Nevertheless, it could be argued that people misjudged Luther’s intentions as he never intended to reshape the power structure of the church just address the abuses. As a result, Luther’s religious belief played a large part in influencing the Reformation, however had the Church not been riddled with political power struggles, there might have been no need for large scale reform. It is widely accepted that the reformation began in Germany, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire. Although there had been previous small-scale criticisms of Rome across Europe, this
The papacy therefore had a strong vested interest in the failure of the conciliarist movement and therefore avoided convening a general council. Even when Julius II had convened a general council, Lateran V it was disbanded in 1517 as conciliarist feelings ran high. The papacy was arguably the biggest block to reform because in order for reform to successfully take place it had to come from the top of the hierarchy. Even when Paul III had decided to convene a general council there was still opposition to reform because there was no agreement on which way reform would take place, would the Church compromise with the Protestants or not. Paul III and Charles V had vastly different expectations of the council; Charles V hoped that the general council would end the schism by removing abuses which both protestant and Catholics had complained about for so long – Charles was convinced that the removal of these abuses would stem the tide of defection from the Church.
Martin Luther, a German monk was born during a time of corruption within the Catholic Church. The Church had upmost power and was highly influential on the adherents. The issues of indulgences, simony and nepotism were becoming major issues and they were pulling the church further away from the true teachings and practices displayed by Jesus. Luther objected to these issues and his protests intensified when a Dominican monk named John Tetzel who quoted “When the money clangs in the box, the souls spring up to heaven”. The Black Death also led to a lack of Christian teachings with uneducated priests and clergy.
This continued until Henry VIII, so desperate to produce a male heir, broke Papal control over England and named himself Head of the Church that taught an offshoot of Christianity based on the teachings of Martin Luther, the Protestant Church of England. This change did not make much difference, as the main different was the head of the Church and belief about divorce. Many more changes came after Henry died in 1547 and Edward VI became king. Edward, led by his advisors, moved England completely from Catholicism and to Protestantism. He passed laws such as making churches and bishops more plain, services be said in English and creating the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and a refined version in 1552.
Puritans were extreme Protestants who believed that Elizabeth's religious settlement was not enough – they believed that the Anglican church was still too much like the Roman Catholic Church. As a consequence of this belief, the Puritans posed potential threats to the Elizabethan church, however little action was taken by the Puritans towards this and there was little support for their ideas. Therefore the Puritans were no real threat, at least not compared to the threat from the Catholics. The Puritans posed many potential threats to the country under Elizabeth, particularly in church and in Parliament. Initially, the Puritans were focused on trying to achieve their aims through Parliament.
We see an example of one of Luther’s critical writings in Document 8. In this Document we see Luther take a strong anti Catholic stance and even go so far as to condemn the Pope. Document 9 also serves as another example and shows Luther’s being critical of the Churches officials and the need for priests by clamming “every baptized Christian is a priest already.” This last point struck a major cord with the peasants in Europe. Luther was telling them they could gain their own salvation by studying the bible for themselves. No longer would they need to be dependent on the Church.
How far was the Reformation caused by hostility towards the clergy in the German states? Years of hostility prior to the Reformation encouraged Luther to accelerate his ideas of reforming the Catholic Church. Many factors played crucial roles in developing this idea that the Church was a corrupt organisation who was in dire need of reform. To an extent, anti-clericalism, resentment towards the Clergy, was one of the main causes of hostility and fundamentally convinced people that spiritual duties were put beneath money and power. Despite this, several other factors also caused the growing feeling of hatred towards the Church within the German states.
He is famous for his 95 Theses, where he attacked the Catholic Church for selling indulgences and the corruption in the church. He believed that the indulgences were unfair because the lower social class could not afford them. He was then declared a heretic for his views on the Catholic Church. Luther later translated the New Testament from Greek to German allowing Germans to read the bible without having to know other languages. His ideas spread like wildfire to the population and forced the Catholic Church to bring reforms.
Was Henry VIII a Good or Bad King? Historians have different perspectives about Henry VIII. Some say he was a good king, who did a lot of memorable things like creating an army to keep England safe. However Henry was also called bad, because of him being an autocrat, malevolent and destructive king of England. When Henry wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon (his first wife), the pope wouldn’t allow it, because Catholics don’t allow Divorce, so he declared himself the new supreme head of a new Church of England and became a protestant.
John Carroll faced the challenge to depict what democratic ideas could he incorporate into the Catholic Church. He pondered on the fact that many settlers migrated to the New World fleeing the oppression of an established church in Europe “and resolve not to duplicate that situation in the New World”(2). Settlers of America suspected that the Pope would make it difficult to American Catholics to stay loyal to this country and “to enjoy their full democratic rights”(2). Bishop Carroll concluded that he needed to persuade Americans that that was not the case. He went through great pains to prove that Catholics were in fact subject to Rome and that the Pope would only influence them in spiritual matters.