The church in Germany had great wealth because Germany had no strong central government to check the central flow of gold to Rome. The church was also rich because the practice of religion in Germany was a public matter. Everyone participated in the religious life of the community. If anyone had something to say against the religion, they always kept it to themselves. The person with the highest civil authority chose what kind of religious practice his people would follow and everyone had to follow it. This kept a country united, but when Martin Luther and his religious storm swept across Germany, it made Germany fall apart even more destroying the little bit of unity it had before (Patrouch).
Out in the countryside, many German peasants converted into Lutheranism. Luther had come from a peasant background himself, and he respected the way they were constantly working. It was all doing well until the peasants started to take the words “A Christian man is the most free lord of all and subject to none’ out of context, things started to get out of hand. Economic conditions of the peasants started to worsen Soon riots broke out and even though Luther stopped the revolts, it had cost the country the lives of over seventy-five thousand peasants (Patrouch).
England was socially, economically, and religiously changed by the Revolution. A complete break with Rome resulted when King Henry VIII combined the personal matter of his divorce with political matters. Traditional Catholicism was based on the imagination. The teachings of the new Christianity however, were graphically represented. The Reformation in The Reformation was started by the King’s emotional life (Atwood).
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King Henry had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn and the same time he had wanted to divorce his current wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry said that only a male could be heir to the thrown in order for the succession of kingship to be secure. When Henry had married Catherine, he had secured a dispensation that allowed Pope Julius II to marry the two. Now he was saying that the Pope had broke the law of God so he must marry him to Anne (Atwood).
Using the Act in Restraint Appeals (1533), the Act for the Submission of the Clergy (1534) and the Supremacy Act of 1534, the King divorced and married Boleyn. However, she also could not produce him a male heir so he beheaded her. After Henry’s death, there was nothing but disaster. His son Edward VI made the English church turn Protestant while Mary Tudor made the church go back to Catholicism. Mary was known as Bloody Marry because she had killed hundreds of Protestants however, after her death Elizabeth took over (Atwood).
Luther’s reformation had caused political downfalls and social downfalls. The condition of peasantry had fallen and was continuing to fall in the fifteenth century. Also, Luther might have gave women the right to get an education, but he made people think that their primary concern was at home with the children, the kitchen, and the church (Atwood).
Religion was very important to the Scots in the 16th century. Most of Scotland was not converting, until Henry VII converted causing the rest of the nation to convert with him. James V started flirting with the ideas of converting just so the Pope could grant him tax concessions. However, he died in 1542 leaving an infant called Mary as heir. Under Mary, Queen of Scots, Scotland was plunged in a crisis all because the Reformation had hit and people were not sure of which religion to go to (Renaissance & Reformation)
In Scotland, the church was a part f everyday life. It was responsible for education, discipline, and the welfare of the people. It was also important to each individual because it game them the power to express your inner spirituality. The Reformation split all of these people. Each one wanted to go on the road of salvation, but each religion offered that. However, in the 16th century, Scotland was mostly Catholic. Devotion flourished, and an increasingly high number of educated people wanted more person forms of spiritual experiences. Rome was never up-to-date with things and Reform was only in the air leaving Scotland in less unity that it had been in before (Renaissance & Reformation).
The Thirty Year’s War would have been the biggest devastation the Revolution had caused. It lasted from 1618 to 1648. This was was a devastation for Germany. It had killed over 1/3 of the urban population and over 2/5 of the rural residents. This loss of population caused a bigger demand for jobs forcing owners to pay a lot more. This war had contributed to the legal and economic decline if the largest parts of the German society. However, Germany wasn’t the only country it had devastated. He had devastated ever country that was involved in it in ruins (Encarta).
In conclusion, the Reformation had done more harm than good. It might have stopped the Pope’s from stealing money from the people, but at least the Popes were not taking innocent lives. The Reformation caused the governments of many countries to crumble and it had also taken many lives. In short, the Reformation had not only reformed the church, it had reformed all of Europe destroying it and bringing it to ruin and destruction.
