Renaissance Timeline - Timeline of the Renaissance. Religious Figures of Western-Christian Europe - Religous Figures. Jan Hus 1370 – 1415 Hus was a Bohemian theologian and reformer whose ideas predated the Protestant reformation by a century and who influenced those later thinkers. His followers, the more traditional of which were called Hussites, proved influential long after Hus, who was tricked into attending a Church council under promises he would not be harmed, and then arrested and burnt at the stake for heresy. Tomás de Torquemada 1490 - 1498 A Dominican monk and confessor to Isabella I of Castile, Torquemada was appointed as the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition in 1483.
Under his command the Inquisition widened its original remit of removing heresy to cover a wide range of "immoral" human experiences and introduced the use of torture to gain evidence. His name is synonymous with religious bigotry and the horrors wrought by the Inquisition. Desiderius Erasmus 1469 – 1536 Martin Luther 1483 – 1546 Huldrych Zwingli 1484 – 1531 Saint Ignatius of Loyola 1491 – 1556 John Calvin 1509 – 1564. Reformation 101 - The Protestant Reformation in Europe. Summary: Split in the Latin Christian church instigated by Luther in 1517 and evolved by many others over the next decades which created and introduced Protestantism. More commonly referred to as either the ‘reformations’ or specific '*** reformation' in recognition of the many different ideas.
The Pre-Reformation Latin Church: In the early 16th century western and central Europe followed the Latin Church headed by the Pope. While religion permeated the lives of everyone in Europe – even if the poor focused on day to day issues and the rich on improving the afterlife – there was widespread dissatisfaction with many aspects of the church: at it’s bloated bureaucracy, perceived arrogance, avarice and abuses of power. A massively fragmented reform movement, with attempts from the Pope at the top to priests at the bottom, was ongoing, but attacks tended to focus on only one aspect at a time, not the whole church and the local nature led only to local success.
Reformed Churches Form: Protestant Reformation. Although the core motivation behind these changes was theological, many other factors played a part, including the rise of nationalism, the Western Schism which eroded people's faith in the Papacy, the corruption of the Curia, and the new learning of the Renaissance which questioned much traditional thought. On a technological level the invention of the printing press proved extremely significant in that it provided the means for the rapid dissemination of new ideas. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent and spearheaded by the new order of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) specifically organized to counter the Protestant movement.
In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, turned Protestant. Southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of fierce conflict, escalating to full-scale war. Religious situation in Europe[edit] History and origins[edit] Earlier schisms[edit] Literacy[edit]