What Social and Economic Factors Led To The Adoption of The Protestant Religion in The Sixteenth Century in Germany?

Before the 16th century and the Luther affair in Wittenberg, the Roman Catholic church was the monopoly of the religious market across Europe and, of course, Germany over nearly a thousand years. However, after nearly a thousand years of monopoly, the Protestant religion entered the religious market via Reform movements sparked by Martin Luther. If we think that both Protestant and Catholic religions as a product and their churches as shops and their clerics or people like these as a seller of them, there should be a severe amount of demand which meet with enough supply by Protestant religion while the Catholic churches could not meet in this period. (Becker et al., 2016) Several social and economic factors, such as the urban density or effect of the printing press, led to this shift in the religious market via creating necessary conditions for the Reformation's success.

Economic Causes of the Reformation:

The first economic factor that might cause to demand for Reformation was economic growth. Economic growth caused several changes in many aspects, and old Catholic churches could not adopt these changes well enough. The first of these alterations was that people who live in those times started to obtain their material needs more easily with the improvement in economic conditions. Therefore, people may become capable of turning their focuses from the material world to their spiritual worlds and afterlife. (Weber, 1963) Also, with the economic growth, both consumption and accordingly, the production activities increased. Hence, people began to spend more time in either their workplaces like manufactories or the markets to buy or sell goods. However, the methods of Catholic churches for salvation and other religious matters were not fit these circumstances. For example, the opportunity cost of pilgrimages or long religious activities was high because every minute in markets was precious. (Pickel, 2016) Other than that, Catholic churches attempt to increase their earnings via the commercialization of spiritual products and even raise their prices made salvation even more expensive. Consequently, Luther's famous "Ninety-Five theses" opposed the implementation of selling indulgences not only for living but also for the dead to increase its benefits. (Bainton, 1952) On the other side, the second alteration led by economic growth is the change in land distribution. Parishes of rent-seeking priests and clerics were mostly the lands that did not meet the demands of new economic and market conditions. Also, the newly emerging burgher class of towns and cities who might be created by the economic improvement and may be considered as the frontiers or early versions of the bourgeoisie was economically ambitious So, as the defender of old economic structures with their parishes, rent-seeking clerics was their primary target to beat. Accordingly, after the Reform movements' success, some pious burghers and townsmen reach their goals by getting the economic liberties that they want and displacing those clerics from their lands. Eventually, the Roman Catholic church, which appeared in a period when the economic improvement across Europe was so slow between the fall of the Roman Empire and the early modern period began in among 15 and 16th century, evolves through the necessities of this period and therefore, was not be able to meet with the requirements of new early modern era and its people.

The second economic factor was the political economy that helped the supply of the new religious product. Many rulers and sovereigns in Europe cooperated with the Roman Catholic Church's cardinals and other religious officials throughout the medieval ages to obtain titles and secure public order. However, the Roman church's monopolistic position could make it also a dangerous power holder as a potential threat towards the sovereigns. For example, if secular or dynastic rulers of both principalities, free imperial cities, and even the emperor was weak, religious officials could easily exploit this weakness and get several privileges. Therefore, in the Great Schism period, other European rulers like the king of France gain authority over the religious officials via the right to appoint them directly. However, the HRE and its states did not have that kind of power over religious officials in in their realms. (Wandel, 1996) As a result of this, these rulers who want to expand their authority by lowering the Roman church's power could be a possible ally and protector of a new religion to shake the strong monopolistic position of the Catholic church. For example, territories that more developed in political and economic aspects were more likely to stay Catholic even though there were exceptions. (Cantoni, 2012) Eventually, some rulers, especially princes like the elector of saxony the Frederik III who also rule over Wittenberg and protect Luther and lead the reform in a political aspect, contributed to the spread of Protestantism by either directly impose Protestantism in their realms or allow Protestant propaganda in their territories and did not apply any punishment.

Social Causes of Reformation:

The first social factor that may cause the Reformation in Germany was its high urban development. Those major urban settlements, especially free imperial cities like Nuremberg and Strasbourg provide two things that might help the Reformation by creating demand and easing the supply of Protestantism. The first thing that contributed to Reformation was the activeness in the cultural and intellectual area. Through the 15th century, the number of universities and students in the German cities quintuplicate. (Wandel, 1996) Also, most of those universities gave a humanist and secular education. Therefore, when the 16th century came, and the Luther affair happened, there was a group of people who literate, intellectual, and inherited the ideals of the Renaissance. This group of people showed a great enthusiasm to write and argue about these new Reformist ideas of Martin Luther. Consequently, not only the academic areas of universities but also the princes' courts and such places began to fill with endless debates about the Lutheran ideas. On the other hand, large urban markets of these cities and towns serve as a medium for Germany's ordinary and rural people. In these markets, low or none educated lower class residents of cities, and the rural people who live outside of cities heard these new religions' rumors. (Wandel, 1996)

The second social factor that may cause the Reformation and its success was anticlericalism. There were three main reasons for this negative attitude of people towards the Roman Church's religious officials. Those were social jealousy, religious anxieties, and nationalism on a scale of local towns or cities and all German Nation. In the case of social jealousy, the Roman church's clerics had earned many concessions through the time by using their power came from their monopolistic situation in the religious market. As a result of this, many social groups, especially the poor people, envy those priests and cardinals who maybe collect taxes from them, did not pay taxes to the state, or did not do hard work like them despite those clerics were far more prosperous than them. Protestant belief and Luther's ideas, especially the ninety-five theses, were dissent with the luxurious life and commercialization of religion, so this social jealousy was not a Protestantism problem. (Cantoni, 2012) On the other side, religious anxieties were affected by mainly two distinct factors. The first factor was the fear of losing salvation in the afterlife because of the Catholic clerics. This factor was mostly fueled by both the corruptive and arrogant behaviors of clerics and the Protestant propaganda. For instance, when a common man went to a local catholic church and did all the necessary implementations, even though his challenging life conditions, for get a blessing of a God and promise for salvation from the religious firm of the Roman Church, and then, heard the preaches and rumors about a former priest of the Catholic church said all the things he had done and invested all money was false. Therefore, his salvation was in danger, and he may be deeply confused or even frustrated. Protestant belief deal with this anxiety by making salvation reachable to the common man. To achieve that, many religious papers, booklets were published, and many religious documents, especially the Holy Bible, translated from Latin and published in the German language. However, some reformist clerics such as Geiler of Keysenberg who stated that printing the Bible in German was just dangerous as to give a child a knife with which it might cut itself, afraid of those actions may annihilate the need of the common man for clerics and accordingly, oppose that kind of acts. (Janssen, 1924) However, these acts contributed to the Reformation by making religion more democratized and helped to earn people's widespread support while solving the anxiety issue. The third reason for the anticlericalism in Germany was nationalism in both macro and micro aspects. In the macro aspect, rulers in the HRE territories, including the emperor, did not have to appoint their religious officials in local churches. Those clerics were placed by the Roman curia controller and the pope. So, most of these clerics were foreign pawns and even maybe occupiers or traitors in some cases. This situation may generate many grievances towards them when especially in a case that they enter a conflict of interest with local powerholders or rulers for personal or Catholic church's foreign purposes. (Wandel, 1996) On the other hand, in a micro aspect, because of HRE's politically pluralist system, which was the emperor's authority was mainly opposed by the free imperial cities and principalities to prevent any intervention from the emperor to limit their powers and rights, each territory in HRE was a particular and distinct unit. Therefore, there may be a culture that evolved in those units, which was very sensitive to their freedom and rights. Eventually, as when the Protestant Reform's centrifugal development and the process illustrated, these units wanted to establish their own national and local churches and managed that with the Reformation. (Scribner, 1990)

The last and as the Historian Bernd Moeller stated in the sentence "No printing, no reform," (DeMarce, 1973) the essential factor was the printing press. (Edwards, 1996) The printing press affects the Reformation not only through its processes but also before the Reformation had begun. It impacted several conditions that help the progress towards the Reformation and its ideas. Firstly, the printing press was invented by Johannes von Gutenberg in Mainz around 1440 and then spread across the German cities. (Huettich, 1976) Significantly, in cities with universities and intelligentsia like Cologne and Augsburg, this new machine highly enhanced German territories' literacy and intellectuality ratio. Besides that, maybe more surprisingly, many clerics of that time, including Martin Luther, embraced this machine with such labeled it as a blessing of God because, with this machine, they could publish religious books more easily and so, educate the laity more easily. On the other hand, printing press' most crucial effect on the Reformation was its power as a Protestantism supplier. (Edwards, 1996) For example, Luther's books were published through all the Reformation process, especially when the Diet of Speyer accepted and allowed Protestantism propaganda. In Wittenberg, 191 editions of Luther's books published, while in Augsburg, this number was above 200. (Scholderer, 1965) Therefore, the printing press was the most crucial factor because even if there was a demand for Reformation in Germany for different reasons, neither Martin Luther nor the Protestant religion met this demand to enter the religious market and be a direct rival of the Roman Church.

In conclusion, as the birthplace of Reformation, Germany and in general territories of HRE had both several reasons for demanding the change in the religious market and significant conditions like the existence of printing press, literacy culture, and urban development, that ease to spread and supply of new religious product of Martin Luther and other leaders of the Reformation. Consequently, the German reformation movement tackled all the barriers put by the religious market's monopoly and became successful.

BIBLIOGHRAPHY

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2-    Weber, Max (1963) The Sociology of Religion. Beacon.

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4-    Bainton, Roland (1950) Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. New York: Abingdon Press.

5-    Scribner, R., Porter, R., & Teich, M. (Eds.). (1994). The Reformation in National Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6-    Cantoni, Davide. "ADOPTING A NEW RELIGION: THE CASE OF PROTESTANTISM IN 16TH CENTURY GERMANY." The Economic Journal 122, no. 560 (2012): 502-31. Accessed January 17, 2021.

7-    Johannes Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes (7th edn, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1881), vol. I, p. 607.

8-    Moeller, Bernd (1972) Imperial cities and the Reformation: three essays. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

9-    Edwards, M.U. (1994). Printing Propaganda and Martin Luther, Berkeley, CA: Berkeley University

10- Wolf, Hans-Jürgen (1974), Geschichte der Druckpressen (1st ed.), Frankfurt/Main: Interprint

11- Johnson, A.F. and Scholderer, V. (1965) . Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed in the German-speaking Countries and German Books Printed in other Countries from 1455 to 1600 now in the British Museum, London: Trustees of the British Museum.

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