Kloster Lüne, Hs. 15, Lage 15, fol. 10v

Lateinisch und Niederdeutsch.

Vgl. Brief 359

Dank für Freundschaft und Mitgefühl, das Dachtmissen den verwaisten Geschwisterkindern der Absenderin nach dem Tod der Eltern gezeigt habe. Sie habe ihm bereits in anderer Sache schreiben wollen, wegen der Dunkelheit ihres "ingeniums" aber kein Selbstvertrauen gehabt. Sie sei aber tief bewegt gewesen, als sie hörte, wie gnädig Dachtmissen sich der Notlage der Kinder angenommen habe. Das sei besonders für den jungen Johannes wichtig gewesen, der in Rostock sehr schlecht behandelt worden sei, was ihr großen Schmerz bereitet habe. Sie betet flehentlich, dass er die Waisen nicht verlassen möge, sondern wie ein Vater für sie sorge und verhindere, dass sie in ein fremdes Land geschickt würden, bevor sie ein angemessenes Alter erreicht hätten.

The writer thanks Johannes Dachtmissen for the friendship and compassion which he had showed the writer’s orphaned nephews and nieces after the death of their parents. She reports that she had wanted to write to him about another matter for a long time, but because of the darkness of her “ingenium”, she had not trusted herself to do so. However, she reports that she wishes to express how much it moved her, as she had heard about the children’s plight and how mercifully Johannes had accepted them. She writes that this was particularly important for her nephew Johannes, who had been treated very badly in Rostock, which caused her great pain, which she expresses in words similar to those of Psalm 6.3. She states, in the words of Psalm 7.10, that God, the examiner of all hearts, knows this to be true. Borrowing from Chapter 15 of the Meditations of St Augustine, she writes that even if all her members were turned into tongues, this would not suffice to express her gratitude for his good deeds. She prays imploringly that he would not leave the orphans, but that he would care for them as a pious father and prevent them from being sent to a strange land before they have reached an appropriate age. She asks that God would reward him for doing so, referring to Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount, reported in Matthew 25.40, that whatever he has done for her nephews and nieces, he has also done for Christ. No references to anybody by the name of Johannes Dachtmissen have survived in the convent’s archives; however, it is possible, but not certain, that this letter could have been written to Hans Dachtmissen, a carpenter who had been commissioned to carry out works on the tower of St John’s Church in Lüneburg by the town council in 1484.