Rise And Impact Of Martin Luther

Michael Rauch

Professor Badara

RELS-2300-402-F17

9th December 2017

Who is Martin Luther Martin Luther was a very influential person in history that was one of the major kindlers of the Protestant Reformation. I aim to see who he was, what caused his discontent with the Church, and what impact he made in the rise and spread of Protestantism. Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany, in 1483 to a prosperous family. In the time of his birth the country of Germany was known as Saxony and owned by the Holy Roman Empire. When he was five years of age he attended a local school where he learned to read and write. Luther’s interest in religious life began when he was thirteen years of age when he attended a school run by the Brethren of the Common

The teachings of The Brethren rubbed off on Luther and his interest in the monastic life was born. Hans Luther, Martin’s father, did not approve of Martin’s desire and withdrew him from the school he was attending in Magdeburg and put him in a school in Eisenach. After finishing school there he attended the University of Erfurt. He studied the normal things that one would study at the time such as arithmetic and astronomy. The University of Erfurt was one of the best universities in Germany in Luther’s time and is still standing today, although significantly less prominent than it was then. Martin Luther received a Master’s degree in 1505. In July of the same year, Martin Luther got stuck in a huge thunderstorm that he thought he would not survive. He considered his survival a sign from god that he should become a monk and so he did. On the 17th of July in 1505 he joined the Augustinian monastery. After

Something that made this more common was the greater accessibility of the Bible. Luther greatly disagreed with the Roman Catholic Church’s practice of granting indulgences, or letting people pay money to remove sins, as he saw these practices as corrupt. Despite what he would obviously disagree with he had a basic religious stance that differed from the Roman Catholic Church. Luther believed that people could only be given salvation if they had the faith to do so, while the Roman Catholic Church believed that only by doing good things or being a good person would you be granted salvation, so while there were obvious reasons for Martin Luther’s dislike there was a fundamental difference in beliefs as well. In 1517 a friar began to sell indulgences to raise funds to renovate a church in Rome. In response to this Luther wrote The 95 Theses. The 95 Theses1 was a list of questions that with the intent of the questions to make people think about the religious practices of the Roman Catholic Church. The legend goes that on the 31st of October, 1517 Luther went to the church where the friar was selling indulgences and nailed a copy of The 95 Thesis to the door of the church2. His work spread around Germany and eventually to Rome where he was summoned to defend his opinions. On the 25th of May in 1521 Charles V ordered all of Luther’s writings to be burned.