Early Modern Europe 1450-1750 CE Flashcards
Define “Indulgences”
To raise money to build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Pope Leo X (1475-1521) authorized the sale of indulgences. The purchase of an indulgence allowed a person to shorten their (or a deceased loved one’s) time in purgatory and, in some cases, forgave sins before they were committed.
How did popes during the Middle Ages ensure obedience from Catholics?
Popes such as Leo X (1475-1521) denied those who opposed them the right to participate in the sacraments, a process termed excommunication. Without participation in the sacraments, a Catholic would be sent to hell.
What event signaled the beginning of the Protestant Reformation?
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther, a priest and professor of theology, nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a Catholic church in Wittenberg, Germany.
Outraged that church members were forced to pay for the forgiveness that was a free gift from God, Luther’s 95 Theses sharply criticized the practice of selling indulgences. The theses were 95 questions designed to provoke debate within the Catholic Church.
What ensured the rapid dissemination of Luther’s 95 Theses?
Since it could reproduce materials rapidly, the printing press allowed for the easy distribution of Luther’s 95 Theses throughout Germany. The printing press had been invented by Johannes Gutenberg, who first used it to print Bibles.
Although Luther insisted that indulgences were errant since only God could forgive sin, he did not intend to break from the Catholic Church, but merely to start a scholarly debate on the subject of indulgences.
How did Luther’s view of salvation differ from that of the Catholic Church?
Luther viewed salvation as stemming from faith alone, as opposed to the Catholic belief that taking the seven sacraments and good works would lead to salvation.
Thus, Luther’s views stood directly against those of the Pope and the Catholic Church. Those who opposed Catholic teaching became known as Protestants.
What attracted many of the rulers of the North German states of the Holy Roman Empire to Luther’s teachings?
Although Luther’s teachings were attractive in their own right, Lutheranism also gave many of the North German rulers the opportunity to seize Church lands, significantly adding to their holdings. Denmark and Sweden also became Lutheran and, by the 1530s, the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire had lost control of most of Northern Europe.
Who followed Luther as the dominant figure of the Protestant Reformation?
John Calvin (1509-1564), a French humanist exiled to Geneva, followed Luther as the leader of the Protestant Reformation. Calvin preached predestination, contending that an omniscient God knew in advance who was going to heaven and hell.
Calvin established a theocracy in Geneva, which became home to Protestant exiles from Scotland, the Netherlands, France, and England. Upon their return to their home countries, these exiles brought Calvin’s teachings with them.
What is the most important difference between Lutheranism and Calvinism?
While both Lutheranism and Calvinism share a belief in justification by faith alone, they differ on the concept of predestination.
Lutheranism contends that anyone may attain salvation through faith alone, while Calvinism contends that only those predestined by God will be saved.
What Catholic religious order was founded in the wake of the Protestant Reformation to provide reform within the Catholic Church?
The Jesuits, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1534, sought to reform the Church from the inside. The Jesuits emphasized education and missionary work, in part to refute Protestant theologians and to prevent Protestantism’s further spread.
In the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, what steps did the Catholic Church take to reform itself, a process known as the Counter-Reformation?
Several church councils were called, including the Council of Trent, which lasted from 1545 to 1563. These councils refined and systematized Catholic belief and remedied most of the excesses that had provoked the Reformation, including banning indulgences.
So effective was the Council of Trent in reforming the Church that another church council was not called for 300 years.
What led King Henry VIII to break with the Catholic Church?
Henry VIII was obsessed with the idea of having a son. When his wife Catherine of Aragon failed to give him one, he asked the Pope for a divorce. The Pope was under the control of Catherine’s nephew and denied the request.
Henry banished Catherine, married Anne Boleyn (who he would later behead), and started the Anglican Church. Although technically Protestant, the Anglican Church was far more similar to Catholicism than it was to Lutheranism or Calvinism.
Define “Huguenots”
Huguenots were French Calvinists – primarily composed of merchants, the middle and high bourgeoisie, and artisans.
Following French King Charles IX’s massacre of Calvinists who’d gathered in Paris for a royal wedding on St. Bartholomew’s Day, a revolt broke out that lasted for some 15 years. It ended only when a Huguenot King became heir to the French throne and nominally converted to Catholicism.
In 1588, the Spanish Armada (a naval invasion force) was destroyed by a combination of storms and the plucky English navy. Why was the Armada sailing for England?
The Holy Roman Empire and Spanish King Philip II had dispatched the Armada to re-impose Catholicism on England, which was under the rule of Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. Philip had been married to Elizabeth’s sister Mary (who was Catholic) until Mary died.
Which was the deadliest and longest of the religious conflicts that plagued Europe between 1520 to 1648?
The deadliest and longest of the religious conflicts that plagued Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries was the Thirty Years’ War, which lasted from 1618 to 1648.
For almost a century, Europe was torn apart by religious wars, as Protestant rulers and states sought to remain free from the Catholic Church, and the Catholic states sought to have them return to the Church.
What was the most important result of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648?
The Treaty of Westphalia ended the Wars of Religion and established that rulers would be sovereign; i.e. they could choose the religion that would govern their territory.
This concept of national sovereignty in one’s own borders marked the foundation of the modern concept of “nation-state.”
Define “geocentric universe”
A geocentric universe is a planetary system under which the Earth is the center of the galaxy; all the planets and the sun revolve around the Earth.
The belief in a geocentric universe prevailed from ancient times until it was challenged by Copernicus and Galileo.
Who was Nicolaus Copernicus?
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer, who published On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1543. Copernicus posited a heliocentric universe in which the sun was the center of the solar system and all the planets revolved around it in a circular path.
Copernicus’s work, with its emphasis on observation and mathematics, gave birth to the Scientific Revolution.
What invention did Galileo use for astronomical observation?
Galileo used the telescope to conduct systematic observations of the heavens.
In addition to discovering moons orbiting Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, Galileo was able to confirm for himself that Copernicus’s heliocentric model was correct. Galileo publicized his findings but was forced to recant them in 1633 by the Catholic Church, which was still wedded to the geocentric universe.
Which English scientist popularized the Scientific Method?
Francis Bacon popularized the Scientific Method in the early 1600s. The Scientific Method is based on inductive (rather than deductive) reasoning. A hypothesis is generated based on direct observation of a phenomena, and then the hypothesis is tested with further experiments.
Bacon advocated empiricism, a theory that asserted that knowledge came from sensory experience.
_____ _____ proposed the law of universal gravitation.
Isaac Newton
Newton published his Principia in 1687, one of the most important works in the history of science. His mathematically derived theories led to the development of calculus and physics.
Newton’s primary achievement was to take all the scientific advances of his day and tie them into a single united theory backed by mathematical proof, which was known as Newtonian physics. Newton’s theory prevailed until Einstein developed his theories of relativity in the early 1900s.
