Martin Luther Trivia
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97 free Martin Luther trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Martin Luther was a miner's son who meant to be a lawyer, promised Saint Anna in a thunderstorm that he would be a monk instead, and ended up splitting Western Christianity. This quiz follows the man from Eisleben and Erfurt through the Augustinian cloister to Wittenberg, the indulgence-seller Tetzel, the Ninety-five Theses (nailed to a door or not), the shouting match with Cardinal Cajetan, the burning of the papal bull, the Diet of Worms and the staged kidnapping that hid him in the Wartburg as 'Junker Jörg'. It then covers what he built and what he broke: the New Testament translated in ten weeks, the full German Bible, the marriage to a nun smuggled out in a fish wagon, six children in a former monastery, the catechisms, the German Mass, the hymn called the Battle Hymn of the Reformation, the Marburg row with Zwingli over the Eucharist, and the harsher side too, from the call to slay the rebellious peasants to the antisemitic treatises of 1543. Easy questions suit anyone who did the Reformation at school; the expert tier asks which thesis mentions Crassus. For the wider movement, Calvin, Zwingli and Henry VIII, try our Reformation quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Luther, his wife, the Wartburg and his works, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Martin Luther is remembered as the seminal figure of which movement?
The Protestant Reformation
Luther launched the Protestant Reformation with his Ninety-five Theses of 1517; his theology became the basis of Lutheranism, though he asked his followers to call themselves simply Christians or Evangelicals.
Q 02In which town was Luther born in 1483, and where did he also die?
Eisleben
Luther was born in Eisleben on 10 November 1483 and died there on 18 February 1546, three days after preaching his last sermon in the town.
Q 03What did Luther's father Hans do for a living?
Leased copper mines and smelters
Hans Luder, a former miner, leased copper mines and smelters around Mansfeld and sat on the town council; he was determined that Martin, his eldest son, should become a lawyer.
Q 04At which university did Luther study, later describing it as 'a beer house and whorehouse'?
Erfurt
Luther entered the University of Erfurt at 17 in 1501, took his master's degree in 1505 and enrolled in law there before dropping out almost at once.
Q 05Caught in a thunderstorm in July 1505, Luther cried out a vow to which saint that he would become a monk?
Anna
He cried 'Help, Saint Anna, I will become a monk!'; taking the words as an unbreakable vow, he sold his books and entered a monastery on 17 July 1505.
Q 06Which religious order did Luther join in 1505?
The Augustinians
He joined the Augustinians in July 1505; his superior Johann von Staupitz, worried by his excessive introspection, steered him toward an academic career.
Q 07At which university did Luther teach theology from 1508 for the rest of his career?
Wittenberg
At Wittenberg he received his doctorate on 19 October 1512 and two days later succeeded Staupitz as chair of theology, a post he held until his death in 1546.
Q 08Luther's core doctrine held that a sinner is declared righteous by what alone?
Faith
Luther held that a sinner is made right with God by faith alone (sola fide); in the Smalcald Articles of 1537 he called this 'the first and chief article' of Christian doctrine.
Q 09Which Dominican friar's sale of indulgences in Germany prompted Luther's protest in 1517?
Johann Tetzel
Johann Tetzel, a Dominican, preached the 1517 indulgence meant to fund the rebuilding of St Peter's in Rome, though half the takings were secretly diverted to repay the debts of the archbishop who had licensed the sale.
Q 10How did the indulgence jingle 'As soon as the coin in the coffer rings' end?
the soul from purgatory springs
The jingle ended 'the soul from purgatory springs'; Luther's Thesis 27 condemned preachers who claim a soul flies out of purgatory as soon as the coin clinks in the chest.
Q 11What was the formal title of the document known as the Ninety-five Theses?
Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences
The Ninety-five Theses bore the formal title 'Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences'; Luther wrote them in Latin in 1517 as propositions for an academic debate on indulgences.
Q 12According to the traditional story, where did Luther nail his theses in 1517?
All Saints' Church, Wittenberg
Tradition has Luther nailing the theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg in 1517; some scholars doubt it, since the story rests on a colleague who only reached Wittenberg in 1518.
Q 13Which thesis asked why the pope, richer than Crassus, did not build St Peter's himself?
Q 21In which castle did Luther hide from May 1521 to March 1522, calling it 'my Patmos'?
Wartburg
Luther hid at the Wartburg, above Eisenach, from 4 May 1521 to early March 1522, growing a beard and living there in disguise.
Q 22Under what alias did Luther live while in hiding in 1521-22?
Junker Jörg
As 'Junker Jörg' (Knight George) Luther passed for a minor nobleman while in hiding, growing his hair and beard to look the part for ten months.
Q 23What major work did Luther complete during his ten months in hiding in 1521-22?
A German translation of the New Testament
His German translation of the New Testament, made from the Greek in about eleven weeks while in hiding, was printed in September 1522 as the 'September Testament'.
Number 86
Historian Hans Hillerbrand notes the tone was 'searching, rather than doctrinaire', with an undercurrent of challenge.
Q 14Which cardinal questioned Luther for three days at Augsburg in 1518, in hearings that became a shouting match?
Cajetan
Cardinal Cajetan, the papal legate, examined Luther at Augsburg on 12-14 October 1518 and demanded that he recant; Luther refused and slipped out of the city by night.
Q 15At the 1519 Leipzig Debate, which theologian branded Luther 'a new Jan Hus'?
Johann Eck
Johann Eck, debating Luther at Leipzig in 1519, branded him a new Jan Hus after Luther denied that popes or councils were infallible; Hus had been burned for similar views in 1415.
Q 16Which 1520 papal bull threatened Luther with excommunication unless he recanted 41 propositions?
Exsurge Domine
Exsurge Domine, issued on 15 June 1520, condemned 41 of Luther's propositions and gave him 60 days to recant; he burned the bull publicly at Wittenberg on 10 December 1520.
Q 17Which pope excommunicated Luther in January 1521?
Leo X
The excommunication was still in force when Luther died and has never been lifted.
Q 18For which feast did Luther write the hymn 'Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her'?
Christmas
'Vom Himmel hoch' (From Heaven Above to Earth I Come) is Luther's Christmas hymn of 1534, retelling the angel's message to the shepherds in the Nativity story.
Q 19Which words attributed to Luther at Worms do scholars consider unreliable, appearing only in later versions?
Here I stand
'Here I stand, I can do no other' is absent from the earliest accounts of Worms; what is recorded ends 'I cannot and will not recant anything... May God help me. Amen.'
Q 20Which prince protected Luther, obtaining his safe conduct to Worms and then staging his 'kidnapping'?
Frederick III, Elector of Saxony
Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, had Luther seized on 4 May 1521 by masked horsemen posing as highway robbers near Altenstein on his way home from Worms, then hidden in one of his castles.
Q 24The complete Luther Bible, with the Old Testament, was published in which year?
1534
The complete Luther Bible, Old and New Testaments with the Apocrypha, appeared in 1534; Luther kept refining the translation until his death, and it helped shape standard German.
Q 25Which artist made anti-papal woodcuts for the Luther Bible and witnessed Luther's wedding?
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Lucas Cranach the Elder cut anti-papal woodcuts for the 1522 New Testament, stood witness at Luther's wedding in 1525, and painted the portraits that fix how Luther looked.
Q 26Luther's German translation influenced which English one, itself a forerunner of the King James Version?
The Tyndale Bible
Luther used the German of the Saxon chancellery so both northern and southern Germans could read it.
Q 27Which biblical passage did Luther leave out of his translation, rejecting it as a forgery?
The Johannine Comma
The Johannine Comma, the Trinitarian clause in 1 John 5:7, was left out by Luther as a later insertion; other editors put it into Luther Bibles only after his death.
Q 28Which New Testament book did Luther call 'an epistle of straw' in his 1522 preface?
James
In the preface to his 1522 German New Testament Luther called James 'an epistle of straw' beside the Gospels and Paul's letters, because it said little about Christ.
Q 29How were the twelve nuns, including Luther's future wife, smuggled out of their convent in 1523?
Hidden among herring barrels
On Easter eve, 4 April 1523, a merchant who delivered herring to the Nimbschen convent drove the twelve nuns away in his covered wagon, hidden among the herring barrels.
Q 30How many children did Luther and Katharina have?
Six
They had six children between 1526 and 1534: Hans, Elisabeth, Magdalena, Martin, Paul and Margarethe; Elisabeth died in infancy and Magdalena died in Luther's arms at 13.