History Essay

Drawing evidence from the lectures, but especially the historical readings for this week, compose an essay on the competing Renaissance, Reformation and Roman Catholic views of the church. There are a range of issues you may choose to focus on such as the issue of ultimate authority in the church, the key issues for religious reform, and so forth.

This essay should be based on the historical readings from the course. There are no outside sources required for this paper. Based on your reading and analysis of the historical documents, write an essay based on your thesis statement. A thesis is a focused argument based on your reading of the historical documents. The essay should use evidence from the historical documents to support your thesis (please see helpful hints below on writing this assignment). Be sure to develop a strong, specific thesis and provide evidence to support your argument.

Requirements: The essays should be 1000-1250 words in length. While lectures may be utilized, the paper should primarily rely on the historical documents to support your thesis.

Citation: Any form of citation (e.g., APA, Turabian) is allowed as long as you remain consistent throughout the paper. Citations, including in-text citations, do not count towards the overall word total.

Be sure to look at the rubric for details concerning this paper below or in the Additional Resources tab.

HIST 101 Western Civilization I Regent University

Week 7: The Renaissance and Reformation 

Perhaps the most central question of human existence is "Who is God?" Every human civilization has attempted to answer this question. Directly related to this question is "Who are God's people?" In the context of Christian Europe, this question was "Who is the Church?" During the Renaissance and Reformation, this question became a matter of great debate and division.

Section 1: The Middle Ages and the Age of Renaissance

Renaissance is a term that means "re-birth." The idea is that there was a re-birth of classical Greco-Roman cultural heritage into European society. In contrast to their own age, Renaissance thinkers coined the term, "dark ages" for the Middle Ages. As this derogatory name implies, Renaissance thinkers viewed themselves as a sharp break from the past.

Italian philosopher, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) certainly believed this. In a letter to his friend Paul of Middleburg in 1492, Ficino reveals his attitude toward his own age as well as an age that has passed. Ficino writes:

If we are to call any age golden, it is beyond doubt that age which brings forth golden talents in different places. That such is true of this our age [no one] will hardly doubt. For this century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts, which were almost extinct: grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture, architecture, music . . . and all this in Florence. Achieving what had been honored among the ancients, but almost forgotten since, the age has joined wisdom with eloquence, and prudence with the military art. . . . This century appears to have perfected astronomy, in Florence it has recalled the Platonic teaching from darkness into light. . . . and in Germany . . . [there] have been invented the instruments for printing books.

In reality, the Renaissance was also a continuation of the Middle Ages. For example, a revival of classical texts and learning had already emerged during the Middle Ages, as attested to by the emphasis on Aristotle by the Scholastics.

The Renaissance also owes a great deal to the legal and scholastic studies that had expanded and flowered during the High Middle Ages. Much of the philosophy and literary studies of the Renaissance were produced within the universities that had developed during the medieval period.

The Renaissance was also deeply connected to the middle class and entrepreneurial classes of the towns and cities. We discussed in an earlier lecture that this merchant/middle class and town life developed during the middle ages, which challenged feudal society.

At the same time, Renaissance scholars differed from medieval scholastics.

Secular: As humanists, Renaissance scholars tended to be more secular, meaning they focused on the daily life of the world rather than on theology and the church. They were interested in a broad range of knowledge rather than focus on spiritual or religious concerns.

Lay-Focused: The Renaissance was also more lay-focused. Most scientific and philosophical work in the Middle Ages was undertaken by monks and clerics. While much Renaissance scholarship and activity were done by church leaders, there was an increase in non-clerical individuals. Many of the great Renaissance artists, sculptors, and philosophers were not part of the clergy or monastic order.

Broader Interests: The Renaissance thinkers had broader interests than the earlier medieval scholars. Scholastics had often been interested in philosophy, theology, law, government and education. Renaissance scholars expanded their inquiry to the natural sciences and math as well. These subjects had more of a secular focus such as business or navigation and exploration.

Better Technical Skills: Renaissance scholars developed better technical skills by which to study and recover ancient manuscripts. Renaissance scholars also recovered more manuscripts than had been found in the Middle Ages. These scholars developed better language skills by which to read and translate ancient texts.

Ultimately, the leaders of the Renaissance broke with the world-denying ideals of the Middle Ages by stressing that earthly pleasures were legitimate. They especially glorified in the creation of art, literature and beautiful items. This did not mean that the Renaissance was hostile to religion. In fact, religious themes were one of the primary subject matters for renaissance art and literature. 

Section 2: Causes of the Renaissance

Historians have offered several reasons for the Renaissance.

1. Increased trade with the Middle East in pursuit of Asian luxury goods was one factor. This helped ignite the Renaissance in two ways:

a. Increased trade helped expand the middle class. The middle class engaged in conspicuous consumption; that is, they wanted to show off their ownership of art, literature and architecture. Increased wealth from expanding trade allowed many middle class families to fund these kinds of projects.

b. The commercial connection with the Middle East would help re-introduce Western Europe to the classical intellectual and cultural heritage of Greece and Rome, which had been preserved in the Middle East. Muslim scholars had preserved many ancient texts, often translating them into Arabic.

2. The problems of the late medieval period certainly contributed to the Renaissance. Church problems and corruptions allowed scholars to challenge the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic Church and official theologians.

3. The development of nation-states and the weakened power of the Pope provided a degree of protection to Renaissance thinkers. The Pope's authority in many nation-states had been seriously curtailed by the beginning of the Renaissance. 

Section 3: Italy and the Renaissance

The birthplace of the European Renaissance and the place where it reached its greatest height was Italy. The city-states of Italy were well-developed urban areas that had wealth, power, political freedoms and the desire to cultivate the arts.

The commercial activity that flourished during the High Middle Ages scattered towns across the map of Europe, but city life flourished more vigorously in Italy than elsewhere. Most of Europe's trade via Mediterranean routes passed through Italy's ports generating employment for large urban populations. By 1400, four of Europe's five largest cities were in Italy—Genoa, Florence, Milan, and Venice. Italian city-states had a virtually monopoly on Middle Eastern-European trade. This provided merchant and banking families within these cities with a great deal of wealth and power.

Italian states were relatively politically free from kings or nobles. The predominance of wealthy merchant families helped curtail the power of noble families. Italy's cities acquired power over the land within their walls as well as land directly around them. These cities became independent city-states. The wealth from trade and industry gave some Italian city-states influence and power comparable to larger countries in northern Europe.

Many of these Italian city-states began as associations of tradespeople who banded together for mutual benefit. Most of the city states began as republics with elected officials. Checks and balances were instituted in order to keep any individual from gaining all power but these strategies did not work. Family and clans grouped together to compete for political power. What began as republics usually became oligarchies, ruled by a few wealthy families. 

Section 4: The Middle Class

Middle Class Power and Ideology

Prosperous middle class families played the leading roles in politics and power plays within the city-states. As commerce and trade increasingly became the way to gain power and money, the older feudal ideals declined. The idea of birth as a determining factor and the belief in fixed social hierarchies no longer carried the values they once did. Industry, ambition, and individual achievement became the new values of the Italian city-states. Effort, talent and creative genius were admired more so than status related to birth. Honor in the feudal society had placed great weight on military courage and prowess. The Italian city-states placed less focus on military service and focused on civic honor, where one was a worthy citizen, as well as artistic achievement by painters, sculptors, architects and writers.

The Renaissance was a reflection of the values of the middle class who supported it. Italy was an environment where the wealthy middle class respected talent, industry and ambition because these reflected their own values.

Individualism

A central value of the Renaissance was individualism. Urban wealth released people from older controlling factors such as church and nobility. The wealthy elite asserted their own individualism and personality. They believed that expressing their feelings was an important part of a full human life. They desired to win fame and glory. They were often filled with ambition. They believed these earthly pleasures were appropriate; however, it differed significantly from the medieval world. The medieval world had focused on other-worldly activities. It stressed communal values. Religious life was focused on the corporate church rather than individual belief.

Innovation

The middle-class emphasis on trade, entrepreneurship, and practical knowledge was a boon to innovation. A number of inventions were developed during this period which changed the course of western civilization. Arguably one of the most important inventions in the history of the world was the printing press. The moveable-type printing press was invented by Johann Gutenberg in Germany in 1450.

The printing press increased the distribution of information in Europe. The Protestant Reformation may never have expanded throughout Northern Europe without the aid of the printing press. Protestant Reformers were able to spread their ideas by printing tracts, letters and pamphlets. The printing press also led to professionalization in a number of fields. Manuals on medicine and law were printed. Libraries expanded. Books also allowed Europeans to learn about the outside world. Christopher Columbus was inspired to become an explorer, for example, after reading Marco Polo's account of his trips to Asia.

There were other inventions as well. The development of nation-states in Europe meant growing rivalry between countries. This led to military development. New firearms and cannons were designed.

Emphasis on business and trade led to the need for better sailing ships and navigational devices.  The Caravel ship was designed during the Renaissance. These ships were faster and more navigable than previous ships. This allowed Europeans to travel longer distances. Improvements were also made to the compass and astrolabe, both navigation devices used by sailors. These inventions helped Europeans venture into Asia. They allowed Christopher Columbus to sail to the Americas.

Ships and navigational devices allowed Europeans to explore the globe. Military developments allowed them to dominate the regions they explored. Inventions of the Renaissance provided the foundation upon which European global dominance over the next three centuries would be built.

Middle Class Support of the Renaissance

Members of the wealthy middle class became the supporters/patrons of the arts. They used their funds to support and employ artists, writers, sculptors, etc. These middle class merchants could not boast of land or high birth that the older nobility could speak of. They looked to culture to provide them with objects to show their power and a way to justify their own sense of authority. 

Art could also serve a political function for wealthy families competing for power. In many ways, the grandeur of art spoke of power. Competing for artists and great works of art was also a way to compete with other wealthy individuals and families. Great works of art allowed wealthy families to boast and bolster their own sense of privilege and power.

Even the church understood the potential of art to convince individuals of power and importance. During the Renaissance, the Pope used a great deal of funds to support the arts and artists. In fact, the Pope was the greatest patron of art during the Renaissance. Some of the greatest pieces of art from this period were commissioned by the church, including Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel (click on this link for a guided tour of the artwork).

Section 5: Renaissance Art

The Renaissance reflected the era's fascination with classical Greek and Roman culture. Artifacts of Roman civilization were more common in Italy than any other European nation. Italian sculptors had many Roman examples. Like classical artists, Renaissance artists sought to shape statues with features of a real body. Renaissance artists in Italy also copied the classical style of the Roman buildings they could still see.

Painting and Sculpture

The Renaissance shared the Greco-Roman fascination with the human body. Paintings and sculptures were far more naturalistic, particularly in portraying the human body, than those of their medieval counterparts. Nudity was not uncommon in Renaissance art. The human body was celebrated—albeit idealized—as it had been in the Greek world.

Artists began to use oil paints for the first time during the Renaissance. In the Middle Ages, egg tempera was used most widely. Mixing egg yolks with pigments created egg tempera and artists made their own paints. Egg tempera dried quickly and created a flat, rough surface.

Oil paint was invented in the early 15th century and created great excitement among Renaissance artists. Oil paint dried slowly, and was translucent; meaning light could shine through the paint. The characteristics of oil paint allowed artists to build layers of color and create paintings with the appearance of greater depth.

Subject matter and emphasis also changed from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance period. During the Middle Ages, saints in paintings wore halos (a ring or circle of light) around their heads. Artists also used hieratic scale in paintings during the Middle Ages, making saints or members of the family of God larger in scale than ordinary or less important figures.

With the Renaissance, ordinary people grew to be the same size as saints in paintings and saints began to look more like ordinary people. For example, halos became fainter and eventually disappeared during the Renaissance. Saints occupied the same landscape as ordinary people in Renaissance paintings and the landscape was earth instead of heaven.

In the Middle Ages it was common for artists to represent figures of heaven against a gold background, a symbol for the beauty and value of the atmosphere of heaven.

As Renaissance artists experimented with new ideas, the natural landscape began to appear as a background in paintings. Saints left their golden atmosphere to occupy the same gardens, forests and buildings that everyday people lived in.

Section 6: Humanism

The Renaissance was more than anything a literary movement devoted to recovering ancient works from the Greek and Roman cultures. Scholars searched out forgotten manuscripts. Many of these came from the east, particularly the Muslim kingdoms. Others were discovered in Europe's libraries.

The intellectual leaders of the Renaissance were called humanists, for they advocated the study of humanity. The humanists were professional scholars who often taught in European universities. This meant they were often at schools with Scholastics.

The Scholastic dialecticians were devoted to Aristotle. They believed language's primary purpose was to construct logical arguments. In contrast, humanists believed that passion was also important. They argued that Scholastics too often reduced human beings to rational machines.

Humanism was the study of the Greek and Latin classics and the ancient Church fathers, both for personal edification and in hope of a rebirth of these ancient values.  Humanists promoted the "Humanities," a liberal arts program that would include grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, politics, and philosophy.

The classical heritage of the Greco-Roman world included many decidedly non-Christian ideas of secularism, humanism, individualism, and pleasure in this world. The embracing of these values in Renaissance artwork and some of the Renaissance literature shifted the medieval focus from God's glory, Heaven, man's fallen nature, and sacrificing one's own individual desires to earn a better place in Heaven to the concerns of this world, human achievements and potential, and the pursuit of temporary, worldly pleasures. Humanists drew from classical literature ideas about how to live well in the world. These writings spoke of self-cultivation, how to write well, and how to speak well. 

Humanists and the Medieval Worldview

Like Renaissance artists, humanists rarely challenged the truth of Christianity. They did not challenge Christian belief or question the validity of the Bible; however, humanism as a whole signaled a significant transition from the Middle Ages. Unlike Augustine, humanists did not emphasize human sin. They, like the classical world, emphasized humanity's ability to attain excellence in this world through effort. Humanists recalled the Greek emphasis on arête—human excellence. Humans, therefore, had the duty to pursue excellence. 

Section 7: Northern Humanism

As stated above, humanists were not anti-Christian; in fact, northern humanism was deeply religious. The environment of northern Europe shaped the kind of interest that northerners pursued during the Renaissance. Northern Europe had few inspiring Roman ruins to remind people of the classical civilization. The northern European towns did not see themselves as successors to the classical world as Italy did. Northern Europe's past was the pagan Germanic tribes, from which the Renaissance leaders did not draw many philosophical ideas or art forms. Rather, northern humanist and renaissance thinkers remained firmly attached the Bible and the church.

In fact, northern Europe was experiencing a religious revival. Italy's humanists had studied Greek and Latin in order to translate and read the older classical texts. The northern humanists sought ancient language skills as well but more often so they could apply it to study of the Bible in its original languages. 

Section 8: The Church in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Many humanists had an appreciation for the early church of the classical period. They often criticized the Roman Catholic Church for errors or corruption that had developed over the medieval period.

The church had received criticism starting in the late middle ages. In the face of such criticism, Popes and religious leaders attempted to solidify their authority over spiritual matters. As early as the 14th century, Popes were attempting to solidify their power. Pope Boniface VIII asserted papal authority over kings and princes.

Click here to read this papal bull.

Click here to read a decree by Pope Pius II concerning the power of the Pope.

A year before Martin Luther posted his 95 theses (essentially beginning the Reformation), Pope Leo X renewed the papal bull Unam Sanctam, which had been issued in the late middle ages.

Click here to read this decree.

The Popes had reason to fear. Even prior to the Renaissance and Reformation, the church had a growing number of critics. Many of the issues highlighted by the Protestant Reformers were already being discussed by church critics.

Two leading critics of the late medieval church were John Wycliffe and John Hus.

John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe is an obscure figure that we do not know a lot about. We know that he was raised in northern England but emerges only as a student at Oxford. He received his doctoral degree in 1372 and became a leading professor at the university. Wycliffe argued that the English government had a divinely assigned right and duty to correct abuses in the church within its realm. This was condemned by the Pope in 1377.

Wycliffe also emphasized the spiritual freedom of the individual. He argued that every person—priest or layman— held an equal place in the eyes of God. He believed the Pope should not be adorned with riches but rather with poverty. The Pope should not be a political leader. After the Great Schism (refer to Week 6, Section 10) occurred, Wycliffe became even more radical, arguing that the Pope was the Antichrist.

He went on from here to condemn a number of Catholic practices such as compulsory confession, distinctions between mortal and venial sins,and the practice of extreme unction, and attacked transubstantiation (the belief that the wine and bread of the Lord's Supper became the actual blood and body of Christ).

His attack on transubstantiation aroused the greatest outcry and this is what led to his downfall; however, he had a great deal of popular support so the church did not move against him. He was driven from Oxford and passed his days at a Parish in Lutterwoth. In 1382, he translated portions of the Bible into the common language of the people. He died in 1384.

Click here to read Wycliffe's criticism of the practice of indulgences and the Pope.

John Hus

Bohemia and England were linked through the marriage of King Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia. This meant that ideas, students and trade moved between the two regions. This is how John Hus became aware of the teachings of Wycliffe.

John Hus took Wycliffe's ideas and expanded his attack. Hus taught at the University of Prague. He also was priest of Bethlehem Chapel near the university.

Here, Huss preached in the Bohemian language about Wycliffe's teachings and abuses of the church. This caused great discord among the population. In fact, at various points, students rioted for or against the teachings.

Eventually, the Archbishop of Prague under direction of the Pope excommunicated Hus. In response, Hus then began to preach against indulgences. This lost for him the support of his King, who had supported him previously.

He left for exile in southern Bohemia. He appeared at the Council of Constance hoping to present his views but arrived to discover it was more of an inquisition. Witnesses came forward that accused Hus of things he had preached and others he had not. If he confessed to these crimes, he would have received life imprisonment; if not, he would receive death at the stake. He was burned to death on July 6, 1415.

Click here to read a treatise by Hus on the church. 

Section 9: Humanist Critics

It is clear that by the Renaissance and Reformation, criticism of the church was already quite common. The most prominent humanist critic of the church before the Reformation was Erasmus.

Erasmus

The most prominent of the northern humanist was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536). He was the illegitimate son of an educated priest. Erasmus was educated by a religious order and eventually became a priest; however, Erasmus later regretted this, believing he had made a mistake entering into the ministry. He eventually was sent to study theology at Paris.

Erasmus was interested in ancient languages like many humanists. He wrote an edition of the Greek New Testament based on his analysis of ancient biblical manuscripts. Erasmus's inspection of the New Testament led him to criticize the Roman Catholic Church. Erasmus was impressed by the New Testament's discussion of the early church. Erasmus believed that the Roman Catholic Church had accumulated unnecessary items through the Middle Ages and the church needed to return to the simplicity of the early church.

Erasmus was also sickened by the corruption of some of the clergy in the church. One of his most popular books was Praise of Folly, a satire that often targeted the clergy.

Click here to read a portion of Praise of Folly.

Erasmus was such an outspoken critic of the late medieval church that many of his contemporaries assumed he would join the Protestant reformers. However, Erasmus did not join the reformers. He believed they were overzealous and uncharitable.

Click here to read a letter of Erasmus explaining why he remained a Catholic and refused to join the Protestant Reformers.   

Section 10: The Reformation and the Renaissance 

Was the Reformation part of the Renaissance or was it merely a religious reform reacting to medieval Christianity? The answer is both.

Similarity

There certainly was a great deal of similarity between the two movements. Many Reformers had been trained as humanists. For example, Martin Luther, the German Reformer, taught at the University of Wittenberg, a humanist school.

Both the Reformation and the Renaissance attacked ecclesiastical authority. They both tended to emphasize the individual; indeed, at the heart of the Reformation lay the question, "How is a person saved?"

Both movements emphasized the reading of early texts—the Bible and the classics. They desired purer sources and the study of ancient languages such as Greek.

Both humanists and reformers were reacting against Scholasticism.

Both movements also benefited from the same inventions. For example, both groups relied on the printing press to disseminate their views.

Differences

There are certainly ways that the Protestant Reformers did not conform to the humanists.

Erasmus, the prince of northern humanists, believed that people were essentially neutral moral agents filled with as much potential for good as evil. Luther believed humans were morally creatures of habit, predisposed to act sinfully because of their fallen nature.

Many humanists also believed that the Protestant Reformers had moral tunnel vision. Like the Scholastics, humanists felt that reformers were too focused on religious issues. 

Section 11: Causes for the Reformation 

There are a number of factors that contributed to the development and growth of the Reformation. A few can be mentioned here:

1. Many devout Christians were finding the Church's growing emphasis on rituals unhelpful in their quest for personal salvation. This became more important as there was growing emphasis on individualism. This individualism is rooted in the Renaissance. The idea of salvation through the church, its rituals and its sacraments was less fulfilling in a new environment. Indeed, Europe was witnessing a shift from salvation of whole groups of people, to something more personal and individual.

2. More people were congregating in towns and cities. These townspeople had experienced a great deal of freedom in comparison to the serfs, and even nobles, of the feudal system.

3. People in towns and cities could also observe for themselves some of the corruptions of the Church. They could see that many bishops had little concern for the spiritual well-being of their people but rather enjoyed the power and privilege of high clerical office. Indeed, the papacy and the clergy in general had lost much of their spiritual influence and reputation by the time of the Reformation. 

4. It is also important to recognize that with the growth of kingdoms, there was increasing suspicion of the church on the part of monarchs, rulers and princes. The Reformation cannot be understood apart from understanding the growth of stronger nation-states. It is secular rulers who often favored or protected Protestants in their realms against the Pope.  

Section 12: Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Martin Luther was born 1483, the son of a Saxon Miner. He trained to become a lawyer. As Luther reports, in 1505, when caught in a thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning knocked him from his horse. Terrified he cried out, "St. Anne, save me! And I'll become a monk." Two weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt.

Luther's Circle of Despair

Luther kept the monastic rules very strictly. He pushed his body to the point that it affected his health. He was driven by a profound sense of his own sinfulness and of God's unutterable majesty. No amount of confession or penance could stop Luther's conviction that he was a miserable, doomed sinner.

The sacrament of confession was a difficult process for Luther. The sacrament of confession was a major component to medieval spirituality. A person, in this case Luther, would confess his sins to a priest. Along with this confession, there was supposed to be genuine contrition (remorse) for one's sins based on one's love for God. The process was intended to be (1) remorse for sin, (2) confession to a priest and then (3) meritorious obedience, or penance. Penance could be the recitation of prayers, fasting, pilgrimage and so forth.

This was all insufficient for Luther. It was Luther's circle of despair. Luther claimed that to be forgiven from sin, one needed to love God above all else, but to love God above all else, one needed to know his sins were forgiven (or it would simply be fear of punishment and not love), but to know one's sins were forgiven, one had to love God above all else. This was his circle of despair.

Wittenberg

By 1508, Luther was transferred from the monastery at Erfurt to Wittenberg. At Wittenberg, Luther joined the university faculty as professor of philosophy and lectured in moral theology and the Bible. In 1512, Luther earned his Th.D. and received a permanent chair as a lecturer at Wittenberg.  Luther quickly became a leader in the fight to make Wittenberg a center of humanism rather than Scholasticism.

In 1510, Luther took a pilgrimage to Rome where he was shocked by the apparent immoral life of the priests and cardinals whom he found cynical and indifferent toward Church rituals. He returned to Wittenberg to teach and preach but also deeply concerned about the state of the church.

In 1515, Luther claims that he was reflecting on Paul's Epistle to the Romans when he read 1:17: "For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The just shall live by faith."

Luther had viewed "righteousness" as the imposing righteousness of God. In order to attain this righteousness, Luther had been taught that one needed both faith and works. For this reason, Luther hated righteousness because he could not attain it.

After reading this passage, Luther claims he viewed "righteousness" as the gracious gift of God. Luther realized the righteousness of God is passive, not active. It is a gift to be received. It cannot be earned through rituals, penance or prayer.

Indulgences

After this realization, Luther also became increasingly critical of some of the church's practices, particularly the selling of indulgences. At this time, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, was raising money for the new Church at St. Peters in Rome by selling indulgences throughout Germany. Luther also attacked indulgences in general, and he voiced his objections to the sale of indulgences.

The purchase of an indulgence was seen as a form of penance. It was thought to place the buyer in touch with a surplus of grace leftover by people such as saints and martyrs. In its proper form, a person would be contrite for their sin, confess their sin, and then buy an indulgence as an act of penance. However, Tetzel's sales pitch in Germany implied that the buyer was freed from the sin as well as the penance attached to it. Tetzel also sold people on the idea that an indulgence could be purchased for a relative in Purgatory. Supposedly, he came up with the now famous rhyme: "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs."

95 theses

Martin Luther saw the abuse of indulgences as a perversion of church life. On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a copy of his 95 theses (or statements ) to the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg. The 95 theses opposed the abuse of indulgences. It did not condemn the proper use of indulgences. They said nothing about justification by faith. They did not condemn the Pope or the Roman Catholic Church.

The 95 theses did argue that true penance implied true repentance. Mortification of the flesh (penance) is useless without repentance. He also argued that it was the merits of Christ not the surplus of grace from saints or martyrs. The real treasure of the Church, according to Luther, was the Gospel.

The response to the theses was discussion and debate. Formal and informal disputations occurred. In 1520, however, Pope Leo X issued a papal bull listing 41 separate errors committed by Luther. Luther was eventually excommunicated. In response, Luther burned the papal document decreeing his excommunication.

Diet of Worms

In 1521, the Diet of Worms was convened. A diet is an assembly. This one was called by the Holy Roman Emperor. At the Diet, Luther was given access to the public eye and defended his positions. Luther was outlawed; however, he was protected by the Prince of Saxony, Duke Frederick the Wise, whose domains included Wittenberg.

Between 1521 and 1529 scores of people begin to follow Luther's teachings. Churches were organized. Luther's attacks against the church become more intense and broad.

Click here to read Luther's An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility, in which Luther attempts to convince the German princes to support the Reformation. 

Section 13: Responses to the Spread of Lutheranism

The objections of Luther and other critics did not go unanswered. Roman Catholic leaders attempted to stop the spread of reform by stopping the spread of Protestantism as well as attempting to reform Catholicism.

The period of the Reformation has traditionally been thought of as a Protestant Reformation with a Catholic Counter-Reformation. It is best to think of this period as Age of Reformation rather than just a Protestant Reformation.

Reform was called for from many sectors of the Christian population. Catholics had been calling for reform since the late Middle Ages. Some of these individuals, such as Wycliffe and Hus, were excommunicated. Others, however, remained faithful members of the Catholic Church. Many Catholics understood the need for reform. Even Popes, at times, noted this.

Click here to read a letter from Pope Adrian VI. In the letter, he claims that one of the best ways to stop the spread of Lutheranism was to reform the Catholic Church.

Other Catholics attempted to check the spread of Protestantism by appealing to the temporal powers of Europe—the kings and princes. Johannes Eck, A scholastic theologians, became well-known for preaching against Lutherans.

Click here to read a letter from Eck attempting to convince the Holy Roman Emperor to help stop Lutheranism.

Other priests attempted to combat Lutheranism by re-asserting the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

Click here to read a dialogue against Lutheranism by the Dominican friar, Prierias.

Many Catholics believed that the best way to slow the growth of Protestantism was to make Catholicism more accessible to the common people. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, believed this was a key way to reform and spread the Roman Catholic faith.

Click here to read a letter from Ignatius.

Conclusion

Despite the efforts of Roman Catholics to reform the church, spread devotion to Catholicism and check the spread of Lutheranism and other sects, Protestantism continued to grow. As it grew, it also splintered into multiple groups.

Next Steps:

After completing all the readings for this week, proceed to the Commentary section of this course (if needed) and then engage in the dialogue under Conversation. 

Bibliography:

Frankforter, A. Daniel and William M. Spellman. The West: A Narrative History. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2009.

Gonzalez, Justo. A History of Christian thought. Nashville, Abingdon Press 1970.

Ozment, Stephen. The Age of Reform. Yale University, 1981.

Perry, Marvin. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society, 9th Edition. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage, 2009.

Stearns, Peter N. World History in Brief: Major patterns of Change and Continuity. New Jersey: Pearson, 2013.

Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A brief Global History with Sources. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013.