Ninety-five theses, two languages, three beers

Happy Sunday Reader!
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You’ll have to excuse me, I have taken an impromptu trip to Belgium and Germany, hence the normal Breezer has taken a back seat this week.

In fact, when you read this shortened missive, I will probably be in Dortmund ready to watch the mighty German Bundesliga team Borussia Dortmund playing footie.

Why have I bothered to travel so far for a footie match? I’ll save that for another day... and no, I am not worried about my house being burgled by publicising that I am not there; my middle son is in charge while I am away, so I know the house will already be crawling with unauthorised aliens of every description.

The point is this: I was going to bypass an episode altogether, because I don’t like sharing something that’s rushed or falls short of the normal rigour of a weekly Breezer.

However…

There is an anniversary this week that—bearing in mind where I am at the point of writing—I had to share with you. And here’s the reason why;

Last night, my youngest son and I arrived in Brussels, capital of Belgium. Although we arrived late, we did manage to pop out for a couple of glasses of the finest Belgian ale… La Chouffe, to be precise.

While we were sitting in the bar chatting, I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the table next to us. Two locals were having an animated conversation entirely in French. Fifteen minutes in, they seamlessly switched to Dutch and continued without missing a beat. Same people, same chat, just a different operating system.

In Belgium, both languages are spoken, French and Dutch. They weave together so beautifully, you can’t help but notice.

But how on earth did this situation arise?

A small warning; you need to concentrate just a little more than for your usual Sunday morning Breezer; partly because the story has its complications and partly because I am on my third glass of Kwak, the most delightful—but 8.4% a.b.v—Belgian ale. Well, here goes…

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Born in 1483 in the small Saxon town of Eisleben, Germany, Martin Luther seemed destined for a conventional life. He'd trained as a lawyer, following his father's ambitions.

Then a violent thunderstorm changed everything.

Lightning struck near enough to convince the lawyer that God had plans for him—plans that didn't involve courtrooms. Convinced he'd been spared by divine intervention, Luther abandoned law and entered an Augustinian monastery in 1505.

By 1512, he was a theology professor at the University of Wittenberg, wrestling with questions of sin, salvation and whether good works or faith alone could save a soul.

It was this internal spiritual struggle that would set Luther on a collision course with the most powerful institution in Europe.

In 1517, Martin Luther wrote the Ninety-five Theses, challenging the Catholic Church’s practice of selling ‘indulgences’; that is, receiving cash in return for the forgiveness of sins.

The system was breathtakingly audacious. The Catholic Church had convinced believers they could buy their way out of purgatory, not just for themselves but for deceased relatives already suffering there.

Professional pardoners toured Europe like travelling salesmen, hawking forgiveness with the enthusiasm of market traders. One particularly successful pitch promised that…

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It was a lucrative business. The money flowed to Rome, funding everything from lavish papal lifestyles to the construction of St Peter’s Basilica. For Luther, a German monk troubled by his own conscience, the whole enterprise was an obscene corruption of Christian faith.

Pope Leo X explicitly demanded that Luther recant his writings in the papal bull Exsurge Domine, in June 1520.

Five hundred and five years ago this Wednesday, 10 December 1520, Luther publicly—and dramatically—burned the papal edict demanding his recantation.

Luther was summoned to the Diet of Worms and given a final opportunity by Pope Leo to recant his work. Luther refused, declaring the immortal line…
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Out of Curiosity

A ‘Diet’ was the name for an assembly in the period of the Holy Roman Empire. Worms is one of Germany’s oldest cities, lying on the west bank of the river Rhine, 40 miles south of Frankfurt.

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Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church the following year, 1521, and the seeds of Protestantism were sewn.

The flames spread fast.

Luther’s preachings reached the Low Countries; a collection of 17 provinces (the ‘Habsburg Netherlands’) under Habsburg rule that today includes Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

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The Low Countries had been linguistically split for over a thousand years. When the Germanic Franks invaded in the 5th century—ironically from Germany, not France, despite the name—they pushed south from the northeast.

The Franks settled across the northern territories, bringing their Germanic language, which evolved into Dutch.

However, over the same period, the southern areas evolved from a variety of Romance languages—Picard, Walloon and Champenois—eventually weaving into today’s French.

The result, emerging over several centuries, was a clear linguistic border running roughly east-west: The Flemish Dutch speakers to the north, the French-speaking Walloons to the south.

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Reformation ideas spread in the Low Countries soon after Luther, but they faced harsh repression and remained clandestine at first.

By the mid‑sixteenth century, Protestantism—especially Calvinism—flourished in major southern cities such as Antwerp and in several French‑speaking Walloon towns.

As a result, the ruling Catholic Habsburgs responded with fierce persecution. Fifty years later, this persecution—together with grievances relating to politics and taxation—erupted into 80 years of brutal religious war—the Dutch Revolt of 1568.

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Here’s where geography played its hand differently. When the dust settled in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, the northern provinces had won independence as the Protestant Dutch Republic—and these provinces were almost entirely Dutch-speaking.

But the southern provinces that remained under Catholic Spanish control straddled the old linguistic border; they included both Dutch speakers in Flanders and French speakers in Wallonia.

The religious divide would prove more powerful than the linguistic one. When Belgium finally gained independence in 1830, it emerged as a Catholic nation divided by two languages, shaped by a fire Martin Luther had lit over 300 years earlier.

Hence, two languages.

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Today, as religious faith has faded, the linguistic divide in Belgium burns brighter than ever. Tension remains high between the more prosperous Flemish and the southern French Walloons. This is particularly felt in the Capital, Brussels, from where I am writing right now.

Eighty-five per cent of the city’s population speaks French, even though Brussels sits in the Flemish region.

My only contribution to the debate is this; every Belgian I have met so far has been quite delightful, while Belgian chocolate and waffles are to die for. You must put Brussels on your bucket list, Mannequin Pis and all.

Now… perhaps just one more Chouffe…

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Talk to me...

Some of you signed up for The Breezer through platforms where you couldn't leave your first name. So, when I send out the newsletter each week, it feels like writing a personal letter to someone without putting their name at the top of the page. It's not doing my OCD any good at all!
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If I haven't opened this newsletter with your name, feel free to drop me an email at steve@battingthebreeze.com; just enter your first name in the Subject and send.
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(If you want to tell me any more about yourself at the same time that would be amazing too.)
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Thanks, Steve

Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!

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Steve

HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER

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