Ever since Johann Pfefferkorn’s Defence, which he composed in Latin, reached us here, daily there have been fresh rumors. One man saith this, another saith that. One man is on Pfefferkorn’s side, another on Reuchlin’s²; whom one man upholdeth, another blameth. There is sore brangling, and folk would fain be at fisticuffs. If I were to relate all the squabbles that have arisen over that book, a whole Olympiad would fail me.

Briefly, however, I will glance at one or two matters. Many folk—especially the lay Magisters³, and the priests and friars of the Franciscan Order—roundly declare it to be a thing impossible that Pfefferkorn composed that book, seeing that he never learned a word of Latin. I reply that this objection is futile, though it hath been for the undoing of great men even to this day, but with injustice—for Johann Pfefferkorn, who beareth with him a pen and an ink-horn, can jot down that which he heareth at public preachments, or at assemblies, or when students and Dominicans come to his house, or when he goeth to the baths. Sonty! how many sermons hath he not heard in twelve years! How many exhortations! How many opinions of the holy fathers! And these he could either lay up in his own mind, or dictate to his wife, or scratch upon the walls, or enter in his notebook. I added, moreover, that Johann Pfefferkorn avoweth himself—without boasting—that he can apply, without help, everything contained in the Bible or in the Holy Gospel, to nay purpose, good or evil, and that in German or in Hebrew. He knoweth too, by rote, all the gospels that are read throughout the year, and he can recite them to the letter—and this is more than the Jurists and Poets can do. He hath, moreover, a son named Lorenz—a right towardly youth—who studieth until he hath grown pale; I marvel however, that he is allowed to study those diabolical poets. He gathereth for his father saws from the Orators and poets—both personally and from the lips of his teachers—to be applied to any subject and any argument; moreover he can quote Hugo. Johann Pfefferkorn, forsooth, hath profited much from this sagacious youth, inasmuch as what he for lack of learning cannot attain to, his son dispatcheth.

Let them therefore be put to shame who have falsely spread it abroad that Johann Pfefferkorn hath not composed his own books, but that they have been written by the Doctors and Magisters at Cologne: let Johann Reuchlin, too, blush, and groan for all eternity, in that he declared that Pfefferkorn composed not the Handspiegel⁴ himself—concerning which there hath been before now much discussion amongst the learned—since three men furnished him with the authorities he citeth therein. One asked me, saying, “What three men be they?” And I replied that I knew not, but that I deemed them to be the same three men who appeared unto Abraham, of whom we read in the Book of Genesis. But when I said this they all made mouths at me, and mocked me as though I was a greenhorn. Would that the devil would smite them with heavy blows, as it is written in the Book of Job, which just now in our monastery we are reading in the refectory. Exhort Johann Pfefferkorn to have patience, for I trust that the Lord will sooner or later work a miracle. Greet him, too, in my name. Prithee salute also his wife for me—you well know how: but privily. And now, farewell.

²Johann Reuchlin was a prominent Württemberg lawyer and scholar of Hebrew; he made the first systematic study of the Bible possible. He led the charge against Pfefferkorn and his supporters.

³In this instance, teachers.