Martin Luther: The Father of the Reformation

this video is sponsored by remote hq sometimes it's easy to get the whole team together in the same room other times you need remote hq more on that in a bit it's sometimes said that history turns on the smallest moments if that's the case then it's hard to imagine a moment smaller than the one that took place on october 31 1517. that day an obscure angry monk took a list of 95 things he was pissed off about and nailed it to the door of wittenberg church as gestures go it was dramatic but pointless a provincial stunt in one of the unfashionable corners of the holy roman empire yet it was from these humble beginnings that a series of events emerged that would shake both europe and christianity to their cause that pissed off monk was none other than martin luther and his actions were about to spark the reformation the eldest child of a large family with peasant origins martin luther was living proof of that old adage about some men being born to greatness while others have greatness thrust upon them all through his early life he showed no signs of being anything other than stubbornly ungreat but when the time came he would be the one who ushered in a brand new era in religious history [Music] in the end it was a storm that did it all the centuries of religious strife all the dead of the 30 years war none of it could have happened without one area of low pressure forming above germany in the summer of 1505. that's because that fateful july day a law student named martin luther just happened to be walking home when the storm broke right above him by all accounts it was one of those storms that only appears in fiction full of lashing rain and apocalyptic lightning terrified luther offered up a shouted prayer if the storm ceased he would quit his studies and devote himself to god almost immediately the wind debated just days later luther followed through on his vow from that moment on the course of western christianity was set the reformation was on its way the manhood ushered in was born on november 10 1483 the eldest of nine siblings although martin luther's parents were of peasant stock something he used to humble brag about they'd come far from their lowly origins luther's father hans had gotten into or refining and managed to build a decent business when luther was young hans was even made town councillor not quite ascending to the elite maybe but light years beyond what german peasants could normally dream of thanks to breaks like this martin luther was able to get an education learning latin and getting tutored by an ecclesiastical brotherhood he did so well that in 1501 hans enrolled him in erfurt university then the top place for brainy dudes to study the plan was for luther to study law get an awesome job and then drag the family ever further into what then passed for the middle classes by 1505 luther had his master's degree had purchased all his materials for the upcoming law course and generally settled onto a life track that guaranteed him both happy parents and utter obscurity but then the boy happened to go walking outside in july of 1505 and everything changed you already know the story from the cold open the lashing rain the zoo-sized lightning bolts that shouted prayer the vow to become a monk just days later via one blazing row with hans martin luther entered the monastery of the order of the hermits of saint augustine the augustinians at this time were split into two factions one which believed everything should be as strict and as joyless as possible and one which favored everything being just a little less crappy luther's monastery was part of the joyless half the so-called observant faction which meant cold rooms rising at the crack of dawn fasting confessing and other incredibly not fun things but luther took it like an unbaptized duck to holy water he followed the rules spent his time studying theology became almost the platonic ideal of a monk in fact at this stage in his life he showed no signs of rebellion or individual thinking at all by 1508 he was teaching theology at the university of wittenberg and doing a decent average job it would take the crisis of 1510 to finally shake him out of his rut that year pope julius ii announced that he was going to force the observant and non-observant augustinians to merge into a single order for luther's observant faction this was a little like being part of an upright fraternity suddenly told it has to merge with animal house there was outrage panic in luther's monastery the monks scrambled to find someone to go to rome and make their case before the pope and would you care to guess who they chose in late 1510 martin luther set out from germany for the first time in his life heading south for italy for the eternal city and the beating heart of western christianity what he saw when he got there would transform him from a pious average monk into the most dangerous heretic in [Music] europe have you ever spent years dreaming of visiting somewhere only for it to turn out to be just a bit crap in real life while that intense feeling of disappointment was probably only a fraction of what martin luther experienced in rome arriving at the end of the year the monk discovered not a shining christian citadel but a moral toilet in rome luther spent time with priests who were openly corrupt laughing at their followers as they charged extortionate amounts for saying mass he was so disillusioned that he fumed rome as a harlot and that was before the pope ignored his pleas to keep the augustinian orders separate by the time luther sloped back to germany he was exhausted depressed and his faith was deeply shaken but it would take several more years before this spiritual torment became outward action in the meantime luther settled into a life of teaching in wittenberg then an up-and-coming student town with a new university but wittenberg had something else going for it too it was a key part of the empire's future at the time astoria set germany as a nation didn't exist instead central europe was straddled by a bear moth known as the holy roman empire a collection of hundreds of states principalities duchies free cities and random valleys somehow wielding political power the empire under the catholic habsburg rulers considered itself the defender of european christianity yet while the habsburgs held the post of holy roman emperor it wasn't hereditary each new emperor had to be chosen by an imperial council of seven this meant those on the council wielded outside influence one of those seven was the elector of saxony frederick the wise although he was catholic frederick the wise was also a humanist and a relatively free thinker who believed in outrageous stuff like fair trials he was also both the guy in charge of luther's new hometown of wittenberg and the elector most openly trying to gain more autonomy from the emperor it would be these chance qualities that would soon turn frederick the wise into martin luther's staunchest protector but before we get there we have to pick out one more thread from this weave that's known as pre-reformation europe it's one more thread to add to our threads on frederick the wise the election system of the holy roman empire and martin luther's disillusionment it's one more thread that will explain how this giant upheaval managed to happen the thread marked indulgences in 1513 pope julius ii went to meet his maker and was replaced by leo the 10th now leo's whole thing was grandiose projects to fund his grandest the reconstruction of the basilica of saint peter he issued a new set of indulgences get out of jail free cards for sinners indulgences could be bought for cash in return for which the pope would absolve you of your mortal sins now technically you were supposed to both buy the indulgence and do some good deeds but by 1515 the system had dissolved into rich folks sinning away and then paying the church to ignore it because of this indulgences were pretty controversial among poor people who couldn't afford to covet their neighbor's arse or whatever but they were also frowned upon by the aristocracy many german princes felt indulgences were just a way for the pope to shake them down every time he wanted a new basilica so when the friar johann tetzel started touring what is now the east of germany shilling leo the 10th new cheat cards people were primed to react and here we are then at last the moment when all these threads we've been gently tugging at are going to be yanked together when that happens the entire weave known as europe is going to suddenly unravel and you can bet that there's gonna be lots of bloodshed now we're stepping away from martin luther for a quick minute to talk about a brand new sponsor remote hq no matter what line of work you're in there's a pretty good chance that you've had to have at least one meeting online here in 2020 lots of people are working exclusively from home right now and depending on 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than it does in modern germany of cars and autobahns but it still wasn't enough for martin luther seeing tetzel's shameless flogging of indulgences is just another part of the corruption it witnessed in rome luther finally snapped he wrote out a long objection titled disputation on the power of indulgences it contains 95 objections or theses all of which boil down to a handful of points one repentance is only possible through god himself not through the buying of indulgences two therefore the only human path to salvation is faith not worldly deeds three so selling indulgences is just a swindle to build the pope's new basilica or as luther put it why does not the pope whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest crassus build the basilica of saint peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers yet despite this criticism the overall tone of the 95 theses was pretty mild there's nothing in them to suggest that luther knew he was writing the most explosive document of the last 600 years but there's also no doubt luther wanted his words to find an audience once he'd finished writing he sat on his work until october 31 1517 the day before all saints day a day when thousands of pilgrims poured into wittenberg then when town was busy he marched out took his theses to the church and nailed them to the door at least that's the popular version in reality most scholars agreed that luther probably didn't nail his theses do anything what he did do though was sent copies to a bunch of people including friar tetzel's boss cardinal albert brandenburg it was these mailings that would turn a minor theological dispute into one of the biggest events in european history when albert received his copy he was livid not with ted's author so shamelessly hawking indulgences but with luther he forwarded his copy to rome demanding the pope investigate this heretic monk at the same time other copies of luther's 95 theses were starting to spread across germany thanks to the relatively recent technology of the printing press new copies could be distributed across a vast area in weeks rather than months or years before 1517 was over luther's work was appearing in leipzig nuremberg and even basel down in switzerland however luther wasn't the one spreading it the theses seemed to have touched a nerve one that compelled people to make their own copies for the elite luther's to raid against indulgences was a useful justification for not sending any more money to rome for the less wealthy it was the anti-italian sentiment they responded to the feeling that decent hard-working germans were being fleeced by a distant and greedy pope before long the theses were even being translated into german when luther found out he immediately set about publishing his own translations by the summer of 1518 the theses were everywhere at this stage the reformation wasn't yet reforming anything it was just a theological argument with some political grievances attached the sort of thing that were luther to play it badly or leo the tenth to play it well could have easily dissipated but if there's one thing luther was about to discover he was good at it was playing the pr game like a pro by summer 1518 martin luther's name was everywhere his 95 theses had caught the eye of his ruler frederick the wise who seems to have realized that he could use this monk as leverage so when the pope demanded luther present himself in rome to be cross-examined frederick was all like nah my boy stays here we can see this either as frederick staying true to his humanist principles or frederick flexing his political muscles at that moment the current holy roman emperor was on the brink of death rome had its own candidate it wanted on the throne but that meant not alienating electors like frederick so a compromise was reached with luther agreeing to be questioned in the german city of augsburg but while this was safer than rome it was still a bit dicey after just three days luther fled back to wittenberg but before he went he left another document attached to the cathedral door insisting on his rightness over the next year luther's ideas began to circulate more and more widely in a kind of domino effect the more people who read his work the more other dissidents began writing their own complaints only these new complaints were getting weightier and weightier challenging the authority of the pope himself but that's not to say martin luther was some kind of theological genius or anything at the leipzig debate in june of 1519 for example luther was demolished by johann eck who tricked him into defending some of the heretic yarn huss's positions given that janus had been burned at the stake a century earlier this was not a great look for luther but now the fight was just as political as it was religious on june 28 1519 the electors made 19 year old charles the fifth holy roman emperor to get the gigs the non-german charles had to make all sorts of promises to frederick the wise including an end to punishment without trial and to treat martin luther fairly it may have all been part of a plan to increase frederick's political clout but it also meant that luther was now effectively untouchable which may be why a fed up leo the tenth finally pressed the nuclear button on the 15th of june 1520 leo issued a papal bull accusing luther of heresy and giving him 120 days to report to rome such an order was a serious matter but by now luther had enough powerful supporters to fight back across the rest of the year luther issued three pamphlets one of them called the pope the antichrist while another written in german aimed to whip up the mob against rome declaring we have the empire in name but the pope has our wealth our honor our bodies lives and souls and all that we have oh noble princes and gentlemen how long will you suffer your lands and your people to be the prey of these ravening wolves it was rhetoric like this that made luther a hero to so many germans but his biggest broadside came when the pope's deadline finally ran out that december day luther cancelled his classes took the papal bull into wittenberg and publicly burned it the result was inevitable on january 3rd 1521 leo the tenth excommunicated martin luther from the church in normal circumstances excommunication was a death sentence by rights luther should have been arrested by the secular authorities and burned but there were two problems the first was that luther was now so infamous that executing him could have triggered anything from rioting to a civil war the second was that charles v had promised no more punishments without a fair hearing something luther patently hadn't had so once again a compromise was reached luther would travel to the german city of worms and face the accusations there this all could anyone have known the meeting in worms would turn into luther's greatest triumph [Music] the showdown between martin luther and charles the fifth came in april of 1521 and it's known as the diet of worms which conjures some pretty gross images but this was a diet in the sense of a formal meeting and interestingly luther wasn't very high on the agenda still that didn't stop the 30-something monk from milking it for all it was worth when martin luther left wittenberg it wasn't as a lone heretic shuffling off to his fate it wasn't even as a confident theologian striding out to do battle it was as a frigging celebrity the journey to worms took anything between 10 days to a month depending on which source you read all along the way luther was treated like royalty cities threw open their gates towns put on welcome displays at worms itself people are said to have scrambled onto rooftops to get a good look at him for millions of germans luther's argument with the church was now personal a david and goliath tale about one of their own standing up to the might of rome yet even amidst the triumphal procession luther knew the journey might be his last charles v promised him safe passage to worms but the same thing had been promised to the heretic jan huss a century before and ended up with him being burned alive the order to attend the diet could well be luther's death sentence despite all the drama though the diet worms got off to a fairly boring start some business had overrun so when luther arrived on april the 17th he was made to spend nearly the entire day waiting for his case to be heard it was only after hours of hanging around that luther was at last called inside there before the emperor a big pile of his books had been laid out presumably to show what a heretic luther was not that the two sides went straight into arguing luther was asked if he'd like to recant he asked for a day to think it over so everyone adjourned and got back together the next morning overnight word had leaked out about what was happening and this time the hall was jammed with spectators this meant luther had a captive audience for what would become his greatest speech over several hours luther pedantically proved by twisty logic and references to scripture why it was unnecessary for him to recant his killer point was to declare the bible the sole authority and say that it only retracts statements if they could be proven wrong using scripture finally he wrapped everything up by declaring here i stand god help me i can do no other well supposedly in reality this now famous statement was probably added later by biographers still it was a grand performance in response charles the fifth requested a day to think things over it's impossible to imagine how it felt being in germany for that long night a night when the future of many of the holy roman empire's state seemed to hang in a balance at last on april 19th charles declared he'd reached his decision luther was a heretic and should be put to death but in a major twist charles also announced that he was upholding his promise of safe conduct so as long as luther remained in worms while the dire was in session he would be unharmed it was an act of clemency that gave luther's supporters all the time they needed on april 26 1521 martin luther was kidnapped just outside worms almost everyone assumed that he'd been taken on the pope's orders and probably murdered but no instead frederick the wise had arranged for luther to be spirited away to a remote castle where he was given a false identity and placed into hiding there he remained for around a year quietly working on a translation of the bible into german while the world outside went crazy by the time luther resurfaced in march of 1522 the reformation would already be underway [Music] one of the key reasons the reformation exploded after the diet of worms is that it was never just a religious issue while plenty who followed luther were in it for the scriptural stuff plenty more were excited by his anti-italian stances while plenty more just saw an opportunity to shake things up a bit a whole swath of german princes for example were encouraged to support luther purely because doing so demonstrated their independence from the emperor in short it was the society-wide shake-up sort of how the explosion of populism in our own time turned everything on its head but times a million at one end of the spectrum you had things like the augustinian friars of wittenberg smashing up their own alt pieces and throwing off the cloth at the other you had the peasants war which ignited in 1524 and saw farmers rampaging across central germany fighting for increased political rights under the convenient banner of lutheranism in between there were riots new religious ordinances and serious reform efforts that completely transformed parts of europe and that's not even mentioning the other reformers who appeared in luther's wake like haldrick zwingli down in zurich or jean calvin in geneva yet even as the reformation geared up into a cultural transformation luther's part in it was already drawing to a close post-worms his role became ever more peripheral a change hastened by some bad decisions for example his lambasting of the peasants war was seen by some of his followers to be a betrayal of his own work and alienated many there was also bad luck such as frederick the wise's death in 1525 which robbed luther of his greatest patron still luther never quite managed to slip into total obscurity he still worked on his german translation of the bible a project that would help codify the written german language he also took part in drafting the augsburg confession the 1530 document that solidified the split between lutherans and reformists although he was far from the only author but mostly he settled down marrying an ex-nun and slowly drifting into ever-madder theories there was his growing anti-semitism for example which saw him call for pogroms and the burning of jewish homes and texts so vitriolic they later inspired the nazis less violent but also odd was his public support for polygamy for his non-horny non-anti-semitic admirers this was embarrassing in the extreme you can always hear them quietly rooting for him to just get on with it and die so they can focus on the good stuff and ignore the crazy racist uncle schtick martin luther finally obliged them on february 18 1546 dead at age 62 he was buried in the same wittenberg church it supposedly nailed his 95 theses to nearly 30 years earlier by this time his effect on history was already undeniable just before his death the council of trent had convened kicking off the counter-reformation a decade later in 1555 the peace of augsburg would formally recognize protestants in the holy roman empire allowing each individual ruler to choose between lutheranism and catholicism for his people but this would just be hitting the pause button 60 years later the unresolved tensions of the era would explode into the religious chaos of the thirty years war per capita still one of the deadliest wars ever fought by then though martin luther was just a memory today it's near impossible to overstate just how important this one monk was protestantism remains one of the biggest branches of christianity on earth itself by far the biggest religion while not every protestant denomination has a positive view of luther it was only thanks to his actions or in reaction to them that many of them ever got started but even when you strip away the religious aspect luther remains a vital figure in the six or so years when he was at his most prominent this once obscure monk laid the foundations of the future of central and western europe some of that was unquestionably good some of it like the 30 years war was unquestionably horrific but most it simply just was the reformation luther sparked is by now so a part of the western world's dna that it's impossible to imagine a timeline in which it never happened martin luther may have simply been in the right place at the right time to spark these changes but it was his own character that allowed things to play out as they did for better and for worse we are still living in a world shaped by his actions so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do smash that thumbs up button below don't forget to check out our fantastic sponsor remote hq link below and thank you for watching

Channel: Biographics

Views: 151,784

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: esU0jdW79cU

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020