The Reformation

On 31 October 1517, a monk and professor named Martin Luther posted ninety-five theses for debate about indulgences. He did not intend to found a new church. But within a generation, Western Christianity had split into Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Anabaptist churches. Each was convinced it was the true heir of the apostles, and each was ready, too often, to persecute the others.

Shelley calls this "the Age of the Reformation" and runs it from 1517 to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the last great war of religion. This era follows the structure of The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation, edited by Peter Marshall, whose chapters reflect current scholarship:

• the late medieval background, which was lively, not simply corrupt;
• Luther and the German Reformation;
• Calvinism and the "Reformed" churches, a "reform of the Reformation";
• the Radical Reformation of Anabaptists and others;
• Catholic Reformation and renewal, much more than a "Counter-Reformation";
• Britain's Reformations, plural;
• and the Reformation's long legacies.

Two further chapters cover the Reformation era's global reach, through missions to Asia and the Americas, and the wars of religion that tore Europe apart. Recent historians stress that "the Reformation" was really several reformations, Protestant and Catholic. It lasted much longer than the 1500s, and it was driven by real religious conviction as well as by politics and money.