Before the close of the fifteenth century, Columbus had discovered the New World and opened up a new era in navigation and commerce. The beginning of the sixteenth witnessed progress and revival in many spheres of human activity. Four great powers then dominated Europe — France, Spain, England and Germany. The German Empire, consisting of the remains of the empire of Charlemagne, was a collection of more or less independent states acknowledging an emperor as overlord. When in 1519 the imperial crown became vacant, it passed to Charles V, an Austrian prince who also ruled over the Spanish dominions now swollen by the newly discovered territories of the West. He thus reigned over a wider dominion than any ruler since the days of Charlemagne. But powerful as he was, he had an ambition to extend his dominions still further and to make himself, if possible, universal ruler.
He had a rival in Francis I, King of France, with whom he was often at war. Indeed, throughout this century there were frequent wars in Europe. Italy suffered especially, and at one time Rome itself was sacked by German soldiers. In the south, the Turks, who were still a menace, invaded Hungary. To the intrigues of popes and princes, the alliances and counter-alliances, and the consequent wars were added the conflicts which arose out of the Reformation. Rome stirred up the sword against the new movement and invoked the aid of the rulers who were under her influence to wipe out the faith of the gospel. Where her writ ran unchallenged, fire and torture pursued the confessors of the truth; where it was opposed, the force of arms was employed against the defenders of the faith.
The real ruler and lord paramount of Europe was still the Pope. He wielded a power more absolute and more feared than any earthly ruler. He held in bondage the very souls of men. He had his legates in almost every country. The legate held his own court and exercised his power in the Pope’s name. To him the powerful landed bishops were subject; the convents, the monasteries and the abbeys were under his supervision. He had the power to impose taxes and special levies on both clergy and laity.
His authority was enforced by the power of the interdict, which, as we have already observed, had tremendous effect upon the entire populace of a country. It was a punishment that had rarely failed to bring a recalcitrant ruler, sooner or later, to his knees. Many of the States were bound to Rome by a concordat which compelled its rulers to obtain the Pope’s permission before enacting a law, opening a school or teaching any branch of knowledge. It bound the State to keep its doors open to any representatives the Pope might please to appoint to exercise his spiritual authority, which, in actuality, went far beyond spiritual matters. Then there was the confessional. By it the Pope penetrated into the secrets of human hearts and acquired the means of undermining any other power or authority which might come into competition with his own. We have already seen that the Pope had a variety of means by which he drained away into his own coffers the riches of the realms which owned his sway. At this time, the profligacy of Rome demanded such a flow of wealth that, to increase its revenues still more, it developed the sale of indulgences. Every sin was priced in the catalog of crimes and could be atoned for by paying the appropriate sum into the papal treasury. Even deliberate crimes could be paid for in advance. The famous Cathedral of St. Peter’s at Rome was built from the proceeds of these indulgences. It was this diabolical traffic that opened men’s eyes. A working man once naively inquired why, if a penny would free a soul from purgatory, the Pope, who was so rich, did not free thousands of souls?
The lives of the clergy and the monks had not improved. Two of the popes immediately preceding the Reformation were among the wickedest that had ever worn the triple crown. Councils had sought to reform the Church in vain. What man could not effect God would bring about in His own way — not a reformed Church —but an outshining of gospel light such as the world had not seen since the days of the apostles. Everything was then contributing to that end. Greek and Hebrew, the original tongues of the Bible, were being widely taught. This was no insignificant matter, for it threw light on many doubtful passages in the Latin Bible. Men could now go to the fountainhead of truth in the very languages in which the Scriptures were written. A very able scholar named Reuchlin had compiled a Hebrew lexicon of which Luther and others availed themselves in due course. The famous scholar Erasmus wrote against the ignorance and vice of the clergy and the follies of the age, but his work was negative. He never had the courage to come out boldly on the side of the truth, and he remained a Romanist till his death. His revised edition of the Greek New Testament was, however, a valuable work at a time when men were beginning to study the Scriptures in the original tongues, and it was an important contribution to the dissemination of the gospel.