Disquisition on the Celebrated Poetic Book Theuerdanck

...could be numbered, and that he descended from the same common branch as that Conrad. Indeed, we can offer no more illustrious testimony of the Pfintzing family’s honor than if we point to those many and various Imperial Charters original: Diplomata Caesarea; official documents or charters issued by the Emperor, by which the splendor of this family is protected and increased. Among these, the most exceptional is that which they obtained from the August Emperor Charles V Holy Roman Emperor, reigned 1519–1556 on October 25, 1555, in Brussels. It consists of eight parchment leaves and boasts a frontispiece featuring beautifully drawn Imperial coats of arms and a heroic motto. In this document, among other things, the Divine Emperor A traditional honorific for the Emperor extols the Pfintzing lineage with these praises:

“Paying heed, therefore, especially to the antiquity and nobility of your race and lineage—brought forth honorably from countless years to this very day without any mark or stain upon your name—as well as the praised integrity of life, character, and reputation of your ancestors. This integrity was shown in their continuous magistracies and other most honorable and ample duties and offices (which they indeed performed and administered to their own great glory, the good of the Republic, and the benefit and satisfaction of their fellow citizens). This occurred not only in your renowned homeland, the Republic of our Imperial City of Nuremberg—in which it is well known that they always held and obtained an honored place and chief dignity among the most ample patrician and senatorial orders, and frequently performed the duties of the consular dignity, and several times the dignity of treasurer (the highest magistrate among them), as well as the most honorable office and preeminence of our and the Empire’s Sacred Prefect of the City, or Schultheiß original: Sculteti; a high-ranking administrative and judicial official representing the Emperor—but also among other Estates of the Holy Roman Empire original: S. R. I. Ordines, and in the courts of our divine predecessors, the Roman Emperors and Kings, where they always moved with immense praise and the approval of all good men. For this reason, they were several times increased and adorned by our aforementioned predecessors with the greatest honors, titles, and favors, as men who had served excellently; and many of them, on account of their greatness of soul and their distinguished and brave deeds, both military and political...”