Luther asks him for a contribution to obtain the master's degree for Johann Schmelz.
Handwritten in the Augsburg City Library. Printed in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, XIV (1893), p. 448 and in Erl. Briefw., vol. IX, p. 45 f.
To the honorable and prudent gentlemen, mayor and council of the city of Memmingen, my favorable gentlemen and friends.
Grace and peace. Honorable, prudent, dear gentlemen! Johann Schmeltz, who is here abstaining from a scholarship in the studio, has diligently asked me for this interpellation to your nobility, that your nobility will favorably assist him with ten or twelve florins for his master's degree, to which state, because he is skilful, we all faithfully advise him.
Addendum to the letters from 1531 to 1536.
have. Therefore, my friendly request, because you nobles see and experience for yourselves that the schools everywhere lie so miserably abandoned and despised that an unfortunate lack of learned people will soon be found, is that you nobles will not abandon the good journeyman with such help for the good of your own city. This will please God and, if God wills, will be repaid a hundredfold, as Christ promises us in the Gospel. Hereby commanded by God. Date Wittenberg, July 2. 1) Martinus Luther m. propria.
No. 1819.