Of scholarship matters.
From the collection of Sagittarius in the Leipzig Supplement, p. 79, no. 141; in Walch, vol. XXI, 391; from the original in De Wette, vol. V, p. 32 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 55, p. 155.
To the honorable, prudent gentlemen, mayor and council of Salfeld, my favorable gentlemen and special good friends.
Grace and peace in Christ. Respectable, careful, dear lords and friends! I hope you will forgive me for not having replied to your previous letter. For now that I am old and fallible to write (as I have to write everything myself), I thought it unnecessary to answer, because E. F. had accepted and fulfilled my request so favorably for the sake of Gerard, as I hereby thank you kindly, and gladly deserve again my fortune. For the sake of the Pfreunder, for whom Magister Philippus also wrote and obtained a year, I would have liked to see that the scholarship would have remained for him for the year, and that the boy, who was appointed in Gerard's place before, would otherwise have received a tax from the town hall or the common caste for the year, when I considered that [it] would be good to do it with you, that the Pfreunder is praised as a well-skilled journeyman to the law, but I have left it to E. F., which is not the case. F. what they wanted to do in this or consider good, which I also still do; for to me, as a theologian (as I also indicated before), it is not proper to ask the theologians for scholarship.
for the lawyers. In this E. F. will know well how to keep Christian and amicable; so that God may command, Amen. Midweek after Martinmas [Nov. 15] 1536.
Martinus Luther, D.
No. 2313.