Wittenberg Reliquary Book (Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch)
Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch
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 printed devotional catalogue of Frederick the Wise's vast relic collection at All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, first produced in 1509 by his court painter Lucas Cranach the Elder with a second edition in 1510. The catalogue listed some 5,005 relics, each woodcut illustrating a relic and its accompanying indulgence grant; the sequence of images and prayers formed a structured act of veneration and indulgence devotion that Frederick practised personally. It was publicly distributed to pilgrims visiting Wittenberg on All Saints' Day, functioning both as a devotional guide and as an advertisement for the indulgence benefits attached to the collection. The relic display ended in 1522 under Luther's influence, making this one of the last major printed monuments of pre-Reformation Electoral Saxon lay piety.
Why it still matters
The indulgence theology embedded in this text is theologically obsolete and should not be adopted; its value today is historical and contemplative, as a window into the visual-devotional world that Luther's reforms displaced, and its meditative image-plus-prayer structure has distant analogues in contemporary icon veneration.
Kept alongside
A Simple Way to Pray (Ein einfältige Weise zu beten)
Written as a pastoral letter to Luther's barber and friend Peter Beskendorf in spring 1535, this short treatise is among the most personal and accessible devotional texts of the Reformation era. Luther describes his own daily prayer life and teaches a four-strand method — instruction, thanksgiving, confession, and petition — for praying through the Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. It circulated immediately through Wittenberg and Electoral Saxony, reflecting the devotional culture promoted within the Wettin court milieu. Its intimate, conversational tone makes it unlike any other text in the Lutheran corpus.
Luther's Little Prayer Book (Ein Betbüchlein)
Ein Betbüchlein
Luther's first systematic prayer manual, published at the end of May 1522 shortly after his return from the Wartburg under Electoral Saxon protection, reformulates the Catholic prayer book tradition by organising daily devotion around the Ten Commandments, Apostles' Creed, and Lord's Prayer rather than mandatory canonical offices. It ran through numerous editions in its first years, circulating across Electoral Saxony and through the Wettin court's sphere of influence by virtue of being produced at Wittenberg under Wettin political protection, though no direct court commission or named Wettin ownership record has been located. Luther conceived it for Christians of all stations — lay and clerical — and its catechetical structure anticipates the more famous Large and Small Catechisms of 1529. It was one of the first Reformation texts to give ordinary German laypeople a structured, Scripture-grounded approach to daily prayer.
Thomas à Kempis: De Imitatione Christi (The Imitation of Christ)
Perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible, the Imitation of Christ counsels interior piety, Eucharistic devotion, and detachment from worldly ambition — values promoted at both the Wittelsbach Counter-Reformation court and in Erasmian Lutheran circles in Saxony. The Jesuits recommended it throughout their German mission work, making it a standard text in the Bavarian court milieu under Albert V and William V; Luther himself was formed in the Devotio Moderna tradition from which it springs. No single Wettin or Wittelsbach ownership record has been located, and the dual-house listing reflects the near-universal presence of the text in every German Catholic and Erasmian Protestant court of the period rather than documented patronage.