The Landgrave asks both of them to present ideas to the Elector Johann Friedrich for the cessation of the Wurzen feud.
The original is in the Weimar Archives, Reg. B. Printed by Burkhardt, p. 410.
Our gracious greeting before. Venerable and highly learned, dear faithful! We are working very hard to put an end to the unfriendly disputes that have arisen between our dear cousins, brother, son and godfather, the Elector and Duke Mauritzen of Saxony, by proper and appropriate means and ways, so that they do not take up arms any further, destroy the country and its people, and thus cause irreparable harm to the gospel of the region. But we find both parts quite hard, so that we cannot judge whether and what result we will achieve with them or not. Now, according to the enclosed copy, we have thought of several means which seem to us to be uniform and useful for the removal of this error, since it is almost basically only a matter of the passage through Wurtzen, which Duke Moritz, at the request of the Elector, believes to have free and unobstructed, and which the Elector intends to allow him only jure familiaritatis. Since the matter is not worthy of discussion, that both princes and rulers should therefore come to such hardship to each other, on so many dangers, not only to both their loved ones and the same lands and people, but also to the whole of our Christian religion and the same relatives, as you yourselves can reasonably judge, and we consider it that our dear cousin and brother, the Elector,
I would like to hear both of you, as pious, Christian men, before others in this: herewith our gracious request is to you, that you write to his beloved as soon as possible for the good of all peaceful beings, also for the good of the whole religion and countries and people, and to ask and admonish them in the highest way, that they bring this dangerous ruin and apparent destruction to mind, and therefore, in this highly important matter, since it concerns only the temporal and not the eternal, not to be too harsh, but also to give in a little, and let it come to harmless these means, which we send you here. Thus, out of faithful, good opinion, we did not want to restrain you in haste, and we are graciously favorable and well-disposed toward you. Date Oschatz, on the evening of Easter [April 8] Anno 1542.
Philips, L. z. Hesse.
No. 2903