Martin Luther

German philosopher and reformer Martin Luther is credited with starting the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Luther sparked a movement that changed several fundamental Christian doctrines by his words and deeds, dividing Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant faiths, primarily Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism, the Anabaptists, and the anti-Trinitarians. He is among the most important people in the development of Christianity.

Luther's family relocated from Eisleben to Mansfeld, a tiny town 10 miles (16 km) to the northwest, not long after Luther was born. In 1492, his father, Hans Luther, a successful local copper refiner, was elected to the Mansfeld town council. Apart from his memories as an old man, there are few sources of knowledge regarding Martin Luther's boyhood; it is understandable that they appear to be influenced by a certain romantic nostalgia.

At the request of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521, he refused to renounce any of his writings, which led to his excommunication by the Pope and his sentencing as an outlaw by the Emperor.