See the previous number.
Most Gracious Sir. Your Lordship's letter, concerning the fatal death of the venerable, highly honored Doctor Martin Luther, was received and read today at almost eight o'clock in the evening. That the Almighty now requires the same dear man from this lamentable place in particular, His Lordship has graciously asked us to consider how highly painful this must be for us. However, in view of all this, and since the Almighty has decreed that this will not be contested, we would have hoped that Your Lordship would transfer the corpse of the doctor, since he was born and baptized here in Eisleben, and was taken by the Almighty from this pit of misery to the
eternal life has also been required here with great distress of all Christian believers. But regardless of the fact that we would like to keep the corpse of the great man, who was graced by God with unspeakable gifts, in our dominion, we still want to be obedient to Ew. churf. Gn. to have the corpse in Bitterfeld on Sunday before 12 o'clock. We do not want to behave in such a way to Ew. churf. Gn., whom we are willing to serve in submissiveness, in answer. In haste. Date Eisleben, February 19, Anno 46.
Albrecht, Philips and Hans Georg, cousins and brothers, counts and lords of Mansfeld.
By the Grace of God, John Frederick, Duke of Saxony, Elector, and Burgrave of Magdeburg. Our greeting before. Highly esteemed, dear faithful! After you have understood from our captain in Wittenberg where we intend that the venerable and highly esteemed Mr. Martin Luther, of blessed memory, shall be laid in our castle church in Wittenberg. So that his grave may be buried honestly, we are minded to have his epitaph cast in brass, as a plate over the grave, with a circumscription, and a brass, in which the epitaph is to be cast, in the walls. We therefore graciously request that you, along with the other gentlemen, the theologians, discuss what form the epitaph should take for the blessed doctor, and also how the plate with the inscription should be made, and send it to us, and we will decree that it should be cast in brass.
Because we also note that the wife and widow of Doctor Martin blessed should be short of money, as it should have happened before the doctor's death, we send you a hundred pennies by this messenger, 1) of which you want the money,
1) In the margin it says, "Gülden."
We will pay what you have lent beforehand and send the excess to the widow on our account. This is our opinion, and we do not want to leave it unreported to you, to whom we are inclined with grace and good. Date Torgau, Sunday the 21st of February. Anno Domini 1546.
Johann Friedrich Churfürst. M. pr. scr.
XXVI: The Wittenberg Theologians Johann Pomerani, Caspar Creutziger and Philipp Melanchthon's Letter to the Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony.