[1303] “Briefe,” 5, p. 752 f.
[1304] On Catherine’s position at Wittenberg the following words speak volumes: “After my death the four elements [Faculties] at Wittenberg will most likely not put up with you, hence it would be better that what there is to do were done during my lifetime.” Luther was right in his anticipations. After his decease “the sad fate of a poor parson’s widow was not spared her. In countless petitions to the King of Denmark, ‘Dr. Martin’s widow’ had year by year to beg for support now that ‘everyone looks at me askance and no one comes to my assistance.’” Hausrath, “Luthers Leben,” 2, p. 497 f.
[1305] Cp. Cruciger, “Corp. ref.,” 5, p. 313.
[1306] Ratzeberger, “Gesch.,” p. 125.
[1307] Köstlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 608. What Aurifaber relates in the German Table-Talk of a conversation of Luther’s on the bigamy of Philip of Hesse “at Leipzig in 1545 during a convivial gathering” (Erl. ed., 61, p. 302) rests on a false chronology and only repeats a conversation which took place much earlier. For the incorrectness of the date given, see Cristiani in the “Revue des questions historiques,” 91, 1912, p. 113.
[1308] “Briefwechsel,” ed. Burkhardt, p. 482 f.
[1309] In Latin in “Opp. lat. var.,” 4, p. 480 sqq. German according to the Wittenberg original ed. of 1545, in Erl. ed., 65, p. 170 ff.
[1310] See above, vol. iii., p. 268.
[1311] Theses 31 and 32, p. 173.
[1312] Cp. Köstlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 609.