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Table Talk

Martin Luther · 1566

A collection of Martin Luther's informal dinner conversations, written down by his students and published after his death.

These are students' notes of Luther's own dinner-table conversation, capturing his private voice rather than his published theology.

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Title page of an early printed book in German blackletter type. Large red decorative initial and red and black title text reads Tischreden oder Colloquia D. Martin Luthers, with the imprint Gedruckt zu Eisleben, bey Urban Gaubisch, 1566. Handwritten signatures and notes appear on the page.
Title page of the first edition of Martin Luther's Table Talk, Eisleben, 1566.

About this source

What it is

Table Talk (Tischreden) is a collection of sayings and remarks made by Martin Luther, mostly at mealtimes in his home, the Lutherhaus. The sayings were jotted down by various students who sat with him between 1531 and 1546, and the collection was compiled by several editors, including Johannes Mathesius and Johannes Aurifaber, and printed in Eisleben in 1566.

Why it matters

Unlike his formal writings, Table Talk shows Luther's everyday voice: his humour, his opinions, and his prejudices, as noted down by people who actually sat with him. It reveals how his students saw him, and how quickly admiration for him grew into something like reverence after his death. Because it was written by others, not by Luther himself, it is a window into how his followers remembered and shaped his image.

Look closer

  • Why might students have wanted to record Luther's casual remarks, not just his sermons?
  • How might the fact that different people wrote down different parts change what we trust in the text?
  • What might this book include that his own books would leave out?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Martin Luther and Nicolaus Copernicus on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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