Magdeburg and the Reformation

Luther came to Magdeburg as he was a teenager, attending a school at which taught the “Brethren of the Common Life”, also referred as the “Nullbrüder”, in the years 1497/98.

This brief time in the city by the river Elbe left its mark on Luther. Because of the daily contact to the “Nullbrüder” he experienced the Devotio Moderna, an influential reform movement of the Late Middle Ages that focused on achieving particularly personal and internalized godliness.

Nevertheless, in 1948 he left Magdeburg, because at the request of his father. Luther changed to the school in Eisenach, in the west of Thuringia. Three years later he began to study at the University of Erfurt and in the year 1505 he joined the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine – against his father’s wishes. A flash that barely missed Luther – so he argued - was responsible for his decision.
After his degree in Theology in Wittenberg, a town in eastern Germany in 1508/1509, Luther became the vicar of the Augustinian Order District of Saxony and Thuringia in 1514. This position brought him once again to Magdeburg, where he visited the Augustine monastery as part of his visitation travels.

Learn more about the personality Martin Luther.