Martin Luther
Biography
Martin Luther, born in Eisleben on 10 November 1483, went to school in Eisenach, entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt in 1505 and, as professor in Wittenberg, sent out the Ninety-five Theses on 31 October 1517. After the Diet of Worms in 1521 he was hidden on the Wartburg above Eisenach, where he translated the New Testament in ten months. Weimar, the seat of his Ernestine protectors, heard him preach between 1518 and 1540; his two sermons in the castle church on 24 and 25 October 1522 became the treatise On Secular Authority. The town church keeps the Cranach altarpiece of 1555 with Luther in it and the Lutherschrein of 1572, and the Duchess Anna Amalia Library holds nearly three quarters of all contemporary Luther prints, two of them on UNESCO's Memory of the World register. He died in Eisleben on 18 February 1546.
Eisleben 1483, Eisenach 1498–1501: a schoolboy in Thuringia
Luther was born in Eisleben on 10 November 1483. After a year at school in Magdeburg his parents sent him to Eisenach, where he attended the parish school of St George from 1498 to 1501 and learnt to speak and write Latin fluently; he lodged with the townspeople's families Cotta and Schalbe, in the house now known as the Lutherhaus. That house, one of the oldest half-timbered buildings in Thuringia, is a museum of Luther and the Bible today, and the Wartburg stands on the hill above the town.
Erfurt 1501–1508: the university and the Augustinian monastery
In April 1501 he came to Erfurt to enrol at the university and took his master's degree in the liberal arts in 1505. On 17 July 1505 he asked at the gate of the Augustinian monastery to be admitted, became a monk and then a priest, and in 1508 left the monastery and Erfurt for Wittenberg. The monastery, begun in 1276, stands complete with its church and three courtyards and can be visited.
Wittenberg 1512–1517: doctor of theology, and the theses of 31 October 1517
He was made doctor of theology in Wittenberg on 18 and 19 October 1512 and began lecturing in the winter of 1513. On 31 October 1517 he sent his Ninety-five Theses against the trade in indulgences to the bishops responsible for him, and the dispute over them turned into the Reformation. His prince, Elector Friedrich the Wise of Saxony, protected him from then on; the Ernestine line of the house of Wettin, whose seats included Weimar, stayed the protecting power of the new movement for the rest of his life.
Worms and the Wartburg, 1521–1522: the New Testament in ten months
On 17 April 1521 he stood before emperor and empire at the Diet of Worms and refused to recant. On the evening of 4 May 1521, on the way home near Schloss Altenstein, men of the elector staged his capture and took him to the Wartburg above Eisenach, where he lived as "Junker Jörg". On 18 December 1521 he began translating the New Testament into German; when he left the Wartburg on 1 March 1522 the draft was finished. Melchior Lotter the Younger printed it in Wittenberg in about 3,000 copies, and it went on sale on 21 September 1522 without the translator's name — the September Testament, priced between half a gulden and one and a half, half a gulden being about a carpenter's weekly wage. The Wartburg has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999.
Weimar 1518–1540: a pulpit in the town church, and the sermons of 24 and 25 October 1522
Luther was often in Weimar between 1518 and 1540. The first stay was a night in 1518 in the Franciscan monastery on the Böttchergasse, on the road to his hearing before Cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg; a plaque marks the place. He preached repeatedly in the town church of St Peter and Paul, completed in 1500, and in the castle church, where on 24 and 25 October 1522, outlawed and excommunicated, he gave two sermons before the electoral family on spiritual and secular authority. Duke Johann, who ruled from Weimar, had asked for them, and the treatise On Secular Authority grew out of them: the secular ruler's task is to punish the wicked and protect the good, above all the poor. Later visits were journeys of visitation and preaching, with lodging in the houses of court officials.
1525–1546: Wittenberg household, the last visits, death in Eisleben on 18 February 1546
On 13 June 1525 he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun. He came back to Weimar in 1537, when he left the diet of the Schmalkaldic League early and spent several days here under a doctor's care, and in 1540 to look after Philipp Melanchthon, his closest colleague, who had fallen ill in the town. He died in Eisleben, the town of his birth, in the third hour of 18 February 1546.
After 1546: the Cranach altarpiece of 1555, the Lutherschrein of 1572, and the prints in the library
In 1552 Elector Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, who had led the Protestant princes and lost his electoral lands, chose Weimar as his residence, and the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder, Luther's friend, came with him. The altarpiece of the town church, finished in 1555 by Lucas Cranach the Younger as the elector's epitaph, shows Luther with the open Bible in his hand beside the crucified Christ, and the church also keeps the Lutherschrein of 1572, a triptych with him as monk, as Junker Jörg and as Magister. The ducal library, today the Duchess Anna Amalia Library, holds nearly three quarters of all contemporary Luther prints, handed down from one Ernestine generation to the next; the complete Bible of 1534 and the Sermon on Indulgence and Grace of 1518 are on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
Questions visitors ask
- What connects Martin Luther with Weimar?
- Weimar was a seat of the Ernestine princes who protected him. He preached in the town between 1518 and 1540, gave the two sermons of 24 and 25 October 1522 in the castle church that became the treatise On Secular Authority, and the town church keeps the Cranach altarpiece of 1555 with his portrait and the Lutherschrein of 1572.
- When did Luther preach in Weimar?
- Repeatedly between 1518 and 1540, in the town church of St Peter and Paul and in the castle church. His first stay was a night in the Franciscan monastery in 1518 on the way to Augsburg; his last visit, in 1540, was to care for Philipp Melanchthon.
- Where did Luther translate the New Testament?
- On the Wartburg above Eisenach, where he was hidden from 4 May 1521 to 1 March 1522. He began on 18 December 1521 and left with the draft complete; the September Testament went on sale in Wittenberg on 21 September 1522.
- Where did Luther go to school?
- In Eisenach, at the parish school of St George from 1498 to 1501, lodging with the Cotta and Schalbe families in the house now called the Lutherhaus, which is a museum.
- Which Luther documents does Weimar hold?
- The Duchess Anna Amalia Library holds nearly three quarters of all contemporary Luther prints, among them the complete Bible of 1534 and the Sermon on Indulgence and Grace of 1518, both on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
- Where can Luther be seen in Weimar's town church?
- In the Cranach altarpiece completed by Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1555, where he stands with the open Bible beside the cross, and in the Lutherschrein of 1572, a triptych showing him as monk, as Junker Jörg and as Magister.
Notable Works & Achievements
The German Bible — the September Testament of 1522 and the complete Bible of 1534
The Ninety-five Theses of 1517
On Secular Authority, from the Weimar sermons of 1522
A Sermon on Indulgence and Grace, 1518
Connected Places in Weimar
Herderplatz, 99423 Weimar
He preached here repeatedly between 1518 and 1540; the church keeps the Cranach altarpiece of 1555 with his portrait and the Lutherschrein of 1572.
Platz der Demokratie 1, 99423 Weimar
It holds nearly three quarters of all contemporary Luther prints, two of them on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
Burgplatz 4, 99423 Weimar
In the castle church that stood here he gave the sermons of 24 and 25 October 1522 on secular authority.
Augustinerstraße 10, 99084 Erfurt
Luther asked to be admitted here in July 1505, was ordained a priest in the monastery in 1507, and lived here as a monk until he left for Wittenberg in 1508.
Lutherplatz 8, 99817 Eisenach
Auf der Wartburg 1, 99817 Eisenach
Historical Context
The movement he set going with the theses of 1517, in the town whose princes protected it.
For a hundred years Weimar is a Reformation town before it is anything else — and it becomes a capital by accident, because a prince who had lost everything else still had this place. The century leaves the town its market-square gables, an altarpiece the stewards rank among the main works of Reformation painting, and a court that never moved away again.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1483
1546
German