Sabbatical with Pastor Curtis: Junker Jorg's Castle

Do you remember the story about how the Duke of Saxony, Frederick the Wise kidnapped Martin Luther and whisked him away to a castle? Well, that castle is located about a 40 minute walk south of Eisenach--UPHILL! That was one of the consistently steepest climbs Jo Ann and I have ever done together. And once you get up to the castle there are many stairs waiting for you to climb. And if you still haven't had enough, you can pay one euro to climb to the top of the castle tower. We took the "English" tour of the castle to learn more about its and the people who have owned it and those who have lived there. We were surrounded by 30 to 40 English speaking people from many different countries around the world. We haven't been able to speak to many people in our native tounge since we've left Wittenberg. So refreshing.

Anyway, the land and castle has a rich history that begins with Louis the Leaper, sometimes called Louis the Jumper or Louis the Springer. So, how did this German Prince get this nickname? Long story short is he stabbed a court official attempting to take land that did not belong to him. He was arrested and taken to prison in a castle in Halle, Germany where three years later he escaped by "leaping" from one of the castle walls into the river below. Prince Louis continued to take possession of as much land ajoining his father's territory as he could. He found this wonderful (Wartburg) mountain that he wanted to claim for his own so he took some soil from his own land and brought it to the top of the mountain and poured it out and asked twelve of his most loyal knights to stick their swords into the freshly poured dirt and swear that the land upon which they stood now rightfully belonged to him. Crazy.

So, he took the land and laid out the foundation for the castle and built one of the towers just before he died. People simply referred to the tower structer as the watchtower. His son, Louis I took on the project and finished building the castle. It was named Wartburg. The word "warte" in German means watchtower and "burg" simply means castle. In English it would be the Watchtower Castle.

There is literally centuries worth of history surrounding Wartburg. Believe it or not, the legendary minstrels' battle supposedly took place here. The famous composer Wagner had performed here.

One of the most famous people to have lived in the castle was St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who was canonized for her charitable works. She was the wife of Louis IV Landgrave in Thuringia. They lived in the castle and gathered a number of possessions which are still on display in the Wartburg Museum to this day.

Of course, another famous person who lived in the castle was none other than our beloved Martin Luther. Not only was Luther kidnapped and brought to the castle to live in seclusion for his own safety since there was bounty on his head. With all this time on his hands, Luther used it to translat the New Testament from the Greek language into German. The Luther German Bible is credited with uniting the German dialects and giving the German people access to the Bible. The discovery of the printing press a century before allowed Bibles to be reproduced and distributed to the people of German descent.

Martin stayed in a small room in the castle for close to a total of ten months. When he left the castle and came down the mountain, he would come desguised as a knight by the name of Junker Jorg. Both the way he dressed and the fact that he grew his hair and beard hid his identity.

So, if there were people out to kill him because he was a heretic, how did he ever go back to living in Wittenburg at the Black Cloister? Answer. He was well loved there. No one in Wittenburg and throughout Saxony was opposed to Luther to the point of taking his life. He was a hero among the peasants. He had great support from many nobles throughout the land and they saw to it he could continue to live in Wittenburg without fear. He still had to watch over his shoulder however because the Holy Roman Church identified him as a heritic and wanted no more of this former monk.

Enjoy the pictures. Note the one with the long beard who looks a bit like Luther, is Luther disguised as Junker Jorg.