Luther, Martin

One leaf (12 ¼ x 7 1/8 in.; 310 x 181 mm). Gothic letter. Printed in German recto and verso in a single column, being a Certificate of Ordination for Heinrich Lichtenberg, appointed to the parsonage of Wolfsbehringen, Wittenberg, 10 January 1543, countersigned by Johann Bugenhagen (“Johannes Bugenhagius Pomeranus D.”) and accomplished by Philip Melanchthon; lightly foxed, small marginal chip, short marginal tear, tiny marginal tear.

acquisition: Bernard Breslauer, 1972 (from Martin Breslauer catalogue 102, Books, Manuscripts, Fine Bindings, Autograph Letters from the Ninth to the Present Century, item 40C, which attributed the accomplishment to Bugenhagen)

One leaf (12 ¼ x 7 1/8 in.; 310 x 181 mm). Gothic letter. Printed in German recto and verso in a single column, being a Certificate of Ordination for Heinrich Lichtenberg, appointed to the parsonage of Wolfsbehringen, Wittenberg, 10 January 1543, countersigned by Johann Bugenhagen ("Johannes Bugenhagius Pomeranus D.") and accomplished by Philip Melanchthon; lightly foxed, small marginal chip, short marginal tear, tiny marginal tear.
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One of  a very few surviving Ordination Certificates issued in German by Luther and Bugenhagen. In 1535 the Elector John Frederick of Saxony transferred power of ordination to the Wittenberg theological faculty on whose behalf Luther and Bugenhagen signed Lichtenberg’s appointment. Ordinands who had attended a university received certificates in Latin; those who had not been to university received German-language certificates.

Although 740 ordinations were performed, only about twenty Latin certificates, all in manuscript, have survived. German certificates are even less common, with one manuscript being recorded as well as five or six printed examples. The printer of the German certificates was likely Georg Rhaw of Wittenberg (see Hans Volz, "Drucke von Wittenberger Ordinationszeugnissen auf de Reformationszeit," in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1964, pp. 164–70.) Heinrich Lichtenberg, born in Langensalza, was a schoolmaster in Wangenheim, the diocese of his parsonage. Lichtenberg’s certificate was noted in Johann Christoph Erdmann’s Lebensbeschreibungen und litterarische Nachrichten von den Wittenbergischen Theologen (Wittenberg, 1804), p. 186.