Did Luther really nail the Ninety-five Theses to a church door?

Possibly, but historians are not sure, and the story shows how a famous scene can grow around real events. The Ninety-five Theses were real: a list of propositions for an academic disputation on indulgences, written in 1517 by Martin Luther, then a professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg. They were intended to begin a debate among academics, not a popular revolution, and there is no evidence that the disputation ever took place.

What is documented is a letter. On 31 October 1517 Luther wrote to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, under whose authority the indulgences were being sold, and in a postscript he said that some theses were enclosed. The door is shakier. Philip Melanchthon, who first mentioned the posting, said Luther posted the Theses on 31 October, but that conflicts with several of Luther's own statements, and Luther always claimed that he brought his objections through proper channels. He may not have posted them on the church door until mid-November, and he may not have posted them on the door at all.

The scene was not far-fetched. In April 1517 Andreas Karlstadt had posted his own, more radical theses on the door of All Saints' Church, as Luther was alleged to have done. And it was Melanchthon, in 1548, who established the posting in the history of the Reformation as the movement's beginning.

Whatever happened at the door, the printers took over. The Latin Theses were printed as a pamphlet in Basel and as placards in Leipzig and Nuremberg, several hundred copies in Germany in 1517. Did Luther want that? Elizabeth Eisenstein has argued that his claimed surprise may have involved self-deception, and Hans Hillerbrand that he was certainly intending to instigate a large controversy.