Epistolary of Frederick the Wise
Catalogue updated 2026-06-08
A verified public-domain excerpt for this text is still being set. The folio is catalogued and linked below; an original Sub Rosa rendering will follow.
What it is
A lavishly illuminated epistle lectionary commissioned by Frederick III, Elector of Saxony (Wettin), from the Nuremberg workshop of Jakob Elsner around 1507–1509, containing epistle readings for eighteen feast days from Christmas through the dedication of a church. It is richly decorated with three full-page miniatures — including an Entombment and Lamentation closely following Dürer's woodcut tradition — seventeen historiated initials, and ornate tendril borders; electoral Saxon payment records confirm Elsner's employment by Frederick between 1505 and 1509. The manuscript served Frederick's private liturgical devotion and his court chapel, functioning as a personal book of readings rather than a liturgical book for public use. It has been held since 1547 in the Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek in Jena (Ms. EL. F. 2).
Why it still matters
Though the manuscript itself is inaccessible to ordinary readers, the epistle readings it contains are standard scriptural passages still appointed in the liturgical calendar; following the epistle lections for major feasts in any modern missal or lectionary recovers the devotional pattern this manuscript embodied.
Horæ starter guide
Never lose the rhythm again
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- Three daily prayer moments scheduled around your real calendar, not a monastery's
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- A visible streak of completed offices, so the rhythm compounds instead of collapsing
Kept alongside
Johann Walter's Geystliches Gesangk Buchleyn (Spiritual Song Booklet)
The first Lutheran choir hymnal, published in Wittenberg in 1524, edited by Johann Walter with a preface by Luther. The first edition contains 32 polyphonic settings of Lutheran chorales and Latin pieces; later editions expanded this number. Walter had entered Frederick the Wise's court chapel as a bass singer in 1517 and became Kapellmeister at Torgau in 1524, the same year the hymnal appeared, giving it a direct connection to the Wettin electoral household. Luther wrote in the preface of his desire for music to 'kindle a fire' in worshippers, expressing his conviction that sacred polyphony was second only to theology. The collection established the musical identity of early Lutheran worship.
Erfurt Enchiridion (Lutheran Hymnal)
The second Lutheran hymnal, published in Erfurt in 1524 in two competing editions by printers Johannes Loersfeld and Matthes Maler, containing twenty-five to twenty-six hymns of which eighteen are by Luther himself. Its preface explicitly states the collection was intended for singing outside church buildings — at home, at court, and in guild meetings — making it the primary vehicle for household and courtly devotion in the earliest Reformation years across Ernestine Electoral Saxony. Luther's residence at Wittenberg and his direct relationship with the Wettin court via Spalatin and Frederick the Wise ensured the hymnal's immediate penetration into Electoral Saxon devotional culture. Its Erfurt origin was independent of any Wettin commission, but its use within the Wittenberg orbit is well attested.
Luther: Commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms (Sieben Bußpsalmen)
Luther's first published original work, a German exposition of the seven penitential psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143), issued early in 1517 and addressed to Frederick the Wise as his 'most gracious Lord.' Georg Spalatin, court chaplain and personal secretary to Frederick, served as the indispensable intermediary between Luther and the Wettin court during these years, promoting Luther's work within the Electoral Saxon milieu. Revised in 1525, the commentary shed its dedicatory deference but retained its pastoral force, remaining a foundational Reformation devotional text throughout the Wettin territories. The work demonstrates that Luther's Reformation program had a devotional and penitential heart from its very beginning, before the controversies of 1517 had fully broken out.