TO THE REVEREND FATHER IN CHRIST

AND LORD, PETER LOTICHIO, ABBOT

OF SCHLÜCHTERN, WILHELM

OF RADEN SENDS GREETINGS.

original: "S. D." stands for "Salutem Dicit," a standard Latin greeting. Peter Lotichius (1501–1567) was the Abbot of Schlüchtern, known as "Solitariensi" in Latin, who oversaw the abbey's transition during the Reformation.

A large historiated woodcut initial 'R' depicts two figures in classical or military attire standing within a landscape featuring architecture and trees, bordered by a square frame.
CHRIST solemnly urges that the fragments must be gathered. This should be understood not only regarding food, but also concerning other gifts of God. Among these, the labors of intellects and the records of pious and excellent men do not hold the last place. For just as we cannot lack food to sustain this bodily life, so also without the records of teachings in every kind of literature and art, those actions cannot be rightly established, directed, or performed. These actions are especially necessary in human life, in the true worship of God, in the judgment of affairs, and in the duties of virtue. Barbarism and ignorance of pious and honest things are far more destructive to both body and soul than poverty and extreme hunger.

I believe that those who rescue the writings of grave and useful authors from the dust, from the gnawing of moths, and from destruction itself, and share them with the whole Church of God, act piously and deserve no small praise.

Johannes Trithemius is a famous author because of his remarkable learning and knowledge of various things. It would indeed be desirable that all his records, of which he wrote many, were still extant. Through the work and kindness of certain friends, I have obtained his Hirsau Chronicle. This work has not yet been published in print and has been desired by many good men. I thought these fragments of this man, as if they were distinguished relics, should not only be collected and preserved by me. I believed they should be brought forward again and set before the whole Church. I did not want to be like a granary closed against the wishes of everyone during a famine.

Even though many things in this Chronicle reveal various blemishes that have existed in the Church of Christ, it will not be useless to know them and compare them with the truth of the Gospel now revealed.
original: "næuos" (blemishes). The editor refers to historical errors or corruptions in the Church that the Reformation aimed to fix.

Furthermore, what is especially worthy of consideration is that Trithemius shows clearly enough in this Chronicle that the Roman Antichrist did not occupy everything with such cruelty and tyranny in the shrines of the monks for a thousand years and more. He did not decide and act according to his will as is done now, alas. For this author recites in a continuous historical thread the names of those who presided over the schools of the monks for many ages. He calls them Scholastics. From this it is clear enough that

monasteries
were Christian
Schools

monasteries were once nothing other than Christian Schools for the youth...