Lesson 115 Essay: The Great Reformation

Writing Assignment: Write a one to two page paper on this week’s history:

This week use your notes and the summary lesson about the Reformation to write your own summary of the movement.

Include names, dates, and important documents to demonstrate your knowledge of the subject.

     To reform is to look over how you are living your life and to see how you can improve it.  The reformation began in 1517 when Luther started teaching about it. It was highly thought about, though Catholics were against it.

     The printing press was a big help to this wake, it helped print new bibles in new languages to help. This was a sin to the Catholics and they hated it.

     John Calvin a big reformer was hated in his country because of how he was raised in a Catholic country. After being raised a catholic he studied more into reformation and saw that what they were doing was wrong. He wrote a book teaching about reformations and his opinions of it.

     As time went along reformation grew famous. People such as the French Huguenots were teaching in France about reformation. France however highly disagreed with this and many were persecuted. They had to flee their own country because of it.

     Many people knew about the reformation by now and were afraid to do it because of how Catholics had taken over.

     William Tyndale (one of the most famous reformers) wanted others to understand. He was born in England at 1484. He worked very hard in his life to translate the whole bible into English. He made the New Testament and many read it. But almost finishing the Old Testament he was captured and burned at the stake for it.

     But it was not enough. People had gotten hold of the English translated version and had already learned so much. 4 more versions were soon made based off of William Tyndale’s version.

     All these people I n France, Switzerland, and England were all preaching and teaching about the reformation. It soon grew very large and had more followers. This was very upsetting to the Catholic Church so the organized the council of Trent. It is a council with rules for the Catholic people to follow. These rules were made sure to keep the Catholics from learning of the reformation.

     The Reformation had the five Sola which were five rules translated from Latin into English which they followed. Here are the rules translated into English:

Sola Scriptura- Scripture alone

Sola fide-Faith Alone

Sola Gratia-Grace Alone

Sola Christus- Christ Alone

Sola Deo Gloria- To God alone be the Glory

     These rules were sometimes broken but kept true to the people. Who knew that Martin Luther, One man alone could change everyone’s beliefs and change the world’s point of view. The Great Reformation was a great thing done and I agree with it. We should all look back over our lives and correct our mistakes. We should study more into what we are curious about and learn more.

-Sawyer