intend to divorce him shortly, when it will not be otherwise, and publicly absolve him from his wife. E. C. F. G. will then also have to be guilty before God and the world, because they do not want to help him to attain his own.
2. I have heard how Catherine, his wife, has a contract or prescription, in which Hornung, for the sake that he has her
had stabbed her a little with a blunt knife out of marital zeal - not without cause, as E. C. F. G. well knows -, to renounce her altogether and to never again demand nor desire her to come to her, and to insist on such a contract, and that E. C. F. G. would never have done so. C. F. G. desires and obtains protection. I have seen a copy of the same contract; but what can I say about it? E. C. F. G. knows better than I can say that such a contract is sealed with a sausage, and E. C. F. G. is not a party to it. C. F. G. is obliged not to protect the said wife on such contract, but to reject her from such, and what is more, to help her husband reconcile.
Furthermore, ECFG know that Wolf Hornung does not have the power to make such a prescription, and if he had wanted to do so, ECFG should have punished him for it as a boy; for he did not take his wife from himself, but God has given her to him with public right, as is proper. Therefore he cannot and should not divorce her himself; God has forbidden him to do so, saying: "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder", Matth. 19, 6. Marc. 10, 9. This saying of Christ does not apply to Wolf Hornung's prescription, in which he divorces himself from his wife, which is not due to any pious man, and is against God. Therefore, she cannot defy it and E. C. F. G. protection, much less can E. C. F. G.
do such protection. How also the poor, innocent Hornung came to such a void prescription, is well known to E. C. F. G. and almost known in the whole German country.
Accordingly, I ask for the third and last time in this matter, that E. C. F. G., both with shooters and other things, keep differently than before and let Wolf Hornung have his own. For the robbery is too great, that she should at once rob herself, her child, house and farm, property and honor, in addition to her secure being before God. E. C. F. G. did not command God to protect such great robbery, but forbade it.
Finally, I also ask that C.F.G. graciously accept my writing as a faithful admonition, which urges me to write unavoidable hardships and things, as C.F.G. sees and hears, and will not interpret it as a blasphemous writing or a letter of shame. For I, praise God, have come beyond my seven years, and should know so much about what is or is not a blasphemy letter, that C.C.F.G. may well save me the trouble of teaching me. God grant that C.F.G. may hear this last request of mine, so that I may again pray to God for and not against C.F.G., amen.
E. C. F. G.
Martinus Luther.
2. to the bishops of Brandenburg, Havelburg and Lebus.
To the Reverend in God Fathers, Princes and Lords, N., Bishops of Brandenburg, Havelberg and Lebus, my gracious Lords in general and in particular.
1. grace, mercy and peace in Christ. Reverend, in God fathers, gracious princes and lords. E. F. G. undoubtedly know well the disgraceful aggravation, which was granted in Berlin over four years, on account of Wolf Hornung's wife, who, by pretense of a void contract, Wolf Hornung is said to have made with her and to have given her a prescription, to have forgiven her eternally.
And defies the protection of your sovereign, so that she first takes away herself from the good journeyman, and then her child, her house, her farm, her property, her honor, and in addition, she safely takes away the essence of her soul, and so the poor servant must go astray in great misery and wretchedness, in need and poverty, in danger and worry of his soul, and thus without harness.
2. because then E. F. G. know that such large heavy pieces and shameful aggravation are not to be tolerated and your sovereign should not be punished.
740 2.54,12K-I28. 6. Etliche Nothbriefe in Sachen Hornung's wider sein Eheweib. W. x, 878-880. 741
I have allowed myself to be forced by the hardship and accident of the good journeyman to request E. F. G. with writings. For since they are in the episcopal office, they know well whose command in such matters they have from God, namely that, as St. Paul says to Timothy, 1 Ep. 5, 20: "Those who sin, punish them publicly in front of everyone, so that the others may be afraid of them." And again v. 22: Watch, and "make not thyself partaker of other men's sins." How E. F. G. knows all this better than I can say it.
3 Therefore, my humble and diligent request is that E. F. G. will do so, and your one, whose jurisdiction the woman is subject to, hold her to it with censure, admonition, entreaty; if that does not help, with banishment and ecclesiastical judgment, that she do what she owes, and all three admonish and urge your sovereign that he show no protection to such a woman in such great manifold robbery and outrage, as E. F. G. has done.
for I know well and certainly recognize myself guilty of doing so. For I do not seek to doctrinally or masterly things of this kind to Your Grace, but want to give cause to prove Your episcopal office, and to help prevent that Your Grace does not have to complain with foreign sins, which will undoubtedly happen, where Your Grace has left such unrighteousness of the woman and such protection of Your sovereign unpunished and unimproved. let such bad virtue of the woman and such protection of your sovereign unpunished and unremedied, and yet these foreign sins of both persons are not small, as F. F. G. can well realize, and henceforth all this trouble and great sin will be your own, and God will not require anything else of you than that you had done it all yourselves, as He says Ezech. 3, 18. May Christ our Lord give E. F. G. in this and in all things an episcopal earnestness, courage, strength and counsel to do what is pleasing to Him, salutary to you and beneficial to the people, amen.
E. F. G.
Martinus Luther.
3. to the counts and lords of Brandenburg.
The noble, strict, honorable lords, counts, noble lords, the knighthood in the Electorate of Brandenburg.
1. grace and peace in Christ. Noble, strict, firm, gracious, dear lords. E. G. and G. know well the trouble and great annoyance which clings to the whole Electorate of Brandenburg, that in it is tolerated the sacrilege of Berlin, named Katharina Hornung, who divorced herself from her rightful husband and leads a life there, as you are aware, and in spite of a void contract and protection of your sovereign, she deprives and withholds herself from her husband, and in addition restrains his child, house and farm, property and honor, and thus drives the poor journeyman into misery, so that he must hover in great misery, hardship and poverty, and in addition in danger of his soul as a young journeyman, without interruption, now for the fourth year.
2 Although I now know that E.G. and G. cannot and should not do anything active in this regard.
because it is due to your sovereigns and bishops; but nevertheless, if they want to be tardy or negligent in this, it is only fair, and E. G. owes it, because the trouble does shame and harm to the whole country, as the loyal countrymen and members of the Electorate are faithful to the council and the presidency. G. owe it, because the trouble does shame and damage to the whole country, as the loyal countrymen and members of the Electorate and relatives to do faithful counsel and admonition. It is not unjust, but praiseworthy and commanded that a servant warn and admonish his lord, where the lord of his own house and estate did not notice the damage, or wanted to neglect the pious. But if he remained silent about it, he would be called an unfaithful servant and be punished for such damage.
Accordingly, my humble and diligent request is that E. G. and G. would look upon such shameful annoyance and will to anger, as well as poor Wolf Hornung's misery and hardship, with merciful eyes and appeal to your sovereigns and bishops with pleas and requests.
We urge you to admonish the woman so that she is held to do what she owes, and that your sovereign relinquishes his protection over such sacrilege and robbery of the woman; instead, according to his electoral office, he holds her to her rights and her duty. For E. G. and G. have to be considered, where they were so silent about it, that it could be counted as a consent before God and that your conscience could be burdened with foreign sins.
4. request even amicably, E. G. and G. wanted to
I hold this writing too dear; for since I acknowledge myself guilty of advising and helping the good journeyman, such duty compels me to seek all manner of ways and means, so that I may be excused, the easier I may have conscience that I have not spared my diligence on him. May God the Father give you all wisdom and sense to accomplish His good will, amen.
E. G. and G.
Martinus Luther.
4. to Katharina Hornung.
The Honorable Mrs. Katharina Hornungin of Cologne on the Spree.
Grace and peace in Christ! Honorable, dear wife, what I am writing to you now, you should certainly believe that I am doing it out of the request and desire of your husband, Wolf Hornung. Your conscience can well tell you how you cannot be sure of the evil and void contract that Wolf Hornung, as he says, forced and wrung out of you. Nor can you seek or use your sovereign's protection for it, because it is clearly against God's word where married people want to divorce themselves. That is why the master was not at home, who made such a contract for you and did not consider such a small part in it, nevertheless wanted to pull his head out of the noose and blame the whole thing on Hornung, but does not see that he fell in with his butt.
(2) Knowing then that you commit such great cruel iniquity and outrage against your husband, that you commit so much robbery, that you deprive him of yourself, his child, his house and farm, his goods and honor, and have driven him into misery, that he is a poor beggar in great poverty and distress, and that you have made him a young man.
The fact that a man must be in danger of his soul every day for more than four years; which sins will all at once fall on your head and neck and press you; moreover, you have now often demanded, requested, pleaded and begged, yet have not come: so necessity henceforth compels you to approach the matter differently. And then let it be known to you that I intend to absolve Wolf Hornung from you as a public adulteress, if you do not send yourself otherwise, so that he may also start a different life, stay with it and not have to build eternal misery in this way.
Accordingly, I will determine a time for you, whether you would be willing to do something about it, namely, the next Mid-Lent, the Sunday of Lent; what you want to do, you may do. After Lätare you shall, God willing, certainly read another little letter. Whether the poor wolf Hornung must suffer such robbery? Well then, God still has more than he ever gave away; He will certainly provide him with another wife, child, house and farm, property and honor. Know and be judged by this. May God help you out of your sins and set you right, Amen. Given at Wittenberg on the first of the Horn of 1530.