European Reformation Movements - 16th Century

The sixteenth century in Europe was the beginning of an era which involved revolution in many aspects of life. Life was fairly prosperous for the average person due to growth and new innovations. During the first half of the sixteenth century a change took place – the Reformation. A break in Europe of the Church was never to be restored. In addition there were changes in society, structure of power and government which also came under reevaluation. Religious change was partnered with social and political change.

Other factors affected change as well. The economy had been prosperous but changed causing a separation in the classes of people, those who had and those who did not. Tensions began to rise between these classes.

The Reformation, the movement which divided European Christianity into catholic and protestant traditions, is unique. No other movement of religious protest or reform since has been so widespread or lasting in its effects.

The European Reformation was not a simple revolution. It was a series of movements; within

each of which various sorts of people with differing perspectives for this period in history combined forces in pursuit of specific objectives. The intellectual discipline of the major Reformers was prodigious. These leaders were almost without exception devoted to careful scholarship. The printing of books begun in the fifteenth century developed quickly propelling the spread of the Reformation forward into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

First of all, the Reformation was a protest by churchmen and scholars, privileged classes in society, against their own superiors. Those superiors, the Roman papacy and its agents, had attacked the teachings of a few sincere, respected academic churchmen which had seemed to threaten the prestige and privilege of clergy and papacy. Martin Luther, the first of those protesting clerics, had attacked the Pope and monks - and they fought back to defend their status. The protesting...