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He had just been joined at Wittenberg by his fellow-professor Philip Melancthon, then only twenty-one years old, but already in the first rank of Greek scholars, and the bond of friendship was now formed which lasted through their lives. The university claimed that Luther should at least be tried in Germany. Luther expressed the same wish through Spalatin to his sovereign.
He also worked hard to get a qualified printer, the son of the printer Letter at Leipzig, to settle at the university, and set up there for the first time a press for three languages, German, Latin, and Greek. For everything of this kind that was submitted to the Elector, who took a constant interest in the prosperity of the university, his friend Spalatin was his confidential intermediary.
The total number of the peasants and their allies who fell either in fighting or at the hands of the executioners is estimated by Anselm in his Berner Chronik at 130,000. It was certainly not less than 100,000. For months after the executioner was active in many of the affected districts. Spalatin says: "Of hanging and beheading there is no end."
The knighthood as a distinct factor in the polity of Europe henceforth existed no more. Spalatin relates that on the death of Sickingen the princely party anticipated as easy a victory over the religious revolt as they had achieved over the knighthood. "The mock Emperor is dead," so the phrase went, "and the mock Pope will soon be dead also."
Thus am I ready to serve your Honours, my gracious rulers and Lords. Your Wisdoms' willing burgher, ALBRECHT DUeRER. Duerer next wrote "to the honourable, most learned Master Georg Spalatin, Chaplain to my most gracious lord, Duke Friedrich, the Elector" of Saxony. The letter is undated, but clearly belongs to the early part of the year 1520.
I am through!" Spalatin says: 'He entered the lodging so courageous, comforted and joyful in the Lord, that he said before others and myself, "if he had a thousand heads, he would rather have them all cut off than make one recantation. He relates also how the Elector Frederick, before his supper, sent for him from Luther's dwelling, took him into his room and expressed to him his astonishment, and delight at Luther's speech.
Among the particular labours which occupied Luther during the further course of the year 1525, apart from his persevering industry as a professor and preacher, we have already had occasion to mention one, namely, his reply to Erasmus. We find him towards the end of September entirely engrossed in this work. Not a single proposition in Erasmus' book, so he wrote to Spalatin, would he admit.
His custom was to expound consecutively in a course of sermons the Old and New Testaments, and he explained particularly to children and those under age, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. This work alone, he once complained to Spalatin, required properly a man for it and nothing else. These services he gave to the town congregation gratuitously.
'My head, he says, 'will do no more: so remember that, if I die, your talents and eloquence will be wanted for the preface. For a whole month, as he remarked at the beginning of April, he was prevented from reading, writing, and lecturing. He informed Spalatin, in a letter of May 20, which Bugenhagen wrote for him, that at present, God willing, he must take a holiday.
A few days after Christmas he laid it before his Wittenberg colleagues, and likewise before Amsdorf of Magdeburg, Spalatin of Altenburg, and Agricola of Eisleben.
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