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During the Schmalkaldic War, which broke out after Martin Luther’s death, the Spanish troops defeated the Protestant princes and overran much of Saxony, including Wittenberg.

When the Spanish soldiers stood at Luther’s grave in the Castle Church, they demanded that Luther’s body be exhumed and his bones burned as befits a heretic.

But Emperor Charles V stopped them. He is said to have declared: “I do not make war on dead men!”

This story seems to be a golden legend, but it shows the passions Luther aroused. The Reformation Luther began was not merely a theological dispute but an event that disturbed all areas of life—social, economic, and political.

Luther’s writings on church and state profoundly challenged the prevailing views. He formed his ideas, however, not as a political philosopher but as a person confronting real situations.

His correspondence, especially during the last fifteen years of his life, shows him constantly involved in political situations, advising and urging city councils concerned with “urban reformation,” and chastising episcopal and secular princes.

For example, in replying to an inquiry made to him in 1528, he wrote, “You ask whether the magistrate may kill false prophets. I am slow in a judgment of blood even when it is deserved. In this matter I am terrified by the example of the papists and the Jews before Christ, for when there was a statute for the killing of false prophets and heretics, in time it came about that only the most saintly and innocent were killed. ... I cannot admit that false teachers are to be put to death. It is enough to banish.”

Luther’s final journey, in the dead of winter, was taken to restore amity between two territorial princes, brothers who had fallen out over property.

Luther enjoyed the protection and generosity of the electoral Saxon princes. Frederick the Wise (1486–1525) protected him from papal and imperial forces because Luther was his subject and the best-known professor at his recently founded University of Wittenberg (1502).

Religious reasons played a minor role at best, for Frederick understood little of the new evangelical theology and cherished his extensive relic collection until he died. He used the court chaplain and lawyer Georg Spalatin as a go-between with Luther to avoid compromising himself more than necessary during the dangerous controversies of the day.

Frederick’s brother John (ruled 1525–1532) was a true believer in Luther’s reform movement, and his son John Frederick (ruled 1532–1547) was a convinced evangelical who considered Luther his spiritual father.

These cozy relationships have led some to speak of Luther’s Reformation as a “princes’ reformation,” meaning it was primarily a political revolution—local princes asserting their power against Rome under the guise of a theological dispute.

This assessment has been completely revised by contemporary historians. Why? Among other reasons: Luther’s attacks upon the ecclesiastical princes in the early years, his harsh criticism of the secular princes during his later years, and the development of his theory of resistance. His polemic against Catholic Georg of Ducal Saxony combines theological arguments with devastating irony and ridicule.

In his letters and sermons, Luther often urged rulers to moderation and equity, but he named names when he blasted the evil princes, contrary to many of his contemporaries.

“There are lazy and useless preachers,” he thundered, “who do not denounce the evils of princes and lords, some because they do not even notice them. ... Some even fear for their skins and worry that they will lose body and goods for it. They do not stand up and be true to Christ!”

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