On the Life and Missions of Jacobus Andreae for the Reformation of the Lutheran Church, Part I

The next day, the Grand Master of the Court summoned Jacobus again and signified to him that it was the Duke’s wish that he not depart from Tübingen before he had obtained the Doctor’s insignia. Given this opportunity, Jacobus complained much about the scarcity of his means, which could not bear the doctoral expenses; he argued that that title would not bring him greater erudition, and asked who would look after the poverty of his affairs? The Master of the Court told him to be of good cheer, for the Duke would be liberal even in this type of expense.

Regarding this liberality, since it was of that class of studies that were also being handled by Hormoldus even under Christophorus, Jacobus did not indeed dare to conceive such great or certain hope. Yet, because such was the will of the new Prince, he remained in Tübingen and continued to perform the duties of deacon, although involved in manifold labor, as he was the only one on whom the entire burden of the care of souls and the whole sacred matter rested. Nor did he neglect the lectures he gave privately to boarders, being so engaged in theological literature that he proposed his own disputation on justification for the degree of Doctor, and explained the Minor Prophets—a work difficult even in our age—by cursory reading, although the apparatus for explaining them was meager at that time.

When Jacobus had therefore already performed all that had to be performed according to academic laws to obtain the Doctor’s insignia, but candidates for the Doctorate were lacking who could more conveniently bear the expenses—which were somewhat heavier at that time than in our age, distributed among common payments—it happened opportunely that Martinus a Degenfeld, a noble prefect of Gœppingen, together with the Senate of the city of Gœppingen, approached Christophorus and asked that Jacobus be allowed to preach and...