A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

If indulgences were to be sold, there was no point in doing it half-heartedly. Albert chose a
Dominican named Tetzel, a skilled salesman. He would approach a town preceded by a trumpeter
and a drummer, and would be met by the town dignitaries, who walked with him in solemn
procession, preceded by the papal cross. Then Tetzel would preach a hellfire sermon in the market
place until everybody was shuddering, and old ladies rushed home to count their pennies and see if
they amounted to a gold piece. Monks collected the cash and handed over the pieces of paper.
In fact, indulgences were not to be sold in Wittenberg. This was not due to religious scruples, but to
the fact that Luther’s own prince, Frederick the Wise of Saxony, held the franchise for that area.
Nevertheless, many of Luther’s parishioners hastened to cross into Prince Albert’s territory to take
advantage of the offer. Luther was disgusted. To Frederick’s embarrassment, he preached against
this blatant commercialism, this cut-price salvation. And on the eve of All Saints, 1517, he posted
on the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg a placard, written in Latin, containing ninety-five
theses which he challenged theologians to debate. His first point was that Rome was too rich.
‘Before long... Rome will be built of our money.’ He was, of course, mistaken. The pope was rich,
but he was always broke. Papal indulgences do not remove guilt, said Luther, and they endanger
the soul by generating a sense of false security...
Luther’s chief target was Albert, so he sent him a copy of the theses. Albert, naturally, sent a copy
to the pope, who is reputed to have remarked: ‘Luther is just a drunken German; he will feel
different when he is sober.’ The problem did not strike him as particularly serious. Indeed, it was
not particularly serious. A papal bull correcting the worst abuses of indulgences would probably
have satisfied everyone, including Luther. Instead, the pope decided to do nothing for the time
being. If Luther wanted theological argument, he should get it in due course. Meanwhile, he could
be ignored. And back in Wittenberg, Luther continued quietly with his duties. Most of his fellow
townsmen disagreed with his attack on indulgences - they felt that the Church could not be entirely
wrong about how to go about saving souls. Meanwhile, someone had spread the controversy by
having Luther’s attack translated into German and printed in the form of broadsheets. This made it
a subject of debate all over Germany. On the orders of the pope, Luther’s superiors ordered him to
repudiate his ninety-five theses; he refused politely - pointing out that they were not, in any case,
dogmatic assertions, but subjects for debate. The Augustinians were unwilling to condemn Luther,
for he was under attack from their chief rivals, the Dominicans, the detested order who became
‘Inquisitors’ and burned witches and heretics. Meanwhile, Luther was preparing to defend himself
by studying the Bible, and concluded that the text ordering ‘penitence’ was a mistranslation; it did
not say ‘do penances’ but simply ‘be repentant’. So the argument gradually became warmer. The
preacher Tetzel attacked Luther; Luther replied; their arguments were rushed into print. Germans
who had long felt resentful about the wealth of the Church began to nod in agreement. A
Dominican named Prieras described Luther as a leper with a brain of brass and a nose of iron, and
Luther retorted with an attack on Boniface VIII, calling him a wolf. Everybody could understand
abuse, and the broadsheets achieved a new popularity. Suddenly, everyone in Germany had heard
of Martin Luther.
Eighteen months after he had nailed the theses to the church door, the Church decided to grant
Luther’s request for a debate. It was to take place in Leipzig, and the Church was to be defended by
a scholarly monk named Johann Eck. In 1519, Luther walked into Leipzig, followed by two
hundred of his students with battle axes. They remembered what had happened to Jan Hus, and
were willing to put up a fight if the bishops tried to do the same thing to Luther. When the debate
began in the great hall of the castle, Eck immediately accused Luther of holding some of Hus’s