The Lutheran Reformation, an Explain Everything presentation by Kevin F.
Conley.
The first thing I want to do is connect the Reformation to our previous unit,
the Age of Discovery.
Now, the Age of Discovery brought a lot of wealth to Spain and Portugal.
But very quickly, the fact is that that wealth moves north.
Just as an illustration of this, here is a picture of Cortes offering his
new realms of Mexico to Charles V.
He's offering the New World to Charles V.
And just to give you an idea, just remember that Charles V himself has
everything in the green, as well as the Holy Roman Empire.
So, the Holy Roman Empire's borders are right here.
Southern Italy, these islands are his.
Spain is his.
He's also got these purple areas, the Burgundy and the Netherlands.
But then also, of course, he's got Peru and Mexico.
And those are going to keep bringing wealth to the previous ones.
So, basically, the wealth is moving there.
But eventually, in Europe, it will move there.
Mainly because the ports of the Low Countries, especially, are just better
suited for and better connected to the actual spice markets of Central Europe.
They have access to the Baltic Sea.
And they can just basically do more with it.
Northern Italy has lost its supremacy because its own dominance of the
Mediterranean has been taken by both Spain and by the Ottoman Empire.
So, the northern Baltic city-states that used to compete with Italy are doing
better than the Low Countries in the north.
Especially, the port of Antwerp comes forward.
This mainly starts because Antwerp was a Finnish textile place of wealth due to its
early textile industry in the late Middle Ages.
But eventually, it became a city of trade and commerce and well-suited to the Baltic
routes.
The Mediterranean advantage has been lost due to the Turks.
And the banking houses of Germany, therefore, begin to underwrite massive
expenditures involved in trade with the Indies.
Basically, the main way this works is that...
Well, I think it's on the next slide.
In particular, the Fuggers of Augsburg stepped up to become the most successful
banking institution in Europe.
Mostly because they could connect Hungarian copper to Portuguese spices
through their satellite house of, again, Antwerp.
So basically, very early on, Portugal decides to stop using Lisbon as its main
port of bringing goods from the East Indies.
And instead, it goes straight to Antwerp, where it gets from the Fuggers copper from
Hungary.
And then, in exchange, they give the spices to the Fuggers.
And that becomes a very wealthy enterprise for the Fuggers, who become the main
banking family of Europe.
They surpass the Medicis.
Eventually, Charles V would also turn to the Fuggers, since their connectedness to
all of Europe made them the most suitable institution for making its payments in the
many different monies of the Habsburg Europa.
This is basically... this picture is basically Europa.
It's from the time of the Habsburgs of Charles V.
And it shows you what their dream is, basically.
It's Europe.
And notice that Spain is at the head.
And the idea is that Spain is going to be the head of a new Europe, possibly ruled
by the Habsburgs.
It seems to be a bit of a tool of propaganda.
And, of course, here's Charles V himself.
Ultimately, what this means is that after the discovery, the wealth is just simply
moving north.
They're no longer northern Italy.
It's now going to northern Europe.
And that made Germany an easy target, though, for the Popes to raise revenues.
As a matter of fact, the Fuggers become the main banking house of the Papal
States, of the Pope himself.
It used to be the Medicis, but now it's the Fuggers of Augsburg.
But otherwise, lots of preachers of indulgences and other papal finance
raisers go to northern Germany to fund all the Renaissance projects of the Popes.
Remember, they're building Rome at this time, St. Peter's, for example,
and they need money.
Germany also has a disadvantage in this situation.
They're very wealthy, but they have very few protections against ecclesiastical
draining on their economy.
For one thing, there is no Germany, really.
The Holy Roman Empire is what there is, but it's more of a loose federation of
about 300 principalities.
The only one who can speak for all of them is the Holy Roman Emperor.
But his job is to be the secular arm of Christendom, to be the secular arm,
essentially, of the Pope.
So he's not going to be the one to make some kind of decree that sets the Church
at a disadvantage, temporally speaking, in terms of temporal welfare in connection
to the Holy Roman Empire.
After all, it's the Pope who crowns the Holy Roman Emperor.
He can't really go against the Pope.
This means that Germans look with a little bit of jealousy on the other great
nations.
For example, as far as the other great nations of Western Europe go, England is
basically free from a lot of papal interference, because they have the
Statute of Premonire, which was issued by Richard II, the last of the Plantagenet
dynasty.
This statute basically forbade any communication with the Holy See that
resulted in injury or loss to England or Englishmen.
Examples.
No non-Englishmen could take an ecclesiastical benefice, even if the Pope
said so.
Nobody could transport monies from England to Rome without the King's permission.
No one could procure an excommunication for an Englishman, etc.
etc.
In a certain sense, if you know the history of the Plantagenet dynasty,
he brings to a term the whole dream of Henry II, of trying to eliminate the
powers of the Church because it was perceived as a state within a state or a
government within a government.
Two hundred years earlier, Henry II was the one who killed Thomas Becket over
similar ideas, but he's also the father of common law.
In France, there's also protection because France was protected by the pragmatic
sanction of Bourges that was given by Charles VII in the time, shortly,
twenty years after the Great Schism, when conciliarism was at its height.
It basically says that a council will trump the Pope and should meet regularly.
It says that the collection of annates, or the first fruit, so to speak,
of a benefice, the whole first year's proceeds from a benefice, cannot go to the
Pope, which is the normal custom, but France says no, they don't want money
leaving France.
And it forbids papal appointments to dioceses.
In other words, France names its own bishops.
So the Church mostly depends on Germany because Germany doesn't have these
protections that France and England have.
And the princes of Germany don't like it.
They're just waiting for their own version of the pragmatic sanction, their own
version of premonire, or whatever.
And that, of course, will come to them in the form of the Reformation itself.
The political situation in the Holy Roman Empire is also very different from its
western neighbors.
For one thing, it's complicated.
Remember, it starts out as a hereditary monarchy under Charlemagne, according to
Salic's Law's old interpretation.
In other words, the old interpretation was, all sons get a share in their
father's holdings.
Now, Charlemagne only had one son, but he had three grandsons.
So when his son died, Louis the Pious, in 843, his three grandsons, Charlemagne's
three grandsons, had to split the realm into three pieces at the Treaty of Verdun
in 843.
Now, the imperial title went to the middle part, the part that includes northern
Italy, to directly protect the Pope.
So it got the Holy Roman Empire title.
But eventually, that kingdom completely disappeared in 924.
So there ended up only being two kingdoms, the Western Kingdom of the Franks and the
Eastern Kingdom of the Franks, what we would call today, basically,
Germany.
They even started to speak different languages.
The Western Kingdom of the Franks stuck to Latin, which eventually became French,
whereas the Eastern Kingdom of the Franks stuck to their Frankish, which eventually
became German.
Meanwhile, that Eastern Kingdom of the Germans, of the Franks in Germany,
that line only lasted until 911 AD.
The last Carolingian king died in 911 AD.
So then they had to figure out, well, what are we going to do?
Now that Charlemagne's progeny is gone, who do we do?
Well, they couldn't really agree, so they started a new system.
The nobles of Germany get together at the death of every king and they elect their
own King of the Germans.
They didn't call it the King of the Germans, they called it King of the
Romans, because again, they see themselves as the Roman Empire, but we tend to call
it the King of the Germans.
Now in 962 AD, Pope John XII crowned the German king of the time, Otto I,
as Emperor of the Romans.
He basically repeats the 800 event, crowning Charlemagne.
Now he crowns Otto I.
But this Otto I is the King of the Germans.
It was in recognition mainly of his pacification of the Magyars, who were
pretty much a terror before they were pacified by Otto at the Battle of
Lechfeld.
Thus, the King of the Germans now becomes basically identified with the Holy Roman
Empire.
Thus, the noble process was this.
The German nobles elected their king, and then the Pope, for the most part,
crowned him as Emperor.
Now this takes another step in the year 1356 with the Golden Bull.
The Golden Bull, just give me a second.
No, no, not that kind of bull.
A bull in the sense of leaden seal.
But this one was a golden seal, a seal that actually seals the document.
That's what we mean by golden bull.
This Golden Bull decided that from now on, seven electors in particular would be the
seven that would always elect, not the Emperor, here it says the Emperor,
sorry, that's a mistake.
It really should say the King of the Germans.
These seven electors from now on would be the Archbishop of Cologne, the Archbishop
of Mainz, the Archbishop of Trier, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony,
the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Count of the Rhine-Palatinate.
You can see their basic lands right here.
Brandenburg, Saxony, Bohemia, the Palatine, Mainz's lands, Cologne,
and Trier.
So you get the idea.
These would be the ones.
These prince electors now became very powerful.
I should mention briefly that this did cause a bit of dissension because all the
other nobles are now wondering why they're slighted.
So it does cause a little bad blood.
Nevertheless, they become extremely powerful.
Even though they in theory could elect anyone, they often stuck to the Habsburgs
ever since the fall of the Hohenstaufen, that is Frederick II, the most powerful
Holy Roman Emperor ever.
After that, the German nobles don't really like powerful Holy Roman Emperors,
so they stick to the Habsburgs.
At the time, it seemed like a good idea.
So they almost always pick Habsburgs.
There's only a couple exceptions in history.
But here's the one thing they did do.
They often negotiated the conditions for their election before the election itself.
So they say, hey, what will you give us if we elect you?
And then each time they actually elect a Holy Roman Emperor, they rewrite contracts
with the Holy Roman Emperor, spelling out their own powers and liberties.
In other words, Germany is not one.
It's really just a collection, a bare federation, where the Holy Roman
Empire pretty much successively loses power with almost every election.
But the one who's gaining the power are the prince electors.
The prince elector becomes a very coveted position.
And by the time of the Reformation, there are some very interesting characters
indeed among the prince electors.
These are the electors of 1519, which is close to the Reformation.
And I just want to mention a few things about them now.
One thing I'll say while we're on this board is that two of them are brothers.
This is the Archbishop of Mainz.
He is known as Albert of Magdeburg or Albert of Mainz.
He is from the family Hohenzollern.
It's extremely important.
They will be the family that basically rules the later German Empire.
But here they are right now.
We're talking about them now in the Reformation.
His brother is the Margrave of Brandenburg, also an electoral position,
also Hohenzollern.
And Brandenburg, of course, is where Berlin is.
So this is important to keep this in mind.
The German Empire, of course, its capital will be Berlin.
And right now we're getting it.
Brandenburg is where Berlin is.
Berlin is the capital of Brandenburg.
So right now we're beginning to see already the influence of the
Hohenzollerns.
One last thing I just want to make clear while we're on this board is that besides
Germany, besides the Holy Roman Empire itself, there is one other major
German-speaking principality that we're going to have to watch for a second.
So I'm just going to alert you to it right now.
And that is the Teutonic Order.
Here's the Holy Roman Empire.
Then here's Poland in between.
But there's also this state called the Teutonic Order.
What is that?
Well, Teutonic means German.
It comes from Tacitus, who said that the main god of the Germans was named Twisto.
So Teutonic is just a fancy word for German.
The Teutonic Order was literally a state ruled by night monks.
It's one of the military orders of the Crusades.
When the Crusades failed, they got permission to basically try to convert the
Prussians, the old Prussians.
And in doing so, they just established their own state.
This is a state ruled literally by the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order,
who is a night monk.
So he doesn't have children, which means this is not a hereditary state.
It's a monastic state.
It's a state where people are ruled by monk knights.
Just keep that in mind right now.
Catholic monk knights rule this area.
And it just so happens that the same year that these guys down here, the
Hohenzollerns, have two electorates, their cousin, Albert, also is the Grand
Master of the Teutonic Knights.
So this is also Hohenzollern territory.
You have Hohenzollerns here, Hohenzollerns here, and you have Hohenzollerns in Mainz,
which is complicated down there.
And two of them are electors, and one of them has the Teutonic, the greatest German
territory outside of Germany itself.
There is also Duke Frederick III, the Wise of Saxony.
He's a very pious individual, but in a kind of Northern European way,
in some ways.
He does own 17,000 relics, including some very strange ones, like a vial of the
Mother of God's Milk and a Holy Innocent.
He just has a skeleton of one of the Holy Innocents.
But also, he forbids the selling of indulgences in his own lands.
And as we shall see, he's going to become the main protector of Martin Luther
himself.
Then, of course, there's Albert Hohenzollern himself of Mainz.
Now, as I mentioned, his brother was already the Elector of Brandenburg,
and his cousin was the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights.
Thus, a very powerful family, and you don't know the half of it yet.
Just watching it now, it's going to become big later.
By 1514, Albert was already Archbishop of Magdeburg and Administrator of
Halberstadt.
But that's not enough for him.
He wants an electorate.
So he paid Pope Leo X for the nomination to the See of Mainz.
Can you say clerical pluralism?
Can you say simony?
To pay for this dispensation, he borrows a huge sum of money from the Fuggers of
Augsburg.
There they are again.
Well, now he needs to pay back those fuggers.
So he received permission from the Pope to have indulgence preachers in his
territory.
Half the proceeds from the indulgence preachers will go to St. Peter's in Rome,
and half will go to pay back those fuggers.
And by the way, again, just to show you, same guy is right here.
This is him right here, Albert of Mainz.
Now, to preach these indulgences, Albert used the services of the Dominican
quaestor, that means indulgence preacher, Johannes Tetzel, who is known for his fire
and brimstone homilies and his exact charts displaying the appropriate
indulgence to atone for various sins.
Now, in the process of this, in 1517, Johannes Tetzel began preaching in
Utterborg.
The point of this image is to show you that he's a pretty successful preacher.
People do follow him, and he's got little ditties.
What he said there was, when the coin in the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory
springs.
And this, of course, is very disturbing theology, and so, of course, it's going to
be reacted to.
And that's when we start in earnest the Reformation.
This was too much for Martin Luther.
On October 31st, 1517, he nailed 95 theses on the power and efficacy of indulgences
on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, just a short distance away from Utterborg.
He also sent a copy of these 95 theses to Archbishop Albert himself, along with a
letter expressing his concern regarding how indulgences were preached.
Again, the date was October 31st, 1517.
Happy Halloween!
But who is this Martin Luther?
Well, it's time to talk a little bit about how he got to this point.
He was born in Eisleben in 1483 to very strict parents who had been making their
way up in the world.
They used to be farmers, and now they were rich miners, or medium, middle-class
miners.
And they wanted young Martin to continue the trend, as you can see in this
particular video.
You're going to law school, whether you like it or not!
Of course, this is just funny, but the point is, he does talk about how
often his parents beat him, even for trivial offenses, and his dad was very
emphatic that he wanted him to stay.
Following his father's wishes, young Martin began studying law at the
University of Erfurt.
But then, one evening in 1505, his life took a different turn.
Martin Luther, intending to keep his vow, true to his vow, and also to the great
anger of his father, who said maybe it was the devil who inspired it, not St. Anne,
Martin Luther became an Augustinian priest.
Very early on, he began teaching the Bible at the newly founded University of
Wittenberg, founded by Elector Frederick of Saxony himself.
Let me see if I can get the rest of this text here real quick.
No, I can't.
I don't know what's the matter there, so I'm just going to take my word for it.
Founded by Elector Frederick of Saxony himself.
Now, Luther's monastic experience was not pleasant.
He was assailed by doubts about his own salvation, and even his own ability to be
saved, his own capacity for salvation.
Time and time again, he confessed his sins, only to fall into them again.
And all his monastic observances, all of his works, seemed to yield very
little progress.
Then, after he obtained his doctrine in 1512, and while preparing lectures on the
Psalms, Romans, and Galatians, Luther had what has been termed his Turm
Erlebnis.
Inspired by the book of Romans, which by the way, I said in the class it
was Galatians, I was wrong.
It's Romans, I was being stupid.
Inspired by the book of Romans, Luther came to the conclusion that man can
never become righteous before God.
After the fall, our will is enslaved to sin, never to regain the ability to do the
good.
But Christ's righteousness covers over us like a mantle, if we but take hold of this
mantle by faith alone.
Faith pulls the mantle of Christ upon us, so that when the God the Father looks upon
us, he doesn't see our sins, but he sees the righteousness of Christ.
This righteousness covers us as Schnee Überscheisse, which hopefully from class
you remember what that means.
And thus, with this insight, Luther's scruples disappeared.
In Lutheran language, the law and its terrors gave way to the gospel and its
comfort.
That's a typical Lutheran dichotomy.
Law means terror, gospel means comfort.
This was the insight that again partially drove Luther to his own dramatic act of
1517, which, let's review, the nailing of the 95 Theses.
Happy Halloween!
Now, in reaction to this, Pope Leo X took very little notice of Martin Luther.
But the 95 Theses were, let's talk about this little notice, there's a little
cartoon for that.
So he took very little notice, he just thought it was boring.
Ho ho, just another squabble among monks.
Remember, Pope Leo is a demented chief, so he's got better things to do like look
at ancient manuscripts and count money.
Basically, though, he couldn't stop the tide.
The 95 Theses were reprinted, read widely, and talked about all over Germany.
In 1518, the Pope finally did act by having his German-legged cardinal Thomas
Cajetan interview Luther.
And in 1519, Luther debated the Catholic theologian Johann Eck.
Cajetan, in his meeting, had warned Luther to recant, but Luther shone brightly in
the debate with Eck.
His intelligence and memory seemed to outperform Eck's.
They both were bright men, they both had good memories, but Luther was slightly
brighter, and Luther had a slightly better memory.
He seemed to win.
One major result of both of these meetings, with Cajetan and Eck,
is that it became apparent that Luther was moving beyond mere criticism of the manner
in which indulgences were being presented.
That's what the basic content of the 95 Theses and his letter to Archbishop Albert
of Magdeburg originally said.
It was mainly a contention against the way this was being done.
But now, in these debates, he made clear that he accepted the authority of neither
the Pope nor of general counsel.
He's not even a conciliarist.
Neither one.
Sola Scriptura.
Scripture alone is the measure.
Sola Fides.
We only grab Christ by faith.
And Sola Grazia.
No works help us, it is all the grace of God.
All these things became even clearer in 1520, when Luther published three of his
most influential works.
On Christian liberty, spoke about the freedom enjoyed by Christians.
There was no need for them to sacrifice this freedom to the law, particularly the
laws of the Church of Rome.
The address to the nobility of the Christian nation appealed to the German
nobles to stop living under the yoke of Rome and have their own counsel for
reforming the Church in Germany, apart from the Church of Rome.
And then finally, the big one, the Babylonian captivity of the Church,
which attacked the entire sacramental and priestly system of the Church.
Luther ultimately only accepted two sacraments, baptism and Eucharist,
because both of them are very clearly asserted in Scripture.
But in this work, he begins that he attacks the entire sacramental system.
That means he attacks priests, he attacks, especially the Pope,
who he basically argues is the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation.
On that topic, we should remember that the printing press is a great boon to Luther.
Luther would go on to write about 3,000 individual titles, most of them pamphlets.
In general, it is important to recall that the Reformation was a movement that made
enthusiastic use of the printing press.
Both sides published little books or even cards, woodcuts, in a sort of war of
propaganda.
So here we have the card I showed before during the Renaissance.
It is a card of Alexander VI, but if you fold down the top, this is what is
revealed to be underneath.
This demon thing saying, Ego sum Papa, Ego sum Papa, like Alexander VI said when
he was elected.
Over here is a particular woodcut whose inscription said, The Pope can interpret
Scripture about as well as an ass can play the bagpipes.
Bagpipes seemed to be a big thing at the time.
It might be because of the Hundred Years' War and Scotland's involvement with
France, blah, blah, blah, who knows.
Here is another one that presents Martin Luther as the devil's bagpipe.
He did have a big bellowy voice, and so maybe the idea is that he is the
bagpipe on which the devil plays.
Here is another one that shows Martin Luther as the seven-headed dragon of
Revelation.
Here is Martin Luther with his seven heads like a hydra.
In the same year that Martin published these three works, the Pope finally acted.
By issuing the bull, Exsurge Domine, rise up, O Lord, and judge thy cause.
This bull condemned the views of Martin Luther and threatened him with
excommunication if he did not recant.
Martin Luther responded by burning the bull.
Thus, Pope Leo X did excommunicate Martin Luther in 1521.
So much for the Pope at this point.
Now it is time for the Holy Roman Emperor to intervene.
As you know, this was Charles V.
Charles V had been elected in 1519, the same year as Luther's debate with Eck.
Remember how he was elected?
It was mainly by bribing the seven electors.
And to pay for the bribe, he of course took out a loan from, guess who?
The Fuggers of Augsburg!
Hello!
They just keep coming back.
Now, when he becomes Holy Roman Emperor, this is just a bad time for something like
the Reformation to happen.
Poor Charles has got a lot on his plate.
His first problem is King Francis I of France.
He is fighting right now with King Francis I of France over northern Italy.
Again, we have talked before in the Renaissance about the Angevin and the
Aragonese claims to southern Italy.
Well, eventually that moved to Milan in northern Italy.
Charles VIII claimed it when he marched down to southern Italy.
And now there have been wars going back and forth with the Pope switching sides
and asking each one to defend each other.
And ultimately it just becomes a big contest for Milan.
It was also somewhat of a personal war.
Francis had been one of the main candidates for the Holy Roman Empire.
As a matter of fact, the Pope's candidate.
That's who Pope Leo X wanted to be Pope.
But now, instead, Francis was not the Holy Roman Emperor and he was surrounded by
Habsburg lands.
Remember Spain, Holy Roman Empire, the Low Countries, Burgundy, southern
Italy and the islands.
This poor Francis is surrounded by Habsburgs.
So, basically, Francis decided to press his claims to Milan in order to weaken the
Holy Roman Empire and its allies.
He even goes so far as to make an alliance with none other than the non-Catholic,
non-Christian Ottoman Turks.
And that's our next problem, the Ottoman Turks.
Now, what's been going on with the Ottoman Turks since the fall of Constantinople?
Well, the second sultan after Mehmed II was Selim the Grim.
He gets that reputation because as soon as he became sultan, he exercised what's
called the Law of Fratricide.
He killed his brother and he killed all his other male relatives except his own
sons in order to secure his line of succession.
So, he's a pretty brutal guy.
And he does expand the Ottoman Empire.
It is expanding right now to the east mostly.
He conquers the Levant, he conquers Egypt, which means he takes it from the Mamluk
Sultanate that was there since the 7th Crusade.
And by taking the Mamluks, he also claims protection of the Hijaz, which is always a
way to show if you're a real Caliphate.
You take the Hijaz, you are the protector of Muslims as they make their pilgrimage
to Mecca, their Hajj to Mecca.
So, now he's got that.
He also, in his time, conquers Armenia.
So, the Ottoman Empire is expanding.
But that's not even the half of it.
The danger to Charles is not Selim the Grim, but his son, Suleiman the
Magnificent, the greatest Ottoman Sultan.
We'll just say it like it is.
He's the greatest Ottoman Sultan.
When Selim died, Suleiman took over the Ottoman Empire uncontested.
Remember, all the other male relatives are dead.
Thus, he could just immediately focus on expanding.
He would have a firm place in which to expand the Ottoman Empire.
And he begins to look west, mainly because King Francis I himself had formed an
alliance with him against the Habsburgs.
And Suleiman would eventually be the one to bring the Ottoman Empire to its
greatest extent.
So, basically, this is not a good time for Charles V to alienate his German nobles.
He needs to keep the Germans together with him, because those Turks are coming.
He needs their support for his wars, and he also needs them to remain united in
the faith.
In his mind, they can only help him if they stay Catholic.
Thus, in 1521, he's got to deal with Luther.
He summoned Luther to the Diet of Worms.
1521, Diet of Worms, both important.
Now, so here it is.
Here's the Diet of Worms.
No, just kidding.
It's not that kind of diet.
Diet, in this case, means a Reichstag, an imperial day, is what it literally
translates to.
It was a somewhat irregular administrative grand meeting of the nobles of the Holy
Roman Empire, where they could all meet and talk to the Holy Roman Emperor,
theoretically.
And Worms was just the city where he was meeting in 1521.
At this diet, Charles V put Luther's books on a table and asked him if he still held
the doctrine contained in them.
And Luther was unequivocal.
Again, that basically means, here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.
Amen.
Charles V was not happy about Luther, and in any other situation, he probably
would have had him executed.
But he cannot alienate the German nobles at this point, and he had promised Luther
safe conduct to the Diet of Worms.
We don't want to repeat another Jan Hus incident.
Thus, he let Luther go.
But then, after he left, he declared him an outlaw, which basically means anybody
can kill him.
Thus, on his way home, Luther indeed is suddenly kidnapped.
Hmm.
Ha.
Pfft.
Ha.
Pfft.
Daaah.
Pfft.
Wait for me!
It turned out to be a benevolent kidnapping.
Frederick of Saxony was behind it, Frederick the Wise.
And his intentions were to place Martin Luther in a sort of protective custody in
his own Wartburg castle.
While there, Luther translated the New Testament to German.
He used his time relatively well.
He does talk sometimes about how bored he was there.
But he translated the New Testament to German using Erasmus' own Greek edition.
This is the room where he did it.
This is his room at Wartburg Castle.
And of course, here's the frontispiece of the Luther Bible.
After his stay in Wartburg, he returned to Wittenberg.
Eventually he married... he stayed there for about a year in Wartburg.
He returned to Wittenberg.
Eventually he married an ex-nun from a convent that he converted to Lutheranism.
Basically, in this convent, Luther decided to find husbands for all the nuns who left
the Catholic Church and left their vows.
And he did find marriages for all of them except the elderly mid-twenties gasp.
That's a joke.
She's not that elderly by our standards, but by that time she was.
Katharina von Bora.
No one would marry her.
So he did.
He married her.
They took up residence in a former Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg.
They had several children.
Luther the outlaw pretty much stayed in Wittenberg from then on.
But his influence continued with his table talk, late-night symposia, in every sense
of the word.
In other words, there was a lot of beer drinking.
After all, this is near... this is basically the area of Saxony, in which he
spoke about several topics with his students, fellow faculty, or curious
visitors.
These were all collected later in his table talk, his thoughts on all issues,
basically.
And this is pretty much how his life continues until his death in 1546.
But meanwhile, there is war all around him.
He's living a pretty happy life in Wittenberg, but there's war all around
him, literally.
A very important conflict arose due to Martin Luther between 1524 and 1525,
known as the German Peasants' War.
The peasants of Germany were hearing about Martin Luther, and they also took heart
from his words about Christian liberty.
That is, literally from his book in 1520, On Christian Liberty.
Thinking that they were free from the law, because that's what Martin Luther talked
about in that book, and that their own faith in Christ absolved them of
subjection to others, peasants from all over Germany revolted, sometimes very
violently.
Of course, this probably was not what Martin Luther meant, but it's true.
If you read On Christian Liberty, there's not much distinction between what
law we're free from and what laws we're not free from.
In order to answer this threat, Luther has to do something of an
about-face.
He writes his Against the Robbing and Murderous Hordes of Peasants.
In this book, he explains that faith in Christ does not absolve one from the law
of one's legitimate prince.
This is going to be key for Lutheranism.
Remember, Martin Luther doesn't really see good works following a law, even the
natural law, as necessary for salvation.
Definitely not ecclesiastical law.
There seems to be, at first, an almost absolute negation of law.
But remember, if law has nothing to do with salvation, then the only purpose for
law is civic order.
And that means that the only law and the supreme law is the law of your prince.
That is the law.
There is no absolving from it.
There is no... nothing... it has nothing... law has nothing to do with
salvation.
It has everything to do with civic order, and therefore the will of the prince is
that civic order.
For Lutherans, this civic law becomes a supreme earthly law.
It is ungodly to disobey one's secular prince.
So Luther, in this book, called on the German princes to squash these revolts in
almost Machiavellian tones.
Let's listen to him.
Here's an actual quote.
My opinion is that it is better that all the peasants be killed than that the
princes and magistrates perish, because the rustics took the sword without
divine authority.
The only possible consequence of their satanic wickedness would be the diabolic
devastation of the kingdom of God.
Even if the princes abuse their power, yet they have it of God, and under their
rule, the kingdom of God at least has a chance to exist.
Wherefore, no pity, no tolerance should be shown to the peasants, but the fury and
wrath of God should be visited upon those men who did not heed warning nor yield
when just terms were offered them.
To justify pity or favor them is to deny blaspheme and try to pull God from heaven.
Therefore, let everyone who can smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly,
just remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, harmful, or devilish than a
rebel.
It is just as when one man must kill a mad dog.
If you do not strike him, he will strike you and a whole land with you.
This text exemplifies the trend of the Reformation will begin.
The territorial sovereignty of secular rulers in their own lands over all things,
even religion.
The peasants revolts were squashed, but in the same year that they were
squashed, 1525, for example, we see the first Lutheran nation appear.
It's actually completely unrelated to the peasants revolts, but at least that idea
of territorial sovereignty that you see in Martin Luther's Against the Murdering and
Robbing Hordes of Peasants, you start to see Lutheran countries appear.
The first Lutheran country we ever get is basically the former Teutonic Order.
In 1525, in the Teutonic Order, which remember is up here, it's not in the
Holy Roman Empire, but it's close.
Let's pull this forward.
Here it is right here, that order ruled by monk knights.
Let's see, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights is Albert Hohenzollern,
again one of those Hohenzollerns, and he converted to Lutheranism.
This means he's no longer a Catholic and no longer a monk knight.
Thus he proclaims himself a duke, secularizes his lands as Ducal Prussia.
That means Prussia ruled by a duke, and he of course is that duke.
You can see it right here now.
It becomes the Duchy of Prussia.
That's to oppose it from Royal Prussia, which is owned by Poland.
He basically creates Ducal Prussia, and he gets married.
He also gets married.
That's a big deal.
This used to be held by monks who take a vow of celibacy and who elect their Grand
Master.
The Grand Master is automatically ruler of the Teutonic Order, but now it's
different.
Now it's a duchy, and it's hereditary.
This also means that just by luck, the Hohenzollerns also keep Prussia in
their family.
So the Hohenzollerns now have Prussia as a hereditary monarchy, a hereditary duchy,
and they have the Electorate of Brandenburg as a hereditary margraviate.
So it's pretty important for later, but there's our first Lutheran state.
Now our last.
Sweden follows quickly in 1527.
It becomes Lutheran.
Finland in 1528, and Denmark-Norway, which is one country right now,
in 1536.
Christendom is breaking up, and the timing is really bad for poor Charles V.
Of course, these guys want to break up, but it's gonna take a little bit longer
because they have to get through some legal things first.
The reason it's a really bad time is because Suleiman is on the warpath.
As a matter of fact, things are getting really way too close for comfort.
In 1526, Suleiman the Magnificent defeated Hungary in the Battle of Mohács,
and basically has this entire area.
He's right up against the Holy Roman Empire and Austria itself.
So Charles needs the Germans to stay on board.
In 1527, Charles has another problem.
He alienates the Pope himself.
He's basically acting alone now.
He's the lone defender of Christendom in his mind.
Why is he alienated by the Pope?
Well, because in his wars against Francis I of France, he has been paying his
mercenaries.
So his mercenaries decide to take it out on Rome.
There's this event in 1527 called the Sack of Rome.
It was not good for Rome.
The Pope himself was a prisoner in Castle San Angelo.
I think the sack went for three days, but I can't quite remember.
That's a traditional number, three days.
And this event is basically the end of the Renaissance.
It's seen as the end, a date of the Renaissance, because basically from then
on, the Habsburgs also dominate northern Italy now.
Italy is no longer free.
Northern Italy is no longer free.
This basically starts a trend that will end up with the Habsburgs owning northern
Italy.
And it's also a setback for Rome.
So Charles is alone, except for possibly those German princes.
So he's gonna dig in his heels.
Unfortunately, it goes bad for him in a couple years, because even though he needs
the German nobles to stay behind him, it doesn't quite work out that way.
At this point, he thinks he can only keep the Germans, nobles behind him,
if they stay Catholic, which is basically true.
Part of the period of Lutheranism is a territorial independence of the local
prince.
In other words, these local princes become independent of the Holy Roman Empire.
And unfortunately, there's not much he can do about the way things are going.
For one thing, in the Diet of Speyer of 1526, the legate of Charles, who was too
busy to come personally, they didn't know what to do.
Basically, Charles strictly instructed the legate to make the German princes recant
Lutheranism and to execute the Diet of Worms.
But instead, after a lot of discussion, the legate granted the German princes a
temporary right to reform the church as they saw fit in their own lands,
until the whole reform of the church issue could be settled by an ecumenical council.
I should mention that Charles V has been calling for an ecumenical council for
years now.
He knows the church needs reform.
He knows this isn't a bad way, and he's been begging for a council.
And the popes have basically been saying, oh sure, sure, sure, but later.
They've been using a delay tactic, and it's gonna take another 20 years from
this point before an ecumenical council is called.
So this was actually was meant to be a temporary patch, an armistice,
or an amnesty if you will, but instead it becomes a big deal because there's not
gonna be an ecumenical council for a long time.
Though the concession was meant to be temporary and minor, it turned out to be
huge, because it basically gave the German princes three years of being completely
independent rulers in their own realms, choosing their own religion and choosing
their own measures for regulating the church.
Thus, when Charles V finally did come to the second Dieter Spire, that is,
as the Ottoman Turks were getting even closer, as they were preparing to attack
Vienna, which they will do in 1529, he's desperate, so he comes personally to
the second Dieter Spire, which is only three years later, and he tried to revoke
the first Dieter Spire there.
He commanded these princes of Germany to abandon Lutheranism, but it was too late.
They got used to their rights, they got used to being able to regulate
things in their own way, so they formally disobeyed in the Protestation of Spire.
You can see it right there, there it is, they're writing a formal protest,
and thus was born Protestantism.
That's where the word comes.
And now there shall be war, wars of religion, and we'll do that in the next
unit.
Thank you very much.