Setting Off A Religious Reform Movement

In 1517 John Tezel, a Dominican friar, set off a religious reform movement that had been 500 years in the making. By selling off indulgences to the Christian followers of Martin Luther he initiated a chain of events that would eventually split Christendom into two parties. Martian, upset when his followers started to come to him with official Church documents that lessen their time in purgatory, wrote his Ninety-Five Theses. In his Thesis, Luther wrote his ninety-five arguments of the Church and its use of indulgences that would spark the Protestant reform movement. From the first Crusades to the time Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses; economical, political and cultural changes to the medieval world would establish the stage for his reforms.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe fell into a dark age of economic ciaos. The economy fell back to a system of bartering where luxuries did not exist and most people where on the verge of starvation. Towns fell apart and a system of Feudalism, where people, land and merchandise where all owned by a ruling landlord, emerged. This dim economical outlook would begin to change with the onset of the Crusades. The Crusaders would have to travel long and hard from their homes in the west to the far south east of the Muslim lands. Along these traveling routes new trading hubs would be established that would supply the men and the knights of the Christian army. These trading routes would also bring Arab luxuries and technologies that would reshape the medieval market places. With this new and exciting influx to the economy, towns started to reemerge. Within these towns people come in search of new and exciting jobs, but before this could fully happen there had to be new advances in agriculture.

Agriculture would be the next big boost to the dim medieval economy. Useful agricultural techniques, such as the heavy plow and the horse harness, increased the productivity of the local farmers. Land management would be one of the most influential advancements to the medieval framer. In the past farmers used a two field rotation system, where half of the field was used for growing crops and the other for refertilization of the soil. This system did not produce enough food to supply the growing population and was open to natural disaster. The system that the Crusaders brought back with them was a three field rotation system, where one third of the field would be used for winter corps, one third for spring crops, and the final third for replenishing the soil. These methods increase the food production dramatically and feed the growing population and towns. In turn the excess of food would develop a new class of people called the Merchant class.

The Merchant class would be a strong supporter of Martian Luther and his reform movement. This class got it roots from selling excess food that the new farming methods produced, but in time it would start producing other goods and luxuries that could be sold for money. Merchant partnerships would come together which would free the people from their landlord contracts. "This new class of people would develop laws and regulations that protected them from both Pope's and emperors of the time." (Roberts 142) They would begin to specialize their work to become more efficient. This in turn gave the merchant class opportunities to study the classic Roman and Greek societies, which allowed them to think freely about God and life. This would become important when reformers like Martian Luther confront the Church on its immoral behaviors.

The advances in agriculture, the growth of towns, and the development of the merchant class helped support Martian Luther in his reformation. The town's merchant printing press made it easy for distribution and discussion of his Ninety-Five Theses. It gave Luther a channel of communication that none of his unsuccessful reforming predecessors had available. Finally, the merchant class would strongly support Luther's ideas of not paying the Roman Catholic Church taxes. The town's people, now free to make their own decisions and laws, did not want their hard-earned money going to support the Roman Clergy's greedy obsession.

The political landscape of medieval Europe was primarily dominated by the Roman Christian Church. The reemergence of towns into powerful European states would begin to challenge the Church's political power grip. The crusades had a significant effect in shifting of the power from the Church to the new Monarch states of Europe. Many of the Crusaders where powerful landlords and nobility that ruled the many European kingdoms. When these men would pack up and leave there kingdoms to travel and fight a war in the southern Muslim lands, others took over and expand their kingdoms. As the kingdoms became larger and more powerful they would challenge the Pope's jurisdiction over there lands.

King Henry the IV of Germany would be one of the first to contest the political power of the Pope and the Church. In 1073 Pope Gregory VII attempted to clean up some of the Churches misdoings by releasing bishops that had conspired or killed to get their position. When Pope Gregory removed King Henry's appointed bishops, King Henry felt he had over stepped his boundaries. In King Henry's eyes, bishops where officers of the states and because of that he should appoint whomever he wanted. The Pope in disagreement claimed that bishops where under the Churches jurisdiction. With neither backing down King Henry marched his army to Rome and removed Pope Gregory and placed a new pope, of his choosing, in his place. Overtime the Church and King Henry would agree that the Church would appoint bishops as spiritual leaders only and that the king would have the option to appoint bishops to officers of the state. The agreement would be known as the Concordat of Worms and in many ways it showed the vulnerability of the Pope. The Church without its own armies had to rely on the European kings to protect it. Struggles between the two could be resolve by force in the King's favor. This lack of Papal protection would introduce the "questioning of the Pope's claim to supremacy over all people on earth" (Roberts 170), a major selling point of Martian Luther's reform movement.

Germany, France and England would have many conflicts that would loosen the grip of Papal political control over Europe. One of the major political battles that would have the Pope move to France and eventually start an internal political battle within I the Church, was the battle between King Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII. King Philip challenged Pope Boniface's decision to excommunicate anyone who taxed the Church. The two where able to