How Luthers Ideas Spread

How were Luther’s ideas spread?

In 1505 Martin Luther joined the Black Cloister of the Observant Augustinians, a strict Catholic monastic order in Erfurt, Thuringia, part of modern-day Germany. He was encouraged to pursue a doctorate in theology at the University of Wittenberg where he continued his complex navigation of Christian concepts of salvation. It is during these years of study and teaching that Luther formed the foundation for his later reformist ideas of the priesthood of all believers and salvation by faith alone rather than through good works. According to lore and legend, Luther was moved to action in October 1517 upon hearing that Johan Tetzel, a Dominican friar, was in Wittenberg selling indulgences that offered remission of sin—even for souls in purgatory. Pope Leo X had ordered the sale of new plenary indulgences in 1515 as a way to pay for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Luther, who had already begun to question the value of good works for remission of sin and a soul’s salvation, was adamantly opposed to the sale of indulgences for this purpose. He composed his Ninety-five Theses (statements supporting his argument) challenging the Catholic practice of indulgences, questioning the value of good works, and critiquing the wealth and corruption of the church. The Theses were written in Latin and sent to the archbishop in Mainz as a private critique and, according to legend and local tradition, were also posted on the gate to Wittenberg Castle on the day before All Saint’s Day as a public statement. The document was quickly republished and translated into German and the ideas and the conflict with Church authority that they provoked began to spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Over the next three years the ideas of the reform movement began to circulate and both the Catholic Church and Luther prepared for a theological clash. When in 1520 the Pope issued a Papal Bull (the Exsurge domine) warning Luther that he would be excommunicated if he did not recant almost half of the statements in his Theses, Luther made the bold move of publicly burning the notice and explaining in published form why he had done so. In early January of 1521 Luther was excommunicated. By May of that year the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had named the still unrepentant Luther an outlaw. In an elaborately staged fake highway robbery Luther was whisked to safety by Frederick III and protected at Wartburg Castle. Here Luther translated the Bible into German and continued to expound upon his new theology and publish it for the people in German at an astounding rate. It was in these years that the conflict between Luther and the Church exploded into the European event known as the Protestant Reformation.

Scholars have explored a variety of questions about the Reformation but one question that links together several others is how Luther’s ideas were spread. This question ties into several scholarly discussions: whether the Reformation can be considered a print event, who the Reformation was intended to reach, and what role Luther himself played in the propagation of his ideas. The idea of the Reformation as a print event centers around the role of the printing press and its use, particularly by the reformers, to spread the message. Those who advocate the “Reformation by print alone” position suggest that without print propaganda, the Reformation would not have grown as quickly as it did. Those who argue against this position claim that the literacy rate of the sixteenth century was still quite low and most people received their messages through art, woodprints, songs, sermons, and other forms of oral and visual transmission rather than printed text. They warn readers too that the message Luther intended in his printed text might not have been what readers received from it. Thus we cannot fully attribute the spread of his ideas to the spread of his texts. Closely connected to this conversation is the related debate over the nature, transmission, reception, and appeal of the Reformation among the common man. Many here say Reformation ideas only appealed to the small portion of society that was literate and that the masses were generally indifferent. But others point to Luther’s intentional use of German to widen the appeal and transmission of his work and to the use of other types of propaganda methods including popular songs and printed images that explained his ideas in visual form, many of them created by his friend and fellow reformer, artist Lucas Cranach. This question of how Luther’s ideas were spread also brings into the discussion a third historiographical debate over the role that Luther himself played in the propagation of his own ideas. While many have seen Luther as a master propagandist and a prolific publicist of reform ideas, others have attributed more influence to lesser-known reformers who carried his message and adapted it throughout Europe. The primary sources in this section will provide an introduction to the basic ideas of Lutheran doctrine and the remainder of the collection will consider how these ideas were spread by means of the printing press, vernacular, imagery, songs, and individual reformers.

Primary Sources

Martin Luther, Letter to the Archbishop of Mainz (1517)

Albert of Brandenberg, born to a noble family, was given the position of Archbishop of Mainz at the age of 24 and became cardinal at age 28. The archbishop had borrowed a large sum of money to gain this position and to rebuild part of the cathedral in Mainz. He began selling indulgences in order to make this money back, with half of the proceeds going to the pope. Martin Luther protested against this sale in a letter in 1517.

May your Highness deign to cast an eye upon one speck of dust, and for the sake of your pontifical clemency to heed my prayer. Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter's are circulating under your most distinguished name, and as regards them, I do not bring accusation against the outcries of the preachers, which I have not heard, so much as I grieve over the wholly false impressions which the people have conceived from them; to wit, the unhappy souls believe that if they have purchased letters of indulgence they are sure of their salvation; again, that so soon as they cast their contributions into the money-box, souls fly out of purgatory; furthermore, that these graces [i.e., the graces conferred in the indulgences] are so great that there is no sin too great to be absolved, even, as they say—though the thing is impossible—if one had violated the Mother of God; again, that a man is free, through these indulgences, from all penalty and guilt.

. . . For this reason I have no longer been able to keep quiet about this matter, for it is by no gift of a bishop that man becomes sure of salvation, since he gains this certainty not even by the "inpoured grace" of God, but the Apostle bids us always "work out our own salvation in fear and trembling," and Peter says, "the righteous scarcely shall be saved." Finally, so narrow is the way that leads to life, that the Lord, through the prophets Amos and Zechariah, calls those who shall be saved "brands plucked from the burning," and everywhere declares the difficulty of salvation. Why, then, do the preachers of pardons, by these false fables and promises, make the people careless and fearless?

1. What does Luther write to the Archbishop to complain about?

a. The sale of Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter's

b. How narrow the path to salvation and life is

c. The carelessness and fearlessness of the people

2. What does he say people believe about purchasing indulgences?

a. They believe that they have ensured their salvation and that of any souls in purgatory.

b. They believe it will provide them with the impoured grace of God

c. They believe they will be brands plucked from the burning

3. Why does he say purchasing indulgences is wrong?

a. Bishops cannot assure salvation to man, only God can determine this.

b. Amos and Zechariah have said salvation is so simple that they should not need to pay for it.

c. Because indulgences should be given away to those who have sinned for free.

Martin Luther, Open Letter to the Christian Nobility (1520)

By 1520 Luther’s position was more antagonistic toward the Catholic Church and he had developed his idea of the priesthood of all believers. He wrote this open letter in German, rather than Latin, and challenged the pope’s claim to be the only source for interpretation of scripture.

The Romanists, with great adroitness, have built three walls about them, behind which they have hitherto defended themselves in such wise that no one has been able to reform them; and this has been the cause of terrible corruption throughout all Christendom.

First, when pressed by the temporal power, they have made decrees and said that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the other hand, that the spiritual is above the temporal power. Second, when the attempt is made to reprove them out of the Scriptures, they raise the objection that the interpretation of the Scriptures belongs to no one except the pope. Third, if threatened with a council, they answer with the fable that no one can call a council but the pope. . . .

Against the first wall we will direct our first attack.

It is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are to be called the "spiritual estate"; princes, lords, artisans, and farmers the "temporal estate." That is indeed a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy. Yet no one should be frightened by it; and for this reason—viz., that all Christians are truly of the "spiritual estate," and there is among them no difference at all but that of office, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, We are all one body, yet every member has its own work, where by it serves every other, all because we have one baptism, one Gospel, one faith, and are all alike Christians; for baptism, Gospel and faith alone make us "spiritual" and a Christian people.

But that a pope or a bishop anoints, confers tonsures, ordains, consecrates, or prescribes dress unlike that of the laity, this may make hypocrites and graven images, but it never makes a Christian or "spiritual" man. Through baptism all of us are consecrated to the priesthood,

To make it still clearer. If a little group of pious Christian laymen were taken captive and set down in a wilderness , and had among them no priest consecrated by a bishop, and if there in the wilderness they were to agree in choosing one of themselves, married or unmarried, and were to charge him with the office of baptizing, saying mass, absolving and preaching, such a man would be as truly a priest as though all bishops and popes had consecrated him. That is why in cases of necessity any one can baptize and give absolution, which would be impossible unless we were all priests.

1. What three walls does Luther say the Church has built to prevent critique?

a. They claim the spiritual power of the Church trumps earthly political (temporal) power, that only the Pope can interpret Scripture, and no one can call a council except the Pope therefore no one can critique it.

b. They claim the Pope does not become involved in politics, the Pope does not alter the scripture, and the Pope was chosen by God therefore no one can critique him.

c. They claim that baptism, Gospel , and faith make them a Christian people and therefore no one can critique them.

2. What are all baptized Christians part of?

a. All Christians are equally part of a spiritual estate (class) of the priesthood of all believers.

b. All Christians are part of the Catholic Church and subject to the Pope

c. All Christians are part of the laity and can be hypocrites until they have been baptized

3. What can all believers do in case of necessity and why?

a. They could baptize, give absolution, or preach because they all have the same spiritual authority priests do.

b. They can all challenge the Pope’s claim that spiritual power is above temporal power.

c. They can all call for a council of bishops to meet because they are all spiritual equals of the Pope.

Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty with Preface to Pope Leo X  (1520)

By 1520 Luther had clarified his doctrine of salvation by faith alone and explored its tenets in his work Concerning Christian Liberty which he sent to Pope Leo X with an open letter encouraging him to ignore Luther’s detractors and free himself from what Luther claimed was the corruption of Rome.

Preface

Is it not true that there is nothing under the vast heavens more corrupt, more pestilential, more hateful, than the Court of Rome? She incomparably surpasses the impiety of the Turks, so that in very truth she, who was formerly the gate of heaven, is now a sort of open mouth of hell, and such a mouth as, under the urgent wrath of God, cannot be blocked up; one course alone being left to us wretched men: to call back and save some few, if we can, from that Roman gulf. . . . Therefore, Leo, my Father, beware of listening to those sirens who make you out to be not simply a man, but partly a god, so that you can command and require whatever you will. It will not happen so, nor will you prevail. You are the servant of servants, and more than any other man, in a most pitiable and perilous position. Let not those men deceive you who pretend that you are lord of the world; who will not allow any one to be a Christian without your authority; who babble of your having power over heaven, hell, and purgatory. These men are your enemies and are seeking your soul to destroy it, as Isaiah says, “My people, they that call thee blessed are themselves deceiving thee.” They are in error who raise you above councils and the universal Church; they are in error who attribute to you alone the right of interpreting Scripture. All these men are seeking to set up their own impieties in the Church under your name, and alas! Satan has gained much through them in the time of your predecessors.

Concerning Christian Liberty:

… But you ask how it can be the fact that faith alone justifies, and affords without works so great a treasure of good things, when so many works, ceremonies, and laws are prescribed to us in the Scriptures? I answer, Before all things bear in mind what I have said: that faith alone without works justifies, sets free, and saves, as I shall show more clearly below. . . .

Now, since these promises of God are words of holiness, truth, righteousness, liberty, and peace, and are full of universal goodness, the soul, which cleaves to them with a firm faith, is so united to them, nay, thoroughly absorbed by them, that it not only partakes in, but is penetrated and saturated by, all their virtues. For if the touch of Christ was healing, how much more does that most tender spiritual touch, nay, absorption of the word, communicate to the soul all that belongs to the word! In this way therefore the soul, through faith alone, without works, is from the word of God justified, sanctified, endued with truth, peace, and liberty, and filled full with every good thing, and is truly made the child of God, as it is said, "To them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name" (John i. 12). From all this it is easy to understand why faith has such great power, and why no good works, nor even all good works put together, can compare with it, since no work can cleave to the word of God or be in the soul. Faith alone and the word reign in it; and such as is the word, such is the soul made by it, just as iron exposed to fire glows like fire, on account of its union with the fire. It is clear then that to a Christian man his faith suffices for everything, and that he has no need of works for justification.

1. How does Luther describe the Church to the Pope?

a. It is corrupt, pestilential, hateful and more impious than the Muslim Turks.

b. It is lord of the world and no one can be Christian without its authority

c. It is the model of holiness, truth, righteousness, liberty, and peace.

2. What does he say men around him will try to convince the Pope of?

a. That he is not just a man but partly a god, that he can control who is Christian, and that he has control over heaven, hell and purgatory.

b. That he is the model of holiness, truth, righteousness, liberty, and peace.

c. That they should be allowed to take advantage of the poor believers in ways that are corrupt.

3. What does warning the Pope against his unscrupulous followers really let Luther do?

a. Make the claim that the Pope does not really have any of these authorities they claim.

b. Show everyone that he is trying to save the Papacy and protect the Catholic Church.

c. Become favored as the Pope’s most loyal follower and give himself more power.

4. What does Luther say is the source of man’s salvation?

a. Faith in God alone.

b. Catholic doctrine

c. Indulgences, confession, and penance

5. What cannot help man achieve his salvation?

a. Doing good works has no impact on salvation.

b. Faith in God has no impact on salvation.

c. God’s grace has no impact on salvation.

Martin Luther, Divine Discourses at His Table

Luther’s discourse and conversations at his home with students and fellow Protestant reformers including Philip Melancthon were collected into volumes and published for the reading public. The Catholic Church ordered the work banned and burned but a copy was found in early the 1600s and republished. In this selection Luther speaks of the Church, Henry VIII’s reformation, and tells a humorous story discrediting Catholic relics.

When our Lord God intends to plague and punish one, He leaves him in blindness, so that he regards not God’s Word, but condemns the same, as the papists now do. They know that our doctrine is God’s Word, but they will not allow of this syllogism and conclusion: When God speaks, we must hear him; now God speaks through the doctrine of the gospel; therefore we must hear Him. But the papists, against their own consciences, say, No; we must hear the church.

It is very strange: they admit both propositions, but will not allow of the consequences, or permit the conclusions to be right. They urge some decree or other of the Council of Constance, and say, though Christ speak, who is the truth itself, yet an ancient custom must be preferred, and observed for law. Thus do they answer, when they seek to wrest and pervert the truth.

If this sin of antichrist be not a sin against the Holy Ghost, then I do not know how to define and distinguish sins. They sin herein willfully against the revealed truth of God’s Word, in a most stubborn and stiff-necked manner. I pray, who would not, in this case, resist these devilish and shameless lying lips? . . . Henry VIII of England, is now also an enemy to the pope’s person, but not to his essence and substance; he would only kill the body of the pope, but suffer his soul, that is, his false doctrine, to live; the pope can well endure such an enemy; he hopes within the space of twenty years to recover his rule and government again. But I fall upon the pope’s soul, his doctrine, with God’s word, not regarding his body, that is, his wicked person and life. I not only pluck out his feathers, as the king of England and Prince George of Saxony do, but I set the knife to his throat, and cut his windpipe asunder. We put the goose on the spit; did we but pluck her, the feathers would soon grow again. . . .

A German, making his confession to a priest at Rome, promised, on oath, to keep secret whatsoever the priest should impart unto him, until he reached home; whereupon the priest gave him a leg of the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem, very neatly bound up in silk, and said: This is the holy relic on which the Lord Christ corporally did sit, with his sacred legs touching this ass’s leg. Then was the German wondrous glad, and carried the said holy relic with him into Germany. When he got to the borders, he bragged of his holy relic in the presence of four others, his comrades, when, lo! it turned out that each of them had likewise received from the same priest a leg, after promising the same secrecy. Thereupon, all exclaimed, with great wonder: Lord! had that ass five legs?

1. What does Luther say reformers hear?

a. God’s word through the gospels

b. Complaints from Christians about the abuses of the Catholic Church

c. Whispers from devilish and shameful lying lips

2. What does he say Catholic listen to?

a. They listen to the Church, the Pope, and old church customs.

b. They listen to God’s word

c. They listen to Henry VIII who is not an enemy to the Pope’s essence

3. How does Luther say he and Henry VIII are different?

a. Henry VIII would get rid of the body of the Pope but not his essence because he will not change doctrine. Luther wants to destroy the Papacy entirely.

b. Henry VIII is opposed to the essence of the Pope and Luther feels that the Church does not need to be replaced, just reformed.

c. Henry VIII plans to kill the Pope and Luther wants to keep him alive but humiliate him a little like a goose with its feathers plucked.

4. What had all five men received as a relic from the priest and what do they decide about it?

a. The legbone of the donkey that carried Jesus in Jerusalem therefore the donkey had five legs.

b. Silk on which Jesus had sat as he entered Jerusalem therefore it was a most precious relic.

c. The legbone of a donkey that carried Jesus in Jerusalem and therefore they know that relics are fraudulent.

5. What is Luther’s point in telling the story of the relics?

a. Relics sold by the Catholic Church were fraudulent and people often accepted the claims of the church rather than their own reason.

b. That Christians at the time valued relics, particularly those associated with Jesus.

c. Relics were valuable and important tools of religious life but only if they could be verified as real.

Scholarly Sources

Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Printing, Propaganda, and Luther (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994)

Mark U. Edwards is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for Harvard Divinity School. His work on the Reformation casts Luther’s protest as a print event notable for its masterful use of this medium.

The Reformation saw the first major, self-conscious attempt to use the recently invented printing press to shape and channel a mass movement. The printing press allowed evangelical publicists to do what had previously been impossible, quickly and effectively reach a large audience with a message intended to change Christianity. For several crucial years, these evangelical publicists issued thousands of pamphlets discrediting the old faith and advocating the new. And they managed to accomplish this with little serious opposition from publicists of a Catholic persuasion. . . .

Not only did the Reformation see the first large-scale “media campaign,” it also saw a campaign that was overwhelmingly dominated by one person, Martin Luther. More works by Luther were printed and reprinted than by any other publicist. In fact, the presses of the German-speaking lands produced substantially more vernacular works by Luther in the crucial early years (1518–1525) than the seventeen other major Evangelical publicists combined. During Luther’s lifetime, these presses produced nearly five times as many German works by Luther as by all the Catholic controversialists put together. Even if consideration is restricted to polemical works, Luther still outpublished all his Catholic opponents five to three. By Hans Joachim Köhler’s calculation, Luther’s works made up twenty percent of all the pamphlets published during the period 1500 to 1530. . . Within the larger topic of printing and propaganda in the Reformation and the narrower focus of Martin Luther’s dominance of the press, this book develops three interrelated arguments on how the history of the early Reformation should be written in light of this Evangelical propaganda campaign. First any future history needs to bear in mind what most people likely knew of Luther and his message and when they likely knew it. Such an approach yields a narrative that differs in significant ways from the conventional account. Second, the message Luther intended in his writings was not always the message that his various reading publics received, and the discrepancy between the two—message sent and message received—has profound implications for the story of the early Reformation. Third, the medium of printing not only conveyed challenges to traditional authority with particular force but raised in its own right new issues of authority concerning the propriety of public debate on matters of faith . . . the medium itself became entangled with its message.

1. What contributed to the success of the Protestant movement according to Edwards?

a. The use of the printing press to distribute information to the people.

b. The ability of Protestant propagandists to speak Latin better than the Catholics

c. The Protestant use of pictures rather than words to get the message across

2. How does he describe the role of Luther in this phenomenon?

a. Luther overwhelmingly dominated this mass media movement by writing and publishing his work at an incredible rate.

b. Luther was the theologian but he did not really get involved in the propaganda for the movement.

c. Luther was able to publish a few items but the Catholics had more wealth and power and therefore dominated the mass media movement.

3. What does he remind readers about Luther’s intended message?

a. The message Luther intended with his published material is not necessarily the message his public received from it.

b. Luther’s message was so simple that even the illiterate could easily understand exactly what he intended.

c. Luther’s intended message would not have appealed to the average German so they needed intense propaganda campaigns

Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe, and Started the Protestant Reformation (Penguin Books: New York, 2016).

Andrew Pettegree is Professor of History at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland and founding director of the St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute. He has written thirteen books and countless articles on Reformation in Europe several of which have won major history prizes around the world.

Wittenberg, Luther’s base in Saxony, had no printing press at all until 1502; the whole of the half century of experimentation and growth since Guttenberg had passed it by. Luther himself had reached his maturity…without publishing a book. Yet within five years of penning the ninety-five theses, he was Europe’s most published author—ever….Luther blossomed almost overnight as a writer of extraordinary power and fluency, a natural stylist in a genre that had not to that point particularly valued these skills. In the process, Luther created what was essentially a new form of theological writing: lucid, accessible, and above all short. Crucially at an early stage of the furor caused by the criticisms of indulgences, Luther made the bold and radical decision to speak beyond an informed audience of trained theologians and address the wider German public in their own language, German. This decision to move beyond the language of scholarship, Latin, was deeply controversial, but it allowed complex theological ideas to be presented to a non-specialist audience. It also put his opponents at a disadvantage from which they never fully recovered. Certainly it vastly increased the potential market for Luther’s books; Germany’s printers responded with a hungry enthusiasm.

1. How does Pettegree describe Luther’s new theological writing style?

a. Luther created what was essentially a new form of theological writing: lucid, accessible, and above all short.

b. Luther spoke above the heads of even the most informed audience of trained theologians

c. Luther’s style was appealing but because he still wrote in Latin few found it accessible.

2. Who is his audience and why is this different?

a. His audience was the wider German public rather than trained theologians.

b. His audience as limited to trained theologians

c. His audience was only able to read German, none of them could read Latin

3. Why is the choice of language important?

a. It let him reach his mass audience of non-specialists in theology in a way Catholics writing in Latin couldn’t compete with.

b. It indicated that Luther was not a serious scholar and that his ideas were not backed by scholarship or study.

c. It was important because it indicated that the movement was only intended for Germans, not other Europeans.

Steven Ozment, The Serpent and the Lamb: Cranach, Luther, and the Making of the Reformation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011)

Steven Ozment was Professor of History at Yale University and then Professor of History at Harvard University. He is the author of eleven books on Reformation and early modern European history and the author of both Western Civilizations and World History textbooks.

During the early 1520s and still two decades later, Luther’s books made up one-third of all German publications. . . . In 1520 [Lucas] Cranach was forty-eight and Luther thirty-seven, both men in their remarkable prime. In the same year, Cranach, at the Saxon elector’s bidding and Albrecht Dürer’s urging, engraved an official court portrait of the emerging reformer while Luther himself stood as godfather to Cranach’s lastborn child—a merging of their two families as well as their talents in the cause of reform.

Cranach’s portrayals of “Luther the monk” made the reformer’s name and face a household word and image throughout Saxony. Already a condemned heretic of the Church, Luther now became an outlaw of the Holy Roman Empire by the imperial decree of the Edict of Worms in May 1521. In that same year, he and Cranach answered back with their first collaborative blast against Rome: twenty-five irreverent pamphlet pages depicting and declaring the Holy Father to be the “Anti-Christ.” . . .

The comparative absence of Cranach from the modern American mind is a lamentable deficit of historical knowledge . . . Without him, German Renaissance art might well have remained a pale imitation of High Italian, and the German Reformation have died aborning in the 1520s, so vital was Cranach to both. . . .

. . . It took a Luther to turn Erasmus’ Greek edition and Latin translation of the New Testament into a readable German vernacular Bible the masses could read and wield like a sword against Rome’s ever encroaching encyclicals. And it took a painter of Cranach’s force and subtlety to dramatize on countless church altars and single-leaf wood-cuts the heartfelt jeopardy created in the souls of contemporaries…The reformers’ first collaborative work of religious propaganda set its sights directly on the Holy Father in Rome. Entitled Christ and Anti-Christ (1520) it was a bludgeoning twenty-six-page block-printed pamphlet that enumerated the many reasons that the “Holy Father in Rome” deserved the Protestant cudgel.

. . . Cranach created his own “light cavalry” designed to demoralize the enemy in heart and mind, while cheering on the faithful . . .

A popular example from the late 1520s. . . . Christ Blessing the Children, its message accused the papists and Anabaptists of not having humility and trust enough to enter the kingdom of God. . . . In the background of this popular painting, the enemies of salvation by faith alone and infant baptism are seen scoffing and grumbling as Jesus welcomes a throng of new mothers.

1. What was Cranach’s craft and how did he contribute to the Reformation?

a. Cranach was an artist, painter, and engraver whose paintings and printed images were used to reinforce and spread Luther’s message.

b. Cranach was a publicist who helped Luther spread his message to the common man by translating it into the common language

c. Cranach was a church official who helped Luther gain access to some of the largest churches and congregations in Germany.

2. What was the target of Luther and Cranach’s first collaborative work?

a. The Pope

b. People who spoke Latin

c. Indulgences

3. Why was Cranach’s version of Luther’s message important for the common man?

a. Visual sources provided an education for the illiterate in Protestant ideas.

b. Cranach changed a lot of Luther’s wording to make it easier for the common man to understand.

c. Cranach created a more welcoming version of Luther’s message

1.

Rebecca Wagner Oettinger, Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation (Routledge: New York, 2016) 1-20.

Rebecca Wagner Oettinger has published on early music history and won the Sixteenth Century Society & Conference’s Roland H. Bainton Prize for her work Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation.

In 1523 Martin Luther wrote, “I also wish that we had as many songs in the vernacular which the people could sing during mass . . . I mention this to encourage any German poets to compose evangelical hymns for us.”

. . . German songs sung by the people helped Luther’s Reformation spread like wildfire, not only through the scholarly and literate, but through all levels of German society. In the first four decades of the Reformation, hundreds of songs written in a popular style and set to familiar tunes appeared in German territories. Some of these works expressed the high ideals and deep faith of sixteenth-century German Christians, others were slanderous, scandalous cries of anger at the papacy, at the clergy, at merchants who benefited from the Catholic Church’s downfall, at Luther or at theologians whose specific articles of faith were at odds with those of a song’s composer. . . . No matter the length, subject, or approach, however, songs were perfectly adapted to spread rapidly through the still primarily oral culture of sixteenth-century Germany. While the literate had access to the full flowering of printed information about Martin Luther’s movement, most people depended on the more traditional media of woodcut, sermon, and song.

. . . The propagandistic music of the Reformation. . . [is] a rich treasury of information about the issues that most inflamed those living through the German Reformation.

. . . Church politics, however, were the driving force behind hymn composition in the sixteenth century and it is difficult to draw the line between political songs that are religious and religious songs that are also political. . . I will argue, however, that the use of familiar songs was of utmost importance to ensure that the ideas expressed in the lyrics would reach a large audience. The Bohemian Brethren acknowledged this in the foreword to their 1575 songbook. The authors of the dedicatory preface commented that ‘our singers took up [secular melodies] intentionally in order that the people be attracted to a grasp of the truth more easily through their familiar sounds’. . . .

This study addresses the propagandistic songs of the early Reformation . . . While polemical songs continued to be published in the late sixteenth century, as areas became more confessionalized, there was less need for musical attacks on other believers, and the pieces created after about 1560 generally lack the anger and fire of earlier publications. . . .

. . . Luther’s music was a powerful symbol of protest and Protestantism in itself and would have been recognized as such by practically any hearer.

1. What does Oettinger argue helped the ideas of Luther’s reform spread among the common man?

a. Protestant songs about Luther’s ideas and against the catholics sung in German and set to popular tunes.

b. The fact that his ideas were all published in German helped them to spread to the common man.

c. Artwork about the Reformation helped Luther’s ideas spread to the common man.

2. What can propagandistic music give us more insight into?

a. It indicates which issues of the reform were of importance to the common man and how these ideas were spread to the illiterate.

b. It show us the types of music that were important to people at the time and what was truly popular for music.

c. It gives us insight into why Luther wrote the 95 Theses

3. Why did reformers use secular tunes for their religious lyrics?

a. Using popular tunes made them more appealing to listeners and easier to remember and spread.

b. Secular tunes were not copyrighted the way religious tunes had been so they were available for Luther’s lyrics.

c. Secular tunes helped make the message seem less religious and therefore easier for people to accept.

History Through Literature

Martin Luther, “Von erst ßo woll wir loben” (1523)

In 1523 Luther wrote new lyrics for the popular traditional song “Von erst ßo woll wir loben” which had been a song praising Mary. The new lyrics condemned the Catholic pope as the antichrist.

To begin, we will praise

Gentle God on high.

He is so high above us

And has had mercy on us

Because we were so long in error

[and] the Antichrist confused us

That is why [they have] erred regarding Luther

Who also will have no rest

Until the Antichrist is dead.

1. In the song “Von erst ßo woll wir loben” why has God been merciful?

a. His people disobeyed his will but only because they had been confused by the antichrist.

b. His people are praising Gentle God on high and he takes pity on them

c. His people were confused because God was so high above them but now they understand he was with them always.

2. Who is the antichrist and what has he done to the people?

a. The antichrist is the Pope who has confused the people by saying false things about Martin Luther.

b. The antichrist is the opponent of Jesus and has been causing Luther to err

c. The antichrist keeps the faithful confused with loud noises that prevent them from resting.

3. What must happen?

a. The antichrist must be killed.

b. Luther must no longer make mistakes

c. The people have to take Luther away from the antichrist

Martin Luther, “Ein newes lied wir heben an” 1483-1546

Luther’s “Ein newes lied wir heben an” tells the story of two Augustinian monks in Brussels who were burned at the stake for their Lutheran beliefs. Luther’s lyrics explain that martyrdom and saintliness is not something ordered by the Catholic Church which executed them and continued to defame them after death but something revealed by the act of dying for one’s belief in God.

A new song here shall be begun -

The Lord God help our singing!

Of what our God himself hath done,

Praise, honour to him bringing.

At Brussels in the Netherlands

By two boys, martyrs youthful

He showed the wonders of his hands

Whom he with favour truthful

So richly hath adorned.

[2] The first right fitly John was named,

So rich he in God’s favour;

His brother, Henry - one unblamed,

Whose salt lost not its savour.

From this world they are gone away,

The diadem they’ve gained;

Honest, like God’s good children, they

For his word life disdained,

And have become his martyrs.

[3] The old arch-fiend did them immure

With terrors did enwrap them.

He bade them God’s dear Word abjure,

With cunning he would trap them:

From Louvain many sophists came,

In their curst nets to take them,

By him are gathered to the game:

The Spirit fools doth make them -

They could get nothing by it.

[4] Oh! they sang sweet, and they sang sour;

Oh! they tried every double;

The boys they stood firm as a tower,

And mocked the sophists’ trouble.

The ancient foe it filled with hate

That he was thus defeated

By two such youngsters - he, so great!

His wrath grew sevenfold heated,

He laid his plans to burn them.

[5] Their cloister-garments off they tore,

Took off their consecrations;

All this the boys were ready for,

They said Amen with patience.

To God their Father they gave thanks

That they would soon be rescued

From Satan’s scoffs and mumming pranks,

With which, in falsehood masked,

The world he so befooleth . . .

. . . Their greatest fault was saying this:

“In God we should trust solely;

For man is always full of lies,

We should distrust him wholly:”

So they must burn to ashes.

[8] Two huge great fires they kindled then,

The boys they carried to them;

Great wonder seized on every man,

For with contempt they view them.

To all with joy they yielded quite,

With singing and God-praising;

The sophs had little appetite

For these new things so dazing.

Which God was thus revealing.

[9] They now repent the deed of blame,

Would gladly gloze it over;

They dare not glory in their shame,

The facts almost they cover.

In their hearts gnaweth infamy -

They to their friends deplore it;

The Spirit cannot silent be:

Good Abel’s blood out-poured

Must still besmear Cain’s forehead. . . .

[11] But yet their lies they will not leave,

To trim and dress the murder;

The fable false which out they gave,

Shows conscience grinds them further.

God’s holy ones, e’en after death,

They still go on belying;

They say that with their latest breath,

The boys, in act of dying,

Repented and recanted.

[12] Let them lie on for evermore –

No refuge so is reared;

For us, we thank our God therefore,

His word has reappeared.

1. Who are John and Henry in the song “Ein newes lied wir heben an”?

a. Two boys martyred for their faith.

b. Protestant ministers whose congregations betrayed them

c. The brothers of Martin Luther who defended him in front of the Pope

2. Who is the archfiend and what did he try to do at first to the two youths?

a. The archfiend is the pope who tried to convince the boys to follow the Church rather than the word of God.

b. The archfiend is the mayor of Brussels and he tried to put the two boys in prison for their crimes

c. The archfiend is a sophist from Louvain who has come to argue with the two youths.

3. What was the youths’ crime?

a. Saying they trusted in God not in man and therefore proclaiming themselves reformists.

b. Publicly declaring Luther more important than the Pope.

c. Drawing images of anti-Catholic propaganda on the walls of Brussels

4. What will be their punishment?

a. They are burned to death.

b. They are imprisoned

c. They are forced to convert

5. What does Luther claim the Church lied about in the last stanza?

a. The church claimed the boys recanted their reformist faith as they died.

b. The church claimed they had no role in the punishment of the two boys

c. The church claimed that the word of God reappeared after the boys died.

“Salvation unto Us Is Come”

“A Hymn of Law and Faith, Powerfully Furnished with God’s Word,” later shortened to “Salvation unto Us is Come” is one of the oldest and best known of Luther’s hymns. It was probably written in the fall of 1523 and then included in the first Lutheran hymnal, the so-called Achtliederbuch, entitled Etlich christlich lider, in 1524. The song explains the Lutheran belief in salvation by faith alone rather than through good works and the sinful nature of man that only God’s grace can redeem.

Salvation unto us has come By God's free grace and favor; Good works cannot avert our doom, They help and save us never. Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone, Who did for all the world atone; He is our one Redeemer. . . .

It was a false, misleading dream That God His Law had given That sinners should themselves redeem And by their works gain heaven. The Law is but a mirror bright To bring the inbred sin to light That lurks within our nature.

From sin our flesh could not abstain, Sin held its sway unceasing; The task was useless and in vain, Our gilt was e'er increasing. None can remove sin's poisoned dart Or purify our guileful heart,- So deep is our corruption. . .

Since Christ hath full atonement made And brought to us salvation, Each Christian therefore may be glad And build on this foundation. Thy grace alone, dear Lord, I plead, Thy death is now my life indeed, For Thou hast paid my ransom.

1. In the song Salvation unto us is come how is salvation won and what cannot influence this decision?

a. Salvation comes from the grace of God alone and man’s good works cannot influence it.

b. Salvation comes to each Christian after death has paid their ransom

c. Salvation is due to the sinners redeeming themselves through their works

2. What can man not do for himself?

a. Man cannot redeem himself from sin or earn his way into heaven.

b. Man cannot abstain from the sin of the flesh

c. Man cannot remove sin’s poison dart and will die because of it

Visual Source Materials

Satire on the Sale of Indulgences, Matthias Gerung

“Satire on the sale of indulgences” by Matthias Gerung was completed before 1536 and depicts a monstrous devil sitting on an indulgence letter and holding a collection container for the payment. One foot is in a container for holy water and in his mouth are monks and nuns feasting while fiends stoke the fire. Demons fly in with other feast participants including the pope.

1. How are the officials of the Catholic Church and the pope depicted in the Gerung print?

a. They are depicted as devils and demons dining in the mouth of a demon sitting on an indulgence document.

b. They are depicted as the challengers to the demon who will bring it down.

c. They are shown to be a massive demon sitting on a throne to indicate the throne of God.

2. What message might it be giving viewers?

a. The Pope and Catholic Church are evil and so are indulgences.

b. The Demons have eaten the Pope and the Church officials

c. The Pope and the Church officials know how to negotiate with God and the Devil

Altarpiece of the Reformers, Lucas Cranach the Younger (1565)

The painting by Lucas Cranach the Younger is the Dessau Altarpiece of the Last Supper completed in 1565. In this painting Jesus is gathered for the Last Supper with his apostles who are all, except Judas, depicted as contemporary Protestant reformers. Duke Joachim of Anhalt kneels at the front and Cranach paints himself into the altarpiece as the wine bearer opposite him.

1. Who is pictured in the Cranach altarpiece and who do they represent?

a. The altarpiece shows protestant reformers taking the role of the apostles at the last supper

b. The alterpiece shows regular people instead of Jesus which is considered sacrilegious

c. The alterpiece shows people from Cranach’s time period enjoying a meal together with no religious significance.

2. What might the artist’s message to viewers about the Reformation be?

a. The leaders of the reformation are the true followers and messengers of Jesus.

b. Even protestant reformers needed a chance to relax with friends and enjoy a meal.

c. The reformation was made of men who all got along well together at social events like this one.

Woodcut, W.S [1546?]

The next image is a print by an unknown artist whose only signature was his initials W.S. The print was likely published in 1546, the year in which Luther died. The inscription reads, "O pope, while I was alive I was a pest to you; once I am dead I shall be your death." The details, including the lion at his feet, are copied from an earlier Dürer painting, St. Jerome in His Study that would have been popular enough to be recognizable in this reimagining of it.

1. What does the caption of the picture of Luther in his study suggest about the artist’s message in the piece?

a. Luther’s words will outlive him and continue to challenge and even defeat the Catholic church.

b. Luther was a bigger problem for the Church while he was alive. Now that he is dead the battle is over.

c. Luther has been forced to seclude himself in his study to avoid persecution.

2. Why did the artist imitate an earlier engraving by Durer and replace St. Jerome with Luther?

a. This indicated that Luther was worthy of admiration as a spiritual leader just like St. Jerome had been.

b. This indicated the artist wanted to show how much he admired Durer by imitating his work

c. This indicated that St. Jerome and Luther were related and Luther had inherited St. Jerome’s home and study.

Satire on the Papacy, Melchior Lorck (1555)

The next print was produced in the immediate years after Luther’s excommunication and shows the pope with three heads: one with a turban suggesting a tie to the Muslim Turks, one with the papal crown, and one imagined as an infant. The animal-like and particularly reptilian features are included to indicate inhuman evil. The inside of the pope’s cloak has a frog, used to indicate false religion and he is handing coins to a soldier, possibly to indicate the bribery of military forces.

1. How is the pope depicted in the print with the soldier?

a. With three heads one of which wears a turban and with reptilian limbs.

b. As a superior to the soldier who cowers and bows before him

c. As a religious guide whom the soldier admires and respects.

2. What aspects of this depiction indicate a critical message about the Catholic Church and the Pope by the artist?

a. Paying the soldier represents bribery

b. The turban on one of his heads indicates support for Islam

c. The reptilian features indicate demonic evil.

d. All of the above

The Papal Ass of Rome, [Lucas Cranach?]

The next image entitled “The Papal Ass of Rome” was most likely created by Lucas Cranach’s workshop and shows the walled city near the river and the flag flying the papal coat of arms to indicate the Papal palace in Rome.

1. What is the figure in the center of the Cranach print supposed to represent?

a. The Pope drawn as a donkey.

b. A demon in front of the Church to represent the Protestants attacking the Catholic position.

c. A collection of evil traits to show the Protestants had multiple bad traits

2. What elements in the background indicate the figure is Catholic?

a. The papal palace with the flag of the Catholic church is in the background.

b. The castle in the back could only be owned by a king and all the kings were catholic at the time.

c. The giant crucifix indicates it is a Catholic figure

3. What inhuman elements have been included in the depiction and why?

a. Reptilian skin represents demonic evil

b. The donkey’s body represents fools

c. The tail indicates two devils.

d. All of the above

Luther Bible, Cover Page (1534)

The next photograph is of Luther’s German Bible open to the cover page showing the title and information in German vernacular. The New Testament translation was published in 1522 and the full Bible was published in 1534.

1. Into what language is Luther’s bible translated?

a. German

b. English

c. Greek

2. Why is this significant?

a. It was illegal under the Catholic Church to translate the Bible into vernacular but it makes it more accessible to the masses.

b. It was the very first translation of the Bible into a common language, English.

c. Luther identified many errors in the Latin Bible when he translated it into the original Greek.

Woodcuts from Passional Christi und Antichristi, Lucas Cranach (1521)

This image is from a picture book , Passional Christi und Antichristi, illustrated by Lucas Cranach with text by reformer Philip Melanchthon and published in Wittenberg in 1521. The collection was composed of a total of thirteen pairs of woodcuts showing the opposing behaviors of Christ and the pope as the Antichrist. In this image, Christ tips over the moneylenders’ table while the pope instead collects money for indulgences.

1. How does the last print suggest Christ viewed those exchanging money in the temple?

a. They filled him with righteous anger.

b. He appreciated the service they provided for poor believers

c. He thought their service was important but wanted it to be free

2. How is the Pope depicted and what is the message to viewers?

a. He is now the one taking money in the church and protestants, like Jesus, want to chase him out.

b. The Pope is like Jesus driving the protestants out of the Church

c. The Pope is now the one providing a necessary service for the poor believers

History and the Other Disciplines: Linguistics

Before Luther, there was no single common German language. Instead, there were various German dialects including the two dominant forms, upper German and low German. Monks made dictionaries, such as the Abrogans, but they were different from area to area. Luther was fluent in both dialects since he grew up in Mansfeld on the border where the two linguistic regions met. After writing the Ninety-Five Theses and sparking the controversy that would end with his excommunication and the Edict of Worms that named him an outlaw, Luther was captured on the road back to Wittenberg by a band of men dressed as highway bandits. However, the abduction was organized by a sympathetic Frederick III who offered Luther asylum at Wartburg Castle. While there, Luther translated the Bible from the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts into a new form of German that would change the language permanently and serve as a model for future German translation. Luther’s knowledge of both forms of German allowed him to translate the Bible into a version of the German language that everyone could understand. He used a Middle German dialect heavily influenced by eastern German regions and the royal Saxon court. “He listened to the man in the street, the woman in the kitchen to the child playing,” says German theologian Margot Kässmann, “[Even] today . . . our language is really Luther’s." Luther spoke of the difficulty of translating the Bible into a new common German language in his Sendschreiben vom Dolmetschen (Principles of Translation) saying, “I have constantly tried in translating to produce a pure and clear German, and it has often happened that for two or three or four weeks we have sought and asked for a single word and sometimes have not found it even then. In working at the Book of Job, Master Philip, Aurogallus and I could sometimes scarcely finish three lines in four days. Now that it is translated and complete, anyone can read and criticize it, and one now runs his eyes over three or four pages and does not stumble once.” Luther's translation of the New Testament was printed in 1522 and the full Bible was printed in 1534. Through the dissemination of his German Bible, Luther heavily influenced the spread of his adapted German language and transformed the German language as we know it today.

Historical Thinking Prompts

1. How do the scholars in this section argue that the ideas of Luther’s reform were spread to the people? What different methods do they each emphasize? Are there points on which some of the authors agree? Use details, examples and quotes to support your assessment of these arguments.

2. What do the primary sources reveal about the ideas of Martin Luther and how they differ from the traditional Catholic practice? What seem to be Luther’s main arguments? Use supporting quotes from the pieces in your answer.

3. What is Oettinger’s main argument in her book? Using the primary pieces by Luther and the songs in this collection (History through Literature) discuss whether Oettinger’s argument seems to be supported by the evidence from the time period.

4. What does Ozment say about the role of artists like Cranach in the Reformation? What evidence can you see of this in the visual sources in this collection? Why might this medium have been important for reaching the common man?