Where would you go if you could go back in time and see important events that changed the course of history? You might spend some time in the Wild West with the Wyatt brothers. Or why not go to Paris in the 1920s and meet Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. Some people might jump in time to see Jesus of Nazareth born, or they might go to India after World War II to learn from Mahatma Gandhi.
It’s possible that most of us wouldn’t want to live in a time when religious wars, witch trials, and mass killings could happen at any time. It says that even fewer of us would want to live in a place where being religious could get you burned at the stake. That is, if the Delorean ever comes back, remember to stay away from North America and Europe in the 1600s.
Why? Because to put it simply, a lot of bad things happened during the Reformation. A man’s word was useless. Many people think of Martin Luther when they think of the Reformation. But Yan Husse, who spoke at the diet of worms 100 years before Luther, also changed things in Christendom. Husse, a Czech university professor, started the Bohemian Reformation by following the ideas of John Wickliffe, a British academic theologian.
According to Grace and Truth, Husse’s fame grew a lot over time. The priest of Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, which was one of the biggest churches in Europe at the time, was his parish by 1402. He spoke out against bad habits that took advantage of the poor, like selling indulgences, forgiveness for sins.
He was as concerned about social justice as religious morality. The musea Protestant said he learned the hard way though that words don’t mean anything, not even those of faith leaders who seem good. According to Britannica, the controversial reformer who had been banished was given permission to visit the Council of Constants in 1415.
He and other religious leaders would meet there to talk about a split in the Pope’s authority and his reformed beliefs as well as Wickliffs. In spite of these written promises of safety from Emperor Sigismund, Husse was put on trial as a heretic. He was put in jail and then burned at the stake. But Huss’s enemies weren’t done yet.
They picked through the pile’s remains to find Husse’s ashes, which they then dumped into the lake. That is, he wasn’t allowed to be buried in a holy place. Crusades could be launched anywhere. For most people, the word crusade means the time when Christians tried to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. According to Britannica, the Pope could start a war against anyone who didn’t agree with the church’s religious leaders.
The Hussites of Bohemia wouldn’t vote for a Catholic king or queen after Husse died. Because of this, the Vatican became aware of them. As a result, five pope crusades were launched against them from 1420 to 1431. The Hussites, as they were called, easily fought off the Catholic troops because they were furious that their beloved leader had been killed.
His books had been burned and he had not been buried properly. Musea Protestant says that they also killed important Catholic figures by throwing them out of windows. Hussite troops kept the area in chaos for decades by using new weapons like hand cannons and wagon forts in which they could hold weapons.
There was a storm within the reformed faith between mild husites, ultraquists, and more extreme groups such as the Taberites. Extremists within the Hussite groups kept getting stronger. So moderate ultraquists finally joined forces with the Roman Catholics. The moderates were free to practice their religious variant as long as they helped kill off the craziest members of their group.
Populations were forced to convert. The Husites learned the hard way that it only took one loss to force people to convert, even though they fought off five crusades over the course of twice as many years via warfare history network. The Battle of the White Mountain was the start of the 30 Years War, and a lot was at stake.
Protestants in Bohemia fought against Catholics from southern Europe for rule of Bohemia. The Protestants would lose the fight in just 2 hours. But it would be a crushing defeat for them, the world of the Habsburgs. After that, 27 Protestant leaders were put to death and the Bohemian estates lost their power.
During the hundreds of years of authoritarian rule, they were forced to become Catholic. Their leaders were put to death and they lost all of their political power. According to Mari Elizabeth Dukru’s review of converting Bohemia force and persuasion in the Catholic Reformation, in the reatholicization of Bohemia, there was a strong focus on orthopraxy, right doing over orthodoxy, right views, which made many people unhappy.
Even so, the area would have to go through hundreds of years of oppression. Church forgives fat cat sinners. Before the Reformation, there was a lot of dishonesty in the Roman Catholic Church. The leaders of the church did everything possible to keep regular people from knowing the Bible. They also had amazing control over life and death, heaven and hell.
The church had power over almost every part of life through the seven sacraments. St. Anthony of Padua said that these were the sacraments. baptism, confirmation, the eukarist, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, marriage, and holy orders. One thing that finally broke the camel’s back, though, was the sale of indulgences, which are forgiveness for sins.
To put it another way, money was important when it came to getting into heaven, no matter how bad the person was. That’s what the church said anyway. Thought Co. explains, “Buy an indulgence for a loved one and they would go to heaven and not burn in hell. Buy an indulgence for yourself and you needn’t worry about that pesky affair you’ve been having.”
It’s interesting that the New York Times revealed in 2009 that the Catholic Church was giving out indulgences again. There are many bad things that people do today. How much does it cost to hide them? The church doesn’t charge money for these blessings. Instead, they require certain prayers, devotions, and pilgrimages. Religious tolerance proved non-existent.
Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 thesis to the doors of a church in Vittenberg in 1517. This started the Protestant Reformation, also known as the Lutheran Reformation. Why did he stick out his neck when his predecessor Yan Hus seemed to be in danger? because he didn’t like it when church leaders tried to take the German peasants hard-earned pocket money.
When Martin Luther spoke out against the corruption in the church, he risked being kicked out of the church and possibly being burned to death at the stake. In 1521, being called to the diet of worms seemed to seal the deal. Still, Luther bravely went before the council, ready to face whatever punishment came with his religious beliefs.
He stayed stubborn the whole time and at the end of his famous speech he said, “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
Luther was protected by the local German lord Frederick the Wise. But he still had to leave Germany. He went to Wartberg Castle and changed his name to Junka Jurg while his beard and hair got longer. During this time he worked hard to translate parts of the Bible. Holy wars and bloodshed rocked the continent.
During the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Counterreformation, Europe’s major political powers fought a bloody war for more than 100 years. As a result, from north to south, Europe is still split along religious and physical lines. Rick Steve’s book, Classroom Europe, says that these wars started out as religious fights but turned into land and power grabs.
The 30 Years War, which happened from 1618 to 1648, was caused by religious chaos and strife. While many countries were involved in the war, a third of the people who lived in the German areas would die because of the violence. According to Rick Steves, after literally millions of deaths, the devastation of entire regions, and widespread economic ruin, all involved were exhausted.
Was there more religious freedom after the war? Not in terms of a single person, but the leaders of each country were able to pick the religion of the land they were in charge of. Latin Christendom split into two groups that are still around today. Protestantism in the north and west of Europe and Catholicism in the south.
Peasants got betrayed and murdered. Lever whom Trust says that in 1525 German peasants rose up against the rich to get rid of the government. The words of Martin Luther were what drove them. A lot of peasants worked together to take down the government fiercely during the German peasants war which happened from 1524 to 1525. It didn’t work out though.
Luther had harsh words for the peasants and even called for their deaths which caused a level of violence that had never been seen before. In what way did such a terrible mistake happen? Thorco says this is at least partly because Luther had a lot of different hobbies. He had long felt like he had a lot in common with the honest people.
Some of this feeling came out in his 1525 work, Admonition for Peace, in which he made fun of the arrogant behavior of the upper class. Still, after the diet of worms, he couldn’t deny that Frederick the Wise, a prince, was the only person who really had his back. When local nobles were attacked and killed by peasants, Luther was in a tough spot.
People in the peasants had used Luther’s ideas about personal freedom and morality in both religious and political settings. Would he turn against the people who fed him to join forces with the peasants? Or would he admit that he owed Frederick the wise money? As more chaos was caused by the mislication of Luther’s works, he did a lot more than just stay away from the revolutionary groups. He wrote, “They must be sliced, choked, stabbed secretly and publicly by those who can, like one must kill a rabid dog.”
Religious extremists received nasty punishments. In 1534, a group of Anabaptists went crazy in the city of Müster. They took over the government and ruled over what they called New Jerusalem for 2 years. They kicked the old bishop out of the kingdom of monster which they had just declared and made a lot of very controversial rules.
Some of these changes were the start of polygamy, the end of the fiscal economy and the redistribution of things. The conversation says that the group got into big trouble with other communities because of its extreme rules which led to a huge fight. Arguments within the group caused it to break up and Catholic troops from outside the group used this to their advantage to lay siege to the city, warning of a clear and immediate threat.
These Catholic rulers put all of Monster under siege and finally took it. They rounded up the movement’s leaders and planned to jail and torture them in public. People can still see the cages where the abused men’s bodies were hung at St. Lbert’s Church in Monster. Based on what executed today said, this happened after deaths by fire and flesh-ripping tools that each lasted more than an hour.
The three cages are still a strong warning of what could happen to religious extremists today. Weddings become religious massacres. Christianity today says that on August 24th, 1572, all hell broke loose in Paris, France. At least it was hell for the Hugenauts, who were French Protestants. There were a lot of people in the city for the wedding of Princess Margaret of Valwis to King Henry of Navar.
After all, Henry of Navar was raised as a Protestant. So, the Hugenauts thought that the marriage would help their growing group. They were very wrong about what they thought, though. At dawn in August of that year, the church bells of Sanjima Loser told the news that Gaspar deolini, the governor of France and a famous hugenot leader, had been killed.
The man was killed in his bedroom and then the French troops threw him out of the window and below where a group of angry people cut up his body. There are two ideas about who started the killing. According to Britannica, Protestants said Katherine Demedichi ordered the killings to make money off of the large number of French Protestants who came to the city for the wedding.
Catholics on the other hand say that Henry of Navar ordered the attack because he was worried that his Protestant past would come back to haunt him. No matter what happened, the effects of Colony’s death could not be denied. It was reported by Christianity Today that Catholics in Paris killed about 3,000 Hugenauts.
Also, researchers think that about 8,000 people were killed in other places in the weeks that followed. History says that many hugenauts had to leave France for other parts of Europe after the terrible event known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. No place proved safe from religious conflict.
Christians who were being persecuted like the Hugenauts and the pilgrims eventually ran away to the new world to get away from the terrible religious abuse they were going through. History.com says that before making this bold trip, groups like the Puritans, the Ranters, and the Anabaptists ran away to the Dutch Netherlands.
They thought wrongly that they would find religious acceptance there. That wasn’t the case. As time went on, these groups spread out across the New World, setting up their own colonies where they could easily practice their religions. Their presence had a big effect on the place where they moved to.
Totally. History reports that the Reformation not only drove people to found America, but it also helped to establish the Constitution, which is the living document that governs the United States. Small Planet Communications says that Catholic countries like Spain also fought hard to get a foothold in the new world.
Not only did they see clear business reasons to take over the Americas, but they also saw chances to increase their numbers by converting the native peoples. In the same way that North America was colonized, the Counterreformation in Central and South America led to local battles, open war, and the spread of disease among the native people who lived there.
Religious persecutions can go both ways. The trouble with religion wasn’t just limited to mainland Europe. History guide says that England also went through huge changes in religion. Since the time of Bloody Mary, people of faith have been persecuted all over the British Isles. It depended on which ruler was in charge that the persecutions went from Protestant to Catholic.
It began during the rule of King Henry VIII. This changed when Henry VIII chose to leave his first wife, Catherine of Araggon. Before the king was a strong supporter of the Catholic faith, the pope wouldn’t give the king a divorce, so he made himself the supreme head of the church. This made it easy for him to end his marriage.
The English did not hate the Roman Catholic Church as much as people in Germany did. Instead, they usually did what Henry said because he was so powerful. After Henry and his son died, things became less clear. Mary, the king’s daughter, became queen. She worked hard to bring the country back under the control of the pope because she was a devout Catholic.
She killed almost 300 Protestants at the stake over 5 years, which is how she got the name Bloody Mary. A study from the Royal Museum’s Greenwich says that 800 non-atholics left the country because of Mary’s persecution. But her early death would put her Protestant sister Elizabeth on the throne, which would start a purge of Catholics as a punishment.
The country could only be united again through Elizabeth’s smart dealings during her long rule. But hundreds of years of persecution in both ways made hatreds grow. These would lead to the English Civil War after the Reformation where Protestant parliamentarians and Catholic royalists fought each other. Execution for witchcraft was easier than expected.
History says that more than 80,000 people were tried for witchcraft in Europe between 1550 and 1700. Half of these people were put to death and most of them were women, though men were also in danger. History makes the case that after the reformation and the counterreformation, different churches used witch trials and oppression to bring in new members.
People were also mistreated in this way in the countries in the new world. Say hello to Salem, Massachusetts. Economists Jacob Russ and Peter Leon say that the battle between religious groups for new members through witchcraft is a lot like the fight between Democrats and Republicans for swing states.
As they point out, historical Catholic and Protestant officials focused which trial activity in confessional battlegrounds during the Reformation and counterreformation to attract the loyalty of undecided Christians. But why did the number of witch trials grow so much from 1550 to700? Between 900 and,400 AD, these cases had pretty much stopped. How did they get going again?
The Guardian says there is non-pric competition between the Catholic and Protestant churches for religious market share. This is where it all starts. Apparently, people who were trying to catch witches sold them. Religion became chaotic with anti-semitism. During the Reformation, anti-semitism was common and spread from the top down through the Lutheran Reformation.
Martin Luther had a good image for making important steps toward religious freedom, but he didn’t show the same tolerance for Jews. Some experts have even called the reformer a rabid anti-semite. It looks like some of his fans also felt the same way. Sasha Becka is a scholar who has long studied how Jewish and Christian cultures interact with each other.
By studying the past, he has painted an interesting picture of how dangerous it was to be Jewish in Europe during and after the Reformation. Records show that there are more Jews in Catholic places than in non-atholic areas. Becca also said that when the Nazis took power in Germany before World War II, they first built anti-Semitic bases in Protestant areas instead of Catholic ones.
Becca says that this was caused by the Protestant faith’s loose rules on lending money. In contrast to Catholicism, which had strict rules against lending money, Protestant bankers were in direct competition with Jewish money lenders. Becca studied a lot of history records and came to the conclusion that after 1517 there was a relative shift in pilgrim intensity away from Catholic areas toward Protestant areas.
This is yet another reason not to go back in time to the Protestant Reformation.
