‘The history of the Reformation is very largely a history of books and publication,” writes Marilynne Robinson in an essay on the schism within Western Christianity and one of the great seismic movements of the last millennium. On the eve of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation comes this volume by the British historian Andrew Pettegree, which demonstrates how the writings of the seminal figure in the movement, Martin Luther, electrified Germany, recasting religious thought and revolutionizing the printing industry. What Robinson calls the “bookishness” of the Reformation can be attributed to Martin Luther and his proficiency with the written word: his style, his output, and his fascination for (and close involvement with) the printing process. Luther, Pettegree argues, became the world’s first mass media figure, an instantly recognizable and eminently profitable product. Brand Luther is the original tale of an unparalleled marketing force.
Pettegree opens with an interesting conceit, imagining Luther on a walk through provincial Wittenberg in 1513—four years before he ignited the Reformation by tacking his 95 theses against corrupt practices to the door of a local church—and then contrasting it with a similar walk in 1543, by which time the city was irredeemably changed, the country split, and the continent convulsed. In 1513, Luther was unknown and could walk undisturbed to the university through poor, dirty streets. Pettegree then shows how, 30 years later, Luther would have taken the same steps but in drastically transformed surroundings. This one-print-shop town—a city Luther previously declared on the edge of civilization (“in termino civilitatis“)—is now a teeming, thriving powerhouse of the publishing world whose economic renaissance is entirely due to its favorite son.
Wittenberg’s transformation is only one of three at the heart of this book. The other two—the metamorphosis of an earnest young monk into a bestselling author and the emergence of a mass-market book industry from a scholarly, Latinate book world—are given more coverage and consequently prove to be more interesting. Pettegree’s treatment of Luther’s early years constitutes a vivid portrait of a preacher as a young man. We see how Luther’s spiritual journey was fraught with theological struggles. Chief among them was his opposition to the trade in indulgences, which for him was a crude financial transaction that cheapened repentance: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”
His condemnation of indulgences—or rather, his “disputation” on their “power and efficacy”—is outlined in his 95 theses, and Pettegree singles out and skillfully analyzes those that show Luther at his most provocative. In thesis 86, Luther’s words are not so much bold as rash:
And so the causa Lutheri, or Luther affair, begins with Luther’s opponents from Wittenberg to Rome at loggerheads over how best to deal with the “insolent monk” or “son of perdition.” In the meantime, an unsilenced Luther spreads his message, from pulpit and, crucially, in print. Pettegree explains that in 1518 and 1519 Luther became Europe’s most published author, with printers churning out numerous editions of his books and pamphlets. His phenomenal success was, in part, a result of his facility as a vernacular writer. Unlike the traditional verbose discourses of the day, Luther’s Sermon on Indulgence and Grace was a master class in brevity that got straight to the heart of the matter.
But while Luther started a revolution in theological writing and secured an even greater readership in 1520-21, it was in this period that he was officially pronounced excommunicate and outlaw. With tracts such as To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, in which he proclaims that the papacy is so corrupt it is beyond reform and that “Antichrist himself could not possibly rule more abominably,” it was only a matter of time before Luther was brought to heel. Forced to swap his freedom in Wittenberg for isolation in the Wartburg, Luther goes from heretic to hermit. But Pettegree reminds us of how Luther put his punishment, or rather containment, to good use: translating the Bible into German. In only 11 weeks he had completed a first draft of the New Testament.
With Luther’s release, reappearance in Wittenberg, and increased efforts for a reformed Christianity, Pettegree opens up a new strand and focuses on that other fundamental transformation, the explosion of the publishing industry. Enter artist, businessman, and “master technician” Lucas Cranach, who provided strikingly exquisite woodcut title-page designs for Luther’s works and painted iconic “propaganda piece” portraits of the reformer. According to Pettegree, “It was Cranach who would be the authentic creator of Brand Luther” and who ensured that, by the time of his death (1546), Luther’s was one of the most famous faces in Christendom.
The combination of distinctive art and succinct written word (in colloquial German) was a winning formula. To cope with the demand, printers risked larger editions of Luther’s writings, at times up to 3,000 copies against the standard run of 300-700 for small pamphlets. Between 1521 and 1526, 85 percent of the published editions of Luther’s works, and those of his followers and allies, were in German. In the same period, when sales of pamphlets were at their height, Luther and his supporters outpublished their Roman Catholic rivals by nine to one.
Pettegree states at the outset that it was not his intention to offer another biography of Martin Luther. This is clear: Brand Luther is far more than a biography. That said, it is difficult to relate how (as the subtitle has it) “an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe—and started the Protestant Reformation” without recourse to biographical elements. There are plenty of them, but Brand Luther is all the better for it. We learn about Luther’s loyal flock and black sheep—those prepared to follow him and those he repudiated—his conflicts with the likes of Erasmus, his pleasures (food, beer, music, and family) and his principles—one being his preference to make no money from his books. When he died “there was no roaring and no groaning. The Devil did not come to claim him, as his enemies had so gleefully foretold.” Pettegree astutely notes that, by publishing Luther’s funeral orations in over 30 editions, the printers turned out to be as instrumental in his death as they were in his life.
Some readers may argue that in clinging to Luther’s life story Pettegree veers off topic and incorporates too much peripheral detail. To some extent this is true, particularly when that detail is inconsequential (do we need to know that, while holed up in the Wartburg, Luther suffered from chronic constipation?). And yet it must be said that the bulk of Pettegree’s tangents yield riveting lesser-known facts. How many of us knew that Luther was a pioneer in the field of female education, calling for the establishment of new schools for girls that followed a similar curriculum to that of German boys’ schools? Or that he produced a splenetic tract on Jews in Germany that was so antisemitic it was avidly cited centuries later by the Nazis?
Pettegree expertly guides us through Luther’s years and achievements and impresses with thorough readings of Luther’s various works: not only his famous theses but also his treatises, manifestoes, lectures, catechisms, and correspondence. He also gives edifying commentaries on the classical motifs and biblical scenes that comprise Cra-nach’s beautiful and innovative designs, many of which adorn the book’s pages. Most of all, though, Pettegree deserves credit for his fresh slant on the Reformation and his dynamic storytelling. There are junctures where he tries to crank up tension by inserting jarring modern-day clichés (“Luther had truly burned his boats. . . . Luther had attempted in some way to pull a fast one. . . . From this point on Luther would be a marked man”) but he has far more success when holding back and trusting history alone to keep the reader entranced. One of the book’s standout sections—Luther incurring the wrath of Rome and awaiting final papal judgment—is genuinely thrilling, precisely because Pettegree allows events to unfold, unembellished, on the page.
Brand Luther is a neat blend of two stories, the theological and the commercial. At the same time it is a shrewd character study of one who was revered by some and reviled by others. Contrasts and divisions abound, but what also emerges is an intriguing paradox, which Pettegree describes thus: “Printing was essential to the creation of Martin Luther, but Luther was also a determining, shaping force in the German printing industry.” Each depended on the other. And as this absorbing and illuminating book capably shows, after Luther, print and public communication—and indeed, religion—would never be the same again.
Malcolm Forbes is a writer and critic in Berlin.
