60 Fun Facts About Reformation

What is the most commonly cited starting date of the Reformation?

That is the day Luther is said to have posted his Ninety-five Theses in Wittenberg; the date is now Reformation Day.

In which town did Luther post his Ninety-five Theses?

He was a professor at the town's young university, founded in 1502.

The Ninety-five Theses attacked the sale of what?

Buyers were promised reduced time in purgatory for themselves or their dead relatives.

The 1515 indulgence that provoked Luther was meant to finance the building of what?

Pope Leo X needed the money for the vast new church in Rome; the Archbishop of Mainz also took a cut to repay his debts.

Which Dominican friar's indulgence-selling campaign in nearby towns prompted Luther to act?

A jingle attributed to him claimed that as soon as the coin rang in the coffer, a soul sprang from purgatory.

In what language were the Ninety-five Theses written?

They were framed as propositions for an academic debate; friends translated them into German in January 1518.

Which invention allowed the Reformation's ideas to spread across Europe so quickly?

Gutenberg's press had been running for about 60 years, and pamphlets in the vernacular did the rest.

Where was Martin Luther born in 1483?

He also died there, in 1546, while visiting to settle a dispute between local counts.

What was Luther's father's line of work?

Hans Luther leased mines and smelters and wanted his son to become a lawyer.

Caught in a thunderstorm in 1505, Luther vowed to become a monk if he was spared. Whom did he call on?

Two weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, to his father's fury.

Luther belonged to which religious order?

He entered St Augustine's Monastery in Erfurt on 17 July 1505.

Which papal bull of 1520 threatened Luther with excommunication, and which he publicly burned?

He burned it along with books of canon law at Wittenberg's Elster Gate.

Which Holy Roman Emperor presided over the Diet of Worms in 1521?

He was 21, ruled Spain and the Netherlands as well, and would spend decades fighting Protestant princes.

What did Luther refuse to do at the Diet of Worms?

He said it was neither safe nor right to go against conscience; the famous 'Here I stand' is a later tradition.

What did the Edict of Worms do?

Anyone could kill Luther without penalty, and his writings were banned.

After Worms, Luther was hidden in which castle by Frederick the Wise?

Frederick staged a fake highway kidnapping to get him there; Luther grew a beard and went by Junker Jörg.

How long did it take Luther to translate the New Testament into German while in hiding?

The 'September Testament' appeared in 1522; the complete Bible followed in 1534.

Luther's complete German Bible of 1534 was printed by whom?

The edition carried 117 original woodcuts, and the translation helped shape modern High German.

Katharina von Bora, whom Luther married in 1525, had been what?

She escaped her Cistercian convent hidden among fish barrels in a covered wagon.

How did Katharina von Bora and her fellow nuns escape their convent in 1523?

A Torgau merchant who delivered herring to the abbey smuggled twelve nuns out on Easter eve.

How many children did Martin and Katharina Luther have?

Hans, Elisabeth, Magdalena, Martin, Paul and Margarethe; two of the girls died young.

What did Katharina von Bora run to support the Luther household and its student boarders?

She also bred and sold cattle and managed the farm at Zulsdorf; Luther called her the boss of Zulsdorf.

Luther's hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God paraphrases the opening of which biblical text?

He wrote both the words and the tune between 1527 and 1529, and it became known as the Battle Hymn of the Reformation.

What was Luther's response to the German Peasants' War of 1524-25?

His pamphlet Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants shocked many of his supporters; up to 100,000 peasants were killed.

Which radical preacher led the peasant army to defeat at Frankenhausen in 1525?

He was captured, tortured and beheaded days after the battle.

Where does the word 'Protestant' come from?

Six princes and fourteen free cities protested the diet's decision to enforce the Edict of Worms.

Which Swiss city was the base of reformer Huldrych Zwingli?

He became people's priest at the Grossmünster in 1519 and preached straight through the Gospel of Matthew.

What food was defiantly eaten during Lent in 1522 in an incident that launched Zwingli's reformation?

Zwingli was present at the printer Froschauer's house but did not eat; he defended the act in a sermon anyway.

Luther and Zwingli met at Marburg in 1529 but could not agree on what?

They agreed on fourteen of fifteen articles; the last one recorded their split over the Lord's Supper.

How did Zwingli die in 1531?

He fell at Kappel fighting Catholic cantons; his body was quartered and burned.

What does the name Anabaptist mean?

Opponents coined it because Anabaptists rebaptized adults who had been christened as babies.

Which three groups are direct descendants of the early Anabaptists?

Zwingli's Zurich was the first to persecute them, drowning Felix Manz in 1527.

Which document, presented to the emperor in 1530, remains the primary statement of Lutheran belief?

Its 28 articles were read aloud in German for two hours; Philipp Melanchthon edited the official text.

In which French town was John Calvin born in 1509?

He trained as a lawyer before his conversion and never returned to live in France after 1536.

What is the title of Calvin's great systematic theology, first published in 1536?

He kept expanding it; the final Latin edition of 1559 was about five times the length of the first.

Which fellow reformer persuaded Calvin to stay and work in Geneva?

Farel reportedly threatened Calvin with God's curse if he continued on to Strasbourg to study in peace.

Which Spanish physician and anti-Trinitarian was burned in Calvin's Geneva in 1553?

He had also been condemned by the Catholic Inquisition; Calvin argued for beheading rather than burning.

How was Calvin buried after his death in 1564?

He asked for it himself, to avoid his tomb becoming a shrine.

Why did Henry VIII break with Rome?

He wanted to leave Catherine of Aragon for Anne Boleyn; Clement VII, under pressure from Catherine's nephew Charles V, said no.

Which 1534 law made the king Supreme Head of the Church of England?

Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher were executed the following year for refusing to accept it.

Which Archbishop of Canterbury wrote and compiled the first Book of Common Prayer?

He was burned at Oxford under Mary I in 1556 and famously thrust the hand that had signed his recantations into the flames first.

Who produced the first printed English New Testament translated from Greek, in Worms in 1526?

He was strangled and burned near Brussels in 1536; more than half the King James New Testament is his wording.

Which reformer of the Church of Scotland spent time rowing as a prisoner in French galleys?

He was captured at St Andrews in 1547 and later studied under Calvin in Geneva.

Knox's 1558 pamphlet The First Blast of the Trumpet was aimed against what?

It targeted the Catholic queens Mary Tudor and Mary of Guise, but it also offended Protestant Elizabeth I when she took the throne months later.

The Peace of Augsburg of 1555 let each prince choose between which two faiths for his territory?

The principle became known as cuius regio, eius religio; Calvinists had to wait until 1648.

Which pope convened the Council of Trent in 1545?

He is considered the first pope of the Counter-Reformation and also approved the Jesuits.

How many sessions did the Council of Trent hold between 1545 and 1563?

Wars, plague and papal deaths kept interrupting it over 18 years.

The Society of Jesus, a spearhead of the Counter-Reformation, received papal recognition in which year?

Ignatius of Loyola's order became famous for its schools and missions.

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Catholic list of banned books, was in force from 1559 until when?

Pope Paul VI abolished it after the Second Vatican Council.

The St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572 targeted which group?

It began in Paris days after the Protestant Henry of Navarre married the king's sister, and spread through France.

How did Pope Gregory XIII respond to news of the St Bartholomew's Day massacre?

The medal's Latin motto celebrated the slaughter of the Huguenots.

The Thirty Years' War, the bloodiest of the wars of religion, ran between which years?

An estimated 4.5 to 8 million people died, and parts of Germany lost more than half their population.

The Peace of Westphalia was negotiated in which two cities?

It ended the Thirty Years' War and finally gave Calvinism legal recognition alongside Lutheranism and Catholicism.

Which Czech reformer was burned at the stake at the Council of Constance in 1415?

His name means goose; he reportedly said a weak goose could be killed but stronger birds would follow.

John Wycliffe's 14th-century English followers were mockingly called what?

Wycliffe himself was declared a heretic in 1415, and his bones were dug up and burned in 1428.

Which Dutch humanist produced a pioneering Greek New Testament yet stayed Catholic and broke with Luther?

He wanted reform from within and clashed with Luther over free will.

Which of the five solas of the Reformation asserts that scripture outranks church tradition?

Oddly, the five were not grouped together as a set until the 20th century.

Reformation Day is a holiday in nine German states and, since 2009, in which South American country?

Slovenia also observes it, and all of Germany took the day off for the 500th anniversary in 2017.

Reformation Day was first made an annual holiday in 1668 by which territory?

Saxony was Luther's home territory and the seat of the university that employed him.

Which two men led the Reformation in England and Scotland respectively?

Their movements gave rise to Anglicanism and Presbyterianism.