that I have not answered your
letter ere this: I hesitated from fear that the report recently gone out
of my being held captive might prompt somebody to intercept my letters.
A great many things are related about me at this place; however, the
opinion is beginning to prevail that I was captured by friends sent for
this purpose from Franconia. To-morrow the safe-conduct granted me by
the emperor expires. I am sorry that, as you write me, there is an
intention to apply the very severe [imperial] edict also for the purpose
of exploring men's consciences; not on my account, but because they [the
papists] are ill-advised in this and will bring misfortune on their own
heads, and because they continue to load themselves with very great
odium. Oh, what hatred will this shameless violence kindle! However,
they may have their way; perhaps the time of their visitation is near.
--So far I have not heard from our people either at Wittenberg or
elsewhere. About the time of our arrival at Eisenach the young men [the
students] at Erfurt had, during the night, damaged a few priests'
dwellings, from indignation because the dean of St. Severus Institute, a
great papist, had caught Magister Draco, a gentleman who is favorably
inclined to us, by his cassock and had publicly dragged him from the
choir, pretending that he had been excommunicated for having gone to
meet me at my arrival at Erfurt. Meanwhile people are fearing greater
disturbances; the magistrates are conniving, for the local priests are
in ill repute, and it is being reported that the artisans are allying
themselves with the student-body. The prophetic saying seems about to
come true which runs: Erfurt is another Prague. [There was rioting in
Prague in the days of Hus, whom Rome burned at the stake.]--I was told
yesterday that a certain priest at Gotha has met with rough treatment
because his people had bought certain estates (I do not know which), in
order to increase the revenue of the church, and, under pretext of their
ecclesiastical immunity, had refused to pay the incumbrances and taxes
on the same. We see that the people, as also Erasmus writes, are unable
and unwilling any longer to bear the yoke of the Pope and the papists.
And still we do not cease coercing and burdening them, although--now
that everything has been brought to light--we have lost our reputation
and their good will, and our former halo of sanctity can no longer avail
or exert the influence which it exer