30.3 Europe: a.d. 1501 to 1600  (Page 7/29)

The great story of this century in Germany, however, is that of the Reformation. Although we have seen the previews of the revolt against the Catholic Church in Wiclif and Huss, the true Reformation began here with Martin Luther. The stage was set when Pope Leo X issued the most famous of all indulgences - the one mentioned above regarding money to finish the new St Peters Church and secretly to indirectly finance an Archbishopric for Albert of Brandenburg. The Dominican, Tetzel, was sent out into Germany to peddle Absolution of all sins, past and present, release of relatives from Purgatory and various other indulgences for various sums of money. When Tetzel approached Saxony, the local ruler, Frederick the Wise, asked Martin Luther, Catholic priest and professor at the University of Wittenberg, for approval of Tetzel 's procedures. Luther refused approval; Tetzel denounced Luther; Luther countered with the posting of 95 theses condemning various practices of the pope and the Reformation had started. This was in 1517.

Martin Luther was a complex man, brought up under the sternest discipline and plagued all his life with the devil, demons and witches. His reformed theology was chiefly against the popes and their corrupt hierarchy. He argued for the Bible against papal decree. He thought that not good works, but faith in Christ alone, brought salvation from Hell and that this was preordained and only a few could make it. The pope issued Bulls against Luther and Luther wrote books against the pope - in German, so the people could read them. His theology went back to Augustine, taking the New Testament very literally. But he also revered the Old Testament, which he translated into German. His God was more like the old Yahweh of the Hebrews. He felt that priests should marry and eventually did so, himself. As he got older he got more and more intolerant, vehement and militant, damned all knowledge and reason and would have everyone return to the old, simple, agrarian life. In the end he declared Zwingli and other Protestants who had appeared on the scene, as heretics. He defended the divine rights of kings and glorified war as the work of God. He exalted the state as the sole source of order and gave a premonition of Imperial Germany to come. At the time, however, German unity was hampered, not furthered, but we are getting ahead of our chronological story.

A year after Charles V became emperor in 1521, the Diet of Worms was called to decide what to do with Luther. The resulting "Edict of Worms" made Luther an outcast and ordered his works burned. He went into seclusion for a year, but the revolution continued anyway in a peaceful way for awhile. In 1524, however, the Peasants' War developed as 30,000 impoverished people in southern Germany started a social revolt against nobles and priests. Religion was only part of the cause, but out of this, flames burst out over half of Germany. Luther finally tried to stop the revolt, but it continued anyway for another year in Austria. There was a terrific loss of property and life and the reformation, itself, was almost lost in this war, because in spite of Luther, the nobles associated this class revolt with the reformation movement. The revolt was finally extinguished by slaughters and massacres, but by 1527 the Lutheran "heresy" had become orthodox in half of Germany. Economic factors (there was now no money going to Italy) and the pressure of the Turks, which kept the emperor and his troops busy, allowed the Reformation to succeed. In 1531 the two religious forces, one represented by the Catholic League and the other by the Protestant Schmalkaldic League, had many conferences but made little progress in conciliation. From this time on the princes and nobles, rather than the theologicans, were the Protestant leaders, for the issues concerned property and power far more than dogma and ritual. (Ref. 51 )