Latin.  On Ascension Day, 1504, which appears from other indications to mean 15 August, he made his profession, and in September 1505 he went to Augsburg to be ordained as sub-deacon.  Writing to a friend to give such news as he had gathered on this outing, he tells a story to convict himself of hasty judgement.  During the ordination service he noticed that one of the candidates, a bold-eyed fellow who had been at several universities, and had been Rector at Siena, let his gaze wander over the ladies who had come to see the ceremony, instead of keeping it fixed on the altar.  Ellenbog censured him in his mind, but later he noticed that as the man kneeled before the bishop with folded hands to receive unction, his eyes were filled with tears of repentance—­others perhaps would have called it merely emotion.

On his way back to Ottobeuren, Ellenbog arrived at a village, where he had counted on a night’s rest, only to find it crowded with a wedding-party; the followers of the bridegroom, who were escorting him to the marriage on the morrow, a Sunday.  It was with great difficulty that he found shelter, in the house of a cobbler, who let him sleep with his family in the straw; but it was so uncomfortable that before dawn he crept out and started on his way under the moon.  In the half light he missed the road and found himself at the bride’s castle; where he learnt that her sister was just dead and the wedding postponed.  As he passed in that evening through the abbey-gate, there was thankfulness in his heart that he was back out of the world and its petty disappointments.

On Low Sunday, 1506, he was ordained priest at Ottobeuren, and celebrated his first mass.  Some of his letters are to friends inviting them to be present, and adjuring them to come empty-handed, without the customary gifts.  In these early years there was ample leisure for study.  In 1505 he began Greek, and in 1508 Hebrew.  He speaks of reading Aeneas Sylvius, Pico della Mirandola, Cyprian, Diogenes Laertius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Dionysius the Areopagite.  He went on with his astronomy, and cast horoscopes for his friends.  Binding books was one of his occupations; and in 1509, when a press was set up in the monastery, he lent a hand in the printing.  He was very fortunate in his abbot, Leonard Widemann, who had been Steward when he entered Ottobeuren, but was elected Abbot in 1508, and outlived him by three years, dying in 1546.  Widemann called upon him for service.  Immediately on election he made him Prior—­at 28—­and only released him from this office after four years, to make him, though infinitely reluctant, serve ten years more as Steward.