As a matter of fact the “poem” in question was a popular mediæval one, frequently met with in manuscripts, sometimes in quite inoffensive forms. At any rate, the jingling rhymes (in the German original: Güte, Hüte, Rinder, Kinder) are the persistent feature. According to Bartsch it occurs in the Zimmern Chronik[958] in a version attributed to Count Hans Werdenberg (1268), which, while retaining the same rhymes (in the German), inverts the meaning. Here the prayer is for: Potent stallions, portly oxen, Buxom women, _plenty children_. From a MS., “_Gesta Romanorum_,” of 1476, J. L. Hocker (“_Bibliotheca Heilbronnensis_”[959]), quotes a similar but shorter verse.[960] A different rendering of the poem was entered into a Diary in 1596 by Wolff von Stechau.[961] Certain Protestant writers of the present day, not content with “saving Luther’s honour” by emphasising the fact that the above verses of the Heidelberg MS. are not his, proceed to insinuate that they were really “aimed at the clergy”; the “hoods” and “hats” of which they speak were forsooth the monks’ and the cardinals’, and the rhymester was all the time envying the gay life of the clergy; thus the poem, so we are told, throws a “lurid light on the esteem in which the mediæval monks and clergy were held by the laity committed to their care.”—Yet the verses contain no reference whatever to ecclesiastics. “Hoods” were part of the layman’s dress and presumably “hats,” too. And after all, would it have been so very wicked even for a pious layman to wish to share in the good things possessed by the clergy? If satires on the mediæval clergy are sought for, sufficient are to be found without including this poor jingle. _Did Luther include Wives in the “Daily Bread” of the Our Father?_ Controversial writers have seen fit to accuse Luther of including wives in the “daily bread” for which we ask, and, in support of their charge, refer to his explanation of the fourth request of the Our Father. In point of fact in the Smaller Catechism the following is his teaching concerning this petition: It teaches us to ask God “for everything required for the sustenance and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothes, shoes and house, a farm, fields, cattle, money, goods, a _pious spouse,_ pious children and servants, and good masters, etc.[962] In the Larger Catechism the list is similar: Food and drink, clothes, a house and farm, health of body, grain and fruits, a pious wife, children and servants,” etc.[963] With all this surely no fault can be found. _Was Luther the originator of the proverb: “Who loves not woman, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long”?_