CHAPTER 14: REFORMATIONS AND RELIGIOUS WARS (1500-1600)
Pre Chapter
I. 4th century Christianity becomes official religion of the Roman Empire - calls for reform began early
A. Middle Age argues church became too powerful/wealthy
1. Urged papacy to give up property and focus on services to poor
2. Basic teachings not truly Christian? → urged change in theology/institutional structures and
practices
B. Renaissance humanists urge reform through educational/social changes
The Early Reformation
Widespread dissatisfaction of the church comes from Christian humanists, urban residents, villagers and artisans, and church
officials. These people became the audience for an obscure professor from a new but unprestigious German university. His ideas
eventually caused much of central Europe and Scandinavia to break away from the Catholic church.
I. The Christian Church in the Early Sixteenth Century
A. Pious Europeans participate in religious observances + devote time and income to religion
1. Villagers participate in processions honoring local saints
2. Merchants/guild members pilgrimed to great shrines (Saint Peter’s); paid for altars in local
churches
B. Criticism of Roman Catholic Church grows after papal conflicts and prestige of Church is damaged
1. Events leading up to criticism
a) Papal conflict with German emperor Frederick II → Babylonian Captivity → Great
Schism
b) 15th cent Renaissance popes concentrated on artistic patronage/building family power
2. Criticism
a) Papal taxes were attacked orally and in print
b) Criticized papacy as an institution; criticized great wealth and powerful courts of entire
church hierarchy
c) Argued doctrines (ex veneration of saints) were incorrect
3. Suggested measures to reform institutions, improve clerical education and behavior, alter basic
doctrines
C. Records, parish visits, songs, images show widespread anticlericalism - critique three main problems
1. Clerical immorality
a) Drinking, neglected celibacy, gambled, fancy dress
2. Clerical ignorance
a) Illiterate
3. Clerical pluralism → absenteeism
a) Practice of holding multiple church offices at the same time
(1) Clerics stopped visiting and performing duties - collected revenue and hired
poor and cheap priests
(2) Italian officials of papal curia (court in Rome) held benefices in England,
Spain, Germany
(a) Revenue pays Italian clerics → absenteeism and resentment aimed at
higher levels of church hierarchy
D. Local resentment of clerical privileges sparks opposition from leaders and government
1. Priests, nuns, monks exempt from civic responsibilities (military and taxes) but religious orders
took up lots of property
2. City governments want to integrate clergy into civic life with public responsibilities
3. Urban leaders want say in appointing high church offices rather than in Rome
II. Martin Luther (1483-1546) - Dramatic changes of 16 cent result from personal religious struggles of German
professor and priest
A. History
1. Born in Saxony → sent to school and University (md in distinction) → to proceed in law and
legal career (stepping stone to public office and material success)
2. Religious calling → joins Augustinian friars (religious order who preached to, taught, and
assisted poor)
3. 1507 ordained priest → earns doctorate in theology → 1512-1546 professor of Scriptures at
University of Wittenberg
4. Frequently cited professorship as justification for reforming work
B. Luther is a very conscientious friar who had anxiety about sin and his ability to meet God's demands
1. Scrupulous observance of religious routine, frequent confessions, fasting provide temporary
relief
2. Studied Saint Paul’s letters in New Testament; arrives at new understanding of Christian
doctrine → “faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone”
a) Salvation/justification come through faith; faith is a free gift of God’s grace, not result
of human effort; God’s word is revealed in Scripture not traditions of church
C. Pope Leo X authorizes selling of indulgences (pardoning of punishments for sins)
1. Albert of Mainz (archbishop near Wittenberg) promotes sale → receives share of profits to pay
off debt to purchase papal dispensation → become bishop of several other territories
, a) Run by Dominican friar Johann Tetzel, promised full forgiveness for sins or release from
purgatory for loved one
D. Indulgence - document issued by Church lessening the penance or time in purgatory, believed to bring
forgiveness to sins
1. Individuals who sinned could be reconciled to God by confessing to a priest and doing assigned
penance like praying or fasting
2. 12th cent theologians emphasized purgatory - place on the way to Heaven where souls make
further amends for earthly sins
3. Penance and purgatory could be shortened by drawing on “treasury of merits” - collection of all
virtuous acts that Christ, apostles, and saints had done in their lives
a) Indulgence substituted a virtuous act from the tom for penance or purgatory time
E. Luther is taken-aback by people’s carelessness
1. 1517 writes letter to Archbishop Albert on matter + enclosed Latin “Ninety-five Theses on the
Power of Indulgences”
a) Indulgences undermined seriousness of sacrament of penance, competed with Gospel
preaching, and downplayed importance of charity in Christian life
2. Theses were printed in Latin and German; debated with church representative Johann Eck
3. Firm opinion and continued to develop reform calls in pamphlets
a) Popes and church councils made mistakes, secular leaders should make reforms if
they didn’t
b) No distinction btwn clergy and laypeople, requiring clergy to be celibate was fruitless
attempt to control natural human drive
(1) Luther understood power of new medium of print
F. After the letter
1. Papacy orders book burning and two months to recant before excommunicate; Luther publicly
burns their letter
2. 1521 (year of excommunication) Luther’s theological issues became interwoven with public
controversies about church wealth, power, and structure - had similar views
3. Emperor Charles V holds diet (assembly of nobility, clergy, and HRE cities) in city of Worms;
summons Luther → refused to take back ideas
4. 1521 Diet of Worms creators broader audience for reform ideas; began preaching against existing
doctrines and practices of church
III. Protestant Thought
A. Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) - Swiss humanist, priest, admirer of Erasmus
1. Preach using Erasmus’s New Testament from “A to Z” or Matthew to Revelation
2. Convinced Christian life rested on Scriptures - pure words of God, sole basis of religious truth
a) Attacked indulgences, the Mass, institution of monasticism, clerical celibacy
b) Had strong support of city authorities who resented clergy privileges
B. Rise of Protestants - all non-Cathloic western Christian groups → 4 main questions
1. How is a person to be saved (salvation)?
a) Traditional: faith and good works
b) Protestants: faith alone, irrespective of good works, sacraments; God initiates salvation
2. Where does religious authority reside?
a) Traditional: Bible and traditional teaching of church
b) Protestants: Bible alone; for doctrine or issue to be valid, it needed scriptural basis
(1) Most Protestants rejected Catholic teachings about sacraments → only
baptism and Eucharist have script support
3. What is the church?
a) Traditional: hierarchical clerical institution headed by pope
b) Protestants: spiritual priesthood of all believers, an invisible fellowship not fixed in any
place or person
4. What is the highest form of CHristian life?
a) Traditional: stressed superiority of monastic and religious life over secular
b) Protestants: disagreed; argued every person should serve God in his or her individual
calling
C. Disagreements among Protestants
1. Ritual of Eucharist (communion, Lord’s Supper, the Mass)
a) Traditional: by consecrating words of priest during the Mass, bread and wine become
actual body and blood of Christ
b) Luther: Christ is really present in consecrated bread and wine as a result of God’s
mystery, not actions of priest
c) Zwingli: Eucharist was a memorial in which Christ was present in spirit among the
faithful but not in bread and wine
2. 1529 Colloquy of Marburg tries to unite Protestants but couldn’t resolve ↑
