See St. Louis edition, vol. X, 820. - There, as in De Wette, vol. V, p. 755 and in the Erlangen edition, vol. 56, p. 141, this letter is addressed to Wolfgang von Anhalt and bears the date 1545. (Cf. De Wette, vol. VI, p. 187 and p. 463, and Burkhardt, p. 477.)
No. 2371.
Elector Johann Friedrich to Luther.
Response to No. 2367, regarding the punishment of 21st Paul Heinz.
The concept is in the Weimar Archives, Reg. EEE, No. 9, printed by Burkhardt, p. 280.
Our greeting before. Venerable and reverend, dear devotee! Our decreed councilors at Torgau have sent us your letter, dated the thorn day after Jacobi, which was delivered to us at Hildburghausen (Hilperhausen) on Monday after Laurentii [Aug. 13].], which we have read out and from which we have noted that you have all kinds of misgivings as to where the imprisoned Magister Paul von should be punished according to our university sentence and judgment because of his committed abuse and misdeeds, and we have asked that we want to postpone this trade until our arrival. We do not wish to reassure you in your gracious opinion that we have previously received two writings from our university, in which it has been indicated that such abuse and misdeeds should not have an explicit punishment in law, but are at the discretion of 1) the judicial office, and they are considered, and to expel him from the university liberties forever, with the attached submissive request that we would graciously yield to this and give more punitive orders that the said magistrate would also be forever banned from our and our friendly dear brother's principality and lands. After we were reported about it, as if the said magistrate should not be punished any higher, and we nevertheless had all kinds of misgivings because of this unpleasant and annoying deed, we nevertheless considered the university's request and gave our bailiff in Saxony an order for this and on the way. Because such a thing happened before and before we received your letter, you could consider how we might evade our granted permission, which in our opinion will now really be executed, 3) but you should consider that if we had received your letter sooner, we would have known how to comply with your request, and therefore graciously request, because this deal has gone so far, that you also be satisfied with it and leave it at that.
1) That is, at discretion.
2) Burkhardt: "muge".
3) Inserted by us.
Letters from the year 1537. No. 2371 to 2374.
And we have not noted your custody in any other way than in our gracious opinion, nor do we doubt that if the said magistrate or anyone else would subject himself to something unreasonable about this, he would not then escape his due punishment. We have graciously informed you of this in turn in response to your letter, and are inclined to you with grace and good will. Date at Coburg, Thursday after Assumptionis Mariae [Aug. 16] Anno 1537.
No. 2372.