The Reformation
Introduction
The Reformation truly ends the Middle Ages and begins a new era in the history of Western Civilization. The Reformation ended the religious unity of Europe and ushered in 150 years of religious warfare. By the time the conflicts had ended, the political and social geography in the west had fundamentally changed.
So, in brief, the Reformation is the movement that created the Lutheran Church, the many Calvinist churches (Reformed, Presbyterian, and the several types of congregationalist churches), and the descendants of the Anabaptists (including the Mennonites and the Baptists). To put it another way, it was the end of Europe dominated by the Roman Catholic Church.
What Was the Reformation?
As the word implies, those who led the movement did not intend to create new churches separate from the Roman Catholic Church, but rather intended to reform the one true Church, the whole of Christianity. Within the first generation, however, many reformers concluded that the only hope for reform was to create a separate church and either persuade or coerce the Catholics to join. Once the reformers gained adherents who were secular rulers, with treasuries and armies at their command, the basis was laid for religious war. We can say the Reformation era was ended when there were no longer major changes in the religious alignment of the leading European countries.
Why Did It Happen?
This question has been debated from the very beginnings of the movement itself. One set of arguments focuses on failure, and specifically on the failure of the Roman Catholic Church. The underlying assumption of this argument is that if the Catholic Church had been doing what it should have been doing, then the Reformation would not have happened.
A different line of reasoning focuses on the positive: specifically, that the reform movement offered some one or several things that the Catholic Church either could not or did not provide. The focus here is on changing social, economic, and even spritiual conditions, and on how the message of reform responded to unmet needs.
Still another argument portrays the Reformation as a new manifestation of an old tradition. Reform movements had existed within Christianity for centuries, but they'd always either died out or been incorporated into the mainstream Church. On rare occasions, such movements had been crushed by force. The Reformation was but another in this tradition. What made it different were new socio-economic factors, new political conditions, and new technologies. Where the Church had been able to contain, absorb or eliminate such movements in the past, in the 16th century it was overwhelmed by events.
We won't come to a conclusion on this question as a class, but I encourage each of you to consider these approaches to the subject (or to consider others; these are by no means the only ones!). Come to your own conclusions. The Reformation is one of the most important events in European history, and is one of a handful of developments that truly set Europe apart from other world cultures.
Overview of Events
The first generation of reformers was dramatic and exciting. Here is where we find Martin Luther, John Calvin, Martin Bucer, Ulrich Zwingli, and a host of others. The years are marked by tremendous diversity in thought and practice, a strong strain of social criticism, and powerful popular movements. The reformers were everywhere on the offensive, while the Catholic Church continued to respond in ways it always had.
The second phase comes in the 1550s. The religious war in Germany came to an end, but it would soon appear in numerous other countries. The later 16th century saw Calvinism as the most dynamic of the reform movements, while Lutheranism mostly consolidated its gains, and the Anabaptists were increasingly marginalized. More importantly, nearly all the rulers of Europe were by now deeply engaged in the question of what would be the religion of their nation. The later 16thc also saw the beginnings of what came to be called the Catholic Reformation, as the Catholic Church finally began to respond to the challenges in new ways.
The third phase is marked by ever-increasing violence, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which was the most devastating and deadly war in Europe until the First World War. In nearly every country, some sort of crisis was reached. In nearly every country by 1650, some sort of resolution was reached.
A fourth phase takes us up to the early 1700s, which is technically beyond the boundaries of this course, but is worth mentioning briefly just to complete this overview. In these years, the tentative victory in each country was implemented, tested, and found to be firm. For example, after years of enormously powerful influence, the Protestants in France accepted defeat. Religious toleration was the order of the day in the Netherlands. The Church of England weathered all storms and finally merited its name. Germany accepted its internal divisions; here, toleration was not the order of the day, but co-existence was. Poland, which had been strongly Protestant at last became strongly Catholic. And so on. In other words, Europe more or less renounced relgious war.