The Reformation

The Medieval Church

• The Mass
• Purgatury
• Good Works
• The Spiritual Economy

• The Mass
  • came to participate in the eucharist
  • when the priest came in front of the congregation to represent them as they preyed to god collectively. (priest had back to congregation)
    • then they collectively participated in the eucharist
      • when they recreated the last supper
      • but rarely did the congregants take the eucharist (a few times a year on high holidays [easter, Christmas, etc.]
        • And they never took the eucharist in both kinds (only the wafer, never the wine).
    • During mass, the laity was able to gloryin the corporeal presence of Jesus Christ
      • Transubstantiation
        • accident of hte wafer stays the same, while the substence turns to jesus as a miracle from heaven through the acts of the priest.
  • Mass was the highest order of prayer.
• Purgatury
  • A place between heaven and hell
  • the location the vast majority of congregants suffered away their sins to be purified before entering heaven.
• Good Works
  • Good works limited one’s time in purgatury.
  • Fundamental part of getting into heaven
    • almost everyone expected to go to heaven
    • but almost everyone also expected to spend time in purgatury first.
    • Good works was the process of counter-balancing their sins to limit time in purgatury
    • The best work was preying for another’s soul.
      • great phrase: reparations for sin.
• The Spiritual Economy (or a Purgatury industry)
  • Good Works limited the amount of time in purgatury
  • Prayer for others’ soul in purgatury was a good work
    • example:
      • A woman gives a beggar a coin (good work) -. the beggar preys for the woman’s soul (good work)
      • Those who crossed a bridge, preyed for the donor of the bridge.
      • One could prey for the soul of those in purgatury
        • They expected those in purgatury to reciprocate because they had so much time available to them.
  • Endowment of masses
    • When people died, they left money in their will to pay for the church to perform masses specifically for an individual’s soul
    • most churches had many altars that would have masses sung most of the day to fulfill these duties.

Early Challenges to the Church

John Wyclif (1328-1384)

Jan Hus (1370-1415)

Why Limited Impact?

Image of John Wyclif

Image of John Wyclif

Image of a Question Mark

• John Wycliff (1328-1384) (the Lollards)
  • university lecturer in Oxford
  • Taught that a true church was accessable to the laity through the bible that didn’t need to be interpreted by the priest.
    • It was available to all, not just the clergy.
    • Began translating the bible in to English
      • He taught that the bible was the way to learn about God, not the Mass, which was a devilish perversion.
    • He died in 1384, but his followers continued.
  • They flourished among some of hte nobles and the landed gentry.
    • They copied their manuscripts and bible translations.
    • But the English outlawed the translation of the bible. - And the wars of the roses in the 1450s led to a greater connection between the English kings and the clergy to cement the rule of whatever king was in charge at the time.
      • Manuscript copying generally fell out of favor of Lollards by 1450,
• Jan Hus (1370-1415) (in bohemia, modern Czech Republic)
  • Wyclif literature spread to Central Europe to Jan Hus (dean of philosophy at Prague University)
  • Wyclif pushed for church reform
    • Gained support of Czech nobility
      • And received support from all levels of society (nobility, bohemian clergy, and universities)
    • Taught that the mass should be sung in Czech, the language of the people
    • and that the eucharist should be taken in both kinds (wine and wafer).
    • Wyclif was summoned to the Holy Roman Empire
      • Under safe travels promised by Emperor Sigismund in 1415.
      • To the council of Konstanz (1415).
      • He was then burned at the stake.
  • It created a revolt in Bohemia.
    • They created their own church in Bohemia independent from Rome
    • Their church leaders became very de-centered after the 1470s.
      • Control of the church was managed under the nobles and city leaders (similar to majesterial reformation).
• Why Limited Impact
  • No Printing Press
  • Limited Scope of Challenges
  • Never questioned the fundamental focus of Salvation, mass, or economy of salvation

Setting the Foundations for Change

• Modern Devotion
• Printing Press
• Religious Humanism
• Desidarius Erasmus (1466-1536)

• Modern Devotion
  • A more individualistic view of devotion
  • Trying to understand God and Jesus.
  • Developed in the 15th century (1400s)
    • Devoted to empathising with the suffering of christ.
    • Dedicated the the preyer economy.
    • Didication to meditating on the passion (suffering of christ)
• Printing Press
  • Created a more internalized religious devotion that added onto the Modern Devotion.
• Religious Humanism (16th century)
  • Wanted to return to the original sources.
  • application of humanist method to the bible
  • Desidarius Erasmus
    • son of a priest
    • Became the secretary of the Bishop of Cambrai
    • He became one of the first bestsellers in 1500
    • Then turned his focus to Christian texts
      • He learned Greek
      • Then he started producing critical translations of Christian texts
    • Translated the bible (1516).
      • Removed the Johanine comma.
      • Retranslated a word from the Vulgate (do penance) to in his translation (repent), a different meaning
      • Retranslated the Hebrew allegories that foretold a virgin would bare a son Immanuel (the Hebrew reads a young woman)
      • So he clarified his position: he believes in the virgin birth, even though it was not supported in the bible.
    • This represented a central problem: the issue of scripture vs tradition.
      • Many read the religious humanists and questioned the church and its teachings
      • Humanists looked at the discrepancies and many thought they were part of the same perversion that had happened to the classics during the medieval period
        • They needed to return to the origins of the early church before as they saw it the perversion of it by the Medieval church.

Theology of Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Augustinian Monk

Salvation by Grace Alone

Recourse by Faith Alone

Know God by Scripture Alone

Image of Martin Luther

The Rupture

• Indulgences
• 95 Theses (1517)
• Luther Declared a Heretic (1520)
• Diet of Worms (1521)

• Indulgences
  • paid for the building of projects
  • the payments returned time of purgatury.
    • based on three assumptions
      • God demanded repentence for sins
      • Jesus has an infinite amount of merit to extend to those on earth. (add to that all the saints)
      • Pope as the vicar of Christ on Earth,
        • it would be cruel of him not to extend that merit to the benefit of his parishioners.
• 95 Theses (1517)
  • 1516, the church extended this practice to the dead already in purgatory.
  • Led Luther to write 95 theses
    • Intended to promote a public disputation on the practice of indulgences
      • A typical behavior at the time
      • Very academic.
    • Posted the theses to the castle church doors in Wittenberg
  • The theses got printed
    • Created a pamphlet war.
  • Also led to a series of Public debates
    • Luther railed about justification by grace alone
      • and the problems of indulgences
    • They focused on the authority of the Pope.
• Luther declared Heretic (1520)
  • Luther responded: wrote a series of pamphlets that were increasingly militant
    • At one point claimed the Pope was a threat to the good government of the Holy Roman empire.
• Diet of Worms (1521)
  • given safe conduct
  • left safely
  • But immediately declared heretic and placed a call for his arrest.
  • He went into hiding under the support of the: Frederick III (the Wise), Elector of Saxony
    • During his hiding he translated the bible
      • fast and loose with translation
        • Added words and phrases that emphasized his reading
          • Only faith where it just read faith for instance.
          • Life to eternal life
          • Deliverer of Israel to Savior
    • Luther made outlaw of empire
      • But he could have safe conduct that would be honored.
      • Allowed to leave without arrest.
      • Elector of Saxony

The Reformation Spreads

Printing Press

Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531)

Anabaptists in Munster (1534–1536)

John Calvin (1509–1564)

Image of Printing Press

Image of Huldrych Zwingli

Map of Munster

Image of John Calvin

• Printing Press
  • All these disputes took place in public through the pamphlet
• Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531)
  • Distinctly influenced by Erasmus, reading the translated bible
    • Began comparing current church to church of Paul and apostles
  • Also read Augustine and came to same pessimistic view of human kind.
  • Claimed no influence from Luther
    • But if true, that they came to the same conclusions independently at the same time, it is the greatest coincidence of the sixteenth century
  • 1518, became a pastoral priest in Zurich
    • 1519, bagan preaching from Matthew, ignoring the official liturgical callendar of hte church.
    • 1520, stopped taking pension from Rome
    • Began preaching justification by faith, grace, and scripture alone.
    • Began calling the scripture the divine law.
      • A difference from Luther, who distinguished between law and gospel.
  • Preached that the Eucharist was a symbol and did not actually transubstantiate
    • A major division with Luther
  • Preached that images should be prohibited because of the commandments.
    • Major division with Luther
  • In Zurich, the city became the churhc and the churhc the city
  • Zwingli thought very few would be saved.
  • Diet of Speyer (1529)
    • A colloquy where Zwingli and Luther met to unite the reform movement
    • They shut down over transubstantiation
      • Luther accepted the real change
      • Zwingli did not accept it
      • They almost came to blows.
• The Anabaptists in Munster
  • Zwingli never went so far as to avoid question infant baptism,
  • But many of his followers did, the ultra-Zwinglians, or Anabaptists
    • Challenged infant-baptism
    • Argued that baptism was an oath that could only be taken in adulthood.
  • They were then combined witha large contingent of followed Melchior Hoffmann who proclaimed that the end times were coming. (around 1533)
    • His followers declared Muster the new Jerusalem and
    • Anabaptists seized control of the city by 1534
    • Soon they were besieged by an army of Lutherans and Catholics
    • During the siege the Anabaptists instituted new reforms to bring about the end times (that were supposed to end in April 1534)
      • Redistributed property for communal use
      • City notables exempted
      • Instituted polygamy
        1. (to make God’s chosen increase and multiply)
• John Calvin (1509-1564)
  • Originally a humanist lawyer in Paris
  • Came to the Reformed faith (in the Zurich model)
  • In 1530s, he fled Paris as an anti-reform movement took off
  • Went to Basel from 1534-1536 to write An Instruction in Christian Faith (or the Institutes from the Latin name)
    • Expanded in 1556
  • Ended up in Geneva in 1536.
  • They became a Mecca of sorts to spread the reformed faith
    • The distinctive religion of Calvin was focused on double predestination
      • Inherently something that already existed but that he reemphasized
        • The idea that while the elect were destined for heaven
        • The non-elect were destined for hell.
    • They created a printing empire to sell religious books across Europe and especially to France
      • Calvin’s Institutes became a major part of that he kept rewriting and selling
  • They also remade the city to prevent a Munster
    • He created an eldership that operated citywide
      • Pastors to do general ministry
      • Doctors responsible for teaching at all levels
    • then created the consistory:
      • the city’s pastors and 12 lay elders
      • This was an institution that existed besid the city leadership, but had significant power
      • It could submit anyone to excommunication
        • it could publicly humiliate Genevans for not acting godly
          • For instance, Calvin wanted to stop Genevans from dancing.
      • The Calvinist church acquired great control over city administration in this way

The English Reformation

Henry VIII (r. 1509–1547)

Edward VI (r. 1547–1553)

Mary I (r. 1553–1558)

Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603)

Image of Henry VIII

Image of Edward VI

Image of Mary I

Image of Elizabeth I

• Henri VIII (1509-1547) married to Catherine of Aragon
  • blamed her for not having children
  • wanted divorce, wasn’t given it
• concluded he was the supreme head of the church within his dominions
• Act of Supremacy and Act of Submission (1534)
  • spelled out the royal supreme headship over the church of England
  • clergy must swear oath to the king.
  • First king to break with Rome.
  • Thomas Cranmer Became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533.
  • he annuled the marriage
  • Think of the church in England as the Catholic Church of England.
  • Dissolution of the Monestaries (1536-1541)
• King Edward VI (r. 1547-1553)
  • Begins instituting Reform
  • Archbishop Thomas Carnmer commissioned the Book of Common Prayer in 1549.
    • followed generally Lutheran leanings.
    • But slowly became more reformed
    • This became clear in the Prayer book of 1552
      1. the eucharist became fully symbolic.
• Queen Mary I (r. 1553-1558)
  • reinstituted Catholicism
  • clear sign that England had not been converted yet,
    • Other than some minor challenges, people returned to their original worship.
    • They took their Catholic challaces and other paraphenalia out of hidden cupboards and started using them again.
  • The biggest complaint about Mary was not her Catholicism but her marriage to
• Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603)
  • Elizabethan Settlement (1559)
    • returned to the 1552 book of common prayer
      • but supported a conservative protestantism
        • church imagery
        • lavish music
        • lack of frequent preaching
        • suspicion of married clergy
      • Kept much of the structure of the church (bishops, priests, deacons)
        • but had a conservative protestant theology
          • nonsubtantiation
          • justifcation through grace, and faith alone (scriptural superiority)
          • But also kept many of hte ordinants of the church
        • Not acceptable to criticize the church of england.
    • Demanded outward support for the church
      • attend church
      • participate in church
      • donate to the church of england
    • But what you do behind closed doors was fine