The Reformations

This is Unit Fifteen of Western Civilization One, part one of two: the Protestant Reformations, from a Church ripe for protest to the confessional map of sixteen hundred. Unit fourteen closed on new men aiming at the Church's wealth. Carry one idea through this unit. The anchor tells two reformations that produced one result. The first began inside a Church that touched every life and had already turned some believers inward, and it began with an abuse, the sale of indulgences. Luther, who had found faith alone about fifteen ten, attacked the sale in fifteen seventeen, was driven by questioning to deny the pope's authority, refused to recant at Worms, and lived because an elector sheltered him and an emperor was busy. Print made him famous, the peasants read him their own way, and by fifteen fifty-five each German prince chose his people's religion. Zwingli, Calvin and Henry the Eighth went their own ways, and by the fifteen sixties the map was set. Part two takes the Church's late, hard answer. By the end you will be able to say why the Church was ripe and what Luther found. To tell fifteen seventeen to the peasants. To explain Augsburg and the radicals. To describe Calvin. And to tell England and draw the map.

Three entries on a Church ripe and faith alone: one cleric in seventy-five and believers turning inward, purgatory and the certificate that shortened it, and a terrified monk's conclusion.

Every life touched, and some believers turning inward.

WC1 1401 Why 1500's Church Was Ripe, and the Modern Devotion

The Church touched every life, one person in seventy-five a cleric by the anchor's count, monasteries holding twenty percent of the land, kings naming bishops. The Modern Devotion and The Imitation of Christ turned believers inward, toward salvation without the Church as intermediary, and no one anticipated a break. The figures are the anchor's; the turn inward is the record.

Time off purgatory, for cash.

WC1 1402 Purgatory, Indulgences, and the Treasury of Merit

Purgatory meant centuries of purging fire, and an indulgence, a certificate with confession's power, promised time off. First granted for crusading, indulgences were sold for revenue by Renaissance popes, drawing on the treasury of merit, the surplus of Christ and the saints; the anchor cites a relic collection worth thirty-nine million years off purgatory. The sale, not the doctrine, was Luther's first target.

Works could never suffice.

WC1 1403 Luther Finds Faith Alone, About 1510

Martin Luther, fourteen eighty-three to fifteen forty-six, a monk and professor at Wittenberg terrified of damnation, concluded about fifteen ten that works could never suffice and that salvation came by grace through faith alone, sacraments symbolic at most and the priest a guide rather than a gatekeeper. A major break, the anchor says, and the doctrine came before the protest.

Four entries from the Theses to the peasants: Tetzel and the Ninety-Five Theses, the break under questioning at Leipzig and the refusal at Worms, why Luther lived, and the war he backed the princes against.

Moderate, in Latin, and famous in German.

WC1 1404 1517: Tetzel, Leo X, and the Ninety-Five Theses

In fifteen seventeen Leo the Tenth's indulgence for St. Peter's, hawked by Tetzel, absolved all sins for cash. Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses at Wittenberg, moderate and in Latin, attacking the sale but not the papal office, the first official act of the Reformation in the anchor's words. Printed in German, they made him famous. Print did what a Latin debate could not.

The pope can err, so the pope is irrelevant.

WC1 1405 From Leipzig to Worms: The Priesthood of All Believers

At Leipzig in fifteen nineteen, a witness name, Eck forced Luther to admit the pope could err, so pope and Church were irrelevant to salvation: the priesthood of all believers. At Worms in fifteen twenty-one Charles the Fifth demanded recantation; Luther refused and was outlawed, with no penalty for his murder. The break came by logic under questioning, not by plan.

An elector's shelter, and an emperor at war.

WC1 1406 Why Luther Survived: Frederick, the Princes, and a Distracted Emperor

Frederick the Wise of Saxony sheltered Luther, who wrote the German Bible in hiding, and pope and emperor would not threaten an elector who was a king in practice. Charles the Fifth was at war with France and the Turks. Francis the First tolerated French Protestants, then persecuted them after fifteen thirty-four; the anchor's blanket protection had two phases.

The Bible read as license, and a hundred thousand dead.

WC1 1407 The Peasants' War, 1524 to 1525, and Luther's Conservatism

Luther meant a return to the Bible; peasants read it as license to reject hierarchy and rose in fifteen twenty-four over dues, serfdom and justice. Luther's tract against the murderous hordes backed the princes, and the anchor's one hundred thousand died. A deeply conservative man, the anchor says, who kept elite support. The movement was beyond his control from here.

Two entries on Germany settled and the radicals: the protest that named Protestants and the peace that halved Germany, and Zurich's reformer with the rebaptizers everyone crushed.

Each prince chooses.

WC1 1408 Speyer, Augsburg, 1555, and a Germany Halved

In fifteen twenty-six princes were left to enforce Luther's ban or not, at Speyer by convention; the attempt to repeal it in fifteen twenty-nine drew the protest that named Protestants. The Peace of Augsburg in fifteen fifty-five, on the witness, let each prince choose his territory's religion, a Lutheran north and a Catholic south. Speyer is unwitnessed; Augsburg is. Learn fifteen fifty-five.

Zurich, and a kingdom at Munster.

WC1 1409 Zwingli and the Anabaptists

Ulrich Zwingli reformed Zurich, rejecting Christ's presence in the bread entirely, and died in battle in fifteen thirty-one. Anabaptists rebaptized adults, separated church from state, and at Munster in fifteen thirty-four set up a radical kingdom that Catholics and Lutherans destroyed together, radicals persecuted by every side. This entry rests on the witness texts; the anchor names Anabaptism once.

Two entries on Calvin: an omnipotent God who cannot be influenced and the elect chosen before birth, and the Consistory that policed Geneva and the churches it seeded.

Chosen before birth.

WC1 1410 Calvin's Geneva: Predestination and the Elect

Jean Calvin, a French lawyer exiled for Protestant sympathy, reached Geneva in fifteen thirty-six and wrote the Institutes. An omnipotent God cannot be influenced, so there is no free will: the elect are chosen before birth, predestination, and they live by scripture and work because they are saved. Success as a sign of election is the anchor's reading.

A model community, and three names abroad.

WC1 1411 The Consistory, and Calvinism's Spread: Huguenots, Presbyterians, Puritans

After a coup in fifteen fifty-five Calvin's Consistory policed Geneva's behavior, the model community. Calvinism spread to France as the Huguenots, to Scotland as the Presbyterians under John Knox, a witness name the anchor omits, and into England's Church as the Puritans, with Lutherans and Calvinists as rivals, each damning the other.

Three entries on England and the map: a king who wanted a son, three children with three settlements, and where each confession stood by sixteen hundred.

An annulment the pope could not grant.

WC1 1412 Henry VIII's Reformation: Catherine, Anne, and the Act of Supremacy

Henry the Eighth wanted his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled for a son, and the pope, under Charles the Fifth's thumb, refused. Cranmer annulled it in fifteen thirty-three, and the Act of Supremacy of fifteen thirty-four made the king head of the Church of England, with doctrine and ritual almost identical to Catholic. Where the anchor dates the divorce fifteen thirty-one, it was thirty-three.

Six wives, three children, one settlement.

WC1 1413 Monasteries Seized; Edward, Mary, Elizabeth; High Church, Low Church

Henry seized the monasteries' lands for crown and navy. Edward the Sixth pushed Protestantism, Mary the First restored Catholicism, and Elizabeth the First, fifteen fifty-eight to sixteen oh three, required membership of the Church of England: high-church Anglicans, low-church Puritans, secret Catholics, and Presbyterian Scotland. Elizabeth did not actively persecute Catholics, the anchor says.

Lines set in the fifteen sixties that held.

WC1 1414 The Confessional Map of Europe by 1600

Catholic: southern Europe, Austria, Poland, parts of the Balkans. Orthodox: Greece, the Balkans, Russia, untouched. Protestant: much of Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland, England and Scotland, in Lutheran, Calvinist and Anglican forms with Anabaptist minorities, and a Huguenot minority in France. The lines set by the fifteen sixties held, and part two sorts the confessions by doctrine.

Look at what you can now do. You can say that the Church of fifteen hundred touched every life and had turned some believers inward, that an indulgence sold time off purgatory, and that Luther found faith alone before he protested. You can tell the Theses of fifteen seventeen made famous by print, the break under Eck's questioning and the refusal at Worms, an elector's shelter and a busy emperor, and a peasants' war Luther disowned. You can explain the protest that named Protestants and the peace of fifteen fifty-five that let each prince choose, and describe Zwingli and the Anabaptists everyone crushed. You can describe the elect chosen before birth, the Consistory, and Huguenots, Presbyterians and Puritans. And you can tell Henry's supremacy for a son, Elizabeth's settlement, and a map of Catholic south, Protestant north and Orthodox east. Part two opens on the Church's answer, late and then hard, from Paul the Third to Trent.