A brief outline of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in 16th Century Europe

1. Reformations

2. Origins
• Roman Catholic Dominance
– Political Activity and Schisms
– Suppression of Scholarship, Heresy
– Fiscal Irresponsibility
• Sale of Offices, Indulgences
• New Forces
– Rising Religious Devotion
– Christian Humanism (e.g. Desiderius
Erasmus)
– Publishing and Literacy

3. Martin Luther
• Trained as Lawyer, Became Theology
Professor
• Visited Vatican
• Concerned with Problem of Salvation
• Comes to consider Indulgences
problematic
– 31 October 1517: 95 Theses

4. Martin Luther, cont.
• Justification by Faith
• Rejection of Church Authority
• Translates Vulgate Bible into
vernacular German
• Reforms
– Disbanding Convents, Monasteries
– Spare Aesthetic
– Sermons, Congregational Hymn Singing
– Catechism

5. Ulrich Zwingli
• Swiss Reformation
• Scripture Test
– Rejected Priestly Celibacy, Lenten Fast,
other Catholic Traditions
– Rejected Organ, Choral Music as
Idolatrous
• Believed Communion Symbolic
– 1529 Marburg Colloquy with Luther

6. John Calvin
• Geneva Reforms
– Presbyterian v. Episcopal
• Original Sin
– “For our nature is not merely bereft of
good, but is so productive of every kind of
evil that it cannot be inactive.”
• Predestination
– “For all men are not created on an equal
footing, but for some eternal life is preordained, for others eternal damnation."
• Enforcement

7. Spiritual Freedom
• Luther establishes the individual
relationship between soul and God
as central; hard to maintain unity
and authority
• Anti-Trinitarians
– Michael Servetus, Faustus Socinus
• Spiritualists
– Schwenkfeldian Church, Quakers
• Anabaptists
– Munster v. Menno Simons

8. Catholic Reformation
• Council of Trent (1545-1563)
– Reforms: ending indulgences, sale of
offices, residency requirement
– Education: literacy and seminary
training
– Reaffirmation:
• St. Thomas Aquinas as authority in disputes
of interpretation.
• Effectiveness of Good works
• Divine grace of sacraments
• Marriage ceremony

9. Catholic Expansion
• Society of Jesus, aka Jesuits
– "I will believe that the white that I see is
black, if the hierarchical church so
defines."
• Educational Missions
– Visitation, Ursuline Nuns, Daughters of
Charity
– Church Schools
• Missionary Activity
– International expansion

10. Effects
• Religious Warfare
– 1555 Peace of Augsburg:
• Pluralism: cuius regio, eius religio
– Religious civil wars: France, England
– Religion an overlay on existing conflicts
• Reinvigoration of Catholicism
• Missionary Expansion of Christianity
• Education, Literacy

11. Post-Reformation Europe

12. Sources
• Maps from Stearns, et al., World
Civilizations: the Global Experience,
6e
• Background Picture by Jonathan
Dresner, “Unfinished Angel at
Precious Moments Chapel"