Martin Luther (1483-1546) is better know, no doubt, for his contributions to theology than for his poetry. You probably know the details of his life better than I do – as a monk, he came to observe the excesses of the Roman Catholic church from the inside, in peculiar how they traded years in paradise for good money. He didn’t like it, and made it known, for which he got excommunicated and banned. He used the forced banishment to translate the Bible from Latin to German and when he came back to his home town to find many followers, he went on writing psalms and sermons. This is an example.
Listen to the melody here( Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott )