Why was there a reformation in Germany in the 16th century?

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Why was there a reformation in Germany in the early 16th century?

In 1500, the Roman church was all powerful in Western Europe, there was no legal alternative. The jealousy the Catholic Church held guarded its position. Anyone who was deemed to be against the Catholic Church would be named as a 'heretic' and would be burnt at stake. They did not tolerate any deviance, they did not want to be portrayed to be weak. The power that the Church contained had been built up over centuries and relied on the ignorance and the superstition of the population. It was indoctrinated into the people that the only way to heaven was via the church. A significant problem was that the church was corrupt. Even though priests, monks and nuns took vows of chastity, obedience and poverty – they weren't always kept. For example, some priests had children.  Another issue was that the church was very wealthy. It would sell things, such as Saints' bones, hair or clothing. Divine intercession could be bought if you had lived a sinful life. They also made money by making rich people donate their land to build a cathedral, monastery or abbey on it if they had done something sinful. There was s social division between the clergy and the laity, this division was tense and extensive. The clergy had spiritual power of saying mass. When a priest says mass, bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of the Christ. This power turned out to be socially and economically important as people would pay for masses for people in purgatory, people's wills would have money for masses in them. This was apart of the medieval economy and the spiritual power of the mass was valuable. Another major issue was powerful politics – bishops were in competition with lords and kings for benefices, which when a bishop/lord/king died, it would not be passed down in their family as they tended not to have kids (celibacy) therefore the premises becomes vacant – hence the competitiveness.

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 Martin Luther led the 'Protestant Reformation' which was a religious and political development in the early 16th century. He said that the Roman Catholic church was corrupt and needed to be reformed. He also argued there needed to be reformation for other things. The reformation began when Luther posted his '95 thesus' which was what he found wrong with the Catholic church. He was offended by the sale of indulgences. He wrote pamphlets which were printed in large numbers and distributed throughout Germany.  He also translated the Bible into German. The pamphlets succeeded in turning major German cities into hotbeds ...

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