Traveling Back in Time: All Saints' Day 1517

by Joy A Schroeder

It is All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1517, in Wittenberg, Germany. This day commemorates the saints who dwell in heaven with God. Crowds fill the unpaved street that leads to the castle’s All Saints’ Church. Visitors wrinkle their noses at the lingering smell of garbage and sewage — a never-ending problem in 16th-century Europe (a problem that especially plagued Wittenberg). Apart from the castle and two churches, the town is fairly unimpressive. Most of Wittenberg’s 2,500 inhabitants live in squat wooden houses or thatched mud cottages. Yet today, the little town has an air of festivity.

Some pilgrims are eager to see the church for the first time. Completed eight years earlier, All Saints’ Church — built as a wing of the Wittenberg castle — is a stately structure with high vaulted ceilings. Visitors looked forward to seeing new paintings in the style we now call Renaissance, hearing the sweet chanting of the choirboys, giving offerings, praying at one of the church’s 19 side altars, and lighting candles. (According to church records, worshipers burned a total of 40,932 candles in 1517!)

All Saints’ Church, more commonly referred to now as the Castle Church, was a special project of the Elector-Prince of Saxony Frederick the Wise. (He was called "elector" because he was one of seven men — four princes and three bishops — charged with electing the Holy Roman Emperor to a lifetime term.) Frederick had hired painters, carvers, metalworkers, and other artisans to make the Castle Church splendid. But the most priceless treasure at All Saints’ was its collection of relics.

What the fuss was about
All Saints’ Church possessed an astounding number of relics — 19,013 of them, filling nine crowded aisles in the church’s gallery. Relics were displayed in impressive containers, or reliquaries, made of gold and other precious metals. Deeply devoted to the saints, Frederick had greatly expanded the collection. (He had even acquired St. Anne’s thumb on his travels.) The collection is said to have included barbs from Jesus’ crown of thorns, five drops of the Virgin Mary’s milk, straw from baby Jesus’ manger, part of his diaper, a twig from Moses’ burning bush, and several dozen pieces of Christ’s cross.

Visitors were eager to see the collection of relics not simply because they were interesting, but because venerating the relics there on All Saints’ Day carried a great spiritual benefit: a plenary indulgence.

"Indulgence" didn’t mean chocolate
In the spring, when the Castle Church opened its gallery and collection for public view on the second Monday after Easter, Christians viewing the relics there were promised an indulgence of 100 days for each relic (relief from 100 days in purgatory). A Christian venerating all 19,013 relics was assured release from more than 52,000 years in purgatory!

But in the fall, there was an even more valuable indulgence offered at the Castle Church, a rare and special plenary (full) indulgence offered every October 31 and November 1. This plenary indulgence was said to release a living person from all the purgatorial suffering accumulated since baptism. (It did not apply to future sins.) Plenary indulgences could also be applied to souls already in purgatory, allowing the suffering souls to enter heaven immediately. All a pilgrim had to do to earn the plenary indulgence was make a full confession to one of the priests specially appointed for the task and then venerate the relics. The Castle Church’s plenary indulgence always drew a crowd.

However, in 1517, Frederick feared that the crowds and the offerings flowing to his Castle Church would be fewer because of a new indulgence offered for sale in a town 22 miles away across the territorial border. The proceeds of this new indulgence, publicized by the Pope and the Archbishop of Mainz, would help build the ornate Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. The archbishop had even brought in a team of friars to promote the new indulgence aggressively. From Frederick’s perspective, that was cause for concern.

Frederick had barred the sale of the St. Peter’s Basilica indulgence in his territory of Saxony. The money that Germans spent on the St. Peter’s indulgence would flow into Italy rather than helping the local economy. In contrast, the voluntary offerings collected at the Castle Church supported some excellent local causes, including Frederick’s newly established University of Wittenberg.

Martin Luther and 95 Theses
Frederick wasn’t the only one who was concerned about the indulgence offered for sale outside Saxony. Dr. Martin Luther, a monk serving as the university’s professor of biblical studies, had just written a set of 95 theses (academic debate propositions) on the topic of indulgences.

On October 31, provoked by the St. Peter’s indulgence and the questionable way it was promoted, Luther wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz and enclosed his 95 Theses. According to tradition, Luther posted the 95 Theses on the north door of the Castle Church on the same day. (It is quite possible that Luther did tack a placard with the 95 Theses to the church door, since this was the customary place for members of the university to post theses and invitations to academic disputations. However, some scholars now debate whether the theses were actually posted on October 31.)

The audience for the 95 Theses was not the crowds of people gathering at the Castle Church, most of whom were illiterate. The theses were written in Latin, intended for an academic readership. Some of the wording was technical, dealing with theological distinctions incomprehensible to the ordinary townsperson or peasant. Yet some parts of Luther’s document would strike a chord: "Christians are to be taught that one who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than one who buys indulgences." And, "They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory" — almost directly quoting the energetic salesman at work over the border.

Though he was not yet world-famous, Luther was already well-known to the townspeople of Wittenberg, for he had served as their parish preacher at St. Mary’s, across the market square from the castle, for the last four years. Lately his sermons had questioned the veneration of the saints. Only a year earlier, he had raised concerns about the indulgences available at the Castle Church. While Luther’s criticisms offended some townspeople (including Elector Frederick), others were curious to find out what he had to say about the St. Peter’s indulgences.

Within two months, aided by the printing press, German translations of the 95 Theses were available to eager readers throughout Saxony and beyond.

Many changes would be coming to Wittenberg, including a readable new German translation of the Bible, the marriage of clergy, and more. The priceless relics would be removed from display in 1523. After Frederick’s death in 1525, his successor John would destroy the relics and melt down the reliquaries for their precious metals.

All of this was yet to come, however. As our crowd enters the Castle Church, some people are penitent, pondering their numerous sins in preparation for confession. Many are relieved that their souls will be freed from the years in purgatory they had accumulated.

Others in the crowd are joyous and hopeful, knowing that their devout prayers and the All Saints’ indulgence would release departed loved ones from purgatorial anguish. Today Mama or Papa would enter heaven! However, in the minds of some, there might be doubt, as they remembered the words of their parish preacher, Martin Luther. They knew he was a wise and holy man who thought deeply about such things. Maybe the promises the archbishop’s salesman made about indulgences really were true, but then again, maybe they weren’t. Maybe the parish preacher and university teacher was right after all.

The Rev. Dr. Joy A. Schroeder serves as associate professor of religion at Capital University and associate professor of church history at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, in Columbus, Ohio. She is the author of Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation (Fortress Press, 2007) and many articles about women in church history.

What are relics?
Relics are objects associated with Christ and the saints. These could range from a chip of bone from the body of a saint to bits of the Virgin Mary’s clothing and even items used in Christ’s passion. Objects that had been touched or used by holy people were also regarded as powerful (as in Acts 19:11–12, where cloths touched by St. Paul had healing properties). People believed that even though saints’ souls were in heaven, they still had some awareness of their bodies. Thus people praying before the thumb of St. Anne, Jesus’ grandmother, at the Castle Church felt more certain that this holy lady would hear their prayers and offer her own prayers of intercession on their behalf. The practice of venerating relics may be as old as the third century.

But were these chips of bone, bits of cloth, and splinters of wood really what they were said to be? Some might have been. But the medieval practice of buying and selling relics — sometimes for astonishing sums — was a certain temptation to fraud. King Louis IX of France paid 10,000 silver marks in about 1250 for what he believed was the crown of thorns. Other inauthentic relics were the result of pious misunderstandings and a lively souvenir trade in the Holy Land. For instance, many pilgrims brought home souvenir replicas of the nails used for the crucifixion. Decades later, pilgrims’ descendants might believe that their great-grandmother or grandfather brought home the actual nails!

It is important to note that the Roman Catholic church has never taught its members to worship Mary, the saints, or their relics. Christians might venerate (love and respect) the saints, but not worship them; worship must be offered to God alone. However, it was believed that the saints in heaven pray to God for believers still on earth. The church taught that, just as a living brother or sister in Christ might pray for us, the saints in heaven continue to keep fellow Christians in their prayers.

About purgatory and indulgences
According the theory of purgatory, Christians are forgiven their sins through confession and absolution. However, they still needed to perform some penance (such as prayers, pilgrimages, or service to the poor) before their souls were ready to be admitted into the holy presence of God. But since even a lifetime of good works was not sufficient to offset ordinary Christians’ accumulated penances, they were still subject to a period of purification before entering heaven — purgatory.

One of the ways that the soul’s term in purgatory could be shortened was through indulgences. The merits accumulated by the good works of Christ and the saints were viewed as a sort of treasury or storehouse that the church could open and grant to individuals, both living and dead. And the medieval church had drawn up an elaborate "quantification" of purgatory: so many days in purgatory for this sort of sin, so many days of indulgence for that kind of good work.

This system was ripe for abuses, and the sale of indulgences was one of them. For instance, the decree announcing the St. Peter’s indulgence said that people buying the indulgence must be "contrite in heart," go to confession, or "at least have the intention of confessing at a suitable time." In other words, there was a sort of "loophole" permitting one simply to intend to confess one’s sins. One of Martin Luther’s objections to the sale of the St. Peter’s indulgence was that some people interpreted this to mean that no penitence was required of the sinner. No confession, no absolution, no penance — just money.