To her nobly born Highness, the Princess and Lady, Lady Margaret, by birth Duchess of Munsterberg, Princess of Anhalt, Countess of Ascania, and Lady of Bernburg and Dessau, etc, widow, and my gracious Lady, I Hieronymus Emser, priest, offer my humble and willing service, and pray every health and blessing from God at all times.

Nobly born Highness and gracious Lady Princess, seeing that so many faraway and foreign lands and peoples have accepted Martin Luther's teaching and succumbed to his sect, for the simple reason that according to his teaching no one should do any good work or be obedient to others, but instead everyone should be free to do anything to which the sensuality of the flesh might impel them; it is as I see it a special grace of God and a miracle that Your Princely Grace, though a nextdoor neighbour, has until now so resolutely resisted that same teaching and remained steadfast in standing by the old belief of the Christian Church. For to live in the midst of wolves and not to howl with them – that is, to live in the midst of heretics and not to give in to their error – is a virtue and grace to be found in few people of this day and age. But in the same way that very few are illuminated by that grace, so too are countless numbers so entirely blinded and stubborn that, as the Prophet says, ‘They have eyes but do not see; ears, but do not hear’. Thus in one place the women sing the Mass, and in another the cobblers preach, and it turns out so well that all their preachers are either renegade monks or apostate priests, who stand in the pulpit in secular garb, with fancy shoes and trousers, spitting fire and cursing the authorities to high heaven. Even so, if the poor blind people had just one jot of intelligence, they would soon realise that it is a vain, devilish, and mendacious thing that Luther has wrought against the Holy Christian Church and her orderly and laudable traditional customs and practices. Indeed, even if the solemn sentence of the Church and so many imperial mandates counted for nothing, anyone with any understanding could gather this from Luther's life and teaching.