Of the former Imperial Diet at Nuremberg, which began in the fall of 1522 and continued until March 6, 1523.
From the imperial tender of this Reichstag.
711 Emperor Carl V's invitation to the Imperial Diet in Nuremberg, addressed to Michael Freiherr von Wolkenstein. Nuremberg, February 12, 1522.
From Lünig's first part of the "xieil. " seul., x. 1545.
Charles by the Grace of God elected Rome. Emperor at all times Merer of the Empire in Germania to Hispania, baider Sicilien, of Jerusalem etc. King Ertzhertzog zu Oesterreich.
Noble dear faithful, after we have reported, how then the undoubted truth and history also indicates, that the villainous and frightening enemy of Christianity, the tyrant, recently entered the Christian kingdom of Hungary with great earnestness and great march, there, according to his brutal way and use, he shed a lot of Christian blood, also committed other inhuman cruelty, destroyed several castles and fortresses in no small number and thus almost the strongest pass in the world.
The king has conquered Hungaria with many villages, hamlets and territories in a costly and serious manner, and has in part destroyed and destroyed them, and has also occupied some of them for his own benefit, and has provided them 1) with guns and other equipment, which is also to remain unconquered, but (as if he had the power of the army) to be in power and to be in control, to go back to Hungary in the near future, to gain the remaining part there, and to fight against the attacking Christians as well as against the Lower Austrian Bavarians and other lands, and to make the Christians' care even more burdensome, He has betrayed his sister to the great Tartar, for which reason it can be safely assumed that he will move on Poland and also corruptly damage the Christian kingdom there, and as such an insatiable tyrant will unscrupulously seek the Christian blood everywhere, so that, if he were allowed to do so, and if he were not given timely advice, necessary serious help, counter-attack and salvation, that he might quickly take his tyrannical power and gain the greater part of the Christianity, destroy it and finally exterminate the same Christians, he would not be able to do so.
1) "gespisiet" - verpallisadirt.
and to the most demanding of the German nation to small and irreparable trouble and disadvantage, and because the frightening intercession and the great importance of the matter demand from many well-timed deliberation, together with strong help, serious and wise education, most earnestly, which then, without a proper imperial assembly, the emergency meeting cannot be held, decided upon, or carried out in a proper or fruitful manner, so for this reason, and therefore because of the unavoidable emergency, we, together with our governors, princes, sovereigns, and councillors, of our Imperial Regiment in the Holy Roman Empire, have convened an Imperial Diet on the Sunday of Oculi [March 23] in the Basilica of the Holy Roman Empire. March] in the Basten negstkhombenden in our and the holy. We herewith bind you and sincerely request you, by the duties with which you are bound to Us and the Empire, to personally submit to such Imperial Day and to appear there at Nuremberg at the earliest possible time, together with and in addition to the above-mentioned regiment and other sentries of the Empire, which we have described in the same white on the aforementioned day, In the above-mentioned matters, for the meeting, dismissal and prevention of the Tyrckian complaints, and in other matters concerning the realm, you will advise, act, decide and execute, and you will not fail to do so, nor will you refuse or delay on the part of others, and you will do so entirely in accordance with the above-mentioned order, even as a Christian citizen and according to the realm's wishes, Our sincere opinion, for if you remain outside of it, thus giving cause for the obstruction of the serious and high duty, then we want to excuse ourselves from the Almighty and hereby only bezaigt and the other obedient, that such by us or our Vleiß not confessed, especially you, what such the disobedience and remaining outside of menige suspicion and otherwise may bring with it, have hereby graciously warned and reprimanded you, and in view of the fact that the present intention and the planning of the attack have been reported and then the action, rescue and counteraction, which otherwise, according to the occasion and against the attack, must be taken, ordered and carried out properly, effectively and finally, between now and the beginning of the month of May, must be taken, ordered and carried out negatively.
1) Köstlin, "Martin Luther" (3), Vol. I, p. 624, gives "March 26" as the day on which this Reichstag was announced.
2) "sover" - provided.
have not been allowed to continue or extend the above-mentioned day any further or longer. Given in our and the imperial city of Nuremberg on the twelfth day of February after the birth of Christ, five hundred and fifteen, and in the twelfth and twentieth year, of our Roman Empire in the third year, and of all the others in the sixth year.
Inscriptio.
To the noble our and the empire's dear faithful, Wilhelm, Freyherrn zu Wolckenstein.
B. What the Emperor has sent to the Imperial Estates and to the Pope himself in response to their request for the Annals.
712 Emperor Carl V's answer to the concerns of Count Palatine Frederick, Imperial Majesty's governor, and the imperial estates assembled at the Imperial Diet in Nuremberg, concerning the Annals. 1522.
This letter is found in the Wittenberg edition (1569), vol. IX, p. 158; in the Jena edition (1585), vol. II, p. 1585; in the Altenburg edition, vol. II, p. 222 and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XVIII, p. 320. In the Jena edition it is under the year 1522.
1. that you, and others, the secular princes, princes and estates, who were assembled at the aforementioned Imperial Diet held at Nuremberg, have considered that the annals, which the archbishops, bishops and prelates of papal holiness gave to Rome, were initially permitted and approved to be given to Rome for good honorable reasons, and especially to resist the Turk etc., and because the Turk of this time is breaking out in many places and causing great damage to Christendom, there are good reasons to keep the annals in Germany and to use them for the maintenance of peace and justice in the Holy Empire.
2) Likewise, the pensions which now fall from German lands to Rome, and also that of all high and low monasteries the tenth penny of all their income, for four years, but still at the least a benefice, the next one, which is settled by the death of a person, of each monastery, is sufficient and used for such maintenance. And further, that all monasteries, such parish priests, chaplains, and other common priests, who are not in monasteries, would be assessed a considerable sum. And also that each of the mendicant monasteries shall give five guilders annually. As
For all this is understood in your and the other imperial states' instructions and articles, more broadly and more clearly.
3. we add to your love, and to you others, to hear graciously that such articles would not be almost repugnant to us, in so far as they may be obtained and raised by papal sanctity. We therefore write to our holy father, the pope, requesting his holiness to grant such annotations and other articles, so that peace and justice may be maintained in the holy realm and the Turks may be resisted all the more valiantly. As you will hear all this from our letter, which we are sending you together with copies of it.
We also write our message to papal holiness, 1) so that it may also promote such matter and action, and E. L. and you others may then hand over such letter to papal holiness and our message, and let the matter be pursued as you will see fit. L. and you others may thereupon hand over such letter to Papal Holiness and our message, and, as it will seem good to you, have the matter pursued further.
713 Emperor Carl V's letter to Pope Hadrian VI, dated October 31, 1522, at Valladolid, in which he informs the pope of the request made by the imperial estates and asks him to take it into consideration, adding that a tax was needed to subdue the Lutherans with the sword.
This letter is found in the Wittenberg edition (1569), vol. IX, p. I58d; in the Jena edition (1585), vol. II, p. 159; in the Altenburg edition, vol. II, p. 222; and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XVIII, p. 320.
Carl von GOttes Gnaden, elected Roman Emperor.
Most holy Father, most venerable Lord! Although your Holiness' kindness to us and fatherly love are so great, and our reverence and esteem for your Holiness so marked that they could not be greater, yet all the peoples who are subject to our authority before respect the same 2) your Holiness' kindness even greater, even so great that they consider it that we may ask nothing in vain from Your Holiness, so that Your Holiness will gladly grant us everything we ask for. Which also
1) This seems to us to indicate that this writing will have to be set at the same time as the following number.
2) Jenaer: dieselben; Wittenberger: dieselb.
makes us ask for things freely and confidentially from H.H., which we otherwise would not be allowed to ask for without shame, before, because they are such things, which are conceived for the sake of common salvation and peace, and are asked by us.
2. Because in recent months in our imperial city of Nuremberg all the estates of the Holy Roman Empire came together for the protection and salvation of the Empire in Hungary, and the princes, other princes and secular estates noted, among other things, that the German lands had become so poor and incapable that they were not only able to act honestly against the Turks, but also that there was not so much wealth and property of the Holy Roman Empire, not only to act and execute something honest against the most ferocious enemies of the Christian faith, the Turks, but also that they do not have so much wealth and property of the Holy Roman Empire that they would be able to protect and maintain justice and peace, and also to punish the evil deeds and unpleasant injustices of the evil-doers, if they were not also endowed by H. H. with clemency, paternalism, and the power of the Holy Roman Empire. H.'s clemency, paternal favor and help.
3 And among other things, report how their new bishops have been in the habit of giving annuities from the beginning, and especially for this reason, that with such money the enemies of the Christian faith should be driven out. Since the Turks had already conquered a large part of Hungary and were now seeking German lands, it would be fair that such annuities be kept in German lands and be used for such purposes.
(4) Further, because there is nothing more holy among men, nor more pleasing to God, than the honor of justice and equity, therefore they would have considered it neither displeasing to God, nor ungodly in some ways, that the things which are consecrated and sanctified for the honor of the divine majesty alone, to preserve peace and justice, should be so applied.
5 Following they desired, were also of the hope, it should be obtained by our intercession of your holiness:
6. first, that all pension and interest, which are given from the German fiefs and benefices of your Holiness Court and the Romanists, be kept henceforth in German lands.
Item 7: That all high and low monastery churches should annually tithe their income, or at least the income of the 3) next settled prebend, as forfeited and continuously unpaid, should be added.
3) So the Jenaer. Wittenbergers: "des".
Because German lands are also full of very rich monasteries, a tax should also be imposed on them. Likewise, that the other priestly estates, each according to his wealth, give something to it. Item, that each mendicant monastery shall annually contribute five guilders.
(9) And that all such income should be used to resist the Turks, and to confirm and dedicate justice and peace in German lands and in the Holy Roman Empire, and to nothing else. And that your Holiness will grant and graciously permit all this for four years.
10. When we diligently note that the Turks, the eternal enemies of the Christian community, have won the most solid oers, and almost the keys of the Hungarians, and are now most eager for German lands alone; Also that the income of the holy empire and customs, due to the indulgence and leniency of our ancestors to make the clergy rich, are so much diminished and torn, that not only is it impossible to resist the Turks, but also law and peace cannot be maintained for a longer time, if they are not helped with these and other tributes, which they want to impose on themselves, by your holiness's leniency and most gracious disposition.
They also indicate to us that the harmful Lutheran sect, which we have not refrained from dampening and eradicating, has taken hold of the minds of so many Germans as a deadly poison, so that we fear that the Christian community will also be burned there, if justice is not strengthened and fortified by this tax, so that one day the followers of this poisoned doctrine may be punished with the sword.
(12) To which cause we know many Germans to be inclined and willing, and before those who are the noblest, to maintain the peace and power of the common Roman church.
For this reason, we ask your Holiness most earnestly that she, with her divine mind and most gracious eyes, so that she may be respected for having enlightened Christendom, may graciously look upon all this; and set before her eyes the hostile paniers and almost insurmountable armies of the Turks, as well as the fire of the Lutheran doctrine, which has taken over the minds of all the wicked. Likewise our absence from German lands, and that the present flames of such great evils and troubles may be quenched by nothing else than the eternal fountain of your holiness, kindness and clemency.
14) And Your Holiness deigns 1) all this to grant and abate four years to us, the Holy Roman Empire, and the German Nation, which has always been well behaved against the Roman See, so many and so great evils and troubles.
15. And if Your Holiness will give the nation, which is invincible in wars, desired assistance, as we hope to do, to tame the Turks, in the greatest empire of Christendom, and establish in the nation, which is otherwise restless, 2) honor of justice and peace, it will make innumerable, and the most illustrious princes accidental and favorable to it, also to the other Germans, who now, seduced by the Lutheran heresy, who, seduced by the Lutheran heresy, have been thought to be somewhat opposed to the Roman See, will be lured and moved by this most mild and paternal benefit of Your Holiness, who will offer and promise all that they can do with diligence, work and reverence, all that they can do with faithfulness and understanding, all that they can do with wealth and power, and all that they can do to protect your blessedness and the dignity and power of the Holy Papal See.
(16) How your Holiness will hear all this from our deputy, the noble Lord John Emmanuel, Duke of Sesse, for a long time. And we desire that your holiness be healthy, and blessedly preside over the holy Roman and the whole common Christian church for a long time. Given in our city of Vallis Oleti [Valladolid], on the last day of October, Anno Domini 1522, of the Roman Empire in the fourth etc.
Carl, by favor of divine goodness, elected Roman Emperor, always the ruler of the Empire.
714 Emperor Carl V and the commonwealth of the Holy Roman Empire complain against the encroachments of the Roman Pontiff and his court. Valladolid, October 31, 1522.
From Goldast's oonstitut. iinpsrial, torn. I, p. 442. This number is nothing other than another translation of what is given in No. 713. The title given there corresponds better to the content than the one given here.
Translated from Latin by M. A. Tittel,
1) "geruhe" put by us according to the following relation instead of "gern" in the editions, which is probably read from "gerue".
2) Here, in order to make sense, we thought we had to change the text according to the following relation. The old editions offer: "and otherwise the restless honor" etc.
Carl V, Roman Emperor (all time Mehrer etc. offers) Hadrian VI, Roman Pontiff (his greeting).
Most Holy Father, Most Reverend Lord! Although your Holiness' benevolence and fatherly love towards us, as well as our veneration and respect for him, is so great that it cannot be greater, all of us, and especially our subjects and peoples, consider it to be even greater, in such a way that they firmly believe that we can ask nothing of H.H. in vain, but that his Holiness would gladly be at our beck and call in all matters. Therefore, what we would otherwise ask only timidly and doubtfully, we ask everything from H.H. quite freely and confidently, especially if it is something that is for the common good, and thus seems to be desirable from us.
2. Since all the estates of the Holy Roman Empire met last month in our imperial city of Nuremberg for the protection and defense of the Kingdom of Hungary, and the princes, princes and other secular estates found, among other things, that Germany had fallen into such poverty and destitution, that they not only do nothing right against the arch-enemies of Christendom, but also can hardly muster so much in the Holy Roman Empire to administer and protect law and peace, and to keep ungodly, sacrilegious people's knavery and insolent damage in check, if they are not granted clemency and paternal favor by Your Holiness.
It was also thought that the annuities, which the new bishops are accustomed to pay to the Roman pope, were granted primarily so that the enemies of Christianity would be kept away by such money; but now the Turks have taken a good part of Lower Hungary, and are also snatching at Germany, and it is therefore reasonable that such annuities be retained in Germany and used for such purposes there.
Furthermore, nothing was more holy and pleasing to God than the practice of justice and equity, for which reason they were of the opinion that it could not be contrary to God, nor be called ungodly 1) if that which had been dedicated and sanctified for the honor of divine majesty, to preserve justice and equity, also common peace, was partly applied; therefore they also demanded and hoped to obtain through our intercession with your holiness, first of all, that the pleasures (interest,
1) Here Goldast offers impsrium instead of lmpium.
Pensiones), which are paid to Your Holiness and the Roman Court by the ecclesiastical priesthoods in Germany, would henceforth be retained in Germany. Likewise, that every higher or lower monastery church be taxed annually the tithe of its income, or else the income of the first prebend to become vacant in the future, as a dead and always vacant position, be retained, and the richest monasteries, of which Germany is full, likewise be taxed according to each one's fortune; and also that each monastery of mendicants should pay five florins interest annually; and that such income should be used entirely to ward off the invasion of the Turks and to maintain law and peace in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, but that it should not be used for anything else. Holiness to allow and graciously grant the above-mentioned things for four years.
5. As well as considering that the constant enemies of Christendom, the Turks, have conquered the most distinguished fortresses and ramparts in Hungary and are now striving almost alone for Germany; and that the revenues and customs of the Holy Roman Empire, through the forbearance and tolerance of our forefathers, the leniency and benevolence of our forefathers, and the enrichment of the ecclesiastical class, have been so degraded and torn apart that neither the Turks can be resisted, nor can common peace and justice continue to be maintained in Germany, if by such and other taxes, which the estates of the Empire will moreover willingly impose upon themselves, the leniency and benevolence of your Holiness does not give them a hand.
6. it also comes to our minds that the godless sect of the Lutherans, which we have taken all pains to eliminate, has crept into so many German minds as a harmful poison, and has taken such hold that we also fear a devouring fire in Christendom from it, if the right were not strengthened and supported by reported taxes in such a way that one could finally take sharp action against the followers of such a poisonous sect. To which we see many German minds, and especially those who are of the noblest and most honest class, quite inclined and eager.
(7) So we implore Your Holiness most earnestly that, according to your divine mind and blessed eyes, so that they may shine upon Christendom, they may consider all this most graciously, the Turks' flying flags and almost insurmountable armies, plus the fire of Luther's harmful teaching, which has taken over the hearts of most of the wicked, as well as our absence from Germany; likewise.
2108 L.v. a.vi,4S9f. Sect. I. Vom Reichst, zu Nürnb. 1522. no. 714 f. W. XV, 25^5-2517. 2109
that such flames of evil can be extinguished by no other than your Holiness' inexhaustible source of kindness and clemency, and that the above-mentioned request be graciously granted and allowed to us, as well as to the Holy Roman Empire and the German nation, which has otherwise always been well deserving of the Holy Apostolic See, for the prevention or control of such great evils, for four years.
8. If your Holiness will be pleased to grant this, it will give the otherwise brave people the desired assistance in restraining the Turkish wrath and cruelty, and help to establish justice and righteousness, along with common peace, among the most prominent people of Christendom and the otherwise turbulent empire, and unite with a single act of benevolence a group of illustrious princes, as well as the other Germans, who, through the Lutheran sect, seem to have turned away somewhat from this Holy See and to be disinclined toward it, a fine opportunity, if they are enticed by this most mild and paternal benefaction of Your Holiness, to henceforth offer and promise all honor, love and esteem, also loyalty and zeal, yes, everything they can devise and accomplish, for the honor and prestige of Your Holiness and of the Holy Apostolic See. As all this Your Holiness will hear from our envoy, and Mr. John Emmanuel, Duke of Sesee (Sesse), with more. With which we entrust Your Holiness to the divine care, and wish her to preside happily for a long time over the holy Roman and universal Church. Given in our city of Valladolid, Oct. 31, 1522, of our kingdom, the Roman in the fourth etc.
Carl von GOttes Gnaden gewählter Röm. Kaiser, allzeit Mehrer etc.
6) How the pope tried to make the Chursachsen fearful by sending them hard brevia, which, however, the Elector did not turn at all, but rather showed his displeasure about it.
715 Pope Hadrian VI's letter to Elector Frederick of Saxony, concerning the religious matter at the Diet of Nuremberg, dated Oct. 5, 1522, in which he admonishes him to defend at the present Diet of Nuremberg the dignity and majesty of the Apostolic See and the
The aim was to help protect and manage the tranquil state of all Christianity, as his ancestors did, to abandon Luther and his followers, and to return to the Roman Church.
This writing is found in Latin in the Wittenberg edition (1551), tom. II, toi. 351b; in the Jena (1566), tova. II, toi. 536 b; and in the Erlangen, opp. vur. ur^., tom. VI, x. 459; German in the Wittenberg edition (1569), vol.IX, p. 157b; in the Jenaer (1585), vol.II, p. 158; in the Altenburger, vol. II, p. 370 and in the Leipziger, vol. XVIII, p. 369.
Adrianus, Pope VI.
Beloved Son, Hail and Apostolic Blessing. Having recently heard of the great and glorious gathering of the princes of the German nation to be held shortly in Nuremberg, we are greatly pleased, but even more so since we have heard that you, noble Lord, will also be coming there. For since so many Christian princes, but especially you, will be gathered there in the Lord, it is to be hoped that there will be acted upon for the common benefit, salvation and welfare of the Christian faith, or, above all, by what means and ways so much evil that has arisen in Christendom may be met and helped.
Therefore, so that we do not omit anything that is due to our pastoral office, to request and remember at such a meeting, we have decided, with the advice of the venerable of our brothers, the holy Roman Church Cardinals, to deliver our apostolicum Nuncium and Legate to the said place, which shall henceforth remain with the said noble nation (which has always been dear to us).
However, because our nuncio is preparing for the journey and getting ready, we have sent our dear son and chamberlain, Hieronymum Rorarium, who is always with us, beforehand and ordered him to hand over our Scriptures to the present, but especially, that he should dispose of you, noble lord (whom we, even when we were still in a lesser state, always loved before others, and also want to love paternally), and indicate to you our inclined will and fatherly heart for common welfare. You will hear further reports about this from our legate, which will follow soon after.
Therefore, we fatherly admonish, and earnestly desire, noble Lord, that you, in accordance with your office and profession (since you are Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, and Advocate and Member of the Roman Church), show and strive with the highest diligence, and uphold the dignity, dignity, and majesty of the apostolic office.
I hope that you will help to protect and preserve the holy and peaceful state of the whole of Christendom and of the holy faith, as your forefathers (whose praise and good report you have increased and not diminished in other matters) have done, and are fully hopeful and confident that you will follow them in this.
Jerome will give further account of this and other things, in all of which we ask that you give him complete faith. Date at Rome, at St. Peter's, under the Fisherman's Ring, the 5th of October, Anno Domini 1522, of our Papacy in the first year. 1)
716 Pope Hadrian VI's extremely punitive breve to Elector Frederick of Saxony, in which, among other things, he falsely accuses the Elector that his princely house owes the Church to Pope Gregory V. and is now paying the apostolic see with such ingratitude. and is now paying the apostolic see with such ingratitude; in doing so, he violently attacks Luther and uses the most bitter words to denigrate him and the Elector, but finally admonishes the Elector to repent and return if he does not want to receive both swords, the papal and the imperial, at the same time. 1523.
This document is found in Latin in the Jena edition (1566), toni. II, fol. 541 and in the Erlanger, opp. var. arZ., tom. VI, p. 478. German in the Wittenberg (1569), vol. IX, p. 180; in the Jena (1585), vol. II, p. 261; in the Altenburg, vol. II, p. 221 and in the Leipzig, vol. XVIII, p. 319. Both the Wittenberg and the Jena editions place it in the year 1523. On July 11, 1523, Luther sent it to Spalatin. See Appendix, No. 102.
Beloved Son, blessedness and papal pardon. We have endured enough, and more than enough, beloved in Christ, if perhaps God's goodness has deigned to 2) petition your soul, and give it repentance, to know the truth, so that you may return from the devil's snares, by which you are held captive.
2. we know that you have been fatherly remembered by our ancestor, blessed memory,
beloved son, the noble Lord Frederick, Duke of Saxony, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc."
2) In Latin: äiANktur; in the old German editions: "gerwet" (-geruet); in Walch's old edition: "gereuet".
that you wanted to separate from yourself the corruption of the Christian faith, Martin Luther. And after his most wicked deeds were revealed to the whole world, we hoped that you would also turn back to a repentant heart. But because we have waited for grapes, behold, there have been found hostlings, for the blower has blown in vain, for your wickednesses are not consumed. My mercy on you has moved me, my fatherly love has moved me, so that we have always meant you and your subjects, the Saxons, in the Lord, to address you with holy and fatherly remembrances, so that you may finally return and repent, lest the prophet soon after call them evil silver, for the Lord has rejected them.
3 And what shall we say unto you, but that Paul said unto his Galatians [Cap. 3:1.], "O ye unlearned, who hath bewitched you, that ye obey not the truth?" Ye ran well; Ask your fathers, and they will tell you, your ancestors, and they will proclaim to you, that from the time when Pope Hadrian and Emperor Carl the Great, planters of the faith in Saxony, lived at the same time and at one time, until our times, and the times of Carl, our most beloved son in Christ, your ancestors and forefathers, indeed all Saxons have always been considered lovers of peace, defenders of the faith, and everywhere peaceful children of obedience, and so done, that not unreasonably Gregory the Fifth, who was born a Saxon, about to become pope, appointed a Duke of Saxony a Elector of the Roman Empire.
4 Therefore, to what has the very best color so soon been changed? Why are we so soon maddened from him that called us into the grace of Christ, into another gospel, which is no other? Only that there are some who grieve you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Who hath destroyed the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, which was so beautifully planted? Verily a wild boar hath laid it waste, and a strange wild beast hath corrupted it. But the woe is from you, from the household and friends, and from the woe of the inward members.
5 We beseech thee, beloved Son in Christ, lift up thine eyes straight, and see where thou art cast down. Consider how great a battle you have brought to the Church of Christ, that she is surrounded, besieged, and crushed on every side, for that you have helped her to do.
2112 L.v.Ä.VI,47S-481. sect. 1. of the Reichst, at Nürnb. 1522. no. 716. w. XV, 2SI9-2S21. 2113
1) Outwardly it is warred against by the most cruel and powerful enemy of the Christian faith; inwardly and at home the princes and rulers of the Christian community are at odds and at odds, arming themselves to 2) destroy one another, contending against one another with the most bloodthirsty sorrows, and unsheathing their swords against the brotherly limbs, and so that the heathen hardly do it more cruelly and unkindly.
(6) If these troubles have not seemed burdensome enough to you, you have introduced sorrow upon sorrow, and nourished and kept the serpent in your bosom, who poisons heaven and earth with the poison of his tongue, so much so that the sword has now come even to the soul. But as much as the soul is more than the body, so much more grievous is all this, the dreadful and more than infernal poison, that by touching the heresies and breaking up so many thousands of souls are corrupted.
7. So we all have this to thank thee for, that they are now falling away far and wide from the unity of our church; that the unlearned people are deceived, and by innumerable deceits and enchantments are drawn away from the faith which they sucked from motherly breasts; that the churches are without people, that the nations are without priests, that the priests are without honor, and that the Christians are without Christ; that the holy things of faith are not held to be holy things; that the sanctuary of Christ is denied to be holy; that the holy days are deprived of their solemn glory; that men die in their sins; that souls are dragged before the dreadful judgment seat, neither reconciled by penance, nor confirmed by the holy sacrament; that the very finest order of the Tabernacle is disrupted, and that for the Christian peace and peace of mind one is aroused and hurried far and wide to mischief, disobedience, robbery, murder, burning, with great and manifest danger to the common good, as with a field cry.
8. for which of thy distinguished services in the church of Christ, what reward, thinkest thou, yea, what punishment and torture shall we know thee worthy of? You would perhaps say: The
1) The meaning of this sentence is according to the Latin: Consider how great a defeat you have inflicted on the Church of Christ, which is surrounded and almost crushed by so many evils on all sides, instead of doing what you should have helped her with.
2) "um" put by us instead of "an" in the editions; Latin: in inutnuin xernioisrn....
Snake has deceived me. Surely, you have received your deserved reward for protecting the snake in your womb.
9. But art thou so foolish and so utterly without understanding, that thou hast believed more in those things in which they that err are sure to be damned, a few little men that are full of sin, than so many most holy fathers from the beginning, who have striven in the law of God day and night, than so many common conciliar things, against which the insolent mouth, like an open sepulcher, is not ashamed to open; and finally also, because of the holy and common Christian church, whose use, practice, custom, decree and constitution, from the time of the apostles on, has been kept unbreakable until now, this one man dares to condemn by ecclesiastical sacrilege? O of blind nonsense, and more than Jewish 3) blindness!
(10) But you may have been deceived by the fact that the deceiver Martinus and his followers, your eighth, strengthened their opinion with the chapters of the Holy Scripture. And what heretic has not done so? Are these not the guilefulnesses of the old serpent, who likewise blinded the angel as by this carrion 4) and always pursued the unholy souls by a thousand kinds of art and cunning? Which has also long ago undertaken to break the cornerstone of the right faith, to separate Christian unity, to sow its seed in the field of Scripture, and to introduce a perverse understanding of Scripture.
Because the greatest part of the church is always the inexperienced multitude, and hardly one or two are found who with spiritual eyes are able to judge worthily of the understanding of the Scriptures; for we read that the book is sealed, which only the Lion of the family of Judah 5) has trusted to open, and all his seals. What devilish delusion is this, that you have been able to give more faith in the understanding of the Scriptures to a carnal man, who constantly drinks wine and drinks more than to the rest of the world, than to so many spiritual fathers, whose will has always been in the law of the Lord, who have proved their doctrine by the holiness of their lives, by the demonstration of the Spirit, and finally by the torture.
O of the new and unheard-of blindness! Has
3) "Jewish" put by us instead of "the Jewish"; Latin: juckaiea oasoitatk.
4) "Carrion" (esca) here is that which serves for eating; bait. - blinded" - withdraws from the eyes, hides.
5) Here also the Jena edition has wrong: "gerewet".
You some apostate and apostate may persuade that the ancients have deceived us all, that the descendants err, and that the kingdom of God has come in him alone, and those whom he has deceived, and that have come all the riches of the mercy of God, and the grace of the whole world? And why do we not speak with the prophets: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord, hast thou deceived thy people? Yea, why have ye not rather, according to the commandment of the apostle, shunned the questions and disputings of words, out of which arise envy, strife, blasphemy, suspicion, wicked strife of men that have mad senses, and turn back the hearts of the hearers with their works, and, after the Lord's report, be diligent to know the unconsecrated Son, which came unto you at first in sheep's clothing, but which inwardly is the most ravenous wolf? For you should not have known the tree from the leaves, nor from the blossom, but from the fruit.
13. But are not his most mischievous fruits evident? For this church thief is not afraid to break the holy images against God, yes, even the holy cross of Christ with his wicked hands, and to trample with his stained feet, so that this sacrilegious man does not cease to constantly incite the laity by ungodly fury, to wash their hands in the blood of priests, and disturbs the church of Christ with murderous weapons. He is always doing this, so that people are strangled in their sins; he alone works on the fact that divine mercy, through its sacraments, which it wanted to be powerful remedies for sin, does not heal and cure the wounded in their churches.
(14) For he has either so consumed all the sacraments, or so poisoned them with his deadly poison of heresy, that they leave behind them more poison than medicine for the souls. He has commanded the Semen that they should not do enough to God when He is angry; that no one should redeem his sin by fasting, prayer and cheap lamentation; that the sacrifice acceptable to God, the body and blood of Christ our Lord, should not be offered daily for our sin; he teaches not to keep the vows to God his Lord.
15) And because he is an apostate and an apostate of his profession, 1) that he may make many like him, he is not ashamed to defile the vessels sanctified to God, to take the virgins sanctified to Christ, and who have promised to keep monastic life, out of their monasteries, and to drag them, and to give them back to the world, even to the devil.
1) "Profession" - monastic vows.
which the Lord did not suffer in the Old Testament, in the figurative priests, which all the pagans hated in their idolatrous priests. He gives the priests of Christ even to the most foul whores. The holy fathers, whose life and teachings have enlightened the whole world, he not only does not hold in cheap dignities and honors, but the more wicked he is, the more he despises them, mocks them, scorns them, promises them, persecutes them; he publicly contradicts all common holy conciliarities with an insolent mouth, and back-talks them with a blasphemous tongue; he refrains from introducing, in the semblance of freedom, an impudent life, which is not entangled with any laws, and is truly wild.
16. Therefore the lawless man, the despiser and criminal of all laws, has fallen into such a great folly of mind that he has not been afraid nor afraid to burn with an open fire the decrees and laws of the most holy fathers and the spiritual canons and law, and, in short, all Christian truth, all order and police, and the most beautiful form of the Church, so exposed by Christ, by the apostles, by the apostolic men and most holy fathers from the beginning, he alone, after so many hundreds of years, dares to tear up, pervert and disguise.
17. And if you do not yet sufficiently recognize whether these things come from the mastery of Christ or from the spirit of the Antichrist; If this juggler has so bewitched you that you can believe that this certain most unrepentant apostate, like the other Heliseus, has the spirit of Helia twofold, or that he is the other Daniel for whom he boasts, in whom there is more spirit, and a greater understanding of the Scriptures, than in all the most holy and most learned men, and than in the whole holy, common Christian church: what is more blind than thou alone? Or, if thou knowest the tree from the fruit, and yet remainest in error, what is more wicked than thou?
18. But let this devil be transformed before thee into an angel of light, and that he may persuade thee with his poisoned oratory, that the works which are public works of the flesh and devilish, are works of the Spirit and of Christ: Has he not everywhere also shown by what spirit he has, that all his speech is bitter, poisonous, provocative and most blasphemous, is everywhere full of blasphemy, profanity, and more than poisonous pointedness, contrary to all standards of Christian kindness, discipline, meekness, and goodness?
and gentleness? Did Paul teach this, the spirit of which he is famous for having? because there is not one of his epistles that does not indicate peace and unity and the like. Does he not admonish his Romans [Cap. 12, 9. 10.] in the Lord, that they should love one another in brotherly love, take care of the things that make for peace, and keep those things that are sufficient for correction? Does he not testify to the Corinthians [1 Ep. 14, 33] that he preaches in the churches the God who is a God of peace and not of discord?
19 And in short, does he not everywhere cry out, does he not everywhere teach these evangelical precepts, that we should walk honestly and worthily, with all humility and meekness, and bear with one another in love with patience, and be careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and that we should put away all wrath, ill will, malice, blasphemy, and all after-talk? [Therefore, how is it possible that even to a blind man it should not be evident and hidden that blasphemy, bitterness, wrath, ill-will, arrogance, boastfulness, which are so common to Luther, as those things are 1) to Paul and all his disciples, who is gentle and of a humble heart, not of a Pauline, not of a Christian, but of a devilish spirit, are the most sure signs? How did you know from his words whether he had Christ in his heart, 2) or the Antichrist? For as the truth itself says in the Gospel [Matth. 12, 34]: "You brood of vipers, how can you speak good, because you are evil? For when the heart is full, the mouth overflows."
20 And because it is written, Blasphemers shall not possess the kingdom of God. Further the Lord says in the Gospel [Matth. 5, 22.]: "Whoever says to his brother, Racha, will be guilty of counsel; but whoever says, You fool, will be guilty of eternal fire. To whom then could it be hidden that he is a messenger of the Antichrist, who not only reviles, tears apart and persecutes the brethren, but also the priests of God, yes, the prince of the priests, the descendant of Peter, the governor of JESUS CHRIST on earth, with such unspeakable and offensive names and blasphemies everywhere, that a pure tongue is afraid to tell them, and shamefaced ears are afraid to hear them?
1) The words: "those things" (illa), which are missing in the German editions, we have inserted after the Latin.
2) Here we have deleted the word "erkennet"; it is not in the Latin.
21. Who ruled the apostolic see, on which the head of the apostles, Peter, presided over so many holy popes, which church the holy and highly glorious martyr Cyprianus did not shy away from as the most distinguished church, and from which the priestly unity has arisen, 3) with his impious and pestilent mouth to call the pestilential chair, the antichristic chair and the devilish chair, and what else he may have conceived more disgraceful, does not stop so often and thickly; Who, with his impure tongue, is not ashamed to call the Christian schools, which have brought us so many most learned and holy men, such excellent pillars in the Church of God, whore houses, Sodomas and Gomorras.
22. Who is not content to persecute the priests of the Almighty God with all their insults, curses, invectives, and terrifying and outrageous blasphemies, publicly and openly, making them lower and more vile than dogs, but also arouses the laity to wash their hands in their blood: when God the Lord Himself has indicated in the fifth book of Moses in what honor He wants His priests, and before the high priest, to be held, saying thus [Deut. 17,8. ff.]: "If you see that the judgment will be hard and doubtful with you between blood and blood, between matter and matter, between leprosy and leprosy, and if you see that the words of the judges in your gates do not agree, then get up and go up to the place which God your Lord will choose, and go to the priests of the Levitical family, and to the judge who will be the time, and ask them. They will judge the truth of the judgment for you. And thou shalt do all that they shall say, which are before the place which the Lord hath mentioned, and teach thee according to his law. And thou shalt follow their judgment, and lean neither to the right hand nor to the left. But whosoever will be faithful, and will not obey the commandment of the priests, when the time is come to serve God thy Lord, that same man shall, according to the judgment of the judge, die, and thou shalt take away the evil out of the house of Israel. And all the people that hear these things shall fear; so that henceforth no man shall blow himself out in hope."
23And unto Samuel, when he was despised of the children of Israel, said not the Lord thus [1 Sam. 8:7], They despised not thee,
3) Here we have deleted the words "the Luther", by which the construction is disturbed, which also do not stand in the Latin.
but me, that I should not reign over them"? So that he publicly indicates that he, the invisible one/) is despised, if one despises the visible priest. Therefore Moses also gave this answer to the people when they murmured against him: "You have not murmured against me, but against the Lord your God.
(24) If then the Lord desired that the Levitical priests, who alone were a figure and a shadow, should be in such great honor and dignity, and that they should set up the offices of the heavenly sacrifices in the figurative tabernacle, how great honor did he desire to have them to whom he gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven? And hath given them such great power, that whatsoever they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever they loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven: and whosesoever sins they forgive shall be forgiven, and whosesoever they retain shall be retained [Matth. 16, 19. 18, 18.], who offer not the blood of goats, or of calves, but the living, holy, unblemished sacrifice, the body and blood of our Lord JEsu Christ, daily for our sins, consecrating with their word, and acting with their hands; and in short, all the holy things, that life and the blessedness of souls may be given to men, they spend with their prayers.
25 And as in great honor, as I have said, the Lord hath desired the priests to be held, who shall at last doubt it, because he himself hath not concealed it in the gospel, when he saith unto them [Luc. 10:16], He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me. But he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." And what follows? That he who promises Christ and blasphemes, promises the priest of Christ and blasphemes.
26 Is not this "the first commandment of repentance: Honor thy father and mother, that thou mayest live long on the earth"? [Eph. 6:2, 3.] "But whosoever curseth his father or his mother shall surely surely be put to death." [Ex. 21:17] Is this to be applied to physical parents alone, and not as well to those who gave us birth in Christ the second time, through whom we are Christians, who forgive us our sins, who feed us with the heavenly sacraments?
How, if they are sinners and wicked priests? How, if our parents are also like that? Should they not be honored for that? Should they be
1) "Invisible" ---the invisible; Latin invisibilem.
and therefore curse and speak evil of them? Was not Judas also among those whom the Lord sent before him, and to whom he said [Luc. 10:11, 12], "If any man receive you not, nor hear your preaching, depart out of the same habitation, or out of the same city, shaking off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, that in the day of judgment it shall be worse for the land of the Sodomites and the Gomorites than for that city"?
028 Did he not thus command the apostles, "Be obedient and subject unto your rulers"? [And if a man be not obedient to the wicked and to sinners, to whom shall he be obedient? For if we shall say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
29. you are a sheep, you shall not judge the shepherd. You shall not set a judge of God and Christ. Did not the Lord command in the Gospel, saying, "The scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses' seat; whatever they say to you, do; but if they do evil, do not do it," to show publicly that they have dignity, if they are equal to a damned life.
030 Did the same our Lord, when afterwards in the time of his passion he received a blow from the priest's servant's cheek, and the servant said, "Answerest thou thus the high priest?" speak any profanity against the high priest? Yes, he rather answered and defended his innocence, saying, "If I have spoken evil, punish me; but if I have spoken right, why do you strike me?" [Joh. 18, 22. 23.] Did not also Paul, when he was beaten in the council by command of Ananias, and said to him [Apost. 23, 2. 3.], "Thou consecrated wall, God smite thee, sittest thou to judge according to the law, and dost thou command me to smite contrary to the law?When he hears from the bystanders: "Why do you compare the priest of God to a whitewashed wall, and curse him? Nevertheless, when he thought of the vain name and shadow of the priest, he trembled, and said [v. 5]: "Dear brethren, I did not know that he was the high priest, for it is written: Thou shalt not curse the prince of thy people."
(31) Therefore we are all the more surprised that you have not yet recognized the most evil tree from these devilish works, as from the most mischievous fruits. And who, in the end, is so rude and unintelligent that he does not see where his most insensate nobles are aiming? because
2120 D V. L. VI. 487-489. sect. 1. of the Reichst, at Nuremberg 1522. no. 716. w. xv,2829-2531. 2121
all the most evil, desperate and escaped 1) robbers or murderers will gather under his banner and banner and wage war against the Church of Christ with murderous weapons and church-thieving hands, not secretly, but publicly, burn and desecrate the places sacred to God, churches and monasteries, persecute the virgins sacred to God, the priests of Christ and monks in the cruelest way, plunder the goods of the churches, and in short, with robbery, drudgery, murder and fire destroy all things, murder and arson destroy all things, from that they blind the just judgment of God, and let them fall so publicly into nonsense, that no one may be hidden any more his most wicked presumptions, and when those who have finally recognized that they are poisoned by his pestilential touch, they have discarded the schismatic and segregationist errors, and have left the heretical nonsense, and come again into the dwelling of unity and truth, through the health of faith.
32. among whom, our beloved in Christ JEsu, when we hoped that you would not be the last one to return to our holy bosom, whom we also, if he would return, would have gladly accepted with willing arms. But we are finally deprived of our good hope, and see that your face has been hardened harder than a rock. We have seen that Luther, the corrupter of souls, lies hidden under your protection, and still spreads his poison 2) in length and breadth. But because God the Lord is still able 2) to raise up children of Abraham from the stones, before his wrath goes out and is kindled like fire, and there is no one to quench it:
33 Therefore we beseech thee, beloved Son in Christ, by the inward mercy of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, by Christian unity, by the love of the fatherland, and finally by thine own and thine own salvation and blessedness, have mercy on the church of Christ, which is now already burdened and challenged by so many storm winds of trouble everywhere, most of all by thy fault, and do thou this time help the church. Have mercy on our fatherland, which in former times has had a special fame because of the Christian faith and excellent obedience among the people.
1) "most unworthy" unworthiest. In Latin perditissirnus. - For easier understanding we have changed the Latinisirende Constructiv": "because, as each one is the most evil etc.".
2) "yet" put by us instead of: "again"; Latin: sckliue.
the yoke of the Lord, and is not now 3) ashamed that it has borne the corruption of Christian faith, worship and godliness, the public enemy, Martinum, in its 4) inward members.
34. ultimately have mercy on yourself, and have mercy on your deceived Saxons, who, if you do not soon convert, will pass over the present and certain divine vengeance, from which you will not escape, either in this world or in the world to come. Thus says God the Lord: Hear, you foolish people, hear, you prince who has no heart, you who have eyes and do not see, you who have ears and do not hear; will you not be afraid of me? And will you not be sorry before my face? Have ye not seen what I have done unto them in times past? Read the Scriptures, in which you think you have eternal life, and you will find how great and how severe has always been the divine vengeance against those who have aroused schism, indignation and division among God's people.
035 Have ye not seen the terrible divine vengeance against Datan and Abiram, because they stirred up the common people against Moses, which devoured the earth and all that was therein, so that they went alive into hell? And against Kore, whom also, for the same cause, the infernal fire burned up with two hundred and fifty men?
036 And whether ye think that because of the hard rule, or because of some shepherds' lasciviousness, or because of their wickedness, there should be schism and division, have ye not heard in the book of Kings, that the Lord was so moved concerning the ten families of the children of Israel, and concerning all their seed, that he put them from him, and gave them to be spoiled, until he had cast them out of his sight? For what other cause than that they tore themselves away from the family of Judah and Benjamin because of Solomon's harsh rule and King Roboam's unwise and trustworthy answer, as soon as God smelled his priests.
037 Was not Saul deprived of his royal honors, and Osiah the king, punished with leprosy, because they submitted themselves to the priestly office against the priests?
3) "not" is missing in the German editions; Latin: uairnrne erudeseit.
4) "its" put by us instead of: "their". It refers to "Fatherland's".
2122 L.v. ".vi,48s-tsi. Cap. 9. of the imperial congresses at Nuremberg. W. xv, Mi-AW. 2123
All of which may be a sufficient indication for you. And in short, do not all histories indicate that by the vengeful hand of God all those have died an unhappy end who have not been afraid to lay their ecclesiastical hands on the anointed of the Lord; and again, that all things have gone blissfully for them, and they alone have had long life who have honored Christ in his priests?
(38) Therefore be moved by the examples of others, and consider what you have to wait for, who dare to deliver the worthy assembly of God into unconsecrated hands. Accordingly, the Lord commanded all the people of Israel through Moses [Numbers 16:26] to separate themselves from the tents of Kore, Dothan and Abiram, that they should not touch anything that was theirs, lest they be involved in their sins.
39 We command the same to you, and before you, beloved Son in Christ, by the power of our Lord, and implore in Christ Jesus that you separate yourselves from Martin Luther, that you remove from yourselves the rock of offense, and touch nothing that is his, lest divine vengeance entangle you in his sin. Purge out with the most beneficial this leaven, which has leavened the whole dough of your faith, so that you may be a new dough and 1) a new creature.
40) Beloved son, do not be displeased to follow St. Paul. As you have preceded him by bringing about such a grave destruction of souls under your protection for the persecution of the Church of God, so come to your senses again; 2) be careful that all men take note of your conversion, and that those who are offended by you may in turn honor, praise and glorify God in you.
(41) But first of all, cause the impudent mouth to be stopped up, that the blasphemous tongue may be put in a bit, with which it will not cease to speak against God and His saints, and to spread its poison everywhere.
42 And that we may remind you with prophetic words, Stand up in the streets, and see, and ask of the old paths what is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find delight to your souls. I tell you to stand, and not let yourselves be troubled by some-
1) "and" put by us instead of: "in"; Latin: novaque creaturea.
2) We have rendered the preceding part of the sentence according to the Latin, because it is very difficult, indeed almost impossible, to find the meaning according to the old translation.
lei and foreign doctrine. Ask about the old paths, which is the good road on which your fathers walked, which so many thousands of martyrs have shown, which so many thousands of 3) confessors have taught, and walk them.
(43) And if we obtain this from you, as we fully expect, we shall rejoice together with the angels over a penitent sinner, and shall gladly carry again the lost and found sheep on our shoulders into the sheepfold of the Lord, and with fatherly kindness, as much as shall be in us, shall give you again the former garment.
44 But if ye shall say: We will not walk; and ye shall answer him that exhorteth you fatherly and holy: We will not hearken: therefore hear, ye nations, saith the Lord, and know what great things I will do unto you: Behold, I will bring upon the people grievances, the fruit of their thoughts and devices, because they have not heard my word, and have rejected my law.
We also offer you this, in virtue of the Almighty God and our Lord Jesus Christ, whose governor we are on earth, that you will not remain unpunished in this world, and that you will have to await eternal fire as a result. Pope Adrianus and the most God-fearing Emperor Carl, his most beloved son and foster child in Christ, 4) live in good agreement with each other, whose truly Christian mandate against Lutheran unbelief, and which was well suited to such an emperor, you were not afraid to break, not without grave insult and diminishment of imperial majesty.
We do not want to do such evil that we, Pope Adrian and Emperor Carl [V], now 5) those who were born in Christ in the past by Pope Adrian and the great 6) Emperor Carl, wanted to let them perish under the schismatics and the 7) heretical tyrant, through the poison of the schismatics, division and disruption. Therefore, convert again, and repent, you and your
3) Here we have the words "confessor and" getil-1, for 6OQk "88or68 here means only: confessor.
4) alurn "u8. Emperor Carl V had been Hadrian's pupil.
5) The words: "the pope Adrian and the emperor Carl, now" are missing in the German editions.
6) The words "in Christo" are missing in the German editions.
7) In the German editions "den", in Latin" tvi-Lnno. This can be understood to mean both the Elector and Luther.
unblessedly seduced Saxons; you will then learn about both swords, the papal and the imperial, in the following. 1) At Antorff, by Michael Hillemo, at the Ruben.
717: The Elector Frederick of Saxony's response to this papal decree. 1523.
From Spalatin's Annals, p. 78 f. There Spalatin notes that in 1523 in the name of Pope Hadrian VI a print had gone out Against D. Luther and his teachings, in which Duke Frederick, Elector of Saxony, was also mentioned by name, which prompted the Elector to write this letter. There, on p. 80, Spalatin says: "Shortly thereafter, however, before Pope Adrianus gave an answer, closer than a year later, Pope Adrianus died. Because the papal breve was written in such an unbelievably impudent manner, the Elector initially doubted its authenticity, until, as we learn from this letter, it was handed to him by the papal orator.
Dear God the Father! I have caught your present brew by sending your orator, Mr. Franciscus Cheregattus, elected in April &c. with born honor. And two things not, E. H. have not done such a thing of their own motion, but of my own misfortune, for E. H. shall, if God wills, never find out nor decide otherwise, than that my will, mind, and opinion has never been otherwise, not even with God's grace, nor should it be otherwise, than to keep me as a Christian man, and obedient son of the Christian Churches. I also hope that God, the Almighty, will grant me, therefore I also ask, his grace, that, which is conducive to the fulfillment of his holy word, service, peace and faith, in this my age, which has a good year, until the end of my life, faithfully, and so much in me, to continue. I ask you to report the same to Your Highness, who will undoubtedly report it to Your Highness. I ask your Lordships to acknowledge this in my cousinly opinion. This I am willing to do, as the obedient son of the Holy Christian Church. And I hereby beseech H. H. God's mercy to keep me in grace. Dat. &c.
1) The following is missing in Latin. It is the indication of the place and the printer where the breve was printed.
D. What the pope had his envoy, Franciscus Chieregati, who had been dispatched from the Imperial Diet, give to the imperial estates for reprimands on account of Luther, against which they in turn handed over to him the complaints of the German nation.
siAuiüoutu 6te.
718: Pope Hadrian VI's instruction for his legate at the Imperial Diet in Nuremberg, in which, with the transfer of what he fervently opposes to Luther, especially the papal confession of the miserable decay of the church and the highest necessity of a reformation is remarkable. 1522.
This and the following associated documents have been published in Latin and German in many individual editions, and have also been included in many collections. Latin in IVolüi leetion. lueworulz., com. II, p. 195; in Ooldusti "tut. 6t resoript. imperut. a Ourolo V. U8HU6 uä UutloIxU. II, x". 27 and eonstit. imperut., tom. I, p. 450; in Uiekerii kistor. oonoil. K6N6r., lib. IV, purt. II, oup. 5, p. 123 and in Lünig's 8picül6S. 666168th, tom. I, p. 389. German in the Wittenberger Gesammtausgabe (1569), vol. IX, p. 162; in the Jenaer (1585), vol. II, p. 163d; in the Altenburger, vol. II, p. 240 and in the Leipziger, vol. XVIII, p. 327. Jn einer anderen Uebersetzung in Hortleder "von den Ursachen des deutschen Krieges," vol. I, lib. I, oup. I, p. 4, which Walch has included. In it, we have improved several gross errors according to the older translation. - This instruction was read by the papal nuncio on January 3, 1523, after he had delivered his lecture before the Imperial Diet and handed over the pope's breve (No. 719) to the governor and the estates of the empire. (Weim. Ausg., Vol. XII, p. 58.)
First, you will explain to them the great pain we suffer from the increase of the Lutheran sect, and most of all because we realize how countless souls, redeemed with the blood of Christ and commanded to be cared for by us as a shepherd, have been taken away from us by Luther.
The people will be perverted to the right faith and spirituality, and will come under condemnation. And that this should happen in a nation of which we have the origin according to the flesh, which has always been the most faithful and spiritual from the beginning, when it was converted to God, until these next "appeared years, and therefore our most eager desire is that such a plague be met with haste, before it happens to the German country, as it did to the Bohemian country in former times. And that in such a case we are most willing to do everything that may be hoped or expected of us, desiring with the utmost diligence that each of them, according to his ability, do the same. To this end, the following causes should induce them.
2. first of all, it is to move the honor of God, which is to be set before all things, to be greatly offended by these heresies; for the ordinary custom and adornment of it is not only diminished, but utterly broken.
3 Secondly, the love of one's neighbor should stimulate them, and each one should work diligently to lead him from error. And whoever does not do this, such ruin, neglect and diligence God will require from his hands.
Thirdly, they should be moved by the shame and disgrace of their nation, which has always been considered the most Christian before other nations, and now has an evil cry from everyone because of those who follow Luther's sect.
(5) Fourthly, they should be admonished by the reputation of their own honor, which is greatly offended if those who preside over others in the German nation with power and authority do not make every effort to expel these heresies. For in this way they would fall away from their forefathers, who were Christian people and were present in large numbers at the Concilio at Costnitz during the condemnation of Johannis Hus and the other heretics, some of whom (as it is said) led Hus to the fire with their hands. It will also be detrimental to their honor that they, or several of them, have made, confirmed, approved, and granted the imperial commandment to execute and enforce the papal sentences against Luther and his followers, and have done so with their power. If they would not do so to the best of their ability, they would either be considered unstable, or favorable to Luther and accidental, so that it would seem that they could easily expel him (if they wished otherwise).
Fifthly, they should be moved by the injustice or injuria that is done to them and their parents by Luther, since their parents and forefathers are the same.
They themselves have always followed the faith confirmed and approved by the Holy Roman and Christian Church, but Luther and his followers hold and contradict it far differently. From this it is evident that they are condemned by Luther as unbelievers and heretics, and thus, according to Luther's opinion, all their forefathers and ancestors who differ from us in faith are in hell, since error in faith makes people liable to damnation.
(7) Sixthly, they should well consider the end that the Lutherans put forward: namely, that under the color of evangelical freedom, which they hold up to the people, all the upper parts of violence are accepted. For although Luther at first intended to destroy or suppress spiritual power altogether (as if it were tyrannical and conquered against the Gospel), he did not intend to do so. However, since their reason and foundation is set on their given liberty, and that in virtue of such liberty also the temporal power by no commandment, however just and sincere they may be, may bind men to obedience in mortal sins: so the same liberty against the temporal power has not less, but more, place, neither against spiritual power. And it is openly evident that they also want to separate such secular authority, although they have glossed over and protected it with cunning, so that the secular princes should believe that their malicious plot is not directed against them, but only against the clergy (to whom the laity are commonly hostile), and if they thus bring some of them to their part, or else to watch and tolerate, they might the more easily disturb the clergy. If they accomplished the same, the common man would undoubtedly undertake and attempt the same against the secular princes.
(8) Seventhly, they shall signify the great disgrace and dishonor, riots, insurrection, robbery of goods, deathblows, quarrels and discords, which this most wicked sect would arouse, and daily arouses throughout the whole of Germany, and also move up the swearing, blasphemy, curses, foul talk, frivolous speeches and bitterness, which this sect has for and for in its mouth. And where they do not stop this, it is to be feared that the wrath and abandonment of God will come upon Germany, which is thus divided in itself, and also that such punishment will come upon the princes themselves, who will use the force and the sword to punish the evil of God.
and did not prevent their subjects from doing so. Cursed is he (says the prophet) who is negligent in carrying out the word of God, and contains his sword from the blood of the wicked.
(9) Eighthly, they should note how Luther uses a way to deceive the Christian people that is almost more despicable than the most despicable man, Mahomet, who deceives many a thousand souls by admitting that which carnal men are inclined to do and by freeing them from that which is considered the most serious in our law, because only Luther's action is seen as somewhat more abominable and leading to even more deception. For when Mahomet admits to taking more women, and to driving them away at will, and again to taking others, this Luther pretends, so that he may make monks, monastic virgins and priests, so eager for carnal pleasure, favorable to him and draw them to him, that the vows of eternal chaste abstinence from the pleasures of the flesh should not only be non-binding, but also unseemly, and that they, out of evangelical freedom, may take women and men. But he is unmindful of the apostle's word, since he speaks of the young widows, who, having become unchaste against God, want to be free, 1) thus: they have condemnation, because they falsify or mislead their first faith.
10. Now, if this and other things on this opinion, which you may then partly think out of our letters, also out of your own understanding, are brought before them by you, you will admonish reported princes, prelates and peoples, so that they finally wake up, 2) and such great harm and violence, which the Lutherans prove to God and His holy faith, also the great disgrace, which they inflict on the whole German nation and the princes themselves, together with the great shame and desecration, which they seem to have inflicted on their ancestors, which they inflict on the whole German nation and on the princes themselves, together with the great shame and disgrace which they apparently and publicly inflict on their ancestors, who (as we have said) finally condemn them to hell, and resist them, and finally proceed and proceed with the execution of the papal sentence and the imperial commandment. And yet, those who come to their right mind and vow to put away their error shall be forgiven; for they [the princes] shall always be more inclined to mercy than to vengeance. Just as God Himself did when He said: "I will
1) Here the old translation has: "who, after having been unchaste, want to marry in God".
2) In the old translation: "that they will never awake".
not the death of sinners, but rather that they may be converted and live. But those who remain obstinate in their error are to be punished, so that the others may receive a likeness of it and remain in the right faith, or, if they have fallen, turn back to the right way.
(11) Whether anyone might say that Luther was judged unheard and unaccountable by the papal see, and that he should therefore be heard in all ways, and not be condemned before he is overcome. Answer: As far as faith is concerned, since God has established it, we are to believe by divine imputation and authority, and not to prove it. Ambrose says: Take away the arguments where faith is sought; one believes the fishermen and not the dialecticis. Indeed, we confess that one should not deny him responsibility in what concerns the deed (whether he has spoken, preached or written it or not). But about the divine right, and about the matter of the sacraments, we are to remain with that which the saints and the church have instructed us. To this end, you may indicate that almost all things in which Luther is divided from the others were previously rejected by various conciliations, and that which is confirmed by common conciliations in the common Christian church is not to be doubted further, but is to be held as a credible thing. For he does an injustice or violence to the assembly of the church who wants to cast doubt on what has once been established. For how would anything certain and lasting be decided between men? Or when would the disputations and squabbles come to an end, so that every free and perverse man should again be allowed to deviate from that which has not been established by one or by a few, but long ago, by the approval of so many highly knowledgeable men, and confirmed by the Christian church (which God does not allow to err in matters of faith)? And if every city desires to keep its statutes unbreakable, how would all things, which have been established not only once, but often with considerable knowledge, be destroyed without disruption, annoyance and disorder, and not kept unchanged by men? Since Luther and his followers condemn the conciliation of the holy fathers, burn the holy laws, and destroy all things according to their will, and in addition grieve and distress the whole world, it is evident that they, as enemies and destroyers of a common peace, are of no consequence to the world.
all of the same peace lovers are to be exterminated.
(12) Thou shalt also say that we freely confess that God allows this persecution of His church to take place because of the sins of men, and especially of the priests and prelates of the church. For surely the hand of the Lord is not shortened, that he may not make us blessed; but he may also divide the punishment of sins among us and them, and keep and hide his face from us in dishonor. The Scriptures write that the sins of the people flow from the sins of the priests. Therefore Chrysostom says: "When our Savior wanted to cleanse the sick city of Jerusalem, he first went to the temple, so that he initially punished and healed the sins of the priests (like a good physician who heals the disease from the root). We know well that for some years now in this holy see there has been much impropriety with abuse of spiritual things, transgression in the commands or commandments, and otherwise all things have been perverted to vexation: therefore no wonder that the disease has descended from the head into the limbs, as from the popes into other, lower prelates. All of us (that is, prelates and spiritual persons) have left, each of us has gone his own way, and for a long time not one, not even one, has been found who has done good, therefore it is necessary that we all give glory to God and humble our souls to Him. Let each one of us consider by what he has fallen, and judge himself rather than be judged by God in the day of His wrath. As much as it behooves us to do in this matter, you may agree that we will make every effort, first of all, to reform this Roman court, from which perhaps all this evil has emanated, so that, as the disease has flowed out from there into all the subjects, so that healthy reformation may also ensue from it for all of us. We consider ourselves so much more strictly bound to accomplish this, as much more we see that the whole world is eager for this reformation. For, as we discovered to you earlier, we have never sought to possess this papacy, but when there was much in us, we would much rather have led a separate life, and served God in a holy, quiet being. We would have truly rejected this papacy, if the fear of God and the special pure way of our election, as well as the worry of the division of faith (which, if we had rejected it, would have been before our eyes), had not urged us to accept it.
So, we have not undertaken this supreme dignity for the sake of pleasure or the desire to rule, nor to enrich our friends, but to follow the divine will, and to help his deformed bride, the Christian Church, with reform, to come to the aid of the oppressed, to elevate the learned and the virtuous (who have long been despised), and otherwise to do everything that a good pope and a true successor of St. Peter is obliged to do.
But let no one be surprised if we do not correct all errors and abuses from the beginning. For this disease is almost obsolete, and not a few, but many, therefore to cure us in it foot by foot, and to meet the serious and more dangerous diseases first, lest we ruin all things with hasty reforming of all things. For all hasty changes (says Aristotle) are dangerous in the common way of doing things; and he who snaps too hard forces blood out.
14 As you write to us in your last letters that these princes have complained against you that the concordats and treaties (established between the See of Rome and the German nation) have been acted upon by this See, you may indicate that we may not be accused in the matters that have come before us. That such things, because we were still in an inferior state, have displeased us in every way, and that according to this (although they did not seek it) they actually have the opinion before us that at the time of our papacy each one should retain his justice. In addition, equity and kindness require that we not only not offend our laudable German nation, but also show neighborly favor.
(15) As to the processes which the princes request from the Rota and wish to be expelled again, let it be said that we are willing to oblige them in this, as much as we may do with honor. But because of the auditors' absence in present mortal runs, we can have no instruction of the same processes half this time. As soon as the auditors return, however, which we expect to happen shortly after the deaths have ceased, we will show ourselves to them as much as is always due to us.
16) Will you diligently solicit and urge a response to our letter, and request those to whom we write to inform us of the means by which they think these vicious sects may be most effectively countered, so that we may, as to
We will do the things that are to be provided for by us. In all of this, you should actually inquire and fully attribute the same to us.
In the collections of Luther's writings shown above, one finds the following words appended to the resolution of this Instruction:
Item, because we note that in German lands there are many pious and learned men who are therefore opposed and repugnant to the papal see, that not they, but rather fools with sticks and money and stable servants, are provided with ecclesiastical fiefs, we therefore request that you inquire who they are and send us their names listed, so that we, if German fiefs become vacant, may lend them to them of our own accord. For we know how much it has harmed God's honor 1) and the souls' salvation and improvement that for a long time now the spiritual fiefdoms, especially the pastoral care, have been granted to unfit people.
In order to obtain help for the Hungarians, we give you no other instructions than those we gave you when you left us, and we urge you to attend to these matters with the utmost diligence, as you are doing.
We also take care that the princes and communes of the French do their duty and help with their property.
At the end of this writing, the Jena edition (the Wittenberg edition almost as well) has this note: "Kaiserlicher Majestät Statthalters und gemeiner Reichsstände Antwort; item, der weltlichen Reichsstände Beschwerung etc. findest du, christlicher Leser, in bemeldtem Büchlein vom Reichstag zu Nürnberg, Fol. 18 und 27 mit einer Vorrede D. M. L.". These are here numbers 720 and 722; the preface is in our edition vol. XIV, 422.
719 Pope Hadrian VI's breve to the estates of the Holy Roman Empire assembled at Nuremberg, Nov. 25, 1522.
This document is found in the collections shown in the previous number, immediately before the "Instruction" (No. 718). Also in Latin in the Wittenberg edition (1551), tom. II, toi. 352; in the Jena (1566), tom. II, coc. 536b; and in the Erlanger, opp. var. ar^., tom. VI, p. 460. German in the Wittenberger (1569), vol. IX, p. 159b; in the Jenaer (1585), vol. II, p. 161; in the Altenburger, vol. II, p. 237 and in the Leipziger, vol. XVIII, p. 324. Here, too, Walch has followed the translation in Hortleder I. o. p. 2. We have improved this extremely poor translation according to the Latin.
1) "God's glory" put by us instead of: "God's, their".
To the venerable brothers, dear sons, noble lords, princes of the Holy Roman Empire and other ecclesiastical and secular princes, also to all the estates of the noble German nation, assembled at the Diet of Nuremberg,
Pope Hadrian VI
Venerable brethren, dear sons, salvation and papal blessing! Since we have been admitted to the apostolic office by the decree of Divine Providence, we have as a witness that He has required us, as one who is undeserving and not waiting for such, to be mindful day and night of nothing else than to fulfill at all times the duties of a good shepherd in caring for the flock that has been commanded to us, both in common and in particular; We have not considered any of our sheep to be so mangy, frail, or wandering and lost that we have not sought to bring them back to the Lord's sheepfold with all our diligence.
2 And truly, from the time after the beginning of our papacy, as we considered best at that time, we have not ceased to accept peace and unity among the Christian princes, who are unfortunately all too divided among themselves, and to lay down their arms, or to turn them (if they could be obtained) against the enemies of the Christian faith, to admonish, to remind, and to plead by various messages of ours, as well as by almost daily letters.
In order that we may prove an example to this desire of ours not only by words but also by deeds, God knows with what inconvenience of our own and domestic nature we have sent money and other aid to the Rhodian knights, strict defenders of the Christian faith, who are cruelly besieged by the most atrocious tyrant, the Turk, even to other places that are in danger from the same enemy's maw.
(4) Immediately thereafter, we turned our minds from external things to internal ones, and we noted with sadness Martin Luther (whom we may not call our son because of his own fault), after he had been seriously and paternally admonished by the papal see, as a man who brings up again the old and long since condemned and condemned heretical articles. And that the same, on the verdict of the best and most learned men and manifold
The fact that he has not relinquished his right to the high schools' counsel against him, that he has not relinquished his right to the most beloved Roman Emperor elected in God by our son Carl, King of Rome and Hispania, and that your imperial edict, together with the decision to enforce it, was made well known at the recently held imperial diet at Worms and proclaimed throughout all of Germany, has remained unpunished by those to whom it is due. And that he still does not desist from his wicked presumption, but, as a forgetter and rejecter of all Christian love and evangelical goodness, sends out new books full of error, heresy, disgraceful speeches and outrages, through himself and his helpers, into German and other surrounding countries, and strives far and wide, like a plague, to poison and corrupt the good hearts and morals with the arrows of his poisoned tongue. And the aforementioned Luther has not only the common people, but (which is even more evil) much of the nobility, as supporters and followers, so that (which may have been the main cause of such rebellion) to take hold of the priests' goods, to despise the obedience owed to the ecclesiastical and secular, is raised, which would subsequently grow among some of you to neighborly revolt and war. But what evil will result from this, especially at this time, for the Christian community, your minds and thoughts can easily judge. For although the apostle said before that heresies must be, so that those who are righteous may be revealed, nevertheless one would not see a more unfavorable time for this matter, or in which such heresies would be more urgently needed to be purified and eradicated. For since the eternal enemy of the human race, the devil, under the form of a roaring lion, rages on and on against the sheep of Christ through the great power of the Turks, we do not see how such great impetuosity can be resisted as long as we nurture this devil in the form of the deceitful dragon, who sows this heresy in our houses (and arouses discord and indignation among our extremely brave Germans). And even if we would dispute and overcome the foreign enemies, all our work and costs would be in vain, and completely useless to the souls for their salvation, if we were to subdue the external enemies and be afflicted with heresy and divisions at home.
5 We are also mindful, since we were of lesser standing in Spain, that we were often told a great deal and many things about Luther and his false teachings. Although such things were hard for us to hear about him ourselves, it is not
It would have been much more difficult for us that this would have come from the lands from which we have our origin after the body. However, we were first comforted by the obvious wickedness of this matter (because of which they do not last long and are respected by us), we also considered it, and hoped without a doubt that after these poisonous plants were brought to German lands from elsewhere, they would not bear fruit in this country, which has always produced the greatest enemies of heresy and unbelief.
6. But because this evil tree (either because of God's decree to punish the sin of his people in this way, or because of the negligence of those who were guilty of punishing it and were able to do so, and did not forestall it in the beginning) has begun to spread its branches far and wide, as you see and hear: You German princes and peoples must take care that you are not regarded as accomplices to this evil, which has arisen from elsewhere and for which you might easily have been excused in the beginning, by merely allowing it and watching it (because you do not resist it), and that they forget their old virtue. We refrain from this impropriety, that such a great and so God-fearing nation, through a little monk, who is said to have professed and followed the Christian faith and religion from his youth, and to have preached and taught it for many years, has recently departed, and become false to God, from the path which was pointed out to us by our Savior and his holy apostles, and which so many martyrs and excellent men, with doctrine and holiness, have also followed, and all your forefathers have walked it, and should think that Luther alone understands it, and that he has only now (when the heretic Montanus has also made himself famous) received the Holy Spirit, and that the church, with which the most gracious Redeemer of the human race has promised to be until the end of the world, has erred in the darknesses of ignorance and in the ways of destruction, until it is enlightened by Luther's new light. All this, even though it is mocked by the intelligent, is most harmful to simple hearts, and gives those who are eager for new things and great change in any order great cause and stimulus to perpetrate what we are now experiencing. Do you German princes and peoples not note that Luther's and his successors' teachings are nothing but a kind of prelude to these evils? Do you not see clearly that the Lutheran doctrine, which was initially given
2136 V."-^I> t63-466. sect. 1. of the Reichst, at Nuremberg in 1522. no. 719. w. XV,2547-2549. 2137
Is the protection of Christian truth now revealed to be nothing but a robbery of your goods? Or do you believe that these sons of wickedness are directing their minds elsewhere than to withdraw all obedience under the name of liberty, and to give every one liberty to accomplish what he would desire? Do you also imagine that these, who not only despise the spiritual laws and the decrees of the fathers, together with the most holy councils (to which the imperial laws have always gladly yielded and been obedient), but also tear and burn them without fear out of devilish rage, and in addition deprive the priests, bishops, and the pope of their due obedience, will be obedient to your orders and laws? Or do you hope that they will refrain from their piratical hands from the goods of the laity, and will not rather appropriate all that they like to themselves, who daily carry away and lead away the things that belong to God in your sight and presence? Will even those spare your necks who have taken upon themselves to injure, strike and kill the anointed ones of the Lord, who shall not be touched? Against you, against your goods, houses, wives, children, authorities, dominions and temples (which you honor) this wretched plague is directed, if you do not meet it in time.
(7) Therefore, in the Lord, venerable brethren, noble and devout lords, we admonish you in general and in particular, and implore you by the Christian love and religion, which has so often been protected and strengthened by your forefathers' blood, but in virtue of the holy obedience which all Christian men owe to God, St. Peter and his governor. Peter and his governor, we demand of you to put down the enmities that may exist between you, and at least now to devote your whole diligence and heart to extinguishing this common conflagration, that you endeavor to restore Martin Luther and other instigators of these seditions and errors to the right path of faith and life by all wholesome means (which would be exceedingly pleasant to us). But if they would not listen to this (which God wants to avert) with blocked ears (like snakes), then, lest the remaining part, which is still pure and fresh, be poisoned to the great defilement of your nation and obvious danger of the whole Christian community, you shall, according to the holy orders and laws made by your emperors and recently commanded in your imperial edict, use against them the rod of severity and punishment.
8 He to whom the secrecy of all men's hearts is evident, knows that we are by nature and custom, even after our pastoral office, much more inclined to forgive than to punish. But because this cancer had spread so much that it could not be cured with gentle and mild medicines, sharp and biting agents had to be used, and the harmful parts had to be completely cut off from the healthy body. Thus, God Almighty sank the brothers Dathan and Abiram, who had caused division, alive into the depths of the earth, and ordered to punish with death those who would not obey the priest's commandments. Likewise Peter, the apostle prince, proclaimed that Anania and Sapphira, since they had lied against him against God, should die immediately. Thus, ancient and godly emperors killed the heretics Jovinian and Priscillian with the secular sword. Jerome also desired that the heretic Vigilantius be given over to the corruption of the flesh, so that the spirit might be retained. Thus your forefathers finally carried out the due punishment on John Hus and Jerome of Prague, who seem to have come back to life in Luther and are highly honored by him, in the Concilium at Costnitz. If you now follow your forefathers' holy and praiseworthy deeds in this case, since it cannot happen in any other way, we do not want to have any doubt that the divine mercy will, for the help of the Christian Church, which is plagued by the unbelievers, turn its eyes on your nation, which is easily the first in martial valor and number of people, with all its strength, and inspire your minds and hearts, of which you, after you have received through us the blessing of the almighty God and St. Peter, and after you have been able to take over the dragon, will be able to take over the church. Peter through us, and have triumphed over the dragon and the lion and the devil, that is, after the heresies have been removed at home and the enemies of the faith have been completely defeated outwardly, you will receive a glorious victory and, in the world to come, the reward of eternal bliss.
As far as we are concerned, however, you should consider it certain that whatever wealth and authority the Almighty has bestowed upon us, we will offer everything, together with our lives, for such blessed works and the salvation of our commanded sheep. What we desire to communicate to you in this Lutheran and other matters, we have entrusted to Franciscus Chieregati, elected Bishop of Apruz, whom we appointed in the month of September to act on our behalf with you in matters of faith and religion, as our and this Holy See's nuncio.
tius, ordered to go to this honorable Diet of yours, to inform you of its length and further, and exhort you to believe its words, as ours. Given in Rome at St. Peter's, under the Fisherman's Ring, this 25th day of November, Anno 1522, in the first year of our Papacy.
The response of the common estates to the above papal petition, in which Archduke Ferdinand as governor and the estates thank the pope for the promise that he will keep the old treaties or concordats, but at the same time ask the pope to diligently reform the complaints and abuses that they have submitted in specific points, otherwise peace and harmony cannot be hoped for. February 5, 1523.
This writing is found in Latin in the collections indicated in No. 718, in Wolf 1. e. p. 197; in Goldast p. 30 and p. 452; in German in Hortleder 1. 6. p. 6 and in the Leipziger Gesammtausgabe, Vol. XVIII, p. 330. We have set the time according to the Weimar edition (Vol. XII, p. 58), where it is reported that this answer was handed over in draft form by the narrower committee to the larger committee of the Estates on January 15, 1523, and after some changes was handed over to the papal legate in Latin translation on February 5. On February 7, the nuncio gave his replica, No. 723.
1. Namely, after Papal Holiness Orator has now delivered a papal decree 1) to Imperial Majesty's governor, princes, princes and other estates of the Holy Empire here at the Imperial Diet, and has also made an advertisement thereon, and in addition has also delivered his ordered advertisement in writings 2) concerning the Lutheran trade: All this has been received by Imperial Majesty's governor, as well as by princes, princes and estates of the Holy Roman Empire, from Papal Holiness, as a faithful father and supreme shepherd of the Christian flock, with considerable reverence and gratitude.
(2) And since Imperial Majesty's governors, princes, princes, and estates of the empire have good knowledge that papal holiness was born of the German nation and blossom, and also, since their holiness was in a lesser state, that much praiseworthy virtue and good came from him, and that he was a good man and a good woman.
1) The previous paper, No. 719.
2) Document No. 718.
They have been highly gratified by his unanimous, laudable election to the apostolic office of the papacy, in the consoling hope that through such a divine bestowal much salvation, blessedness and good will befall the holy Christian church. It is a good indication of this that her holiness is so highly and faithfully committed to the same. As such is apparently found in many places in this letter, advertisement and instruction.
3. Namely, when the papal holiness in her letter, soon after its receipt, reports with what faithful diligence and compassion her holiness has taken to heart and considered the discord that exists between the Christian princes, and how her holiness is bringing them to peace and unity, and to turn the Christian arms (if ever they could be won) against the enemies of the Christian faith, has faithfully sought so far, and is still in unceasing work, with report of what her Holiness has sent and done to the Nhodis knights, against the siege of the Turk, for graces and good.
4 Governors and estates have understood this from their holiness to great comfort and gratitude, and can well appreciate that first of all unity of the Christian princes, heads and power of the whole Christendom is of great and high importance, that in the same warlike outrage good police and order in the Christian kingdoms cannot be preserved, much less the Turkish tyranny, which at this time is exercising itself especially grievously against Christendom, can be resisted.
5) As the royal dignity of Hungary, and its landlords and countryside, and besides the Crabats, 3) imperial majesty's governors and imperial estates have miserably indicated and complained here, what great, excessive trouble and final destruction they have encountered from the Turks, and still stand in daily dangers and worries; as the papal orator himself has clearly indicated all this in his petition, for the sake of Hungarian help.
Therefore, Imperial Majesty's governors, princes, rulers and the empire's estates ask and exhort Papal Holiness to the highest, that their holiness, as a faithful father and shepherd of the Christian people, to whom such things are also appropriate and due, from their diligent diligence, promote the Christian princes, heads and authorities in Christian union,
3) That is, croats.
or at least to bring them into peaceful decency, and thereby to take further emergency measures, so that the tyrannical Turks may be resisted, and the deprived Christian lands and kingdoms may be conquered again, as much as God may grant, and the souls, bodies and possessions of Christians be saved from such cruel tyranny, for which governors and estates, in addition to and with other Christian heads and powers, will advise and help in their part in a Christian and faithful manner.
7. Furthermore, the papal letter introduces in the following advertisement and instruction of the papal orator what great harm to the German nation and the Christian people will result from Martin Luther's and his successors' teachings and writings, and even further, where this is not resisted with due diligence, and what should move the German princes and nation to avert or seriously punish them, with high admonition, papal sanctity's judgment and imperial majesty's mandate, which went out against Luther and his followers, to execute etc.
(8) Imperial Majesty's governors, princes, princes, and estates of the Holy Roman Empire say that they, as Christian estates, are extremely sorry and disgusted by any harm, error, or evil that may arise in the Holy Christian Church, and that they are also highly inclined and willing to prevent it with punishment or other measures.
9. also declare themselves guilty of being obedient to papal holiness and imperial majesty, as their supreme heads, which they are no less inclined to do in a Christian way than their forefathers. But the fact that papal sanctity has suggested as burdensome that the papal judgments and the imperial mandates, which went against Luther, have not yet been applied, has not been omitted without noticeable cause. For all the estates of the German nation are so unmistakably burdened by manifold abuses of the Court of Rome and ecclesiastical estates, and are now so much informed by Luther's letters, where one should act against them in earnest or in fact, according to the content of reported judgments or mandates, that it would certainly be considered by them as if one wanted to suppress evangelical truth by tyranny, and use unchristian abuses, from which a great indignation, apostasy and resistance against the authorities would undoubtedly be awakened, as one can see from manifold
display and daily cases can seemingly decrease.
For the reason for which God Almighty has imposed such persecution of His Church is quite praiseworthy, clear and well indicated by Papal Holiness Orator's advertisement and delivered instruction. Your Holiness also recognizes, praiseworthily and well, that for some years there has been much impropriety in the See of Rome, as well as grievous abuse and transgression in spiritual matters, therefore it is no wonder that the disease has descended from the head to the members, and from the popes to other, lower prelates. Therefore, good knowledge and correction is necessary for all of us, in which her holiness, as much as is due to her, will make every effort, so that first of all the Roman court, from which perhaps such evil all originated, will be reformed, so that the disease, from there flowed out into all subjects, from which again good reformation takes place, and because of such divine honor and reformation, her holiness alone has accepted the papacy etc.
(11) The Papal Holiness also graciously informs the German princes in response to their previous complaint that their Holiness has never been pleased or pleased, but has always been opposed to the fact that the Concordats or Treaties have been acted upon by the See of Rome, and that it is therefore their will and intention, although no request has been made to avoid this and to keep everyone, and especially the German nation, by their justice.
12 Who would not notice and understand from all this that papal holiness, in such a paternal indication and admonition, omits nothing that a faithful father and chief shepherd of the Christian flock should do, and not so much as recognize his own sin and infirmity beforehand, and be moved to Christian correction? Especially if the papal holiness would carry out the same their sovereign command with beneficial, apparent works, by divine bestowal, for which purpose imperial majesty governors, also electors, princes and other estates of the holy empire, as sons obedient to their holiness, have asked and admonished most earnestly and most humbly, for the sake of divine honor, praise, and the betterment and blessedness of Christian people, and have also hoped that the same will happen in desperation. For without a just settlement of such complaints, as the secular estates have handed over, 1)
1) This is Document No. 722.
The German people were not to hope for good peace and unity between the ecclesiastical and secular estates or for the suppression of this indignation among the Germans.
13. Imperial Majesty's governors and estates of the empire of papal holiness, in great necessity, do not want to refrain from the fact that, due to protracted wars that have taken place in and near German lands, as well as due to manifold burdens imposed on German lands, the same German people are so depleted of money that they need to maintain peace and justice with them, and even more so with Hungarians and Czechs, German lands, the same German people are so exhausted of money that they have a great shortage of it for the necessary maintenance of peace and justice with them, and even more so with the Hungarians and Crabats, to do requested and eager help against the Turks.
14. And since Papal Holiness himself knows that years ago the German nation granted that the annals of the ecclesiastical prelates alone should follow the Roman See for some years, so that they should be used for nothing else than to resist the Turk, and such years have long since disappeared, also these annals, according to the aforementioned grant, by papal holiness ancestors against the Turk, that gives reason, if for the resistance of the Turk an emergency help should be established in the holy empire of the German nation, that such is highly attracted by the German people and said, why the imperial majesty and the German princes do not require and use such long-saved annals, which have been saved for the said emergency, for this purpose; and therefore do not think that they are obliged to let themselves be burdened further, since the ecclesiastical prelates take from their secular subjects what 1) they pay to Rome on account of the same annals.
(15) Accordingly, it is the high and diligent request of Imperial Majesty and other imperial states that Papal Holiness will not require or collect such annuities as may become due through the death of archbishops, bishops and other ecclesiastical prelates and benefices, but will have the Holy Roman Empire's Fisco pursued. Without this, it cannot be hoped that peace, justice and other good order will be maintained in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, much less that other nations will be helped and assisted against the Turks.
16 And when Papal Holiness finally and finally requested from Imperial Majesty governors, also princes, princes and other estates of the empire to give information by which
1) In the old edition: "White".
The Lutheran error can be countered most effectively by means of their own discretion: governors and estates say what they can advise and help in a Christian and possible way, and they find themselves quite eager, willing and inclined to do so.
17. Since, however, among Christian people, both clerical and secular (as papal holiness itself best recognizes), not only because of Lutheran doctrine and Scripture, but also in many other ways, such manifold great confusion, disorder, and repugnance has taken root, therefore, because of the great destruction that the Turk did to Christendom about many years ago, and is still in daily practice, imperial majesty's governors, and also princes, princes and other estates of the empire, cannot or may not devise any more consoling, helpful means, than that the papal holiness, with the approval of the Roman imperial majesty, as both such Christian heads have power and it is their duty to do, proclaim a free Christian concilium, as to Strasbourg, Mainz, Cologne, Metz, or another convenient city of the German nation, for the most conducive as it is always possible; and that such concilium, for the longest time possible, if it is possible, started in one year, is also approved and announced in such a way that no duty should bind any state, be it ecclesiastical or secular, which will be in such concilium, in such a way that he may be prevented from speaking the necessary truth, as much 2) for divine and other charitable things, but should be obliged and bound to do the same for the most beneficial and highest, for the salvation of his souls etc. For without this, such a council would be considered suspicious and more harmful than useful.
18 But besides this it is not considered with little diligence how it should be kept in the meantime, before such a concilium may come to its progress, because of the mentioned confusion and disorder, on which not little, but much and great is at stake. And for this reason, Imperial Majesty's governors, as well as princes, lords and other estates of the empire, want to act in such a way with the Elector of Saxony, in whose principality the aforementioned Luther and some of his followers are, by which they completely hope to occur that Luther and his followers then shall not write, make or have printed any more, in addition also without any doubt the Elector of Saxony, as a pious, praiseworthy, kind, Christian Elector of the Holy Roman Empire.
2) "as much - and" - both - and.
Roman Empire, will be helpful to all intents and purposes.
19. In addition, governors and estates want to order with all faithful and possible diligence that all preachers speak and act in a proper and fair manner, to avoid in their sermons what might cause the common man to move against the authorities or lead the Christian people into error, but to teach and preach nothing else than the right, pure, clean, holy gospel and proven scriptures, kindly, meekly and Christianly, according to the teaching and interpretation of the proven scriptures accepted by the Christian church.
(20) As for matters of dispute, which are incomprehensible to the common man, even without need of knowledge, they are not to be preached or taught, but are to be decided in the above-mentioned Christian council. And the archbishops and bishops shall ordain especially understanding, pious men, experienced in the Holy Scriptures, who shall diligently take notice of such preaching and teaching; and if they find error therein, that they then reject such preachers or teachers amicably, Christianly, meekly, modestly, and in such a way that it shall not be understood as if one wanted to prevent the evangelical truth (which also cannot be suppressed) in some way. But whichever preacher does not want to let himself be rebuked, the ordinarii may seek and think against him with due punishment, as they know how to do.
21 They also want to take diligent and possible precautions in all printing houses and with all bookkeepers, so that nothing new is further made, sold, printed, publicly or secretly sold, but what is therefore further printed or sold, that should be inspected beforehand by every authority, and reasonable, pious and experienced men of the Scriptures, and where deficiencies are found, the same should not be allowed to be printed or sold.
22 If the papal sanctity of the above-mentioned imperial estates now carries out their proposal and request, in considerable modification of the complaints complained of, and the appointment of the aforementioned free council, they are of good hope that by the means indicated above this indignation, confusion and displeasure of the common man should almost be quenched and rejected.
23 And even if all things could not be brought to an immediate improvement by this, it would still be possible to do so with less harm and damage.
The Council and the Estates do not know how to find possible ways by which such outrage could occur and be brought to a halt. But outside the execution of that which is requested by papal sanctity, as stated above, governors and estates do not know possible ways to find, by which such outrage might occur and be brought to a standstill.
(24) As for the clergy who take wives, also for the sake of the religious who have left the church, which the papal orator has also suggested, it is considered that since no punishment is ordered in the common laws of the secular authorities, the Estates consider that the punishment of the clerical rights, namely the forfeiture of their privileges and liberties, benefices and others, should be left at this time. If, however, they would otherwise have acted improperly and punishably, they would then also be punished according to the order of established rights.
(25) Upon all this, it is requested that Papal Holiness and their orator understand and accept such Imperial Majesty's governors, as well as princes, princes, and other estates' proposals and requests, not otherwise than in faithful, Christian, and good opinion, as well as that their will and mind be not otherwise than to hold themselves at all times as pious, Christian princes, princes, and estates, and to show themselves to Papal Holiness, in Christian obedience, in all dignity. Nota: It has also been moved that the secular princes and estates, who are now all here at this Imperial Diet, over their complaint, which they brought forward at the most recent Imperial Diet at Worms, may order some prudent persons to further inspect, reduce or increase the same, and to formally present it, and also have it handed over to Papal Holiness, or to their sent embassy, with a rather urgent request.
Nota: The following articles concerning the preachers at Nuremberg were said orally to the papal orator and were not included in the written papal answer.
26 When the papal orator, in addition to the instruction, asked in the resolution to imprison some preachers at Nuremberg, for the reason that they should have preached against the holy Christian faith etc. Now the estates could not find out that this had happened, but because the papal orator had perhaps reported too far in some of the things reported. And because the same preachers are held in great esteem and reputation in this city and elsewhere, the estates, where they are unheard and un-
If they were to accept the unchristian doctrine invented by these preachers, not only would nothing good come of it, but great turmoil and indignation would ensue, and nothing else would be considered, because the evangelical truth would in fact be subjected to suppression and harmful abuses would be practiced. If, however, some articles of credible truth were later brought before the estates, which were supposed to have been preached in an unchristian manner by said preachers, they would order persons of understanding and skill to do so, hold them up to them, and hear their answer. And if they found this to be the case, they would then punish them with due punishment, as is proper for pious Christians.
721: Luther's testified pleasure with Spalatin over this answer given by the imperial estates to the papal envoy.
See Appendix, No. 124.
722 The secular imperial estates' gravamen, or grievances they have against the See of Rome and other ecclesiastical estates, which were handed over to the papal orator at the Diet of Nuremberg. 1523.
This document is also to be found in Latin in the collections mentioned in No. 718 and in other collections; in German in Hortleder 1. e. p. 10 and in the Leipziger Gesammtausgabe, Vol. XVIII, p. 335. Before this document, the original will be found in Luther's preface, which we have included in the 14th volume of our edition, Col. 422 ff. - Essentially, these complaints are the same ones that the imperial estates, at the Emperor's request, had drawn up for the Emperor at Worms in 1521, with the request that they be stopped; here, however, the Emperor (through his governor) and the imperial estates bring the same complaints with the same request before the Pope.
Preface.
After the letters of papal holiness, as well as the advertisement and instruction given by their orator to the Roman imperial majesty, governors, princes, princes, and other estates of the holy empire, arrived at the above-mentioned imperial diet at Nuremberg on account of the Lutheran action, all such estates of the empire have written a common answer, in which it is reported, among other things, that the secular estates have their special complaint, which they have against the see of Rome and other ecclesiastical estates, in addition to the above-mentioned common answer.
The papal orator has received the answer of the secular estates, and has asked for its removal; as is found in the answer given by the common imperial estates. Therefore, after this, out of many other annoyances, this time alone, in haste, several high, great complaints of the secular estates have been taken up in the shortest possible time, but without being confessed or given up, what of it remains unreported now, and, by the gracious, fatherly, Christian and praiseworthy request of papal holiness, have been handed over to their orator, to be brought to their holiness for the best, as follows.
Complaining about the chair of Rome, and firstly:
Dispensing with the popes for money.
1) Namely, that some things based on human statutes, which are not based on any divine commandment or prohibition, such as, with honest marriages, by reason of the scales and degrees of consanguinity, affinity, and gevatterschaft, forbidden food, and other such things (of which many examples are to be set, but are now in the best of cases omitted), as especially with the poor, are set for damnable sin, and yet are permitted and allowed to the rich, who have to pay such, for the sake of money. As a result, not only has an unspeakably large amount of money and goods been brought to Rome from German lands, but other great spiritual burdens and seductions of consciences and souls have followed in countless ways.
From the forbidden time.
2) Item, it is also forbidden by the popes or their laws for the common man to have marital weddings between Sunday, when the Alleluia is laid down, and Shrove Tuesday, which is otherwise the time when the ecclesiastical and secular classes are most accustomed to worldly merriment, without penalty, so that they must therefore buy permission for money from the bishops or their archpriests. This is a special money trick and burden for the poor common man, as without money it is forbidden and a sin, but for money it is allowed and good.
Of great vexation of the papal indulgence.
3) Item, it is too often in the form of some church buildings, and from other good appearances, indulgence of sins, indulgence of usury, robbery, murder, fire and all other damage to the neighbor, in German lands for money to remit.
and money from German lands to Rome, thereby depriving many a poor, simple man of the food he himself needed; And, what is even more harmful, through such indulgences and indulgences, even frivolous and unskillful preachers, who proclaimed and proclaimed the same indulgences with great annoyance, and from the fact that the people were thereby allowed to commit many a sin through unceasing indulgence, were induced and strengthened to commit many grave sins, perjury, swearing, deathblows and others, and were also seduced in a damning manner. And such indulgences have at times extended not only to the present and future sins of the living, but also to the souls in purgatory, where money was deposited for them, so that they would certainly be redeemed. And even though such indulgences have been sent out and publicly preached on several occasions, as if they were to be used for the salvation of Christians against unbelievers, they have not been used for this purpose, but for other worldly and selfish purposes, to raise and keep their friends and family, which, together with the above-mentioned great annoyance and seduction of the Christian people, brought such unbelief among the Christian people, so that they are now expected to help against the Turks in great need, that they suspect that such desired help should again be abused in such a way. And that is why it is difficult to obtain help from the common man against the Turk. What great, unspeakable damage to the soul and to temporal goods will result from all this, papal holiness, as the highly knowledgeable and highly enlightened one, knows well and sufficiently without any doubt.
The pope and the bishops also reserve the right to absolve certain sins and cases on their own. And if such or similar cases occur, the people will not be absolved, unless much money is spent for it. Nor shall any dispensation be given for necessity in respectable, respectable matters, unless it is weighed out with gold. And if a poor man does not have money to give, he will not be absolved, nor will he be dispensed with in his duties.
But some rich people, for money and money's worth, are given letters of indult by papal sanctity, if they practice murder, perjury, or such abuses in the future, so that every bad priest can have them.
The first thing is that the evil-doer may be absolved from it. So that one gives cause to great vices and sins only for the sake of good and money.
Concerning the Stationirer.
4) Since the stationers, 1) who seek their collection in the country from time to time, bring much money from the people with their writing and begging and preaching of the Holy 2) Punishment and plagues, and pretend great indulgence and indulgence, which is only estimation and deception of the poor, simple man. St. Anthony's Embassy alone has been moved, and now there are St. Anthony's, St. Hauprechtz,3 ) St. Cornelia's, St. Valentine's, and other new churches. Valentin, and other new imaginary envoys, thereby depriving the poor, simple people of what they have worked hard for in their blood and sweat, which continues to be done in various ways uselessly, shamefully, and blasphemously, which the poor are in great need of for their own and their children's nourishment, and which the archbishops and bishops allow for the sake of money.
From mendicants.
5) Item, the poor people are also excessively burdened with mendicants, which the mendicant orders, against their rule, practice in the cities and towns. For often there are two, three or four mendicants in a town; so that the house-poor people, who feed themselves with their hard work, and thus honestly, honestly and well kept, also have a wife and child, and due to old age or illness can never feed themselves with work, are duly deprived of their alms and help, and given elsewhere; which is also granted by the bishops for an annual allowance.
For this reason, the secular imperial estates ask papal holiness that they put an end to such a nuisance of indulgence, also of dispensation, stationirer and terminirer4 ) , and that they do so, that no sins, which are not sins according to divine law, are made for the Christian believers, and for this reason absolved and dispensed for money, but that the Christian believers, as Christ's sheep, may be saved from their sins.
1) Stationirer - Reliquary collector.
2) In the old edition: "saints". For our reading, compare St. Louis edition, vol. XIV, 1475, ß 2V: "St. Anthony, St. Valten, and the like, have plagued the iniquities."
3) "Huprechts" is found in No. 539, that is, St. Hubertus.
4) Terminirer - mendicant monks.
The church is to be left free to exercise its Christian liberties, and in Christian love, according to Christ's command, it is to be pastured free of charge, and if it is transgressed, it is to be punished meekly with good spiritual instruction, so that it may be seen that the shepherd seeks the salvation of the sheep, not their wool and his own profit. That secular matters may be brought to Rome in the first instance and otherwise justified without justice.
6) Item, our holy fathers, the popes, have cited and summoned, at the request of other clergy, some secular persons to Rome for inheritance, pledge and other such secular things. This is not only to the noticeable detriment and damage of these persons, but also to the detriment and violation of the secular jurisdiction of the secular authorities. For this reason, the secular estates of the Holy Roman Empire request that such complaints be stopped and that no secular person in any secular matter be excluded, nor that the clergy be cited to Rome in the first instance, but that they be left in the right before their ecclesiastical and secular authorities, under which they have been seated, and that they not be demanded further.
Of the conservators and papal judges.
7) The archbishops, bishops and prelates obtain from papal sanctity some elders or other ecclesiastical prelates, who are subject to them or otherwise well related, as judges of all their matters, which they complain of before them, and call such judges conservatores. Before them, they take secular persons, noble and ignoble, to court over matters that are completely secularly forbidden, although they have never before been denied or refused any right before the secular authorities. And those who for this reason do not want to appear or answer before such supposed judges are banished unfairly and voidly, as many examples could be counted. This again deprives the secular authorities and their courts. And if this were allowed, it would in time lead to all secular persons and things being brought before such and other ecclesiastical judges, who are completely partial and inconvenient to the secular ones. This is not acceptable in any way, and is also publicly contrary to the order of the Holy Roman Empire, which clearly states that each must let the other remain in the right before his proper judge and court. Therefore, the estates of the Holy Roman Empire request, as stated above, that such complaints be completely abolished. ,
Of Papal Delegates and Commissaries.
8) Papal holiness also gives the ecclesiastical persons, at their request, judices delegatos and commissarios as ecclesiastical judges in German lands, which the laity (be they of whatever dignity or rank they wish) take before the same judges for secular matters, and are subject to compel them to do so with the ban; all to abort and diminish secular jurisdiction, also to special dangerous detriment and damage of the secular persons.
How the popes draw some prelates out of the bishops' compulsory jurisdiction and other patrons' help.
9) Papal holiness is subject to expropriate some monasteries, and to withdraw from their bishops, as ordinary judges, jurisdiction, and also other of their secular patrons. This will not only diminish and destroy the bishops and patrons, but also the Holy Roman Empire, in their actions and assistance, which the bishops and other patrons have at times placed on their offices, and which they will continue to place on them, and which will help the Roman Empire even more. For this reason, the imperial estates ask that such complaints be stopped and that all such monasteries remain with their bishops and patrons, so that they may also help and serve the Holy Roman Empire in a more noble way.
From diminution of justice juris patronatus.
10) Item, if by deaths benefices are settled, which are patronatus of a layman or ecclesiastical juris, then papal sanctity, also of the same ambassadors and legates, are subject to derogate the same rights, and thereupon confer the benefices to curtisans 1) and others, of their liking, by which the ecclesiastical and secular patrons are deprived and taken away their due presentation. And it is said from time to time that the prevention has taken place, so whoever bestows before, he shall proceed, over and against that such patrons have de jure patronatus some time, in which they may bestow their benefices from male unseasoned, from which then follows all such ecclesiastical and secular patrons noticeable disadvantage and damage. For this reason, the estates of the Holy Roman Empire request that such complaints be stopped and that, for the time being, such benefices be granted to their patrons.
1) Curtisans == Roman courtiers.
Let the ordinary patrons' conferrals remain. Also not to allow the courtesans to accept such benefices, neither judicially nor in any other way, but finally to set and order, if anything is made and obtained again, that all this shall be void, null and voidable in all ways.
Of the clergy who die in Rome or on the way.
11) Item, in former times the popes of ecclesiastical persons, who were relatives of their saints or relatives in service, or went to Rome in the jubilee year or otherwise, and died in Rome or outside Rome on the way, granted beneficia, and officia, large and small, as fallen home to the curtisanis and other incompetent persons, as mentioned above, regardless of whether such benefices were de jure patronatus; thereby the ecclesiastical and secular patrons and feudatories have again been deprived of their justice.
How, under the appearance of the papal court, names of many benefices are accrued, and otherwise the priests, as long as they are entrusted with such benefices, are challenged by the courtesans.
12) In addition to all of these, several excellent beneficia, often under officialibus or familiaribus Papae and the papal court servants' names, have been accrued by unlearned and unskilled persons, and have been subject to bring such beneficia into commission (as they call it), also regressus, reservationes, pensiones, and many other incompatibilia, on it, by which such beneficia, come into waste and diminution, and thus remain for and for at the papal court, and the skilled capable persons of Germans have been little provided with it.
Item, the Germans often encounter a lot of trouble from the Curtisans, who thus accrue ecclesiastical beneficia in German lands, so that they are subject to expel pious, honorable, old priests, if they have quietly possessed their beneficia for many years with good title, without distress, They are also to penetrate into other ways, where they want to be otherwise quiet, so that they must agree with the same curtisans for an annual pension or reserve, according to the ability of their Roman statutu and regaIia, which they daily deny to their liking, and derogate the old ones. Thereby not'
only those pious priests, who are not reported to the Curtisi, but also the feudal lords are deceived. And even if such a priest does not get along with the Curtisans, they still make war on him; and if the priest dies in such a war, the Curtisan would then be appointed, regardless of the right feudal lord's justice. For this reason, the imperial estates again humbly request that papal holiness put an end to all such complaints by the Curtisans and not allow them to fill some German benefices.
How to provide the spiritual dignities to be drawn to Rome.
13) Item, what good beneficia, as provostries, decaneries, cantries, or other similar dignitates and officia, also canonicat, vicarei and parishes are left in mense ordinario, except the city of Rome, so here before ecclesiastical and secular patron to confer, The Pope and the Cardinals shall be entitled to confer, consecrate, present and nominate such dignities and benefices in Rome, especially if the holders thereof have been officiales or officiantes of the Pope or of the Cardinals. Also some, who have much good beneficia, are summoned to dinner in the Cardinals' Court in Rome for the sake of fraud, and secret notaries and witnesses are brought to it, so that later, if it comes to a case, it is testified as if these summoned persons were servants of the Cardinal, with whom they thus dine safely, regardless of the fact that this has happened with great fraud. Therefore, the Estates of the Realm ask that such a complaint be stopped, and that the ordinary patrons remain in the conferring and granting, presentation and nomination of such dignities and benefits, regardless of whether the familiares or officers of the Papal Court are in hand, or have had or still have regressum, accessum or other supposed justice, as the names have or gain, so that their supposed justice is harmless and irrelevant to the ordinary patrons now and henceforth.
Of rules of papal aancelei, new finds, and reserves on future cases.
14) Item, not only have the rules at Rome, in the chancery there, been set and often changed for the benefit and advantage of the Curtisans, but also many new findings and offices have been devised, so that the ecclesiastical fiefs of the German nation may be brought into Roman hands and occupied the sooner.
The ecclesiastical fiefs are not only reserved and insured for future cases for the ecclesiastical and secular lords of the fiefs, but also for their benefices and ecclesiastical fiefs, to the noticeable deprivation, complication, disadvantage and damage of their justice. For when those to whom such reservations are given obtain the ecclesiastical fiefs, they continue to practice 1) permutation, reservation, subrogation, ingressum, regressum, accessum, and others, so that the same fiefs never or hardly return to the right ordinary patrons and fief lords.
Of the harmfulness of the papal sold offices.
15) The popes have many offices belonging to the courts and other institutions, which offices are sold and abandoned by the popes to the same officers or officials for large sums of money and in such a way that the Germans and others, who need the use of such officers or officials in judicial or other actions in Rome, must pay for them with much higher rewards. With this and many countless other things noted, how at the Roman court after the secular money so with various dangers is put up to now, and for unfairly averted.
Of parishes and benefices in general, and therefore of the Roman abuse.
16) Item, not only have many gratuities and reservations pectorales, mentales, generales and speciales, regressus, accessus, incorporationes, uniones and Concordat, as all these have names, been given to prelatures, parishes and benefices, especially in German lands, for the sake of money and temporal enjoyment, but also at times such prelatures and benefices have been given to the great companies and merchants, with some supposed embellishment (for sale), and by practice almost all benefices, or the best ones, have been drawn from the German nation and lent to unlearned, unskilled and careless persons, so that many from foreign nations come to prelatures and God's gifts 2) who are unlearned, and for this purpose not
1) In the old edition: "Partiten".
2) "God's gifts," another name for benefices bestowed by special grace.
are of the German tongue. From this follows that they may not possess and govern such benefices themselves, as is especially proper for pastors, that they should present good examples to their parishioners, and feed and provide them with Christian doctrine and instruction for the salvation of their souls as Christian sheep; but this does not happen. Rather, such pastorates are filled by those who obtain them, as if they were obvious, with other unlearned, unskilled persons, who only give the most money for absences, as one gives the secular building yards and tithes, who then preach to the Christian people, for the divine word and proven holy scripture, useless and unproven legends of the saints, and other fictitious, annoying, pagan fables, and cannot do better. Thus, the Christian people are led by such unlearned and unskilled parish priests away from the right Christian faith and trust in God, in which alone our salvation and our souls' blessedness stands, to other superstitions and human works, which serve them, the parish priests, for their temporal enjoyment. In addition, they are burdened with all kinds of drudgery, so that they may also maintain and enrich themselves in their great absence, and thus money is given annually to other nations from German lands, from which nothing comes back to the German nation in eternity, nor is any gratitude or goodness shown, although such benefices are endowed by the Germans to their own, and not to other nations. For this reason, the imperial estates request that such complaints, which cause so much, excessive money and property to come from German lands and to be uselessly used, be completely stopped, so that the benefices in German lands are not lent to anyone other than native Germans who reside there themselves, as is due in equity and respectability.
As the archbishops and bishops are obliged by their (capitula, granting of benefices half.
17) Item, such parishes and benefices are not only provided at Rome, for the sake of money, merit or favor, with unlearned, harmful, frivolous and annoying persons, but also such things are done by archbishops and bishops, who are so bound by their chapters that they usually have to confer all large parishes that bear much use, and no doubt endowed by the founders on pious, learned men, on their chapter lords, however unskilled they may be at it, who for the time being have to take care of such parishes.
The same is true of all chapters of high and low monasteries, which are called cathedrales and coIIegiatos, and which are called cathedrales and coIIegiatos, and which are called cathedrales and coIIegiatos. The same thing is done by all chapters of high and low monasteries, called cathedrales and coIIegiatos.
The same ones, who have the best parishes and benefices, also let the parish and benefice houses collapse with great use, so that the parishes and benefices are endowed by the laity, so that they only ask for a lot of money, from which they can have their splendor all their life long in various sinful and annoying ways, and nothing at all about the founders' and other parishioners' bliss. Therefore, the secular estates of the Holy Roman Empire ask papal holiness to put an end to such annoying disorder and complaints, to let the archbishops and bishops do their duty, and not to allow them to associate with each other, but to ensure that no one is lent a parish or similar benefice that has pastoral care, unless he is learned, skilful, and of an honorable way of life; that he also resides there, and thus has no more than one parish, which he provides for in a Christian and unruly manner.
Of Commenden and Incorporation of Prelatures.
18) Item, as is known, many abbeys, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical houses, imperial and princely foundations have been commendated and incorporated to cardinals, bishops, and other prelates, and through these cardinals, bishops, and prelates the foundations have been diminished to such an extent, where formerly in the same foundations one, forty, fifty or more persons were held, that now often not five, six or ten of them are held and accepted, all for the benefit of their own use, which is an annoying, unsolvable thing and high complaint. And therefore it is hereby also requested that such abbeys, monasteries and other ecclesiastical houses be restored to their former status, and henceforth to avoid giving such commendations or incorporation to anyone.
Of the foundations that are based on the nobility alone.
19) Item, although some monasteries in German lands, which are founded by and on high and lower nobility, on which, according to old custom, only princes, counts, lords and others of nobility should and may come, nevertheless, these same
The Pope's papal liberties, old conventions and laudable statutes are not applied, but it is subordinated to prevent the free elections of bishops and provosts, deans 1) and canonici; to make some coadjutors against the approval of the Chapter, and also to bring Curtisans, even if they are not noble and unlearned, to the monasteries, and therefore to act against ancient custom and laudable statutes, so that the benefices of the nobility of the German nation are withdrawn, and the ignoble, and bestowed upon the unprecious, either for money or for temporal services, although the unprecious are allowed to do so, so that princes, counts, lords, and others of nobility have to buy such benefices from the unprecious or pay interest on them, with some fictitious embellishment, although they are given other names; which then causes such high and low nobility of the German nation great discomfort and disadvantage.
Old Privilegia to Handle.
20) To all this: although ecclesiastical and secular estates, as mentioned above, have been given privileges and liberties by papal sanctity to confer and sanctify provostries and other affected benefices and offices themselves, nevertheless, in the same by new federations from the See of Rome all kinds of practices have been used to derogate and cancel such liberties, and in other ways various entries have been made. For this reason, the estates of the realm ask that such things be stopped, that they be abolished, and that each of them be allowed to exercise his liberties as is fair.
From the annates.
21) Item, for the sake of the annuities, which they, the ecclesiastical prelates, give and let follow the Roman See through the German nation for several years, granted in such a way that they should be used for nothing else, but only to resist the Turk, and the same granted years have long since passed, also as the given annuities are used in other unauthorized places. In the other common imperial estates, the papal orator is given the answer to such unseemly complaints, 2) and first of all, the imperial majesty himself writes to the papal sanctity, 3) sufficient notice is given; and this time, the secular estates leave it alone.
1) In the old edition: "Dechnat" and immediately following: "Canonic".
2) No. 720, on 5 Feb. 1523.
3) No. 713, dated Oct. 31, 1522.
From the clergy and houses of worship help to handle peace and justice, also against the Turks.
22) Item, after the secular estates' forefathers had endowed the monasteries, convents and places of worship in German lands, to the praise of God Almighty, as high and to such an extent that now they, the secular ones, do not lack the third part or the fourth part of temporal goods, also therefore for the necessity of the clergy and the secular to maintain peace and justice in German lands, and to resist the Turk, as well as other attackers of the church and the empire, the necessity and equity requires that papal holiness do such a fatherly understanding and decree, so that the clergy, as they have the greatest wealth, are not only helpful to resist the Turk, but also to have peace and justice, give something annually, so that the archbishops and bishops, who alone among them sat with secular authority in their monasteries, may control and strike, and that likewise the secular princes, princes and other secular authority, the clergy in their princedoms, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, counties, and counties, The same shall apply to the clergy in their principalities, counties, dominions, cities and territories, without interference or entry by the clergy, so that the seculars may help to maintain peace and justice alongside the clergy, and so that the same clergy may be handled, protected and protected by the seculars in a more respectable and equitable manner.
About the church's bells and bells, to be used to help against the Turks.
23) And since all clergymen should first of all and most of all help to the best of their ability to resist the Turk, as [the] enemy of the Christian faith, and to reconquer the Christian lands that have been taken away, it is considered quite useful and good, if necessity requires, that the jewels that the monasteries and other churches have, be they of gold, silver, pearls or other precious stones, as well as the other bells, 1) so that they do not fall into the hands of the Turk. 1) so that this is not saved and kept for the benefit of the Turk, as happened in the Greek empire, which then came to the Turk's great supply and benefit, so that he had all the more reason to overrun and conquer other Christian lands and regions with or from such found jewels and metals.
1) Added by us.
That the antlers have no right cheap punishment because of their mistreatment.
24) Item, who lets himself be consecrated, the consecration be high or low, he wants to be free of all worldly punishment, how evil and wicked he acted, thereby they are also handled by the high ecclesiastical estates; from this follows much evil and annoyance. For this is found in many ways, since the consecrated, and especially the epistles, evangelists and priests, are forbidden by papal statute to have wives, that they pursue the secular wives, daughters, sisters and other female persons belonging to them, day and night, in dishonor; Also, by their manifold persistence, rent and gifts, they induce many a pious woman and virgin, partly in confession, as has been experienced, and otherwise to sin and dishonor, and in some places forcibly withhold them from their husbands, cousins and friends, and, if they oppose them, they also conspire to have them stabbed and drowned; Without which they act wickedly, angrily and criminally with murder and manslaughter, treason, arson, thievery, counterfeiting of the coin and other ways; and rely on their supposed liberties to such an extent that they not only despise the secular punishment, but are also disobedient to their bishops and overlords. And in order that these consecrated persons may be even more protected and strengthened in their abuses, the archbishops and bishops are forbidden to punish these consecrated persons publicly, without any permanent reason, because they are degraded beforehand. This must be done with such great expense and pomp that it happens very seldom. In addition, the bishops are obligated by their capitula not to punish the consecrated persons according to their papal rights (however small the punishments are). Some can also be ordained, who are subsequently in public secular dealings and states, and nevertheless want to use the said ordained freedom against due secular judgment and punishment, and thereupon practice much the more reckless iniquity and misconduct, in which they are subject to the ecclesiastical authorities. From all this, between the ecclesiastics and the seculars, there is much unpleasantness, displeasure and annoyance. And it is to be feared that, where the magistrates against the secular, touched and others, because of their daily incessant maltreatment, do not have the right judges and punishments, their evil will be punished,
The fact that the people of the city will live an angry life will cause a whole outrage and revolt among the common people, 1) not only against them, the ecclesiastical estates, but also against all authorities, because they will see such trouble and will not be moved to avert it.
Therefore, necessity and equity require that such freedom as is supposed for consecrated persons be abolished, removed, and for their sake some laws be ordered and made that they, they find consecrated in majoribus or minoribus, 2) with one or more consecration, 2) with one or more consecrations, shall have no liberty in their maltreatment before secular persons, but shall have equal judgement and right, and whoever, for his maltreatment, shall be punished in the court in which he is entered, according to the occasion of his misdeed, like other common evil persons, according to the laws of the realm. This will undoubtedly not be burdensome for the pious clergy, and will urge the wicked to piety and obedience of their authorities, also cut off and prevent sedition and antagonism between them and the seculars, and give the seculars cause to honor and love the pious clergy all the more.
From weighting of the ban.
25) Item, many Christians in Rome, as well as in other places, are banished by the archbishops, bishops or their ecclesiastical judges for the sake of temporal things and goods, and thereby many weak consciences are weighed down and led into despair, also for the sake of temporal money and goods, and often deprived of soul, honor, body and goods for very little, contrary to divine statute and law, so that no one, but only because of overcome heresy, should be banished or considered evil. For this reason, the secular estates of the Holy Roman Empire ask that Papal Holiness, as a faithful, Christian and God-fearing father, finally put an end to such complaints of banishment from the Roman See, and also abolish them from the other archbishops, bishops and their ecclesiastical judges, and decree in such a way, that no one shall be banned and considered evil for any reason whatsoever, but only for publicly conquered heresy affecting the holy Christian faith, and that no one shall be separated from God and His Church for temporal goods or other such human proceedings, apart from unbelief.
1) Added by us.
2) That is, in higher or lower consecration.
How to cast a spell on many others who sit and dwell in spots with the banished, yet are quite innocent.
26) Item, if at times some persons in a village are banished, not only with equity, but also often with inequity, allegedly, so that not only these, but also their neighbors, who have nothing to do with such things or are related, are also banished, so that the officials get their way sooner, and the self-sacrificers 3) can bring their property to contract. For whether the self-made man is driven away with his wife and children by such unreasonable, burdensome conduct, in which no measure nor distinction is made as to the poor man's property or fault, nor is it considered, The neighbors are not to be considered whether they intentionally or wantonly participated in or had contact with the banished Selbsacher, nor whether they were therefore obliged to drive him out of their village or not, but are nevertheless obliged, which is not possible in the case of the Selbsacher, to enforce this from the others, however innocent they may be. And if it is pointed out to the ecclesiastical judges and they are reminded that their own ecclesiastical rights forbid that for monetary debts or the like no one shall be banished, nor shall an interdict be held, then they do so nevertheless, and say that it is for the sake of disobedience, which should be so much greater than it stems from lesser things, so that they may think that they are covering their unreasonable conduct with unreason.
Further, from unseemly interdicts.
27) If a priest or other consecrated person is slain, not only the perpetrator is banished, but also the town, village or hamlet is interdicted unreasonably, and as long as the interdict is held, no Christian work is performed until the perpetrator or the congregation of the same hamlet has repented or decreed the matter; Regardless of how wickedly the consecrated person has acted and given cause to strike, the papal laws themselves make a distinction in several such cases, which is contrary to law, all equality and equity.
From Abthuung of several holidays.
28) Item, it is not little, but highly burdensome for the poor people that so many holidays, outside of divine laws, but commanded by popes and bishops to be kept under the ban, thereby the poor people lose much necessary work.
3) "Self-maker" - the one whom the matter actually concerns.
and for this reason they often have to let their fruits in the field become damaged and spoiled because of thunderstorms, which they would otherwise like to bring home. Moreover, even on holidays, which should be kept solely for the praise and blessed improvement of mankind (as is evidently the case), most blasphemies, deaths, wounds, gluttony, unchastity, discord, gambling, other eating of the poor, and otherwise innumerable sinful and shameful things are done. Nevertheless, the bishops, officials and priests are hard on the poor man for such celebrations, so that the spiritual pleasures, with offerings, church services and others, may be increased all the more by the celebrating people gathered together, which is against God and the common good. For this reason, the secular classes consider it necessary that such holidays should be kept apart from Sundays and high festivals, and that whatever other holidays remain should not be celebrated longer than the time it takes for the people to hear the early morning sermon and mass.
Of the bailiwicks and houses in Apulia, in Sicily, which were stolen from the chivalrous German Order.
29) Item, although the German Order of Prussia etc. out of the benevolent providence and gifts of the Roman emperors and kings of high lordly memory, also of the princes, counts, lords and nobility, of some estates and usufruct in the kingdoms of Sicily and Apulia, also of other French lands, happened in former times, so that they might have the more stately disposition against the infidel and the more honest entertainment of the German nobility, From such estates and usufructuaries they made several bailiwicks and commanderies, which they quietly possessed and held for several centuries, but by the previous popes such estates were withdrawn from the mentioned Order and delivered to several cardinals, archbishops and bishops who were neither German nor of the Order, so that the chivalrous German Order still lacks such estates.
In addition, the previous popes of the German Order gave houses in Venice to a born whale and clothed him with the habit of the Order, all contrary to the statutes of the said German Order, in which only the German nobility is to be, and therefore contrary to papal, imperial and royal confirmations. Similarly, the Roman curtisans of the German Order have touched houses in Italy with papal bulls and commission, as at Bononia etc., and the
The Order of the Holy Roman Emperor has insisted on taking legal action against the Order, which is no small diminishment of the Order and of the German nation.
Item, the German Lords of Stablora 1) St. Benedict's monastery, on which they were founded, has been taken away for a short time and given to Cardinal Columna in commendations, all to the detriment and diminishment of the German nation, against law and all equity. Therefore, the Estates also request, as before, that Papal Holiness restore and reinstate such stolen goods and usufruct to the chivalric German Order without delay, or decree that it be done as is due by right and equity.
Of complaints which the secular estates have against the archbishops, bishops and other prelates, chapters and their courts.
30) Item, among other many burdens of the archbishops, bishops and prelates, is the one, as reported before among the Roman infirmities, that they obtain from the See of Rome conservatores, delegatos judices, and such ecclesiastical, inconvenient and entirely partial judges, before whom they, 2) not only to deprive the secular of their ordinary judges, courts and authorities, but also to deprive them of their souls, honor, bodies and goods by means of an alleged ban, and by the violent use of the same.
How worldly goods are transferred into the hands of the clergy and not into the hands of the worldly again.
31) Item, the clergy is provided with constitution, statutes and orders by the See of Rome, that it never has to sell or change the property of the churches, called bona immobilia, to lay persons, and yet the clergy, without any necessity, by various unspeakable and hidden ways, seek without ceasing to get hold of the worldly goods, as much as they like and as much as they like. Even the seculars have so far acquired so much that they have only a small portion and so little more that they are unable to maintain peace and justice in the empire and to resist the Turks, and it is unpleasant to tolerate such a long period in the secular estates if they want to perish completely with the ecclesiastics.
1) In No. 539 "Sublack". See Col. 1743.
2) In the old edition: "before".
How the bishops of the clergy are subject to take secular inherited property.
32) It is also sometimes the case that ecclesiastics have inherited hereditary property that they inherited from their parents, along with other heirs, and if these ecclesiastics die without a will, that such worldly property is required by some bishops to be taken from their rightful heirs. This is quite burdensome and unpleasant for the seculars to endure.
How some secular goods, sold or transferred to the churches or cloisters, are to be brought under ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
33) If it ever happens that secular goods, situated in secular jurisdiction, are sold, transferred or delivered in other ways to churches and cloisters, together with interest, fees 1) and usufruct, or at times behind the secular jurisdiction, charged with interest or taxes against such churches or cloisters, the clergy are subject to take such secular goods out of secular jurisdiction; therefore the bishops and prelates also hold and act contrary to law and all equity.
Of conferring the new endowed benefices.
34) If a new benefice is founded by the secular, high or low, some bishops want to have the first granting of such benefices, and not allow the founders beforehand, nor confirm such benefices, unless the founders and patrons grant them such.
Of unnecessary confirmation of benefices, and others.
35) Item, if someone wants to establish and confirm a new endowed benefice, brotherhood or something else of the kind; although such confirmation is not required by law and equity, they are nevertheless valued and taken over excessively in money, and by their statutes and other practices they insist that such endowments, however small they may be, be confirmed. This is also a great burden.
1) In the old edition: "Gülden". "Gülte" is so much as: Tax, land rent. Cf. St. Louis edition, Vol. Ill, 8.
Of certain unjust burdens imposed on clergymen who have been enfeoffed by the seculars.
36) Item, if the priests are enfeoffed and presented by the seculars, and request investiture from the bishops or their vicars, some want to have as much of it as the fief has one year, in some places two years, income; so that half the part is demanded to the bishop, and the other half part to the archidiacon or archpriest, for giving the possession.
Moreover, such ecclesiastical benefices are so highly and excessively burdened with subsidies and other treasures (without there being public and honest causes for which the common rights to take such subsidies yield) that the priests are not allowed their necessary abstention, from which the same priests take cause to recover such of their complaint and lack of the laity, and sell the sacraments and other Christian gifts, which according to the commandment of the holy Gospels they are obliged to give free of charge, to the laity for money.
How to ordain too many and often unlearned and unskilled priests.
37) Item, the archbishops and bishops, or their suffraganei, too often consecrate unlearned, clumsy and quite frivolous persons, who also partly have no benefice, nor any other certain provision for their sustenance, but only, or often no apparent title at all, so that they often, out of innate malice, frivolity, clumsiness or poverty, engage in all kinds of dishonorable dealings, thereby despising the right, true spiritual state, and giving the common people evil examples and annoyance. Thus, some bishops believe six alleged witnesses who give evidence of the person to be ordained, who say that he is worthy and skilled for it, but at the time none of them has ever seen or recognized him before; and thus they dare to do enough for the Christian statutes with a pretense alone.
From expenses, so one consecrates the churches or churchyards.
38) When the consecrating bishops consecrate churches, altars and churchyards, they burden the poor people with much food and many other expenses. And even though they themselves confess that they should neither take nor demand any reward for this, they
The seculars must give them money for their consecration in the guise of a fictitious donation, which they also have their servants solicit and demand from the poor people in such a way that the poor people cannot have it. In addition, the seculars buy some special vessels or dishes for such consecration, and after the consecration they have to redeem them from the consecrating bishop or his servants, or leave them with them, and with all this they do not bring a little money from the seculars everywhere in the bishoprics of German lands. Such other burdens on the seculars should also be stopped.
That the churchyards have to be consecrated at times in an unnecessary way.
39) If two people beat or fight with fists, without any other weapons, in a churchyard, so that one of them becomes a little bloodthirsty, the priests are obliged to keep an interdict and not to practice the Christian works until the community has the churchyard consecrated again, with heavy costs and expenses, as stated above; all to the detriment of the secular persons.
From expenses of the Aebte and Aebtissinnen consecration.
40) If an abbot or abbess is elected, they must, although they are consecrated and ordained for monks and monastic women according to necessity, have the consecrating bishop consecrate them anew, dearly transfer the same consecrating bishop and his servants, and give money for this, in the guise of a donation; This results in much expense, and is detrimental and damaging not only to the same monasteries, but also to the secular authorities to whom such monasteries belong and serve.
From consecration of many other things, belonging to the blaze.
41) If secular persons buy chasubles and many other things belonging to the mass in their churches at their own expense, to the praise of God, they must be consecrated by the consecrating bishops before they are used for the mass, and therefore given to the consecrating bishop for veneration or donation. This inconsistency is also justified. But if the consecrating bishops do not want to have such an effort in vain, then they allow every prelate or priest to do this for free, so that unseemly stinginess is not noted among them.
From bell consecrations.
42) Item, the ordained bishops or sub-bishops have also devised that they, and no other priests, supposedly baptize their bells to the laity, who do not understand it better. And the poor simple-minded man is persuaded by them that because of such alleged baptized bell ringing the devil and the harmful weather should be driven away. Therefore, as many people as are able to give money are asked to be the godparents of such bells, who in the supposed baptism of the bells attack a long rope tied to the bells, and repeat the name of the bells (as used with baptized children) to the consecrating bishop. For this purpose, after the supposed baptism of the bells, a vestment is put on the bells as baptized Christian children, and in such supposed baptism of the bells, the consecrating bishop together with his clergy and servants must be deliciously laid, and special rewards, which he calls a donation, must be given to the consecrating bishop, and all invited godparents of the bells must be fed with apparent food and drink. So that often in a bad village several hundred guilders are raised on such a supposed baptism of bells; which is first of all an unchristian, seductive superstition of the simple-minded people, and in addition a protection of the laymen. In these and other such drudgeries, the highest wealthy bishops handle their consecrated bishops or sub-bishops, so that they may otherwise give them very little for the decay of their episcopal offices, and this is stopped in an equitable manner. If, however, it should ever be good to consecrate the bells (as the consecrating bishops call it against the prudent who question them about it), it is decreed that this consecration be done by any priest, as used with water, salt, palms or roots, in this case also free of charge and without the expense of the laity, so that the poor common people are not thus seduced and brought to harm, and for this reason unseemly suspicion of avarice is prevented.
How the bishops and parish priests desire and take part in the sacrifices and gifts of the pilgrimages.
43) Item, in some monasteries, where there is a pilgrimage, the bishops or prelates want to have the third, or at least the fourth penny of all the offerings that are made, which their own papal rights do not allow them to have, but such offerings are used for help against the Turks, or otherwise for the needs of the next Christian.
How the bishops covet unseemly money from the virgin monasteries.
44) Item, if some virgin monasteries are governed by provosts, who are removable at will and are not perpetual, the bishops do not want to allow such removal and taking in of other provosts, so the monasteries give them some florins.
Of the archpriest officials and other ecclesiastical judges.
45) The officials of the archpriests are commonly unlearned and unskilled, also partly frivolous, greedy persons, and how they themselves sit in open sins and disgraces is found from daily experience; Thus the secular persons, whom they should duly punish for sin, are almost annoyed also in spiritual matters, 1) and in addition are miserably damaged and ruined in their goods by such frivolous persons, in whom nothing but avarice and no Christian conscience appears. Which the archbishops and bishops, if they were right pastors and shepherds of the Christian flock, should put a stop to, and not order such flocks of Christ to such annoying persons.
How the laity are unreasonably dragged before spiritual judgment.
46) The laity are unreasonably dragged into the spiritual courts; for if the plaintiff is spiritual, and the answerer secular, the clergy want to drag such secular answerers into the spiritual courts for the sake of any matter whatsoever; which is publicly against the law, and not convenient for the secular.
How Secular Subjects are Dragged Before Spiritual Courts for Guilt.
47) Item, the clergy also very often take the secular subjects for debt with spiritual rights, before they are denied some cheap help by the secular authorities. And so the poor people, who cannot follow their spiritual rights in many ways, and are also too often not obliged to do so, are brought into supposed banishment, and also ruinous costs and damage, quite wantonly and miserably.
I) In the old edition: "annoy".
2) "Answerer" put by us instead of "Answer" in the old edition.
How to cause the seculars unreasonably to demand their subjects in ecclesiastical courts.
48) Item, there are also many other unseemly things that go out by summons and admonition in the ecclesiastical courts against secular persons, regardless of the fact that such ecclesiastical judges know beforehand publicly and undoubtedly that such a matter does not belong before them, and must also dismiss it afterwards; which is also highly burdensome for the secular subjects. For although such matters are subsequently referred to secular ordinary courts at the request of the defendant and secular authorities, the persons unreasonably summoned nevertheless suffer considerable expense and damage as a result. For they must therefore petition their secular authority, which they nevertheless cannot always get near, bring writs and demands from them, and send them to the ecclesiastical judge. On this they also receive a lot of messenger's wages, expenses, board and lodging. And if at any time such a summoned person cannot find his secular authority immediately, and cannot bring about the above-mentioned demand and send it to the ecclesiastical judge before the reminder to the ecclesiastical courts goes out, the ecclesiastical judges do not want to dismiss such secular matters for that reason, no matter what it may be.
That the ecclesiastical judges do not want to reject some special lay matters.
49) If a lawsuit is filed in the ecclesiastical courts for the sake of virginity or unworthy children, for wages or for the sake of a widow, they will not dismiss or dismiss such a lawsuit, which is quite unfair.
From unreasonable costs of secular matters, so drawn to ecclesiastical courts, and sanctified again.
50) Item, if at times secular persons are tried by ecclesiastical courts, as even with public inconsistency, that the same ecclesiastical judges cannot refuse them their requested and desired remitution and instruction before their ordinary judges, which they do reluctantly and with difficulty, then the plaintiff's procurator demands his reward for the proceeding to the same answering party, which, as stated above, has been unfairly tried, and therefore legally sanctioned. And the same innocent person must, to
The judge shall pay the unstable proceedings, which, as reported, have been brought against him, to the extent that he has previously incurred unreasonable neglect, expense, and damage, until he obtains favorable instruction from the ecclesiastical court. For this reason, the judge is also urged to take unnecessary letters and charged with alleged banishment, ut afflicto afflictio addatur, irrespective of the fact that the damage caused to him, who has thus acted in an irregular manner and has therefore been reprimanded, should by law be paid by the opposing party. But the ecclesiastical judges need such a contradiction of rights so that all the more unreasonable plaintiffs adhere to their courts, and they thus bring unreasonable benefit from the people.
How to urge several new tithes to be given.
51) Item, if the laity do not give small and large tithes of some properties for many years, they are so oppressed in ecclesiastical courts (since they have no profit) that they must give the tithes or other things demanded of them, or suffer supposed excommunication; considering, even if they appeal to Rome from an evil judgment, how heavy, impossible, and unequal a discharge they might receive there.
As the ecclesiastical officers and commanders, the laity are also subject to the ecclesiastical courts.
52) The ecclesiastics do not only bring the laity before the ecclesiastical judges on their own behalf in such and such cases, but also the ecclesiastical officials, mayors, servants and subjects are subject to the same use as their sovereigns.
Of shameful things done in the spiritual court.
53) If it ever happens that ecclesiastical persons have to sue for iniquities and abusive words against laymen, the ecclesiastical judge shall also be the judge of these matters, so that the answerer is forced by his ordinary judge.
How to bring secular matters before the ecclesiastical court on account of a committed crime.
54) Item, the Officials shall take, so in secular matters and between secular per
If a contract is made between two people, by oaths or oaths, a bodily or written obligation, a proclamation or a promise, then such things should be settled before them. And if this should be the case, all secular contracts and letters, which are usually made with such stipulation and obligation, would have to be settled in the ecclesiastical courts, and the secular courts would have to be held in vain; which is unpleasant to all secular authorities, and also contrary to law and equity. If, however, the ecclesiastical courts are to be allowed something on account of perjuries sworn in person, they could not thereby become judges of the main secular matters for which a perjury was sworn, but would have to punish the perjured persons solely for the sin of public perjury, and atone for it with ecclesiastical penance, but the secular judges, who have to atone for the perjuries with penal punishment, would not be able to break off such punishment on account of their punishment.
How the ecclesiastical estates do not keep nor handle their self-made reformation of the ecclesiastical courts.
55) Item, the ecclesiastical estates not only despise and override common established rights, but also make, for example, the bishops and prelates, because of the ecclesiastical courts and sends, especially supposed reformation, statutes and laws, which in some parts are contrary to common rights, and especially to all secular jurisdiction and authorities, also to their subjects, and are almost harmful. But regardless of the fact that these reforms and laws are mostly based on the advantage of the clergy over the seculars, and that the seculars are not obligated to accept them by law, they are not kept by the clergy themselves, according to right and reasonable understanding. For, although the same reformations are usually based on the fact that secular matters should not be brought before ecclesiastical judges, that before such judges and courts not only secret but only public, grievous, spiritual sins should be dealt with, and that in all this not money but only our Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls should be sought, nevertheless, from public works of this kind, and almost many pieces, there is quite a contradiction, as is partly touched upon in, before, and after the reported articles with brevity. And if a bishop would be inclined to put an end to such inequity, his oath, which he swore in his election, obliges him to do so.
How they impose more monetary than spiritual penance on sinners.
56) Item, although the ecclesiastical judges and officials are to set only ecclesiastical penances for ecclesiastical manifest sin, so that, as has been stated, it is noted that they alone seek the salvation of souls, and not money, yet they set the same ecclesiastical penances all the more heavily, so that the laymen buy them from them with money; thereby they value and bring almost a lot of money from the people, and are thus parties and judges for their own enjoyment, which is nevertheless against God, right and all fairness.
N)ow often are weighted down by unfounded, dressed-up slander because of honorable men and women.
57) If, because of sins or vices, a man or woman is reprimanded before the official or ecclesiastical court, such a person must, if he or she does not otherwise wish to be judged guilty, purging himself or herself with his or her oath. If he has thus cleared himself and is then to be held innocent, for which reason it is also proper to release the person from his damage, he must give the official or ecclesiastical judge two guilders for this purpose, and a place of one guilder for an unnecessary letter of judgment, which he is urged to take. Therefore the officials and ecclesiastical judges also seek out such unjust reprimands, and bring them before them; from this then follows much great complaint. If a woman is reproached by another for being an adulteress or sorceress out of anger or envy, and comes before the official, he also charges the same women to excuse herself with her oath. Now everyone can well appreciate that in these cases a woman must swear that she is guilty or innocent, if she wants to keep her worldly honor and temporal life otherwise. From this, not only evil enjoyment of money, but also much foreknowledge of perjury can be sought and will follow; this will also at times prevent the secular judge from his due punishment.
How the spiritual judges unreasonably seek interest from divorced matrimonial cases.
58) Item, if a man and a woman act with each other on account of holy matrimony in such a way that they provide that there shall be a marriage between them, and therefore one of them gives the other clothes, jewels or other things to keep, and then on account of the marriage they dispute, also from the
Official, he wants to have an unfair interest, namely all that one has given to the other to keep, which is against all rights, even all respectability and equity.
Of some things that may be done in ecclesiastical and secular courts.
59) Item, although there are many things that can be done, judged and punished according to the ability of the rights with ecclesiastical and secular courts, nevertheless many things happen when the secular judges, as they have power, use their judicial power, that they are forbidden to do so by the ecclesiastical judges with the ban. And so, where it is to take place, the ecclesiastical judges may take whatever they want from the secular courts and authorities; this is highly burdensome and unpleasant for the Emperor's Majesty and her secular members. And even though, according to the law, public perjury, adultery, sorcery, and the like are subject to civil punishment by ecclesiastical and secular judges, whichever comes first, and thus prevention is permitted, the ecclesiastical judges alone are entitled to inflict such punishment against the law. This is very burdensome for the secular authorities, and it is not easy.
How secular matters, for lack of secular assistance, are brought before the spiritual courts.
60) If secular persons apply to the ecclesiastical judges for a summons in secular matters and claim that the secular authorities do not want to help them legally, the ecclesiastical judges shall grant the same plaintiffs a summons and other process before they first thoroughly show or prove that they have been denied justice before the secular authorities. And if the matter is then referred and dismissed at the request of the secular authorities or the defendant, the secular judge is given almost four weeks to finally help the plaintiff. If in that time the final judgment and its execution are not issued, the ecclesiastical judge shall allow the plaintiff to continue to proceed before him in accordance with his rights. It is quite unreasonable that a case before a secular judge should be completed in four weeks, but not in three, four or more years before the ecclesiastical judge. The same is done in Rome by the papal judges, and such plaintiffs are believed on their oaths; for this reason, too, they often cause the opposing party to suffer noticeably and to be dismissed.
The court shall be entitled to take legal action in cases where there is a lack of legal assistance from the secular authorities. And the ecclesiastical judges say that in such cases they may bring secular matters before them if there is a lack of legal assistance from secular authorities. And yet they will not tolerate it if a cleric or a secular person sues in clerical matters and feels a lack of legal assistance from the clerical judge, so that he may apply to the secular authorities for justice in the same way. However, the written laws generally make the same distinction, as the papal rights are to come to the aid of the secular, and again the secular rights are to come to the aid of the papal rights.
That the ecclesiastical judges are attempting to use the presumed statute of limitations to impose secular judicial constraints on themselves.
61) Item, the ecclesiastical estates in some places are also subject to drag secular persons and things before them in justification from protracted use, quasi possessione and statute-barred prescription, thereby diminishing, withdrawing and averting from Imperial Majesty and the Roman Empire their highest dignity of secular jurisdiction and judicial compulsion; However, it is evidently right that against the high authority of the pope and Roman emperor no one may prescribe or make use of some statute of limitations, regardless of whether someone has used and brought something quietly for almost many years. As the ecclesiastical judges impose double punishment on death-rowers and other sinners.
62) Item, after often and much happens, also in some cathedral churches statutes or abuses are that the death-strikers and other sinners of male and female persons, and especially in Lent, in the holy week of martyrdom, after done confession, for death-strikers and other cases, which are reserved and reserved to the bishops, must obviously do penance, as such is kept in use, and even though they do their penance publicly, which brings them no small disgrace in the eyes of the world, they must nevertheless at times, after such open penance, give the officials much money to pay off, and thus suffer two punishments for one deed, by which many a man is highly burdened, that he must give friendship to the official more for punishment than for payment of the deprived, or the same ordinary worldly jurisdiction. All this is against divine and common written law.
How the ecclesiastical judges and officiales tolerate unseemly attendance and usury for the sake of money.
63) If priests or other consecrated persons have public wives who have given birth to children in a condemned birth, or if two persons are otherwise in adultery, or if in these cases another person's wife commits adultery, the officials and ecclesiastical judges shall take money and let such wicked persons sit quietly in sin and disgrace for the sake of an annual interest (which they receive for this). They do the same with usurers. In this way, other Christian people are easily angered, moved to sin and shame, provoked and led, and thus many people are miserably ruined, not only in their temporal goods, but also for the sake of their souls. If at times it is doubtfully stated that one of two spouses may have died in a foreign place, the officials take money and allow the desired spouse, without knowing the right reason, to have residence with [another] person, and take such toleration, from which much spiritual and temporal damage often follows.
How the senders demand unreasonable interest from the houses.
64) In some places, the lords of the church demand money from houses in towns and villages every year, and if this is not given to them, the poor people are banished and thus forced to pay such and many other such unreasonable amounts.
How to require weekly allowance from craftsmen.
65) In some places, they take weekly wages from millers, innkeepers, bakers, butchers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, shepherds, cowherds and other craftsmen. And if they do not pay it, they are forced to do so with a supposed ban.
Of unreasonable arrests and punishments of ecclesiastical judges.
66) Item, in many places it is an abuse that upon a layman's request in secular matters the ecclesiastical judge issues inhibition and prohibition letters against other laymen, before the ordinary secular judge not further, but before the ecclesiastical judge.
to be legally executed by him, the ecclesiastical judge. If the opposing party desires to be tried before his own ordinary judge, the ecclesiastical judge will have to decide whether the matter belongs before him or the secular judge, and the same judge, as a party in this case, will recognize himself as the judge, and will also handle it with increased banishment. Should such laymen appeal to Rome for this reason, it is not in their power. Moreover, the ecclesiastical high courts in Rome are also partial in such and similar matters; thus the ecclesiastical estates inflict much innumerable damage on the imperial majesty and the secular estates, and deprive them of their authority.
Of the great disadvantage that the laity have to deal with the officials in their ecclesiastical courts.
67) Item, if an ecclesiastical judge or official brings a layman before his ecclesiastical court, he has for such rights advocates, procurator and clerk free of charge, but the layman must transfer the right out of his pocket at great expense; thereby the laymen are pressed into many highly burdensome, unfair contracts, according to the will and prejudice of the ecclesiastical estates.
For what reasons external advocates and procurators are not allowed to be used in the ecclesiastical courts.
68) Item, the ecclesiastical judges want that all parties, who hang before their courts, do not take other advocates or procuratores, than in the city, where such courts are held. They also often set as short dates that lawyers or procuratores who are not available may not be used, and they use bogus reasons for this, as if it would be too good for the rights, for which the same lawyers and procuratores should be obligated; and yet this usually happens for a repugnant reason, as one finds publicly in daily experience. For the same judges know that such advocates and procurators, who sit with them, must have such great fear and awe of them and their sovereigns that they must not give advice or speak to the parties for legitimate defense and exception against their, the judges' and the parties', unreasonable authority; and for this reason the ecclesiastical prelates and others who live there know well, when they or theirs have to do with ecclesiastical rights, how hard every advocate and procurator has to work.
curator, a stranger, a foreigner, must fear the necessity of counseling and speaking against them. And even if someone does not want to confess to such timidity and fear of advocates and procurators, public, daily experience proves it, and it is very seldom that an advocate or another is so perfect and steadfast that neither fear, hope, love nor sorrow prevents him from all diligent promotion of justice, but may be fortunate, if an advocate or procurator has none of the aforementioned hindrances, that he nevertheless does not spare necessary diligence: how much more so if he is surrounded by the aforementioned fear. And this is to be done, so that the parties may take advocates or procurators within quite a few miles of the court of their choice, who would therefore do their due duty, like the other advocates and procurators who sit in the city where the court is held. And in this way, one would be able to avoid all the more unseemly encumbrances in one's rights.
How the sacraments are reserved for the poor for almost minor reasons.
69) Item, if ever someone owes the priest or the church, and cannot pay because of poverty, and therefore asks for quite a goal, the sacraments are withheld. And yet the secular rulers often have patience in such cases with the poor, impossible people, because of owed payment, much more this is due to the clergy, who for the sake of God and merciful works are endowed superfluously by the secular, but who, contrary to this, use great harshness against the poor with alleged banishment and otherwise, even without reasonable request of the ordinary authorities.
How the sends are used unformally.
70) Item, the mission, which according to the legend of the rights should be prepared once over several years, is now prepared 1) and practiced every year in some bishoprics, for the sake of the treasures of the secular states' subjects. Thus, even the mission is not kept, as it is established in the papal laws, nor is it ordered in the Reformation made by the bishops and their chapters themselves, in which they do not forget their advantage, but it is publicly directed and acted against and contrary to the same, for the unreasonable treasury and the oppression of the poor, as public daily history gives (and is also reported before).
1) In No. 539, Col. 1768 it says: "mounted".
Of cathedral and choir canons, priests, and other clerical persons in general.
71) Item, the ecclesiastical courts and the above-mentioned office usually belong to the canons of the same cathedral monasteries, and the canons of the cathedral monasteries do not elect a bishop, likewise the canons in the collegiate monasteries do not elect one as their prelate, He had previously bound himself to the highest degree with oaths, and had committed himself to them in such a way that he would not turn against them or their appointed judges and officials (whether he would otherwise be inclined to do so) their burdensome, unreasonable conduct and actions, nor would he punish them himself for their misconduct. This is undoubtedly not a small cause of many unseemly abuses of the monasteries, and should not be tolerated by papal sanctity, and should be stopped.
That the poor people are burdened with taking money for the sacraments, burial, soul utensils, and many other things.
72) Item, although the seculars endowed many parishes with them and usually so endowed that pious, spiritual, better pastors should and would like to maintain themselves honestly, stately and well, also especially the holy sacraments are highly forbidden to sell, so also the same parish priests with the administration of the sacraments of the altar and baptism, also the dead Begängniß, Seelgeräthe, The parish priests and their vicars, vice-parish priests, chaplains, and journeymen priests are also pressed for a lot of money and highly burdened, so that it partly follows that some parishes, monasteries, and convents are incorporated, or very highly graved, retired, abandoned, and translated with absences by other ecclesiastics, prelates, canons, canons, and Roman curtisans. Some of them also retain the associated benefices and tithes of the parishes, on which they, according to the statutes of the rights, should reside personally. Many vicars or parish administrators may not have their due abstinence, but must make do and live with the same sacrifices, confessionals, sepultures, funerals, spiritual devices, and similar impositions, which they have increased in some places in recent times, and with alleged banishment and pressure from the poor. Also because of this, the parsonages and parsonage houses in western buildings 1) cannot be preserved. Thereby they force the poor, so their friends the first,
1) "in western buildings" ----- in structural condition.
2) and anniversaries, and also to perform memorial services in the pulpit, are not able to make money from the masses they sing and read. From this they make not a little, but considerable money, if they sell their mass not only once or twice, but often three times, four times or even more, and intend to earn two or three fiefdoms with one mass.
From unreasonable prohibition of grape harvesting.
73) Item, if the poor people want to pick their grapes in the fall, as this is convenient and cheap for everyone for his benefit; if such is not pleasing to the ecclesiastical estates, which have the wine tithes in the same places, they forbid the same ecclesiastical estates that they should not pick such grapes until they allow them to do so. And so, from time to time, these poor people must suffer great harm and damage to their grapes, which they have cultivated all year with hard labor, for the sake of such ecclesiastical estates' tithes and unseemly, self-seeking benefits, or perhaps for the sake of envy; which is publicly contrary to God, right and all equity, and should not be tolerated, but stopped.
How the pastors require money from their parishioners deduction.
74) If someone moves from one parish to another and is honestly confirmed there, the first parish priest demands one guilder from his parishioner for a letter of permission. And if the parish priests refuse to do so, they forbid them the sacraments. From this it appears publicly that the sacraments, mass and other things touched upon by the seculars, on which the clergy endowed, and for this reason previously highly endowed with tithes, interest and fees, must be purchased anew by the clergy. How one must buy the churchyard of some deceased.
75) Item, [if] at times some laymen, without previous confession and desire of the sacrament of the altar, perish approximately, and thus are found drowned, slain, or otherwise dead, these dead bodies the ecclesiastics want, regardless of the fact that such deceased persons are not to be found in any other place.
2) Compare St. Louis Edition, Vol. XXII, 773. Table Talks, Cap. 24, § 126.
3) "honest" put by us instead of: "conjugal". Compare No. 539, Col. 1754.
If the deceased's relatives are not of public condemned status (because of which the papal laws forbid reported burial), they may not be buried in the consecrated churchyards, unless their wives, children or friends have previously made an agreement with them for money. And if such relatives of the deceased do not want to suffer worldly shame and disrepute, they must buy the churchyard in such cases. But whoever has money or money's worth to give for it, may have his friends (regardless of how much public sin and disgrace they have lived in) buried not only in the churchyard, but also in the churches, and like the saints. That is also one of the spiritual money snares.
How many in the spiritual state keep themselves unspiritual, also practice much bickering, on the promise of spiritual freedom.
76) Several priests and other priests mingle with the common man in taverns and taverns, drinking, playing and dancing. Some of them also go out at night with murderous weapons, and about in worldly clothes on the gaff, and start a lot of quarrels and quarrels with the laity, taking and putting off their consecration and the same freedom, by which they give the laity cause for violent action. And if then one of the same priests is wounded by the laity, or made bodiless (regardless of what good causes this may be), not only the perpetrators, but all are suspected, held in contempt, from which they must buy themselves with great, heavy costs. If, however, the laymen are wounded by them, they must always suffer injustice and damage from the ecclesiastical judges. This is a great, unpleasant inequality.
How some clergymen 1) keep house and 2) take scholars.
77) Item, there are also some clerics who keep open businesses, and in the places where they want to have sovereignty, they or their servants, who are also priests, set up dice, ball and card games at the church consecrations, and take the profit and pay from it, and impudently say that it belongs to them out of sovereignty. This, however, is highly forbidden in papal and secular laws, and is most repugnant to the clergy.
1) In the old edition: "spiritual".
2) "Scholder" --- profit, or share in it.
How they move the sick to deprive their rightful heirs of their goods.
78) The terminators, also other monks and priests, persuade the sick, with whom they know money or property, with seductive words, as if they should thereby pay off divine punishment and buy the kingdom of heaven, that after their death, they should confiscate or legate their possessions and goods. Thereof often lay children and rightful heirs of that which they are entitled to in the sight of God and out of all fairness, have to go without with miserable great lack, and because of that they have to suffer misery, poverty and ruin.
As the Order of the Temple brings a lot of money to Rome, the monasteries of the Virgins are also burdened.
79) Item, because from some mendicant orders many things, and at times unnecessarily, are drawn to Rome in justification, so that the ordinaries, pastors and laymen may be hard-pressed, also such justifications may not be maintained without money, and in addition their general (as one says) cannot become cardinal without noticeable expenditure, and then the same monks over the virgin monasteries of their order, It is to be feared that they will take much money from the same virgin monasteries for the above-mentioned and other reasons, and lead to pernicious troubles, and also forbid them, with eternal imprisonment, to disclose their concerns and needs to anyone but them. In order to improve this, it would be good and fair that the same mendicant monks and virgin monasteries would all be staffed and provided by the lordship in whose jurisdiction they are located with caretakers and administrators who would have knowledge of all their income and expenditures, and thus the aforementioned complaints would be prevented and averted.
That due to the above-mentioned complaints, action was also taken at the most recent Imperial Diet in Worms.
80) Item, the aforementioned complaints concerning the See of Rome, also the archbishops, bishops, prelates, officiales, sends, ecclesiastical courts, and other persons of the ecclesiastical estates, have also been submitted in writing to the several parts of the Roman Imperial Majesty by the secular estates of the Empire at the recently held Imperial Diet at Worms.
1) and to fall away in a gracious and reasonable way, to murder in the most submissive way. This complaint also remained unanswered at that time by the archbishops, bishops and other ecclesiastical estates, but for this reason no improvement has been found among them so far. Therefore, the secular estates have decided to report the unpleasant complaints to Papal Holiness, at the gracious Christian request of His Holiness, and to ask for a gracious remedy, so that further harm may be prevented.
That there are more complaints before your eyes, which will be omitted this time for the sake of brevity.
81) And although the secular estates of the Holy Roman Empire would have to report their complaints against the ecclesiastical estates much more, they want to refrain from reporting them for this time, for the sake of brevity, and because they are sure that many of the other unnamed deficiencies should fall through the resolution of the above-mentioned complaints, and reserve the right to end them at another time, if necessity would require it.
Request of all estates to papal holiness.
After all this, it is the humble request of all secular high and low estates to papal holiness that their holiness graciously stop and abolish all the aforementioned complaints against the Roman See and other affected ecclesiastical estates and persons, as has been requested in part above, also, and bishops are obligated to do by their chapters, to settle them by necessary Christian commandment and absolution, and to show themselves in all this as fatherly and gracious, that such complaints are all and especially, finally and permanently averted for the most beneficial. As the secular estates, first of all for the sake of divine praise and honor, also according to necessity and fairness, and especially on the basis of their sanctity, will certainly and undoubtedly put themselves in praise of their Christian heritage, and in turn will hold themselves against their papal sanctity as obedient sons, and against the other ecclesiastical estates as Christian brothers and members. If, however, such complaints are not resolved within a certain period of time, which the secular estates do not provide for, they do not want their sanctity to be restrained from such unpleasant actions.
1) No. 539 in this volume.
The people of the city, who could not tolerate this pernicious complaint any longer, would be urged by necessity to think of other suitable ways and means for themselves, how they might escape and be discharged from such complaints and tribulations by the ecclesiastical estates.
723 The papal legate Chieregati's replica or counter-answer, in which he rebuked the estates, but singled out the pope immensely, insisted on the execution of the edict of Worms, and accused the estates of acting so foolishly in God's cause, and so violently offending God, the apostolic see, and the emperor.
Feb. 7, 1523.
This document is written in Latin in Goldasts stat. st rsssript. irapsrat. a Carol. V. aä Ruäolptnira, tora. II, p. 33 and sonstit. impsrial., tona. I, p. 455 and in VVolüi lsetion. nwmorad. tom. II, p. 200. for the time determination, see no. 720.
Translated from the Latin by M. Aug. Tittel.
Most Serene Imperial Majesty Commissarius, Most Reverend Fathers, Highborn Princes, and the entire Holy Imperial Council of Respectable Estates etc.
Since, after my long wait, I finally received an answer from you the other day in the Lutheran matter, I wanted to indicate to Your Serene Highnesses and Glories, not only verbally but also in writing, how little such an answer pleased me, and consequently how little it could please the Roman Pontiff and all of Christendom. And, that I for now pass over much that is said immediately at the entrance of your answer about your reverence, loyalty and respect towards our most holy Lord and the apostolic holy see, therefore I nevertheless thank you kindly in the name of their holiness towards your majesties and glories, I will only come to that which seems to require some addition, improvement and explanation, and the rest, however, as it reads, I will place and leave to our most holy Lord's favor,
(2) First of all, as regards the fact that Your Serene Majesties say and apologize that, because the people of Germany imagined that the Roman Court was causing them great hardships, and that they were still suffering daily from it many annoyances and inconveniences, they were not responsible for
The Council considers it expedient to execute the sentence of the Apostolic See and the imperial order, lest greater and worse evils arise from them,
(3) The answer to this is that neither our most holy Lord, nor imperial majesty, nor any Christian prince would have assumed such an answer from you. For if Luther erred before the apostolic judgment (which is based on the judgments of so many illustrious men and universities), and also before the imperial command in one piece, he erred after such judgment and command in much more, and omitted nothing to throw the whole orthodox religion overboard. Therefore, if the punishments are to be made equal according to the crime, but he and his followers have erred more and more every day, as is evident, then the punishments must be increased and augmented, but not reduced, as is done according to your present conclusion. For as for the answer itself, therein the divine majesty is offended, whose cause is so ill taken to heart. The reputation of the pope and the apostolic see is insulted. The imperial highness is insulted, whose conclusions and decrees are so freely inhibited, abolished and struck down. It also offends your common honor, since you were all present when the imperial decree was made, and you lent it your prestige.
(4) And the pretext is bad that, in order to avoid the astonishment, the aforementioned apostolic decree and the imperial order are not to be executed. For one must not tolerate evil so that good may result from it, and one must look more to that which belongs to the salvation of souls than of the body. And those who want to adhere to Luther are not to be excused by saying that because of the annoyances and burdens given to them by the Roman court (even if such were true) they should therefore separate themselves from the unity of the Catholic faith and plunge into the abyss of all misery. For they should rather suffer everything patiently and willingly than plunge themselves and their souls with such great danger. And if they should have done this at all times, how much more should they have rejoiced, since they saw that the kind and almighty God has now given His Church the best shepherd, the most holy shepherd (I say), and a German, who will not only faithfully maintain and improve the whole Church, but also bring Germany back to the old godliness, and honor it with many glorious gifts in everything that can be rightly done.
Therefore, I heartily and most diligently ask you, most noble and excellent lords, to let yourselves be moved by these truthful reasons, before this noble Imperial Diet comes to an end, to conclude and to become councillors, so that the aforementioned apostolic sentence and imperial command will be executed and come into effect, without any diminution, because Germany's welfare is largely, indeed, entirely based on it. And if the German peoples, as it is said, are in some respects adversely affected by the Roman court, that they indicate such. For the apostolic see, which is the most benevolent mother of all the oppressed, will show itself willing to help them and to protect and defend them to the best of its ability.
(6) Concerning the settlement of the disputes and discords among the ecclesiastical and secular princes, and the articles to be indicated and moderated, it is answered that if our most holy Lord hears of such disputes and quarrels, he will certainly see to it, according to his duty, that they are settled and resolved, because he is just as kindly disposed toward his and the church's sons, the ecclesiastical princes, as toward the ecclesiastical ones. He will also arrange everything among them so that what is his may happen to everyone and no one may be wronged.
As for the annata, which are not to be paid in Rome, but are to be kept in Germany for the handling of the Imperial Regiment, since some difficulty was found in my oral explanation, the answer is reserved for the Pope himself, which will be given either to the Imperial Court or to the future Imperial Assembly, as Her Holiness may find best.
(8) As for the advice given by Your Serene Majesties that, in view of the legitimate causes they cite, Our Most Holy Lord should convene a general council, the answer is that they hope it will not displease Their Holiness, especially because of all the same causes; but they ask that such a council be given another, better name, and that what can bring some harm to Their Holiness be removed: e.g. that it be called by the will of Their Imperial Majesty, that it be free, and that oath and duty be enacted; likewise that it rather be called by one than by the will of Their Imperial Majesty. For example, that her Holiness appoint such a council with the will of her Imperial Majesty, that it be free, and that oaths and obligations be issued; likewise, that it rather be established in one city than in another, and the like. For if this were not omitted, her Holiness's hands would seem to have been touched by your
2186 "rl. SS, IS3. Cap. 9: Of the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg. W. XV, MOS-AM. 2187
The court has been informed orally that it is to be bound to the illustrious lordships.
9. Concerning the preachers who henceforth have to preach the Word of God among the faithful, the answer is that our most holy Lord has recently decreed in a most holy and godly manner, with his most reverend brethren's (the Cardinals') counsel and approval, to the following effect: that, during the harmful sect in Germany, no one may henceforth preach the Word of God in any city or district, unless he has been previously examined by the bishop or his official because of his learning and efficiency, and such has been approved by them and found to be godly and Christian; and he has likewise been appointed to such preaching office by the very bishop or his official, who shall also have the power to remove him again and to chastise him if he falls from the right path. For the rest, everything that Your Serene Majesties otherwise say about the said preachers is right, that they preach the Gospel with an interpretation of the Scriptures that the Church considers good.
(10) Concerning the printers and sellers, or other distributors of Lutheran books and others, who cherish and protect his sect, it is replied that one cannot be at all satisfied with the answer given, that Your Serene Majesties will see to it according to their ability and will decree that such books are not printed or distributed etc. For here I say, as in other matters, that the sentence of the Apostolic See and of the Imperial Highness shall be executed entirely and without diminution, but that those who print or sell the said books, and otherwise distribute them, shall be punished according to the said sentences. And here I ask that special attention be paid to this, for everything depends on restraining this harmful sect, so that such books are nowhere tolerated. For it is from the reading of them that all this misfortune has sprung.
(11) As for the point that no one can print such books from now on unless they have first been examined by a learned man, I say that in this respect the statute of the latest Lateran Concilii, which is now in use, is to be adhered to, and is to the effect that no one can print some books, under the penalty set therein, unless the ordinary bishop of the place or his official has read and examined them and found them to be Christian and has declared them to be so.
(12) Concerning the clergy who marry, it is replied that what is given in reply does not seem to be displeasing, if the clergy marry.
there is nothing evil behind it. Therefore, it is requested to explain the words that are at the end of the point of said answer: 1) but if otherwise such transgressors of the vows sinned in the dominion and territory of a secular prince or sovereignty, that they would then be punished and chastised with proper and due punishments etc.
For I say that if these words are to be understood according to the foregoing, namely, that such should be punished by their spiritual judges, then I allow it. But if they aim at the punishment of secular princes or authorities, then I say and implore that such an answer, which runs counter to the freedom and right of the church, be corrected and put into its right mind. For if secular princes were to punish and judge such things, they would be encroaching on a foreign office and touching those that are especially reserved for Christ. And the princes must not think that such fell into their power and jurisdiction because of transgression of vows or apostasy, if they sinned in their territory or dominion; for because of such transgression or abuse of their estate they do not cease to remain under the church's jurisdiction. Because they still retain their priestly character and status, they still remain under the church. Therefore, if they sin in the territories of the princes, they shall report them to the bishops or other superiors, so that they may discipline and punish them; and, if necessary, they shall faithfully help and assist said bishops or superiors with their arm. About all of which the apostolic nuncio asks that, after mature deliberation of your noble lordships, a better, clearer, more thoughtful, and more sufficient answer be given.
E. From the Elector of Saxony's advice to Luther, Planitzen reminded him to moderate his violent style of writing.
724 Luther's response and offer to the Elector of Saxony's request that he refrain from harsh writing. Wittenberg, May 29, 1523.
The original of this letter is found in the Weimar Gesammt-Archw, and after the same printed in Seidemann's "Lutherbriefe", p. 18; then in Spalatin's
1) In No. 720, § 24 z. E.
2) In the old edition: "his".
2188 Erl. 53,18t f. Abschn. u Vom Reichst, zu Nürnb. I5ä2. no. 724. W. LV. 2609-2611. 2189
Annales, p. 71 and thereafter by Walch. Complete also in De Wette, vol. II, p. 335 supposedly according to the original, but several of Spalatin's false readings are found in the text; thereafter in the Erlangen edition, vol. 53, p. 163. Incomplete, with omission of the first half of the letter, in the Wittenberg (1569), vol. IX, p. 175d; in the Jena (1585), vol. II, p. 247d; in the Altenburg, vol. II, p. 348 and in the Leipzig, vol. XVIII, p.480.We give the text according to Seidemann. The flyleaf with the inscription and Luther's petal is no longer present.
Grace and peace in Christ before. Most Serene, Highborn Prince, Most Gracious Lord! After E. C. G. has informed me in the past days how the Roman Imperial Majesty's governors, princes and other councillors of the Imperial Regiment have written to her: When, at the next Imperial Diet at Nuremberg, the Pope, through his nuncio, ordered the Crown of Hungary to appear with assistance, advertised and interceded, the same nuncio, orally and through a papal breve and also an instruction, subsequently admonished and reminded me and my followers of my manifold writings and teachings: that necessity would require, with due concern, to see to it that such letters and doctrines, which are to serve as a cause for rebellion, occur, with the appended request that the imperial states mentioned open and communicate to the pope their discretion and advice as to the means and ways by which such a thing might be countered. And thereupon highly-named governors, princes, princes and estates, upon much thought and consideration, form and occasion of all things, have been able to produce no more consoling, ugly means at this time, than that the pope, with the approval of Roman imperial majesty, should procure a free Christian council to be held in the situated stables of the German nation and to be approached for the longest possible time within a year, as the above-mentioned governors, princes, princes and other estates have submitted and sent to the pope their advice and discretion against Christianity, and have also offered to use and have used all diligence in the meantime for such a council, and in particular with E. C. G., because I and some of my followers in E. C. G. countries, to act diligently, so that I and my followers henceforth neither write nor print anything new in a certain period of time.
Confidence, E.C.G. would, as an honest Elector, be helpful to do so, just as every Elector, Prince and other Estates of the Realm should decree in his supremacy that nothing other than the holy Gospel, approved and accepted by the Christian Church according to the interpretation of the Scriptures, should be preached in the meantime, and that nothing new should be printed or sold, unless it has first been inspected and approved by learned persons who should be specially instructed to do so. And because then the same governors, electors, princes and estates, by hurriedly going away, have ordered E. C. G. to write such things and to take all possible care. and to use all diligence to ensure that I and my followers do not write or have printed anything new until the future Council, they have prevented this from happening, they have made a promise to the Imperial Regiment, and that they will attribute such a promise, made to the Pope, and also the decision of the Estates in the case to E.C.G., and that all this will be done by E.C.G., as far as they are concerned, as far as they are concerned, most diligently, with attached request that E.C.G. will order, occur and prevent, so that I and my followers of the place in the above-mentioned case in the meantime of the future Concilii, as determined above, will not have anything more written or printed, so that the presumed and provided promise, made to the pope, that such things will be hopefully brought to the attention of E.C.G., will be fulfilled.C.G., and that in this case, the above-mentioned farewell may be carried out with all the more certainty etc. And thereupon let E. C. G. act and speak with me with diligence, that her desire is to keep me in that of the fee and unreprimandable, so that, because the imperial mandate let E. C. G. now go out to such an extent, that one would not have to complain that in the things something unfair would be done with attached manifold well-considered causes, all of which would be too long to tell and annoying to E. C. G. to read. 1)
Therefore, most gracious sir, E.C.G. I do not wish to be of the humble opinion that I have accepted such a request from E.C.G. with all due respect: Thank you, and may E.C.G. write with good reason, that my
1) Only here the letter starts in the above-mentioned editions.
I have never been, nor have I ever been, in my mind and opinion, to write without glory, according to some of my previous offerings, nor have I ever been, nor have I ever been, to revile anyone of high or low estate, or to write or teach or preach anything that might give cause for movement, disobedience, dissension and sedition in the holy realm, or to lead the Christian people astray, against which I have also often written and preached harshly, but my intention has always been and still is to write, teach, preach, do and promote nothing else than what is necessary and useful for the strengthening of God's word and honor, also of the holy true faith and the love of neighbor, and thus for the salvation of common Christianity, as I also know with divine help to excuse myself before my God with a good conscience. However, the fact that I have so far written so harshly and earnestly against a number of different people is not without cause, but has happened without hatred and an unchristian heart on my part, even though I know almost well that such my harsh writing has been and still is against many of my friends and enemies, even E. C. G. himself. In addition, E. C. G. has repeatedly defended and persuaded me to refrain from doing so, as well as when I, without E. C. G.'s advice, knowledge, and will, first had to write this letter. C. G.'s advice, knowledge and will, I first set out on the plan, and last year I went to Wittenberg again on my own adventure, not with the opinion of burdening anyone on earth, but of waiting for the crowd that my God commanded me to have, and to serve the whole Christian community with my poor fortune, as I am obliged to do out of Christian duties.
I would also be heartily inclined to refrain from further writing, before the hard writing. However, because some of my detractors, especially Johannes Faber, vicar of the bishop of Costnitz, wrote a large Latin book 1) against me, which recently went out in print in Leipzig, and also Emser wrote a German book based on the one in German.
1) loannis I'apri Oonstantisnsis in spiritualidus Viearii Opus advsrsus nova Hiiasdaln st a ckristiana rvIiZionk prorsus aiisna doZnaata Martini I^uttikri. Preprinted Dpistola nuncupatoria ad Adrian. VI. ?. M. - Leipzig by Melchior Lotther 1523 in the Marci DvanAkIistak (April 26). Small folio. (Seidemann.)
who against me, though not nearly useful, nor harmful to me, goes out with many a blasphemy, not only of my Christian name, but also of the holy gospel, will ever be difficult for me, as E. C. G. and all Christian people can judge, that I should endure such blasphemy against God, my Lord, and that my opponents' wanton writing should be honest, and my necessary and forced rewriting by them so wickedly dishonest and forbidden, but I want to be of strong confidence and hope in God, because the imperial mandate, which has now gone out, among others, clearly holds, that only the holy gospel is to be preached and taught, and the teachers or preachers are to be instructed in an authoritative manner and in such a way that it may not be understood from this as if one wanted to prevent or suppress the evangelical truth, and that I should also be unbidden and unprovoked against all men, if I had to place myself under written responsibility, more for the sake of divine evangelical truth than for the sake of my innocence.
All of which I have no longer to leave undisclosed, in humble obedience to E. C. G., asking in all due respect to graciously note this humble answer of mine, and also, if it pleases E. C. G., to let it continue to reach me. For praise be to God, I am not ashamed of my actions and do not know how to be ashamed of things and of God's word. May the eternal God enlighten and strengthen E. C. G.'s heart through His divine grace and mercy, Amen. At Wittenberg, Friday after the Day of Pentecost [May 29] Anno 1523.
E. C. G.
servant Martinus Luther.
Of the futile proposals made at this Diet to settle Luther's case amicably.
725: In July 1523, a proposal came to light to settle Luther's case amicably.
This writing is found in the Wittenberg edition (1569), vol. IX, p. 175; in the Jena edition (1585), vol. II, p. 246; in the Altenburg edition, vol. II, p. 343; and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XVIII, p. 479.
(1) There should be a day, approximately around Michaelmas, at Zerbst or Naumburg, whichever place is most convenient to my gracious lord, the Cardinal and Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz, or else, if His Grace does not like this place, another one suggested by His Grace, which may also be convenient and acceptable to D. Martino. On such day and place the Cardinal and Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz, and the Bishop of Merseburg, and also D. Martinus should appear, and there each party should draw four or five persons to and next to him, for such action, and there in the most amicable and conciliatory way, D. Martini's matters and articles should be discussed, his answer and instruction graciously heard, and it should be tried whether the same articles should be united and settled in whole or in part, according to the reasons and indications of the Holy Scriptures that have been led on both sides.
2 And for such a day and action, two secular princes, if they were able, should be asked to be present at and next to such amicable action and information, and to listen to the same, as it happens. As Duke Hans and Duke George of Saxony are considered convenient, if their graces are able to do so. If not, however, two other secular princes, or at least two counts, should be requested and asked to do so.
In the meantime, Martinus was to refrain from sharp writing, especially against the authorities. Also, Martinus should be provided with a sufficient escort to and from such a day.
4 And what was then done on that day, and not decided by the two ecclesiastical princes and princes together with the two secular princes or counts, that [it] should be disclosed, that such should remain undisclosed, and be kept secret, without danger. Anno 1523.
726 The same according to Aurifaber's narrative.
This writing is found in the Eisleben edition, vol. I, p. 180; in the Altenburg edition, vol. II, p. 491 and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XVIII, p. 473. The same is only a recapitulation of the proposal contained in the previous number.
1 In the meantime, some have also thought of means by which the division of religion between D. Mart. Luther, also his
The devil and Christ would like to be put in the same bed. Just as worldly people always try to make a comparison in matters of religion, as if they were worldly matters, to put Christ and the devil together in one bed.
2 And this was the proposal: one should appoint an election site, as Zerbst or Naumburg, since approximately around Michaelmas the Cardinal and Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, and the Bishop of Merseburg, also D. Martinus Luther should come and appear. Martinus Luther should arrive and appear. There, each party was to draw four or five persons to and next to them for such an action, and to speak and act in the smoothest way possible about D. Martini's doctrine, matters and articles, to hear his answer and instruction, and to try whether one would like to unite and compare the same articles, all or in part, according to reasons and indications from the Holy Scriptures introduced by both sides.
3) For such an amicable action, two secular princes, if they were able, should be called in to hear how this action would proceed. Thus Duke John and Duke George of Saxony were proposed for this purpose. And since they are not able to do so, other secular princes or at least two counts should be used.
In the meantime, however, Martinus was to refrain from harsh writing, especially harsh writing against the authorities. Also, M. Luther was to be provided with sufficient escort to and from such a trading day. And what was then acted upon on this day, and not decided by the two ecclesiastical princes and princes together with the two secular princes or counts, that [it] should be disclosed, that such should remain undisclosed, and be kept secret.
5. Martin Luther also made his reply, at the request of Elector Frederick of Saxony, 1) and excused his harsh letter, also complaining about D. Joh. Fabri, the bishop's vicar at Costnitz, and Emser's blasphemy books, which had gone out against him, and indicating "that he was not ashamed of his things, nor was he ashamed of them; but wanted to preserve them against all devils". But nothing came of this trading day.
1) Here Aurifaber says of Luther's letter (No. 724) that it is an answer to the proposal contained in the previous number; but the beginning of the letter (missing in the old editions) shows that it was written with reference to the Reichstag's farewell at Nuremberg.
G. About the decree of the Neichsregiment at Nuremberg (1322) and how Chursachsen and Luther behaved, also about the Neichstagsabschied 1323.
It is obvious that the following four documents, No. 727 to 730, which Walch has inserted here, have nothing to do with the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg, because they are earlier in time than this and belong to the first section of the eighth chapter.
727 The imperial regiment at Nuremberg issued a resolution ordering all bishops to investigate and punish priests who have changed anything in the mass or other church customs, as well as monks who have left the church and those who have entered into matrimony.
Jan. 20, 1522.
This document is a part of the mandate of Philip, Bishop of Freising and Naumburg. Walch has separated the beginning and the end of it, and brings these pieces afterwards in No. 730. The whole document is found in the Wittenberg edition (1569), Vol. IX, p. 139 d; in the Jena edition (1585), Vol. II, p. 66; in the Altenburg edition, Vol. II, p. 87 and in the Leipzig edition, Vol. XVIII, p. 284.
I. Frederick, Count Palatine on the Rhine, Duke in Bavaria, Roman Imperial Majesty, Governor, Electors, Princes, and other decreed Regimental Councillors in the Holy Empire, to the venerable and highborn Prince, our friendly dear brother, uncle and friend, Mr. Philipsen, Bishop of Freisingen, Administrator of the Abbey of Naumburg, Count Palatine on the Rhine, and Duke in Bavaria, our brotherly loyalty and friendship, and also friendly and subservient services beforehand.
2nd Venerable, Reverend Prince, kind dear brother, uncle, friend and gracious Lord! It has come to our attention that in recent times some priests, against the long-established order and usage of the Christian Church, have been saying mass in lay habit and dress, in part also outside of the priestly vestments, and in addition, with a noticeable break in the essential parts, ceremonies and other order, as they are and have been used, to change the mass, also to publicly consecrate the reverend sacrament in the German tongue, and that subsequently, in a lewd manner, masculinely, who wants to take it, without prior preparation of some confession or imposition of penance, firstly in their lay
They shall hold out their hands and let them drink to their liking, regardless of whether they are sober or have eaten beforehand.
3. also in the same form, that [they], if in our Christian order, arrangement, and assembly of the church only the priesthood is permitted to administer the holy blood of Christ, nevertheless not in a chalice, but also possibly other drinking vessels, and thus communicate under both forms, also give the sacrament to the children in the same way; that also some persons shall be subject to forcibly driving away from the altar the priests who want to read mass according to the proper customary use.
4. furthermore, that the clergy and religious, beyond the vows and obligations made to the same order, and in forgetfulness of the obedience with which they are bound to the order, without the permission of their superiors, freely, wantonly divest themselves of their monasteries and orders, throw off the clerical garments from them, and subject themselves to and accept secular clothing of other things, trades, and businesses, in addition to some annual [vheliche] servitude against their superiors.
5. that also the same religious and other clerics and priests, even against the order of the Christian church, enter into matrimony, and thus take wives without shyness.
6. which novelty and wrong use, if it breaks in bluntly, should be allowed and permitted, would bring not a little insanity and fickleness of faith among the Christian believers, and otherwise frivolity, annoyance and other things among the common man; and such a thing is more important and greater, the more it requires well-timed consideration, and certain experience and order.
Since there is nothing higher and more important than the soul, and since faith affects the soul the most, we want to be careful 1) and cautious not to easily attach ourselves to such harsh innovations and changes against the constitution and use of the Christian church, which have been unchanged by our forefathers for many hundreds of years, without good proven and accepted reason, and without special regulation and determination of the church etc.
8) And the above-mentioned pieces, and other such innovations, before the same sufficient common explanation and discussion, whether they are suitable, honorable, good and in accordance with the faith or not, thus to let them take root and grow, is by no means useful nor convenient, as then your
1) "pfentlich" probably the same as "vhelich" shortly before.
May your love and grace judge this for themselves, and bear such abuses, as we do not doubt, but fretful displeasure:
(9) Thus we have considered and found that great necessity requires that the same current innovations and abuses should be favorably countered, so that they are not permitted, but rather stopped and prevented; that then, since they have not yet spread or become widespread, but rather are exalted and appear in few places and by few persons, this can be done well and easily.
10. Therefore, and for this reason, we hereby earnestly request and entreat your love and grace, ex officio and otherwise for ourselves, in a friendly and humbly manner, that they, if touched or similar innovations against the traditional Christian usage have arisen or occurred in their principalities, lands and territories, or would arise in the future, not to let them take root, but to seriously prohibit them with severe punishment, to diligently prevent them, and, if it be good, to have them proclaimed in the pulpit by skilled preachers, so that no one will adhere to them or practice them in any way, and proclaim them in the pulpit by skilled preachers, so that no one will adhere to them, follow them, or practice them in any way, and not to follow the Christian usage and nature as it is understood by the common church and has been practiced up to now, 1) and be satisfied, until such time as a deliberate, well-considered, well-founded, certain declaration, discussion and determination is made and decided by the common estates of the realm, Christian assembly or concilia, for the sake of such matters.
(11) Nevertheless, those who have introduced such innovations and still want to adhere to them shall be expelled amicably, or, if that does not help, with seriousness, and, if necessity requires it, with due punishment, according to the occasion of the case, where it is found, shall proceed and act against the same.
In this your love and grace do a good, necessary, Christian work, to which, as we do not doubt, they themselves are inclined, which would be rewarded by the Almighty in a most glorious way, and would be justly thanked and praised by all men of respectability. Given at Nuremberg, on the 20th day of the month Januarii, Anno etc. in the two and twentieth year.
728. Duke George of Saxony's writ against Luther, that monks and priests who adhere to Luther's cause, and those who have
1) perhaps saturate. (Walch.)
The new doctrine is to be practiced in the universities where the new doctrine is being practiced, and the students are to be recalled.
February 10, 1522.
This writing is found in the Wittenberg edition (1569), vol. IX, p. 140d; in the Jena edition (1585), vol. II, p. 65; in the Altenburg edition, vol. II, p. 79; and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XVIII, p. 282.
Georg von GOttes Gnaden Duke of Saxony, Landgrave in Thuringia, and Margrave of Meissen.
Dear Faithful! We have no doubt that you have heard and heard for some time what Doctor Martin Luther and others, adhering to his doctrine, have subjected themselves to by their preaching and reading now and then in countries and elsewhere, which has given rise to suspicion and suspiciousness against them, as disobedient and resisting the holy Christian church and its ordinances and statutes. For this reason, the late Papal Holiness, 2) Most Sublime Memory, and the Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, as the highest Christian leaders, to whom all of Christendom is subject, have caused us to command that Luther's teachings and writings be respected and noticed, so that the Christian people will not be led into error by them.
2. because of this, their papal holiness and imperial majesty also carried out several actions with Doctor Martino, from which it was found that the same Doctor Martinus did not want to desist from what he had erred in his outgoing writings. For this reason, he was considered and held as disobedient by Papal Holiness and Imperial Majesty at that time, and also commanded by their Holiness and Majesty that everyone refrain from reading his writings, and that they no longer be printed.
3) But the said Martin Luther, above all this, has persisted in his presumption until now; from this also his doctrine, and that of those who cling to him, has arisen, that the clergy of his order at Wittenberg and in other places have gone out of their monasteries, have laid aside the habit or clothing of their order, have let the plates grow together, and are going from one place to another, preaching against the office of the holy mass, the same as the holy Christian church.
2) Leo X had died on Dec. 1, 1521.
1) not to be kept for the time being; instruct the people to receive the holy sacrament in both forms, contrary to the order of the sacred churches, regardless of who in holy Christendom has hitherto submitted to such a thing, that he has been regarded as disobedient and a heretic. They also preach that it is unnecessary that one should first confess before receiving the holy sacrament; it is also not necessary that one receive the body of Christ sober, but one may well eat soup beforehand.
4. From their teaching and instruction it further follows that before, and while we have now been in regiment here at Nuremberg on account of the Holy Roman Empire, as we believe, many people in some surrounding cities, touching our lands and principality, have taken the Holy Sacrament under both forms, The same monks, who have left, consecrate the holy sacrament with German words in their secular garments, and give it into the hands of those who have taken it, and let them use and act it themselves. Similarly, they shall also consecrate the wine in a pot with German words, give it into the hands of the laity, and let them drink from it as they please. In the same way, the priests are forbidden to take wives, contrary to the order and constitution of the holy Christian church.
5. Because this and other much unchristian doctrine and works, in places as indicated, [which] abut our lands, of which much is to be written, taught, preached and practiced; we are also ascribed and commanded by the kingdom's regiment to give heed to it, and to avert and perish such as much as possible: It is our Christian duty, as well as the obedience of the Holy Roman Empire, to prevent, as much as possible, so that our dear faithful subjects are not poisoned with Martin Luther's and his followers' forbidden and unchristian teachings, by the monks who have left, or otherwise, to the detriment of their souls.
(6) Therefore, our request to you is that you take good care of this matter, and where you see such runaway monks in worldly clothes, likewise worldly priests, or others who, with Martin Luther's or his disciples' forbidden unchristian doctrine, as touched, intend to seduce your subjects, or anyone who takes the Holy Sacrament under both guises.
1) This is written in the margin in the Jena edition; in the text in the Wittenberg and Jena editions: "ausgesatzt".
If any of them should come to you or to your courts and be found there, accept them all in custody and keep them in safe custody until further orders from us, so that we may inflict due punishment on them, and do not let them come from you in any way.
(7) Wherever you or yours have someone in universities, schools, or other places where these unchristian works are learned and practiced, demand them from there, and do not send or allow anyone to be sent there, so that the youth, who are inclined to evil, may not be led into these unchristian works and error. And let nothing hinder you in this, nor let you err, but please us in this, as we want to leave ourselves Christian, and otherwise according to your duty, completely to you, and in this un-Christian matter, as a Christian prince, not let you and our obedient, dear, faithful subjects see to our body and goods, and our complete and serious opinion is done on this. Given at Nuremberg, Monday after Dorothea Virginis [Feb. 10], Anno 1522.
729: Duke Henry of Brunswick's mandate against Luther.
January 12, 1522.
This writing is found in the Wittenberg edition (1569), vol. IX, p. 139; in the Jena edition (1585), vol. II, p. 58; in the Altenburg edition, vol. II, p. 79; and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XVIII, p. 282.
1. to all and everyone of whatever dignity, rank or nature, and this open letter is shown, occurs and is read, we, Henry the Disciple, by the Grace of God Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, etc. after offering our favor, graces and all good things before, hereby declare:
2. after one, called D. Martin Luther, writes out and indicates in many articles that something is detrimental to the Christian faith and the holy church, and that thereby a misguidance, abuse or otherwise might arise among the common Christian people, and that because of this, at the Imperial Diet held in Worms, the Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, also the princes, princes and estates of the Holy Roman Empire, commonly and by the majority of them resolved to support the twelve Holy Roman Emperors, our most gracious Lord, as well as the Princes, Princes and Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, have commonly and by the greater part resolved to adhere to the twelve articles of the holy Christian faith, as well as the ordinances and statutes of the holy Christian Church, as brought to us by our forefathers and parents.
3. Thus we, as a Christian prince, wish to remain with the heads of holy Christendom, as Papal Holiness and Imperial Majesty, and therefore request each of them amicably, according to his own dignity, and by virtue of our princely sovereignty, hereby earnestly command ours not to allow themselves to be brought into other ways, nor to be held in any other way than our Christian forefathers and parents have been doing up to now, by 1) denouncing or expelling Martin Luther, which might be contrary to or burdensome to the Christian faith and statutes of the Christian Church, not to be brought into other ways, nor to keep differently than our Christian forefathers and parents have done so far, not to make any secta nor alliances or unions, which could be against the holy Christian faith and the statutes of the holy church, or give birth to sedition and discord between the Christian people, while avoiding our punishment, which is punitive and severe.
4 We will therefore provide for each one of them, and pay a favorable debt, recognize in all good faith, and our serious opinion of them will be carried out. Date Wolfenbüttel, under our pitschaft expressed here below. Sunday after the holy three king day [12. Jan.], Anno 1522.
730: Count Palatine Philip, Bishop of Freising and Naumburg, Mandate against Luther.
Feb. 24, 1522.
See the introduction to No. 727. In the editions given there, January 20, 1522, which is the date of the resolution of the Imperial Regiment contained therein, is set as the date of this mandate.
By the Grace of God, we Philips, Bishop of Freisingen, Administrator of the Naumburg Abbey, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and Duke of Bavaria etc., offer our favorable greetings, grace and all the best to all and any of the now reported elders, provosts, counts, freemen, capitels, prelates, deans, parish priests, co-parish priests, vicars, altarists, knights, servants, captains, officials, ruling mayors, councils, cities, markets, villages, municipalities, and all other of our relatives and subjects.
Venerable, noble, well-born, worthy, highly esteemed, honorable, special dear ones and devotees and faithful! We are herewith honored by the Roman Emperor's Majesty, our most gracious
1) "by" put by Walch instead of "the" in the old editions.
sten Herrn etc., Statthalter, Churfürsten, Fürsten, und anderen Ständen des heiligen römischen Reichs, so jetzt zu Nürnberg versammelt sind, mit einem schriftlichen Mandat und Gebot ersucht worden, und mit Ernst exhorted, demselben in unsern Bisthumen und Landen zu leben, wie ihr von Wort zu Wort folgt befinden werden.
This is followed by No. 727; the conclusion of the mandate is as follows:
Since we are now highly moved that this undertaking, on the demand of necessity, be done for the good and benefit of the poor, simple Christian people, we also recognize ourselves guilty of doing obedience and due obedience to this commandment without diminution, therefore to all of you, and to each one in particular, whatever his state or nature, is our earnest request, commanding that you keep firmly and without prejudice yourselves to the mandate and commandment written down.
And you parish priests, pastors and preachers shall diligently proclaim this in the pulpit and on the pulpit every Sunday between here and Easter, and faithfully remind your parishioners and Christian people of it, and not act against it in any way, while avoiding our severe punishment and disgrace. Each one is to be guided by this. Date Freising, under our secret imprinted here below, Monday St. Matthiä Apostoli [24. Feb.], Anno 1522.
731 Roman Imperial Majesty's mandate in Doctor Martin Luther's matters, together with the exhortation to do so every Sunday against the Turks in the pulpit. The
March 6, 1523.
From Spalatin's Vurralek, p. 81. The imperial mandate alone, with omission of the exhortation preceding it here, is found in the Latin Wittenberg edition (1551), tom. II, col. 3575. German in the Eisleben, vol. I, p. 145; in the Altenburg, vol. II, p. 288; and in the Leipzig, vol. XVIII, p. 474.
The common Christian people are to be told this by all preachers at the top of the pulpits every Sunday, as it is written in the letter.
Since our Lord Jesus Christ was commanded and sent by his holy Father to unite us in one faith and baptism through his bitter death and joyful resurrection, so that all of his commandments are condensed into one, namely, love your neighbor as yourself, and love your neighbor as yourself.
By this it will be known that you are my followers, and that you will love one another, just as the apostles, in all the lands where they came from, had gathered together to keep the Christians in the Jewish land, from whom all our possessions and goods had been taken for the sake of the Christian faith, so it is only right and proper that we should be called Christians, and do nothing of the kind, Sunder hören, wiffen, sehen zu, vnd thun, ob es uns nichts angehe, das der wuttend feindt der Turck teglich, vnd lenzer yhe mher, des Christlichen volcks, vnserer bruder, Landt vnd wonung bekrieget, and many lives miserably murdered, young women, women and children taken away with horrible monstrosities, kidnapped, and abused in the same way as the people, then in famine, If we do not have mercy on them out of Christian brotherly love, God will not have mercy on us again, and will send what is left to them above us tomorrow, when it is to be assumed that the afflicted will not have anything to worry about before a few years, because it is still much further with their neighbors, Therefore, all of you Christian believers, in the love of Christ Jesus, are urged to take care of such harsh punishment of our brothers, which they have to endure from the Turkish rage, to show mercy to you, and to call upon God for mercy and remission. Also, for the sake of the same Christian love, be inclined and willing, according to the decree of our authority, to help, assist and protect the afflicted Christians, if our Lord Jesus Christ will take care of the least thing that happens to His own, as it happened to Himself, to humbly call upon and ask the same of the Almighty, to take the error, which arises and grows everywhere, from all Christian authorities, spiritual and secular, and also to give grace to other Christian people, so that they may live in courage of the holy Christian faith and peace, and thereby attain the way of eternal salvation.
1) We Karl der sunfft von gots gnaden Erwelter römischer Kayser, zu allen zeyten merer des Reichs, In Germanien, zu Hispanien, baider Sicilien, Jherusalem. Hunger, Dalmatia, Croatia etc. Künig, Ertzhertzog zu Österreich, hertzog zu Burgundi etc.,
1) The following is the Reichstag Edict, the so-called Nuremberg Edict.
Graue zu Habspurg, Flandern vnd Tirol etc., To all and any of the princes, princes, princely and secular, prelates, graves, freemen, lords, knights, servants, lords of the manor, bailiffs, governors, stewards, bailiffs, mayors, magistrates, judges, ranks, citizens and municipalities, and in general to all other subjects of ours and of the realm, judges, townships, burgesses, citizens and communities, and all others of our own and the realm's subjects and tribes, in whatever form, state or nature they may be, to whom this imperial letter is addressed, our friendship, grace, and all good things. Highly esteemed, noble, highborn, dear friend. New [nephews], grandees, electors, princes, well-born, noble, respectable, and faithful. As at our Imperial Diet and Assembly, recently held here at Nuremberg, the Papal Holiness, by its authority, in addition to the advertisement and furbishment of the Crown of Hunger, to appear against the enemy of Christendom, the Turk, with help and salvation, on account of Luther's and his followers' manifold writings and lessons, by means of a baptismal breue, 2) and an instruction, which also served as an effortful reminder, and announced that the necessity would require a great deal, to be understood with timely intent, so that such letters and writings would serve as a refresher, and to be forwarded, with the request that our imperial governors, princes, princes, and other imperial sovereigns may well inform and advise you by what means! and ways in which such a lament might be met, to open and inform your holiness, so that your holiness, what you felt for such a purpose, would not appear to be lacking. And now, in response to this, our imperial governors, electors, princes, and sovereigns, on important advice, according to the circumstances and opportunities of all the matters of this time, could not have sought or found a more consoling means of help than that of the papal sanctity. Holiness, with his permission, to organize a free Christian council at a convenient place in the German nation, such as Strasbourg, Cologne, Mentz, Metz, or any other place where the Papal Holiness and we might unite, and shall be begun at the latest in the year's term, as then the said our governors, also electors, princes and sovereigns, have put and sent to His Holiness such counsel and good will again in writing in reply. 3) The same is also true of some other places. Likewise, also several other articles and complaints,
2) The Breve No. 719; the Instruction No. 718; the oral admonition and reminder of the papal legate Chieregati on 3 Jan. 1523.
3) The Imperial Estates' Reply No. 720; the Complaints No. 722.
As they were sent to the Council of Rome by the secular princes, rulers and sovereigns at the last Imperial Diet at Wormbs, with the request that they be given all due attention and understanding, to Your Papal Holiness. In addition to such their counsel and good intentions, they are also to use all diligence in the meantime until the time of the Council, and to ensure that, when the said Luther and some of his followers refrain from acting in a bad manner, the same Luther or his followers do not write or press anything new. That also every elector, prince, and other sovereign of the realm shall decree in his sovereignty that nothing else than the Gospel, according to the interpretation of the creeds, approved and accepted by the Christian Church, shall be preached in the meantime. 1) That nothing new be preached, or had any sect, unless it is first approved and permitted by learned persons, who are to be specially ordained for this purpose, 2) as then the Scriptures of our Holiness have decreed. In addition, every elector, prince, prelate, count, and other authority in the kingdom shall order and decree with all possible diligence that all preachers be spoken to and acted upon in a sensible and proper manner, so as to prevent in their preaching what may lead to agitation, disobedience, dissension, and sedition in the holy kingdom, or cause the Christians to be led astray, but that they alone may preach and teach the Holy Gospel, according to the interpretation of the Scriptures, approved and accepted by the Holy Christian Church, as presented, and that they abstain from preaching and teaching the same, but await the decision of the aforementioned Christian Council. And that the archbishops and bishops decree certain experts of the Holy Scriptures, who are to take careful note of such preaching and teaching, and where they are in error, that they are then to point out to such preachers or teachers amicably, decisively, and to such an extent, that it may not be understood from this, as if one would want to prevent or suppress the Protestant truth. 3) Which preachers, however, did not allow themselves to be instructed that the ordinaries should punish them with legal sanctions.
1) What is contained in the preceding sentence forms the first article in Luther's writing "Wider die Verkehrer und Fälscher des kaiserlichen Mandats," No. 733.
2) The preceding forms the third article.
3) The preceding sentence forms the second article in No. 733.
and how they intend to do so. Furthermore, our governors, electors, princes, and sovereigns of the realm shall, during the time of the Council, take all possible care in all pressures, and with all booksellers of any authority, that nothing new is printed, carried to fine purchase, or issued, unless it has been ordered and inspected by any authority, as stated in the next article. But if nothing has been done about it, or if it has been found wanting, that the same, and in particular also abusive language 4) shall not be permitted with great punishment, but shall therefore be strictly enforced and kept. Then, for the sake of the clergy, who take weights, and also for the religious who leave their monasteries, since in the common laws of the secular authorities no punishment is ordered, it shall remain with the punishment of the clerical law, so that they may exercise their freedom, priuilegia, prebend, and otherwise, and that the ordinaries are not prevented from such punishment by the secular authorities, 5) but that they prove help and assistance to them for the protection of the ecclesiastical authorities. If, however, these ecclesiastical persons hold themselves above the natural and punishable, they shall be punished according to the rules of the law, as then all such articles have been decided by the electors, princes and other rulers of our state, at the above-mentioned first Diet of our empire, and are included in the common agreement of ours and the empire. So that these articles, as aforesaid, may all and sundry hereafter be more properly executed, we have thus in open edict manner to strike and declare them everywhere, And thereupon we earnestly charge all of you, together with all of you of the Roman Catholic Church, with our open edict, and we wish that all of you, and every one of you, may understand and see in your own hearts that only the Holy Gospel is to be taught in the Council of the Lord, according to the interpretation of the Scriptures, approved and accepted by the Christian Church, preached and taught, and ordered with all diligence, so that all preachers may speak and act in a sensible and proper manner, to avoid in their preaching anything that might lead to disobedience, dissension and sedition in the holy kingdom, or to lead the Christian people into error, and to preach and learn those things that were useless and disputable.
4) In Latin: 1ibkHo8 tarri0808. In Spalatin's Annalen-, "seine schrifften".
5s The preceding in this sentence forms the fourth article in No. 733.
but to await the aforementioned Christian Council's decision. That we, the archbishops and bishops, have ordered some of the holy scriptures to diligently observe such preaching and teaching, and if they find any error therein, then to inform these preachers or teachers in an orderly, authoritative manner, and in such a way that it will not be perceived to hinder or prevent evangelical worship. And which preachers would not allow themselves to be rebuked, that you ordinaries should take action against them with severe punishment. That also all of the above-mentioned Stendt, with the said time of the Council, should take care in all matters of printing, and in the case of the book keepers, that each of them, with all possible diligence, should see to it that nothing new is printed, or carried or laid out for fair purchase. 1) Then, beforehand, by each of the above-mentioned Stendt, the person ordered, deceased, and paid, should be inspected and approved. If, however, anything is pressed and laid down about it, or if it is found to be defective, we will not allow this to be done, nor will we allow any disgraceful deeds to be carried out, but we will strictly forbid them, as we hereby declare by reason of this letter, with our and the kingdom's severe reprimands and punishments. Then, for the sake of the clergy who take wives, as well as the religious who leave their monasteries, we think and decree that they have violated their freedom, priesthoods, prebend and other rights according to the law of the land, and that they shall be punished according to the order of the law. We also hereby sincerely request that the secular authorities do not prevent the ordinaries of the clergy from such punishment, but rather that they assist and support the clerical authorities, and that they receive all favors and benefits, And that all of you, family, and friends, may be helped and proved, and that all of you, family, and friends, may be guided by the above articles in all of their contents, as they have been guided by, so that the ascription of the divine sanctity, as well as the above decision, and our and the kingdom's end, may be carried out, as dear to all of you, and as dear to every friend of ours and the kingdom's, to avoid our and the kingdom's grave misfortune and punishment. Given in our and the kingdom's city of Nurmberg, on the sixth day of the month of March, after the birth of Christ, five hundred and twenty-three. Our empire, the Roman in the fourth, and the others all in the eighth year. 2)
2) In Latin it is still written underneath: By order of the Emperor. In the imperial council. Frederick, Count Palatine, Imperial Majesty's Governor. Heinrich, HeHvg zu Mecklenburg.
732: The Electors Frederick and John, brothers, Dukes of Saxony, order to the von Einsiedels at Kohren regarding the imperial mandate issued from the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg in Luther's matters. Luther's affairs, as well as the exhortation to be given in the pulpit every Sunday against the Turks.
May 25, 1523.
From Kapp's Nachlese nützlicher Reformationurkunden, Theil II, p. 583.
By the Grace of God Frederick, Elector etc., and John's Brothers, Duke of Saxony etc.
Dear faithful. We inform you that a few days ago we received an open mandate from the Roman Imperial Majesty, our most noble lord, governor and regiment of Nurinbergk, in the name of the Roman Imperial Majesty. Maj. and of His Majesty's Regiment. We hereby transmit to you a copy of this mandate, signed by a notary public, so that you will know its contents. Because we then have the honor to write against the Roman Majesty in all matters concerning the matter. Majesty in all matters of interest and equity, both now and in the past, as obedient princes and rulers, as we then, with the help of the Almighty, still do not wish to be found otherwise, we have not wished to hold you to this at the behest of Imperial Majesty. Majesty, so that you may know what such a Royal Majesty's mandate holds in store for you. Majesty's mandate. It is our request that you publish and announce such a rulings to the pastors, preachers and other clerics of our church. In addition to the above-mentioned royal mandate, there is also a note 3). Mandate, a note 3) has been issued, which is to be read by the preachers over the pulpits, every Sunday, as stated in the letter, therefore we order that you, together with the preachers of the above mentioned ecclesiastical church, read such notes every Sunday, as mentioned above, to the people, and that you order all of this to be done with a note, and do not keep it any other way. This is our opinion. Date Monday in Pentecost [May 25] Anno etc. XXIII.
Vnnsern lieben getrewen, den vom Einsidel zu khorn, gebruders.
3) The first piece of this number.
2208 Erl. 83,182-184. sect. 1. of the Reichst, at Nuremberg 1522. no. 733. W. LV, 2632-2KL4. 2209
733 Luther's "against the trafficers and forgers of the imperial mandate". Letter to the governor and the imperial regiment. Shortly before July 11, 1523.
This writing, which refers to the imperial mandate (No. 731), appeared in Wittenberg in the Officin of Cranach and Döring in the first days of July under the following title: "Widder die Uerkerer und felscher Keyserlichsmandats. Martinus Luther. Wittemberg. M.D.xxiij." 6 leaves in quarto. In the same year, a second edition was published in the same office. In addition, the Weimar edition lists six reprints, all of which belong to the year 1523, including one by Matthes Maler in Erfurt, which inadvertently bears the year 1522 on the title, which gave Walch cause to remark that there is also a print from the year 1522. The time determination results from Luther's letter to Spalatin of July 11, 1523, in the appendix of this volume no. 102. In the collective editions, this writing is found: in the Wittenberg (1553), vol. VI, p. 606; in the Jena (1585), vol. II, p. 214; in the Altenburg, vol.II, p.290; in the Leipzig, vol.; in the Leipziger, vol. XVIII, p. 476; in the Erlanger, vol. 53, p. 182; in the Weimarschen, vol. XII, p. 58 and in De Wette, vol. II, p. 367. We give the text according to the Weimarschen.
To the illustrious and highborn, noble princes and lords, imperial majesty . Governor and Estates of the Imperial Regiment at Nuremberg, my gracious dear Lords.
Grace and peace in Christ our Savior, Amen. Sublime, highborn, noble princes and lords! I humbly confess to Your Grace that I have accepted the imperial mandate recently issued by Your Grace with great gratitude and have diligently proclaimed it to our people. I humbly accept the imperial mandate recently issued by His Holiness with great gratitude, and have diligently proclaimed it to our people, completely hoping that 1) God has given it to His Holiness; and would also have been seriously minded to follow it with all my might, as it should not be an obstacle to the holy Gospel, but rather a furtherance of it, as it also says from word to word.
But as by God's decree the evil enemy always perverts the best and adorns the worst, this mandate has also succeeded in causing many, even princes and lords, not only to show no obedience to it, but also to presume to thumb their wild noses at it and, wherever they want to go, to interpret it, regardless of the bright, clear words contained in it.
1) Thus Walch. Weimarsche: verhofft; Wittenberger and Jenaer: verhoffe.
nice E. G.'s opinion and will are very clear to anyone who understands German differently. Because they even reverse the meaning, and contrary to the Gospel make us an unpleasant gloss, it has been necessary for me to answer for myself and my sense comrades, and to warn those who are deceived, to let our understanding go by the way, and to indicate how far it is to suffer us; hope comfortingly, it should be nothing against this mandate, nor E. G.'s opinion. And so that we do not have to endure the G. with long chatter, let us put it into four articles 2).
The first article.
Preach the gospel according to the interpretation of the teachers, accepted and approved by the Christian Church.
They interpret this article to mean that the gospel should not be preached in any other way than the way it has been preached up to now by the high schools together with the monasteries and convents with their teachers, Thomas, Scotus, and what the Roman church has approved.
We find nothing in the mandate about the Roman church, nor about St. Thomas or high schools, but it says: "The Christian church", and according to the clear words, it means the oldest teachers, as Augustinum, Cyprianum, Hilarium and the like. Although it is also known that these teachers have not always written and held correctly, they insist that the Christian Church could not have been higher and further than St. Augustine. Augustine, the special light of the Christian church, is accustomed to accept and teaches, since he says: "I give the holy books alone, which are called canonici, the honor that I believe that none of their writers has erred; all the others I read in such a way that, however high they seem with art and holiness, I do not consider them right because they hold thus, but where they prove it to me with the sayings of holy scripture or clear reason. 4)
2) We have identified the four articles above in No. 731.
3) Thus Walch. In the original "none" instead of: "that none". It is possible that in the original, due to a printing error, "habe" is set instead of "have" (haben).
3 Here we see that St. Augustine has a goal in accepting the teachers, and throws them all under the judgment of the holy Scriptures, how reasonable that over this goal it is not proper to accept anyone, however holy and learned he may be. Such a mind of the teachers, which the Christian church has accepted and approved, we also consider to be in the mandate, do not want to and cannot suffer any other, let it be as God wills.
4 It also follows that this understanding is to be kept, for since the mandate finally went out that a free concilium should be instituted, and while the matter is being settled, it is not necessary that we should be silent, and preach with those the former deed, as they interpret it. For if this were to be, what need would there be for a concilium? Why then should we pretend to postpone the matter for a concilium, if this mandate, according to opinion, had already passed a judgment much greater and broader than perhaps the future concilium would set, even if it were to set itself completely against us in the worst way? This mandate would do nothing more with the way it played with words, and led people by the nose in an all-too-cruel way, that I do not see any way to E. G..
5 Therefore I have interpreted it to our people in this way, that the imperial majesty with this mandate makes the matter rest, that they do not continue until the concilium, and command our adversary that they leave their school quarrels and pagan art, sucked out of St. Thomas and high schools, at home. Thomas and high schools, which serve nothing, as St. Paul says [1 Tim. 6, 4. f.], but to cause strife and trouble, and should preach nothing before the people but the true gospel. I also have no doubt that the opinion of our Lord is thorough and serious, and I can feel it in the fact that some princes, who were too much in the past, did not grant this mandate, and are now ashamed to apply for it.
(6) For this I have desired with all my heart that such a commandment be kept, and lament that unfortunately our opponents do not have those who could preach in this way, for they, drowned in their sophistry, do not know what gospel or teacher is. We want to keep it fine, if God wills it. The thing should also stand still, wherever they hold it. But, they
They cannot, therefore they go on and interpret this mandate of theirs against us, which is so thoroughly set against them. It is briefly and easily said: Preach the gospel, as Christ also commanded. Yes, where are they who do it? "The harvest is great, but the laborers are few" [Matth. 9, 37. 38.]. Who will create them? The imperial majesty should do it, yes, how can she? Ask the father of the house to create them. They must come from heaven; high schools and monasteries do not bear them on earth.
The other article.
That archbishops and bishops should decree that learned people, who understand the Holy Scriptures, take notice of such preaching, and that those who err in this should be amicably and modestly rebuked, but those who do not want to be rebuked should be punished with due punishment, so that one does not feel as if one wants to prevent or suppress the evangelical truth.
(1) This article lacks nothing, for the fact that no one will keep it makes it far too good. If it were the time when the 68th Psalm, v. 12, says, "God will give the word to the evangelists with great multitudes," it would be kept. But now the saying goes [Matth. 9, 37.]: "The harvest is great, the laborer few", yes, when I worry that it is about the time when Christ says [Luc. 17, 22. 21, 8.]: "The time will come that you would see the Son of Man one day, and will not see, [Matth. 24, 5.] "For many shall come under my name, and shall deceive many," we may meanwhile take this apostolic and most Christian article, will and good opinion for the deed, and ask God that he himself keep it; the bishops will do it slowly.
For where will they take those who understand the Scriptures, if in so many hundreds of years neither in monasteries nor foundations nor high schools have the Scriptures been read honestly, and only blued themselves with sophistry? So it will not do them good to humble themselves so deeply and to amicably and modestly call the erring ones to order, since up to now they have banished, cursed, burned, and been accustomed to all bluster; I would like to see where it happens. If I had been treated like this before, perhaps things would be better for them. But the faithful advice and commandment of this article is still available; God grant that they still do it.
2212 Erl. 83,186-I8S. Section 1: From the Reichst, at Nuremberg 1522, No. 733, W. XV, 2637-2639. 2213
The third article.
That nothing new be printed or sold in the middle of the time of the Council, unless it is inspected by reasonable people at every authority.
This article would have been long time. I will certainly keep it, because we ourselves put such an article in our university last year. But that is not to say that it is forbidden to print and sell the holy scripture, or what has already gone out. So I may also not be forbidden to translate the same, although I have no interest in it. For since everything is to be inspected beforehand by ordained persons, it pleases me quite well that I omit nothing, unless it has been inspected beforehand; except for the righteous word of God, which must and shall be unbound.
The fourth article.
The ecclesiastical persons who take wives and leave the orders shall be punished according to the ecclesiastical law, namely they shall have forfeited their freedom, privileges and benefices, and secular authorities shall not prevent such punishment.
This article seems too harsh, but if the others were kept, it would have to suffer as well. The priests would suffer the most, but monks and nuns, who have no benefices, may lose no liberty, because they must now support themselves and become married, which they had before and were free to do. Thus the spiritual punishment is quite tolerable to him who understands the gospel. For since one is to preach the true gospel, the spiritual punishment must be directed according to the gospel, in which Matth. 18, 17. Christ thus teaches punishment, that one who does not want to obey the church is to be banished and put away from the church. Now, whoever would be banned because of his marriage or leaving the church, it would be on his conscience to suffer the wrongful banishment.
(2) However, if this article is to be judged by its severity, it has too much flesh, and does not agree with the previous three. For where the gospel is to be preached more loudly, our own essays and our works must perish, as I have often taught. Therefore, whether I can suffer that we, according to this article, are punished before God innocently, because of works,
which are considered sinful and yet good, I would also like him not to be so placed. For though such punishment is harmless to us as to the innocent, yet it is a fault, and not harmless to them that punish us with wrong; because to suffer wrong is profitable, but to do wrong is injurious.
Help God from Heaven, will it not even occur to us that impossible vows are not vows, nor are they to be kept? Who will vow to fly like a bird and keep it, unless God's miraculous sign is there? Now it is so much, if a man or a woman vows chastity. For it is not created for chastity, but, as God says, "Grow and multiply," that chastity is an impossible thing where God does not perform miracles. So the vow of miracles is not valid, which is not in my power. Therefore I have done foolishly, and am not obliged to keep it, and God does not demand it.
4 Oh dear sirs! Let God's will soothe you in this. No one can believe what the devil is doing in this case, what he is doing in his abominable, blasphemous, disgraceful will to be brave, of which no one has known anything publicly until now, and which is now coming forth through the gospel. Why do you want to share all this with yourselves without need, and burden your consciences? O Lord God, it must and should hold, and yet it cannot hold; what good will that do? Whoever must keep his dung or urine, if he cannot, what will become of him? I fear that those who are now my bitterest enemies, if they knew what I learn daily from all countries, they would help me storm monasteries tomorrow. I am almost forced to cry out too loudly and say: God wanted to quickly skin Satan and bring him to the day, so it will help what we are crying out now.
(5) Let this article be interpreted and enforced in the strictest possible way, since princes and bishops have not acted imperially, princely, or episcopally (let us not say Christian or divine), who have tyrannically imprisoned such ecclesiastical persons, who have forfeited themselves in this, 1) so shamefully with
1) This will refer to the imprisonment of Johann Apel and Friedrich Fischer in Würzburg. Compare St. Louis Edition, Vol. XIV, 258, Note.
They were treated as if they had been worse than murderers, robbers or adulterers, and were tormented and martyred before God and the world not according to worldly or spiritual law, but only according to their bloodthirsty sin and willfulness. Who should now be ashamed in their hearts when they see this mandate and realize that spiritual punishment is so far from their rage. Where is the kind and humble wisdom of the princes and tyrants, who have captured their worldly subjects unheard, treasured them, chased them away, and created all plagues? Where are they now, the Christian princes, who obey imperial commandments? Yes, God cannot find such hypocrites! when they thought.
6th About this, I consider that according to this mandate, I, Martin Luther, should be under papal and imperial ban and guard until the future council; otherwise I do not know what such a postponement should be, especially if I grant to keep such articles. But well, there is not much in me; the world has had enough of me, and I of it again; whether I am in the ban or not is of equal importance. But for the sake of the poor bunch, I beg you, my dearest lords, to hear us graciously; we do not want to ask anything unreasonable. Since you leave those unpunished who do not keep these first three divine articles, nor will you keep them, nor do you inflict any punishment on them, for which they are now bound by God's commandment, even by your human commandment, and nothing impossible is commanded them: may you also show mercy to us poor, miserable people, and treat us carefully, whether we keep the first three divine articles, and only the fourth, human article, could not be met so evenly, since impossible pieces of human nature are included in it. It is ever to be lamented and pitied that we poor, weak, sinful people should be so severely touched for the sake of a human article, and the strong, great people, in public transgression of three divine articles, yes, of all God's commandments, should live so gloriously, freely, safely (as one sees their public fornication, and all kinds of vices raging), not only unpunished, but also in great honor and power.
7 We hope that your Lord will take such a request to heart, and mean that such a request will be granted.
would not be denied even to Turks and pagans, let alone to those who want to be and be called Christian princes. I have humbly informed Your Lordship of my understanding and interpretation, so that Your Lordship can be assured that the matter will not become worse from such a fine mandate than it was before, through evil intermediaries and interpreters. May God grant grace, strength, and help to our Lord in this matter. Amen.
734. farewell to the Diet of Nuremberg, May 8, 1522.
From Lünig's Imperial Archives, pari. gentral. continuLt. I, x.433.
We Carol the Fifth, by the Grace of God, elected Roman Emperor, at all times Major of the Empire; King in Germania, in Castile, in Arragon, in Legion, 1) in Sicily, in Hierusalem, in Hungary, in Dalmatia, in Croatim, Navarre, in Grenades, in Tollsten, in Valentz, in Gallicia, Maioricarum, Hispalis, Sardiniae, Cordubae, Corsicae, Murciae, Giennis, Algar- bien, Algezirae, in Gibraltaris, and of the Islands
Canariae, also the islands Indiarum and Terrae firmae, the sea Oceani etc., Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, of Lotterich, of Braband, of Steyer, of Carinthia, of Carniola, of Limburg, of Guelders, Wirtenberg, Calabria, Athenarum, Neopatriae; Count of Habspurg, of Flanders, of Tyrol, of Gorizia, of Parsiloni, of Arthoys, of Burgundy, Count Palatine of Hanigaw, of Holland, of Zealand, of Wert, of Kyburg, of Namur, of Roßilion, of Ceritani and of Zütphen; Landgrave in Alsace, Margrave of Burgaw, of Oristani, of Gotiani, and of the Holy Roman Empire Prince of Burgundy. Roman Empire Prince of Swabia, of Cathalonia, Asturia etc., Lord of Friesland, of the Wendish Marches, of Pertenaw, of Biscay, of Molin, of Salins, of Tripoli, and of Mechelen: confess and proclaim manly: When we have received a report from time to time, not without some difficulty of our minds, how then it has come to light that the enemy of Christ, the Turk, has overrun the kingdom of Hungern with considerable war and violence, has besieged it, and, in addition to much considerable damage, has conquered several towns, castles and villages, and especially the Greek town of Weissenburg, which up to now has been a special stronghold and shield against the Turk.
1) Leon in Spain.
The German government has occupied and occupied a part of the country, and is seriously engaged and working on this and other such war exercises. etc. We take all this to heart, as not the least burden and burden of holy Christianity, and in our Imperial mind the highest need to be anxious to resist it (for the protection and handling of the Christian name and faith) in the most beneficial way. And have therefore, for their sake and for the sake of other public movable causes, the Holy Roman Empire and the German Nation. And therefore, for these and other public causes, concerning the Holy Roman Empire and the German Nation, this present Imperial Diet has been held in Nuremberg, where Princes, Princes and other Estates have also appeared by their embassy. In order that we may initially be aware of the Turk's actions, and open our minds to them, and that we and our brother, the King of Hungary, may await the further report and notification of the Turk's tyrannical actions, the messages ordered to us and our brother, the King of Hungary, After the advice we had received, and in order to save Christian blood, we finally decided and united, with the help of the Almighty, to assist our brother, the King of Hungary, in resisting the Turk, and to show Christian brotherly comfort and support. And after the princes, princes and estates of the Holy Roman Empire have sent us four thousand on horseback for our and the German Nation's final undertaking, and for the attainment of the Imperial Crown. Crown, we have been granted four thousand on horseback and twenty thousand on foot for six months, and our will and spirit have finally agreed to use them for our march to Rome. But because we feel and find that such help will be somewhat more necessary at this time against the enemy of Christ, the Turks, we have of our own free will allowed, granted, and also united with princes, princes and estates and the same embassies, that such four thousand on horseback and twenty thousand on foot shall be sent to Rome, and twenty thousand on foot, to the full extent that the same have been pledged to us by the estates of the empire, and thereafter further declared, to resist the Turks in whole or in part, or as they otherwise deem best and most needful, shall be turned and used for urgent aid.
(1) In order that such assistance may be used more expediently and in accordance with necessity, and that it may be known in what form, measure and time such assistance may take place, it is resolved that such assistance be attributed to our brother, the King of Hungary, and that it be indicated to the same message in farewell white, that now reported to our brother, the King in Hungary, on his occasion, but as quickly and urgently as possible, it be sent one day to the king of Hungary.
Vienna, announce the same to our governor and regiment at Nuremberg, whereupon the princes, princes and estates of the Holy Roman Empire, also the said our brother, King of Hungary, and on account of the two kingdoms, Hungary and Bohemia, and their landscapes and principalities, as well as the Highborn Prince, Mr. Ferdinandus, Infant of Hispania, our dear brother, as Archduke of Austria, also the Upper and Lower Austrian lands, together with all our embassies, shall send together to consult, to act, and finally to decide, according to their given authority, on the resistance to the Turk.
2. on this day, on account of us, also princes, princes and estates of the holy empire, the highborn prince, our dear cousin Ludwig, count palatine of the Rhine etc., and with him the nobles, Ludwig von Leostein, Hanß zu Schwarzenburg, Marx Sittig von Embs, Philips von Felsch, Bastian von Rotenhan, Leonhard von Eck zu Näck, Christoph Schewelin, assigned as war councilors; Thus, as soon as the day to Vienna, as mentioned above, is scheduled by our brother, the King of Hungary, they shall be required by the governor and regiment to attend a convenient banquet, and shall be executed on the same day with the credences, powers and instructions as they are then proposed and appointed at this Imperial Diet.
And if our cousin, Duke Ludwig, or one or more of the above-mentioned warriors or scholars, on account of his inconvenience, were to go to such a day, write it off or propose it: our governor and regiment, in our stead and for our sake, shall look for other suitable and skilled people, and act with the same to be used and sent there; and in this shall use all diligence, so that, if the day is named, there will be no lack of persons.
4. item, the transfer or delivery of such skillful embassy, from the current one and a half quarter stop, made on account of the hurrying ordered war people, as will be noted below, shall take place.
Item 5: It is considered that after such embassies and councilors may encounter and arise in the course of action all sorts of things that are not understood in the Instruction, and perhaps for this reason require further notice: between Nuremberg and Vienna they are to be posted by day at a convenient place, so that at any time what they encounter and do, they may hurry and bring it to our governor and regiment.
Nuremberg, and therefore should receive further information.
(6) And what is thus acted upon and decided at such a day, our governor and regiment shall make known to all princes, princes and estates of the empire, as much as is necessary. And if, at the meeting in Vienna, it is deemed necessary and good, and it is decided to provide further assistance this summer, this shall also be announced and required by our governor and regiment. Accordingly, every prince, duke, and the estates of the empire shall send their due number of aid, and to our campaign in Rome, as much as remains to them (after deduction of the one and a half quarters, which is in the subsequent estimate, for the preservation of the ordered warband); so that he may also be prepared, upon our further description, to render the same remaining aid this summer in the most conducive and expeditious manner.
Item 7: The payment of such warriors on horseback and on foot shall remain as it was at our recent Diet of Worms, namely ten guilders a month for a man on horseback and four guilders a month for a man on foot.
Item 8: In the meantime, our governor and regiment shall diligently accept and appoint such action of the day in Vienna with the princes and other persons who are considered by us, the princes, princes and estates, to be suitable and skilled for captain of the field of war, war councillors, and other war offices, and who are listed and handed over to them, and finally act and agree, so that, where it would come to a trade, so that one would be certain of all of them. And if no prince would allow himself to be able to do so, that governor and regiment act with another, be it count or lord, who runs the war, understandably; the same, where it would be inconvenient for the war councils to act with the other.
9 However, it would have been necessary to discuss and decide at this Imperial Diet how and to what extent a public, emergency, persistent help and power should be maintained and used against the above-mentioned unbelievers. However, because of the absence of some estates, which the arriving estates did not want to expect until the end of the day in Vienna, and what had been done there, some articles of farewell had been placed in such a way that necessity required that they be brought to an end, and therefore, for this and other reasons, they could not be: therefore, we have agreed with the churl to hold a meeting in Vienna.
Princes, Princes and Estates of the Realm, and of the same embassies, now assembled here, united at another Imperial Diet, namely on St. Aegidii's Day [Sept. 1].The Council of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Nation, as we will further indicate in our notice of the now united Imperial Diet, to finally deliberate, act and decide on the above-mentioned and other public matters. That all estates shall also be required by us to the utmost, and shall be commanded and admonished, with heavy and severe penalties and punishments, not to appear in their own persons on account of matrimonial matters, and then to send their embassy with full force, and finally, as aforesaid, to decide together with the other estates of the empire.
10) Furthermore, after our brother, the King of Hungary, had sent an embassy here, he indicated that the Turk was already in retreat 1) and had now, while the embassy was on its way, captured a fortified castle, and thus doubtlessly assumed that he would approach several castles and passes for his own benefit, and take them, which would then be extremely burdensome. And therefore, that the same come before, a stately urgent help requested, for occupation of the same castle and pass, that we have granted by Electors, Princes and Estates and their embassies, on further and sufficient report, and for movable causes, to the King of Hungary on his embassy request, from the above-mentioned great help, to maintain one and a half quarter of the foot soldiers for three months. But that our brother, the King of Hungary, also give so many Bohemian servants to his maintenance, and that such servants be provided with emergency ordnance.
(11) And such servants shall be accepted by our and the common imperial authorities and sent down to Vienna; so that they will certainly be there on the day that our brother, the King of Hungary, shall name them there as above, and there await the above-mentioned embassies of ours and of the city, which we have ordered to Vienna as above, further decisions, and where they will be used.
Item 12: The estates have united with us, and we with them, because such a hasty addition of estates of the realm is not possible at the right time, even with a needy order of people to send; as then of that
1) Maybe: Suit?
The court has set up a money system for the maintenance of such servants for three months, namely, that each estate is to pay a quarter and a half of the above-mentioned large amount of the foot soldiers, as stated therein, for its part, and has set out and written out in the common notice which quarter and a half of the large amount of the foot soldiers is to be paid out to it afterwards.
Therefore Count Helfreich of Helffenstein, as well as Gangolff of Geroltzeck, Marx Sittig of Embs, have written that each of them sends a skilful captain here to our governor and regiment, who shall continue to act with the same captains on their order, agree with them and accept them.
14 Each prince, duke and estate shall also deliver its due portion within one month, the next after the date set forth in the above mandate, to the mayors and councils of the cities of Augsburg, Nuremberg and Frankfurt, whichever is most convenient to each, certainly without delay or any remedy, with the penalties and punishments stipulated in the same mandate; the same mayors and councils shall be ordered to receive such, and to acknowledge them accordingly. And for payment of the same money or money's worth 26 wheels of white pennies, 15 batz, 30 half batz, 40 kreuzers, 21 Meissen twelfths or 42 half Meissen twelfths for one gold shall be accepted. And both cities, Augsburg and Frankfurt, shall deliver to the mayor and council of Nuremberg on due receipts what they have paid and what they have received. All of which the Nurembergers, together with what they have received, shall deliver by bill of exchange to Vienna at a certain place, where the captain, muster-master or paymaster is sure to have it, and may procure it for him. The same captain, muster-master or paymaster, mayor and council of Nuremberg, or whoever will deliver it on their behalf, shall acknowledge it properly.
15 Accordingly, a skilful, trustworthy, reasonable and honest paymaster shall be appointed and assigned to the counter-scribe, who shall spend and pay such money together with the captain on their duty, which they shall therefore do at the behest of our governor and regiment, for the entertainment of the people of war, make the actual account, and give the governor and regiment an honest account of it, which account shall be handed over to the Estates of the Realm at the next Imperial Diet thereafter.
16 In order that there may now be a beginning and no delay in taking up and appointing such servants for the sake of money, the Electors, Princes, and Estates, who have appeared here by themselves and their embassies, have, out of good faithful opinion and promotion of the cause, granted their share of such a request to the next within a month.
(17) All preachers are also to be commanded to declare and tell the people above the pulpit the masses of which God Almighty has often severely punished the sin of men with the sword of their enemies, and therefore to exhort them to amend their lives, so that they may also avert such guilty punishment, and thereby humbly and diligently pray for a merciful victory against the said enemy of Christ, from God, in whom alone stands our salvation.
18 Furthermore, as the princes, princes and estates of the empire at our recently held imperial diet at Worms have granted themselves to our submissive! We are pleased that, for the sake of peace and justice in the Holy Roman Empire, they agreed to postpone for a time our appointed governor, regiment and chamber court, according to an established plan, so that in the meantime a way may be found to maintain such our regiment and chamber court, with our advice and assistance; how then our governor and regiment, first of all, are to search for and advise on all their actions. As then our governor, also electors, princes, estates and regiment distinguished several means and ways, and to accept one or more of them, are in our concern. However, because the same means and ways cannot be hastily established and put into operation, and so that our established regiment and chamber court may exist in essence, and the Holy Empire and the German Nation may remain in peace, law and unity, the Electors, Princes and Estates and their skilled embassies have once again freely granted that both our regiment and chamber court be maintained for one year, which will begin on St. Michael's Day and end in 1522. Michaelmas until the 1522nd year, and from the same Michaelmas day for one year of the 1523rd year, on a previous money deposit at Worms, so that in the meantime one may think, act, and bring both of them into being in a steady way on future Imperial Diet. And such an approved deposit shall also be made at every Frankfurt fair there to Frankfurt or Nuremberg.
19 Accordingly, our governors and regiment, with the approval of princes and estates,
give serious orders to those who, for the maintenance of the Regiment and the Court of Chambers, were established, laid out and named at the recently held Imperial Diet at Wormbs, and who have been in the lists from time immemorial, to proceed and act for the payment of their share. If anyone then has a reason why he should not give his share, they may be brought before our governor and regiment, whereupon they shall, if they find the form, keep all charges.
(20) Thereupon, we promise to keep and perform all and everything as written above, and which concerns us, by our royal dignities and words, steadfastly, firmly, unbreakably, and sincerely, and to comply and live with it strictly and without refusal, and not to do, undertake, and act anything contrary to it, or to let it go out, nor to allow anyone else to do anything for our sake, except all danger. In witness whereof, we have hereunto affixed our Imperial Seal.
We, the Princes, Prelates, Counts and Lords, as well as the Princes, Prelates, Counts, and the Imperial and Free City Envoys and Authorities, do hereby publicly confess. Reichs Frey- und Reichsstädt Gesandte und Gewalthaber, confess publicly with this farewell, that all and each of the copied points and articles have been made with our good knowledge and will and counsel, grant those also in force of this letter, speak and promise in right, good, true faithfulness, which, so far as each of them is or may be concerned with his sovereignty or friends, of whom he is sent or ruler, shall be true, steadfast, firm, sincere, and unbreakable, and to perform and live up to them to the best of our ability, without any danger.
By the Grace of God, we Albrecht, of the Holy Roman Churches. Roman Churches, of the title of St. Peter ad Vincula Priest Cardinal, of the Holy See of Mäynz and of the Magdeburg Chapter Archbishop of Halberstadt, Margrave of Brandenburg. Archbishop, Administrator of Halberstadt, Margrave of Brandenburg, of Stettin, Pomerania, Duke of the Cassuben and Wenden, Burgrave of Nuremberg, and Prince of Rügen. Given in our city and the city of the Holy Roman Empire, Nuremberg, on Thursday Philippi and Jacobi [May 8], 1) after the birth of Christ 1522.
1) In our template: "Thursday after Philippi and Jacobi", which would be May 15. But because Philippi and Jacobi was a Thursday, it is not likely to us that the octave of this day would have been designated in the manner given above. We have therefore assumed with De Wette, vol. II, p. V, the 8th of May.
735 Protestation of the Saxon envoy, Philipp von Feilitzsch, against the draft of the imperial treaty at Nuremberg of 1523, concerning the gospel and the word to be printed and written. February 11, 1523.
From Lünig's spieilkK. eeeles. eoutin. I, x. 111.
Most gracious, gracious, favorable lords and friends.
After I was burdened with weakness of my body, and could not have been at the parting, when it was conceived, decided and read, I have nevertheless, as much as the Gospel and Word of God touches to print and write, before Your Electoral [and] Princely Grace, favor and friendship of the great committee and common estates, as a skillful one of my most gracious Lord, the Elector of Saxony etc., and I am confident that my most gracious and merciful lord will not be bound further and more severely than other electors, princes and authorities in the Holy Roman Empire, but will leave the word of God free, and without doubt their electoral and princely graces will hold and show themselves in this and other as pious, Christian and youthful electors and princes of the holy realm, Christian, praiseworthy and princely of all nobility and Christian dignity unavoidable. From all of which I hereby publicly protest and testify, on the eleventh day of February, Anno Domini 1523.
H. The breve of Pope Hadrian VI sent from Nuremberg to the council of Amberg against Luther around this time, and how Luther answers for it.
736 Pope Hadrian VI's Breve to the Council of Bamberg against D. M. Luther, dated 3V. Nov. 1522, translated by Luther himself, with his glosses, subsequent speech and reply. 1523.
This writing came out in 1523 in several eirqel editions. The title is: "Eyn Bepstlich Breue dem radt zu Bamberg gesand Widder den Luther. Dhr torhevt wyrrt yderman offinbar werden. 2 Timoth. 3." At the end: "M. D. xxiij." 1^ sheet in quarto. In German editions: in the Wittenberg (1569), vol. IX,
2224 Erl. 64,411-413. sect. 1. of the Reichst, zu Nürnb. 1522. no. 736. W. XV.AS2-2654. 2225
Bl. 164b; in the Jenaer (1585), vol. II, bl. 167; in the Altenburger, vol. II, p. 243; in the Leipziger, vol. XVIII, p. 358 and in the Erlanger, vol. 64, p. 410. Latin in the Wittenberger (1551), tom. II, lol. 354; in the Jenaer (1566), tom. II, lol. 538b; and in the Erlanger, opp. var. arA., tom. VI, p. 466. The glosses in Latin several times concern the poor Latin in the breve.
2 Tim. 3, 9.
Their foolishness will be revealed to everyone.
To the honorable and famous mayor and council of the city of Bamberg, our dear friends.
Honorable and illustrious gentlemen, as dear brothers! Our Lord the Most Holy,a ) has ordered us to send a letter of His Holiness to your congregation, and has commanded us by his letters to send it to E. E., and with the same procure that they respond to it in the most favorable manner. Since we are sending such a letter, we urge them diligently and ask them to answer it as soon as possible, since they have diligence and service toward the Most Holy Lord and the Holy Apostolic See, and to send us the letters so that we may provide them through our messengers to the Most Holy Lord without fraud. With this, E. E., whom we implore and command without ceasing, is well pleased. At Nuremberg, January 12, 1523. 1)
E. E. as a brother, Frantz Chiergattus, elected Bishop of Aprutz, Prince of Therm, Papal Embassy.
a) Christ is badly holy, the pope is the most holy.
To the dear sons, mayors and council of the city of Bamberg.
Adrianus Pabst the VI.
Dear Sons, Hail and Apostolic Blessings beforehand. We could not help but be very surprised, and even saddened, when we see that Martin Luther, a German (whom we cannot deny to be our sheepb ), however nearly mistaken he may be), has fallen into such nonsense, even diabolical presumption, that he despises the common Christian doctrine and the holy fathers' teachings, spurns the whole common church custom, and again casts doubt on everything that has been customary up to now, and brings up many new repugnant doctrines and new heresies, 2) or rather, renews the old ones, and
1) Wittenberger: "on the last of November D. 1522";
Jenaer: "on 12 Januarii D. 1522."
2) Erlanger: to raise.
is not afraid to lay a foundation different from that which has been laid, and to teach a faith different from that which our fathers held.
b) Not the shepherd's me.
2. just as if he alone had been gifted with the Holy Spirit, and he had first seen the evangelical truth at the end of the world, and our fathers, together with the whole collection of the faithful, should have lain so many hundred years in damned error and dark ignorance, who knew nothing of such Luther's faith, and were willing to fight to the death for the repugnant, that is, the common faith, which we hold. It is truly a strange thing that such presumption should have risen in a man's heart that he lets himself think he is wiser than all the teachers of the church and the holy fathers and the whole collection of the faithful.
3. But it seems to us even more reasonable to wonder that the same Martinus, after he fell into the maw of hope, by God's doom, for his and our sins, not only one or a few, but (which we say with great heartache) countless people, both male and female, in our country, the Germans (who, since the time it was converted to the Lordc ), have always been the most spiritual, and have held to the common faith most strictly, and in addition have been in the service of God and in love and righteousness towards the neighbor the very purest nurse), who not only patiently listen to his most foolish and harmful teachings (which are often condemned by the church and its masters, as is known), but also willingly accept them, and, what is even more, are also stubbornly prepared to defend them with weapons, and his and his own most harmful and poisonous books, which are full of scolding, shameful and malicious words, with quarrels and bitterness everywhere, even after they have been burned often and in many places by the power of apostolic judgment and imperial commandment, nevertheless buy them frequently, read them eagerly and listen to them gladly. d)
c) the pope.
d) The pope does not scold here, they are vain sugar words of the Holy Spirit.
(4) But from the fact that they are such books as we have now said, it is easy for anyone who obeys only a little of God's reason and Spirit to understand that the same Spirit of God (who is sweet, kind, gentle, the lover of truth and peace, and the reconciler of grievances) is the same Spirit of God,
2226 Erl. S4,413-41". Cap. 9. of the imperial congresses at Nuremberg. W. XV, 2SS4-MSS. 2227
The evil spirit, which has pleasure in these pieces of contradiction, and begrudges the German country the happy course in the way of the Lord,e ) has driven such books masters to spit out such things. Who should have recognized them by their fruits, and fled and shunned them like death, together with their perverse teachings.
e) of the Pabst.
(5) For what do such people seek but trouble? To what do they advise, but only to unruliness, discord, robbery of goods, slaughter 2) and carnality; and, that we may say it in one word, to the rejection of the holy obedience, which is better than all sacrifice? And do the same under the appearance of freedom, when they are found servants of destruction. But it is not, dear children, it is not the freedom that the Lord promises to his elect in the Gospel, by which we want to belong to his law, and his governors on earth (which he also as himselff ), because they sit on Mosi's chair, It is the freedom that Lucifer sought, because he wanted to be like the Most High, to whom he was to be subject, and he sat down on his throne at midnight, from where he was thrust into the depths of hell. The same end will undoubtedly befall Martin Luther and all who follow him, if they do not amend as quickly as possible and make every effort to return to the unity of the church, from which they have condemned themselves, and apart from which, as apart from Noah's ark, no one can be saved.
f) That was time, so that one lets the bad tyrants firmly sit.
For there is no doubt that such and such like them are those of whom the holy apostle Peter speaks [2 Ep. 2, 1], when he proclaims that false teachers would arise among the believers, who would introduce damnable orders next to them, and deny the God who bought them, and lead a swift 3) condemnation over themselves. And afterwards [v. 2] sets that many would follow their destruction. By whom (he says) the right way will be blasphemed,
1) Wittenberg and Jena: "a judge". Latin: paaiüeatorsM.
2) "Slaughter," which is bloodshed. In Latin: OLkäkS.
3) Erlanger: "about a self quickly".
and by covetousness with invented words they will deal with you, which judgment from long ago does not fail, and their condemnation does not sleep. g) And about a little later he speaks [v. 6]: But rather those (hear, God will punish) who walk according to the flesh, in unclean lust, and despise the rulers, hold low, high of themselves, are not afraid to establish orders, and are blasphemers. All these things, whether they are not the same, we leave to you to judge. h)
g) Where the various orders and the avarice in the spiritual state come from, ask any conscience. The pope does not want to know.
h) The Pabst's people do nothing about this; note that, for here one should judge the Pabst's art.
7. Therefore, beloved of all, we admonish you in our Lord Jesus Christ, and through his heartfelt mercy we beg and implore you, who have you in the bottom of our hearts, not to let yourselves be led into that error, which the papal prudence has shown you as with a finger,i ) but rather, as the chosen children and the acquired people, to follow in the footsteps of your fathers and all the saints, who have ever walked the right highway of evangelical truth, and shun those [people] most harmful, faithless, blasphemous, devilish, and, that we say it at once, the doctrine that leads to death, together with their masters, like hell, and not only leave their poisonous books unread, but also do not listen to those who read or teach them, and also do not greet the Lutherans who do not want to get right again. k)
i) But not with God's finger nor tongue.
k) Sweet, sweet, sweet words are these, which Luther spoke, he would not have to speak out of a good spirit.
8 But you should not be moved by the fact that the Lutherans add the word of the Holy Scriptures to their doctrine. For you know that all heretics have always avoided this, and no one has ever introduced a new doctrine that he has not undertaken to confirm with sayings of the holy Scriptures. l) For just as those who want to soothe the bitterness of poison cover it with honey, or otherwise with a good taste, so also these smear their own poison with the sweetness of heavenly words, and give it to drink to the evil, simple-minded souls, that they may thus poison them the more easily.
l) That is why the papists are so pure, because they take great care that they do not lead much scripture, but only human doctrine.
9. although we hardly believe that anyone would be so foolish as to look at the light of the divine countenance.
2228 Erl. 64,416-418. sect. 1. of the Reichst, zu Nürnb. 1522. no. 736. w. XV, 26S6-SSS8. 2229
If you do not want to see the doctrine that is marked on all people, do not immediately understand that such people are false and lying teachers, and do not approach the truth and innovation,m ) not that they seek the salvation of souls, since they publicly condemn their own, but that they only say what one likes to hear, and do away with it, They do not seek the salvation of souls, since they publicly condemn their own, but only say what is readily heard, and leave out what seems too difficult to the carnal and sensual man in the narrow way of the Lord, and make their deadly doctrine all the more pleasant and believable to the same carnal man (who is always the greatest number), and entangle them with them in the guilt of eternal damnation, which is prepared for them and other unbelieving children.
m) How finely the pope interprets the Scriptures, who calls the divine light natural reason!
(10) But there is no doubt that these teachers will encounter what their forefathers, the masters of these or other heresies, encountered, as is known, as often as they presumed to raise their trustworthy minds against the knowledge of God; who for a time, by God's decree, were to be considered blissful, and, like the Cedars of Libya, exalted, for the sake of people's sin, but in the end truth has always overcome lies, and wisdom, which graciously supplies all things, has displayed wickedness.
11. But because we see how great harm such poisonous books printing, selling and reading have done to the right faith and worship in length and breadth, we admonish you in the Lord, to whom this famous city's sovereignty is commanded, and in virtue of holy obedience; and by the divine judgment we demand that you remember your habitual godliness towards God and His faith, and your excellent prudence, that you procure in all ways that in you or in your city areas such printed books are not sold henceforth, or which are not yet printed, are not printed henceforth, but as much as you find of them in named your city, let them be burned, according to the judgment of the papal see and imperial command.
(12) But if you would be negligent to correct your perverse printers, who, as is to be believed, are maddened with money by the Lutherans (is it otherwise true,n ) that we have heard), willingly print the books of the Lutherans, and will not print the books that are written by the right Christians, against them, for the truth: then we proclaim to you that you will not escape the divine and terrible vengeance, even if you are the most Christian. o)
For you must not think that you satisfy God by keeping His faith whole and unchanged for yourselves, if you do not also, as much as you are able, work diligently to have everything put away from you as quickly as possible, which annoys your brothers and is capable of leading them into such error.
n) A beautiful article of papal faith.
o) Behold, behold, shall even the most Christian be damned?
Luther's Follow-up Speech and Response to Preceding Papal Breve of Pope Adrian VI 1)
Martinus Luther.
To all Christian readers grace and peace in Christ, and no papal blessing before.
No pope has ever done what this pope does, who gives the verdict out of his own hand to those in Bamberg, so that they may judge whether St. Peter's sentence has been rightly introduced and interpreted by him. And I also humbly ask, not only the Christians of Bamberg, but all over, to accept such a given verdict, and to judge between me and the pope, whether Luther or the pope has instituted sects, estates and new orders, apart from the common Christian faith; item, whether Luther or the pope teaches something more than God's word alone: then it will be found who the lie masters are called here by St. Peter. Peter, and how finely Pope Adrian of Louvain learned to interpret the Scriptures.
2. item, whether the Luther, or the papists, by avarice with false words at the Christians
1) This heading is found in the Wittenberg and Jena editions.
2230 "rl. "4,418-4A". Cap. 9. of the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg. W. xv. üM-Awi. 2231
and lead a free, unchaste, insolent life, and do not want to be subject to the rulers; item, whether Luther or Pope despises kings and princes, banishes them, and curses them into the third, fourth, ninth generation, and so henceforth everything that St. Peter says in the introduced saying.
But, praise and thanks be to God, the folly and foolishness of the Pope and the Papists will come to light, and they will become a mockery and a disgrace, and they will make themselves contemptible before everyone, so that Daniel will be fulfilled, when he speaks of the final Christ: He shall be destroyed without hand, Daniel 8, 25., and Paul 2 Tim. 3, 8. 9.: "But they shall not perform it; but their unwiseness shall be made manifest unto all men, as happened unto Jannes and Jambres."
Is it not a sin and a shame that the pope, who wants to be master over all Christians, does not know how to say more than: Luther alone wants to be wise, should we have erred with so many of our ancestors? These are feminine, childish, monkish and sophistical complaints. A pope should lead the Scriptures, and thus bravely say: Behold, here stands God's word, thus and thus Luther has spoken against God's word. But now he is quite silent about it, and says: "Luther has spoken against long custom, against habit, against the teachers; just as if our faith were based on long custom and habit, and the teachers' word.
If habit and long custom alone is enough, why do we not believe with the Jews, Turks and pagans? Why do we not believe with the devil, who always has the habit 1) of being evil? But if habit alone is not enough, why does he not point to the right reason of this habit? Or, why should we not ask about the arrival of such habit, whether it is right or not right? Our God is not called habit, but truth, and our faith is not based on habit, but on the truth, which is God Himself.
6 He also boasts that truth has always been superior to falsehood. It is true that
1) Erlanger: "gewonet"; in all other editions: "gewonheit", also in Latin: consuetuäo.
The truth is finally incumbent on the people, but it is often suppressed; for it must sometimes die, just like Christ, but still rise again. Thus, under the papacy, Christian truth was suppressed, as Daniel 8:12 proclaimed that in the time of the last Christ, truth would be publicly suppressed. But the suppression has now come to an end. The truth has lain long enough under the lie, and was buried with Christ; now it must once again come forth, and suppress the papal lies again, so that here the pope, like Caiphas, prophesies against himself, that the truth should at this time bear witness to the lie.
I also think that they have started to do it honestly. Methinks the pabstry with its scales has become a spectacle to the world, with small honors, that their debauchery, hitherto practiced secretly and openly, is sung even by the children and by the scoundrels, as it was to the idols in the days of the apostles and martyrs, that they might be recompensed for their arrogance, which before was terrible even to the highest kings and princes (who were also most despised by them), but now is despised and a mockery even to the most despised and least of men; so that the saying of Isaiah Cap. 33:1, "Woe unto thee, thou robber, thou shalt be robbed again; and, thou despiser, thou shalt be despised again; if thou hast robbed, thou shalt be robbed; and if thou hast despised, thou shalt be despised"; and as Christ says, Matt. 7:2, "With what measure ye measure, it shall be measured to you again."
8 And I am sorry that I had to give such a breve so good German, because such miserable merciful kitchen Latin would be well worth a little German. But God is surprised at the final Christian that he leaves him no more happiness, that he can no longer speak or do art, and that he has become a child and a fool. It is a shame that such Latin is also written to the Germans, and such a foolish interpretation of the Scriptures is allowed to pretend to reasonable people. It is all right and fine papist, and monkish, and Lovanian. 1523.
737: Two letters from Hans von der Planitz to Elector Frederick of Saxony concerning the action at the Imperial Diet in Nuremberg. Nuremberg, Dec. 27, 1522 and
Jan. 8, 1523.
These two letters are found in the Wittenberg edition <1569), vol. IX, p. 167b; in the Jena edition (1585), only the second letter, vol. II, p. I87b; in the Altenburg edition, vol. II, pp. 276 and 369, and in the Leipzig edition, vol. XVIII, p. 366.
I.
Most Serene, Highborn Elector! Your Electoral Grace is willing to accept my submissive, obedient and always willing services with diligence. Most gracious Elector and Lord! E. C. F. G.'s letter, given to Lochau on the 5th day of this month, I received and read it yesterday, the 26th day. I hereby inform your Lordship that I have also written to your Lordship how some have been ordered to express an opinion as to what should be carried to the Estates for Luther's sake, and who should do so is also not known to your Lordship; and that nothing has been done about it for a long time since I reported it to your Lordship.
But in a few days past, when I was ordered to act on other matters, along with some from the imperial states, the Lutheran matter, and the notel that had been set up, was again taken up, and some reverend persons spoke almost sharply and harshly. However, as I noted by others afterwards, there was little, and to say the least, no reason at all, how one should act and proceed against Luther and his supporters and followers.
When I came in again, however, and the same one had not yet finished his speech, he broke it off from hour to hour almost shortly and decided in such a way that I could not hear what the matter was, therefore the survey would be; until such time as I noted such from the following in the surveys, who were almost all of a different opinion etc., and the one of which I wrote approximately three weeks ago etc.
When the survey was completed, the governor would have liked to give chance to the lesser and uglier, and in my opinion also the most clumsy part, especially at this time; which he also did. For this reason I was also induced and moved (truly out of good opinion) to report my misgivings, in the opinion that this was their intention.
the way would not be to avert indicated complaints, because this action would not let itself be dampened by force, but other ways, for this purpose official, would have to be used, which could be found, where one wanted to hear about it etc.
From this and other things came that we had much talk, conversationes and disputationes with each other, that also the governor and Cardinal were somewhat moved against me, but afterwards again almost amicably. So I had to suffer a great punishment; the matter is still at rest as long as it lasts.
6. those of the estates, so appointed to the great committee, are somewhat more modest in this matter, than ours of a part in the regiment.
7 However, as far as the copy or note is able to present to the estates, I hereby send E. C. F. G. a copy out of a submissive confidential opinion, from which E. C. F. G. may note the good will of some of them. God send it for the best; unfortunately, I fear that the majority of us are obdurate and blinded in all our actions. For even if something good and fruitful comes along at times, it is still despised, sought only: Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. Would that one might become gray over it. And I profess to be far too little and unskilled in these great dealings; I need experienced, wise, cautious, and thoughtful people.
8. evil newspaper has been said here, but in secret; hope to God that there is nothing to it, namely that Rhodes should be conquered and taken by the Turk; which is indicated by many, but do not want to be publicly known, say they would rather it came from others than from them.
9 If this were so, it would not be a contemptible disadvantage to Christendom, for the other islands, kingdoms and countries, situated in the middle sea and nearby, would, as is to be feared, also soon come under his control. How hard God attacks us, nor do we want to call upon Him for grace and mercy, but think (like blind people) that we can prevent it by our own prudence. We will certainly miss that. God be with us.
10. otherwise knows E. C. F. G. I have nothing new to write, because I hope that where E. C. F. G. were here, many unpleasantnesses would remain. All of which E. C. F. G. I did not want to keep out of obedience, because the same E. C. F. G. in all obedience to E. C. F. G. is not to be expected.
I am willing to do so without hesitation. Date Nuremberg, on the 27th day of December, Anno Domini 1522.
E. C. F. G.
subservient, obedient Hans von der Planitz, knight.
Notes.
Most Gracious Prince and Lord, the Papal Nuncio has indicated to me how he wanted to send E. C. F. G. several new newspapers from Rhodes, France and the French lands; he has asked me to send E. C. F. G. the same letters, which were preserved in a bundle.
But because I came to know that there was a Breve Apostolicum with the certain letters, and I do not know what the content is, I did not want to accept the letters, but said that I did not know any message to E. C. F. G., which E. C. F. G. I did not want to leave undisclosed out of humble obedience. And, in my opinion, the matter of Luther is being diligently promoted by Imperial Majesty's governor, the Cardinal of Salzburg etc., and they are almost in a hurry with it, perhaps worrying about E. C. F. G.'s future, which would perhaps prevent and destroy much of the project.
Date ut supra.
Most Serene, Highborn Elector! Your Electoral Grace is prepared to accept my submissive, obedient and always willing services. Gn. Elector and Lord! To E. C. F. G. I hereby send the Instruction, 1) which the Papal Nuncio has had read before the Estates of the Empire, of which I also wrote to E. C. F. G. before. It is not, however, the one of which I first reported to C.C.F.G.; for it was almost short, barely half an ares 2) long, and a bit sittig, nowhere as broad as the present one.
2 And although the nuncio promised to hand it over in writings, it has not yet been done; and now that this present one has been handed over, many people have the delusion that it was made here at Nuremberg, or that there was the least notice and instruction given as to how it should be placed.
3 Today, the Papal Nuncio has once again suggested, in a document that he has sent to the Archduke, that the preachers be instructed to
1) No. 718.
2) The Jenaer writes: "Arcks".
St. Lawrence, St. Sebald, in the hospital and Augustinians, should accept imprisonment. The same applies to the monks who have left the monasteries and Carthausen, have learned a trade, and wear secular garb.
This is what the governor sent to the committee of the estates. As Mr. Philipps von Feilitzsch reports to me, there has been much and various talk about it, and everything contrary to Luther has been highly cursed and maligned by the clergy, nothing else has been shouted but crucifige, crucifige.
5 No one of the seculars has spoken against this, except Lord Philip of Feilitzsch and Margrave Casimir to a certain extent.
(6) But because they were afraid of a riot, where they would attack the preachers (as they certainly would), they decided not to accept them unheard, but to humble them beforehand, to hold against them what the papal nuncio had announced that they should have received for the sake of their preaching.
(7) But the monks and Carthusians who had left were to be taken into custody and handed over to their superior. However, beforehand, some should be appointed to a small committee, who would consider the matter, and what should be done and carried out everywhere. The Cardinal of Salzburg, the Bishop of Augsburg, the Vicar of the Bishop of Freisingen, and the Vicar of the Bishop of Bamberg have been appointed for this purpose; and Mr. Hans von Schwarzburg and Mr. Sebastian von Rotenhain have been appointed with great complaint, but they are nowhere the same.
8. go wildly, it is well suited to a displeasure and turmoil in the kingdom. God send it for the best. The malice and envy of this matter is so ingrained that I fear no good will come of it. For God-fearing, experienced, cautious and wise people are lacking in my sight; it will come to pass, as in the days of Pharaoh king of Egypt, that God will prove His honor and power through their hardened and obdurate hearts, amen.
9 Likewise, I am sending E.C. F.G. a copy of Imperial Majesty's letter, written to the Regiment, from which E.C.F.G. will hear Her Majesty's mind, from the articles attributed to Her Majesty by the Estates and the Regiment. In addition, there is also a copy of how Her Majesty writes to the Pope about the annotations and other things, in which Luther is also remembered; it is in Latin. 3)
3) No. 713.
2236 D-v- L. vii, 6i f. Sect. 2. of the Reichst, at Nuremberg 1524. no. 737 f. W. xv, 2666-2668. 2237
10. otherwise knows E. C. F. G. I have nothing new to write; for the only thing to worry about is that if the monks who have left were to be attacked, it would become a wild game here.
The shouting goes through the whole city that the C. F. G. are coming and are to be in Coburg; yesterday I was addressed by the Bishop of Mainz, by Margrave Joachim, and others, and also today by Archduke Ferdinand, to let them know when the C. F. G. will come; I answered: I would have no knowledge of this, nor would I know whether the Almighty God would send E. C. F. G. would again have granted perfect health, so that E. C. F. G. would again be able to travel. The
The common people and the majority of the estates would almost like to see the future of the C.C.F.G.. It is said that the Turk has not left the island of Rhodes yet again.
12. all of which I have not wanted to do out of submissive obedience to E. C. F. G., because I am willing to serve the same E. C. F. G. in all submissiveness. I have not wished to obey, for to serve the same C. F. G. in all submissiveness, I am quite undauntedly willing. Date Nuremberg, January 8, Anno 1523.
E. C. F. G.
subservient, obedient Hans von der Planitz, knight.