1000 word essay due tonight 11:00pm eastern time

Units/Unit 2/The Reformation.html

2: Intellectual Change from the 15th to 17th Century

Martin Luther and the Reformation

Martin Luther and the Reformation

The Renaissance and the new ideas and perspective it spread helped give rise to the Reformation.  There were also problems within the Roman Catholic Church and criticisms of the Church that also led to the Reformation.  Many people in Europe were aware that the Church had become corrupt.  Criticisms emerged during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and highlighted many different issues.  Common practices in the Church, including the sale of Church positions, pluralism (a priest having more than one position at a time), and nepotism (giving positions to family members) were all attacked.  Many also took issue with the sale of indulgences, a practice begun in the mid-fourteenth century that allowed an individual to buy forgiveness for sins.  There was also a general ignorance among many of the regular clergies in the Church.  Late in the middle ages, there was an era with two and then three popes, all claiming to be legitimate.  These were among the problems and corruptions that Erasmus mocked in The Praise of Folly.  Others had been voicing similar concerns even before Erasmus, most significantly John Wycliffe in England and Jan Hus in Bohemia.  These men directly attacked the Church and demanded major reform based on what they read in the Bible.  Neither succeeded in bringing any change in the Catholic Church or establishing a new church (Hus was even burned at the stake for his ideas), but they did help emphasize the growing concerns with the church.  In the end, they helped prepare the way for the Reformation.