Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. We've been building up to this because

today we have Oxford University's Regis Professor of History on the Pod. Professor Lindelropa,

she is as engaging as she is brilliant. She is the world's greatest expert on Martin

Luther and she was lauded for her giant book on Luther a couple of years ago. She's written

the follow-up to that huge biography of Luther called Living I Was Your Plague about how

Martin Luther crafted his own image and how he was portrayed in his own time and how we continue

to see him now. He's one of the most extraordinary men in the last 500 years of European history

and probably most consequential. So enjoy this pod. If you want to watch programmes about

16th century, the place to do that I can tell you is at historyhit.tv. You head over there,

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to the world's best history channel. So thank you, thank you for everyone doing that. In

the meantime, please enjoy this conversation with Lindelropa.

Lindel, this is very exciting, having you on the podcast. Thank you for coming on. Thank

you for asking me. I'm delighted to be here. You shot to global fame with your enormous

biography of Martin Luther a few years ago and you've been working on him ever since. We've

moved away from great man theories of history. Does he count as like an example of actually

great men that did move the needle? I think he does. Yes, I think he is someone who had quite

extraordinary courage and it's interesting actually because we're in the month that is

the 500th anniversary of his appearance at the Diet of Worms. I think really that is the

thing that really made Luther famous and is the most extraordinary thing to have done

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