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[Article] Why was Luther so popular?

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Aster Thrax Eupator View Drop Down
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  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: [Article] Why was Luther so popular?
    Posted: 30-Jul-2008 at 01:26
Just a little something that I bashed together recently 'cause I was bored and wanted to do something except ancient history for the articles database. It's not that in depth and is just intended as a little summary as to why this interesting character was so popular.
 

            Luther’s popularity had spread across Germany in 1530 for a variety of reasons, mainly due to his own charisma and political makeup of Germany at the time. The Holy Roman Empire, a collaboration of around 300 small states unified by the emperor in Austria, was ruled by a variety of princes who went by many names who were constantly vying for power. In many respects, they were autonomous, made their own political decisions to a certain extent and sometimes even went to war with one another, but their main struggle was mainly that for independence against the seemingly distant powers of the emperor and the church. Many of the princes were so keen to gain some kind of autonomy for themselves that they would have used any unifying ideology as an excuse for mobilisation and declarations of independence against the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V in Vienna. The seven most powerful princes were the electors, who often stood for and voted for the new candidate for an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire when an old emperor died. These electors were not, however, loyal servants of the emperor and by the early modern period, new conceptions of nationalism had separated many of them from all loyalty to the emperor, who was in many ways dependent upon them. Princes such as Frederick the Wise of Saxony wanted to break away from the Holy Roman empire as a nationalistically minded German, but couldn’t because of the conflicts between the princes and the lack of cohesion in any efforts to resist the imperial authority. Also, many of these princes made their own universities to enable them to reach a level of intellectual prestige, and it was in such universities that Luther came to prominence. It wasn’t so much that the princes might have agreed with Luther, but more that he represented a local figure who could emphasise their wises for a separation with Rome. Also, Lutheran doctrine didn’t endorse the powers of the pope and thus, by extension, the powers of the Holy Roman Emperor, who was traditionally the pope’s defender. This mutual interest created between Luther and Frederick the wise of Saxony meant that Luther was granted protection and if needed, military protection and power. The princes’ wishes for independence were so strong that they needed intellectual figures like Luther to give them some legitimacy. Also, rather ironically for Luther being a product of the new middle classes, the princes often faced issues with the new up and rising middle classes in the imperial cities and many estates in the various kingdoms that made up the Holy Roman Empire. Much of Luther’s doctrine, as can be seen later, was based around social cohesion, and that people had a place in life (despite their piety…). This intellectual support of their rule was helpful to many princes as it gave them the support of a man who their subjects often agreed with.

The population of the Holy Roman Empire was, for the whole part, feudal and made of peasantry who had little or nothing. The Black Death and the general medieval lifestyle which they were subjected to their whole lives made for dismal and short lives with little hope of happiness and peace in this life, and this could only be made worse by the compulsory papal tithes that they were forced to pay. Also, the peasant’s piety meant that they were prepared to give what little they had to the papal authority for the purposes of gaining an indulgence, which Luther found infuriating. When this charismatic man declared that this was invalid, the peasants naturally agreed because of the amount of money and goods that they had been giving to the church through their piety and also demand from the church. In an age were new ideas were constantly being devised and the feudal system was giving way to the nation-state and the rise of the middle classes, Luther’s egalitarian philosophy of “the priesthood of all believers” found large amounts of support within the peasant populace.

The two other political entities in the Holy Roman Empire by 1530 – the imperial knights and the imperial cities – were more of a unique matter than the straight forward wishes for autonomy of the princes. The imperial knights were more or less leftovers from the medieval era – they controlled land that was run in the feudal fashion, raised armies and lived in castles – and thus were soon going to be obsolete to the more dynamic nation-states of the princes. The princes attempted to consolidate their power in many ways, but one of these was often to dismantle the power of the imperial knights, who on their own were quite weak. Although they were loyal to the emperor, he was simply so much more dependent on the princes that he had to ignore their pleas. Consequently, many imperial knights resorted to robbery in an attempt to make a living. Luther’s condemnation of the church opened up a whole new avenue of potential revenue to this dilapidated and neglected class, and very soon after the Leipzig disputation, many of these knights lead by Ulrich Von Hutten attacked the prince-bishops of Cologne and Trier and seized much of their land and assets before they were repulsed by the princes. Luther’s proclamation effectively gave them a go-ahead to attack the power of the Catholic Church in located areas of Germany, and thus to gain more land and prestige.

The imperial cities also provided Luther with large amounts of support – they were intellectual centres, housing great universities which supposedly agreed with Luther’s doctrine, and were the home of the new rising middle classes, which were eager to destroy the power of the church over them for reasons discussed above. Also, they were mainly trading cities, and didn’t want so much of their hard-earned wealth to be taken by the church. These cities was where much the progress and latest ideas eventually fermented, and were areas of high society, and thus, people didn’t feel as much need as the average peasant to succumb to the wishes to buy indulgences and so forth, and just didn’t feel the necessity to pay the church their tithes - the inhabitants of the imperial cities where not ignorant medieval peasants, but educated traders and self-made men who were engulfed in the renaissance mindset.

Luther himself was a powerful figure in gaining his own support – not only was he incredibly intelligent, but he had a charismatic style of speech which caught peoples’ attention. He also was extremely prolific and wrote humorously and satirically which made his works more accessible for everyone who was literate. He was also a German, which made people think of him as a national hero in an age where nationalism and identity were becoming more and more important. He didn’t appear to people to be vague and distant because he had lived in the small towns of Germany all his life and could relate to people’s suffering, in fact, he himself had lost friends due to various plagues. He was also extremely devoted because of varying psychological reasons – where some might have given up, he carried on because of his devotion to his beliefs and vision – Luther’s actions at the diet of Worms in 1521 for example, would have turned away many other people, but despite the possible consequences, he still decided to go and speak at the proceedings of the diet with Charles V.

The printing press – a recent invention – was instrumental in delivering Luther’s message to the masses. His works out-sold Catholic works, and because Germany was the birthplace and heart of the medieval printing industry, Luther as a German had access to this monopoly of communications. Also, the printers in Germany were themselves sympathetic to Luther, being situated mainly in the north, and so would have worked for him out of their beliefs, as well as being supported by the many Germany universities in the area. Luther’s works – apart from being funny and satirical in themselves - included woodcuts for those who could not read so that even they could get  the general message of what was being portrayed. The cheap leaflets of Luther flooded the German book markets and even outside of the Holy Roman Empire. Rather than ideas being spread by word-of-mouth, whereby they could be corrupted, the new development of printing also meant that what people were reading was indisputably Luther’s and people knew who wrote it as it was written down in front of them, so hopefully there could be no chance of misinterpretation.

Other factors that aided the support of Luther was the larger political situation – Charles V had been out of the Holy Roman Empire for years since his victory at the 1519 elections, and whenever he did arrive for a short while (such as in 1521), he had to quickly conduct business in a hurry and couldn’t concentrate on much for a long time in Germany. His indecisive regent, Ferdinand, was preoccupied with wars against the Ottoman Turks and the dynastic competitions between France and the house of Hapsburg. Charles V was preoccupied in Spain, and he and Ferdinand could not agree on many matters. Also, the pope resented Hapsburg domination so much that he refused to call a general council of the papacy – which was a necessity in religious matters before they could be acted upon by the ruling monarch of the country in question – or was prevented from doing so by wars in Italy. Thus, when Charles actually arrived back in Germany in 1530 to fully rule as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (which in itself was much, much larger than just Germany, so Ferdinand and Charles V had other responsibilities), Luther’s support had been cemented so much that there was little that he could do with the Hapsburg-Valois rivalry and the invasions of the Ottomans to deal with. Charles V himself was also a weak character who lacked skills in leadership and decisive action – quite the contrast to the kind of character that Luther was.

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  Quote rider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Jul-2008 at 11:49
So... Can we upload this magnificent piece of work? Or not?2
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  Quote Seko Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Jul-2008 at 15:00
Aster nice work for a spur of the moment job. You have an exceptional knowledge base with a nice memory to boot. If rider wants it for the main page articles or the mag you may also want to throw in some references if possible.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2008 at 18:20
Sam tell the trueth is this ur AS script?
 
the one u magiced cough cough from the exam board it it is u have nothing to worry about if it isnt it still bloody good couldnt have done it better myself
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  Quote Carpathian Wolf Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2008 at 06:12
Because he was different. Could sway people different for politics using religion as is the back drop of the Protestant movement throughout its history.
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