Western Civilization I / Unit 15 WC1 1423 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading the Ninety-Five Theses: Three Claims and Their Tone
The idea
The exam may quote a thesis and ask what it claims or assumes. The method is three questions: what practice is attacked, what is not attacked, and what the tone tells you about the author's intent. The text is read in translation from Fordham's Modern History Sourcebook.
In practice
Take three theses the course paraphrases. Those who claim a soul flies from purgatory the moment a coin rings in the chest preach a human doctrine. Attacked: the sales pitch and the mechanical claim. Not attacked: purgatory itself, which is assumed. Tone: a professor exposing an abuse. The pope's pardons cannot remove the least sin as to its guilt. Attacked: the extent of indulgences. Not attacked: the pope's right to grant some pardon. Tone: a limit, not a denial. Christians should be taught that buying pardons is not to be compared with works of mercy. Attacked: priorities. Not attacked: the Church's teaching office. Tone: pastoral. Read together: a reformer inside the Church attacking a practice, not yet a rebel against the office, which is why the anchor calls the Theses moderate.
Where people slip
The break with the papacy came at Leipzig two years later, under questioning, not in the Theses. A distractor will read fifteen seventeen as a declaration of independence. Keep the document's own limits, and let video 1405 carry the rest.
Your place on the trail
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