street in large cities, and the parish church threw its protective shadow over tiny villages in remote places. Its chapels dotted the wilderness. The familiar old rituals of its liturgies channeled people along the difficult pathway of life from birth, through happiness, suffering, and death, providing ceremonial enrichment to daily existence.”[1] In Erfurt alone, a city with a population of about 18,000 during Luther’s time, there were more than ninety churches and chapels, as well as thirty-six