The Long Reformation: Lutheran (views of Henry J. Cohn)
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 16-05-18 14:13
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- The Long Reformation: Lutheran (views of Henry J. Cohn)
- Germany - a special case?
- Reformation took place more rapidly and with more popular support
- Head start not down to charismatic Martin Luther
- Rather, it was to do with favourable conditions
- Head start not down to charismatic Martin Luther
- Favourable conditions - challenges faced by German church before reformation
- widespread dissatisfaction with materialism which made it unable to fulfil spiritual longings of faithful
- Incipient nationalism directed against foreigners
- Threat to accepted ideas from Christian humanism
- seen in writings of Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
- Other favourable circumstances in Empire to allow for Reformation
- Political structure gave opportunities less common in ordinary monarchies for Reformers to receive local protection
- Imperial estates - princes, free cities and nobles who stood between emperor and ordinary nobles, townsfolk and peasants - enjoyed partial autonomy which enabled them to introduce Reformation
- However, Emperor Charles V (1519-58) had condemned Luther's ideas at Worms (1521)
- Peasant uprisings and urban social conflicts
- During 1400s and 1500s, more uprisings experienced than anywhere else
- When disturbances multiplied in 1520s
- Reformation fed off them to gain support
- Cultural distinctiveness
- Favoured adoption of new ideas
- Printing press
- From 1518
- provided pamphlets and broadsheets for disseminating Lutheran teachings
- Sermons
- Germany had an especially strong tradition of preaching in towns and by mendicant orders (Moeller 1972)
- Hostile attitudes towards the church
- religious activity grew
- cults like Virgin Mary were reinforced by thousands of religious guilds created by lay people for care of poor and sick
- Whilst ordinary Christians relieved their anxieties about personal salvation by material means encouraged by Church
- e.g. paying for masses for the dead or buying indulgences
- People disliked growing wealth of clergy at their expense
- Anti-clericalism and antipapalism were rife
- Papacy wrongly believed to be sucking large sums of money from Empire
- More substance behind economic and religious complaints by laymen against German clergy, whose behaviour was in many instances far from spiritual
- ecclesiastical monasteries owned about a third of cultivated land in countryside and even greater share of urban property
- Landowning prelates were often local rulers
- Rare combination in Europe
- Would bear brunt of Luther's attack
- religious activity grew
- Reformation took place more rapidly and with more popular support
- Martin Luther - the message and its dissemination
- Mixed social background helped Luther to gain wide appeal
- By 1517, Monk of 12 years' standing
- Renowned theologian and university professor at Wittenberg in Saxony
- Son of farmer who became a miner
- Mother from upper ranks of small town society
- Luther married Katherine von Bora, renegade nun of lower nobility in 1525
- Luther opposed idea of money being paid to Church would affect outcomes of people going to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory
- Luther saw God as more merciful than judgemental
- Fundamental disagreement with Church
- Teachings were elaborated in Latin treatises for benefit of Luther's clerical supporters and to rebut his opponents and educated members of laity
- Appeal to ordinary people (as argued by Hendrix)
- Parallel programme to Christianise whole of Europe, to return Christians to true piety and right living which he contended the medieval church had obscured.
- Popular pamphlets and published sermons in German, using both humanist arts of persuasion and earthy language, folk tales and proverbs
- Ways of spreading message
- Sermons
- prime means of reaching 90% of population who were illiterate
- aural and visual communication
- hyms
- Ballads
- School plays
- Informal discussions in taverns
- Processions
- Robert Scribner claims visual illustrations only acted as a first point of attraction but not principal medium for conveying doctrine
- Other historians argued woodcuts too expensive and complex for illiterate, required ability to read captions
- Printed materials essential for those who could read and convey ideas to others
- Sermons
- Mixed social background helped Luther to gain wide appeal
- Reformation politics
- Until 1530, Charles V was distracted y wars with France and Ottomans
- Didn't pay attention to Reformation in Germany
- Charles V uncertain whether to pursue policy of repression or conciliation regarding Protestants
- Armed Protestant League against the Emperor
- 1530s
- Many Protestant rulers no longer accepted decisions of imperial court on such politico-religious issues as possession of Church lands
- Imperial authority threatened
- Charles V had to defeat League if title of Emperor was to have significance
- Charles V did not rely solely on force to achieve settlement
- Major aim of war was to compel Protestants to attend the Council of Trent
- Unlike Pope, Charles imagined genuine discussions with Protestants
- After defeating League, Charles unsuccessfully tried to compromise in interim
- Political factors inclined Charles V towards peaceful solution between 1530 and 1545
- No strong Catholic party among princes to support him
- Bishops fear for their own privileges and would not undertake Church reforms considered necessary before imposing religious uniformity
- According to Gotthard
- The Peace of Augsburg (1555)
- Political solution to religious problem
- main principle of peace
- Each ruler determine religion of his lands (regio, eius religio)
- Did not grant Lutherans parity with Catholics, but grudging acceptance
- Forbade conversion of any ecclesiastical principality to Protestantism
- denied imperial cities right to introduce Reformation where it was not already established
- Calvinism omitted due to having no foothold in any principality
- These loopholes left room for later creation of rival politico-religious parties and eventually outbreak of Thirty Years War
- The Peace of Augsburg (1555)
- Until 1530, Charles V was distracted y wars with France and Ottomans
- Germany - a special case?
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