protestant reformation cause and effect essay

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What did the Reformation do?

Who were some of the key figures of the reformation.

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Reformation

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Where and when did the Reformation start?

The Reformation is said to have begun when Martin Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg , Germany, on October 31, 1517.

The Reformation became the basis for the founding of Protestantism , one of the three major branches of Christianity . The Reformation led to the reformulation of certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant traditions. The spread of Protestantism in areas that had previously been Roman Catholic had far-reaching political, economic, and social effects.

The greatest leaders of the Reformation undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin . Martin Luther precipitated the Reformation with his critiques of both the practices and the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. John Calvin was the most important figure in the second generation of the Reformation, and his interpretation of Christianity, known as Calvinism , deeply influenced many areas of Protestant thought. Other figures included Pope Leo X , who excommunicated Luther; the Holy Roman emperor Charles V , who essentially declared war on Protestantism; Henry VIII , king of England, who presided over the establishment of an independent Church of England; and Huldrych Zwingli , a Swiss reformer.

Reformation , the religious revolution that took place in the Western church in the 16th century. Its greatest leaders undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin . Having far-reaching political, economic, and social effects, the Reformation became the basis for the founding of Protestantism , one of the three major branches of Christianity .

The world of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church from which the 16th-century reformers emerged was a complex one. Over the centuries the church, particularly in the office of the papacy , had become deeply involved in the political life of western Europe . The resulting intrigues and political manipulations, combined with the church’s increasing power and wealth, contributed to the bankrupting of the church as a spiritual force. Abuses such as the sale of indulgences (or spiritual privileges) by the clergy and other charges of corruption undermined the church’s spiritual authority. These instances must be seen as exceptions, however, no matter how much they were played up by polemicists. For most people, the church continued to offer spiritual comfort. There is some evidence of anticlericalism , but the church at large enjoyed loyalty as it had before. One development is clear: the political authorities increasingly sought to curtail the public role of the church and thereby triggered tension.

The Reformation of the 16th century was not unprecedented. Reformers within the medieval church such as St. Francis of Assisi , Valdes (founder of the Waldensians ), Jan Hus , and John Wycliffe addressed aspects in the life of the church in the centuries before 1517. In the 16th century Erasmus of Rotterdam , a great humanist scholar, was the chief proponent of liberal Catholic reform that attacked popular superstitions in the church and urged the imitation of Christ as the supreme moral teacher. These figures reveal an ongoing concern for renewal within the church in the years before Luther is said to have posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church, Wittenberg , Germany , on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints’ Day —the traditional date for the beginning of the Reformation. ( See Researcher’s Note .)

Martin Luther claimed that what distinguished him from previous reformers was that while they attacked corruption in the life of the church, he went to the theological root of the problem—the perversion of the church’s doctrine of redemption and grace . Luther, a pastor and professor at the University of Wittenberg, deplored the entanglement of God’s free gift of grace in a complex system of indulgences and good works. In his Ninety-five Theses, he attacked the indulgence system, insisting that the pope had no authority over purgatory and that the doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in the gospel. Here lay the key to Luther’s concerns for the ethical and theological reform of the church: Scripture alone is authoritative ( sola scriptura ) and justification is by faith ( sola fide ), not by works. While he did not intend to break with the Catholic church, a confrontation with the papacy was not long in coming. In 1521 Luther was excommunicated ; what began as an internal reform movement had become a fracture in western Christendom.

The Reformation movement within Germany diversified almost immediately, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. Huldrych Zwingli built a Christian theocracy in Zürich in which church and state joined for the service of God. Zwingli agreed with Luther in the centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith, but he espoused a different understanding of the Holy Communion . Luther had rejected the Catholic church’s doctrine of transubstantiation , according to which the bread and wine in Holy Communion became the actual body and blood of Christ. According to Luther’s notion, the body of Christ was physically present in the elements because Christ is present everywhere, while Zwingli claimed that entailed a spiritual presence of Christ and a declaration of faith by the recipients.

Another group of reformers, often though not altogether correctly referred to as “radical reformers,” insisted that baptism be performed not on infants but on adults who had professed their faith in Jesus. Called Anabaptists , they remained a marginal phenomenon in the 16th century but survived—despite fierce persecution—as Mennonites and Hutterites into the 21st century. Opponents of the ancient Trinitarian dogma made their appearance as well. Known as Socinians , after the name of their founder, they established flourishing congregations, especially in Poland .

Another important form of Protestantism (as those protesting against their suppressions were designated by the Diet of Speyer in 1529) is Calvinism , named for John Calvin , a French lawyer who fled France after his conversion to the Protestant cause. In Basel , Switzerland, Calvin brought out the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, the first systematic, theological treatise of the new reform movement. Calvin agreed with Luther’s teaching on justification by faith. However, he found a more positive place for law within the Christian community than did Luther. In Geneva , Calvin was able to experiment with his ideal of a disciplined community of the elect. Calvin also stressed the doctrine of predestination and interpreted Holy Communion as a spiritual partaking of the body and blood of Christ. Calvin’s tradition merged eventually with Zwingli’s into the Reformed tradition, which was given theological expression by the (second) Helvetic Confession of 1561.

The Reformation spread to other European countries over the course of the 16th century. By mid century, Lutheranism dominated northern Europe. Eastern Europe offered a seedbed for even more radical varieties of Protestantism, because kings were weak, nobles strong, and cities few, and because religious pluralism had long existed. Spain and Italy were to be the great centres of the Catholic Counter-Reformation , and Protestantism never gained a strong foothold there.

In England the Reformation’s roots were both political and religious. Henry VIII , incensed by Pope Clement VII ’s refusal to grant him an annulment of his marriage, repudiated papal authority and in 1534 established the Anglican church with the king as the supreme head. In spite of its political implications , the reorganization of the church permitted the beginning of religious change in England, which included the preparation of a liturgy in English, the Book of Common Prayer . In Scotland , John Knox , who spent time in Geneva and was greatly influenced by John Calvin, led the establishment of Presbyterianism , which made possible the eventual union of Scotland with England. For further treatment of the Reformation, see Protestantism, history of . For a discussion of the religious doctrine, see Protestantism .

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The Reformation

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 11, 2019 | Original: December 2, 2009

The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era. 

In northern and central Europe, reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin and Henry VIII challenged papal authority and questioned the Catholic Church’s ability to define Christian practice. They argued for a religious and political redistribution of power into the hands of Bible- and pamphlet-reading pastors and princes. The disruption triggered wars, persecutions and the so-called Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s delayed but forceful response to the Protestants.

Dating the Reformation

Historians usually date the start of the Protestant Reformation to the 1517 publication of Martin Luther’s “95 Theses.” Its ending can be placed anywhere from the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, which allowed for the coexistence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany, to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The key ideas of the Reformation—a call to purify the church and a belief that the Bible, not tradition, should be the sole source of spiritual authority—were not themselves novel. However, Luther and the other reformers became the first to skillfully use the power of the printing press to give their ideas a wide audience.

Did you know? No reformer was more adept than Martin Luther at using the power of the press to spread his ideas. Between 1518 and 1525, Luther published more works than the next 17 most prolific reformers combined.

The Reformation: Germany and Lutheranism

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was an Augustinian monk and university lecturer in Wittenberg when he composed his “95 Theses,” which protested the pope’s sale of reprieves from penance, or indulgences. Although he had hoped to spur renewal from within the church, in 1521 he was summoned before the Diet of Worms and excommunicated. 

Sheltered by Friedrich, elector of Saxony, Luther translated the Bible into German and continued his output of vernacular pamphlets. When German peasants, inspired in part by Luther’s empowering “priesthood of all believers,” revolted in 1524, Luther sided with Germany’s princes. By the Reformation’s end, Lutheranism had become the state religion throughout much of Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltics.

The Reformation: Switzerland and Calvinism

The Swiss Reformation began in 1519 with the sermons of Ulrich Zwingli, whose teachings largely paralleled Luther’s. In 1541 John Calvin, a French Protestant who had spent the previous decade in exile writing his “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” was invited to settle in Geneva and put his Reformed doctrine—which stressed God’s power and humanity’s predestined fate—into practice. The result was a theocratic regime of enforced, austere morality.

Calvin’s Geneva became a hotbed for Protestant exiles, and his doctrines quickly spread to Scotland, France, Transylvania and the Low Countries, where Dutch Calvinism became a religious and economic force for the next 400 years.

The Reformation: England and the 'Middle Way'

In England, the Reformation began with Henry VIII’s quest for a male heir. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could remarry, the English king declared in 1534 that he alone should be the final authority in matters relating to the English church. Henry dissolved England’s monasteries to confiscate their wealth and worked to place the Bible in the hands of the people. Beginning in 1536, every parish was required to have a copy.

After Henry’s death, England tilted toward Calvinist-infused Protestantism during Edward VI’s six-year reign and then endured five years of reactionary Catholicism under Mary I . In 1559 Elizabeth I took the throne and, during her 44-year reign, cast the Church of England as a “middle way” between Calvinism and Catholicism, with vernacular worship and a revised Book of Common Prayer.

The Counter-Reformation

The Catholic Church was slow to respond systematically to the theological and publicity innovations of Luther and the other reformers. The Council of Trent, which met off and on from 1545 through 1563, articulated the Church’s answer to the problems that triggered the Reformation and to the reformers themselves.

The Catholic Church of the Counter-Reformation era grew more spiritual, more literate and more educated. New religious orders, notably the Jesuits, combined rigorous spirituality with a globally minded intellectualism, while mystics such as Teresa of Avila injected new passion into the older orders. Inquisitions, both in Spain and in Rome, were reorganized to fight the threat of Protestant heresy.

The Reformation’s Legacy

Along with the religious consequences of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation came deep and lasting political changes. Northern Europe’s new religious and political freedoms came at a great cost, with decades of rebellions, wars and bloody persecutions. The Thirty Years’ War alone may have cost Germany 40 percent of its population.

But the Reformation’s positive repercussions can be seen in the intellectual and cultural flourishing it inspired on all sides of the schism—in the strengthened universities of Europe, the Lutheran church music of J.S. Bach, the baroque altarpieces of Pieter Paul Rubens and even the capitalism of Dutch Calvinist merchants.

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Europe 1300 - 1800

Course: europe 1300 - 1800   >   unit 8, the protestant reformation.

• Introduction to the Protestant Reformation: Setting the stage
• Introduction to the Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther
• Introduction to the Protestant Reformation: The Counter-Reformation
• Introduction to the Protestant Reformation: Varieties of Protestantism
• The Council of Trent and the call to reform art
• Iconoclasm in the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century

A challenge to the Church in Rome

The church and the state, martin luther, indulgences, faith alone, scripture alone, the counter-reformation, the council of trent.

Selected Outcomes of the Council of Trent:

The Council denied the Lutheran idea of justification by faith. They affirmed, in other words, their Doctrine of Merit, which allows human beings to redeem themselves through Good Works, and through the sacraments.

They affirmed the existence of purgatory and the usefulness of prayer and indulgences in shortening a person's stay in purgatory.

They reaffirmed the belief in transubstantiation and the importance of all seven sacraments.

They reaffirmed the authority of both scripture the teachings and traditions of the Church.

They reaffirmed the necessity and correctness of religious art (see below).

The Council of Trent on religious art

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The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation that began with Martin Luther in 1517 played a key role in the development of the North American colonies and the eventual United States.

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Religion, Social Studies, Civics, U.S. History, World History

Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms 1521

Martin Luther, a German teacher and a monk, brought about the Protestant Reformation when he challenged the Catholic Church's teachings starting in 1517.

Photograph of painting by World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo

The Protestant Reformation was a religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the 1500s. It resulted in the creation of a branch of Christianity called Protestantism , a name used collectively to refer to the many religious groups that separated from the Roman Catholic Church due to differences in doctrine . The Protestant Reformation began in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther, a teacher and a monk, published a document he called Disputation on the Power of Indulgences , or 95 Theses . The document was a series of 95 ideas about Christianity that he invited people to debate with him. These ideas were controversial because they directly contradicted the Catholic Church 's teachings. Luther's statements challenged the Catholic Church 's role as intermediary between people and God, specifically when it came to the indulgence system, which in part allowed people to purchase a certificate of pardon for the punishment of their sins. Luther argued against the practice of buying or earning forgiveness, believing instead that salvation is a gift God gives to those who have faith. Luther's objections to the indulgence system paved the way for other challenges to the Catholic doctrine throughout Europe. For example, John Calvin in France and Huldrych Zwingli in Switzerland proposed new ideas about the practice of Holy Communion, and a group called Anabaptists rejected the idea that infants should be baptized in favor of the notion that baptism was reserved for adult Christians. Broadly speaking, most of the challenges to the Catholic Church revolved around the notion that individual believers should be less dependent on the Catholic Church , and its pope and priests, for spiritual guidance and salvation. Instead, Protestants believed people should be independent in their relationship with God, taking personal responsibility for their faith and referring directly to the Bible, the Christian holy book, for spiritual wisdom. Protestant reform in England began with Henry VIII in 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a marriage annulment. Subsequently, King Henry rejected the Pope's authority, instead creating and assuming authority over the Church of England, a sort of hybrid church that combined some Catholic doctrine and some Protestant ideals. Over the next 20 years, there was religious turbulence in England as Queen Mary (1553–1558) reinstated Catholicism in England while persecuting and exiling Protestants , only to have Queen Elizabeth I and her Parliament attempt to lead the country back toward Protestantism during her reign (1558–1603). Some English citizens did not believe Queen Elizabeth's efforts to restore England to Protestantism went far enough. These citizens fell into two groups, both labeled Puritans by their opponents. The first group, known as separatists , believed the Church of England was so corrupt that their only choice was to leave England, separate from the church , and start a new church . They called this the English Separatist Church . Around 1607 or 1609, some of the separatists tried to start the new lives they imagined in Holland, in the Netherlands. Ultimately, the endeavor failed due to poverty and the sense that the children were assimilating too much into Dutch culture, so many of the separatists returned to England. By 1620, members of the English Separatist Church were ready for a second try at establishing a new life and church . Those who set sail aboard the Mayflower for New England and eventually landed near Plymouth, Massachusetts, would, in time, become known as the Pilgrims . The other group of English citizens who did not believe Queen Elizabeth's reform efforts went far enough were called non separatists ; over time, the term " Puritan " would become synonymous with the non separatists . They did not seek to leave the Church of England; they wanted only to reform it by eliminating the remnants of Catholicism that remained. In terms of theology, most of them were Calvinists. Although they did not desire to separate from the Church of England, some Puritans saw emigrating to New England as their best chance at true reform of the church and freedom to worship as they chose. In 1630, a decade after the Pilgrims embarked on a similar journey for similar reasons, the first Puritans traveled to the New World and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston, Massachusetts. Though the separatists and non separatists disagreed about whether to sever ties to the Church of England, both groups of early North American colonists shared a dissatisfaction with the church and a mindset that they were free to establish a church more in alignment with their spiritual views. Perhaps predictably, this freedom to practice religion according to one's beliefs led to the creation of countless different churches , denominations , and doctrines in the colonies. Equally predictable, throughout history this diversity has led to disagreements. However, this diversity of religious thought has also become a core part of the identity of the United States: The Bill of Rights explicitly forbids "establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Over 400 years in the making, this belief in personal empowerment and independence in religious matters, with its roots in the Protestant Reformation , has become an enduring part of the American mindset.

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Related Resources

The Protestant Reformation

Wittenberg, 1725, engraving, 18 x 15 cm ( State and University Library, Dresden )

A challenge to the Church in Rome

In art history, the 16th century sees the styles we call the High Renaissance followed by Mannerism , and—at the end of the century—the emergence of the Baroque style . Naturally, these styles are all shaped by historical forces, the most significant being the Protestant Reformation’s successful challenge to the spiritual and political power of the Church in Rome. For the history of art, this has particular significance since the use (and abuse) of images was the topic of debate. In fact, many images were attacked and destroyed during this period, a phenomenon called iconoclasm .

Today there are many types of Protestant Churches. For example, Baptist is currently the largest denomination in the United States but there are many dozens more. How did this happen? Where did they all begin? To understand the Protestant Reform movement, we need to go back in history to the early 16th century when there was only one church in Western Europe—what we would now call the Roman Catholic Church—under the leadership of the Pope in Rome. Today, we call this “Roman Catholic” because there are so many other types of churches (i.e. Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican—you get the idea).

The Church and the state

So, if we go back to the year 1500, the Church (what we now call the Roman Catholic Church) was very powerful (politically and spiritually) in Western Europe (and in fact ruled over significant territory in Italy called the Papal States). But there were other political forces at work too. There was the Holy Roman Empire  (largely made up of German speaking regions ruled by princes, dukes, and electors), the Italian city-states, England, as well as the increasingly unified nation states of France and Spain (among others). The power of the rulers of these areas had increased in the previous century and many were anxious to take the opportunity offered by the Reformation to weaken the power of the papacy (the office of the Pope) and increase their own power in relation to the Church in Rome and other rulers.

Keep in mind too, that for some time the Church had been seen as an institution plagued by internal power struggles (at one point in the late 1300s and 1400s church was ruled by three Popes simultaneously). Popes and cardinals often lived more like kings than spiritual leaders. Popes claimed temporal (political) as well as spiritual power. They commanded armies, made political alliances and enemies, and, sometimes, even waged war. Simony (the selling of Church offices) and nepotism (favoritism based on family relationships) were rampant. Clearly, if the Pope was concentrating on these worldly issues, there wasn’t as much time left for caring for the souls of the faithful. The corruption of the Church was well known, and several attempts had been made to reform the Church (notably by John Wyclif and Jan Hus ), but none of these efforts successfully challenged Church practice until Martin Luther’s actions in the early 1500s.

Friedrich Drake, Door of Theses, Castle Church, Wittenberg, Germany, 1858, bronze (photo: public domain )

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Martin Luther as an Augustinian Monk , 1520, engraving, 14.3 x 9.7 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German monk and Professor of Theology at the University of Wittenberg. Luther sparked the Reformation in 1517 by posting, at least according to tradition, his “95 Theses” on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. These theses were a list of statements that expressed Luther’s concerns about certain Church practices—largely the sale of indulgences, but they were based on Luther’s deeper concerns with Church doctrine. Before we go on, notice that the word Protestant contains the word “protest” and that reformation contains the word “reform”—this was an effort, at least at first, to protest some practices of the Catholic Church and to reform that Church.

Indulgences

The sale of indulgences was a practice where the Church acknowledged a donation or other charitable work with a piece of paper (an indulgence), that certified that your soul would enter heaven more quickly by reducing your time in purgatory. If you committed no serious sins that guaranteed your place in hell, and you died before repenting and atoning for all of your sins, then your soul went to purgatory—a kind of way-station where you finished atoning for your sins before being allowed to enter heaven.

Pope Leo X had granted indulgences to raise money for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. These indulgences were being sold by Johann Tetzel not far from Wittenberg, where Luther was Professor of Theology. Luther was gravely concerned about the way in which getting into heaven was connected with a financial transaction. But the sale of indulgences was not Luther’s only disagreement with the institution of the Church.

Faith alone

Martin Luther was very devout and had experienced a spiritual crisis. He concluded that no matter how “good” he tried to be, no matter how he tried to stay away from sin, he still found himself having sinful thoughts. He was fearful that no matter how many good works he did, he could never do enough to earn his place in heaven (remember that, according to the Catholic Church, doing good works, for example commissioning works of art for the Church, helped one gain entrance to heaven). This was a profound recognition of the inescapable sinfulness of the human condition. After all, no matter how kind and good we try to be, we all find ourselves having thoughts which are unkind and sometimes much worse. Luther found a way out of this problem when he read St. Paul, who wrote “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). Luther understood this to mean that those who go to heaven (the just) will get there by faith alone—not by doing good works. In other words, God’s grace is something freely given to human beings, not something we can earn. For the Catholic Church, on the other hand, human beings, through good works, had some agency in their salvation.

Scripture alone

Luther (and other reformers) turned to the Bible as the only reliable source of instruction (as opposed to the teachings of the Church). The invention of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century (by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany) together with the translation of the Bible into the vernacular (the common languages of French, Italian, German, English, etc.) meant that it was possible for those that could read to learn directly from Bible without having to rely on a priest or other church officials. Before this time, the Bible was available in Latin, the ancient language of Rome spoken chiefly by the clergy. Before the printing press, books were handmade and extremely expensive. The invention of the printing press and the translation of the Bible into the vernacular meant that for the first time in history, the Bible was available to those outside of the Church. And now, a direct relationship to God, unmediated by the institution of the Catholic Church, was possible.

When Luther and other reformers looked to the words of the Bible (and there were efforts at improving the accuracy of these new translations based on early Greek manuscripts), they found that many of the practices and teachings of the Church about how we achieve salvation didn’t match Christ’s teaching. This included many of the sacraments, including Holy Communion (also known as the Eucharist). According to the Catholic Church, the miracle of Communion is transubstantiation—when the priest administers the bread and wine, they change (the prefix “trans” means to change) their substance into the body and blood of Christ. Luther denied that anything changed during Holy Communion. Luther thereby challenged one of the central sacraments of the Catholic Church, one of its central miracles, and thereby one of the ways that human beings can achieve grace with God, or salvation.

The Counter-Reformation

The Church initially ignored Martin Luther, but Luther’s ideas (and variations of them, including Calvinism) quickly spread throughout Europe. He was asked to recant (to disavow) his writings at the Diet of Worms (an unfortunate name for a council held by the Holy Roman Emperor in the German city of Worms). When Luther refused, he was excommunicated (in other words, expelled from the church). The Church’s response to the threat from Luther and others during this period is called the Counter-Reformation (“counter”—against).

Council of Trent, 1565, in the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae , etching and engraving, 33.5 x 49.7 cm ( The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York)

The Council of Trent

In 1545 the Church opened the Council of Trent to deal with the issues raised by Luther. The Council of Trent was an assembly of high officials in the Church who met (on and off for eighteen years) principally in the Northern Italian town of Trent for 25 sessions.

Selected Outcomes of the Council of Trent:

• The Council denied the Lutheran idea of justification by faith. They affirmed, in other words, their Doctrine of Merit, which allows human beings to redeem themselves through Good Works, and through the sacraments.
• They affirmed the existence of purgatory and the usefulness of prayer and indulgences in shortening a person’s stay in purgatory.
• They reaffirmed the belief in transubstantiation and the importance of all seven sacraments.
• They reaffirmed the authority of both scripture the teachings and traditions of the Church.
• They reaffirmed the necessity and correctness of religious art (see below).

The Council of Trent on religious art

At the Council of Trent, the Church also reaffirmed the usefulness of images—but indicated that church officials should be careful to promote the correct use of images and guard against the possibility of idolatry. The council decreed that images are useful “because the honor which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which those images represent” (in other words, through the images we honor the holy figures depicted). And they listed another reason images were useful, “because the miracles which God has performed by means of the saints, and their salutary examples, are set before the eyes of the faithful; that so they may give God thanks for those things; may order their own lives and manners in imitation of the saints; and may be excited to adore and love God, and to cultivate piety.”

The Reformation was a very violent period in Europe, even family members were often pitted against one another in the wars of religion. Each side, both Catholics and Protestants, were often absolutely certain that they were in the right and that the other side was doing the devil’s work.

The artists of this period—Michelangelo in Rome, Titian in Venice, Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg, Lucas Cranach the Elder in Saxony—were impacted by these changes since the Church had been the single largest patron for artists. And art was now being scrutinized in an entirely new way. The Catholic Church was looking to see if art communicated the stories of the Bible effectively and clearly (see Paolo Veronese’s Feast in the House of Levi for more on this). Protestants on the other hand, for the most part, lost the patronage of the Church, and religious images (sculptures, paintings, stained glass windows, etc.) were destroyed in iconoclastic riots .

Other developments

It is also during this period that the Scientific Revolution gained momentum and observation of the natural world replaced religious doctrine as the source of our understanding of the universe and our place in it. The Holy Roman Empire up-ended the ancient Greek model of the heavens by suggesting that the sun was at the center of the solar system and that the planets orbited around it.

At the same time, exploration, colonization, and (the often forced) Christianization of what Europe called the “ New World ” continued. By the end of the century, the world of the Europeans was a lot bigger and opinions about that world were more varied and more uncertain than they had been for centuries.

Please note, this tutorial focuses on Western Europe. There are other forms of Christianity in other parts of the world including, for example, the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Bibliography

Overview of the Reformation from BBC

Important fundamentals

Introduction to the Protestant Reformation: Setting the stage

More on Martin Luther

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

The reformation.

Erasmus of Rotterdam

Hans Holbein the Younger (and Workshop(?))

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

Workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder

• The Last Supper

Designed by Bernard van Orley

The Fifteen Mysteries and the Virgin of the Rosary

Netherlandish (Brussels) Painter

Albrecht Dürer

Four Scenes from the Passion

Follower of Bernard van Orley

Friedrich III (1463–1525), the Wise, Elector of Saxony

Lucas Cranach the Elder and Workshop

Martin Luther as an Augustinian Monk

Lucas Cranach the Elder

Johann I (1468–1532), the Constant, Elector of Saxony

The Last Judgment

Joos van Cleve

Chancellor Leonhard von Eck (1480–1550)

Barthel Beham

Anne de Pisseleu (1508–1576), Duchesse d'Étampes

Attributed to Corneille de Lyon

Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

Christ and the Adulteress

Lucas Cranach the Younger and Workshop

The Calling of Saint Matthew

Copy after Jan Sanders van Hemessen

Christ Blessing the Children

Satire on the Papacy

Melchior Lorck

Christ Blessing, Surrounded by a Donor Family

German Painter

Jacob Wisse Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University

October 2002

Unleashed in the early sixteenth century, the Reformation put an abrupt end to the relative unity that had existed for the previous thousand years in Western Christendom under the Roman Catholic Church . The Reformation, which began in Germany but spread quickly throughout Europe, was initiated in response to the growing sense of corruption and administrative abuse in the church. It expressed an alternate vision of Christian practice, and led to the creation and rise of Protestantism, with all its individual branches. Images, especially, became effective tools for disseminating negative portrayals of the church ( 53.677.5 ), and for popularizing Reformation ideas; art, in turn, was revolutionized by the movement.

Though rooted in a broad dissatisfaction with the church, the birth of the Reformation can be traced to the protests of one man, the German Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483–1546) ( 20.64.21 ; 55.220.2 ). In 1517, he nailed to a church door in Wittenberg, Saxony, a manifesto listing ninety-five arguments, or Theses, against the use and abuse of indulgences, which were official pardons for sins granted after guilt had been forgiven through penance. Particularly objectionable to the reformers was the selling of indulgences, which essentially allowed sinners to buy their way into heaven, and which, from the beginning of the sixteenth century, had become common practice. But, more fundamentally, Luther questioned basic tenets of the Roman Church, including the clergy’s exclusive right to grant salvation. He believed human salvation depended on individual faith, not on clerical mediation, and conceived of the Bible as the ultimate and sole source of Christian truth. He also advocated the abolition of monasteries and criticized the church’s materialistic use of art. Luther was excommunicated in 1520, but was granted protection by the elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise (r. 1483–1525) ( 46.179.1 ), and given safe conduct to the Imperial Diet in Worms and then asylum in Wartburg.

The movement Luther initiated spread and grew in popularity—especially in Northern Europe, though reaction to the protests against the church varied from country to country. In 1529, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V tried, for the most part unsuccessfully, to stamp out dissension among German Catholics. Elector John the Constant (r. 1525–32) ( 46.179.2 ), Frederick’s brother and successor, was actively hostile to the emperor and one of the fiercest defenders of Protestantism. By the middle of the century, most of north and west Germany had become Protestant. King Henry VIII of England (r. 1509–47), who had been a steadfast Catholic, broke with the church over the pope’s refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the first of Henry’s six wives. With the Act of Supremacy in 1534, Henry was made head of the Church of England, a title that would be shared by all future kings. John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) codified the doctrines of the new faith, becoming the basis for Presbyterianism. In the moderate camp, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (ca. 1466–1536), though an opponent of the Reformation, remained committed to the reconciliation of Catholics and Protestants—an ideal that would be at least partially realized in 1555 with the Religious Peace of Augsburg, a ruling by the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire granting freedom of worship to Protestants.

With recognition of the reformers’ criticism and acceptance of their ideology, Protestants were able to put their beliefs on display in art ( 17.190.13–15 ). Artists sympathetic to the movement developed a new repertoire of subjects, or adapted traditional ones, to reflect and emphasize Protestant ideals and teaching ( 1982.60.35 ;  1982.60.36 ;  71.155 ;  1975.1.1915 ). More broadly, the balance of power gradually shifted from religious to secular authorities in western Europe, initiating a decline of Christian imagery in the Protestant Church. Meanwhile, the Roman Church mounted the Counter-Reformation, through which it denounced Lutheranism and reaffirmed Catholic doctrine. In Italy and Spain, the Counter-Reformation had an immense impact on the visual arts; while in the North , the sound made by the nails driven through Luther’s manifesto continued to reverberate.

Wisse, Jacob. “The Reformation.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/refo/hd_refo.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Coulton, G. G. Art and the Reformation . 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.

Koerner, Joseph Leo. The Reformation of the Image . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Additional Essays by Jacob Wisse

• Wisse, Jacob. “ Northern Mannerism in the Early Sixteenth Century .” (October 2002)
• Wisse, Jacob. “ Prague during the Rule of Rudolf II (1583–1612) .” (November 2013)
• Wisse, Jacob. “ Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) .” (October 2002)
• Wisse, Jacob. “ Burgundian Netherlands: Court Life and Patronage .” (October 2002)
• Wisse, Jacob. “ Burgundian Netherlands: Private Life .” (October 2002)
• Wisse, Jacob. “ Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–1569) .” (October 2002)

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The Printing Press & the Protestant Reformation

The printing press, credited to the German inventor and printer Johannes Gutenberg (l. c. 1398-1468) in the 1450s, became the single most important factor in the success of the Protestant Reformation by providing the means for widespread dissemination of the “new teachings” and encouraging independent thought on subjects previously rigidly controlled by a literate elite.

The so-called Proto-Reformers such as John Wycliffe (l. 1330-1384) and Jan Hus (l. c. 1369-1415) had made many of the points Martin Luther would later but lacked the means for reaching a large audience. Gutenberg's invention of the moveable face type and the press meant that books could now be printed in larger numbers, sold cheaply, and distributed widely. Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) recognized the value of the press and exploited it brilliantly in his challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church.

Martin Luther's 95 Theses , which previously would have circulated only among the literate scholars of Wittenberg, became a bestselling pamphlet within a year of its initial posting in 1517. Between that date and c. 1525, Luther would publish over half a million works, establishing him as the first bestselling author of the Early Modern Period, outpublishing the popular humanist writer Desiderius Erasmus (l. c. 1469-1536), Catholic apologists, and contemporary reformers. Works by John Calvin (l. 1509-1564), Heinrich Bullinger (l. 1504-1575), and others also became bestsellers, establishing the Protestant vision of Christianity , largely, through the power of the printing press.

Proto-Reformers & Print

There already existed a literate lay population prior to Gutenberg's invention but it was small, and since books were expensive, it was comprised of the upper class who could afford them. Most Europeans were illiterate, were born and died in the same village without ever traveling far beyond if at all, and received information about the world primarily through the local priest or, sometimes, traveling merchants. People knew what they had been taught by parents and priests, and this knowledge was passed down from generation to generation without question because there was no counterpoint to present a challenge.

Entertainment took the form of storytellers or actors who had memorized tales they had learned through oral transmission; written works were primarily only consulted in monasteries and their scriptoriums or private libraries. Illuminated manuscripts could take up to a year to produce and would have been meaningless to most people who could not even read the language they spoke, much less Latin, even if they had been able to afford such a work. Some books were mass produced at this time on a modest scale through woodblock printing but, as they were written in Latin, made little impression on the majority of the populace.

When John Wycliffe translated the Bible from Latin to Middle English his hope was that it would enable more people to read the work for themselves, but most could not read English any more than Latin. Wycliffe's Bible, as well as his works in Latin, did attract considerable attention and would influence the work of Jan Hus and help start the Bohemian Reformation (c. 1380 to c. 1436), but woodblock printing was time-consuming and costly, and so, even though Wycliffe's Bible went through multiple printings (over 200 still exist) it could not reach an audience of the scope Luther would later. Wycliffe was condemned by the Church posthumously, and Hus was executed in 1415, with neither having gained the hoped-for widespread support for their reforms.

Gutenberg's Press

Gutenberg's press changed all of that by providing the means for mass production on a larger scale and distribution of reading material. Gutenberg's father worked in the mint in Mainz, and it is thought that he taught his son the craft, which involved using a punch to engrave letters on coins. The use of the punch, along with presses used for wine and oil, are thought to have inspired Gutenberg to create the printing press.

Moveable type printing had been invented in Korea c. 1234 (or, according to some scholars, in China c. 1040) and was used in the Chinese Song Dynasty (960-1279), but this does not seem to have been the source for Gutenberg's invention. He seems to have developed the idea independently from both the mint and the wine press, and at some point around 1450, he moved from Mainz to Strasbourg where he partnered with some investors and began construction of his first printing press.

He understood that the Church provided the best hope for large profit and so, once he had a workable process, he printed indulgences – formerly written by hand and sold to parishioners to shorten their stay (or that of a loved one) in purgatory – and, in 1456, after he had moved back to Mainz, a standard Bible. He was deeply in debt and so borrowed from the businessman Johann Fust, whose adopted son, Peter Schoffer, was one of the first people Gutenberg had taught the process of printing. Fust called in Gutenberg's debt before he was able to pay and confiscated his print shop, quickly taking credit for the invention and, with Schoffer, printing Gutenberg's Bible under his own name.

The process was picked up by Arnold Pannartz (d. 1476) and Conrad Sweynheym (also given as Schweinheim, d. 1477), who established one of the most famous presses in Venice in 1469, while Schoffer continued to print in Mainz, and other presses began to appear elsewhere. Gutenberg died in poverty in 1468, but by that time, his invention was already transforming European society by providing reading matter at an affordable cost. Books that were formerly only available to the wealthy elite, like Pliny the Elder 's Natural History , were sold to anyone who wanted and could afford one by 1472.

Printing Press & Luther

The Church welcomed the printing press at first as it enabled the distribution of a standard Bible to parishes throughout Europe at low cost as well as providing mass-produced writs such as indulgences, decrees, and notices. The Church still controlled what was printed because there was no challenge to its authority and, further, because most people were still illiterate. Just because books were now available at low cost, it did not mean that people were suddenly able to read them or even had the desire to. Books or pamphlets were usually read by someone to an audience in the town square or pub and 'reading' was understood, more or less, as 'performance'. Scholar John Bossy comments:

Until the 17th century, silent reading was either an accomplishment of scholars or a self-conscious devotional mode. Reading meant muttering to oneself or reading aloud to others; the written word was a 'hearable sign'. This was what it meant to the scripture-reading underground and also what it meant to Luther. His word was a word to be heard, a promise to be received in faith, not a text to be pored over. Faith, as St. Paul had said, came by hearing; the ear, not the eye, was the Christian sense. (100)

'Hearing' could be monitored by the Church, and what one heard could be controlled until Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517 which, by 1519, had been published and widely distributed. Although Luther claimed he had no intention of publishing the piece, it seems he encouraged both publication and distribution. Ironically, the 95 Theses attacked the Church's practice of selling indulgences, one of the first writs Gutenberg had printed, and it became popular reading quite quickly. With so many copies of Luther's work in circulation, the Church could no longer control what was being 'heard', and Luther's challenge to ecclesiastical authority was embraced and spread faster and further than could ever have been imagined by Wycliffe or Hus. Scholar Mark U. Edwards Jr. comments:

The printing press allowed Evangelical publicists to do what had been previously impossible: quickly and effectively reach a large audience with a message intended to change Christianity. For several crucial years, these Evangelical publicists issued thousands of pamphlets discrediting the old faith and advocating the new…Not only did the Reformation see the first large-scale " media campaign", it also saw a campaign that was overwhelmingly dominated by one person, Martin Luther. More works by Luther were printed and reprinted than by any other publicist. (1)

Luther was excommunicated in January 1521 and called to appear at the Diet of Worms to recant in April of the same year. Luther instead defended his 'new teachings' in his now-famous "Here I Stand" declaration. Luther's speech at the Diet of Worms was transcribed by supporters, published, and distributed, winning him even greater support. When he translated the New Testament from Latin into German later that year, it became a bestseller as did every other work he sent to the print shop. The printing press made Luther the first celebrity author of the Early Modern Period.

Printing Press & Other Reformers

While the press allowed Luther to criticize the Church openly, it also provided his opponents the means to criticize him. These early attacks came not from the Church but from men who had initially supported Luther, including Andreas Karlstadt (l. 1486-1541) and Thomas Müntzer (l. c. 1489-1525). His teachings were also challenged by the works of the Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531). Zwingli disagreed with Luther on the nature of the Eucharist, and so his works, including Zwingli's 67 Articles of faith, represented a significant challenge to Luther's authority. Zwingli, in turn, was challenged by the Anabaptists, who had been inspired by him but, after breaking with his vision, were able to publish pieces advancing their own.

At the same time, Luther's right-hand man, Philip Melanchthon (l. 1497-1560), defended Luther's views through his own publications, which encouraged others to publish their views supporting him and Luther and still others to have their attacks on both published. Religious works, usually published as quartos (a single sheet folded in four to create eight pages), were the bestsellers of the day, and Protestant works – because they were so contentious in challenging authority – sold better than any others.

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These works were also popular because of their novelty. The press gave a voice to a demographic who otherwise would have had none: women. Argula von Grumbach (l. 1490 to c. 1564), Katharina Zell (l. 1497-1562), Marie Dentière (l.c. 1495-1561), and Olympia Fulvia Morata (l. 1526-1555), among others, all published pieces supporting the Protestant Reformation. These works were often controversial simply because they had been written by women but also for their advocacy of reform and criticism of the Church. At the same time, the Catholic Church made little use of the press in the first decades of the Reformation, seeming to rely on its old authority for the most part and publishing little by way of defense. Edwards notes:

A simple comparison between the vernacular editions of the Catholic publicists and the output of one Evangelical, Martin Luther, suggests the wildly unequal battle for the hearts and minds of literate laity in the first decades of the Reformation. Over the period 1518 to 1544, Luther's publications (that is, printings and reprintings of his works in German, excluding Bible translations) numbered at least 2551. For the same period, the Catholic publicists produced 514 printings. In stark terms, this translates into about five printings of Luther for every Catholic printing…And of course Luther was seconded by a number of other prolific Evangelical authors. (29)

Among these were John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger. Calvin first published his iconic work The Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, revising and reprinting it periodically for the rest of his life in addition to the publication of his sermons, lectures, and biblical commentaries. Bullinger wrote his famous Decades between 1549-1551, and the work was then translated into English and published in 1577, 1584, and 1587. Translations of Calvin and Bullinger were among the bestsellers in England , influencing the Puritan and Separatist movements there. Bullinger's moderate approach echoed somewhat the earlier advocacy of Martin Bucer (l. 1491-1551), who, like Karlstadt and Müntzer, had been an early supporter of Luther before breaking with him and publishing his own views emphasizing the importance of Christian unity.

The Press & Counter-Reformation

This is not to say the Church was silent in print during the early years of the Protestant Reformation. Cardinal Thomas Cajetan (l. c. 1468-1534) and theologian Johann Eck (l. 1486-1543) were only two of the most visible opponents of Luther's teachings. Jeanne de Jussie's Short Chronicle (1535), and similar works, also provided a counterpoint to the Reformation's claims. It was not until the Counter-Reformation, however, that the Church began to seriously address the issue of printed works.

The Counter-Reformation (also known as the Catholic Reformation, 1545 to c. 1700) was the Church's response to the Protestant Reformation and addressed the proliferation of what the Church considered heretical reading matter. Having failed to silence Martin Luther or those who came after him, the Church focused on reforming its image and reestablishing its authority by clearly defining what it meant to be a Catholic and why the Protestant claims had no merit.

Although the Church seems to have been slow in making the most of the printing press, it had published significant refutations of Protestant claims as well as works advancing the Catholic vision of Christianity. Two of these mass-produced books were directly responsible for the activism of one of the greatest Catholic advocates, Ignatius of Loyola (l. 1491-1556), a Basque soldier who became a Catholic priest following a religious experience. This experience was inspired by two books he read on the life of Christ and the acts of the saints in 1521 while recovering from an injury. Loyola would go on to write his Spiritual Exercises (1548) and found the Jesuit Order to defend the claims of the Church. Loyola's Spiritual Exercises is still considered one of the greatest guides on religious devotion in the present day and formed the basis for the discipline of the Jesuits.

Individual Catholic monarchs and popes responded to the proliferation of Protestant works by banning them and fining, jailing, or executing printers. The Jesuits, while supporting this policy, also fought back through the establishment of Catholic schools, seminaries, and universities, which produced writers who then published their own apologetics supporting the Church and denouncing the claims of the Reformation. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) reformed errors and abuses within the Church while reaffirming its authority, and one aspect of this was the establishment of the Index of Prohibited Books in 1563. The Index was a list of works considered heretical or threatening to one's faith, and Catholics were not allowed to read or publish them; doing so risked excommunication and punishment by secular authorities.

The Church had established versions of the Index prior to 1563, persecuting printers and destroying their presses, but this only made Protestant works more popular because they were forbidden. To get around the Index, before and after it was formally adopted at Trent, printers disguised works by giving them other titles, omitted the name of the author from the cover, and regularly had them smuggled from one district or country to another.

As early as 1524, the printers of Leipzig complained to the city council that they were losing considerable income due to the ban in that city on printing Protestant works. Leipzig had been one of the most profitable publishing centers prior to Luther, but, like Wittenberg, it experienced a boom afterwards when books on the 'new teachings' became their most profitable commodity. Printers who could not afford to sit out the ban moved to other cities where they could continue their work or printed the books secretly and at high risk. Whichever route they chose, Protestant works continued to be printed and remained the most popular of their catalogs. Scholar Andrew Pettegree comments:

The impact on the German print market was profound: it amounted almost to a relaunch. In the ten years before Luther, the Holy Roman Empire had been responsible for about a quarter of European book production; 75 percent of these books were in Latin. In the next ten years, German book production advanced dramatically to 42 percent of the European total; in the five years 1521-1525 Germany accounted for one in every two books published in Europe and 80 percent of these were in German…the role of evangelical print in this transformation was unmistakable. During the ten years between 1518-1527 Luther’s own works accounted for 20 percent of total German production, but he was not a gang of one. (Rublack, 382)

The more effort the Church put into suppressing Protestant works, the more popular they became, and finally, the Protestant vision was established primarily due to its writers' powerful use of the written word. Books allowed people who had never and would never meet Luther or Melanchthon or Calvin or Bullinger to hear their views directly, whether by reading the books themselves or hearing them read, and book by book, the 'new teachings' of the Protestant Reformation asserted themselves as a legitimate belief system on par with the old faith that had once so easily silenced them.

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Bibliography

• Bossy, J. Christianity in the West 1400-1700 . Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Edwards, jr. M. U. Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2004.
• Holmes, G. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe . Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Janz, D. R. A Reformation Reader: Primary Texts with Introductions. Fortress Press, 2008.
• MacCulloch, D. The Reformation: A History. Penguin Books, 2010.
• Rublack, U. The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations . Oxford University Press, 2019.

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ESI Working Papers

Causes and consequences of the protestant reformation.

Sascha O. Becker , University of Warwick Steven Pfaff , University of Washington Jared Rubin , Chapman University Follow

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The Protestant Reformation is one of the defining events of the last millennium. Nearly 500 years after the Reformation, its causes and consequences have seen a renewed interest in the social sciences. Research in economics, sociology, and political science increasingly uses detailed individual-level, city-level, and regional-level data to identify drivers of the adoption of the Reformation, its diffusion pattern, and its socioeconomic consequences. This survey takes stock of the research so far, tries to point out what we know and what we do not know, and which are the most promising areas for future research.

Working Paper 16-13

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Becker, S.O., Pfaff, S., & Rubin, J. (2016). Causes and consequences of the Protestant Reformation. ESI Working Paper 16-13. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/esi_working_papers/178

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Essay on The Protestant Reformation and Christianity

PDF of essay on the Protestant Reformation and Christianity.

By Cole S. Rogers, Spring 2016

 The Roman Catholic Church dominated Western Europe up until the Protestant Reformation. The church prior to the Reformation owned nearly one-third of all European land.  With financial dominance, political influence, and publicly accepted doctrine, the church experienced extraordinary size. With the extreme success of the church, corruption followed, and the church began to profiteer off rituals. The sale of indulgences for profit promoted even further corruption within the church. At the time indulgences were being sold by the Catholic Church, the movement of the Renaissance was sweeping across all of Europe. The movement of the Renaissance created more and more public dissent towards the Catholic Church. This Renaissance would eventually lead to the Protestant Reformation.

The Protestant Reformation changed the religion of Christianity forever. Prior to the Reformation, the Renaissance sparked a change in the way of thinking throughout Europe. This change in thinking promoted a society based on individuality, and finding the truth.  Martin Luther, a German monk in the Catholic Church is directly responsible for creating the movement behind the Protestant Reformation. Luther through study and immersion in scripture discovered the corruption behind the Church, and publicly exposed this corruption.  Luther in 1517 nailed 95 Theses to the Church in Wittenberg, Germany.  The 95 Theses exposed the fundamental corruption behind the Church and specifically the sale of indulgences. Luther introduced the concept of salvation being gained only through faith in God. Luther’s work resulted in religious conflict throughout all of Europe.

The Protestant Reformation promoted self-immersion in scripture. Luther’s translation of the Bible from Latin to German gained extreme attention as for the first time in history average people began to explore scripture themselves rather than relying on the Catholic Church for everything. This ideology influenced the rise in several different movements of Christianity that each found individual similarities throughout scripture.  In this time period, a new era of churches arose throughout all of Europe, which challenged the Catholic Church and shaped the future of Christianity. 

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Consequences of The Protestant Reformation

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Religious consequences, political consequences, socio-cultural consequences.

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Causes of the Protestant Reformation Lesson

Learning objectives

In this lesson, students will learn about the various causes of the Reformation, including religious, political, economic, and social factors that led to the split in the Christian Church and the rise of Protestantism. They will explore how dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church, the invention of the printing press, and the desire for national and individual autonomy contributed to this significant historical event. Students will have the opportunity to achieve this through choosing their own method of learning, from reading and research options, as well as the chance to engage in extension activities. This lesson includes a self-marking quiz for students to demonstrate their learning.

How would you like to learn?

Option 1: reading.

Step 1: Download a copy of the reading questions worksheet:

Step 2: Answer the set questions by reading the webpage below:

Option 2: Internet research

Download a copy of the research worksheet and use the internet to complete the tables.

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Reformation: Europe’s Religious Revolution Essay

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Introduction

Secondary reasons, mover of the reformation, the ultimate cause of the reformation.

Starting in Germany, the Reformation swept Europe, forever dividing it into Catholics and Protestants. These events reshaped the political balance of power, significantly impacted all subsequent history, and laid the foundation for religious wars. The Reformation became a church schism, as a result of which the Protestants separated from the Roman Catholic Church, which, in turn, later also split into many directions and currents. The Reformation in Europe ended the absolute dominion of the Catholic Church in European states since, in some decades, many countries became wholly or almost entirely Protestant.

This socio-political and religious trend forever changed the face of Europe, and the Protestantism it generated became one of the three main areas of Christianity in the world, along with Catholicism and Orthodoxy. At the same time, the essence of the Reformation was more revolutionary than evolutionary – events developed rapidly, accompanied by riots, wars, and repressions. The primary mover of the Reformation is not a historical event or a coincidence, but one man, Martin Luther. Among the various reasons for the reformation, the most prominent is the crisis of the Catholic Church, the superiority of which is associated with its mass character.

Secondary reasons for the Reformation include the persecution of science by the Catholic Church, the interference of the Church in secular life, as well as taxes and corruption. These reasons can be classified as secondary because they influence only some of the society layers. They all influenced specific segments of the population, thereby not leading to a split in the organization. The crisis of the Catholic Church affected all sectors of society, thus playing a unifying role.

The fact that one person could split an organization that had existed for several centuries is incredible. October 31, 1517, ed the official beginning of the Reformation, the same day that Martin Luther published his 95 Theses, which criticized the Catholic Church (Wallace 61). At the same time, speeches against papal authority have happened before, but they were completely different: earlier critics considered the problems of the Church through the prism of humanity, and Martin Luther began to criticize church dogmas. Thus, the publication of his 95 Theses is considered the main event that started the Reformation in Europe.

The main reason for the Reformation, as mentioned in the introduction, is the crisis of the Catholic Church. Some abusive practices, such as exploiting power and selling indulgences for the forgiveness of sins for a fee, caused mass discontent (Wallace 62). In addition, many questions were raised by people who are the leaders of the church. Many Catholic clergies were ignorant, stupid, and greedy, which created a negative image of the Church (Wallace 62). As a result, the social gap between parishioners and clergy significantly increased. Meanwhile, the highest church hierarchs lived in luxury while reminding parishioners of the need to be modest and humble, and people were outraged by this duplicity (Wallace 62). All these factors served as the beginning of the crisis, which, as a result, caused the emergence of such personalities as Martin Luther and a further split in the church.

Summing up, one can say that the crisis of the Catholic Church was the main reason for the split because it touched the most significant number of followers. All other reasons concerned only certain groups of people, which was not enough for such a large-scale coup. The reformation itself affected all aspects of the life of all Europeans in connection with the theocratic system of power of that time. Thus, the state structure of all European countries wholly changed

Wallace, Peter G. The Long European Reformation: Religion, Political Conflict and the Search for Conformity . 3rd ed., Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

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IvyPanda. (2024, May 18). Reformation: Europe’s Religious Revolution. https://ivypanda.com/essays/reformation-europes-religious-revolution/

"Reformation: Europe’s Religious Revolution." IvyPanda , 18 May 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/reformation-europes-religious-revolution/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Reformation: Europe’s Religious Revolution'. 18 May.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Reformation: Europe’s Religious Revolution." May 18, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/reformation-europes-religious-revolution/.

1. IvyPanda . "Reformation: Europe’s Religious Revolution." May 18, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/reformation-europes-religious-revolution/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Reformation: Europe’s Religious Revolution." May 18, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/reformation-europes-religious-revolution/.