Humanities Reformation Hybrid DBQ (Document Based Question) Background Sheet

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1 Humanities Reformation Hybrid DBQ (Document Based Question) Background Sheet DOCUMENT 1 - From On the Sacrament of Communion, John Wyclif Wyclif founded Lollards in 14 th century England. Luther called him the Morningstar of the Reformation. DOCUMENT 2 - From In Praise of Folly, Erasmus. Erasmus th century Dutch thinker before Luther. Never broke with Catholicism. DOCUMENT 3 - Excerpt from sermon, 1515, by Johann Tetzel, a friar Tetzel was chief seller of indulgences in Holy Roman Empire. DOCUMENT 4 and 5 Luther s works Note time difference 1517 vs 1535 what happened in between? DOCUMENT 6 - Ulrich von Hutten, German nobleman What does he imply about wealth of Germany? Where is it going? Why is this letter written to a nobleman one of the chief princes of the Holy Roman Empire (and what is Frederick s connection to Luther?)? DOCUMENT 7 Letters of Henry VIII s police agents to the chief minister of his government. What are they looking for/trying to accomplish? What was Henry s motive in breaking with Rome? DOCUMENT 8 - From The Necessity of Reforming the Church (1543), John Calvin You should know about Calvin keep in mind he was left out of Peace of Augsburg in 1555

2 Humanities Reformation Hybrid DBQ (Document Based Question) Essay Documents Question: On the basis of the following documents and your own knowledge, explain the causes and spread of the Protestant Reformation. Be sure to use all the documents as well as drawing on knowledge and insights from class. DOCUMENT 1 In the first place, you cannot escape from this expository syllogism: First, This bread becomes corrupt, or is eaten by a mouse. Second, The same bread is the body of Christ. Third, Therefore the body of Christ does thus become corrupt, and is thus eaten; - and thus you are involved in inconsistency. From On the Sacrament of Communion, John Wyclif, DOCUMENT 2 Julius II. Exclusus. A Dialogue PERSONS:-POPE JULIUS II.; FAMILIAR SPIRIT: ST. PETER. SCENE:-GATE OF HEAVEN. JULIUS: What the devil is this? The gates not opened! Something is wrong with the lock. SPIRIT: You have brought the wrong key perhaps. The key of your money-box will not open the door here. You should have brought both keys. This is the key of power, not of knowledge. JULIUS: I never had any but this, and I don't see the use of another. Hey there, porter! I say, are you asleep or drunk? PETER: Well that the gates are adamant, or this fellow would have broken in. He must be some giant, or conqueror. Heaven, what a stench! Who are you? What do you want here? JULIUS: Open the gates, I say. Why is there no one to receive me? JULIUS: Will you make an end of your talking and open the gates? We will break them down else. You see these followers of mine. PETER: I see a lot of precious rogues, but they won't break in here. JULIUS: Make an end, I say, or I will fling a thunderbolt at you. I will excommunicate you. I have done as much to kings before this. Here are the Bulls ready. PETER: Thunderbolts! Bulls! I beseech you, we had no thunderbolts or Bulls from Christ.

3 JULIUS: You shall feel them if you don't behave yourself... From In Praise of Folly, Erasmus, DOCUMENT 3... Know that the life of man upon earth is a constant struggle. We have to fight against the flesh, the world and the devil, who are always seeking to destroy the soul. In sin we are conceived,-alas! what bonds of sin encompass us, and how difficult and almost impossible it is to attain to the gate of salvation without divine aid: since He causes us to be saved not by virtue of the good works which we accomplish, but through His divine mercy; it is necessary then to put on the armor of God. You may obtain letters of safe conduct from the vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, by means of which you are able to liberate your soul from the hands of the enemy... Do you not know that when it is necessary for anyone to go to Rome, or undertake any other dangerous journey, he takes his money to a broker and gives a certain per cent-flve or six or tenin order that at Rome or elsewhere he may receive again his funds intact, by means of the letters of this same broker? Are you not willing, then, for the fourth part of a florin, to obtain these letters, by virtue of which you may bring not your money, but your divine and Immortal soul safe and sound into the land of Paradise? Excerpt from sermon, 1515, by Johann Tetzel.a friar DOCUMENT Thus those preachers of indulgences are in error who say that by the indulgences of the Pope a man is freed and saved from all punishment. 24. Hence, the greater part of the people must needs be deceived by this indiscriminate and highsounding promise of release from penalties. 32. Those who believe that, through letters of pardon, they are made sure of their own salvation will be eternally damned along with their teachers Christians should be taught that he who gives to a poor man, or lends to a needy man, does better than if he bought pardons... Selected theses, Martin Luther, October 31, 1517 DOCUMENT 5 The chief cause that I fell out with the pope was this: the pope boasted that he was the head of the Church, and condemned all that would not be under his power and authority; for he said,

4 although Christ be the head of the Church, yet, notwithstanding, there must be a corporal head of the Church upon earth. With this I could have been content, had he but taught the gospel pure and clear, and not introduced human inventions and lies in its stead. Further, he took upon him power, rule, and authority over the Christian Church, and over the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God; no man must presume to expound the Scriptures, but only he, and according to his ridiculous conceits; so that he made himself lord over the Church, proclaiming her at the same time a powerful mother, and empress over the Scriptures, to which we must yield and be obedient; this was not to be endured. They who, against God's Word, boast of the Church's authority, are mere idiots. The pope attributes more power to the Church, which is begotten and born, than to the Word, which has begotten, conceived, and born the Church. From Martin Luther: Against Catholicism, 1535 DOCUMENT 6... We see that there is no gold and almost no silver in our German land. What little may perhaps be left is drawn away daily by the new schemes invented by the council of the most holy members of the Roman curia. What is thus squeezed out of us is put to the most shameful uses. Would you know, dear Germans, what employment I have myself seen that they make at Rome of our money? It does not lie idle. Leo the Tenth gives a part to nephews and relatives (these are so numerous that there Is a proverb at Rome, ''As thick as Leo's relations''). A portion is consumed by so many most reverend cardinals (of which the holy father created no less than one and thirty in a single day), as well as to support innumerable referendaries, auditors, prothonotaries, abbreviators, apostolic secretaries, chamberlains and a variety of officials forming the elite of the great head church. Now, if all these who devastate Germany, and continue to devour everything, might once be driven out, and an end made of their unbridled plundering, swindling and deception with which the Romans have overwhelmed us, we should again have gold and silver in sufficient quantities, and should be able to keep It. Letter to Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, Ulrich von Hutten, German nobleman, 1520 DOCUMENT 7 Letter of the Vistors Sent to Examine the Abbot of Glastonbury, To Thomas Cromwell, Chief Minister to Henry VIII, September 22, 1539 Please it your lordship to be advertised, that we came to Glastonbury on Friday last past, about ten o'clock in the forenoon; and [because] the abbot was then at Sharpham, a place of his, a mile and somewhat more form the abbey, we, without any delay, went into the same place, and there examined him upon certain articles. And [because] his answer was not then to our purpose, we advised him to call to his remembrance that which he had as then forgotten, and so declare the truth, and then came to him the same day to the abbey; and there of new proceeded that night to search his study for letters and books; and found in his study money 300l. and above; but certainty of plate and other stuff there as we know not, for we have not had the

5 opportunity for the same, but shortly we intend (God willing) to proceed to the same; whereof we shall ascertain your lordship so shortly as we may. This is also to advertise your lordship that we have found a fair chalice of gold, and divers other parcels of plat, which the abbot had secretly hid from all such commissioners as have been there in times past; It may please your lordship to advertise us of the king's pleasure by this bearer, to whom we shall deliver the custody and the keeping of the house, with such stuff as we intend to leave there convenient to the king's use. We assure your lordship it is the goodliest house of that sort that we have ever see. We would that your lordship did know it as we do; then we doubt your lordship would judge it a house meet for the king's majesty, and for no man else: which is to our great comfort; and we trust verily that there shall never come any double hood within that house again. Letter of One of the Visitors, Richard Pollard To Thomas Cromwell, Chief Minister to Henry VIII, November 16, 1539 Pleaseth it your Lordship to be advertised that..[on November 15] the late abbot of Glastonbury went from Wells to Glastonbury, and there was drawn through the town upon a hurdle to the hill called the Torre, where he was put to execution; at which time he asked God for mercy and the king for his great offences towards his highness Afore his execution [he] was examined upon divers articles and interrogatories to him ministered by me, but he could accuse no man of himself of any offence against the king's highness, nor would he confess no more gold nor silver nor any other thing more than he did before your Lordship in the Tower I suppose it will be near Christmas before I shall have surveyed the lands at Glastonbury, and take the audit there. DOCUMENT 8 First, then, the question is not, whether the church labors under diseases both numerous and grievous (this is admitted even by all moderate judges), but whether the diseases are of a kind the cure of which admits not of longer delay, and as to which, therefore, it is neither useful nor becoming to await the result of slow remedies. We are accused of rash and impious innovation, for having ventured to propose any change at all on the former state of the church. What! Even if it has not been done either without cause or imperfectly? I hear there are persons who, even in this case, do not hesitate to condemn us; their opinion being that we were indeed right in desiring amendment, but not right in attempting it. From such persons, all I would ask at present is, that they will for a little [while] suspend their judgment until I shall have shown from fact that we have not been prematurely hasty have not attempted anything rashly, anything alien from our duty have, in fine, done nothing until compelled by the highest necessity. To enable me to prove this, it is necessary to attend to the matters in dispute. We maintain, then, that at the commencement when God raised up Luther and others, who held forth a torch to light us into the way of salvation, and who, by their ministry, founded and reared our churches those heads of doctrine in which the truth of our religion, those in which the pure and legitimate worship of God, and those in which the salvation of men are comprehended, were in a great measure obsolete. We maintain that the use of the sacraments was in many ways vitiated and polluted. And we maintain that the government of the church was converted into a species of foul and insufferable tyranny.

6 From The Necessity of Reforming the Church (1543), John Calvin