Luther would not be buried here in Eisleben after all. This was because the Mansfeld counts had been outranked and overruled by the elector, who insisted that Luther be brought back home to Wittenberg and buried there, in the Castle Church, on whose doors he had posted his theses nearly three decades before. So the afternoon of the twentieth, Luther’s coffin was set in a wagon, and the church bells tolled as the wagon—accompanied by fifty horsemen—bore Luther’s body from the city of his birth, and now his death too. Around five that afternoon, the procession reached Halle, where a tremendous
...more
