Martin Luther

About this figure

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, in the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1483, the son of a copper miner who had risen into the local bourgeoisie. He trained for a legal career at his father's wish but abandoned it after a bad fright in a thunderstorm led him to vow to become a monk; he entered an Augustinian monastery in Erfurt in 1505 and was ordained a priest two years later. He went on to earn a doctorate in theology and joined the faculty of the new University of Wittenberg, where he lectured on the Bible for the rest of his career.

Luther's growing conviction that the medieval Church's sale of indulgences and broader emphasis on merit and works misrepresented the Christian message of salvation by faith alone led him, in 1517, to draft the Ninety-Five Theses challenging the practice, traditionally said to have been posted on the door of Wittenberg's Castle Church. The dispute escalated quickly: Luther was summoned to defend his views, refused to recant before the Diet of Worms in 1521 when ordered to do so by Emperor Charles V, and was placed under imperial ban as an outlaw. Sheltered by his protector Frederick the Wise at Wartburg Castle, he translated the New Testament into German, a translation whose vigorous vernacular prose helped standardize the German language.

Luther went on to write prolifically, including his 1520 Treatise on Good Works, which argued that true good works flow from faith rather than earn salvation, and numerous other tracts, sermons, and biblical commentaries collected across many volumes. In 1525 he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, and the couple's household in Wittenberg became a center of hospitality and conversation; students and guests later compiled his informal remarks at table into the collection known as the Table Talk. Luther's break with Rome set in motion the Protestant Reformation, which fractured Western Christianity and reshaped the religious and political map of Europe. He died in his native Eisleben in 1546.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.