Martin Luther

Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483 in northern Germany, within the Holy Roman Empire to an upper class peasant family (they owned land).His father, Hans, was an independent farmer and miner. Although Hans never got an education himself, he valued it so much so that he forced it upon his at son (he wanted him to go for law school). Hans did not like the church, he believed that religion clouds the mind. Whenever Martin did something deemed wrong he would be beat to a pulp by his father. Martins mother Margaret was an orthodox catholic so her views of religion differed from Hans’. She would verbally harass her son telling him he is an awful person and should/will be damned to hell. This led martin to confess his sins seven to eight times a day. Martin’s view of G-d as he once said was, “I hated G-d. I view G-d as a gigantic ogre”, and who could blame him! Besides from the maltreatment from his family he received it at school as well. Every time he did something deemed wrong by the headmaster, he would be flogged (head dunked in water).

In the year 1501 at the age of 18 Martin Luther had the unique opportunity to attend the University of Erfurt. The reason why it was considered a unique opportunity was because during this time period not only were people poor but they were illiterate, hence secondary education would not have even been an option had they had the money to attend. At the university he was an obsessive student, always wanting to do better than before. While in the library one day he discovered two books hidden away covered in dust and cobwebs which most likely intrigued him further. The two books were, William Ockham’s The History of the Church which discussed the abuses of the church particularly during the t...

... middle of paper ...

...ey had created military alliances. Martin Luther passed away in 1547 unable to see what would be of his reformation. The 1555 Treaty of Augsburg temporarily ended the German protestant reformation with the clause “cuius regio eius religio” which translates to whose region his religion, meaning that whatever the religion of the king/ ruler is, is the religion of the people living there. This treaty puts the area on the verge of collapse! There were a total of 398 all of which were ruled by different leaders, had different set of laws, and just flat out functioned differently. Add to that religious fragmentation and you have a recipe for disaster. There are now 398 states that are fragmented politically and religiously, protestant in the north and catholic in the south. The area would then experience every major war fought in Europe throughout history (thus far).