VIII. THE DAWN OF THE REFORMATION

1. John Wycliffe (1324? - 1388) - “The Morning Star of the Reformation” or “Dr. Evangelicus”.

Wycliffe gave the English People a Bible in their own language translated from the Latin Vulgate. He regarded the Mendicant Orders as without Scriptural warrant. He regarded the Bible as sufficient for guidance and the Pope’s laws only to be obeyed as they had scriptural warrant. His position was so strong politically the most the Roman Church could do was call him a heretic. He died in the possession of his pastorate. The Council of Constance ordered his bones dug up and burned.

2. John Hus (1373-1415) of Bohemia - Hus learned his theology from Wycliffe’s writings. He became the most influential man in his country at the expense of the Roman Church. He was excommunicated in 1410. Given a “Safe Conduct” to the Council of Constance, he appeared before it and was ordered to the stake where he died as a martyr.

3. Jerome of Prague (? - 1415) A contemporary of John Hus, and he too died under the orders of the council.

4. John Wessel of Holland (? - 1489) He too preached a positive message of salvation by grace through faith.

5. Attempts were made to gain reform within the church by the councils of Pisa (1409), Constance (1414 - 1418), and Basle (1431 - 1449). The first two were the instruments of healing the Church from its schism and bringing one head to the Church. The latter settled into a contest between Papal and Anti-Papal parties and nothing substantial was done to reform.

1. Catherine of Sienna (1347 - 1380) - St. Catherine was a mystic - she fearlessly denounced clergy corruption. She was canonized in 1461 by Pope Pius II.

2. Giralamo Savonorola (1452 - 1498) - Savonorola fearlessly denounced Pope and clergy for their evils. He was burned at the stake under excommunication of Pope Alexander VI.

The 14^th, 15^th, and 16^th centuries were famous for their intellectual conquests.

A reborn interest in classical literature also produced a momentous change in outlook, leading gradually to a new concept of humanity and a new style of literature. The medieval Church had preached that even the best pleasures of earthly life were but pale reflections of the life to come, if not deadly snares set by the devil. Without directly denying the tenets of Christianity, the new European intellectuals insisted that their predecessors had emphasized the negative side of God’s creation and had forgotten that human beings reflected (however imperfectly) the glory of God. Poets, philosophers, painters, and sculptors now proclaimed the joys of human existence in a great outburst of creativity known as the Renaissance.

This new attitude first appeared in the 14^th century in the prosperous cities of northern Italy. There, poets and scholars found kindred spirits in the classical writers. Although well versed in Latin and Greek, Italian poets, led by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, and Giovani Boccaccio, turned to their own language and wrote on worldly themes.

A similar change in spirit was reflected in the visual arts of the Renaissance as artists began to free their creations from medieval traditions. They worked to win praise and clients for themselves. Wealthy merchants and princes replaced the church as the main source of patronage; their vanity, no longer regarded as sinful, created a new genre, the portrait. Painters signed their work, another innovation that signaled the increasing importance of the individual.

A new sense of realism was evident as both painters and sculptors tried to render their subjects in proportion and in perspective. An interest in anatomy, reflected in the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci and in the drawings of Michelangelo, helped artists to depict the human body more accurately.

Renaissance ideas and art forms spread north of the Alps mountains. Hans Holbein the Younger, and Albrecht Durer perfected portrait painting, while Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, Holland won recognition as a great scholar. In England the Renaissance culminated in the poetry and plays of William Shakespeare.

The study of nature and the universe also attracted first-rate minds. In the 16^th century the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus theorized that, the Earth moved around the Sun. Confirmation of this daring thesis came from the work of Johannes Kepler, who reduced the mysterious movements of the visible planets to mathematical formulas. His contemporary, Galileo Galilei, developed the modern science of Physics with his studies of matter and motion, and was also one of the first to use the telescope. In the 17^th century the study of human physiology was advanced when William Harvey demonstrated the heart’s role in circulating blood throughout the body. And, in 1687, Sir Isaac Newton unified existing knowledge about planetary and Earthly motion with his theory of universal gravitation.

Humanism - The humanists were famous for their learning. In the 15^th Century, 12 new universities came into being in Germany alone. An intensive study of literature brought the Bible into the light. Many humanists became ardent reformers as they saw the Church as it should be as revealed in the Scriptures they studied.

a. John Reuchlin (1455 - 1522) - a Greek scholar but noted for his Hebrew grammar and lexicon

b. John Colet (? - 1526) - introduced educational reforms and lectured in Oxford and London on the Pauline epistles.

c. Erasmus (1466 - 1526) - “The Incarnation Of Humanism” - Born in Rotterdam, Holland; ordained to the priesthood; visited England where he met Colet who interested him in a study of the Church Fathers. His greatest work was the pioneer publication of the Greek New Testament. He did for the New Testament what Reuchlin did for the Old Testament.

The 14^th century saw not only the decline of Church authority, but the destruction of European unity. No longer fighting in distant wars, Europeans fought one another. The Papacy itself was divided with a line of rival Popes in Avignon, France, competing with Rome for the allegiance of the faithful. The century was also punctuated by terrible suffering. In 1348 the Bubonic plague(the Black Death) struck, possibly brought back to Europe from the East by returning merchants. Europe’s population, which had been growing steadily since 1,000, was decimated and did not again reach the level attained in 1348 until after 1500. With this depopulation, labor became scarce, and hence, more expensive; peasants, particularly in England and France could get better terms. Runaways became common as the old attachment of medieval serfs to their master and their manors was weakened. Rents were increasingly fixed, or was paid with money that was dropping in value; thus, a peasant’s debt to his landlord lessened as the price for his labor rose. All the ties that had bound feudal society together now began to loosen.

Therefore, Church power and allegiances were breaking up. Traditional education norms were challenged. New inventions and knowledge were discovered which upset traditionalists.

Show Overhead - The Great Schism And the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy. Europe map # 3.

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