Martin Luther, born in Germany in 1483, became one of the most influential figures in Christian history when he began the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. He called into question some of the basic tenets of Roman Catholicism, and his followers soon split from the Roman Catholic Church to begin the Protestant tradition.
It is interesting and fair to ask about the world into which Martin Luther was born. It was far different from ours in the twenty-first century!
The largest city in Europe in 1500 was Constantinople, but that had only 400,000 people. Only a few other cities approach the size of; say, Birmingham, Alabama, or Stockton, California, today: Paris had 200,000, Naples had 150,000, and Venice had 100,000. Then there was a clutch of smaller cities at about 50,000: London, Amsterdam, Moscow, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, and Florence.
Below that level of town, cathedral, county, and market towns might house several hundred people. That is, places like Salisbury in England, Rheims or Lyon in France, Bruges in Belgium, or Dortmund in Germany. Some of these towns were not very urban. They were just a couple of cross streets surrounded by fields with a market square. They would often swell during holiday periods or during markets to twice their normal size. They were all dependent on trade and that meant they were vulnerable to war and epidemic.
More prosperous peasants might have been able to afford a small house of stone or wood. All of these houses had thatched roofs and dirt floors. There might be one wooden door but few windows because they let in the cold.
In any case, most people didn't live in towns. The vast majority of Europeans lived in villages of less than 500 inhabitants, and sometimes as few as 50. The countryside was mostly empty and green, but perhaps in the distance one could spy the towers of a castle, a windmill, or most likely, the steeple of a village church. Any of these would reveal estate of a great landlord, known as a "manor”.
The building that would draw attention was the church. The church was virtually the only stone building in town apart from a manor house. It was the religious and social center of the village, where Sunday services were held and holy days - about 40 of them - were celebrated. Similarly, all the important rites of passage of one's life took place there - baptism, matrimony, and funeral. The church door was often the community “bulletin board”.
The church had no competition. There was one church per village. In most of Europe, there is only one legal religion. In the west it was what we today call Roman Catholicism. In the east it was one of the Christian Orthodox faiths. So, on Sundays, holy days, and funerals, the entire village turned up to hear the Latin or Greek Mass, performed behind an altar screen, and to hear a homily in the vernacular.
The homily was probably the only religious instruction and the only news people received. About 95 percent of the population was illiterate. The local priest was almost certainly selected by and remained employed by the landlord. He announced the news the landlord wanted people to have.
After Mass, there was socializing. Sundays and holy days were the only days people had off from working in the fields. There might be church ale or a feast associated with a particular saint. On Sundays and holidays, people would engage in football and stickball. Records show they often drank ale while sitting on the tombstones surrounding the village church.
There are a couple points to remember here. One is that the entire village is present, even past generations. The second is that obviously the church is the social as well as the religious center of the village. Contemporaries would actually have been shocked at the way we draw a line between those two things.
After the excitement of a church day, the villagers returned to their small, two-room huts or shacks. More prosperous peasants might at this stage be able to afford a small house of stone or wood. On entering one of these hovels, it takes some time to adjust to the darkness because of the lack of light and the smoke. When the eyes do adjust, they would see a “hearth” in the center. It was little more than an indoor campfire. This was the family's main source of light and heat and its main implement for cooking.
When the harvests were good, the average peasant's diet was pretty well balanced, if not particularly mouth-watering: rough, brown bread, pea soup, cheese, meat on very rare occasions, and ale or wine.
If the family was lucky, it might have had a second room to shelter the animals. Otherwise, during winter the animals were brought indoors. The animals were valuable and necessary for survival. They provided milk, cheese, and wool that might keep the family solvent or even alive during the hard times of winter.
Surrounding the village were the fields where the villagers worked.
