Reformation

Reformation

1. Short-Term Cause

   • Martin Luther (1483-1546)
     • first reformer
     • openly broke up with the Church
     • questioned sale of indulgences
     • pinned his 95 Theses on a church door
       • requested to be punished as a heretic
     • protected by Fredrick III, of Saxony

2. Long-Term Causes

   • Decline in Influence of the Church
     • Black Death (1348-50)
       • killed many priests
       • inability to explain it
       • peasants rebelling against their masters
     • Rise of Powerful Kings
       • right to tax church property
       • in opposition of the Pope
       • Pope forced to live in Avignon
         • loss of prestige and power
         • two different Popes elected
           • one Pope first again in 1417
   • New Ways of Thinking
     • Crusades
       • opened external influences
       • great voyages of discovery
         • exploration of America 1492
     • Renaissance
       • revival of ancient Greece
       • invention of printing press 1436
         • information was spread more quickly
   • Earlier Opposition to the Church
     • criticism about practices of clergymen
       • "worshippers of money"
     • sale of relics
     • spread of the Lollard movement
       • huge protest against the English Kings
         • Hussite Wars