Alpha Book

" An "apocalyptic pamphlet of 1508 shows on
its cover the Church upside down, with the peasant performing the
services, while the priest guides the plow outside and a monk drives
the horses." It was, in fact, in the Germanics that all the social
classes--princes, burghers, knights, and peasants--had special economic
grievances against the Church, and in many places were ready to combine
in rejecting papal claims.
This emphasis upon the political and particularly upon the economic
causes need not belittle the strictly religious factor in the movement.
The success of the revolt was due to the fact that many kings, nobles,
and commoners, for financial and political advantages to themselves,
became the valuable allies of real religious reformers. It required
dogmatic differences as well as social grievances to destroy the
dominion of the Church.
[Sidenote: Abuses in the Catholic Church]
Nearly all thoughtful men in the sixteenth century recognized the
existence of abuses in the Catholic Church.


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