Reformation
Historian John Bossy criticized the term Reformation[6] for "wrongly implying that bad religion was giving way to good," but also because it has "little application to actual social behaviour and little or no sensitivity to thought, feeling or culture.[note 2] Anglican theologian Alister McGrath explains the term "Reformation" as "an interpretative category—a way of mapping out a slice of history in which certain ideas, attitudes, and values were developed, explored, and applied".[17] The most commonly used starting date is 31 October 1517—the day when the German theologian Martin Luther (d. 1546) allegedly nailed up a copy of his disputation paper on indulgences and papal power known as the Ninety-five Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg in Electoral Saxony.[22] The term Protestant, though initially purely political in nature, later acquired a broader sense, referring to a member of any Western church that subscribed to the main Reformation (or anti-Catholic) principles.[28] Based on Christ's parable on the Last Judgement, the Church considered the performance of good works by the faithful, such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, as an important co-condition of salvation.[61] Some of the ecclesiastic leaders also functioned as local secular princes, such as the prince-bishops in Kingdom of Germany and the English County Palatine of Durham, and the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights in their Baltic Ordensstaat.[69] The popes claimed the power of binding and loosing that Christ had reportedly granted to Peter the Apostle (d. c. 66), and offered indulgence—the reduction of the penance in both this world and the purgatory—to sinners from an allegedly inexhaustible treasury of merit.Historian Peter Marshall has noted "In recent decades, scholars have become increasingly acclimatized to the idea that the Reformation was in important respects a continuation and intensification of trends within later medieval Catholicism, rather than simply a wholesale rejection of it.[123][125] Born into a middle-class family, Luther entered an Augustinian monastery after a heavy thunderstorm dreadfully reminded him the risk of sudden death and eternal damnation, but his anxiety about his sinfulness did not abate.[18] The historian Berndt Hamm says that the meeting was the "historical point at which the opposition between the Reformation and Catholicism first emerged",[note 30] as Cajetan thought that believers accepting Luther's views of justification would no more obey clerical guidance.[note 33][164] Reformation spread through the activities of enthusiastic preachers such as Johannes Oecolampadius (d. 1531) and Konrad Kürsner (d. 1556) in Basel, Sebastian Hofmeister (d. 1533) in Schaffhausen, and Matthäus Zell (d. 1548) and Martin Bucer (d. 1551) in Strasbourg.Some Italian men of letters, such as the Venetian nobleman Gasparo Contarini (d. 1542) and the Augustinian canon Peter Martyr Vermigli (d. 1562) expressed ideas resembling Luther's theology of salvation but did not quickly break with Catholicism.Guillaume Briçonnet (d. 1534), Bishop of Meaux, also condemned Luther but employed reform-minded clerics like Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (d. c. 1536) and William Farel (d. 1565) to renew religious life in his diocese.Luther defended art as a proof of the beauty of the Creation, maintained that Christ's Body and Blood were physically present in the Eucharist,[note 37] and regarded infant baptism as a sign of membership in the Christian community.[221] In St. Gallen, Anabaptist women cut their hair short to avoid arousing sexual passion, while a housemaid Frena Bumenin proclaimed herself the New Messiah before announcing that she would give birth to the Antichrist.[note 41][247] To promote Protestant unity, Philip the Magnanimous organised a colloquy (or theological debate) between Luther, Melanchton, Zwingli and Oecolampadius at Marburg early in October 1529,[248] but they could not coin a common formula on the Eucharist.[286] Hermann of Wied, Archbishop-elector of Cologne (r. 1515–1546) completed a reform program with Bucer's assistance, criticising prayers to the saints and traditional Eucharistic theology, and proposing sermons about justification by faith.[302] Lindberg suggests that (following Trent) the "spirituality of Catholic reform was the ascetic, subjective, and personal piety", as expressed in public processions, the "perpetual" adoration of the Eucharist, and the reaffirmed veneration of Mary the Virgin and the saints.[307] The Lord Chancellor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (d. 1530) had strong links to the Roman Curia, he was unable to achieve the annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII and the middle-aged Catherine of Aragon (d.[note 50][315] In April 1533, the Act of Appeals decreed that only English courts had jurisdiction in cases of last wills, marriages and grants to the Church, emphasizing that "this realm of England is an Empire".As the historian Carlos Eire writes, "Calvin's text was blessed with a lawyer's penchant for precision, a humanist's love for poetic expression and rhetorical flourishes, and a theologian's respect for paradox".[note 53][344][345] Already the first edition of the Institutes contained references to two distinguishing elements of Calvin's theology, both traceable back to Augustine: his conviction that the original sin had completely corrupted human nature, and his strong belief in "double predestination".The Anglican liturgy retained elements of Catholic ceremonies, such as priestly vestments, and contained ambiguous sentences about the Eucharist, suggesting the real presence of Jesus's Blood and Body for conservatives, and a memorial service for reformers.Melanchthon supported the Leipzig Interim, stating that such issues were "matters indifferent" but uncompromising Lutheran theologians such as Nicolaus von Amsdorf (d. 1565) and Matthias Flacius (d. 1575) rejected all concessions to imperial demands.[375][376] Alarmed by Charles's triumph, Calvin and Bullinger agreed on a consensual Eucharistic formula, now known as Consensus Tigurinus ('Consensus of Zürich'), emphasising that Christ "makes us participants of himself" in the Lord's Supper, but also stating that God "uses the ministry of the sacraments" without infusing divine power into them.After the predominantly Evangelical Estates of Inner Austria who controlled taxation extracted concessions from Charles II, he promoted Catholicism by appointing Catholics to state offices even if he needed to hire Bavarian and Tyrolian nobles.In the early 16th century, Spain had a different political and cultural milieu from its Western and Central European neighbours in several respects, which affected the mentality and the reaction of the nation towards the Reformation.Spain, which had only recently managed to complete the reconquest of the Peninsula from the Moors in 1492, had been preoccupied with converting the Muslim and Jewish populations of the newly conquered regions through the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478.Pope Innocent X declared the treaty "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all times" in his apostolic brief Zelo Domus Dei.Many of these patterns were enshrined in the Schleitheim Confession (1527) and include believers' (or adult) baptism, memorial view of the Lord's Supper, belief that Scripture is the final authority on matters of faith and practice, emphasis on the New Testament and the Sermon on the Mount, interpretation of Scripture in community, separation from the world and a two-kingdom theology, pacifism and nonresistance, communal ownership and economic sharing, belief in the freedom of the will, non-swearing of oaths, "yieldedness" (Gelassenheit) to one's community and to God, the ban (i.e., shunning), salvation through divinization (Vergöttung) and ethical living, and discipleship (Nachfolge Christi).
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