If you had been a child in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517, a large part of your education would have involved memorizing facts and reciting them back to your teacher in Latin. If you were caught speaking German instead of Latin, you would be severely punished. Then Martin Luther changed everything.
When Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, he wasn't planning a revolution. He wanted to bring about a discussion of the Roman Catholic Church's policies, particularly in relation to forgiveness of sin and the hope of salvation.
Not all of the factors that led to what's now called the Reformation were religious, but Luther's teachings and writings were at the heart of the movement. The invention, during this same period, of the printing press enabled them to spread like wildfire. "Under the stimulus of Luther's revolt the number of books printed in Germany rose from 150 in 1518 to 990 in 1524. Four fifths of these favored the Reformation. Books defending orthodoxy were hard to sell, while Luther's were the most widely purchased of the age. They were sold not only in bookstores but by peddlers and traveling students; 1,400 copies were bought at one Frankfurt fair; even in Paris, in 1520, they outsold everything else." Will Durant, The Reformation: A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), p. 368 .
