It was a little over four months after Pope Leo X issued his Exsurge, Domine bull against Luther. Luther had already heard about it, but per OUP, first assumed it was a trick. Then he learned it was real. The photo above is from National Geographic's piece, with a modern re-enactment of Luther's famous, or infamous, burning of Exsurge in December 1520.
Luther got together students of his in Wittenberg, and fellow faculty, among those in full support, and they started burning books of canon law and other items. The bull was added at the end, by Luther himself. He told Staupitz he undertook the action with fear and trembling.
But, contra many conservative Lutherans sanctifying Luther, he did it with some impudence as well.
However, Leo, via writing a blank check to John Eck, brought this on himself. The Reformation might well have played itself out anyway; Zwingli and others were up in arms against Rome's avarice and venality, as well as some of its doctrines, as much as Luther. But, a more nuanced bull by Leo might have delayed that day. Might have delayed that day until after Luther's death, leading to Pope Adrian VI in his brief reign, with all his Hapsburg connections, taking more control of the situation. That said, with the actual situation, Adrian reaffirmed Leo calling Luther a heretic. He did try for ecclesiastical reform, but this primarily on governance and morals; theological issues remained verboten for questioning, whether by individual clerics or by councils operating outside papal authority.
That said, that's alternative history. In reality, the bull arguably was THE breaking point. Luther was already thinking of the Papacy as Antichrist. (He's wrong theologically, per my piece about Antichrist vs the Beast vs the man of lawlessness. And, no, we can't give a professor of New Testament any wiggle room; if he's such a bible scholar, he never should have conflated the three.)
But, Leo's bull, and Eck's actions, only confirmed this stance for Luther.
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