AP® European History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/euro/units/2/2-2)
Unit 2 · Topic 2.2
2.2 Luther and the Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther's attack on indulgences in 1517 grew into a full break with Rome. His teachings on faith, scripture and the priesthood of all believers spread through print and princely support, and they inspired more radical movements that Luther himself rejected.
Key terms
- Ninety-Five Theses
- salvation by faith alone
- sola scriptura
- priesthood of all believers
- Diet of Worms (1521)
- German Peasants' War
From indulgences to a new church
In 1517 the friar Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences in Germany to help pay for rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Martin Luther, a monk and professor at the University of Wittenberg in Saxony, wrote the Ninety-Five Theses, a list of arguments against the sale of indulgences, and sent them to church officials. Printers quickly spread them.
The dispute grew. At the Leipzig Debate (1519) Luther said that popes and Church councils could err. In 1520 he wrote three popular pamphlets, including the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, which urged German princes to reform the Church themselves. The pope excommunicated him, meaning expelled him from the Church, in 1521.
Emperor Charles V summoned Luther to the Diet of Worms, an imperial assembly, in 1521. Luther refused to take back his writings unless proven wrong by scripture and reason. The Edict of Worms declared him an outlaw, but his prince, Frederick the Wise of Saxony, hid him in Wartburg Castle, where he translated the New Testament into German.
Luther's main teachings
Luther also ended clerical celibacy and married a former nun, Katharina von Bora, in 1525, making the pastor's household a model of Protestant family life. Services were held in German, and congregations sang hymns.
| Teaching | What it means | What it rejected |
|---|---|---|
| Salvation by faith alone | God saves people through faith as a free gift, not as a reward for good works | Indulgences and the idea of earning salvation |
| Scripture alone (sola scriptura) | The Bible is the final authority on faith | Church tradition and papal rulings as equal authorities |
| Priesthood of all believers | Every Christian can approach God directly | A special, higher status for clergy |
| Two sacraments | Only baptism and communion are true sacraments | Five of the seven Catholic sacraments |
Why princes backed Luther
Many German princes adopted Lutheranism for both faith and politics. Breaking with Rome let them take over Church land and wealth, stop payments to Rome and gain independence from the Catholic emperor. Lutheran princes formed the Schmalkaldic League (1531) to defend themselves. The name Protestant comes from princes who protested a 1529 imperial decision against the reformers.
Radicals Luther rejected
In the German Peasants' War (1524–1525), peasants used Luther's language of Christian freedom to demand an end to serfdom and lower dues. Luther sided with the princes and wrote a pamphlet urging them to crush the rebels. The princes did, killing roughly 100,000 people. Luther's movement stayed tied to rulers from then on.
Anabaptists believed only adults who chose faith should be baptized, and many wanted churches separate from the state. Both Catholics and Protestants persecuted them, especially after radicals seized the city of Münster in 1534–1535. In Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli led a separate reform and disagreed with Luther over communion at the Marburg Colloquy (1529), so Protestants were split from the start.
A second wave of reform, led by John Calvin in Geneva from the 1540s, spread even further than Lutheranism (see 2.3).
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Explaining a source's purpose
Short-answer practice: In 1525 Luther wrote a pamphlet urging German princes to put down the rebelling peasants. Explain one reason Luther took this position.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Name the historical situation: who was rebelling and why.
- Step 2: Explain Luther's interests or beliefs.
- Step 3: Connect his position to its result.
Answer: Model answer: Luther depended on princes like Frederick the Wise for protection and for spreading his reforms, and he believed Christian freedom was spiritual, not a call to overturn the social order. Seeing the Peasants' War threaten princely authority, he urged rulers to crush it, which tied Lutheranism closely to the power of German princes.
Common mistakes
- Saying Luther wanted to start a new church from the beginning. He first aimed to reform the Catholic Church and broke away only after being condemned.
- Treating all Protestants as Lutherans. Zwingli, Anabaptists and later Calvinists held different beliefs.
- Claiming Luther supported the peasants. He condemned the revolt.
On the exam
- Know the political as well as religious reasons princes became Lutheran; exam questions often target that link.
- Source questions may give a Luther passage on faith or scripture. Name the specific teaching and the Catholic practice it challenged.
Connected topics
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Check yourself
4 questions on 2.2 Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
The Third Article. It has been the custom hitherto for men to hold us as their own property, which is pitiable enough, considering that Christ has delivered and redeemed us all, without exception, by the shedding of his precious blood, the lowly as well as the great. Accordingly it is consistent with Scripture that we should be free and should wish to be so. Not that we would wish to be absolutely free and under no authority. . . . We therefore take it for granted that you will release us from serfdom as true Christians, unless it should be shown us from the gospel that we are serfs.
The Fifth Article. In the fifth place, we are aggrieved in the matter of woodcutting, for the noble folk have appropriated all the woods to themselves alone.
Source: The Twelve Articles, issued by peasants in Upper Swabia, southern Germany, 1525. Translated in James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 1906.
The peasants' argument against serfdom draws most directly on which Reformation idea?
Which of the following best describes Luther's response to the revolt that followed these demands?
Anabaptists differed from Lutherans mainly in that Anabaptists
Luther's translation of the Bible into German (New Testament 1522, complete Bible 1534) mattered mainly because it
0 of 4 answered