bavarikon4UDescription
Early in the year 1518, Martin Luther (1483-1546) summarised in German the most important aspects of his "95 theses" in his text "Ein Sermon von dem Ablaß und Gnade" (A Sermon on Indulgence and Grace). Usually, the theses which had been created in 1517 are regarded as the beginning of Reformation. Nonetheless, decisive developments had already taken place by then. The original Latin title of the text reads Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum. The theses basically contain Luther's criticism of the ecclesiastical system of indulgences and his plea for a new understanding of doing penance. It is God alone to bestow absolution by his grace. Humans cannot achieve absolution by their own efforts. On 31 October 1517, Luther sent the theses to the bishop of Brandenburg and to the archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz. A little while later, he started to discuss them with his friends and colleagues. It has, however, not yet been proven by scholarship, whether Luther's famous posting of his theses on the doors of the Wittenberg palace church actually took place or not. Printers disseminated Luther's thesis in public at first against his will. Workshops in Nuremberg, Leipzig and Basel reproduced them in c.300 copies each of which only a few have been preserved. With the "Sermon von dem Ablaß und Gnade" Luther's criticism of the system of indulgences had become known to the great number of literate people who did not understand Latin. The text soon became an incredible publishing success. Up to 1520, the Sermon was published in 22 editions by at least twelve different print shops. The exemplar shown here was printed by Jobst Gutknecht (d. 1548) in 1518 in Nuremberg. Datum: 2016
Author
Matthias Bader