Martin Luther, Lutheranism and "Social Discipline" in the Experience of the German Reformation (Third Quarter of the 16th Century)

Martin Luther did not expect that the consequences of the Reformation, as well as his doctrine of "Christian liberty," would have a negative effect on the masses and encourage them to revolt. In this regard, it was necessary to address the question of the regulation of the people, where Luther assigned the main role to secular authority and a program of education and social control of German subjects, which later in German historiographical scholarship Gerhard Oestreich would call "social discipline" or "Sozialdisziplinierung." In this study the author will attempt to analyze the transformation of the religious aspects, which since the Middle Ages had allowed the church to control its flock, into secular aspects, using Martin Luther's ideas about the reorganization of Christian society and the implementation of these ideas in practice in German cities in the third quarter of the sixteenth century as examples.