la oración and the Guía were put on the INDEX LIBRORUM
PROHIBITORUM.
Luna, Álvaro de (c. 1390–1453) Spanish statesman and
poet
An illegitimate member of a family of wealthy CONVERSOS,
de Luna rose to prominence by becoming tutor to the
young King John II of Castile. When John came of age
(1419) he totally relied upon de Luna, who, despite the
hostility of the king’s Trastámara cousins and their sup-
porters among the old aristocracy, became virtual ruler of
Castile. He was appointed constable of Castile in 1423. Al-
though driven from court in 1427, he was recalled the fol-
lowing year and consolidated his power, but his attempt to
raise a crusade against the Moors of Granada (1431) ulti-
mately failed. After the Castilian defeat of the Aragonese
at Olmedo (1445) he was elected grand master of the
Order of Santiago. The hostility of the king’s second wife,
Isabella of Portugal, brought about his downfall, and he
was executed at Valladolid after a show trial for witchcraft.
His poems appeared in the Cancionero de Baena (1445)
and he also wrote a treatise in defense of women, Libro de
las virtuosas e claras mugeres (1446).
Lusiad, The (Portuguese Os Lusíadas; 1572) The na-
tional poem of Portugal, by Luís Vaz de CAMÕES; one of
the most important and successful epics of the Renais-
sance. The title refers to the Portuguese (the Lusitanians),
whose heroic achievement in discovering the sea route to
India the poem celebrates. Although in historical time the
action spans the two years of Vasco da GAMA’s voyage of
1497–98, it includes a visionary expanse of Portuguese
history both backward and forward to Camões’s own day.
The poem, consisting of 10 cantos (1102 stanzas) of ottava
rima, is thoroughly Virgilian and classical and yet firmly
based on historical events and draws on Camões’s 17
years’ experience in India and the Orient. After an intro-
duction, the invocation, and a dedication to King Sebast-
ian, the action begins at the point when the Portuguese are
sailing off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean.
The mythological action (with Venus protecting and Bac-
chus opposing the enterprise) is skillfully combined with
the historical narrative, which incorporates outstanding
descriptive passages and a variety of historical and ficti-
tious episodes before its triumphant conclusion.
Os Lusíadas has been edited with an introduction and
notes by F. Pierce (Oxford, U.K., 1973; repr. 1981). Sir
Richard Fanshawe’s version (1655), the first and most
successful of the English verse translations, has most re-
cently been republished in a scholarly edition by Peter
Davidson of The Poems and Translations of Sir Richard Fan-
shawe (2 vols, Oxford, U.K., 1997–99). Of other English
versions, Sir Richard Burton’s abstruse rendering (2 vols,
London, 1880), in which he labored to reproduce exactly
the meter and obscurities of Camões’ Portuguese, is more
a curiosity than a valid interpretation for an English read-
ership. There is a prose translation by W. C. Atkinson in
the Penguin Classics series (Harmondsworth, U.K., 1952;
repr. 1973) and a verse rendering by Llandeg White for
Oxford World’s Classics (1998).Luther, Martin (1483–1546) German reformer
The son of a prosperous copper miner at Eisleben, Luther
received a thorough education, first at school in Magde-
burg, then at the local university in Erfurt. He graduated
MA in 1505 and began to study law, but soon abandoned
his legal studies and entered the Augustinian priory at Er-
furt. The year after his ordination (1507) Luther was ap-
pointed a lecturer in the new university at Wittenberg,
where he became a doctor of theology in 1512 and then
professor of Scripture. During his years in Wittenberg
Luther’s intensive theological studies brought him into an
increasingly troubled relationship with established
Catholic doctrine: his mounting impatience with scholas-
tic theology and his preference for the Bible over the
Church as a final arbiter in matters of faith and practice
both grew steadily more apparent in his sermons and lec-
tures. About this time (1512–15) Luther seems also to
have come to his new understanding of justification, with
the realization (based on his reading of St. Paul’s Epistle to
the Romans) that faith alone justifies without works. This
doctrine, of JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, was to be the corner-
stone of his future creed.
Luther’s impatience with traditional Catholic theol-
ogy and its abuses finally found voice with his Ninety-five
Theses against INDULGENCESposted at Wittenberg in Oc-
tober 1517. The indulgence granted by Pope Leo X for the
renovation of St. Peter’s in Rome and preached with little
restraint by the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel, was widely
resented in Germany, and Luther’s Theses found a ready
audience. Within a month they had spread throughout
Germany, making their author a major public figure. In
the fierce controversy that now arose Luther gradually
elaborated his theology and broadened his attack on the
Church. At the Leipzig Disputation with Johann ECK
(1519) he made a devastating assault on Church author-
ity, denying the primacy of the pope and the infallibility of
a general council. The following year, 1520, he published
the three great tracts that marked the final break with the
Roman establishment. The appeal An den christlichen Adel
deutscher Nation (To the Christian Nobility of the German
Nation) urged the princes to take ecclesiastical reform into
their own hands. De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae (The
Babylonian Captivity of the Christian Church), published in
German as well as Latin, denounced Catholic abuse of the
sacraments and condemned the doctrine of TRANSUBSTAN-
TIATION. Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (The Free-
dom of a Christian Man) developed the doctrine of
salvation by faith. Finally, in December, Luther burnt the
papal Bull condemning his teaching (Exsurge domine, June22990 0 LLuunnaa,, AA ́ ́ llvvaarroo ddee