ABSTRACT
Johann von Staupitz, one of the six children of Gu¨nther and Katharine von Staupitz, was born at Motterwitz (or Mutterwitz), near Grimma and Meissen, in Saxony,1 and although the year of his birth is unknown, most scholars agree that he was born between 1463 and 1468. Thus he was about the same age or a little bit older than Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose birthdate is also not known, but is assumed to be between 1466 and 1469. Staupitz was the descendant of an old noble Saxon-Meissen family which still exists today. The family’s coat of arms shows a red post-horn on a silver background, the emblem being crowned with a helmet and a jumping hart.2 When his father died in 1494, Johann was already an Augustinian friar, so the inheritance went to his three brothers. Gu¨nther was apparently the oldest, followed by Rahfolt, then Heinrich. His older sister, whose name is not known, married Albrecht Gernod. Her dowry consisted of half of the village of Leippen. The youngest sister, Magdalene, was six years of age when their father died. As a 13-year-old girl she was sent to the Cistercian nunnery at nearby Nimbschen for an annual fee of two gulden which the oldest brother Gu¨nther paid every year. The family owned land in Dabrun near Wittenberg.3
