Charles Beard: "Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany," Ch. 5, 12...

In 1497, Luther was in school at Magdeburg, a prosperous Cathedral city with an Archbishopric—Beard suggests it was a school of the “Brethren of Common Life” (128). Apparently, he sang and begged for food. In 1498, he was sent to Eisenach, again singing for food, and being taken in by a family of “good breeding,” the Cottas. In 1502, Luther became a Bachelor of Philosophy at Erfurt, “being the thirtieth among fifty-seven candidates” (133). In 1505, he became a Master, 2nd of 17. Erfurt was a place of abundance and with a university dating to 1379. Beard notes that between 1500 and 1520, a band of humanists gave Erfurt “first place among German Universities” (135). A notable Professor, John Wesel, mid-15th century, denounced indulgences insisting on Biblical authority (he's tossed into prison and dies there), but Luther was unaware of that influence. Cardinal Legate Raymond shows up in 1502 in Erfurt—at the Cathedral—with 60,000 in his retinue hawking large indulgences. “Corrosion” was at work rather than a direct collision between humanism and traditionalism. Luther is by no means the only anti-indulgence man on the scene.