Slide 1 · Foundations
Cracks in the Church Before Luther
Widespread frustration with clerical corruption, the sale of indulgences, and Christian humanist critiques like Erasmus's had already weakened confidence in the Catholic Church's institutional authority well before 1517.
Slide 2 · Cultural & Intellectual Developments
Luther's 95 Theses & Justification by Faith
Martin Luther's 1517 challenge to indulgences grew into a full theological break: salvation, he argued, came through faith alone (sola fide) — not works or payments to the Church. At the Diet of Worms in 1521, Luther refused to recant.
Slide 3 · Protestant Diversification
Calvin's Geneva & the Swiss Reformation
John Calvin built Geneva into a strict, disciplined Protestant community grounded in the doctrine of predestination. Zwingli led a parallel — but theologically distinct — reform movement in Zurich, showing Protestantism's rapid diversification.
Slide 4 · Protestant Diversification
Radical Reform & the English Break with Rome
Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and church-state union, drawing persecution from all sides. Meanwhile, Henry VIII's political — not theological — break with Rome created the Church of England, later moderated by the Elizabethan Settlement.
Slide 5 · States & Institutions of Power
The Catholic Counter-Reformation
The Council of Trent (1545–1563) reaffirmed Catholic doctrine and reformed clerical abuses, while Ignatius Loyola's Jesuits became a powerful instrument for education, missionary work, and defending Catholic teaching.
Slide 6 · States & Institutions of Power
The Peace of Augsburg & Religion as Politics
The 1555 Peace of Augsburg let princes within the Holy Roman Empire choose Lutheranism or Catholicism for their territory — cuius regio, eius religio — tying religious identity directly to political power, though Calvinists were left unprotected.
Slide 7 · Religious Conflict
France, the Netherlands, and the Road to War
The French Wars of Religion pitted Catholics against Huguenots until the politiques prioritized stability over religious uniformity. The Dutch Revolt against Catholic Spanish rule combined religious and political grievances, foreshadowing the Thirty Years' War.
Slide 8 · Social Organization & Development
Social Effects: Family, Gender, and Witch Hunts
Reformers reframed marriage as a holy vocation while closing convents that had offered women alternatives to married life. Religious anxiety and confessional rivalry also fueled an intensifying wave of witch hunts across Reformation-era Europe.