REFORMATION 



4959 



REFORMATION 



tion of all Western Europe had centered on the 

 quarrel between the Pope and a German monk, 

 and Luther had to choose between retracting 

 what he had said or becoming an avowed rebel, 

 he chose the latter course. When Leo X issued 

 a bull excommunicating him, he publicly 

 burned it in the market place. 



The situation in Germany at this time, about 

 1520, was very favorable to Luther's cause. 

 The nobles and rulers in general resented the 

 Pope's claim to the right to interfere in the 

 internal affairs of their country. The Pope also 

 claimed the right to fill all vacancies which 

 occurred in the Church; the rulers naturally 

 desired to fill these vacancies with their own 

 friends and supporters. And, what was perhaps 

 most unsatisfactory of all, a ruler, confronted 

 with an empty treasury and the necessity of a 

 foreign war, had before him the spectacle of 

 the enormous wealth of the Church, exempt 

 from taxation. 



Charles V had just been elected ruler of the 

 German provinces on the death of his grand- 

 father, Maximilian. But Charles was more 

 Spanish than German, and was king, as well, 

 of Spain and Sicily, Naples and Sardinia, Lord 

 of the Netherlands and Burgundy and of the 

 Austrian Grand Duchies. Ambitious for further 

 conquests, Charles could ill afford to offend the 

 Pope. So, realizing nothing of the situation in 

 Germany and the strength of Luther's follow- 

 ing, he was persuaded to issue a decree against 

 Luther at the Diet of Worms, and then left 

 Germany to be gone for the next ten years, 

 engaged in wars with France. 



The German princes felt no particular loyalty 

 for Charles, and they did feel a great antago- 

 nism towards the demands of the Pope. Some 

 of them were men of courage and high ideals, 

 who understood and sympathized with Luther's 

 position and his newly-published creed, and he 

 found strong supporters among them who re- 

 fused to suppress his writings or to enforce the 

 king's edict. The only effect, practically, of 

 Charles' decree was to make it necessary for 

 Luther to exile himself for a while in t 

 of the Elector of Saxony, where he spent a part 

 of his time translating the Bible anew into tin 

 German language. 



Luther proved himself an able leader of the 

 icndous forces he had released, and tin-. 

 added to his deep religious enthusiasm, had 

 much to do v. .Inmate success of tin- 



movement. The Reformation did not take 

 root, howrvor. without bloodshed. Wars 

 suited from the controversy, the Peasants' War 



of 1525, and the Schmalkaldic War, the latter 

 between the king and the ruling princes. The 

 concession which the Lutheran princes finally 

 won, together with the name Protestant, was 

 that each ruler should have the right to decide 

 what was to be the religion of his people, and 

 that the followers of another religion were not 

 to be persecuted. This decision did not, how- 

 ever, settle the matter, but led eventually to 

 the Thirty Years' War. 



Switzerland. An entirely independent move- 

 ment was going on in Switzerland at the time 

 of the Reformation in Germany, under the 

 leadership of Ulric Zwingli, an even greater 

 radical than Luther. In the civil wars which 

 followed the attempts to suppress his teachings 

 and his followers, Zwingli was killed, but the 

 separate provinces in Switzerland won the same 

 concessions as had the German provinces the 

 right of each separate state to choose its own 

 religion. In Geneva, John Calvin, a new leader, 

 had appeared; he was a young Frenchman who 

 had been exiled for his religious beliefs. Under 

 his leadership Geneva became the theological 

 center of the new faith. The city Was thronged 

 with refugees and exiles, who studied under him 

 and carried his teachings away with them into 

 other countries. His own confession of faith 

 differed radically from that of the Lutherans 

 and resulted in the founding of the powerful 

 Calvinist branch of the Church. 



France. In France (and in Spain, as well) 

 the state Church and the government had man- 

 aged to achieve a good degree of independence 

 of Rome before the Reformation period. The 

 central government, having forced all the con- 

 cessions it desired from the Pope, had nothing 

 to gain by furthering or supporting Protestant- 

 ism. In spite of persecutions, however, and the 

 banishment of leaders like Calvin, nearly every 

 province in France had many converts, who 

 eventually formed a distinct political party 

 known as the IIu<ju< nots. For thirty years 

 France was torn by religious wars, with occa- 

 sional intervals of peace. One of the tragic 

 occurrences was the massacre of Saint Bartholo- 

 mew's Day, in 1">72. when thousands of Hugue- 

 nots were put to death. In tin- end the Refor- 

 mation failed. By the Edict of Nantes in 1598 

 the Huguenots were tolerated, but Fr.m. 

 mained a Catholic country until 1906, win n 

 the connection between the C'hunh and State 

 was dissolved. 



Scandinavia. In 1523 Sweden broke away 

 from the union with Denmark and Norway. 

 The king and the now government were des- 



