DRAMATIC LICENSE — Invented for drama: the three prior refusals and their details (the sources record a single conversation), Katharina's role (the printers' "speak with Katharina" card and her discovery of the number; the sources credit her business sense but record no such scenes), connective dialogue, and the casting of Hans Lufft as the printers' spokesman (Lufft was real — Wittenberg's master Bible printer — but the sources leave the delegation anonymous). Luther's speeches in the refusal scene are adapted from his own account in the Table Talk.
FADE IN:
TITLE CARD: WITTENBERG, 1539
INT. WITTENBERG PRINT SHOP - DAY
CLOSE ON: a fresh-printed sheet, ink still wet, peeled off the press and held up to the light.
Two heavy wooden presses pound in rhythm. Apprentices hurry stacks of fresh-printed sheets down a narrow aisle. Somewhere among the type cases a joke lands -- laughter over the noise.
At the counting desk, the OLD PRINTER runs a finger down a ledger -- then looks up.
OLD PRINTER
Six hundred books this month. Sold through -- every copy.
A CHEER around the shop. An apprentice drums a happy tattoo on a press frame.
OLD PRINTER
(over the noise)
Set another printing!
A prosperous shop on its best day. Business has never been better.
The street door BANGS open. A YOUNG PRINTER -- out of breath from running -- bursts in, a letter crushed in his fist. Heads turn. The room quiets -- expectant, still half-smiling.
He drops the letter on the long oak table.
YOUNG PRINTER
The Frankfurt order is gone. Basel too. Leipzig undercut us on both.
The smiles fade, one face at a time. A press is allowed to wind down. The cheerfulness drains out of the room.
OLD PRINTER
(quietly)
Two orders in one day. Next it will be the fair itself.
INT. WITTENBERG PRINT SHOP - EVENING
The shop dim, the presses silent. A single candle burns on the long table; beside it lies the morning's crumpled letter. The MASTERS of the shop sit around the table. At the head, HANS LUFFT -- sixties, grey beard, ink to the elbows. Wittenberg's master printer.
LUFFT
We cannot match Leipzig's prices.
OLD PRINTER
Men do not buy Wittenberg's books for the price. They buy Luther.
LUFFT
Then we ask him again.
A low groan runs around the table.
YOUNG PRINTER
Again? He has refused three times.
OLD PRINTER
He'll refuse a fourth. He has never taken a gulden for God's work. Not once in twenty years. He gives his books away.
YOUNG PRINTER
(counting off on his fingers)
The first time he laughed at us. The second time he preached at us. The third time he would not so much as lay down his pen.
OLD PRINTER
A man who hands his manuscripts to whichever press stands idle. As though they were nothing. As though they were not the whole trade of this town.
YOUNG PRINTER
(rising heat)
And Leipzig thanks him for it. We buy the paper, we cut the type, we pay the men -- he gives it away, and Leipzig grows fat selling what Wittenberg was given free.
LUFFT
(evenly)
Mind what you say of him.
YOUNG PRINTER
The presses are quiet enough tonight. Let someone finally say it.
No one does. The candle flame leans and rights itself.
OLD PRINTER
(to Lufft, almost gently)
He stood before the Emperor at Worms and would not unsay one word. All the princes of Germany in one hall could not bend him. And you mean to bend him with a purse.
LUFFT
And if we do not try? Frankfurt is gone. Basel is gone. Come the next fair, Leipzig will set our own Bible and sell it under our windows. There will be presses standing cold by winter -- tell me which of the men I am to send home first.
He nods toward the darkened shop behind them -- the silent presses, the aprons hung in a row.
Silence.
LUFFT
Not a purse. A contract -- first access to everything he writes. Let Leipzig reprint what we have already sold.
YOUNG PRINTER
He will refuse. He will say what he always says -- that he will not sell God's Word.
LUFFT
Then we will make the refusing hard.
He draws a blank contract to himself and writes. The page is angled away -- we never see the words.
He turns the paper and holds it up to the room. To them, not to us. We see only the back of the sheet.
Eyebrows shoot up. A low whistle. Two masters trade a look -- are we really doing this?
YOUNG PRINTER
Have we so much?
OLD PRINTER
We have it. I have been through the ledgers twice.
YOUNG PRINTER
Year upon year? It would bleed every shop in Wittenberg. Can we bear such a sum?
LUFFT
Can we bear Leipzig?
No answer. He folds the paper, once, twice, and sets it in the center of the table.
LUFFT
Every shop bears its share, or it cannot be done.
He looks around the table, face by face.
LUFFT
Glass in your windows. Fur at your collars. A tile roof on your house, and your wife in Flanders cloth at church on Sunday. Luther's ink paid for every bit of it. If Leipzig takes the trade, what will you lose?
No one meets his eye.
LUFFT
Are we agreed?
A long beat. The Old Printer lays his hand flat on the table. A second hand. A third. Around the table, one by one -- some slower than others. The Young Printer, last of all.
Lufft nods, once.
OLD PRINTER
And when he refuses again?
LUFFT
His wife keeps his accounts. She will understand what he will not.
No one speaks.
CUT TO:
INT. LUTHER'S STUDY - THE BLACK CLOISTER - DAY
A quiet room in the old monastery Luther calls home. Shelves of books, a broad worktable strewn with proofs, a large worn Bible open on a reading desk. MARTIN LUTHER -- mid-fifties, heavyset, clean-shaven under a black scholar's cap -- reads proofs at the worktable.
The door. The printers file in, hats in hand. Lufft carries the folded contract like something fragile.
Luther looks up. A faint smile.
LUTHER
Three times you have come to me with this.
LUFFT
Never like this, Doctor. The sum on this paper is more than we have ever dared offer any man. Wittenberg's fortunes are your books -- and Leipzig is circling. First access. That is all we ask.
Luther sets down his pen. Studies them. Almost amused.
LUTHER
Explain it to me once more. If I sign this -- other men may still print my books?
LUFFT
Of course. Once a book is sold in the market, any press in Germany may set it and copy it. No law forbids them.
LUTHER
But each new work would come to you first.
LUFFT
To us first. Leipzig may copy what all of Germany has already bought.
The printers lean in -- he is listening. Hope kindles around the room.
Lufft sets the folded contract on the worktable and slides it across.
Luther looks at it. Doesn't touch it. Then pushes it back with two fingers, unopened.
LUTHER
Everything I have, God gave freely -- without payment. I will not sell His gift of grace.
YOUNG PRINTER
No one asks you to sell grace, Doctor. It is a contract -- honest business, nothing more.
Luther holds the young man's gaze. Says nothing. The silence does the answering.
Lufft picks the contract off the table and holds it out. Almost a plea.
LUFFT
At least look at what you are refusing.
A beat. Luther takes it.
He does not unfold it. He weighs it in his hand a moment -- paper and a fold, nothing more. The printers watch, waiting for him to open it.
He doesn't. He rises, the folded paper still in his hand, crosses to the reading desk and rests a hand on the worn Bible.
LUTHER
Do you know how God has dealt with me? He led me wondrously against that loathsome worm, the pope. They have scratched me well enough -- but the pope has not carried off a whole skin either. He was struck pretty hard himself.
He looks down at the open Bible.
LUTHER
And through it all, God raised me in a fatherly way -- me and my whole household. God be praised: He gave me a wife and children, a most beautiful blessing. I have quite enough, and I am satisfied. When I married, I had resolved to lecture for a fee. God forestalled me -- by way of the Elector.
OLD PRINTER
Forestalled you, Doctor? How?
LUTHER
(turning back to them)
A salary. Unasked. The year I married, the Elector doubled it. My table has not lacked since.
LUFFT
And no man begrudges it, Doctor. But a second purse never yet harmed a household. I think, if you will only look at what --
LUTHER
(over him)
In all my life I have never sold a single copy, nor held a lecture for a fee -- and that boast I mean to carry into the grave, God willing. Having food and clothing, I shall be content.
He sets the folded paper, still unopened, on the table between them.
The printers' shoulders drop. Lufft gathers the contract -- then stops. One more card.
LUFFT
Then speak with Katharina. That boast of yours is fed from her kitchen. Half of Wittenberg eats at your table -- students, boarders, every scholar passing through. Children to raise, and an old cloister to keep in roof and firewood. You are content, Doctor. Ask her what your contentment costs. Perhaps she'll persuade you.
Luther sighs -- exasperation, not temptation. He takes the folded paper off the table and walks out.
The printers watch the door close.
CUT TO:
EXT. THE BLACK CLOISTER - COURTYARD - LATE AFTERNOON
Golden light. In a corner of the courtyard, a low fire burns under the wash kettle, Katharina's work laid out beside it.
Luther comes out through the heavy door, alone, the folded paper in his hand.
He stops in the middle of the courtyard. Looks down at it.
He unfolds the paper. We stay on his face -- the back of the sheet to us. His eyes cross the writing once.
A long silence.
His face gives nothing away. No reaction at all.
He folds the paper back up.
The door again. Drying her hands on her apron: KATHARINA VON BORA -- about forty, linen coif, a ring of household keys at her belt.
LUTHER
(calm -- a thing already settled)
The printers came again.
KATHARINA
And you told them --
LUTHER
What I have always told them. The Elector -- Prince John Frederick -- already gives me two hundred gulden a year, more than I ever asked of any man. What use have I for their sum?
KATHARINA
(mild, drying her hands)
Two hundred is generous -- from a prince to a professor. And it is more generous still of you, to keep half Wittenberg fed on it.
He waves this off -- an old argument, long lost.
KATHARINA
How much did they offer?
He turns the folded paper over once in his hand. He does not need to look at it.
LUTHER
It makes no difference.
He flicks the folded paper toward the fire -- carelessly, a thing already dismissed.
It strikes the rim of the kettle and drops onto the stones beside the flames. He doesn't look to see where it landed.
LUTHER
They said I should speak with you. So -- we have spoken.
A small smile passes between them -- an old marriage's shorthand. He walks back inside. The heavy door thuds shut.
Katharina stands alone in the courtyard. The folded paper lies on the stones, a hand's breadth from the fire. Meant for it. Missed.
She turns to her work. Her eyes keep coming back to it.
KATHARINA
(to herself)
Twenty-five gulden.
She picks it up. Turns it over. Doesn't open it.
KATHARINA
Fifty.
She sets it back down where it fell. Steps away. Stops.
KATHARINA
A hundred -- if they have gone mad.
The paper just lies there, the firelight moving on it. He meant it to burn. It hasn't.
She comes back. She unfolds it -- its face to her, its back to us -- and reads.
INSERT - THE PAPER
Period handwriting. A few contract lines. And unmistakable at the center, in a clerk's careful hand:
400 GULDEN -- JEDES JAHR.
BACK ON KATHARINA
She keeps this household's accounts; the arithmetic takes her a heartbeat. Her eyes widen -- pure astonishment.
Then, slowly, a smile.
She glances at the closed door. The smile stays.
She folds the paper back up. Holds it out over the flames.
And hesitates. A long moment -- the paper in her fingers, the fire waiting.
She lets it fall.
The paper catches, curls, blackens. The number is the last thing to burn.
CUT TO BLACK.
TITLE CARD: "We are commanded to teach, console, and absolve all who receive and believe; and they all receive from us freely, according to the saying: 'Freely you have received; freely give.'" -- Luther, Lectures on Genesis
FADE OUT.