The Life of Martin Luther Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1483

November 10th, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony.

Answer: Miner

He was a miner and smelting master in Mansfeld, a town not far from Eisleben. Copper mining in the area had been going on since the 12th century.

Answer: Law

Hans Luder (as the name was pronounced locally) came from peasant ancestry with ambitions to get ahead in life. He was a strong-willed and harsh man, but he found his match in his son.

Answer: He saw a vision of the virgin Mary

Luther himself gave various reasons for his choice to become an Augustinian monk, but he never claimed to have seen the virgin Mary, although he often complained about being pestered by devils and demons. In 1507, Luther was ordained into the priesthood. In 1508 he was assigned to the University of Wittenberg where he received his bachelor's degree in theology in 1509.

Answer: 95

Although this was a common way to announce academic disputations, recent research shows no actual proof that Luther nailed his theses to the church door. For certain is that on October 31, 1517, he wrote letters to his superiors where he criticized certain church practices. He enclosed 95 theses in those letters.

Answer: True

"Indulgence, in the Roman Catholic Church, the pardon of temporal punishment due for sin. It is to be distinguished from absolution and the forgiveness of guilt. The church grants indulgences out of the Treasury of Merit won for the church by Christ and the saints. Indulgences may be plenary, i.e., a full remission of all temporal punishment; or they may be partial, i.e., a remission of part of the temporal punishment. [...] The practice of quantifying indulgences stems from ancient usage, when actual public penance was imposed and remitted for specified periods as the church saw fit. Hence, the penitent who is granted an indulgence receives merit as if he had performed actual penance for the length of time specified. The degree of merit varies with the disposition of the penitent. The notion that this practice encourages moral laxity is denied by the church, since the penitent must be in a state of grace and the attachment to even a single venial sin will reduce the effectiveness of the indulgence. Indulgences won for souls in purgatory are applied only as God wills. [...] Since the Council of Trent (1562) the buying and selling of indulgences has been unlawful."
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press

By the late Middle Ages, many people had come to see indulgences as a substitute for confession and penance. Members of Luther's congregation would come to him with indulgences they had purchased and expect him to give absolution for whatever transgression the indulgence had been for. Luther was strongly opposed to this practice, especially since it appeared that the church was encouraging it in order to raise money. Luther himself believed that salvation could be neither earned nor bought, but was a gift from God in exchange only for faith.

Answer: All of these

Luther refused to recant any of his beliefs, although he did write conciliatory letters both to church and secular rulers.

Answer: She was a former nun

Born in 1499, Katharina von Bora was the daughter of an impoverished nobleman. She went to convent school from the age of five and became a nun when she was only sixteen. In 1523 she and eleven other nuns escaped from the convent and took refuge in Wittenberg. The marriage resulted in six children.

Answer: Wenceslas Bible

The Wenceslas Bible is a "deluxe" Old Testament written out between 1390 and 1400 on request by King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia. It contains over 600 miniatures and rich margin illustrations. The other Bible versions are more recent than the Luther Bible. Nearly all the translations available at the time were from the Latin Vulgate - and not particularly reliable.

Answer: The ruler of a region determined its religion

This peace agreement signed in 1555 also stated that people whose religious beliefs differed from those of their region were allowed to leave. The treaty only referred to Catholics and followers of Martin Luther and did not extend to Calvinists or Anabaptists or to the members of sects.