The Protestant Reformation began in 15th century Europe as a reaction against corrupt practices in the Catholic Church. Martin Luther protested the sale of indulgences in 1517 with his 95 Theses. This sparked the Reformation and divided Western Christianity between Protestant and Catholic denominations. Luther's theology emphasized salvation by faith alone rather than works. His refusal to recant at the Diet of Worms in 1521 had wide religious, political, and intellectual impacts that transformed Europe.

1. The Protestant
Reformation
EUROPE, 13TH-16TH CENTURY

2. The Late Middle Ages
-Three main events:
1. The Hundred Years War
(1337-1453)
2. The Black Death/Agrarian
Crisis (mid 14th century)
3. The Great (or Papal)
Schism (1378-1417)

3. Hundred Years War
 Describes the long conflict that pitted the kings and kingdoms of
France and England against each other from 1337 to 1453.
 1. Feudal armies had been largely replaced by professional
troops.
 2. Aristocratic dominance had yielded to a democratization of the
manpower and weapons of armies.
 3. The war gave impetus to ideas of French and English
nationalism.

5. The Black Death
 Black Death would kill more than 20
million people in Europe–almost
one-third of the continent’s
population.
 The Black Death arrived in Europe
by sea in October 1347
 By the middle of 1348, the Black
Death had struck Paris, Bordeaux,
Lyon and London.

6. Plague
 Because they did not understand the biology
of the disease, many people believed that
the Black Death was a kind of divine
punishment–retribution for sins against God.
 Some people believed that the way to do
this was to purge their communities of
heretics and other troublemakers–so, for
example, many thousands of Jews were
massacred in 1348 and 1349.
 Some upper-class men joined processions
of flagellants that traveled from town to town
and engaged in public displays of penance
and punishment.

7.  “In men and women alike, at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings,
either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common
apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the
vulgar named plague-boils. The mere touching of the clothes appeared to
itself to communicate the malady to the toucher.” -Giovanni

8. Agrarian Crisis
 -Increase food production during
12th and 13th centuries fed a
steady population growth.
However the growing population
outgrew the agrarian basis that
had made it possible.
 -By 1320 nearly all of northern
Europe was suffering from wide
spread famine precipitated by a
series of crop failures due to
unusually bad weather.

9. Western Schism
 The Western Schism or Papal Schism
was a split within the Roman
Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417.
 - The Schism in the Western Roman
Church resulted from the return of
the papacy to Rome under Gregory
XI on January 17, 1377, ending the
Avignon Papacy.

11. Intellectual Impact
 Sin, death, and the devil loomed
large on the stage of late medieval
life and mentality.
 This is reflected in both the
writings and art work of the time.
 “Age of tears, of envy, of
torment,…Age of decline nigh to
the end.” Eustach Deschamps

12.  “O miserable and very sad life! We suffer from warfare, death
and famine; Cold and heat, day and night, sap our strength;
Fleas, scabmites an so much other vermine make war upon
us. In short, have mercy, Lord, upon our wicked persons,
whose life is very short.”
 We [the dead] are a spectacle for the world so that the great
and small may see clearly by our example the condition to
which they shall inexorably reduced whatever their condition,
sex or age. Why then, wretch, are you full of pride? You are
ashes, and you shall return to ashes, a fetid corpse, food for
vermin.”

13. Dance of death
“Emperor, your sword won't help
you out
Sceptre and crown are worthless
here
I've taken you by the hand
For you must come to my dance”

14. “I had to work very much and
very hard
The sweat was running down
my skin
I'd like to escape death
nonetheless
But here I won't have any luck”

15. Martian Luther
 Martin Luther was a German friar, priest, professor of theology,
and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.
 He spent the rest of his career in this position at the University
of Wittenberg.
 In 1516, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar and papal
commissioner for indulgences, was sent to Germany by the
Roman Catholic Church to sell indulgences to raise money to
rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

16.  On 31 October 1517, Luther wrote to his
bishop, Albert of Mainz, protesting the
sale of indulgences.
 He enclosed in his letter a copy of his
"Disputation of Martin Luther on the
Power and Efficacy of Indulgences", which
came to be known as The Ninety-Five
Theses.
 “"Why does the pope, whose wealth today
is greater than the wealth of the richest
Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with
the money of poor believers rather than
with his own money?"

17. Luther’s Theology
 Background:
 The medieval worldview was rational, ordered, and synthetic.
 It survived until the acids of war, plague, poverty, and social discord
began to eat away its underlying presupposition – that the world
rested on the being of God.
 Occam asked an important question: if the process begins with
God’s infusion of grace, can it truly merit anything? He answered,
no! Therefore you should do the best you can.

18.  Theology of the Cross:
- Luther’s attempts to prove his worthiness failed. He continued
to be plagued by uncertainty and doubt concerning his salvation.
Instead of storehouses of merit, indulgences, habituation, and
"doing what is within one," God accepts the sinner in spite of the
sin.
Luther’s theology frees human beings to be human. We do not
have to achieve salvation; rather, it is a gift to be received.
 Salvation thus is the presupposition of the life of the Christian
and not its goal. This belief engendered his rejection of
indulgences and his movement to a theologia crucis (Theology
of the Cross).

19. Diet of Worms:
 “Unless I am convinced by the testimony
of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I
do not trust either in the pope or in
councils alone, since it is well known that
they have often erred and contradicted
themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures
I have quoted and my conscience is
captive to the Word of God. I cannot and
will not recant anything, since it is neither
safe nor right to go against conscience.
May God help me. Amen.”

20. Implications
-Luther’s trial and writings had a profound
impact on Modern Europe.
1. Religious
2. Political
3. Scientific/technological

21. Religious:
-The initial movement within Germany
diversified almost right then and there, and
other reform impulses arose independently
of Luther.
-The largest groupings were the Lutherans
and Calvinists.
-- There were also reformation movements
throughout continental Europe known as the
Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the
Anabaptist, Moravian, and other Pietistic
movements.

23. Political
 The German Peasants' War was a widespread popular revolt in the
German-speaking areas of Central Europe from 1524 to 1525.
 - It failed because of the intense opposition of the aristocracy, who
slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and
farmers.
 - Series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and
farmers, often supported by Protestant clergy, took the lead.

24. Scientific/Technological
 - The printing press was introduced to the
West in the Holy Roman Empire by Johannes
Gutenberg, around 1440.
 - Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession,
devised a hand mold to create metal movable
type, and adapted screw presses and other
existing technologies, to create a printing
system.
 - The mechanization of bookmaking led to
the first mass production of books in Europe.
A single Renaissance printing press could
produce 3,600 pages per workday.