Reformation

Reformation, in Church history, the great movement in favour of reform in the doctrine and practice of the Latin Church which resulted in the establishment of Protestant Churches in the sixteenth century. The Paulicians in Bulgaria. Italy, and Spain, the Albigenses (twelfth century) and Waldenses in France, Wyclif (q.v.) in England, and Huss (q.v.) in Bohemia, had all exhibited the spirit of Protestantism in various degrees and directions; but no sect successfully maintained its ground against the Papal power until Leo X., in 1517, by the sale of indulgences [Jubilee], provoked Martin Luther (q.v.) to revolt. He was supported by the princes of Saxony, Hesse, Brandenburg, and other German states, his teaching being formulated (1530) at the Diet of Augsburg in the Confession of Augsburg, drawn up by Melanchthon, and in 1552, after a long struggle, the Emperor was forced to acquiesce in Protestants enjoying a fair amount of religious equality throughout Germany. Soon after Luther's demonstration at Wittenberg, Zwingli inaugurated the Reformation at Zurich, whence it spread over several cantons of Switzerland. After Zwingli's death Calvin (q.v.) and Farel took the lead at Geneva in 1536 of the Swiss Protestants; while in 1528 Martin Bucer (q.v.) introduced Lutheran doctrines into Strasburg. Meanwhile the movement spread far and wide, and took a firm hold on Scandinavia and the Low Countries. It gained a footing in England in the reign of Henry VIII., and rose finally into the ascendant on Elizabeth's accession in 1558; while John Knox preached its doctrines in Scotland from 1560 with such effect that Papists soon fell into a minority. The tide reached its flood soon after the last date, and by 1570 the Jesuits brought about the re-establishment of Papal ascendency in Austria, Bavaria, the Tyrol, and regained some lost ground in Germany, the Low Countries, France, and the Peninsula.