But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability.
The social revolutions of the past few centuries have altered the very meaning of family for many, but the deep effects of familial relationships remain, stamping our existence as if with indelible ink. In one of his most famous poems, Philip Larkin bemoaned,
They [mess] you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.1
No familial relationship seems more formative than that between fathers and sons. Many therapists are kept in business helping men process their paternal relationships or lack thereof. Historians also seek to understand their subjects in light of the father-son dynamic, and none more so than Martin Luther. In the 20th century, particularly following the 1958 release of Erik H. Erikson’s book Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History, it became popular to attribute nearly all Luther’s words and actions in adulthood to his relationship with his father, Hans Luther. Their relationship was seen to mark the beginning of a lifelong rebellion against authority figures, an equally long effort to gain paternal approval, or some combination of the two.
But while scholars are right to focus on the bond between Martin and Hans, the evidence of Martin’s own words suggests their relationship may not have been as troubled as some suppose. For Hans Luther was not a cartoon villain but a normal human being attempting to make his way in the world and raise his children to the best of his ability. In the end, he trusted in the same God to save him who had lit such a fire in his son.
Early Years and Rise to Prominence
In 1459, Hans Luther was born into a family of peasants in Möhra, Germany. (Ludher was the original family name until Martin changed his surname to Luther, meaning “freed one”). However, Hans had no intention of staying there. Though upward mobility was more difficult to achieve in feudal Europe due to its strictly defined social hierarchy, Hans pulled off an epic double act. First, he joined the mining industry in the Harz Mountains, where he would eventually work his way up to master smelter (the rough equivalent of a successful business owner today). Second, he married Margarethe Lindemann, a woman from the more highly regarded merchant class.
“I was born at Eisleben, and baptized in the church of St. Peter there,” Martin explained years later. “I do not remember this, but I believe my parents and compatriots. My parents had migrated thither from Eisenach hard by.”2 They were not to remain ‘hard by’ for long.
It is uncertain how many children Hans and Margarethe had in total (Luther biographer Lyndal Roper hypothesizes they may have lost multiple children to plague), but the number is usually placed around seven or eight. Martin was the eldest boy—at least, the eldest to survive past childhood—and his father invested significantly in his education in the hope that he would become a lawyer. This is the main thing most people know about Hans Luther: he wanted Martin to become a lawyer, but Martin became a monk instead.
But why would Hans have wanted Martin to become a lawyer? It was likely due to the practicalities of their living situation. When Martin was born, the family lived in Eisleben, but they soon moved to the larger mining center of Mansfeld. Here, Hans reached the height of his career, making enough money to construct a fine brick house for the family. Yet, his position as a master smelter meant he often faced legal hurdles that required expert handling. His desire for Martin to become a lawyer was essentially a desire to have him join and promote the family business, a typical trajectory for young men in that era. There was nothing unusual about it.
A Troublesome Son
However, Martin’s response was decidedly unusual. After an initial attempt at law school, he chose instead to become a monk in the Order of St. Augustine. In the preface to his later work On Monastic Vows, Martin admitted to his father that he did this “without your knowledge or consent.” When Martin explained to his father that he had promised to become a monk after a near-death experience with a lightning bolt, Hans evidently responded, “God grant it was not an apparition of the Evil One that startled you.” Martin later testified in the preface to On Monastic Vows,
The words sank into my heart as if God had uttered them, but I hardened my heart against it, till you exclaimed, ‘Hast thou never heard that one should obey his parents?’ In spite of this most powerful word I ever heard out of a human mouth, I persevered in my own righteousness, and despised you as being only a man.
Hans did eventually accept Martin’s decision, arriving with a large retinue to attend his son’s first Mass as a priest of the church. But tension seems to have remained in the relationship, for Martin would later say to his father that while “at last you gave way…you did not lay aside your care,” meaning that Hans was still somewhat upset. This may have even been the case in 1521 when Martin wrote On Monastic Vows, his formal refutation of such lifelong commitments, for he still seems in that text like he is working to reassure Hans. “I trust [God] has deprived you of your son,” he wrote, “so that, through me, He may help the sons of many others.”3
Hans had originally hoped for Martin to make a good marriage, likely with one of the other prominent families in Mansfeld. Ironically, the vast changes brought about by the Reformation and Martin’s unique position in that movement allowed him to marry Katharina von Bora in 1525. She was the daughter of a knightly family: one step above the Luthers in the societal pecking order. Martin admitted to friends that he had married in part to fulfill his father’s wish,4 and it may have led to a softening in their father-son relationship. It was not the life Hans had envisioned for his eldest son, but it turned out to be a good life all the same.
Ties that Bind
The depth of Martin’s feeling for his father is best seen in his reaction to Hans’ final illness and death. After hearing a report from his younger brother that Hans had taken a turn for the worse, Martin sent his father a letter and admitted, “As the weather is bad and the season dangerous, I am very anxious about you. For though God has given you a strong, tough body, yet your age and the inclemency of the weather give me disquieting thoughts.”5
Of particular importance in this letter, Martin spoke of “the blessed teaching of…our Lord Jesus Christ, to which doctrine you have now been called and to which you have come out of the former terrible darkness and error.” This suggests that at some point, Hans embraced Martin’s teaching about law and gospel. Martin wrote that God “has given you grace to believe by His Spirit, and has prepared and accomplished all most surely, to that you need not care nor fear any more, but only keep your heart strong and reliant on His Word and faith.”
After Hans passed on to his heavenly reward, Martin wrote to Philip Melanchthon,
This death has cast me into deep grief, not only because he was my father, but because it was through his deep love to me that my Creator endowed me with all I am and have, and although consoled to learn that he fell asleep softly in Christ Jesus, strong in faith, yet his loss has caused a deep wound in my heart….I am too sad to write more today, and it is only right to mourn such a father, who by the sweat of his brow made me what I am. But I rejoice that he lived to behold the light of the truth.6
Hans Luther was a father who cared deeply for his son and did what he could to promote his well-being. Martin’s rebellion as a young man led him eventually to become the theologian known to history. Over the years, Martin strove to honor both his earthly and heavenly fathers, reaching a point of understanding with Hans that seems to have been beneficial to both. Most significantly, Hans Luther came to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, even as his son had done.
The mining industry in the Harz Mountains was winding down by the end of Hans’ life. There would be no great Luther mining dynasty. Instead, the name became known worldwide for its association with a new reforming theology. Hans did not initially support his son’s journey into theology, but in the end, he made peace with it to the benefit of the world.
Notes
1 “This Be The Verse,” Philip Larkin.
2 “217. Luther to Spalatin – January 14, 1520,” in Luther’s Correspondence and other Contemporary Letters, vol. 1, trans and ed. Preserved Smith (The Lutheran Publication Society, 1913).
3 “69. To Hans Luther – November 21, 1521," in Luther’s Correspondence and other Contemporary Letters, vol. 1, trans and ed. Preserved Smith (The Lutheran Publication Society, 1913).
4 “690. Luther to John Rühel, John Thür and Caspar Müller at Mansfeld – June 15, 1525," Luther’s Correspondence and other Contemporary Letters, vol. 2, trans and ed. Preserved Smith (The Lutheran Publication Society, 1918).
5 “868. Luther to Hans Luther at Mansfeld – February 15, 1530,” in Luther’s Correspondence and other Contemporary Letters, vol. 2.
6 “217. To Philip Melanchthon – June 5, 1530,” in Luther’s Correspondence and other Contemporary Letters, vol. 2.
