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Johann Tetzel was a wandering friar, was authorized by Pope Leo X to sell indulgences (which guaranteed the remission of sins), the proceeds of which would be used to rebuild St. Peter's Church in Rome and to provide funds to local dioceses.
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Martin Luther (1483-1546), a Roman Catholic priest, Augustinian monk, and theologian, condemned these sales as impious expediencies. Tormented by obsessions of his own damnation, despite a life dedicated to holy service, he came to believe that the traditional means of attaining salvation (through good works like sacrament, prayer, and fasting), were in fact inadequate. He nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church, inviting debate.
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1.Salvation by faith alone
2.The Bible is the ultimate authority
3.The grace of God brings absolution
4.Baptism and communion are the only valid sacraments
5.The clergy is not superior to the laity
6.The church should be subordinate to the state -
Luther burned a papal bull, an official proclamation that demanded his recantation and he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X. Charles V, honored a political debt to Frederick the Wise by refusing to outlaw Luther without a hearing.
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Preoccupied with wars against the Ottoman Turks and the French, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was unable to suppress the growth of Protestantism in Northern Europe. In addition to Northern Germany, Denmark and its province of Norway, Sweden and its holdings in Finland, and the Eastern Baltic all embraced Lutheranism.
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Luther was called to the Rhineland in Germany to appear before the Diet of Worms, a tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire with the power to outlaw--to condemn to be burned at the stake. Luther stated, "I neither can nor will I recant anything since it is neither right nor safe to act against conscience." The empire outlawed him. Frederick the Wise protected him and allowed him a safe place to reform the church and translate the Bible into German.
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A league of Lutheran knights, under the leadership of Franz von Sickengen, converted to Lutheranism, attacked the Catholic princes of the Rhineland, was suppressed, but encouraged most of the Northern German princes to convert. One motive was the financial gain brought by confiscating Roman Catholic lands.
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Luther's theological dissent inspired a variety of radical religious sects to form and to demand social reform based on the early Christian model. Demanding abolition of manorialism--the economic and social order of medieval feudalism--German peasants used force against the landownders, and Germany was wracked by the Peasant's War. Luther was appalled by these extremeists and others he believed took his ideas too far. He condemned the revolutionaries as "filthy swine".
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The Diet of Speyer refused to recognize the right of the German princes to determine the religion of their subjects.
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The Reformation spreads beyond Germany
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The League of Schmalkalden was formed by newly Protestant princes to defend themselves against the emperor. Charles appealed to the Pope to call a church council that could compromise with the Lutherans and regain their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope, fearing the papacy's loss of power, refused and lost all opportunity to reunite Western Christiandom.
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In Switzerland, Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531), who established Protestantism in Switzerland, was killed in a nationwide religious civil war. Although his followers accepted most of Luther's reforms, they argued that God's presence during communion is only symbolic. The Peace of Cappel allowed each Swiss canton to determine its own religion.
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Pope Paul III (1534-1549) assumed office as the first of the "reform popes."
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The English Parliament abolished Roman Catholic monasteries, confiscated their lands, and redistributed them to nobles and gentry who supported the newly formed Anglican church.
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In England, Parliament approved the Statute of the Six Articles.
1. The seven sacraments were upheld
2. Catholic theology was maintained against the tenents of both Lutheranism and Calvinism
3. The authority of the monarch replaced the authority of the Pope.
These helped define the Anglican Church despite the efforts of Mary Tudor -
Ignatious Loyola (1491-1556) established the Jesuits (Society of Jesus), a holy order that was organized in a military fashion, requiring of its members blind, obedience and absolute faith. They swore to suppress Protestantism by serving as advisors to Catholic kings, suppressed heresy through the Inquisition, established schools in Catholic nations, and sent missionaries to convert the "heathens." The Jesuits became the militant arm of the Catholic and Counter Reformations.
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The Catholic and Counter Reformations Begin
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Calvin set-up a model theocracy in the Swiss city of Geneva. The Scottish Calvinists (Presbyterians) established a national church. The French Calvinists (Huguenots) made dramatic gains but were brutally supressed by the Catholic majority. The English Calvinists (Puritans and Pilgrims) failed in their revolution in the 1600's but established a colony in New England.
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The Jesuits were given control of the Spanish and Italian Inquisition. Perhaps tens of thousands were executed on even the suspicion of heresy. The Index of Prohibited Books was instituted in Catholic countries to keep heretical reading material out of the hands of the faithful.
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The Peace of Augsburg, after over two decades of religious strife, allowed the German princes to choose the religion of their subjects, although the choice was limited to either Lutheranism or Catholicism. "Cuius regio, eius religio" means "whose the region, his religion."
