Causes of the Reformation

* The Plague

- breaking down social structure

- a new distrust in God

- memory of libertine behavior without punishment

* The Renaissance

- "Man is the measure of things"

-> humanistic sensibility

- new knowledges challenge church knowledge

-> solar system

-> workings of the body

-> reason replacing religion as explanation

- the printing press

-> everyone can have own Bible

=> highlights weakness of clergy

=> allows personal interpretation

=> demystifies the Word

-> spread of ideas easier

=> scientific and humanistic thinking disseminated (spread)

=> news from abroad removes church filter on information

* Trade

- contact with Muslims more regular and complete

-> a sense of other religions

=> not deep-seated, Jews and Muslims still abused

=> loss of the Christian/Satanist dualism

- new ideas spread about

* Catholic Corruption

- 1300s-1500s were a bad time for Church

- worldly (secular) corruption

-> Popes with political entanglements

-> Popes building (and spending) fortunes

=> many of the great Catholic buildings past of this

+> the Vatican

+> the Vatican library

-> Alexander VI trying to put son Cesare Borgia on a throne

- institutional corruption

-> local priest problems

=> illiteracy

=> alcoholism

=> sleeping around

-> "indulgences"

=> bills of forgiveness sold for various sins

=> sold to build Church funds

-> mass in Latin

=> sounded like gibberish to the normal parishioner

-> the Church seemed very removed and unholy to far too many