God helped Luther by the people He surrounded Luther with. One such individual was the Confidential Secretary of Frederick the Wise by the name of Georg Spalatin. This man not only aided in the scholarship of the Doctor, he was instrumental in winning the favor of the Elector in favor of the professor proclaimed a heretic by Rome. And winning the Elector's favor meant the balance between life and death-not only for Luther, but also for the Reformation cause.
By 1518 Luther's teachings were accepted by the majority of teachers and students at Wittenberg University. Luther's teachings were based on a thorough knowledge of the Bible and the ancient church fathers. But Frederick the Wise stood firm in his Roman Catholic faith. As part of the status quo he was against any Reformation of the Church. Luther found in Georg Burkhardt from Spalt, known as Georg Spalatin, the most articulate and eloquent spokesman for the Reformation at Frederick's court.
Georgius Burkhardus de Spalt was born on 17 January 1484. By 2 February 1503 he graduated as one of the first Masters of the Arts from the Faculty of the Arts at the new university in Wittenberg. This was noteworthy because he had enrolled in 1502! He soon became the tutor of young Prince Johann Friedrich, which enabled Spalatin to become the elector's confidential secretary and indispensable advisor in all literary and scholarly matters. Soon Spalatin was also the archivist, librarian, and historian who provided the elector and the university with books and journals as well as acquiring the rarest of relics for the elector's collection at All Saints' Chapel. This collection of relics was the Elector's pride and a cash cow which came under attack in Luther's 95 Theses.
Spalatin acquired substantial influence over both the official business of the elector's chancellery and also in the hiring of faculty for the university. Spalatin was an advocate for the new university and open to the trends of the time and strongly encouraged the new humanist intellecutal developments at the Leucorea. Luther enjoyed a friendly relationship with Spalatin and wrote to him of his concern for the continued reform of the university: "I hope and ask of you that you not forget our school; namely, that you will see to it that instruction in Greek and Hebrew is provided." Spalatin's contribution to the university library was especially valuable. No doubt Spalatin was instrumental in forming the young university's reputation as a center of learning throughout Europe. It didn't hurt that the Elector spared no expense as he built the university from the ground up and sought the finest teachers.
