The Reformation Dbq Analysis

The Reformation began long before its official start date in 1517, while its consequences are still in effect today. Ideas of reformation began in the middle of the 14th century. By the 16th century the Catholic church sought reform from within itself because between the 14th and 16th centuries the church was faced with a significant decline in authority. Reformers, such as John Wycliffe, Erasmus, and Martin Luther, played significant roles as the source of the Reformation, however; there are other provoking source - indulgences along with the art and literature of the time- and the components combined created unfortunate consequences and positive solutions to the declining authority of the Church.

Through the accusations and lessons taught

by John Wycliffe, Erasmus, and Martin Luther we can see the initial motivation of the Protestant Reformation was a disagreement in how we should live out the bible. John Wycliffe was the first person to question the church therefore, he was the initial spark of the Reformation. John Wycliffe question the church on various topics and views. Wycliffe wrote De Conversatione Ecclesiasticorum, where he addressed the church’s excommunication of a “true man” (document 1). Within the same piece of literature Wycliffe also called attention to the reason religious leaders persecuted the common honest man. According to Wycliffe the Church would pay people to be false witnesses and create fake notaries against accused “true man.” Furthermore, Wycliffe disagreed with the church's view that believing in Jesus was not enough. Wycliffe added to the leave and said that people also had to believe that the Pope was head of the Church. In questioning the church Wycliffe was ridiculed and labeled as heretical by the Pope at this time, Pope Gregory XI. In addition to Wycliffe’s accusations and teachings, Erasmus thought the church was corrupt and wrong. Erasmus believed that in deeds of love one would be saved and be welcomed into heaven. Erasmus was strongly against the selling of indulgences. Erasmus used Christ’s hypothetical disapproval of the religious leaders because they focused on trivial human traditions with great confidence and they boast about their greed and gluttony (Document 4). Finally, Martin Luther was the last pre-reformation reformer and the first reformar a part of the reformation. In 1517 he wrote the 95 theses and posted them on to a church door. Luther did not want to feel guilty any longer for that actions of the church. The 95 Theses focused on small problems with in the church but, when the problems were put together, they presented large corruption within the church. Many of the theses revolved around the validity of indulgences . The importance of the 95 Theses came from the fact that is was a, “small initial step that stirred up an international controversy and thereby set in motion the dramatic events that followed” (document 7).

Wycliffe, Erasmus, and Luther's contribution to the cause of the Reformation were not the sole causes; art, literature, and indulgences portrayed significant views and opinions from the church and society.

In Livre des Persecutions des Crestens, Paris there is a wood carving that depicts Satan's influence on reformers of the Catholic Church ( document 5). The carving represents society's view on both reformers and the church's response to the reformers. Society was all of the community of people with the same customs laws and organization and they were not in favor of change. We also discover society’s discontentment with the church in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (Document 3). The Canterbury Tales, written in 1388, describe the pardoner using negative connotation and possessing bad morals. We are told that the partner puts on a show for the assembly at mass in order to encourage them to pay indulgences: “To win some silver, as he right well could;/ The loude and the merrier he would sing” (Document 3). Chaucer’s views and description of the pardoner was true because he was a part of the general population meaning he was a common man. The significance of him being a common man means that the other common had similar view points to his. He used real life to create his social satire of a book. The indulgences in the church were viewed in many different ways. Before the Reformation the sale of indulgences granted partial salvation and remission of sins in purgatory

(document 6). Therefore that causes of the church differed in what they were but, most of the causes supported the same ideas of the corruption in the church.

The church, before the Reformation, was a major political authority throughout the world, nevertheless began to decline as the Protestant Reformation approached. Through the Reformation secular lifestyles became more prominent and the idea of identifying people with their state was more popular than identifying with their religion. Before the Protestant Reformation Pope Gregory XI threatened Wycliffe with prison time to assert the authority of the church in the state.. Pope Gregory XI demanded that Oxford take action to prevent the spread of Wycliffe's ideas with threats to take away, “all the favors, indulgences, and privileges granted to you and your University” (document 2). In addition to the authority of Pope Gregory XI’s authority, Popes Clement VI and Sixtus IV created a standard definition supporting an indulgence and what indulgences did and didn’t do which established their authority because they were setting a universal understanding for the catholic church as a whole. Therefore, church leaders, before the Reformation, had great authority in both the state and church, but that took a change after the reformation.

The authority of the church began to rapidly decline as reformers became more and more popular, therefore; the church suffered consequences from the Reformation.

An example of the declining power is in Pope Leo X and Luther’s disagreements. The church lost authority because, instead of being feared for their threats, they were being ignored and was shown that they were being ignored by Luther. Pope Leo X critiqued the theses that Luther wrote claiming that they were, “ errors.” More specifically Pope Leo X stated in his proclamation to Luther that the church needed to take action against Luther because he was aiming to destroy the church (document 8). However, the decline of Pope Leo X’s authority was discovered in Luther’s response. Luther responded to Pope Leo X’s demands by throwing them into a fire filled with Catholic and anti-Luther's writings (document 9). One last effect of Luther during the reformation was anti-semitism people. Luther’s rage for Jewish people was transferred into his writing of Concerning the Jews and Their Lies (document

10).

The Protestant Reformation had various causes and effects throughout history. The effects of the reformation negatively impacted the Catholic church’s authority and the opinion of Jewish people. A document that would have been helpful in the construction of this argument would have expressed the positive side of the counter reformation and the catholic church’s reconstruction. However, the Catholic Church gained a its authority in later years after the counter reformation in Spain, France, Portugal, Ireland, and in southern and eastern Europe.