The speed of communication affects the ways in which ideas are developed and received, and the ways in which people respond to them.
Luther wrote his theses, and mailed copies to several people, including the Bishop Albrecht of Mainz. To mail something meant giving it to someone who’d walk the 465 kilometers (289 miles). The letter ended up being forwarded twice, arriving at two other towns before it reached its final destination. Each of the three legs of this journey were probably undertaken by someone who was walking to that town anyway. That person was probably going that way for some other purpose. Walking speed varied, depending on weather and the condition of the person’s legs. He might stop off elsewhere along the way for other purposes.
The walking time alone would have added up to between ten and fifteen days.
It was possible to get it to move faster. Imperial messages could be sent by horseback. But it is unlikely that Martin Luther, an obscure professor at an obscure university in an obscure town, would have had the money or social influence to get his mail expedited.
Luther apparently mailed his theses and an accompanying letter on October 13, 1517. Historians Martin Brecht and James Schaff write:
It took unusually long for the letter to Albrecht, which was probably sent to Halle, to reach its recipient. On 17 November it was opened by Albrecht’s counsellors in Calbe an der Saale and forwarded to Aschaffenburg, where the archbishop was residing. It probably arrived there before the end of November.
Each time the letter arrived in a town, one can imagine it laying on someone’s desk for a day or two before being opened and read. The recipient would have to think about it, talk with someone else about it, and then decide to forward the letter to someone else.
Luther apparently wrote letters and sent copies of the theses to several other people as well.
Aside from the physical transportation and forwarding of the letter, there would have been bureaucratic dithering. Apparently the theses were discussed at the University of Mainz in December, when Bishop Albrecht got around to stating his opinion on the matter. Albrecht seemed to think that Luther was probably wrong on some points, but also that Luther and the theses weren’t important enough to merit much time or attention.
Abrecht forwarded Luther’s letter to Rome, hoping not to have to expend any effort in dealing with it.
It was not until February 1518 that Luther began to receive reactions from various officials in the church. This meant that Luther had between three and five months to further refine his thoughts, to anticipate possible objections, and to prepare answers to those objections.
The slow pace of communication gave Luther extra time
The theses were in the meantime printed in various cities; there had probably been a small quantity printed in Wittenberg when Luther wrote them; now they were being reprinted around Europe. Erasmus of Rotterdam sent a copy to Thomas More in March 1518.
Historian Jonathan Kay writes:
These delays and dilatory tactics proved crucial. Throughout it all, one of Prince Frederick’s protective strategies was to ensure that Luther got his hearings on German soil, where his ideas could be better understood in the context of local complaints about Rome’s arrogance. Luther took the standing-room-only crowd by surprise, for instance, when he lapsed into common German during his debate with theologian Johann Eck — a tactic then seen as taboo among doctrinaire church officials.
Luther would engage in numerous debates and written exchanges of opinion. The slow pace of mail continued to provide him with a chance to have well-thought-out answers and explanations with which to defend his views.
The Roman Catholic church had people to deal with Luther — to deal with those who wrote criticisms of the church’s practices and teachings. But those people were hampered by the slow delivery of mail, in the same way that Luther benefited from it, as Jonathan Kay writes:
Luther’s rise followed the creation of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1478. The Catholic Church was very much alive to the threats from heretics and schisms, and had procedures in place for dealing with them ruthlessly. But the apparatus could work only as fast as the reports that fed it. And where Luther was concerned, the problem of communication was compounded by the political and religious cross-purposes within the Holy Roman Empire and the Christian world more broadly. Every new wrinkle and subplot bought Luther more precious time. It wasn’t until early 1521 that he was formally excommunicated — more than three years after he composed his 95 theses. And by then, as we now know, it was too late to snuff out his influence.
One might imagine how Luther would have fared in the age of Twitter and email: in the age of the 24-hour news cycle and constantly updated internet news sources.
Had Luther lived in the twenty-first century, he maybe — probably, almost certainly — would not have had the time to develop complex lines of reasoning and detailed responses to questions and criticisms.
The minds of people who regularly consume twenty-first century electronic media are unlikely to read extended texts which outline debates for and against a topic. Martin Luther and his opponents generated hundreds of pages of printed matter, texts which demand careful analysis from the reader. Such readers are rare now.
Had Luther unveiled his theses in the contemporary world, they’d have been known around the globe within a matter of minutes. A few allegedly witty Tweets would have been exchanged by his friends and adversaries, and the general public would have made up its mind on the matter within a few hours.
There would not have been months and years of debate and writing on the matter in the intellectually arid twenty-first century. There would have been no Reformation.
