The%20Protestant%20Reformation%20(1450-1565)

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The Protestant Reformation (1450-1565)
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Causes of the Reformation

• 1. Crises of the 14th 15th centuries hurt the
  prestige of the Church and clergy
• Avignon Papacy
• Great Schism
• People were becoming tired of being dependent on
  the Church and the constraints it enforced
• 2. Corruption in the Catholic Church
• Simony-sale of church offices
• Pluralisman official holding more than one
  office at a time
• Absenteeisman official not fulfilling the duties
  of an office, but still receiving payment and
  privileges

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Causes

• Corruption contd
• Nepotismfavoring family members in the
  appointment of church offices
• Moral decline of the Papacy
• Pope Alexander VI had affairs and children out of
  wedlock
• 20 of all priests in Trent kept concubines in
  early 16th century
• Rodrigo Borgia
• Clerical Ignorancemany priests were illiterate
• Sale of indulgences-pay money to the Church to
  absolve ones sins

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Causes

• 3. Renaissance humanism
• Better educated people were more critical of the
  church
• Growing individualism meant people chafed under
  the power of the Church
• 4. Political Circumstances were favorable
• New Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V was young and
  trying to control a vast realm. He also faced
  attacks from France and Ottoman Turks during the
  critical early years of Luthers protest
• 5. Reformers emphasized piety and a personal
  relationship with God.
• John Wyclif the LollardsEngland
• Stressed Bible was sole authority and a personal
  communion with God

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Causes

• John HusCzech
• Similar ideas to Wyclif
• Burned at the stake for his views
• ErasmusIn Praise of Folly
• criticized the corruption of the Church and
  hypocrisy of the clergy
• 6. Printing Press
• Invention of movable type was invented in 1450 by
  Johann Gutenberg
• Helped spread ideas before Catholics could squash
  them
• Intensified intellectual criticism of the Church
• Protestant ideals appealed to the urban and the
  literate

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The Emergence of Protestantism in Europe
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Germany

• Luther troubled by the sale of indulgences
• Dominican friar Tetzel was selling indulgences in
  Wittenberg in 1517
• Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the
  castle church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517
• What were some of Luthers complaint?
• Luther slowly but surely is drawn into a heated
  debate

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Germany

• Pope paid little attention to Luther at first
• Thought it was a disagreement between Augustinian
  Dominican monks
• Luther refused to stop his crusade
• Was protected by Frederick III of Saxony
• Wanted to reform the church, not create a new one
• But in defending his views, Luther gradually came
  to the point that he had no other choice than to
  create a new church

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Germany

• 1520 Luther published his theology of reform
• Pope Leo X excommunicated him Luther burned the
  bull that excommunicated him
• 1521 Diet of Worms
• HRE Charles V convened this meeting of leaders of
  the empire and demanded that Luther recant
• Luther refused Here I stand, I can do no
  other.
• Edict of WormsLuther is outlawed as a heretic
• Luther taken to Fredericks castle where he was
  protected
• Translated the Bible into vernacular
• Married a former nun

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3 Key Ideas of Luthers Theology

• How is a person saved?
• Justification by faith alone-salvation could be
  achieved through belief in God, rejected good
  works as the means to achieve salvation
• Where does religious authority reside?
• The Bible is the sole authority, not the Church,
  nor the Pope. People could read and interpret
  the Bible on their own
• What is the Church?
• Priesthood of all believers who were spiritually
  equal, not a hierarchical Church structure

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Protestant Propaganda
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• The Spread of the Reformation

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Why did the Reformation Spread?

• 1. The Emperor was distracted fighting the
  Ottoman Turks and France
• 2. Luthers stand against the Church emboldened
  other reformers to break with the Church
• 3. Rulers protected reformers
• 4. The printing press spread ideas quickly and
  the Church was unable to stop them

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Zwingli-Zurich

• Very urban, cosmopolitan setting
• Reformer Ulrich Zwingli Memorialist view of the
  Mass
• Zwingli also opposed purgatory, clerical
  celibacy, intercession of the saints, and
  salvation by works
• The death of Zwingli

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Calvin-Geneva (French-speaking)

• John Calvins leadership in Geneva from 1541-1564
• Geneva became the model Protestant training
  center
• Stress on order and rigorous adherence to Gods
  law
• A Quasi-theocracy
• Very austere religion practiced in Geneva
• Self-discipline and the Protestant Work Ethic

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(1) Background

• More of a scholar than Luther
• More of a systematic thinker than Luther
• Calvins Institutes of the Christian Religion
  (1536)
• Early legal training
• Clear-cut moral directives for living
• Relied on Scripture primarily for his ideas

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(2) Teaching

• Predestination
• The Elect
• The right of rebellion
• --English Civil War
• Divine calling to all sorts of vocations
• The invisibility of the True Church
• Government serves the Church

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Henry VIII-England

• Henry VIIIs marriage to Catherine of Aragon
• Henry seeks an annulment
• Henry creates the Church of England and
  establishes his own supremacy over it
• A political reformation only at first
• The six wives of Henry VIII

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B. England (cont)

• The brief reign of Edward VI
• The rule of Bloody Mary
• Return of the Marian exiles to England from
  Geneva
• -- Puritans
• Queen Elizabeth I-The Elizabethen Religious
  Settlement
• The attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588
• -- The Protestant Wind

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Radical Reformers-the Anabaptists

• Desire to return to the primitive, first-century
  Church
• High standard of morality valued and pursued
• Bitterly persecuted by both Catholics and other
  Protestants
• Ardent missionaries who were harassed for their
  zeal

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(2) Teaching

• Free willall can be saved
• Adult, believer baptism
• Social and economic equality
• Pacifism
• Separation of Church and State
• Stressed role of the Holy Spirit in the life of
  the believer inner light (Quakers)
• Simplicity of life and millenarianismliving in
  the last days

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France

• King Francis I was initially sympathetic to
  Luther as long as his ideas stayed in Germany
• Protestantism made illegal in France in 1534
• Persecution of the HuguenotsFrench Protestants
• St. Bartholomews Day Massacre-1572
• King Henry and the Edict of Nantes (1598)

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Other Parts of Western Europe

• No Protestant inroads into Spain or Italy
• Protestantism succeeded only where it was urban
  and supported initially by the nobility
• After 1540, no new Protestant territories outside
  of the Netherlands
• Most powerful European nations were Catholic
• Protestants were feuding with each other

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The Counter Reformation

• Reformation shaped the form and rapidity of the
  Catholic response
• Council of Trent (1545-1563)
• The Society of Jesus (Jesuits)1534
• --Ignatius Loyola
• The Inquisition
• The Index
• Renewed religious emotionalism
• --Baroque Art
• Religious warfare

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Impact of the Reformation

• Germany was politically weakened and fragmented
• Christian Church was splintered in the West
• 100 Years of Religious Warfare
• Right of Rebellion introduced by both Jesuits and
  Calvinists
• Popes power increased
• Furthered societal individualism and secularism
• Growing doubt and religious skepticism

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Impact of Reformation (cont)

• Political stability valued over religious truth
• Calvinism boosted the commercial revolution
• Witch craze swept Europe in the 1600s
• --Between 1561-1670, 3000 people in Germany,
  9000 people in Switzerland and 1000 people in
  England were executed as witches
• Possible reasons for this witchcraft craze