Outline 4

Ranvir Salaria
European History
Red 1
December 05, 2021
Chapter #3 & #4, pgs. 54 – 68

The Reformation

I. Causes of the Reformation

1. The Renaissance emphasis on the secular and the individual
challenged church authority. Some rulers began to challenge the
Church’s political power. Finally, northern merchants resented
paying church taxes to Rome.
2. Spurred by these social, political, and economic forces, a new
movement for religious reform began in Germany. It then swept
much of Europe
A. Criticisms of the Catholic Church
1. Critics of the Church claimed that its leaders were corrupt. The
popes who ruled during the Ren patronized the arts, spent
extravagantly on personal pleasure, and fought wars.
2. Many priests and monks were very poorly educated and some even
broke their priestly vows.
B. Early Calls for Reform
1. Influenced by reformers, people had come to expect higher
standards of conduct from priests and church leaders.
2. Some early reformers denied that the pope had worldly power. They
also taught that the Bible had more authority than Church leaders
did.
3. Many Europeans were reading religious works and forming their
own opinions about the Church.
II. Luther Challenges the Church
A. The 95 Theses
1. Luther was troubled by Tetzel’s act of selling “indulgences” or paid
pardons for sins. In response, he wrote 95 Theses, or formal
statements, attacking the “pardon-merchants”.
2. Though he originally posted these on the door of the castle church in
Wittenberg, they were quickly copied and spread all over Germany
with the help of the printing press. His actions began the
Reformation, a movement for religious reform. It led to the founding
of Christian churches that did not accept the pope’s authority.
B. Luther’s Teachings
1. People could win salvation only by faith in God’s gift of forgiveness.
2. All Church teachings should be clearly based on the words on the
words of the Bible.
3. All people with faith were equal.

III. The Response to Luther

A. The Pope’s Threat
1. As Luther’s ideas became more popular, the pope realised that this
monk was a serious threat. Luther even suggested that Christians
drive the pope from the Church by force.
2. Pope Leo X issued a decree threatening Luther with
excommunication unless he took back his statements. When Luther
did not take back a word and instead throw the pope’s decree into a
bonfire, he was excommunicated by the pope.
B. The Emperor’s Opposition
1. HRE Charles V, a devout Catholic who opposed Luther’s teachings,
summoned him to the town of Worms to stand trial. Luther promptly
refused.
2. After this, Charles issued an imperial order declaring Luther an
outlaw and heretic. Part of this order was that no one was to give
Luther shelter in the empire. However, Prince Frederick broke this
decree when he sheltered Luther in one of his castles.
3. Upon returning to Wittenberg, Luther finds that many of his ideas
were already being put into practice. He then founded a new religion
called Lutheranism whose followers were known as Lutherans.
 C. The Peasants’ Revolt
1. German peasants, excited by reformers’ talk of Christian freedom,
demanded an end to serfdom. The revolt horrified Luther, whose
ideas inspired this revolt.
2. He asked the German princes to show the peasants no mercy. Many
people rejected Luther’s religious leadership as they felt betrayed.
D. Germany at War
1. While some northern German princes genuinely shared Luther’s
beliefs, other liked them for selfish reasons. They saw his teachings
as a good excuse to seize Church property and assert their
independence from Charles V.
2. The German princes who remained loyal to the pope decided to join
forces against Luther’s ideas. The protesting princes came to be
known as Protestants.
3. Charles V went to war against the Protestant princes. Even after
defeating them, he was unable to bring them all over to the Catholic
Church. After growing weary of fighting, he decided to pass a decree
that each ruler would decide the religion of their state. This was
known as the Peace of Augsburg.

IV. England Becomes Protestant

A. Henry VIII Wants a Son
1. Henry VIII was a devout Catholic whose religious loyalty was tested
as he needed a male heir. He feared that a war would start if he died
without a male heir. However, he was convinced that his wife
Catherine was too old to bear him any more children. He wanted to
divorce her and take a younger queen.
2. However, Church law did not allow divorce, only annulment which
could only be performed by the pope. The pope refused to annul his
marriage as he did not want to offend Catherine’s powerful nephew,
HRE Charles V.
B. The Reformation Parliament
1. Henry VIII ordered his Parliament to pass a set of laws that ended
the pope’s power in England. This Parliament was known as the
Reformation Parliament.
2. Shortly after, Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn. The
Parliament legalized Henry’s divorce from Catherine. Following this,
 the Act of Supremacy was passed which named Henry as the head of
England’s Church.
C. Consequences of Henry’s Changes
1. Sadly, Anne Boleyn did not give Henry the male heir he wanted. She
gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, and was eventually accused of
treason and beheaded. His third wife, Jane, finally gave him a male
child named Edward but died two weeks later. He then married
three more times, but none of these marriages bore children.
2. After his death, each of his three children ruled in turn. This caused
great religious turmoil. First, Edward’s advisors pushed the
Protestant agenda and passed many related laws. When Mary took
the throne, she reverted the empire back to the Catholic Church.
After her death, Elizabeth ascended the throne.
D. Elizabeth Restores Protestantism
1. Elizabeth was determined to return her kingdom to Protestantism.
The Parliament followed her wishes and set up the Church of
England with Elizabeth as its head. This would be the only legal
church in England
2. Elizabeth decided to establish a state church that both moderate
Catholics and moderate Protestants might both accept. Hence, she
passed many laws to please both parties.
E. Elizabeth faces Other Challenges
1. By taking this moderate approach, Elizabeth brought a level of
religious peace to England. Religion, however, still remained a
problem. Some Protestants pushed for Elizabeth to make more far-
reaching church reforms. At the same time, some Catholics, including
Philip II of Spain, were trying to overthrow her and replace her with
her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots.
2. She also faced monetary problems. While the new American colonies
strengthened England economically, they did not enrich the queen
directly. This would carry over into the next reign and lead to bitter
conflict between the monarch and the Parliament.
 The Reformation Continues

I. Calvin Continues the Reformation

1. Religious reform in Switzerland was begun by Huldrych Zwingli,
who was inspired by both Erasmus and Luther. In 1520, he openly
attacked abuses in the Catholic church. He called for a return to the
more personal faith of early Christianity.
2. Zwingli died during a war between Swiss Protestants and Catholics.
A. Calvin Formalizes Protestant Ideas
1. Calvin’s famous work called “Institutes of the Christian Religion” he
expresses his ideas about God, salvation and human nature. He
detailed almost all of Protestant theology.
2. Drawing off of Luther’s idea that people cannot attain salvation, he
states that very few people are destined to go to heaven and the rest
shall go to hell. The religion based on Calvin’s ideologies is called
Calvinism.
B. Calvin Leads the Reformation in Switzerland
1. Calvin’s ideal government was a government controlled wholly by
religious leaders. In 1541, Protestants in Geneva asked Calvin to lead
their city.
2. Calvin and his followers ran the city to strict rules. Anyone who
preached different doctrines might be burned at the stake. Yet, to
many Protestants, Calvin’s Geneva was a model city of highly model
citizens.
C. Calvinism Spreads
1. John Knox visited Geneva and was inspired by Calvin’s ideas. When
he returned to Scotland, he put Calvin’s ideas to work. Followers of
Knox became known as Presbyterians. In the 1560s, Protestant
nobles made Calvinism Scotland’s official religion.
2. Elsewhere, Swiss, Dutch, and French reformers adopted the Calvinist
form of church organization. Over the years, many of the existing
Protestant churches have softened Calvin’s strict teachings.
II. Other Protestant Reformers
A. The Anabaptists
1. One group baptized only those persons who were old enough to be
Christian. They said that persons who had been baptized as children
should be rebaptized as adults. These believers were called
Anabaptists from a Greek word meaning “baptize again”.
B. Women’s Role in the Reformation
1. The sister of King Francis I, Marguerite of Navarre, protected John
Calvin from being executed for his beliefs while he lived in France.
Other noblewomen also protected reformers. The wives of some
reformers, too, had influence.
2. Katherina Zell, married to Matthew Zell of Strasbourg, once scolded a
minister for speaking harshly of another reformer. Katherine von
Bora played a more typical, behind-the-scenes role as Luther’s wife.
She respected Luther’s position but argued with him about woman’s
equal role in marriage.

III. The Catholic Reformation

A. Ignatius of Loyola
1. When young Ignatius was injured in a war, he thought about his past
sins and about the life of Jesus. He believed that his daily devotions
cleansed his souls. Ignatius wrote a book called Spiritual Exercises
that laid out a day-by-day plan of meditation, prayer and study.
2. In 1540, the pope created a religious order for his followers called
the Society of Jesus. Members were called Jesuits.
B. Reforming Popes
1. Two popes took the lead in reforming the Catholic Church. Paul III
took four steps: he abolished indulgence selling, approved the Jesuit
order, seeked out heresy in papal territory and called a council of
Church leaders to meet in Trent, in Italy.
2. At the Council of Trent, Catholic bishops and cardinals agreed on
several doctrines. The next pope, Paul IV, vigorously carried out the
council’s decrees. He drew up a list of books dangerous to the
Catholic faith. Catholic bishops throughout Europe were ordered to
gather up the offensive books and burn them.
IV. The Catholic Reformation
A. Religious and Social Effects of the Reformation
1. Despite religious wars and persecutions, Protestant churches
flourished and new denominations developed. The Roman Catholic
Church became more unified as a result of the reforms at the Council
of Trent.
2. Both Catholics and Protestants gave more emphasis to the role of
education in promoting their beliefs. The status of women in the
church and society did not improve as the result of the Reformation.
B. Political Effects of the Reformation
1. As the Catholic Church’s moral and political authority declined,
individual monarchs and states gained power. This led to the
development of modern nation-states.
2. In the 1600s, rulers of nation-states would seek more power for
themselves and their countries through warfare, exploration, and
expansion.