These break-away Christians are called Protestants because they were protesting the practices of the Catholic Faith. When Pope Leo X ordered Luther's writings burned, many people sided with Luther and decided to break away from the Roman Catholic Church. Many people tried to reform the Church during the 1500s. Martin Luther started a movement called the Reformation. Moveable-type made books faster and these books were less expensive than books made from woodcuts. Gutenberg, a German, created the press that used movable type pieces for characters, rather than woodcuts of entire pages that had been used in presses in the past. An advance in technology that helped to spread the message of Martin Luther was the invention of the moveable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. Pope Leo X at the time was selling indulgences to raise money to build a grand new church in Rome. An indulgence is a pardon or forgiveness for a sin that a person has committed. One of the problems he saw was the selling of indulgences.
This document was called the 95 theses and was meant to point out how the Church could be improved. Luther, a Roman Catholic priest in Germany, posted 95 poor practices of the church on the door of a church in Germany. Wycliffe's reforms made little difference, but in the early 16th century, a man named Martin Luther changed the Church forever. Wycliffe also believed that the Bible should be translated into English, so people could understand its message. Wycliffe felt the Church should be poor, like the early apostles of Jesus. An Englishman, named John Wycliffe, was one of the early challengers. During the Renaissance, men began to challenge some of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. At one point there were even two popes at the same time, each one claiming to be the true Pope. The Roman Catholic Church also began to lose its power as church officials bickered. A guild is a group of people who do the same type of work, like making clothes. People began to leave feudal lands, heading to cities where they formed guilds. Knowing that the English people sought peace, Henry married off his sons and daughters to the ruling families of other countries, including Scotland and Spain. In France, King Louis XI divided and conquered his vassals, while in England, out of the ashes of the Wars of the Roses, Henry Tudor united the Houses of York and Lancaster.
King Ferdinand of Aragon married Queen Isabella of Castile, uniting the two kingdoms into one super-kingdom of Spain. The Black Plague had wiped out many of the vassals, and their power weakened. Giotto rejected this idea and painted it with realism. Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo would follow Giotto and are the best-known artists from this period.įeudalism began to crumble during the Late Middle Ages, as strong kings seized power from their vassals. Although these paintings look lifeless, it was the religious message behind the painting that was considered important, not the art. Before Giotto, the Byzantine, two-dimensional style was the norm. During the early Renaissance, the painter Giotto (1266-1337) used perspective (shading) to create life-like paintings. Wealthy businessmen became patrons and supported the efforts of various artists. One of the most important achievements of the Renaissance was the promotion of the arts.