European History, Part 11

Question 1: Identify and briefly describe some of the corrupt practices that were taking place in the Roman Catholic Church immediately prior to the Reformation.

Answer 1: There were several practices in the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformation attempted to eliminate, but there were three major practices of the Church that the average supporter of the Reformation considered to be outright corrupt. These three practices were nepotism, simony, and indulgences. Nepotism, in terms of the Roman Catholic Church, refers to a common practice of the time in which a church official would place a friend or a relative into a position of power within the Church even if the individual didn’t have any formal training or didn’t have enough formal training as a priest to assume the position. Simony refers to a common practice of the time in which a church official would allow an individual to purchase a position of power within the Church. Indulgences, in terms of the Roman Catholic Church, refer to a common practice of the time in which a priest would sell an individual the right to enter heaven before the individual had actually paid for all of his sins in purgatory.

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Question 2: Describe some of the changes in the societal view of the Roman Catholic Church during the Renaissance and the period immediately before the Reformation, and explain the role that these changes played in bringing about the Reformation.

Answer 2: The way that society viewed the Roman Catholic Church changed drastically during the Renaissance and the period immediately before the Reformation because the average person began to look at religion in a new way. The humanists of the Renaissance had begun to shift society’s focus away from the afterlife, which meant that people were quickly becoming more interested in their current status rather than their status after death. This change in the importance that people placed on their mortal lives greatly diminished the power of the Church because the Church, up until this point, had relied on the idea that a person could only be saved if he complied with the Church’s doctrines. The Renaissance changed this idea, however, as it introduced the notion that an individual could find his own path to salvation. This change in the societal view of the time ultimately led to the Reformation, as more people gained faith in their own ability to find salvation and lost faith in the Church’s ability to grant salvation.

Question 3: Explain the role that Charles V played in beginning the Reformation.

Answer 3: Charles V was a Spanish prince, and later a king and emperor, who lived in Spain during the early to mid sixteenth century. He was the rightful heir to the Holy Roman Empire, and he assumed the throne in 1519. This made Charles V the Holy Roman Emperor, which had historically been a figurehead for the empire rather than an actual leader; the actual leaders of the empire were the princes of the lands that Charles V ruled. Charles V, however, wanted to change this fact, and he made it very clear that he was going to solidify his power over the lands of the empire. This fact was not well-received by the princes who ruled the lands of the empire, however, and the princes set out to prevent Charles V from solidifying his power as a result. To do this, the princes decided to undermine the largest supporter of Charles V’s power, the Roman Catholic Church, by supporting the Protestant Reformation.

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