1517
Did Martin Luther really post his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Castle Church door in October 1517? Probably not, says Reformation historian Peter Marshall. But though the event might be mythic, it became one of the great defining episodes in Western history, a symbol of religious freedom of conscience which still shapes our world 500 years later.
Delivery date: Contact us by email on delivery date range
Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517 is one of the most famous events of Western history. But did it actually happen? In this engaging work of cultural history, leading Reformation historian Peter Marshall reviews the evidence, and concludes it probably did not. Yet if the theses-posting is a myth, this makes it all the more historically significant. As the world prepares to remember, and celebrate, the 500th anniversary of Luther's posting of the theses, Marshall traces how a 'non-event' ended up becoming a defining episode of the modern historical imagination. The result is a compelling study of how the past speaks to the present - and of how, all too often, the present creates the past in its own image and likeness.
