This first volume in Martin Brecht's three-volume biography recounts Luther's youth and young adulthood up to the period of the Diet of Worms. Brecht, in a clear, eloquent translation by James Schaaf, discusses Luther's education at the University of Erfurt, his monastic life, his canonical trial in 1519, the Leipzig debate, and his earliest contributions to the beginning of the Reformation. Illustrations enrich the text.

Brecht here describes the years in which the distinctive aspects of the Reformation took shape. During this time four difficult conflicts—the Peasants' War, the interchange between Luther and Erasmus, debates on the Lord's Supper, and the rise of Anabaptist groups—strengthened the need to fashion new orders for governing the church and the need to develop new patterns for worship and the instruction of youth. Luther the theologian was occupied with problems of politics, economy, law, and education. In addition, his own life was altered by his marriage.

The third volume of Brecht's magnificent biography describes the final fourteen years of Luther's life, beginning with the accession of Elector John Frederick in 1532. The period is often treated briefly because some Reformation developments continued without him, his Catholic opponents paid only partial attention to him, his personality displayed great tensions, and his judgment, errors. Yet the preservation of the churchthose confessing the Reformation gospel being identical, according to Luther, with the truechurchdominated Luther's concerns. A work of immense and engaging scholarship, gracefully translated by James Schaaf, this volume offers comprehensive and original interpretations of Luther's private life, his congregation and the church in Saxony, his professorial lectures and theological controversies, Bible translation, Luther and the council of Trent, and his later writings about the Jews and Turks. With 34 illustrations.