Luther and the Reformation
The Church is weakened and vulnerable.
Socially: the Renaissance emphasis on the secular and the individual challenged church authority
Politically: Some rulers mean to challenge the Church's political power
Economically: Northern merchants resented paying church taxes to Rome
the Church now had corrupt leadership. Pope Alexander VI admitted that he fathered several children. Many priests and monks were poorly educated. Some priests drank to excess, money gambled.
the selling of indulgences "releases a sinner from performing the penalty a priest imposed for sins''
Johann Tetzel was a monk who sold indulgences to help rebuild st. Peters Cathedral. A monk named Martin Luther objected to this practice. He was born in Germany and he studied the trivium, which was grammar logic and rhetoric. People were dying of the plague. He attended the University of Erfurt. One day on his way home, he was riding on a horse and almost got struck by lightning. He then became a monk and then hated the Church.
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