Wittenberg, Saxony, 1517, when printing spreads the novel ideas of the Renaissance. The elector's free university's theology professor, Augustinian monk Martin Luther, is encouraged by the elector(s minister Spalatine, who seeks a pretext to curb the ecclesiastical power in favor of the German princes, to publish 95 Thesen they concoct together, mainly against indulgences, the aggressive sale by archiepiscopal; agents of a pardon for sins and their hellish punishment, paying mainly for the megalomaniac papal St. Peter's, further impoverishing the peasantry. Preacher Thomas Müntzer and his boy novice Hieronymus steal some of the proceeds to distribute again among the poor, but are caught and the knave commits suicide, having been forced to betray his master, whom he saw crucified, but Thomas survives, an even more radical social revolutionary, and gets Luther's help, despite his lawyer colleague Andreas Bodenstein's warning, to illegally bury the suicide-sinner. Painter Cranach's workshop prints and distributes the theses and Luther's further writings, all critical of the Catholic church, which wants him excommunicated. Luther's faith depends on the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's court at Worms, which after a hesitant proceeding finds itself forced to declare him a heretic, hence banned. The Saxon elector however arranges for his kidnapping 'by masked brigands', actually his troops, to the impregnable Wartburg castle..
—KGF Vissers