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Protestant Reformation Research Paper

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The Protestant Reformation was brought about by many reasons and was a good influence on the religion of Europe. Before the Reformation, every Christian was Catholic because all others were punished as heretics. After the Reformation, however, different branches of Christianity began to flourish. Throughout the Reformation, many things happened, but it started for political, economic, and intellectual reasons. During the Reformation, the Catholic Reformation occurred and also brought about many consequences of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation was caused by a few political factors. First of all, the people did not appreciate the church courts and their claim to supremacy. While the Church was trying to control all of …show more content…

The people became envious of the wealth of the church. The church owned lots of land and a lot of the people’s money that they earned by working hard, went to the church. This way, the church became very wealthy and the people were losing their possessions. Because the people’s money went to the church, they considered this tithe, a 10% tax of everyone’s earnings, a burden. The government was already taxing the people and this just added to all the money they were losing to the taxes. This lead to the resentment of the amount of taxes that the papacy received. So much of the people’s money was going straight to the papacy so they were getting wealthier and wealthier while the people were losing their money. Most of the economic factors that lead to the Reformation had to do with the people’s loss of money through taxation, which is understandable because the people worked hard for their money and they lost so much of it through taxes to the government and the …show more content…

This led to European countries dividing by religion – different countries were predominantly certain religions. Europe was basically split in half by the countries ruling as Catholic and the countries ruling as Protestant. There were also a few religious wars that were caused. Wars in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, England, and France broke out, and the Thirty Years War that was occurring all over Europe. In each war, the cause was basically the same – Protestant people and rulers were fighting for their freedom to practice what they believed against the Catholic rulers and people. All of these things strengthened the civil authority because the governments were able to take control of the churches according to their religion. In the Protestant countries, the governments took Catholic property and the courts and took over the churches to practice what they believe. The governments of the Catholic countries took more control over the church, especially the church

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