Book: Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe

CASE 13: RENAISSANCE, REFORMATION, AND COUNTER-REFORMATION
THE CHURCH IN CRISIS
As the Renaissance Church sponsored some of the greatest works of art ever, it also fell to the temptations of power and wealth. The papacy was too deeply immersed in Italian power politics and its own debts to overcome resistance to reform. In the end this corruption provoked the Protestant movement. Half the rulers or Europe broke with Rome, sparking a century of religious war. Only the threat of mass defection from the Roman Church provided the leverage to end the abuses, and to this day the rift between Catholic and Protestant remains.
THE GREAT REVOLT
Many believed indulgences purchased quick passage to Heaven--a belief the Church's salesmen did little to discourage. Criticism of the Church rose and Martin Luther attacked even the pope himself. Numerous Protestant sects sprang up, swamping the traditional Church in a sea of spiritual rebellion.
(2) Papal indulgence. Rome. 1508. 22.6.2. (3) Luther's Sermon on Mammon attacked the Roman Church's worldliness. 1522. 31.14.3. (4) King Henry VIII broke with the Pope over his divorce and founded the Church of England. Replica of a medallion from Henry VIII's reign. 15.10.3.