500 Years Ago

[Vonz90]

..... Martin Luther nailed the 95 Thesis to a church door that served as the bulletin board for the seminary he taught at ...... Happy Reformation Day

(Celebrated today - actually happened on the 31st)

[Steamforger]

Eddie Izzards "Eine minute, bitte" about this moment and the break from Cathol was pretty funny.

[Netpackrat]

Thus kicking off centuries' worth of bloodshed and upheaval...

[Rich]

Herr Luther, meet Herr Gutenberg's legacy.

[Langenator]

Actually, Gutenberg preceded Luther by many decades (1440s for Gutenberg).

So when Luther decided to translate the Bible into Hochdeutsch, the method of distribution already existed.

What is somewhat underappreciated is the effect this had on increasing literacy in the European population.

[blackeagle603]

And to think he imagined it was just going to spark a thoughtful collegial debate... /heh/

[First Shirt]

Read somewhere, recently, that the Reformation survived because of Luther's wife. She started a vegetable garden to feed the students that they took in as boarders, and then expanded to raising sheep, cattle, and hogs. Pretty soon, they had a full-fledged business going, selling the excess to local merchants.

Her efforts enabled them to live pretty well, despite the Catholic churches efforts against them.

Wish I could find the article, it was a pretty good one.

[Vonz90]

Actually, Gutenberg preceded Luther by many decades (1440s for Gutenberg).

So when Luther decided to translate the Bible into Hochdeutsch, the method of distribution already existed.

What is somewhat underappreciated is the effect this had on increasing literacy in the European population.

It is unlikely the Reformation would have taken off the way it did without the printing press. There was about a fifty year stretch where the majority of all of the books printed in Europe were written by Luther and a big part of the remainder were books arguing that Luther was wrong.

And of course he was the first to advocate universal education (for boys and girls) since he advocated "Sola scriptura" so it became a religious duty to educate one's children.

By the way, he also invented Hochdeutsch as an amalgamation of the different German dialects.

Cool stuff

[Langenator]

Lest anyone lose sight of Luther's acid tongue: http://ergofabulous.org/luther/

[Rich]

Actually, Gutenberg preceded Luther by many decades (1440s for Gutenberg).

So when Luther decided to translate the Bible into Hochdeutsch, the method of distribution already existed.

What is somewhat underappreciated is the effect this had on increasing literacy in the European population.

Thanks, edited original post to fix it.