Causes Of The Protestant Reformation

Periods of religious, social, and economic turmoil often provoke extremist movements. This is particularly true in regards to the European “Witch Craze,” an era from the late fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries characterized by mass hysteria towards individuals suspected of practicing “witchcraft.” However, several external factors throughout Europe served to precipitate the persecution of these individuals, a vast majority of which were female. One such factor was the Protestant Reformation, a movement led by influential religious figures such as Martin Luther in Germany and Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland, who attempted to reform the corruption and abuses of the Roman Catholic Church, thus inadvertently leading to the formation of Protestant religions within the Christian faith. This act of dissent amplified religious tensions throughout Europe, therefore intensifying religious sentiments, such as the fear of satanic worship. Additionally, during this time period, Europe was faced with immense hardships in the form of natural disasters, famine, war, and devastation of the Black Plague, which not only created an apprehensive environment in which many sought out an explanation or scapegoat for their misfortunes, but significantly damaged Europe’s economic stability, thus causing people to go to extremes in order to support themselves economically. These factors were a lethal combination, creating a general climate of terror and doubt throughout Europe. To this end,

In the years 1517-1648 the Protestant Reformation, a European Christian movement, began to make efforts to reform the Catholic Church leading to the establishment of Protestant Christians. The reformation of the 16th century was a major European movement which initially aimed at reforming the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Its religious aspects were supplemented by ambitious political rulers who wanted to extend their power and control at the expense of the church. The reformation ended the unity imposed by medieval Christianity and, in the eyes of many historians such as paved the beginning of the modern era. Historian Robin Briggs talks about how during 1400 and 1750.”“40,000- 50,000 people were executed as witches” this arises the question of whether the reformation was responsible for the witch hunt.

During the 16th century, Protestantism emerged as a new sect of Christianity. This process was not calm or peaceful in the slightest. Protestant leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin fiercely attacked and denied traditional Catholic beliefs, causing much controversy and debate upon religion. Many regions of Europe as a whole were converted to Protestantism, and many more Protestants emerged in areas where Catholicism remained the state religion. The Catholic faith became less and less appealing to people as the abuses of the clergy were now publicly addressed by reformers and a new, personal approach to religion was offered in Protestantism. In addition, rulers favored Protestantism as a state religion because it meant that no power

The Protestant Reformation of the Catholic Church devastated the religious unity of Christian Europe, resulting in a great deal of antagonism, which in turn led to the persecutions, denial of civil rights, expulsion, and ultimately the torture and death of many men, women and children. The ongoing conflict was not consigned to one distinct European nation, but was experienced in every European nation that the Catholic Church ruled and reigned. There was no worldview in Europe at that time that allowed for the religious differences of men to coexist peaceably.

11) Calvin’s ideas were similar to Luther’s, as they were both anti-witch and felt them to be Devil’s spawn. Even the most influential person in religion and politics at the time, Pope Innocent VII, stated in his “The Witch Bull,” that people should “remove all impediments…to exercise their office of inquisition and to proceed to the correction, imprisonment, and punishment of the aforesaid persons for their said offences and crime...” (Doc. 9) The fact that the highest ranking power in religion acknowledged the existence of witches in the world led to a whirlwind of accusation and chaos. In the end, all three religious leaders had a strong influence on the people’s beliefs. It is quite obvious that they are biased towards their cause, and therefore are not necessarily believable or reliable in their observations. They basically scared people in order to gain loyalty and so people would accept and follow their sayings. This is shown in the diary entry of a young Protestant boy in Document 12. “I suffered terribly from fear of Hell and...had, the fears that I was in.” (Doc. 12) He is basically stating his fears of the devil and hell, as a result of the beliefs placed in his head by religion. This is a more reliable source because a diary entry usually shows true emotions and beliefs. The religious

The seventeenth century was a time of great religious excitement both in Europe and America. It had been widely believed even before the Puritans left England that witchcraft was a well-practiced profession in Europe. The times for settlers in the New America proved to be quite different and so ever changing. With many new rules, laws, regulations and curfew a true government was being born. Throughout this vast change, religious beliefs became so strong to be studied and participated in. Religions that divided from Christianity and Catholic beliefs, such as Puritans, who had a clear vision of what their churches were going to be like. Witchcraft had been a crime a long time before the trials in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and prior

There are countless different assumptions about witches. The majority of individuals in the sixteenth and seventeenth century presumed that God and Satan were real (Lambert 1). They also assumed that “witches” were in allegiance with Satan and made a vow to bow down and serve him (Lambert 1). Furthermore, another common belief was

During the late 15th to 17th centuries, thousands of individuals were persecuted as witches, mainly older women. Throughout this era, it was widely believed that these individuals performed evil deeds of the devil and practiced dark, black magic. The events of the witch trials occurred in a time of great change in Europe. In a time of social, religious, economic, and political uncertainty or instability during the period of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and more political shifts and changes, citizens began to turn to supernatural scapegoats and superstition, which in a way revived the religious theology which had flared downwards during the Renaissance. Witches were soon hunted down and unjustly

This belief in magic influenced the lives of the villagers as well as the elites. In fact, with the top down argument, the paranoia of the elites in regards to magic and witches trickled down to the villagers. Where the villagers saw witches and witchcraft as part of everyday life, the elites associated witches and witchcraft with the devil, which attributes it to heresy and therefore it is condemned by the Church. In fact, in document 33, Pope Innocent VIII, gave the inquisitors the power to go above local authority to hunt down witches. These witches would, “give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the graves of vines, and the fruits of trees” (pg. 178).

In fact, even the Pope (Innocent VIII) makes strong remarks about the witches. We see this when he says,” many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the Catholic faith, give themselves over to the devils male and female… We therefore, desiring, as is our duty… to remove all impediments.. ”(Document B2). The pope is the most grandest of all religious influences and surely enough, his points are going to stick in the heads of the people.

Including the fact that religious change produced, conflict and even war especially in Germany and France which were also centres of witchcraft, suggesting the appearance of a link. Second, the period tends to coincide with the peak of witch-hunt when the bible was widely circulated in the vernacular. Protestant priests preached things such as “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live”. They were keen to root out magic in all its forms because they associated it with catholic practices and superstition. There was confessional conflict as Hugh Roper sees witchcraft as being motivated by catholic and protestant desire to show godliness in a time of religious schism. The witch-hunt cultivated feelings of moral superiority plus helped to remove or reduce feelings of guilt because of religious changes. This again can be a form of psychological projection, which is a type of defence mechanism. This involves individuals attributing their own unacceptable thoughts and motives to another person. Therefore, people scapegoated others if they had done something wrong to get rid of their own guilty conscience by making themselves believe the accused individual was in the

Witch hunting was the persecution and possible execution of individuals considered to be ‘witches’ loyal to the devil. It was an all too common occurrence from 1603-1712 all over Europe. However in order to understand why this happened the context must be taken into account. It was a time of change, the Renaissance - the rebirth of culture, ideas and attitudes to living. The Reformation had also only been implemented in England in the last 80 years back from 1603, when it had previously been catholic for centuries. The English civil war from 1642 to 1651 is argued to have played a part in the intensification of the witch hunts in England due to the peak in executions whilst it was on going. Some historians have taken the view that in time of crisis certain groups can be victimised like in wars, famine, disease outbreaks and changes in society structure.

Beginning in the Middle Ages and through the seventeenth centuries, an infiltration of witchcraft persevered throughout Europe. The witch craze resulted in the torture and persecution of witches. More than 100,000 of witches who were tried were centered in the area of southwestern Europe. The mass hysteria of witches was denounced because of their rejection of God and their pact with the devil, which resulted in harsh punishments and accusations. One reason for the persecution of witches was they were thought to be the cause of bad harvests, epidemics, natural disasters, and personal tragedies. Witches also had a part in the religious aspect of Europe. The witches were persecuted because of the lack of a main religion, which was

Women have been customarily subjugated to household labor without opportunities for advancement for roles within the societies they live in. Unfortunately, within the 17th century, little to no progression has come about in response to the injustice placed upon the vast majority of women living in England. With England having endured the brunt of failures at the hands of absolute monarchs, opposing religions taking the thrones periodically (Anglican to Puritan to Anglican); leading towards instability for the overwhelmingly diversified Protest communities, a growing need to seek out scapegoats for such atrocities have lead the overarching communities of England to target impoverished, and often times, elderly women to the point of widespread persecutions. The witch hunt that sprang in the 17th century found easy footing with an already conservative religious government seeking out dissenters of the faith to strengthen their position in power. The Anglican government felt it was their obligation to institute such movements of persecutions in order to rally its people behind a unified front of faith as well as diminishing the

What happens when people start to break away from the entity that bound an entire civilization together for over a thousand years? How does one go from unparalleled devotion to God to the exploration of what man could do? From absolute acceptance to intense scrutiny? Sheeple to independent thinkers? Like all revolutions preceding it, the Protestant Reformation did not happen overnight. Catholics had begun to lose faith in the once infallible Church ever since the Great Schism, when there were two popes, each declaring that the other was the antichrist. Two things in particular can be identified as the final catalyst: a new philosophy and simple disgust. The expanding influence of humanism and the corruption of the Catholic Church