Life of Luther | Page 4

the land
in the eldest son, was not recognised; either the property was equally
divided, or, as was customary in other parts of the country, the estate
fell to the share of the youngest. This custom was referred to in after
years by Luther in his remark that in this world, according to civil law,
the youngest son is the heir of his father's house.
We must not omit to notice the other reasons which have been assigned

for his leaving his old home. It has been repeatedly asserted, in recent
times, and even by Protestant writers, that the father of our great
Reformer had sought to escape the consequences of a crime committed
by him at Möhra. The matter stands thus: In Luther's lifetime his
Catholic opponent Witzel happened to call out to Jonas, a friend of
Luther's, in the heat of a quarrel, 'I might call the father of your Luther
a murderer.' Twenty years later the anonymous author of a polemical
work which appeared at Paris actually calls the Reformer 'the son of the
Möhra assassin.' With these exceptions, not a trace of any story of this
kind, in the writings of either friend or foe, can be found in that or in
the following century. It was at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
in an official report on mining at Möhra, that the story, evidently based
on oral tradition, assumed all at once a more definite shape; the
statement being that Luther's father had accidentally killed a peasant,
who was minding some horses grazing. This story has been told to
travellers in our own time by people of Möhra, who have gone so far as
to point out the fatal meadow. We are forced to notice it, not, indeed, as
being in the least authenticated, but simply on account of the authority
recently claimed for the tradition. For it is plain that what is now a
matter of hearsay at Möhra was a story wholly unknown there not
many years ago, was first introduced by strangers, and has since met
with several variations at their hands. The idea of a criminal flying
from Möhra to Mansfeld, which was only a few miles off, and was
equally subject to the Elector of Saxony, is absurd, and in this case is
strangely inconsistent with the honourable position soon attained, as we
shall see, by Hans Luther himself at Mansfeld. Moreover, the very fact
that Witzel's spiteful remark was long known to Luther's enemies,
coupled with the fact that they never turned it to account, shows plainly
how little they ventured to make it a matter of serious reproach. Luther
during his lifetime had to hear from them that his father was a
Bohemian heretic, his mother a loose woman, employed at the baths,
and he himself a changeling, born of his mother and the Devil. How
triumphantly would they have talked about the murder or manslaughter
committed by his father, had the charge admitted of proof! Whatever
occurrence may have given rise to such a story, we have no right to
ascribe it either to any fault or any crime of the father. More on this
subject it is needless to add; the two strange statements we have

mentioned do not attempt to establish any definite connection between
the supposed crime and the removal to Eisleben.
The day, and even the very hour, when her first-born came into the
world, Luther's mother carefully treasured in her mind. It was between
eleven and twelve o'clock at night. Agreeably to the custom of the time,
he was baptised in the Church of St. Peter the next day. It was the feast
of St. Martin, and he was called after that saint. Tradition still identifies
the house where he was born; it stands in the lower part of the town,
close to St. Peter's Church. Several conflagrations, which devastated
Eisleben, have left it undestroyed. But of the original building only the
walls of the ground-floor remain: within these there is a room facing
the street, which is pointed out as the one where Luther first saw the
light. The church was rebuilt soon after his birth, and was then called
after St. Peter and St. Paul; the present font still retains, it is said, some
portions of the old one.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--HANS LUTHER.]
When the child was six months old, his parents removed to the town of
Mansfeld, about six miles off. So great was the number of the miners
who were then crowding to Eisleben, the most important place in the
county, that we can well understand how Luther's father failed there to
realise his expectations, and went in search of better prospects to the
other capital of the rich mining district. Here, at Mansfeld, or, more
strictly, at Lower