The magistracy promised in reply to this appeal, that an edict should be issued forbidding the reprinting, within a specified time, of Luther’s writings. It appears, nevertheless, that for some years at least no further action was taken. In 1532, however, in response to a renewed appeal from Luther, an edict was issued, not forbidding the Nuremberg printers to issue reprints, but simply forbidding the use on publications printed in Nuremberg of the false imprint of Wittenberg. This prohibition was, however, simply a repetition of a provision of the imperial Act. The Nuremberg edict also insisted upon greater care for an accurate text (_besser correctür befleyssen_). In a letter from Luther to Spengler, the Syndic of Nuremberg, dated November 7, 1525, he refers to an association that had been formed of certain leading printers of the Rhine cities to repress or discourage piracy (_diese Buberei_ is the expression used by Luther), and asks the Syndic to induce Koberger to give to the association the aid of his all-important influence and co-operation. It does not appear, however, that the Kobergers interested themselves in the undertaking. Their publications were almost exclusively works of a scholarly character, issued (in Latin) in folio or in quarto, works which did not tempt the German reprinters, whose appropriations were chiefly devoted to volumes of a popular character and to pamphlets, _Flugschriften_. Aggravating as this very general practice of piratical reprinting was to Luther and to such other authors of the time (a group, however, at best but inconsiderable) who had secured a popular hearing, and also to their authorised publishers, it seems evident not only, as before pointed out, that it furthered very largely the rapid spread of the doctrines of the Reformation, but also that it helped to build up the business of publishing and bookselling, and to develop the habit among the masses of the people of buying and of reading books, and of being influenced by printed arguments. During the first years of the sixteenth century, instructors and students were much hampered by the scarcity of text-books. When, in 1520, Reuchlin began his lectures in Ingolstadt, he reports that there was in the town no single volume in Greek or Hebrew. He was obliged, therefore, in his instruction work to write out texts in the two languages on black-boards for the students to transcribe. Basilius Amerbach, when he was a student in Tübingen, speaks of hiring on certain hours in the week a copy of the _Corpus Juris_. Trutwetter, the teacher of Luther, had taken his own classical instruction from Publicus Rufus, a Florentine who had brought to Erfurt, shortly after 1500, the revived Italian enthusiasm for classical studies. The University of Erfurt was one of the oldest in Germany, dating from 1392.