Note 917 — Chapter XXV · (continued 2)

“Werke,” Erl. ed., 65, p. 26. It may be remarked incidentally that possibly Luther was not aware, that, not long before, the people of Wittenberg, though no longer Catholic, had been shocked at his eating meat on fast days. In 1523 the people, who still kept the old custom of the Church, as a traveller remarks, were disposed to regard the overflow of the Elbe as Heaven’s judgment on Luther’s and his preachers’ laxity in the matter. See the account of Bishop Dantiscus, of Ermeland, who visited Wittenberg in that year, in Hipler, “Kopernikus und Luther,” Braunsberg, 1868, p. 72: “I heard from the country people on my way much abuse and many execrations of Luther and his co-religionists,” etc.