the subject of religious doctrine. Philoso-
phers and writers disagreed on the nature
of the soul, on the ideas of sin and salva-
tion, the nature of Christ as a manifesta-
tion of God, and the relation of religious
and secular authority. This questioning
was further spurred by the invention of
the printing press and the wider circula-
tion of new books and ideas.
Protestantism also grew out of a drive
for reform of Catholic institutions in the
fifteenth century. The sale of indulgences
(remissions of punishment for sins), the
practice of simony (sale of church offices),
and the growing wealth and political
power of the church set off a reaction
among many members of the church. Jan
Hus, a reformer from Bohemia, dared to
question papal authority and criticize the
Catholic hierarchy, for which he was
burned at the stake in 1415. The German
monk Martin Luther a century later devel-
oped his doctrine of justification by faith
alone, an idea that eliminated the need for
priests, bishops, popes, and the entire
Catholic hierarchy in the spiritual life of
the individual. Luther’s ideas were taken
up by Huldrych Zwingli in southern Ger-
many and Switzerland, leading to the es-
tablishment of the Reformed Church.
In the time of Martin Luther, a new
humanist education was allowing young
scholars to question accepted traditions.
Luther became a hero in cities throughout
Germany, where his followers destroyed
Catholic images and refused to take part
in Catholic ritual. Protestantism became
the majority religion in the 1530s, as local
rulers adopted Luther’s doctrine to declare
their independence from the Catholic em-
peror. After his petition for a divorce from
Catherine of Aragon was denied by the
pope, King Henry VIII of England estab-
lished a Protestant church in his domain—
the Church of England—seizing Catholic
properties, exiling or executing Catholic
leaders, abolishing monastic orders, and
rejecting outright the authority of the
pope. At the same time, Luther’s doctrines
spread into the Low Countries and Swit-
zerland, while in France, Protestants
known as Huguenots were making up a
growing minority in the Christian com-
munity.
Eventually the Protestant movement
wasmetbyaneffortofreformbythe
Catholic Church and by new institutions
designed to combat Protestantism, includ-
ing the Inquisition, the Index of Prohib-
ited Books, and the Society of Jesus, or Je-
suits, a missionary and educational
organization. Many territories returned to
Catholicism, but the Christian church was
left permanently divided, and the rivalry
between Catholic and Protestant would
play a central role in the devastating Thirty
Years’ War of the early seventeenth cen-
tury.SEEALSO: Calvin, John; Luther, Martin;
Reformation, Catholic; Zwingli, HuldrychRome ...............................................
Ancient capital of the Roman Empire, later
the headquarters of the Papacy and an im-
portant center of patronage and artistic
innovation during the Renaissance. At the
fall of the western empire in the fifth cen-
tury, Rome entered a chaotic period when
the city was subject to invasion by barbar-
ian tribes and civil war among its most
powerful families, the Colonna and the
Orsini. The emergence of the Papacy gave
the city prominence in the late Middle
Ages. After the schisms within the church
were settled in the early fifteenth century,
the Papacy was established permanently in
the city. The city attracted artists from all
over Italy with its ancient ruins and monu-Rome