Qualla: Lutherhaus

Lutherhaus: Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hannelore Hopfe, CC BY-SA 3.0. Martin Luther lived in this building for nearly forty years. He moved in as a young Augustinian friar in 1508 or 1509, when it was still the Black Monastery of the Augustinian Hermits and he was a junior member of the order sent to Wittenberg to study. He wrote the 95 Theses while teaching here in 1517, an act that did not actually involve nailing anything to a door (the Theses door is the Schlosskirche, two streets away) but that did, within a few years, get the building's whole religious order suppressed. After 1524, when most of the friars had left and the Elector of Saxony handed the empty building over to him, Luther moved in for good with his wife Katharina von Bora and their growing family of children, students, and visiting reformers. He died in his hometown of Eisleben in 1546, but he had spent the bulk of his adult life in this house in Wittenberg - eating, drinking, arguing, translating the Bible, building his children carved entryways as birthday presents. The Lutherhaus is the world's largest Reformation museum. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. It is currently closed for renovation through Spring 2027.

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Image: Hannelore Hopfe | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lutherhaus: The Black Monastery

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Volker Henze at German Wikipedia, Public domain. The University of Wittenberg opened in 1502, and the next year the Augustinian Hermits were given land near the Elster Gate to build a residence hall and academy for their order's students. Construction began in 1504 on a brick monastery the locals called the Black Monastery, aft...

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Image: Volker Henze at German Wikipedia | Public domain

Lutherhaus: Marriage and the Table Talks

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1521 Luther had been excommunicated and was forced into hiding at Wartburg Castle. The Peasants' War of 1524-1525 emptied the monastery completely as the friars left their order. In 1524 the Electorate of Saxony handed the empty buildings over to Luther personally. The next ye...

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Image: Kim Traynor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lutherhaus: Boarding School and Hospital

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rathaus_Wittenberg_2011.jpg: Felix König derivative work: Regi51 (talk), CC BY 3.0. After Luther's death in 1546 the family kept the house for nearly twenty years before selling it back to the university in 1564. The university converted it into a boarding school and added the imposing exterior spiral staircase. The refectory was given a new vaulted ceiling. The...

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Image: Rathaus_Wittenberg_2011.jpg: Felix König derivative work: Regi51 (talk) | CC BY 3.0

Lutherhaus: Museum and World Heritage

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MatthiasKabel (shifted, cropped & recoloured by Rabanus Flavus), CC BY-SA 3.0. The Lutherhaus has been a museum since the late nineteenth century and is now the world's largest collection of Reformation-related material. It contains many original objects from Luther's life: his pulpit from the Stadtkirche down the street, his friar's habit, paintings by Luc...

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Image: MatthiasKabel (shifted, cropped & recoloured by Rabanus Flavus) | CC BY-SA 3.0