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It was early November in 1521.

Steel gray clouds hung low in the sky, threatening rain or perhaps snow overnight.

The buzz of the crowd filled the square, bouncing off the half-timbered houses and workshops

that bordered the open space.

Every day was a market day in Nuremberg, and stalls filled with merchants and peddlers

of all stripes packed the cobbled ground of the square.

Nuremberg was a prosper city.

Its well-heeled weavers and goldsmiths chatted about business and rubbed elbows with burgers

wives out buying household necessities.

Lonsknecked mercenaries with their battered swords and firearms and flashy, striped, much-patched

clothing, bumped up against concert, Franciscan friars and austere robes.

They stamped their feet against the chill and avoided the occasional ice-flect puddle

as they chatted, shouted, botten, sold.

The crowd clustered around a pair of stalls.

Ink stained hands raised books and pamphlets high for all to see.

Martin Luther's works, straight from Vittenburg, yelled one, rendishing a thick sheaf of printed

papers above his head.

When butchering Brother Martin's message shouted the other printer in response, he can't

even set the type properly.

The two exchanged curses and venomous stares, but not enough to interrupt the flow of

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