The Protestant Reformation, The Radical Reformation, The English Reformation, The Counter Reformation

Martin Luther

Only one church existed in Western Europe in the year 1500. The Roman Catholic Church. At the top was the Pope in Rome who literally governed everything. The Protestant Reformation resulted with the split in Western Christendom. These three things greatly affected the Reformation: The Renaissance, both Italian (in how secularization was beginning to dominate thought) and Northern (how Church Reform led eventually to Reformation by Luther); The Printing Press (which w/o the reformation would not have happened); and last the rise of powerful nation-states headed by a monarch. Now reformation is not how this guy Luther changed everything, Reformation is more about how the Church and its ideals split within different people, Reformation is Complex, Intriguing, and Compelling (It would make a good fiction book).

The Church was in disarray on the eve of Reformation. For example the Black Death struck the population of Europe. Growing Anticlericalism: Disrespect towards the clergy. Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a perfect example of Anticlericalism. And in addition to that the schism as mentioned before. Other problems was that the clergy was becoming increasingly poorly educated. Simony: the selling of church offices, was another problem.

Enter Martin Luther: The central figure of this story. Luther (1483-1546) had his initial beef concerning indulgences. Indulgences began during the crusades, and offered at this early time of the crusades to the knights who were fighting for Christendom. Indulgences is the idea that if you gave the church some money, in essence if you bought indulgences from the church, once you died, your soul would spent less time in purgatory and go faster to Heaven. The Papacy sold this to raise church funds. Johann Tetzel, the seller even had a phrase for it: "As soon as gold in the basin rings, the soul to heaven rings."

Luther got pissed at this. He posted up his 95 theses at Wittenberg Castle, in which he denounced the selling of indulgences. Part of his anger was that German money was going to Rome. Thanks to the printing press, the 95 theses were printed all over Germany. In Address to the Christian Nobility, he said that secular gov't had the right to reform the church. Now Luther wasn't stupid. To a degree he sucked up to the nobles because he knew that if the nobles went with him, that would mean that his ideas, and later his reformation would be successful, because it had support from the VIPs. In On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther attacked the sacraments. Finally in Liberty of a Christian Man, he hit it: salvation by faith alone. In response Pope Leo X issued a Bull (papal decree, not the other kind of bull...) and demanded that Luther recant. Luther took the Bull, went outside and publicly burned it, he no longer accepted papal authority, and the pope excommunicated him. In 1521 he went before the Diet of Worms, when asked by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor,

        "Do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors that contain?"

Luther responded,

        "Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority     of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscious is captive to the Word of God; I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me, Amen."

Luther was banned by the Empire. During his time as an "outlaw" he translated the Bible into German.

Luther went from 7 to 2 sacraments, he only left baptism and communion. He rejected Transubstantiation, died away with monasticism and celibacy of the clergy. And he himself left the monastery (duh!), ran off with some girl, got married, and had several children.

Within 30 years of his 95 theses the Reformation reached N. Germany, Scandinavia, England, Scotland, parts of the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland. Luther and his church were social conservatives and they did not pose a threat to the existing social order. Luther was willing to subordinate his church to the authority of German princes. 

Another reason why Reformation was successful: When Max, HRE (Holy Roman Emperor) died his grandson and heir, Charles V became HRE. He was fighting with France's Francis I. Charles had huge commitments, because he was also ruler of Spain and its colonies in America, of the Netherlands, of Southern Italy, and of the Hapsburg possessions of Austria.

In 1555 Charles V was forced to sign the Peace of Augsburg. This treaty granted legal recognition for Lutheranism in those territories ruled by a Lutheran Leader, while a Catholic Leader remained Catholic. 

Term used to define other protestant sects that weren't happy with the extend which Luther carried his reformation. Such groups are the Anabaptists and the Antitrinitarians. Then this guy named Zwingli came and he denounced all of the sacraments. Yet the most important was...

John Calvin. 1509 - 1564. Born in France, but went to Geneva. In Institutes of the Christian Religion, he argued in Predestination - meaning that God had already chosen who would be saved and those that were saved were the "Elect". Calvin made Geneva a theocracy, he was a strict disciplinarian (closed all taverns). Calvinism began to spread, becoming the established church of Scotland. French Calvinists were known as Huguenots. 

King Henry VIII

The English Reformation wasn't religious, but Political. This is what happened:

Henry VIII (r. 1509-1546), was married to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of the Queen and King of Spain. After a number of tries Catherine never gave Henry the male heir that he wanted. Instead the only child that Catherine gave Henry was Mary (who would later reign as Queen Mary or most commonly known as "Bloody Mary"). So Henry went to the pope to annul the marriage. Now this is the thing. Catherine of Aragon was the aunt of Charles V, HRE. Charles V was a defender of the Church. So the Pope knew that if he gave the annulment to Henry, then Charles V would get pissed off and not defend the Church anymore, which at this time the Church needed all the defenders it could get. So the Pope said no. This infuriated Henry. Henry was already in love with another woman, Anne Boleyn (who is the mother of the future Queen Elizabeth I). Starting in 11/1529, Henry decided to take the matters in his own hands. He began what came to be known as the Reformation Parliament. So this is what happened Henry kept Anne as his mistress and secretly married her. Yet the thing is that he was also married to Catherine. Anne got pregnant. In the span of 9 months, he had to do something so that his child would not be illegitimate, he had to end his marriage with Catherine pronto. He decided that the only way to do this was by cutting his relations with the Church. He kicked out the Catholics. Put in a new church, The Church of England, or also known as the Anglican Church. Got a council in that new church selected which nulled his marriage to Catherine. And that September a child was born, Elizabeth Tudor, disappointing Henry because he wanted a boy. Eventually Henry would marry a total of 6x, and his third wife, Jane Seymour, finally gave him a son, Edward. Henry created "Catholicism without the Pope", meaning that through the Act of Supremecy, and his Church of England, he would keep many of the Catholic Traditions in place. (For those of you who will take AP US History, that's where we start off, when the Puritans are mad at how Catholic the Church of England is). Then his son Edward VI (r.1547-1553) expanded Protestant Theology. After that Mary came in and being a Catholic, she tried to undo what her father and brother had done. So she killed a number of Protestants, and thus getting the term, "Bloody Mary". After Mary's death, Elizabeth became Queen of England. Elizabeth is what we call a politiqué. Meaning that she put secular matters above religion. Along with Henry of Navarre these politiqués played an essential role in their development of Monarchial Nation States. Elizabeth, eventhough she was Protestant was a middle-of-the-road Protestant and was generally religiously tolerable. A new era in England would come, Elizabethan Era.

The Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation. The Counter Reformation is also known as the Catholic Reformation. It was a counter reformation because it tried to counter the Protestants by creating the Index of Forbidden Books, and reviving Papal Inquisition. The center of this was the Council of Trent, which met between 1545 and 1563. This council was dominated by the papacy and, in turn, enhanced its power. The council placed limits on the selling of church offices, council mandated seminary for the education of clergy, and that it should be established in every diocese, the council did not concede any theological point to the Protestants. They endorsed their traditional teachings on matters such as the sacraments, the role of priest, salvation by faith and good works, and that source of faith was Bible and traditions of the Church. Wanted more religious art style: Baroque. The Jesuits (Society of Jesus) was founded by Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556). The Jesuits were accepted as a official order of the church in a papal bull issued in 1540. They distinguished themselves as a teaching order and also worked as Catholic missionaries.