He went to Nuremberg for education when he was thirteen years of age, and two years afterwards to the university of Erfurt, where he took his bachelor’s degree within a year, in 1499. There he attracted the notice of Marschalk, the most influential professor, who made Spalatin his amanu- ensis and took him to Wittenberg. In 1505 Spalatin went to Erfurt to study jurisprudence, was recommended to Mutianus, and was welcomed by the little band of German humanists of whom Mutianus was chief. His friend got him the post of teacher of young monks in a convent in the Georgenthal and pastor in the high church there. In 1508 he was ordained priest by Bishop John von Laasphe, who had ordained Luther. He had no great love for convent or pastoral work, and in 1509 Mutianus recommended him to Frederick the Wise, the elector of Saxony, who employed him to act as tutor to his son, the future elector, John Frederick. This appointment really determined Spalatin’s life and work. He speedily gained the confidence of the famous elector, who employed him in many affairs. He sent him to Wittenberg in 1511 to act as tutor to his nephews, and procured for him a canon’s stall in Altenberg. In 1512 the elector made him his librarian. This brought him into correspondence with a large number of literary men, and he began to collect all kinds of literary and especially of historical information, of which he made extensive use later in his chronicles. He was promoted to be court chaplain and confidential secretary to the elector, and took charge of all his private and public correspondence. He thus became one of the most important men at the electoral court, which then was the centre of German life.

Spalatin had never cared for theology, and, although a priest and a preacher, had been a mere humanist. It was to Luther that he owed his awakening to the reality of a spiritual life. How he first became acquainted with the reformer it is impossible to say—probably at Wittenberg; but Luther from the first exercised a great power over him, and became his chief counsellor in all moral and religious matters. His letters to Luther have been lost, but Luther’s answers remain, and are extremely interesting. Spalatin was Luther’s devoted friend during the stormiest days of the Reformation, and was the means of bringing the great elector to take the side of the outspoken professor in his university of Wittenberg. He read Luther’s writings to the elector, and translated for his benefit those in Latin into German. He accompanied Frederick to the diet of Augsburg, and shared in the negotiations with the papal legates, Cajetan and Miltitz. He was with the elector when Charles was chosen emperor and when he was crowned. He was with his master at the diet of Worms. In short, he stood beside Frederick as his confidential adviser in all the troubled diplomacy of the earlier years of the Reformation. Singularly cautious, perhaps timid, before the crisis came and while it could be averted, Spalatin found courage when the crisis had come. He would have dissuaded Luther again and again from publishing books or engaging in overt acts against the papacy, but, when the thing was done, none was so ready to translate the book, or to justify the act.

On the death of Frederick the Wise, Spalatin was as much engaged in diplomatic service as before, but he no longer lived at court. He went into residence as canon at Altenberg, and incited the chapter to institute reforms somewhat unsuccessfully. He married in the same year. During the later portion of his life, from 1526 onwards, he was chiefly engaged in the visitation of churches and schools in electoral Saxony, reporting on the confiscation and application of ecclesiastical revenues. His practical experience in German affairs made him very successful in his delicate task, and he was asked to undertake the same work for Albertine Saxony. He was also permanent visitor of Wittenberg university, and made an annual report of its condition to the elector. Shortly before his death he fell into a state of profound melancholy, and died January 16, 1545, at Altenberg.

Spalatin left behind him a large number of literary remains, both published and unpublished. His original writings are almost all historical. A list of them may be found in Seelheim’s George Spalatin als sächs. Historiograph, 1878. There is no good life of Spalatin, nor can there be until his letters have been collected and edited, a work still to be done.