Weeks of 17-20
Protestant Reformation
January 12
455-466
The Condition of the Church and Martin Luther
Cause of the Reformation Documents
January 15
466-470
Germany and the Protestant Reformation
January 20
470-377
The Growth of the Protestant Reformation
Reformation Dinner Party
January 22
477-483
The Catholic Reformation and the Counter Reformation
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Protestant Reformation Study Guide
Reformation Primary Sources #1
Reformation Primary Sources #2
Reformation Primary Sources #3
Reformation Primary Sources #4
Causes of the Reformation
On the basis of the following four documents, explain the causes of the Protestant Reformation. Be sure to use all the documents.
DOCUMENT 1
Julius II. Exclusus. A Dialogue
PERSONS:-POPE JULIUS II.; FAMILIAR SPIRIT: ST. PETER.
SCENE:-GATE OF HEAVEN.
JULIUS: What the devil is this? The gates not opened! Something is wrong with the lock.
SPIRIT: You have brought the wrong key perhaps. The key of your money-box will not open the door here. You should have brought both keys. This is the key of power, not of knowledge.
JULIUS: I never had any but this, and I don't see the use of another. Hey there, porter! I say, are you asleep or drunk?
PETER: Well that the gates are adamant, or this fellow would have broken in. He must be some giant, or conqueror. Heaven, what a stench! Who are you? What do you want here?
JULIUS: Open the gates, I say. Why is there no one to receive me?
JULIUS: Will you make an end of your talking and open the gates? We will break them down else. You see these followers of mine.
PETER: I see a lot of precious rogues, but they won't break in here.
JULIUS: Make an end, I say, or I will fling a thunderbolt at you. I will excommunicate you. I have done as much to kings before this. Here are the Bulls ready.
PETER: Thunderbolts! Bulls! I beseech you, we had no thunderbolts or Bulls from Christ.
JULIUS: You shall feel them if you don't behave yourself....
From In Praise of Folly, Erasmus.
DOCUMENT 2
. . . Know that the life of man upon earth is a constant struggle. We have to fight against the flesh, the world and the devil, who are always seeking to destroy the soul. In sin we are conceived,-alas! what bonds of sin encompass us, and how difficult and almost impossible it is to attain to the gate of salvation without divine aid: since He causes us to be saved not by virtue of the good works which we accomplish, but through His divine mercy; it is necessary then to put on the armor of God.
You may obtain letters of safe conduct from the vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, by means of which you are able to liberate your soul from the hands of the enemy. . .
Do you not know that when it is necessary for anyone to go to Rome, or undertake any other dangerous journey, he takes his money to a broker and gives a certain per cent-flve or six or ten-in order that at Rome or elsewhere he may receive again his funds intact, by means of the letters of this same broker? Are you not willing, then, for the fourth part of a florin, to obtain these letters, by virtue of which you may bring not your money, but your divine and Immortal soul safe and sound into the land of Paradise?
Excerpt from sermon, 1515, by Tetzel, a friar
DOCUMENT 3
21. Thus those preachers of indulgences are in error who say that by the indulgences of the Pope a man is freed and saved from all punishment.
24. Hence, the greater part of the people must needs be deceived by this indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalties.
32. Those who believe that, through letters of pardon, they are made sure of their own salvation will be eternally damned along with their teachers....
43. Christians should be taught that he who gives to a poor man, or lends to a needy man, does better than if he bought pardons....
Selected theses, Martin Luther, October 31, 1517
DOCUMENT 4
. . . We see that there is no gold and almost no silver in our German land. What little may perhaps be left is drawn away daily by the new schemes invented by the council of the most holy members of the Roman curia. What is thus squeezed out of us is put to the most shameful uses. Would you know, dear Germans, what employment I have myself seen that they make at Rome of our money? It does not lie idle. Leo the Tenth gives a part to nephews and relatives (these are so numerous that there Is a proverb at Rome, ''As thick as Leo's relations''). A portion is consumed by so many most reverend cardinals (of which the holy father created no less than one and thirty in a single day), as well as to support innumerable referendaries, auditors, prothonotaries, abbreviators, apostolic secretaries, chamberlains and a variety of officials forming the elite of the great head church.
Now, if all these who devastate Germany, and continue to devour everything, might once be driven out, and an end made of their unbridled plundering, swindling and deception with which the Romans have overwhelmed us, we should again have gold and silver in suffiilent quantities, and should be able to keep It.
Ulrich von Hutten, German nobleman