From Dominican monastery to educational institution: A rich story
Martin Luther is said to have been taught in this building from 1498 to 1501. But in fact, Luther was a student of the Latin School when it was still located on the esplanade, near the Georgenkirche. From 1531, Luther's school found a new home in the former Dominican monastery, today's Luther Grammar School. The most famous student in today's Luther Grammar School was Johann Sebastian Bach from 1692 to 1695.
Orphaned at the age of almost 10, Johann Sebastian Bach had to leave school in 1695 in order to move to Ohrdruf to live with his brother. The Latin School St. Georgen was, like almost all such schools, a trivial school, i.e. Latin, logic and rhetoric were taught in accordance with the trivium of antiquity. The knowledge of Latin was the indispensable prerequisite for university studies. In 1501, Martin Luther left school highly educated and as a "perfect Latinist" in order to study at the University of Erfurt, first of all the seven liberal arts and later law at his father's behest.
Today, the Protestant School Foundation in Central Germany is the sponsor of the traditional and modern Martin Luther Grammar School.
