ABSTRACT
On the eve of Epiphany 1542, Martin Luther set up his last will. Luther's last will met only the requisites of canon law. In an agrarian society, the preservation of large estates was important in order to stabilize the economy and public power, and thus the property ought not be divided among the children. Luther's intention to leave everything to his wife would have been regarded as commonplace during the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. But for its time, it reveals a puzzling modernity. In his tract of 1520 on the Freedom of a Christian, Luther established that no good deeds or legal formalism could bring about redemption. A true Christian was marked by his faith and his inner capacity to do the right thing. Luther's last will obviously was inspired by his determination to ensure the wealth and the wellbeing of his family. For almost a century, Lutherans and Calvinists dissented in the classification of last wills.
