The Reformation, a 16th
INTRODUCTION
The
Reformation, a 16th century religious and political challenge to
papal authority promoted by Martin Luther, King Henry VIII and others, led to
the Thirty Years War and the Counter-Reformation. The Protestant Reformation
was a series of events that happened in the 16th century in the Christian Church.
Because of corruption in the Catholic Church, some people saw and needed to
change the way it worked. People like Erasmus, Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Luther
and John Calvin saw the corruption, and tried to stop it. This led to a Schism
(religion) split in the church, into Catholics and various Protestantism
Protestant churches.
Martin
Luther was the first person to translate the Bible into German language German.
He could print copies, because Johannes Gutenberg had invented a way to print
copies about 50-100 at a relatively low price. The Protestant reformation
triggered the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
In
general, Martin Luther's posting of the Ninety-Five Theses|95 theses at
Wittenberg is seen as the start of the Protestant Reformation. This happened in
the year 1517. John Knox brought Luther's ideas to Scotland and founded the
Presbyterian Church. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 recognized Protestants,
and is generally seen as the end of this process. Protestantism division within
Christianity, originating from the Reformation in the 16th century against the
Roman Catholic Church, that rejects the Roman Catholic doctrines of papal
supremacy and sacraments. The following
are causes behind to the reformation of
the world history during the 16th century
Clergy
abuse caused people to begin criticizing the Catholic Church. The greed and
scandalous lives of the clergy had created a split between them and the
peasants. Furthermore, the clergy did not respond to the population's needs,
often because they did not speak the local language, or live in their own
diocese. The papacy lost prestige.
The
Catholic Church was very corrupt throughout the middle ages and it ended all
acts of opposition against its authority and religious doctrine. People
questioned its views and wanted change .The main points of criticism were, the
Bible was only printed in Latin, and not in the local language. And printing
was controlled by the church by a system of censorship. Catholic Mass, the
Church's chief religious service, was also in Latin. This meant the people
could not check whether what the priest said was actually correct. The church
sold tickets of indulgences (forgiveness) from sins for money. This suggested
that the rich could buy their way into Heaven while the poor could not - quite
the opposite of what the Bible says. (See Gospel of Matthew 19:24) Religious
posts were often sold to whoever was willing to pay the most money for them,
see Simony. This meant many priests did not know enough about Christianity. So
they told the people many different things. Some of the things had little to do
with what was written in the Bible.
THE IMPACT OF THE REFORMATIONS WORLD
HISTORY DURING THE 16 CENTURY
In
1515, the Pope started a new indulgence campaign to raise money for the
rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, a church in Rome. This was the last straw
for Martin Luther, a Catholic monk from Germany. On October 31, 1517, he sent
his 95 theses to the local archbishop in protest. It is said he nailed a copy
to the door of a church in Wittenberg. Luther, who appeared as an enemy of the
pope, was excommunicated. In the beginning, Luther had not planned to separate
from the Catholic Church or to create a new religion; he wanted to reform the
Catholic Church.
The
recent invention of the printing press helped spread awareness of the Church's
abuses. A start was made in translating the bible into various local languages.
For example, John Wycliffe and William Tyndale worked on translating it into
the English language. Much of Tyndale's translation was used in the King James
Version of the Bible.
In
1524-1525, millions of peasants rebelled against the nobles in the name of
equality of the humanity in front of God. Many countries in Europe followed the
trend of Protestant reformation and Europe was divided by religion. This
brought religious wars such as the French Wars of Religion. For a short time,
Protestant and Catholic had managed to live with one another and with the Peace
of Augsburg in 1555.This Peace recognized the confessional division of the
German states and gave the right to Protestants to practice their religion.
The
Pope reestablished the inquisition to combat heresy. The Catholic Church
responded to the Protestant reformation with the counter-reformation. Force was
not entirely successful, so the Pope created new religious orders like the
Jesuits. These new religious orders were charged to combat Protestantism while
educating the population to Catholicism. The Pope made the Index Librorum
Prohibitorum, a list of banned books. It had a big influence in its first
centuries and was not ended until the 1960s. The Catholic Church used baroque
art to touch the religious feeling of the faithful and bring them to the
Catholic religion.
Reformation
denominations have multiplied in different forms, especially in Protestant
countries. Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy for a long time forbade
Protestants to immigrate, and Protestant countries sometimes forbade Catholics.
Protestants are influential in the United States and the English Canada. After
the Seven Years War the British imposed the Quebec Act granting freedom of
religion in Quebec, hoping it would become Protestant. Protestant colonists saw
this as one of the Intolerable Acts. In later centuries, many Protestant
churches were established in the province of Quebec despite Britain's failure to
do so.
CONCLUSION
The
Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual
and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the
structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era. 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. They argued for a religious and political
redistribution of power into the hands of Bible- and pamphlet-reading pastors
and princes. The disruption triggered wars, persecutions and the so-called
Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s delayed but forceful response to the
Protestants.
REFERENCES
The
Reformation". History Channel website: A&E Television network.
1996–2014. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
"Les Réformes protestantes" (in
French). Département de philosophie, UQÀM. 2010. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
Laville, Christian & Simard, Marc. 2010.
Histoire de la civilisation occidentale. Ville Saint-Laurent, Erpi, 3e edition,
p. 175 to 191
.
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