Luther's Protest and Rise of European Monarchies

Luther's Challenge to Papal Authority

Martin Luther's protest against the Roman Church was not fundamentally moral. The grace of God was the grace of God; it could not be bought, sold, or split in indulgences. Luther ironically questioned, "If the Pope has control over the souls in purgatory, why does he not open the gates and let them out?" The papacy, being human and not divine, had misappropriated a prerogative that belongs only to God: the salvation or damnation of souls. The Church had become an end in itself. The Word of God became a captive to the whims of mere humans.

The Birth of Protestants

It was at the Diet of Speyer in 1529 that Christians first began to be called Protestants, due to the protest made by the German princes against the authoritarianism of Catholicism.

European National Monarchies

During the Middle Ages, the political figure of the king was quite different from what we usually imagine. The power of local feudal lords was not subjected to a set of laws imposed by royal authority.

Formation of the National Spanish Monarchy

During the eighth century, much of the Iberian Peninsula's territory was dominated by the Arabs who, inspired by Islamic jihad, undertook the conquest of various localities in the East and West.

Formation of the Portuguese National Monarchy

The installation of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies is usually understood through the wars that sought to expel Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. Since the eighth century, the Arabs had dominated much of the Iberian Peninsula in light of the Muslim expansion that occurred in the late Middle Ages.

Formation of the French National Monarchy

Throughout the Middle Ages, the French territory suffered from a political defragmentation process motivated by the emergence of feudalism.

Socio-Ideological Shifts

• Social Changes: With the plague that devastated Europe and killed half the population, a new social class emerged: the bourgeoisie.
• Ideological Changes: The Catholic Church dominated all sectors, but its foundational unit began to be questioned. New values and ideas arose, bringing with them the Renaissance.
• Religious Changes: The Catholic Church was being questioned, leading to the emergence of new religions (the Protestant Reformation).