Christian Roman Emperor. Humanist scholars were able to point out that this was not genuine, and had been forged later. In , a young German monk called Martin Luther ( - ) launched a campaign against the Catholic Church and argued that a person did not need priests to establish contact with God. He asked his followers to have complete faith in God, for faith alone could guide them to the right life and entry into heaven.
This movement – called the Protestant Reformation – led to the churches in Germany and Switzerland breaking their connection with the Pope and the Catholic Church. In Switzerland, Luther’s ideas were popularised by Ulrich Zwingli ( - ) and later by Jean Calvin ( - ). Backed by merchants, the reformers had greater popular C HANGING C ULTURAL T RADITIONS T HEMES IN W ORLD H ISTORY appeal in towns, while in rural areas the Catholic Church managed to retain its influence. Other German reformers, like the Anabaptists, were even more radical: they blended the idea of salvation with the end of all forms of social oppression.
They said that since God had created all people as equal, they were not expected to pay taxes and had the right to choose their priests. This appealed to peasants oppressed by feudalism. William Tyndale ( - ), an English Lutheran who translated the Bible into English in , defended Protestantism thus: ‘In this they be all agreed, to drive you from the knowledge of the scripture, and that ye shall not have the text thereof in the mother- tongue, and to keep the world still in darkness, to the intent they might sit in the consciences of the people, through vain superstition and false doctrine, to satisfy their proud ambition, and insatiable covetousness, and to exalt their own honour above king and emperor, yea, and above God himself... Which thing only moved me to translate the New Testament.
Because I had perceived by experience, how that it was impossible to establish the lay-people in any truth, except the scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother-tongue, that they might see