A period in European history marked by efforts to reform the Christian Church
Durant on the most radical sect of the Reformation: adult baptism, pacifism and religious toleration among the Swiss and South German Anabaptists, their persecution, the communal farms of Moravia, the siege and fall of Münster under John of Leiden, and the lasting legacy of the Mennonites, Quakers and Baptists.
Durant on the small Swiss republic of the late fifteenth century and the humanist priest who would reform it: the Confederation's rise after Charles the Bold, the state's growing grip on a corrupt Church, Ulrich Zwingli's mountain childhood, his classical education, his break with indulgences, and his heroic service in the Zurich plague of 1519.
Durant on how Ulrich Zwingli remade religion in Zurich between 1520 and 1525: preaching over ritual, the break with the bishop, priests' marriage, the disputation of 1523 and the Sixty-Seven Theses, his theology of sacrament and predestination, the stripping of images, and the fusion of Church and state under the Council.
Durant on the Swiss Reformation turning to arms: the Catholic League of Five Cantons, the iconoclasm of Basel and Oecolampadius, the bloodless First Peace of Kappel, the failed Marburg meeting with Luther over the Eucharist, Zwingli's vision of a heaven with pagan sages, his death at the second Kappel, and Bullinger's patient legacy.
Durant's portrait of the private Luther: his appearance in Cranach's portraits, his marriage to the former nun Katharina von Bora, his devotion as a father and the death of his daughter Magdalena, the Table Talk, his love of music, food and company, his violent language, his superstitions, and the faith that carried him through.
Durant on how Luther moved from defending freedom of conscience to demanding doctrinal order: his early statements against compulsion, his shifting positions on Anabaptists and blasphemers, his turn against the Jews, the logic of an infallible Bible, and how Melanchthon, Bucer and the Protestant authorities adopted censorship, expulsion and excommunication.
Durant on the rift between Renaissance humanists and the Protestant reformers: dogma, abuse and distrust of learning drove away Pirckheimer, Mutianus, Crotus, Reuchlin and Cochlaeus; the German press and schools suffered; and Ulrich von Hutten's last days, his break with Erasmus and his death on an island in Lake Zurich.
Durant's study of the great parting of the Reformation: Erasmus's early praise of Luther's theses, his attempts to protect Luther and to reconcile the quarreling parties, the pressure from Rome, the clash over free will in "On Free Will" and "The Bondage of the Will," Erasmus's years at Basel and Freiburg, his death in 1536 and the verdicts of posterity.
Durant on why Lutheranism survived pope and emperor: economic motives, German princes and cities, the Turkish threat after Mohács and the siege of Vienna in 1529, Charles V's entanglements, and the line drawn between a Protestant north and a Catholic south.
Durant on the political and doctrinal struggle after 1526: the first and second Diets of Speyer and the "Protest" that gave Protestants their name, the Augsburg Confession of 1530, the Schmalkaldic League, Charles V's compromises under Turkish pressure, the failed colloquy at Regensburg, and the Lutheran Church's worship, catechism and hymns.
Durant on Luther's final decade: illness and a sharpening temper, his conservative politics and his deference to princes, the secret second marriage of Philip of Hesse, the savage pamphlet against the papacy of 1545, his death at Eisleben in February 1546, and Durant's closing assessment of his faults, his force and his influence.
Durant on the last act of the German Reformation: Charles V's war on the Schmalkaldic League and his victory at Mühlberg, Maurice of Saxony's reversal and the Treaty of Passau, the Peace of Augsburg and its formula "Cuius regio, eius religio", the victory of the princes over both emperor and cities, and Melanchthon's last years.
