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Martin Luther Dbq-Ap European History

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Justine Chapel November 19, 2012 AP Euro P3 Martin Luther DBQ By the 1500’s many issues shows signs of disorder within the Church. The idea of selling indulgences (forgiveness for sin) for clergy benefit began to negatively spread throughout the people, along with opposition to pluralism (holding more than one office). This sparked many attempts to reform the church through individual groups, one of which being the Brotherhood of Common Life. One of their accomplishments was starting schools for the poor, in which educated none other than Martin Luther. By the time he became a priest, many people had already failed to reform the church. When Martin Luther entered Rome, he briefly supported the church before realizing the hidden …show more content…

Although the majority of Martin Luther’s ideas contradicted each other left and right, he had a few consistencies. Obviously his views of Sola Scriptura and consubstantiation did not drastically change, but there were some misleading topics that were disguised as inconsistencies. The major topic concerning this was his views towards peasants. It can be easily assumed that after being raised a peasant and supporting them, he immediately turned against them when they rebelled. However, this is deceiving. In 1519, Luther definitely supported the peasantry in his letter to the Prince. He saw them as one of his own and those who shall be “cherished forever,” but he did not mention anything related to what the peasants wanted that could help them. This implies that although Luther loved his people during his attacks against the Pope for the same reason as the peasants themselves, he still believed they should stay in their place (Doc6). Therefore, when the Peasant Rebellion broke out, it was completely justified for Luther to be upset with them. For that reason, it is actually a consistent idea of his that his people should not challenge authority because he had always supported peasants as long as they stayed in their place of oppression. Also due to this theory, it was relatively reasonable that he lashed out against the rebels in “Against the Murderous,

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