Martin Luther to Lazarus Spengler; Wittenberg, 7 November 1525 (Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, A.III,383,(1),11)

In this letter of November 1525, Martin Luther (1483–1546) complained to Lazarus Spengler (1479–1534) about the Nuremberg printers who damaged the printers in Wittenberg. Spengler from Nuremberg had attended the University of Leipzig for a short time. After the death of his father in 1496, he left the university without a degree and entered the service of the city of Nuremberg. From 1507 until his death he was one of the two council secretaries and thus head of the governmental chancellery in Nuremberg.

Spengler belonged to the Staupitz circle of friends which gathered around Johannes von Staupitz (c.1467/68–1524) when he preached in 1516/1517 at the Nuremberg Augustinian monastery. Staupitz was vicar general of the German congregation of observant Augustinian Hermits and thus the superior of the order, as well as Luther’s teacher. From 1517 onwards, Spengler read Luther’s texts and personally met the reformer for the first time in October 1518 during his stay in Nuremberg. In 1519, he was the first layman to write a German-language reformatory pamphlet entitled “Schutzrede für Luthers Lehre” (Defence and Christian Answer for Luther’s Teaching). Further reformatory writings followed, as well as the widely disseminated hymn “Durch Adams Fall” (Through Adam’s Fall) in 1524.

As a council secretary, Spengler had great influence in Nuremberg. He advocated an authoritarian church regiment and strongly supported the Reformation in the imperial city and, as an advisor, also in the Franconian-Hohenzollern Principalities. In the 1520s, he was one of the most important religious politicians at the imperial level.

To the digitised copy