Introduction
The Protestant Reformation of the Catholic Church devastated the religious unity of Christian Europe, resulting in a great deal of antagonism, which in turn led to the persecutions, denial of civil rights, expulsion, and ultimately the torture and death of many men, women and children. The ongoing conflict was not consigned to one distinct European nation, but was experienced in every European nation that the Catholic Church ruled and reigned. There was no worldview in Europe at that time that allowed for the religious differences of men to coexist peaceably.
As quoted by McGrath in his book, French Protestantism to the Present Day. From Britain in the west to Hungary and Poland in the east, thousands of towns and villages found themselves split internally and still more had to reckon with “heretics” living just down the road or across the field. It was a profound shock, and it evoked extreme responses. France's ‘Most Christian King’ Francis I declared in 1535 that he wanted heresy banished from his realm in such manner that if one of the arms of my body was infected with this corruption, I would cut it off, and if my children were tainted with it, I would myself offer them in sacrifice (Diefendorf, 1991).
The Roots of Calvinism
This limited worldview would become the preferred way of dealing with the problem that the French Calvin’s or Huguenots presented to Catholic France. The roots of Lutheranism or Protestantism in France can be traced back to the life of John Calvin. John Calvin (whose name in French is Cauvin), was born, July 10, 1509 in Noyon, the northern part of France. Calvin sometime around 1527-1530, or possibly later, was converted to Protestantism by the possible influence of German scho...
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... Christopher. (1999). The Body Broken : The Calvinist Doctrine of the Eucharist and the Symbolization of Power in Sixteenth-century France. New York: Oxford University Press.
McGrath, Alister E. (2003). French Protestantism to the Present Day. The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism. Blackwell Publishing. 21 April 2011 http://0-www.blackwellreference.com.library.regent.edu/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9781405157469_chunk_g978140515746916.
Olson, Roger. (1999). The Story of Christian Theology. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Shelley, Bruce. (2008). Church History in Plain Language. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Steinmetz, David Curtis. (2010). Calvin in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. (2006). Retrieved 22 April 2011 www.oxfordreference.com.library.regent.edu/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t95.e2840.
During the period between 1500 and 1700 different Protestant ideals and religions such as the views of Luther, Henry VIII, and Calvinism reflected varying degrees of closeness between church and state. Luther's views of the state being above the church represented a distance between the church and state that many other Protestant religions at the time did not have. Henry VI and Calvinism on the other hand, intertwined the church and state so that their relationship was much closer. Calvinism went much further than just intertwining church and state though; it became a complete combination: the church working as state.
Social and economic stresses of The Protestant Reformation age were just among few of the things that impacted the ordinary population of Europe. The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, and cultural disorder that divided Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the ordinary population. In northern and central Europe, reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin and Henry VIII challenged papal authority and questioned the Catholic Church’s ability to define Christian practice. In 1555 The Peace of Augsburg allowed for the coexistence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany; and in 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The key ideas of the Reformation, a call to purify the church and a belief that the Bible, should be the sole source of spiritual authority. However, Luther and the other reformers became the first to skillfully use the power of the printing press to give their ideas a wide audience.
Roper, H. R.. The crisis of the seventeenth century; religion, the Reformation, and social change. [1st U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 19681967. Print.
The Protestant Reformation was a period of time (1500-1700) where there became a change in Western Christendom. This reformation was caused by the resentment from the people because the Catholic Church abusing their powers for political and economic advances. In this time the church was selling pardons for sin and indulgences to forgive sins, decrease days spent in purgatory and save the dead from damnation. The reformation was when people became more aware with the back hand dealings with the church and men like Martin Luther and John Calvin created their own churches to what they believed was not corrupt unlike the church. Unfortunately there many consequences as far at the Roman Catholic church attempting to bring people back to the church,
In the 1560’s, France’s Catholics were being challenged by the Calvinists of Geneva for over a decade. After the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre King Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes that mandated Catholicism as the kingdom’s religion, but also offered Huguenots the ability to hold public offices, be able to worship at certain times and places, and enter hospitals and un...
The period immediately following the Protestant reformation and the Catholic counter reformation, was full of conflict and war. The entire continent of Europe and all of it's classes of society were affected by the destruction and flaring tempers of the period. In the Netherlands, the Protestants and the Catholics were at eachother’s throats. In France it was the Guise family versus the Bourbons. In Bohemia, the religious and political structures caused total havoc for over thirty years; and in England, the Presbyterians thought that the English Anglican Church too closely resembled the Roman Catholic Church. Religion was the major cause of the widespread turmoil that took place throughout Europe between 1560 and 1660.
There are so many causes from the Protestant Reformation. In the Protestant, there was three different sections that got affected more the the others. When the Protestant Reformation happened it affected the Sociality, Political, and Economic the most.
During the late fifteenth century is when the Protestant Reformation started. The church from the Middle ages and throughout the Renaissance had become corrupt. Leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin, are a perfect example to show what life was like. As they would ‘rebel’, state the truth, they slowly grew a following. They went through council by council, telling what they, themselves believe is right and what they, the people, believe in is inaccurate. With the support of the people, the leaders eventually did make progress. Luther speaks out against individuals that are witches after he has posted the 95 Theses. He talked about how “witches are the Devil’s whores.” Luther by saying “whores” could be referring to women. He begins to list off the negative side of a women. How when in times of stress or doubt, she will turn to the Devil for advice and guidance.( Walters: The Protestant Reformation: 31) Luther then goes on to talk about how the Devil, with the help of it’s human puppets, does all the bad deeds. If they were to get rid of these individuals as witches, hypothetically speaking, there would be no ”bad”. [Doc.3] It could very well be that Luther supported the persecutions of individuals as witches because he was a monk, and as a monk he could not accept this behavior. He was a monk for Christian beliefs, and in the Bible it say not to have witches. It would not go with
The Roman Catholic Church dominated religion for many years in Europe and became an extremely powerful institution. Over the years, the Roman church became corrupt and immoral in many ways. The development of the Protestant Reformation, Lutheranism, was greatly influenced by political events in the years proceeding the 16th century. The declared aim of the original reformer, Martin Luther, was to restore the Christian faith as it had been at its formation, while salvaging what he considered valuable from the Roman Catholic tradition that had developed during the previous centuries. Luther broke the unity of the Catholic Church forever by exposing their faults and misguided notions. Lutheranism spread quickly due to the availability of the Christian Faith, as well as the close relationship between religion and the state.
Proving to be the paramount of the conflict between faith and reason, the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century challenged each of the traditional values of that age. Europeans were changing, but Europe’s institutions were not keeping pace with that change.1 Throughout that time period, the most influential and conservative institution of Europe, the Roman Catholic Church, was forced into direct confrontation with these changing ideals. The Church continued to insist that it was the only source of truth and that all who lived beyond its bounds were damned; it was painfully apparent to any reasonably educated person, however, that the majority of the world’s population were not Christians.2 In the wake of witch hunts, imperial conquest, and an intellectual revolution, the Roman Catholic Church found itself threatened by change on all fronts.3 The significant role that the Church played during the Enlightenment was ultimately challenged by the populace’s refusal to abide by religious intolerance, the power of the aristocracy and Absolutism, and the rising popularity of champions of reform and print culture, the philosophes, who shared a general opposition to the Roman Catholic Church.
Greengrass, Mark. The Longman Companion to The European Reformation, C. 1500-1618. London: Longman, 1998. Print.
The protestant reformation of 16th century had both: immediate and long term effects. Thus, we can see that it was a revolution of understanding the essence of religion, and of what God is. The protestant reformation is said to a religious movement. However, it also influenced the economical, political and social life of people. The most global, short term effect of the reformation was the reevaluation of beliefs, and, as a result, the loss of authority of the Holy Roman Empire. The long term effects were: the emergence of new heretical movements, the declining of papacy, thus the reevaluation of people’s view on the church and life values.
The Reformation was a decisive period in the history not only for the Catholic Church, but also for the entire world. The causes of this tumultuous point in history did not burst on the scene all at once, but slowly gained momentum like a boil that slowly festers through time before it finally bursts open. The Reformation of the Church was inevitable because of the abuses which the Church was suffering during this period. At the time of the Reformation, a segment of the Church had drifted away from its mission to bring Christ and salvation to the world. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Church had gradually become weaker because of abusive leadership, philosophical heresy, and a renewal of a form of the Pelagian heresy.
What happens when people start to break away from the entity that bound an entire civilization together for over a thousand years? How does one go from unparalleled devotion to God to the exploration of what man could do? From absolute acceptance to intense scrutiny? Sheeple to independent thinkers? Like all revolutions preceding it, the Protestant Reformation did not happen overnight. Catholics had begun to lose faith in the once infallible Church ever since the Great Schism, when there were two popes, each declaring that the other was the antichrist. Two things in particular can be identified as the final catalyst: a new philosophy and simple disgust. The expanding influence of humanism and the corruption of the Catholic Church led to the Protestant Reformation, which in turn launched the Catholic Reformation and religious warfare.
The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century is one of the most complex movements in European history since the fall of the Roman Empire. The Reformation truly ends the Middle Ages and begins a new era in the history of Western Civilization. The Reformation ended the religious unity of Europe and ushered in 150 years of religious warfare. By the time the conflicts had ended, the political and social geography in the west had fundamentally changed. The Reformation would have been revolutionary enough of itself, but it coincided in time with the opening of the Western Hemisphere to the Europeans and the development of firearms as effective field weapons. It coincided, too, with the spread of Renaissance ideals from Italy and the first stirrings of the Scientific Revolution. Taken together, these developments transformed Europe.