Of this he was well aware, and welcomed the castle as a
place of refuge. He was, in fact, the celebrated Martin Luther, who had
just set in train a religious revolution of broad aspect in Germany, and
though for the time under the protection of a safe-conduct from the
emperor Charles V., had been deemed in imminent danger of falling into
an ambush of his foes instead of one of his friends.
That he might not be recognised by those who should see him at Wartburg,
his ecclesiastic robe was exchanged for the dress of a knight, he wore
helmet and sword instead of cassock and cross and let his beard grow
freely. Thus changed in appearance, he was known as Junker George
(Chevalier George) to those in the castle, and amused himself at times
by hunting with his knightly companions in the neighborhood. The
greater part of his time, however, was occupied in a difficult literary
task, that of translating the Bible into German. The work thus done by
him was destined to prove as important in a linguistic as in a
theological sense, since it fixed the status of the German language for
the later period to the same extent as the English translation of the
Bible in the time of James I.
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