The Protestant Reformation

Christianity was once a monolithic religion with traditions not of questioning and rebellion but of doctrine and obedience as the 1500s dawn the Roman Catholic Church dominates almost every aspect of European life political boundaries mean little since even Kings bow down to the church in a sense the Pope is the ruler of the Western world challenging the Catholic Church either politically or spiritually seems unthinkable his main source of power was that it taught and people really believed that if they made a misstep they would burn in hell forever and if they were on the right side of things they would have bliss forever but the church's leaders do not always behave in accordance with their dictates priests having wives are taking money for forgiving sins is an old story in the church the interesting point is now people look more critical at the church because they were now more concerned with their own piety and also the question of the afterlife in 1492 the Year Christopher Columbus first reaches the new world Pope Alexander the sixth becomes the head of the church Alexander is from the Borgia family notorious for corruption and decadence although all priests in the Catholic Church are supposed to be celibate Alexander has had several children with his mistresses I think every Catholic historian of the last 30 or 40 50 years would say that the papacy was at his lowest point and the Borgia family and other families political figures princes were essentially buying the papacy to fund this elaborate lifestyle the Pope targets his rich enemies they are accused of trumped up crimes imprisoned and often murdered afterwards the Church confiscates their properties on one infamous night according to widely told tales the papal palace hosts a grand orgy 50 prostitutes ride on a floor scattered with chestnuts priests and other officials who perform with the most women are given prizes many people are outraged by stories like these but in 1517 one man this tiny German town of Vidhan Berg will turn the course of church history it is remarkable that a monk got this all started in an obscure university town and I was compared to this gasoline over garage floor and all Martin Luther had to do is toss a match born in 1483 Martin Luther is originally headed for a career as a lawyer a career he took up at the insistence of his father there's none of that sort of revolutionary rebellious nature in the background of Martin Luther there's nothing which gives you the indication this was a man destined to confront the Catholic Church or change European history but at 21 Luther commits his first act of rebellion leaving his family and his studies to become an Augustinian monk for the next 12 years Luthor tries to find peace within the teachings of the Catholic Church you have to understand that Luther was a good monk he did all the right things in the old system he said Mass he went to confession but knowing away at him was a sense of unworthiness of an angry god Luther wrote I scrupulously carried out the penances which were allotted to me and yet my conscience kept nagging you fell short there you were not sorry enough you left that sin off your list life in the monastery is made up of hard work frequent prayer and fasting as a monk Luther is obsessive in his search for personal purity and struggles to understand his relationship with God his confessions are epic in their length then latter seems you to do in a monastery and he really had to work at it but he could confess for six hours one time his confessor said brother Martin you don't have to confess every fart to me it doesn't have to be that serious that was at the core of Luther's oxd this haunting question have I done enough to please God what is my posture in the presence of this demanding God of a church that requires so much for me to be acceptable Luther scours the Bible for answers while teaching theology in the small university town of ittan burg the last straw for Luther a church practice that scandalizes him the selling of what are called indulgences it was believed that while none of us could pile up enough good works to be saved the Saints had done super abundance of them and they developed a kind of a treasury of merits and graces that could be gone upon access to that Treasury is what the church sells to the people for themselves for friends for loved ones who have already died or even for sins to be committed in the future this is a so-called let off indulgences people believe that it was a kind of insurance not a life insurance but an after life insurance the idea being that once you've bought such a letter you could safely go to heaven and of course the letters printed meaning mass-production the lattice in Latin meaning an official church document you have blank spaces for the name of the buyer and also the date is filled in by hand and the price for which it has been sold what Luther could see in the Bible was no justification for this but this was a completely man-made tradition almost a scam and as a result he was incredibly worried for the salvation of those people who were buying into it the man who sells indulgences around Wittenberg is a Dominican friar Johann Tetzel Tetzel is part preacher part huckster you would come into town with a bandwagon or create a big crowd and there's this wonderful phrase of every time I hear the money fall into the pot another soul escapes to heaven he was one of the the Catholic churches great showman of the mid 16th century for Martin Luther this spectacle is a sign that the Catholic Church has lost its way he fears for the souls of those who think that their fate in the afterlife can be bought Luther turns to the Bible for an answer the progress of Martin Luther from the good Catholic monk to the father of the Reformation is a long torturous intellectual process at the heart of it is a reading of the Bible and a rereading of the Bible he finds a passage in Paul's letter to the Romans that will set in motion an unstoppable chain of events when Luther read Paul he swore the same agony but he also saw the affirmation that God will save regardless of the fact that you and I are utterly worthless God will save us in his infinite love the passage reads for in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed a righteousness that is by faith from first to last just as it is written the righteous will live by faith he who through faith is righteous shall live you don't need all the traditions of the church you just need that powerful individual relationship with God it is a revolutionary idea salvation comes not from the man-made rituals of the church but by faith alone this means that not the Pope not the Vatican not even a priest is necessary to ensure a person's entrance into the kingdom of heaven Luther explained that for the first time when he found out the true meaning of this quote in Romans he felt he understood in a moment the whole of the Word of God and that set Luthor free and of course set the Reformation in process for Luther this is a shattering personal revelation he has no way of knowing that it will turn the Vatican upside down launch Wars and revolutions and ultimately become one of the most important events in the history of the Western world what happens next is the stuff of legend on October 31st 1517 the 33 year old priest follows a time-honored tradition if you've ever been on a campus you've seen a bulletin board where there are eight layers deep of things posted and they're usually announcements and at this particular church in this particular university town one of the most popular things would be to put a note up there gonna have a debate Luther wants to start his debate with a set of ideas about what is wrong with the church it's so called theses 95 and all are formally titled disputation on the power and efficacy of indulgences they go beyond the sale of indulgences to address the limits of papal power they're not meant as a general criticism on the practice of endowment selling the criticism was just mildly asking if it would not be better to help your neighbors than just buying ladies of indulgences what you must remember about the beginning of the Reformation is that nobody wanted to invent a new church he wanted a debate within the church he wanted to have this discussed and resolved within the authority of the church that doesn't happen in writing his theses Martin Luther is setting himself up for a showdown with Pope Leo the 10th the most powerful man in the Western world yet the Pope's Authority will not subdue the German monk Martin Luther will stand firm and that's the thing about Luther once he'd come to that viewpoint he wasn't going back on him the devout young man has no idea what he is about to unleash I'm not sure Luther's intent was to set loose the Reformation that has really changed the world but it certainly was the consequence of what he did in 1517 an obscure German Catholic priest named Martin Luther takes a radical stand and refuses to budge he claims that the Bible promises salvation to anyone who believes the Word of God he takes his inspiration from the words of st. Paul in the book of Romans I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes the righteous will live by faith Luthor's interpretation of this passage challenges the role of the Roman Catholic Church as the representative of Christ and its power to determine who was going to heaven and who was going to hell he believes that for this heresy he will be put to death somebody excommunicated by the church was normally burned at the stake this was the normal procedure so this was a point of living in Dhingra a revolutionary invention gives Luther's ideas a wider audience than any other reformer has ever had before in the 1440s Johannes Gutenberg creates the printing press his use of movable type can make multiple copies of a document allowing it to be widely distributed without rittenberg no Reformation that's quite clear of course the Reformation is the first media revolution in the modern sense of the word Gutenberg's printing press you almost have to compare that to the invention of radio and television our times suddenly ordinary people could read Gutenberg's press opens up the world of ideas as never before and luther was a genius writing he had a whole range of styles and emotions he could be scientific he could be popular he could be funny it could be Sears and of course he had something which nobody else had he had the ability for irony in 1521 Luther is summoned to appear before the Pope's political commander for that area the holy roman emperor charles v the emperor opens an official church meeting called a diet in the german town of forms there he gives Luther a final chance to recant if Luther had backed off and compromised to the diet I think the thing would a fizzle he would have been one more of the many young professors that were thinking new thoughts but Luther confronts Charles with these words unless I'm proved wrong by scriptures or by evident reason then I am a prison and conscience to the Word of God I cannot retract and I will not retract to go against the conscience is neither safe nor right once he believed that his own salvation and the salvation of those around him or was dependent upon this different approach to a religious life there was no way he could junk those opinions he was saying in the end I must defy you in the name of God there is nothing else that I can do in this situation that was a revolutionary moment Martin Luther has now officially stood up against the Catholic Church the diet of worms is firstly the breakthrough of Luther's popularity from then on everybody in the germ vampire knew his name and it's also the beginning of a long development of the question what means Christian Liberty in forms charles v with Pope Leo spur mission declares Luther a heretic and banishes him from the Holy Roman Empire to be declared a heretic and management' you're deprived of all civil rights you are not physically protected people could do things to you and theoretically from the excommunication until his death almost any day anybody in Europe could have killed him with impunity but Luther is one step ahead of the church one of his supporters prince friedrich of saxony offers luthor shelter here in Vaart burg castle he stages a kidnapping to remove luther from the public's eye many of Germany's leading princes rather like the idea of Luther's challenge not only to the church but with it to the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor so Luther is protected because of the political possibilities of his religious challenge to the church that challenge soon turns into a full-fledged rebellion and it quickly threatens the church's political as well as religious power in the 16th century religion and society and politics were so closely intermeshed Luther's challenged the authority of the Catholic Church necessarily had these extraordinary consequences here in Varberg castle Martin Luther took refuge for 10 months following the diet of worms he lived in this small room Luther takes on a new identity living as Squire George and growing a beard to avoid being recognized by his enemies confined to the castle grounds Luther begins the next stage of his rebellion translating the New Testament into German the Word of God and the Bible was given to all people so everybody should understand it and in translating you should make this understanding easier not more difficult the freedom of the word given to all people who Luther translates the Bible into the language of the people that means everyone has access to the Word of God at the time the Bible is generally printed in Latin or Greek languages that the common people cannot understand only priests are allowed to read and interpret the Bible it was definitely no point of return because Luther was just one voice but once you give the readings and the voice to the people that's when that's when the Revolution began Martin Luther is now a Lutheran he also establishes one of the fundamental principles of Protestantism the priesthood of all believers that everyone has a direct relationship to God the way that the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers came across it was deeply revolutionary Luther is very clear and all the reformers are very clear your calling is to be a particular sort of human being and your calling is to be in Christ exercising the work of Christ as best you can in your circumstances Martin Luther has unleashed a wave of ideas over which he has no control within eight years of Luther's 95 theses you're already beginning to see those those tensions those political social tensions within Protestantism which begin to spill out for the next hundreds of years Protestantism begins as a rebellion against Authority Luther's confronting the Catholic Church now other rebellions follow based in the same spirit of questioning authority that Luther introduced the Reformation has great fault line in it about obedience on the one hand you got Paul saying in Romans 13 verse 1 obey the superior powers because the superior powers are of God but on the other hand you got that statement in the book of Acts it is better to obey God than man and Protestants a bit caught on that in 1525 Luther will see his ideas played out with extreme violence after years of bad harvests persecutions and heavy taxes the German peasantry rises up in revolt and a man named thomas müntzer tries to put himself at the head of it hoping to make a peasants revolt into a religious crusade thomas müntzer is trying to give it a theological Protestant spin to create that link between the idea of a spiritual equality that lutheran idea of a priesthood of all believers and a social equality the idea almost because you are in the same relationship to God you should also have that same social relationship here on earth Luther rejects Munsters ideas and tries to stop the peasants Rebecca he's always adamant you should obey the magistrate you should obey the prince you should obey the king and so he comes out very hard against Monza in turn munsi thinks Luther's become little better than a pope on a German field monsters followers join more than 7,000 peasants to confront an army controlled by local princes as they await the battle a halo appears around the Sun Mansour proclaims that it is God's sign that they will win in 1525 the revolution unleashed by Martin Luther's ninety-five theses turns into a violent rebellion in what is now Germany a man named thomas müntzer hopes to turn a peasant rebellion into a religious crusade against the noblemen who control the land but when the battle comes nearly 6,000 peasants are slaughtered compared to just six men from the Royal Army Muenster himself is captured tortured and executed his impaled head serves as a warning for anyone else hoping to use Luther's Reformation to turn society upside down at the same time a powerful new technology is helping spread information throughout Europe the printing press which mass-produced the Catholic indulgences that Martin Luther railed against them now brings his message to a vast new audience one startling notion Luther proposes the traditional priestly state of celibacy is not inherently a better way to live he argues instead for a happy domestic life on the basis of his reading of the Bible he was long convinced that Catholicism was making too much of celibacy and chastity and so on it wasn't one's natural state so Luther as you read him is quite earthy quite earthy about his marital life quite earthy about love and sexuality in a sense that this is the goodness of creation Luther is ready to practice what he preached in June 1525 at the age of 41 he commits an act that goes against centuries of Catholic law Martin Luther gets married his wife is Katherine fond Bora a 26 year old former nun Liz's marriage is there a strange story because he started simply by marrying out of a sense of duty he thought that to show that he was a man like any other man and not a special person because he was a clergyman had to get married Luther believes that of all his revolutionary ideas the changes he makes to marriage are among the most important it also transforms his own life he and Catherine go on to have six children Luther enjoyed family life enormously he goes from being this withdrawn gaunt agonized monk to this kind of family man he gets a well with his wife he loves his children Luther for example loved to say that the woman washing diapers is doing something far more pleasing to God than the monk saying his prayers can you imagine how that reoriented one sense of oneself that we are called by God into everyday life and there we do things that both please God and serve others it literally gave daily life meaning as the context of faith in less than two decades the ideas of the Protestant Reformation have grown from one man's crusade to reform the church to a revolution that sweeps through Europe in the 1530s at the same time as Protestant ideas are inspiring violence in England another former is leading his own radical charge in Switzerland his name is John Calvin Calvin is initially inspired by his contemporary Martin Luther but the two reformers are very different men I think one test showing the difference between Calvin and Luther is whether you'd enjoy a night out with them it's quite clear you'd have a very good time with Luther I'm not so sure with Calvin he was austere serious concentrated he knew he had a job to do he is a preacher and a persistent reformer Calvin is born in France in 1509 and educated in the law and humanities like Luther he finds a more spiritual calling here in the cold mountain air of Geneva the school of Protestantism that emerges from Calvin's teachings is a harsh uncompromising faith I think one of the great selling points of the Reformation was there actually it's discipline everyone desperately wanted discipline in the 16th century Catholics and Protestants alike perhaps the most radical difference between Calvin's beliefs and Luthor's is called predestination predestination means that of all the people on earth God has chosen a lucky few called the elect who will be saved those who are not in the elect will be damned for eternity here is the most extraordinary statement of the majesty and glory and liberty of God forget for a moment about people being predestined to hell and just think Calvin is putting before you the vision of a God who is constrained by nothing except his own nature he's absolutely free he can do what he likes and so it is a scary doctor if he predestined you to be saved he must be predestinate you to be condemned and so God's foreknowledge very complex teaching that God for sees everything in Calvin's doctrine no amount of good works by an individual can force God to change his holy mind in Luther's teaching he starts with God is gracious and then he has to back up and figure out if God is determining this where his grace fitted Calvin starts together and God determines everything and then is gracious but predestination put Calvinists in a terrible bind they yearn to find some way to know whether they are part of the elect destined for paradise or not while Calvin and his followers reject the old Catholic notion that good works can provide salvation they come up with a new idea that good works might demonstrate if you are among the elect to be saved Calvinists were by far the most activist of any Protestants they were always busy doing God's work and in their sense they were proving that they were elect and pulling to themselves predestination can be liberating and empowering but it can be terrifying because you cannot be sure that God has predestined you in the world of work Protestants find an answer to their painful spiritual predicament one of the signs it was believed of election was that you are successful in your profession you're successful in in the world around you so the more you prospered the more you earned the clearer it was you are predestined to heaven so you have is close correlation between the idea of being saved and the idea of being successful the harder Calvinists work the more likely they are to prosper the more they prosper the more convinced they become of their own salvation this uncompromising religious stance will play a powerful role in creating modern capitalism for a thousand years the Catholic Church condemned the practice of money lending or usury as sinful the Christian wasn't supposed to take interest taking of interest was seen as taking advantage of somebody and of stealing but for Calvin money like human beings belongs to a world of work and work is a godly activity money should be made useful not stowed away in a bank vault this seismic shift in thought helps lead to a lifting of the ban on charging interest throughout northern Europe Protestants can now compete with the likes of the powerful Medici family of Italy who have set up a system of banking throughout Europe Calvin among the Protestants picks up what's also going on in Venice and others that some people think he's my co-founder of capitalism almost On February 18th 1546 Martin Luther dies in the German town of Iceland with his death the entire Protestant movement falters the 62 year old Luther has been the central figure of Protestantism and you might say that the Reformation was running into the sands by the late 1550s it took the reformed Protestant John Calvin and his allies to rescue the Reformation at that stage Calvinism begins to compete with Lutheranism within the Protestant community the next hundred years will be drenched in the blood of holy wars as princes kings and emperors vie for power and land in the name of God in Catholic England though reaction against these new ideas will take a violent form Protestant ideas have infiltrated the society but the reaction is Savage Bibles written in English are banned Protestants are burned alive hope Leo the tenth is grateful to England's King Henry the eighth for his outspoken loyalty to the Catholic Church so grateful in fact that in 1521 the Holy Father Awards Henry the title of defender of the faith but such loyalty to the Pope soon fades when Henry wants something that the Pope will not give it he wants a divorce he believes that Protestant ideas can now help him achieve this goal one of the most radical things that Luther did was rarely noticed and it's been noticed a good deal these days he secularized marriage that is he said it is a civil right not a religious right this has radical implications though God may be joining a couple of marriage man can break that bond it's simply logical after that I think actually in the Reformation this was one of the things which excited people people are not unhappy marriages in those first open years of the Reformation thought last we can get rid of this this relationship in 1533 King Henry the eighth is one of those unhappy people he wants to leave his wife Catherine of Aragon and marry his lover and Belen but Pope Clement the seventh refuses to annul his marriage Henry defender of the faith is outraged he feels God wishes him to get rid of Catherine of Aragon that they have never been married and yet the Pope would not grant him the recognition of that and therefore the Pope is God's enemy you have to remember how conceited Henry the eighth is God's will is that he should not be married to Catherine of Aragon and that put him on the side of the Protestant reformers before Henry can break with the Catholic Church he needs someone to make a convincing case he finds his answer in a church official named Thomas Cranmer Cranmer it so happens is secretly married he married a German woman the niece of a German reformer at a time when he should not have got married at all he was a priest and clearly that was an act of rebellion against the old church in 1533 King Henry learns his mistress Anne Boleyn is pregnant so Cranmer without the blessing of the Pope secretly marries them two months later Henry returns the favor and appoints Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was of course the first married Archbishop that made a huge difference and he liked marriage and he wrote this into the liturgy for the first time the Book of Common Prayer has a marriage service which is the first liturgy in the history of Christianity to say that marriage is fun it is there for the mutual society comfort and help one from the other the following year the English Parliament passes the so-called act of Supremacy which says that the true head of the Church of England is the king not the Pope Catholicism is banned the Protestant faith takes its place the shift gives Thomas Cranmer an enormous amount of power crime is a strange man he's a quiet man a very sincerely religious man but there's a certain sort of holy ruthlessness about Cranmer one facet of Catholicism comes in for particular scorn it's statues of Christ the Virgin Mary and the Saints Cranmer himself condemns what he calls the fantasy of ceremonies pilgrimage purgatory Saints images works in such light as half these three or four hundred years been corruptly taught statues stained glass paintings and tapestries were seen to encourage idolatry and false worship in 1538 a set of laws are issued demanding the removal of feigned images so as to avoid that most detestable sin of idolatry Catholic churches are brutally ransom monastery strict and the king's coffers filled with the resulting wealth it's difficult for us I think to understand why cultured refined people smashed images first starting point is that the Bible tells you so in the commandments it says thou shall make no graven image unto thyself this particular command resonates because images became the symbol of the great confidence trick which the old church had paid it had got people to spend money on these things it had got people to direct worship towards the statue the image instead of the divine thing behind it at places like Benin Priory Church in England Henry the eighth's men destroyed portraits of saints gold-leafed and graving czar whitewashed over and in their place stark text from the Bible is painted that's how it remains for hundreds of years until the whitewash faded away revealing some of their pre-reformation glory yet art does not die under the Reformation it undergoes its own revolution the legacy of which hangs in our galleries and homes today both art and music became not only offerings to God but expressions of our humanity the wonder the mystery of being human that is revealed in artistic expression and once art was released from being an instrument of religion this opened up the whole world as the domain of art so the world of nature the world of humanity the world of everyday life all of these became now no longer perhaps vehicles for transcendence or for salvation but they became interesting in their own right as a result of Martin Luther's idea that God is everywhere Protestant artists search for inspiration in the real world around them works of art now had the function of being beautiful in that sense art for art's sake as it will be called the 19th century begins through this separation of the artwork from its religious domain by wiping out Catholic artworks Archbishop Thomas Cranmer believes he has provided a foundation for Protestantism in England but others feel he hasn't gone far enough in the 1500s the Protestant revolution is sweeping through Europe a convergence of forces fans the flames of change the once all-powerful Catholic Church is ruled by decadent popes the printing press can spread ideas quickly and a new era of learning is emerging from the dark ages and that's the sort of powder keg into which Luther drops a match as you might say human beings could be so much more than made in the image of God that has to be restored that powder keg will continue to show its destructive energy in England power will shift back and forth between Protestant and Catholic rulers in sometimes bloody conflict there where violence against Protestants was once especially vicious Queen Mary comes to power in 1553 after her Protestant half-brother Edward dies this daughter of King Henry the eighth is unlike her father a devout Catholic by the 1550s England was beginning to become a Protestant nation but Mary tried to put a halt to all that she took England back into Rome the Catholic faith was brought back to England and as part of that she persecuted the people she regardless heretics Protestants Queen Mary or Bloody Mary as she became known starts one of the most violent purges of Protestants in history Protestants are burned at the stake those who helped turn England to Protestantism are especially targeted one of the most notable of Queen Mary's victims was the former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer killed for his Protestantism Bloody Mary dies in 1558 her half-sister Elizabeth ascends to the throne one of the first things she has to decide is what England's religion will be I have to say given the odds and options of that period she came through pretty well if she had gone and radically Protestant she might have survived on the throne Elizabeth returns the Church of England to Protestant hands but for a group that becomes known as the Puritans her brand of Protestantism is just not enough well they call Puritans because they wanted to purify the Church of England of all remaining vestiges of Catholicism anything which in any way resembled Catholic leftovers they wanted to be rid of the Puritans emphasized the literal word of the Bible they detest the ritual hierarchy and tradition of the Church of England they also resent the way the monarchy supports the church for 50 years the Puritans are largely tolerated in England then King Charles the first ascends to the throat Charles strongly believes that his authority is given by God Charles first did not think that right the rule came from the people none of those Kings did they all believed in divine right Charles dismisses any questioning of his political or religious authority under his rule Puritans are persecuted for their beliefs some have their ears severed for the crime of advocating religious tolerance for many the only way out is to leave England on September 6th 1620 the Mayflower set sail for America 37 of the ships 102 passengers are Puritans the earliest colonists said very explicitly we are going there to complete the Reformation of the church they weren't as interested in founding a nation as they were in completing the Reformation of church while the Puritans both in England and America agonized over whether God has chosen them for heaven or not Protestants throughout Europe are trapped in a seemingly endless series of wars from 1618 to 1648 religious hatreds and royal ambitions combined in a lethal cocktail known as the 30 Years War although it is fought mostly on German soil the war involves at one time or another nearly every European political part there's a purely religious a lot of the religious people are very peaceful with each other and yet it got congealed around economics territory and religion devastating famine and disease follow the ongoing battles between 15 and 40 percent of the German population die premature deaths during this 30-year struggle on October 24th 1648 the Peace of Westphalia is signed made up of a pair of treaties between German princes Spain France Sweden and the Dutch Republic the Accords are a turning point in the Protestant revolution lands secured by the Protestants are generally allowed to remain in Protestant control in England near the end of the 30 Years War another war is starting but this time it is purely Protestant versus Protestant Puritan versus King by the 1640s King Charles the first is widely regarded as a tyrant he dissolves Parliament imposes unpopular taxes and tries to move the Church of England away from Calvinism Puritans are enraged suddenly I think that appeared as being just people and people of faith wanted to compromise with Charles but it was not a compromiser so as a result Coughlin eventually those who oppose the king find a leader who can raise an army a wealthy landowner named Oliver Cromwell his belief in the pure word of the Bible reinforces a deeply traditional outlook on life he is convinced King Charles is leading England astray the Puritans demand vengeance quoting from the Book of Daniel they argue that a king who rules in an ungodly fashion needs to be overthrown after Crum was forces defeat the king in 1648 he is convicted of treason what many of those on the Puritan side on the Cromwell side of the Civil War argued was that King Charles had been beaten in battle not once but twice during the 1640s and that showed God's displeasure with him and that almost gave them the cause to execute him On January 30th 1649 Charles the first walks onto a scaffold there's a very cold morning when he's executed Charles doesn't want to appear that he's scared of death and so in this sort of wonderful move he wears two shirts so that he's not seemed to be shivering because it's so cold he wants to face his death like a true martyr it is a groundbreaking event in the history of Europe the execution of a king who ruled he thought by divine favor following a trial where he had been found guilty of treason was just this incredible moment for people to get to grips with the crowd collects gruesome souvenirs by dipping their handkerchiefs in royal blood for the Puritans this marks the cleansing of England the monarchy is abolished between 1649 and 1653 england becomes a republic known as the Commonwealth of England with Cromwell at the helm yet too many Cromwell proves to be no better than Charles the first what is he doing in this country is he restructuring it to make it safe for gentlemen or is it a country which he's turning into the New Jerusalem Cromwell never really decided and veered in the ends looking like an old-fashioned model when Cromwell dies in 1658 his son takes over but he is not an effective leader and political turmoil engulfs the country once again by 1660 King Charles the second the son of the murdered Charles the first his restored to the throne and with him a revived Church of England but the legacy of Cromwell in the Puritans provides inspiration to others to challenge authority the same ideals that guide Puritans through their moral Crusades also guide some religious groups in a very different direction what many of these groups shared was this idea that they were saved but that they were predestined to heaven and as such they could pretty much do what they liked the result an explosion of rebellion immorality and sexual license that we'll see more like the 1960s than the 1660s by the late 1600s the Protestant revolution has turned Europe upside down bringing both progress and bloodshed in its way - English civil wars have been fought between rival Protestant groups king charles ii is in power and the Church of England is once again the sole official religion but just as the church is consolidating its power in England splinter groups emerge determined to defy it the it's incredible outpouring of communities of sects many amongst the sort of artisan class in the early 60s doing what they like all of which absolutely terrified the existing authorities nearly 500 years after Martin Luther began to redefine sex marriage and family life his world-changing ideas are all around us in every street and in every city the legacy of the Protestant revolution is still framing debate still causing outrage still influencing public and private lives the most important legacy of the Reformation is that phrase which Martin Luther never said here I stand I can do no other an individual must stand before God or before fate and make decisions for him or herself once the medieval Catholic mold was broken there was never going to be an absolute guarantee that there wouldn't be more splits and debates and so there are we're not faced I think with a new kind of crisis but rather a rather acute version of some of the same problems that the world for our ancestors

Channel: Nicholas Chiorian

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Length: 52min 46sec (3166 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 19 2016