When Martin Luther arrived in Wittenberg in 1508, he was struck by the large numbers of beggars looking for handouts on the street corners. He didn't like it one bit: Why should some people be so poor that they were forced to humiliate themselves in this way? Anyone who read Scripture, he held, should understand immediately that God didn't tolerate a situation in which some people had more material possessions than they needed while others went hungry. And so he acted: Luther called a meeting of the town council to address the situation of growing poverty in Wittenberg, made worse by an economic downturn.
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