Sample Sermons for Parish Priests

Johann Tetzel drew up these short sermons for priests in the places where the indulgence was to be preached. They urge hearers not to neglect the grace on offer, compare the letter of indulgence to a safe-conduct that, with contrition and confession, brings the soul to heaven without the pains of purgatory, and give voice to dead parents who cry out from their torments to their children.

The sermons are Tetzel’s own words and are the fairest evidence for how he preached. The rhyme about the coin in the chest, which Martin Luther attacks in his theses, does not appear in the extracts printed by Kidd.