Daniel Lee
HIS-1101-XTIB 12/T1 (Williams)
10 October 2012

Book Report
Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther. Third Printing Hardback March 2011. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, LLC, 1950.
Bainton’s Here I Stand is a chronologically arranged biography of Martin Luther’s life which seeks to show his philosophy and ideas for the reform of the Catholic Church without seeking to perform psychoanalysis of the Reformer.
The book has twenty two chapters separated in groups of various events in Luther’s life. These different episodes are then further divided by concentrations of ideas or events that happened during a given time period. I felt the books main portion is the run up to the Diet at Worms which I …show more content…

Another, according to this work, misconception about Martin Luther was his Ninety-Five Theses being directed solely at the Dominican Tetzel a vendor of indulgences. (Frankforter and Spellman pg 382) When, in fact, Luther was already critical of indulgences before this at least three times in the year 1516 (pgs 52-56) and it was Albert of Brandenburg who had orchestrated the particular indulgences which Tetzel was merely entrusted to carry out. (pgs 59,60) Another fact overlooked is Tetzel was not even allowed in Wittenberg because of Frederick the Wise not wanting any interference (pg 61) with the 5,005 particles of relics which could reduce purgatory by 1,443 years in 1509 or (after amassing more than 19,013 holy bones) 1,902,202 years and 270 days on All Saints in 1520! (pg 53) The author also makes an interesting observation over ‘Hawking Indulgences’ a woodcuts print showing the sale of indulgences. Most treatment of this subject plays down the audacity of the amount of money these indulgences were making (so much that new coins had to be minted on the spot) (pg 59) importance of the print and instead focus on the printing press with a