The Reformations and the Wars of Religion

An argument about forgiveness

In 1517, a monk and university professor in Wittenberg, in Saxony, named Martin Luther wrote 95 theses (propositions for debate) attacking the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was a grant from the Church that reduced the punishment for sins after death, in purgatory. Preachers were selling them to raise money, partly to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Luther sent his theses to the archbishop; the famous story that he nailed them to a church door may or may not be true. Within weeks, printed copies were spreading across the German lands.

Luther meant to start a debate inside the Church. Instead, Western Christianity split permanently. This lesson covers the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, and the wars and settlements that followed, to 1648.

Why reform? Long-term causes

• Criticism of Church practices: wealthy bishops, clergy holding several offices (pluralism) and living elsewhere (absenteeism), buying of church offices (simony), poorly educated parish priests.
• Earlier reformers: John Wycliffe in England (1300s) and Jan Hus in Bohemia (burned for heresy in 1415) had already challenged Church authority.
• Humanism: Erasmus's Greek New Testament (1516) let scholars compare the original text with Church teaching: ad fontes applied to the Bible.
• Printing: reform ideas could spread faster than authorities could suppress them.
• Politics: German princes and city councils resented money flowing to Rome and wanted control over churches in their lands. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was often distracted by wars with France and the Ottomans.

Luther's ideas

• Salvation by faith alone (sola fide): people are saved by God's grace through faith, not by good works or by buying indulgences.
• Scripture alone (sola scriptura): the Bible, not popes or councils, is the final authority.
• The priesthood of all believers: every Christian has direct access to God; clergy may marry.
• Only two sacraments (baptism and communion) instead of seven.
• The Bible and worship in the vernacular: Luther translated the New Testament into German (1522).

The Pope excommunicated Luther, and at the Diet of Worms (1521) the emperor declared him an outlaw. The words "Here I stand, I can do no other" are often attributed to him there, though they may have been added in early printed accounts. Prince Frederick the Wise of Saxony protected him.

A hard truth: late in life (1543), Luther wrote violently anti-Jewish pamphlets. Lutheran churches today have formally rejected them. Historians include this because it shaped later antisemitism in Germany.

Other Protestant movements

• The Peasants' War (1524 to 1525): many German peasants used Reformation language about Christian freedom to demand an end to serfdom and unfair dues. Luther sided with the princes and condemned the rebels; tens of thousands of peasants were killed. The Reformation would be led by rulers, not by the poor.
• Reformed (Calvinist) churches: Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich and then John Calvin in Geneva (from 1541) taught predestination (God has already chosen who will be saved) and a disciplined, godly community. Calvinism spread to France (Huguenots), Scotland (Presbyterians, led by John Knox), the Netherlands and Hungary.
• Anabaptists (from 1525) baptized only adults who chose faith, and many refused to swear oaths or bear arms. Catholics and other Protestants both persecuted them, and thousands were executed. Their descendants include Mennonites (after Menno Simons), Amish and Hutterites, many of whom live in Canada today, in Ontario, Manitoba and the Prairies.
• England: Henry VIII broke with Rome for political and dynastic reasons, wanting to annul his marriage; the Act of Supremacy (1534) made the monarch head of the Church of England. After swings under Edward VI (Protestant) and Mary I (Catholic), Elizabeth I set up a moderate Protestant church in 1559.

The Catholic Reformation

The Catholic Church responded with both reform and resistance (often called the Counter-Reformation):

• The Council of Trent (1545 to 1563) reaffirmed Catholic teaching (faith and works, Scripture and tradition, seven sacraments, the authority of the Pope) while ending abuses such as the sale of indulgences and requiring seminaries to train priests.
• New religious orders: the Jesuits (Society of Jesus), founded by Ignatius of Loyola and approved in 1540, became famous for schools and missions, from Japan (Francis Xavier, 1549) to China and New France.
• Spiritual renewal: mystics such as Teresa of Ávila reformed convents.
• Control of ideas: the Roman Inquisition (1542) and the Index of Prohibited Books (1559).
• Art: the dramatic Baroque style aimed to move believers emotionally.

Wars of religion and settlements

• Peace of Augsburg (1555): in the Holy Roman Empire each prince could choose Lutheranism or Catholicism for his lands, summed up later as cuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion"). Calvinists and Anabaptists were excluded.
• French Wars of Religion (1562 to 1598): Catholics versus Huguenots. Thousands of Huguenots were killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572) in Paris and other cities. King Henry IV, a former Protestant who converted to Catholicism, issued the Edict of Nantes (1598), giving Huguenots limited toleration.
• The Dutch Revolt (1568 to 1648): Protestant-led northern provinces of the Netherlands rebelled against Catholic Spain and became the independent Dutch Republic.
• The Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648): it began in Bohemia as a Protestant-Catholic conflict and became a struggle for power among Europe's states (Catholic France fought against Catholic Habsburgs). Armies, famine and disease devastated central Europe; some regions lost a third or more of their people.
• Peace of Westphalia (1648): recognized Calvinism along with Lutheranism and Catholicism in the Empire, confirmed the independence of the Dutch Republic and the Swiss Confederation, and strengthened the principle that states are sovereign within their own borders. Many historians see it as a starting point of the modern system of sovereign states, though others argue this view simplifies what the treaties actually said.

Others persecuted: the same era saw Europe's major witch hunts (worst roughly 1560 to 1630); historians estimate about 40 000 to 60 000 executions, mostly of women. Jews had been expelled from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1497), and faced restrictions in many Christian lands of both confessions.