Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Chapter One Martin Luther, 1483-1546 1

Reformer 7

Church Leader 22

Summary 25

Key Events 26

Chapter Two Salvation in the Late Middle Ages 27

Salvation in the Early Church 27

Salvation in the Medieval Church 28

Salvation in the Late Medieval Church 30

Luther’s Understanding of Salvation 33

Summary 35

Key Events 35

Portraits 36

Chapter Three The Ninety-Five Theses 37

Background 37

The Ninety-Five Thesis 41

Content of the Ninety-Five Thesis 42

Significance 46

Summary 47

Key Events 48

Chapter Four The Three Treatise of 1620 49

To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Church (1520) 52

The Babylonian captivity of the Church (1520) 56

The Freedom of the Christian (1520) 61

Significance 65

Summary 65

Key Events 66

Chapter Five The Bondage of the Will 67

The Battle of Wills 72

Luther and The Bondage of the Will 76

Significance 79

Summary 80

Key Events 81

Chapter Six Against the Peasants and the Jews 83

Luther and the Peasants 84

Luther and the Jews 93

Assessment 100

Summary 101

Key Events 102

Postscript

Martin-Luther: An Assessment 103

Appendix

Annotated Chronology of Luther’s 109

Reformation Writings

Bibliographical Note 133

Index 135

Maps

Town’s of Luther’s Germany, circa 1530 xii

Divisions of Religions, circa 1560 108

About the Author

Paul R. Waibel is professor of history at Belhaven College. He is the author of Politics an Accommodation (1983), Quick-notes: Christian History (2000), and with Michael D. Richards, Twentieth-Century Europe: A Brief History, (1999, 2005) as well as numerous articles and reviews in scholarly journals, periodicals, reference works, and anthologies. Professor Waibel holds degrees in history from Lynchburg College, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia University. He was a Fullbright-Hayes Scholar at the University of Bonn, Germany, and an NEH Fellow at UC Berkeley.