Age of Reformation (chapter 11)

  1. Saxony, Germany
    • -birthplace of reformation
    • -Germany was divided into about 65 imperial states
    • -most states involved in the Protestant Reformation
  2. Protestant Reformation (overview)
    • -revolt against medieval church
    • -occurred during conflic b/w new nation states (conformity/centralization) and self-governing towns and villages (people believed religious revolt=ally in struggle to remain politically free)
    • -brought together people of all social classes
    • -challenged aspects of the Renaissance (tendency to follow classical sources in glorifying human nature/loyalty to traditional religion)
    • -also embraced some aspects (educational reforms/learning of traditional languages)
    • -studied Hebrew/Greek scriptures
  3. Social/Political Conflict
    • -struggle with authority
    • -deep social and political diisions
    • -many guilds supported Reformation (economically prospered; rose socially)
    • -printer's guild (literate sophisticated group); economic stake (encouraged Protestant propoganda)
    • -oppressed people supported reformation
    • -reformers scorned religious landlords/ridiculed papal laws; led to political/religious conflicts
    • -peasants' traditional rights (hunting, fishing, representation at local meetings) denied by rulers
  4. Popular Religious Movements and Criticism of the Church
    • -reformation couldn't have happened w/o Babylonian Captivity (Avignon Papacy), Great Schism (Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox), Conciliar Theory (pope shouldn't have all power), and Renaissance papacy
    • -medieval church didn't provide a good foundation for religious faith
    • -laity and clerics wanted a more idealistic, religious piety
  5. Factors Contributing to Lay Criticism of the Church
    • -urban laypeople became more knowledgeable about world/rulers
    • -travelled widely (soldiers, pilgrims, explorers, traders)
    • -postal systems/printing press increased access to information
    • -inspired by ideals of apostolic poverty in religion (imitated Christ's life)
    • -laypeople wanted a Church where the members and the head had a voice (Conciliar Theory)
    • -also wanted a more spiritual Church
  6. Modern Devotion
    • -lay religious movement in N. Europe
    • -Brothers of the Common Life: cultivated religious life outside of Church officers; prayed and lived a religious life w/o giving up much
    • -centered at Zwolle and Deventer (Netherlands)
    • -also had sister houses (for religious women)
    • -stressed individual piety and practical religion
    • -brothers also educators; worked as copyists, sponsored religious publications, ran hospices for poor, conducted schools for youth
    • -Nicholas of Cusa, Johannes Reuchlin, and Desiderius Erasmus taught by brothers
    • -Thomas a Kempis summarized philosophy of brothers in the Imitation of Christ
    • -modern devotion=source of humanist, Protestant, and Catholic reformation movements
  7. Lay Control over Religious Life
    • -Rome's international network of church offices that unified Europe was now falling apart
    • -collapse sped up by growing sense of regional identity, increasing competent local secular administration, and newly emerging nationalism
    • -benefice system (of the medieval church): promoted simony (selling of church positions to unqualified people; these people corrupted the church by taking money, not doing their jobs, and didn't care about religion)
    • -people protested financial and spiritual abuses of the medieval church (i.e. sale of indulgences)
    • -sale of indulgences drained away local revenues (profit/money)
    • -City governments also endowed preacherships to improve local religious life; positions supported by benefices (hiring of well-trained pastors)
    • -Magistrates restricted the growth of ecclesiastical properties and clerical privileges
    • -churches and monasteries were exempt from taxes and laws that affected others
    • -clergy didn't have to serve in the military, stand watch at city gates, do compulsory labor, etc.
    • -Governments grew tired of church interference; tried to end abuses (put clergy under tax codes)
  8. Martin Luther and the German Reformation (to 1525)
    • -late medieval Germany lacked political unity to enforce "national" religious reforms
    • -popular resentment of clerical immunities and ecclesiastial abuses spread among German cities and towns; unorganized "national" opposition to Rome formed
    • -Martin Luther was educated by the Brothers of the Common Life; attended University of Erfurt (learned teachings of William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel)
    • -Luther was about to study law, but entered the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine on July 17, 1505 (after thunderstorm)
  9. Justification By Faith Alone
    • -sola fide
    • -righteousness that God demands did not result from charitable acts and religious ceremonies; given to those who believe in and trust Jesus Christ as their perfect righteousness satisfying to God
    • -medieval church taught that salvation was a combination of divine mercy and human good works
    • -Luther believed that faith w/o charitable service to one's neighbor was dead; question was not whether good works should be done, but how sould they be regarded
    • -unbiblical to treat works as contributing to one's eternal salvation; church's treatment of salvation left many Christians only counting their merits and demerits
    • -Luther taught that good works should occur over a lifetime; believers of faith already have God's perfect righteousness; service is ethical, not soteriological (saving work)
  10. The Attack on Indulgences
    • -indulgence: remission of the temporal penalty imposed on penitents by priests; could free a soul from Hell
    • -originally given to C rusaders; by late Middle Ages, indulgences became an aid to laypeople who didn't want to go to Hell
    • -Pope Clement VI proclaimed the existence of a "treasury of merit" (infinite reservoir of good works in church's possession) in 1343
    • -Pope Sixtus IV extended indulgences to the unrepented sins of all Christians in purgatory in 1476
    • - In 1517, Pope Leo X revived a Jubilee Indulgence (first issued by Pope Julius II) whose proceeds reubilt St. Peter's Basilica in Rome; indulgence promised forgiveness of all outstanding unrepented sins upon the completion of certain acts
    • -selling of indulgences preached all over borders of Saxony; proceeds went to Albrecht (Augsburg banking house of Fugger) and Pope Leo X
    • -John Tetzel: famous indulgence preacher
    • -Luther's 95 Theses: claims against indulgences hammered to door of Castle Church in Wittenberg (October 31, 1517); protested impression Tetzel created that indulgences remitted sins and released unrepentant sinners from punishment in purgatory
  11. Election of Charles V
    • -95 Theses supported by Nuremberg humanists; Luther became an important person in the movement against Italian influence and competition
    • -summoned to Augsburg to meet Emperor Maximilian I to pay for his criticism of the church; Maximilian I dies before Luther is convicted; turned attention away from heresy in Saxony to contest for a new Emperor
    • -pope supported French King, Francis I
    • -Charles I of Spain (19 yrs. old) succeeded his grandfather as Emperor Charles V
    • -Golden Bull electors voted for Charles V; most important was Frederick the Wise
    • -Charles I of Spain agreed to revive the German-based Imperial Supreme Court and the Council of Regency; also promised to consult with a board of the empire on all major domestic and foreign affairs; these helped the Reformation by preventing unilateral imperial action against the Germans
  12. Luther's Excommunication and the Diet of Worms
    • -Luther challenged the infallibility of the pope and the inerrancy of church councils during a debate with John Eck (June 27, 1519); defended teachings of John huss
    • -The Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation in 1520 urged German princes to force reforms on the Roman church to curtail its political and economic power in Germany
    • -The Babylonian Captivity of the Church attacked the traditional seven sacraments; stated that only two were in the Bible; praised authority of Scripture, church councils, and secular princes over the pope
    • -Freedom of a Christian summarized new teaching of salvation by faith alone
    • -Pope Leo's papal bull, Exsurge Domine "Arise, O Lord", condemned Luther for heresy and gave him 60 days to repent; final bull of excommunication issued on January 3, 1521
  13. Diet of Worms (April 1521)
    • -Luther presented his views to Emperor Charles V
    • -was ordered to recant, but he refused to do so
    • -German nobility presented emperor with a list of 102 "oppressive burdens and abuses" of the church
    • -placed under the imperial ban (made him an outlaw to secular and religious authority) on May 26, 1521
    • -was hidden and disguised in Wartburg Castle at the instruction fo Frederick (from the Golden Bull electors)
    • -while hidden, translated the New Testament into German, and saw the first steps of the Reformation in Wittenberg
  14. Imperial Distractions: War with France and the Turks
    • -Reformation was aided by the emperor's war with France and the advance of the Ottoman Turks
    • -Charles V (also Spanish king) needed loyal German troops to fight both adversaries
    • -Spain (Hapsburg Dynasty) and France (Valois dynasty) fought 4 major wars over disputed territories in Italy and along their borders
    • -Charles V agreed (at the German Diet of Speyer-1526) that each German territory was allowed to enforce the Edict of Worms against Luther
    • -this decision gave German princes territorial sovereignty in religious matters
  15. How the Reformation Spread
    • -princes and magistrates began to spread reformation to their territories
    • -welcomed Lutheran preachers as new allies to reform the church
    • -reform was turned into laws
    • -elector of Saxon and the prince of Hesse (two most powerful German Protestant rulers) led politicization of religious reform within their territories
    • -German princes recognized political and economic opportunities offered by the demise of the Roman Catholic Church
    • -Schmaldkaldic League: formed in the 1530s to defend Protestantism and prepare for a war with the Catholic emperor
  16. The Peasants' Revolt
    • -German peasantry believed Luther to be an ally at the beginning
    • -they had opposed the efforts fo the secular and ecclesiastical lords to override traditional laws and customs to subject them to new territorial regulations and taxes
    • -peasant leaders believed Luther's criticism of monastic landowners was close to their own
    • -demanded a release from serfdom
    • -Luther initially supported the peasants, but turned against them and stated they were "un-Christian" when they became violent (1524-1525)
    • -his decision to side with the nobles ended the promise of the Reformation as a social and moral force in history
  17. German Peasants Protest Rising Feudal Exactions
    • -German feudal lords tried to increase earnings from their lands by raising demands on their peasants
    • -peasants could not pay the increasing fees of rent because their pay was too low
    • -lords received the best items that cost the most money; peasants could not support families
  18. The Reformation Elsewhere
    • -German Reformation was the first
    • -Switzerland and France had their own independent church reform movements around the same time as Germany did
    • -new churches developed
  19. Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation
    • -Switzerland was a loose confederacy of thirteen autonomous cantons (states)
    • -Two main preconditions of the Swiss Reformation: growth of national sentiment and popular opposition to foreign mercenary service (major source of Switzerland's livelihood=providing Europe's warring nations w/ mercenaries); desire for church reform since councils of Constance (1414-1417) and Basel (1431-1449)
  20. Reformation in Zurich
    • -Ulrich Zwingli (1481-1531)=leader of the Swiss Reformation
    • -humanistically educated; credits Erasmus for his reformation ideas
    • -served as chaplain w/ Swiss mercenaries who were on the losing side in the disastrous Battle of Marignano in Italy in 1515; became a critic of the Swiss mercenary service (thought it threatened political sovereignty and moral fiber of Swiss confederacy)
    • -also widely known for opposition to indulgences and religious superstitution by 1518
    • -competed for post of people's priest in teh main church of Zurich in 1519; scandal with woman; wanted end to clerical celibacy and right of clergy legally to marry, practice accepted in all protestant lands; won title
    • -engineered Swiss Reformation
    • -March 1522, broke the Lenten fast; act of protest
    • -whatever lacked literal support in Scripture should not be believed or practiced
    • -new reformation imposed harsh discipline making Zulrich one of the first examples of puritanical Protestantism
  21. The Marburg Colloquy
    • -meeting between Luther and Zwingli
    • -arranged by Landgrave Philip of Hesse in October 1529; wanted to unite Swiss and German Protestants in a mutual defense pact
    • -Luther and Zwingli argued about Christ's presence in the Eucharist; Zwingli believed that Christ was spiritually present, not in the bread and wine; Luther believed was both spiritually and bodiliy present, bread and wine exist with the body and blood
    • -separate defense leagues formed; semi-Zwinglian theological views embraced in non-Lutheran Tetrapolitan Confession prepared by Strasbourg reformers Martin Bucer and Caspar Hedio (1530)
  22. Swiss Civil Wars
    • -civil wars began while Swiss cantons divided between Protestantism and Catholicism
    • -2 major battles (both at Kappel) in June 1529 and 1531; first ended in Protestant victory; Zwingli wounded 2nd batle, executed
    • -Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli's protege and son-in-law became new leader of the Swiss Reformation
  23. Anabaptists and Radical Protestants
    • -Lutheran and Zwinglian reformation results increased at a moderate pace; people began to feel discontent
    • -sought more rapid and thorough implementation of Apostolic Christianity
    • -Anabaptists: 16th century ancestors of modern Mennonites and Amish; distinguished by rejection of infant baptism and insistence on only adult baptism; only a thoughtful consenting adult (able to understand Scriptures and what the biblical way of life required) could enter convenant of faith
  24. Conrad Grebel and the Swiss Brethren
    • -Conrad Grebel (founder of Anabaptism) performed the first adult rebaptism in Zurich (1525); co-worker of Zwingli's; biblical literalist
    • -Zwingli supported city gov's plea for peaceful, gradual removal of resented religious practice; Anabaptists disagreed
    • -Grebel's group became the Swiss Brethen
    • -Schleitheim Confession of 1527: document distinguishing Anabaptists of their practice of adult baptism and their non-participation in offices of secular government
    • -Anabaptists separated from established society; formed more perfect communion modeled on first Christians
  25. The Anabaptist Reign in Munster
    • -Anabaptism originally attracted people from all social classes
    • -Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Catholics united to persecute Anabaptists
    • -resulted in a more rural, agrarian class majority
    • -Rebaptism became a capital offense in the H.R.E in 1529
    • -Jan Matthys of Haarlem and Jan Beukelsz of Leiden (both Anabaptists) came to power in the city of Munster in 1534-1535
    • -they forced Lutherans and Catholics to either convert or emigrate; after people left, the city was blockaded
    • -Munster turned into an Old Testament theocracy; practiced polygamy to deal with widowed and deserted women
    • -Protestant and Catholic armies united to crush the radicals
    • -Menno Simons, founder of the Mennonites, set an example of pacifist, non-provocative separatist Anabaptism
  26. Spiritualists
    • -diverse and highly individualistic group of Protestant dissenters
    • -believed the only religious authority was the Spirit of God; was present in every listening individual
    • -Thomas Muntzer was part of the group; died in the German Peasant's Revolt (Frankenhausen, Germany)
    • -Sebastian Franck, critic of all dogmatic religion, believed every individual soul was free to practice religion his own way
    • -Caspar Schwenckfeld; prolific writer and wanderer
  27. Anititrinitarians
    • -final group of persecuted radical Protestants
    • -Michael Servetus: executed in 1553 in Geneva (by John Calvin) for "blasphemies against the Holy Trinity"
    • -Lelio and Faustus Sozzini, founders of Socinianism, stod out
    • -these thinkers=strongest opponents of Calvinism; seen as defenders of religious toleration
  28. John Calvin and the Genevan Reformation
    • -Calvinism replaced Lutheranism as dominant Protestant force in Europe (2nd half of the sixteenth century)
    • -influenced France, Netherlands, and Scotland
    • -established itself within Palatinate, German state in the Rhineland, during reighn of Elector Frederick III
    • -believed in divine predestination and the individual's responsibility to reorder society according to God's plan
    • -determined to transform society so men and women lived lives externally
  29. John Calvin (overview)
    • -French man; received benefices that financed the best possible education at Parisian colleges and a law degree
    • -influenced by French reform party (joined in 1520); prepared his mind for religious reform
    • -experienced conversion to Protestantism in 1534
    • -theology stressed sovereignty of God's will over all creation and necessity of humankind's conformity to it
  30. Political Revolt and Religious Reform in Geneva
    • -political revolution against local prince-bishop laid foundation for religious change
    • -Genevans revolted in late 1520s; city-council assumed legal and political powers in 1527
    • -Protestant city of Bern sent 2 reformers to Geneva (Guillame Farel and Antoine Froment) in 1533
    • -Protestants triumphed (1535) and traditional Mass/other religious practices removed
    • -Geneva officially adopted Reformation on May 21, 1536
    • -Calvin arrived in Geneva in 1536 (after all these events); persuaded to stay in the city by Farel
    • -wrote articles for governance of new church and catechism to guide/discipline people
    • -Calvin left Geneva after opponents feared his radical changes; went to Strasbourg and became pastor to French exiles/wrote biblical commentaries
    • -Institues of the Christian Religion: definitive theological statement of the Protestant faith
    • -Martin Bucer: taught Calvin how to achieve his goals
  31. Calvin's Geneva
    • -Geneval elected official favorable to Calvin and determined to establish full Genevan political/religious independence from Bern (1540)
    • -knew Calvin would be a valuable ally; invited him to return; he returned in 1540 and never left again
    • -city implemented new ecclesiastical ordinances (provided for cooperation b/w magistrates and clergy in matters of internal discipline)
    • -Genevan Church organized into four offices: pastors (5 of them), teachers/doctors (instruct people in/defend true doctrine), elders (group of 12 laypeople chosen by/from Genevan councils; oversaw everyone's lives), and deacons (dispense church goods/services to poor and sick)
    • -predestination: main doctrine of Calvinism; deny existence of human free will; discussed in the Institutes of the Christian Religion; the world and all its people are in God's hands from eternity to eternity; the "elect" were saved by God
    • -Geneva became home to thousands of exiled Protestants; refugees made up more than 1/3 of population; extremely loyal to Calvin
    • -"woman's paradise"; laws severly punished men who beat their wives
  32. The Diet of Augsburg
    • -Charles V spent most of 1st decade of reign to pursue political and militaristic campaigns (particularly in Spain and Italy)
    • -directed Diet of Augsburg, 1530
    • -Protestant and Catholic representatives gathered to discuss growing religious division within the empireas a result of te Reformation's success
    • -tried to order all Lutherans to revert to Catholicism
    • -Lutherans responded by forming defensive alliance, Schmalkaldic League (1531)
    • -Augsburg Confession: moderate statement of Protestant beliefs spurned by the emperor at Augsburg
    • -Schmalkaldic Articles (1538) Luther drew up strongly worded Protestant confession
    • -league achieved stalemate with emperor (with help of Philip of Hesse and John Frederick of Saxony)
    • -emperor distracted by renewed war with France and Turks
  33. The Expansion of the Reformation
    • -regional consistories formed in 1530s; judicial bodies that oversaw and administered new Protestant churches
    • -educational reforms provided mandatory primary education, schools for girls, humanist revision of traditional curriculum, and instruction of laity
    • -Lutheranism introduced to Denmark by King Christian II; joined the Schmalkaldic League; made Lutheranism official religion of state
    • -King Gustavas Vasa (Swedish king) supported by Swedish nobility and greed for lands; embraced Lutheranism; confiscated church property and gave clergy to royal authority at Diet of Vesteras (1527)
    • -Poland became model of religious pluralism and toleration in 2nd half of 16th century
  34. Reaction Against Protestants
    • -Charles V tried to enforce compromises b/w Protestants and Catholics; turned to a military solution
    • -imperial armies crushed Reformation in Schmalkaldic League
    • -issued law ordering Protestants to revert to Christianity; allowed some concessions (clerical marriage and communion in both bread and wine)
    • -many leaders went into exile; Magdeburg, Germany became refuge for persecuted Protestants
  35. Peace of Augsburg
    • -Maurice of Saxony (chosen by Charles V) switched alliance to Lutheans
    • -emperor gave in to Protestants after 3 decades of fighting; victory of Protestant armies in 1552; reinstated Protestant leaders; guaranted Lutherans religious fredoms in Peace of Passau (August 1552); lifelong quest for European religious unity crushed
    • -Peace of Augsburg (1555) made division of Christendom permanent; recognized Cuius regio, eius religio (ruler of land determines religion)
    • -ecclesiastical reservation: intended to prevent converted Catholics (into Protestants) from taking lands, titles, and priviliges with them
    • -people unhappy with religion of area allowed to move
    • -Peace of Augsburg didn't include Calvinism and Anabaptism; Calvinists organized to lead national revolutions throughout N. Europe in second half of 16th Century
  36. English Reformation
    • -Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire passed in mid-14th century laid foundation for reducing papal appointments in England
    • -Lollardy, humanism, and anticlerical sentiments prepared England for Protestant ideas (early 16th century)
  37. -Preconditions to Reform in England
    • -William Tyndale: translated New Testament into English; printed in Cologne and Worms, his version circulated in England in 1526
    • -Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (chief minister of King Henry VIII) and Sir Thomas More (Wolsey's successor) guided opposition to beginnings of English Protestantism
    • -King defended 7 sacraments against Luther; awarded title "Defender of the Faith" by Pope Leo X
    • -More wrote reply to Luther's attack on Henry's theology in Response to Luther 1523
  38. The King's Affair
    • -religious reform began with Henry's unhappy marriage to Catherine of Aragon (daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella/ aunt of Charles V) and obsession to get male heir
    • -only daughter was Mary; Henry believed God cursed marriage with Catherine; she was her brother's wife; in order to marry her, Pope Julius II had to give special permission
    • -wanted to marry Anne Boleyn in 1527; couldn't do so without papal annulment; Pope Clement VII didn't want to give it to him (scared of Charles V-soldiers had recently sacked Rome)
    • -Wolsey responsible for getting annulment; failed and dismissed in 1529
    • -replaced by Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell (secret Lutherans); advised king to create his own church
  39. The "Reformation Parliament"
    • -7 year meeting of Parliament (beginning in 1529)
    • -passed laws that harassed and placed limitations on the clergy; establishes idea of monarch consulting with Parliament to make fundamental changes in religion
    • -Convocation (legislative assembly representing English clergy) recognized Henry as head of English Church in 1531
    • -Parliament published official complaints against the church in 1532; also passed Submission of the Clergy (placed canon law under royal control and clergy under royal jurisdiction)
    • -Henry married pregnant Anne Boleyn (Thomas Cranmer officiating); Parliament made king highest court of appeal for all English subjects in 1533; Cranmer became archbishop of Cantebury in 1533; led Convocation invalidating king's marriage to Catherine
    • -Parliament ended all payments by English clergy and laity to Rome; gave Henry sole control over ecclesiastical appointments
    • -Act of Succession made Anne Boleyn's children legitimate heirs to the throne
    • -Act of Supremacy declared Henry the only head of the English Church
    • -Thomas More and John Fisher (bishop of Rochester) refused to recognize Act of Succession and Act of Supremacy; Henry executed them
  40. Wiver of Henry VIII
    • -Anne Boleyn executed for treason and adultery; her daughter=Elizabeth; declared illegitimate by Henry
    • -married 4 more women
    • -3rd wife=Jane Seymour; gave birth to Edward VI
    • -married Anne of Cleves to create alliance with Protestant princes of Germany; marriage annulled by Parliament; Cromwell dismissed and executed
    • -Catherine Howard beheaded for adultery
    • -Catherine Parr (patron of humanists and reformers); survived
  41. The King's Religious Conservatism
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AnnieK_1996
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109297
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Age of Reformation (chapter 11)
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Reformation in Europe
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