Protestant: Did you mean...?

Johann Tetzel (l.c. 1465-1519) was a Dominican Friar who became famous as one of the most effective indulgence salesmen and who inadvertently inspired the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) wrote his 95 Theses protesting...

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520-1598 CE) was Elizabeth I of England's most important minister for much of her reign (1558-1603 CE). Lord Burghley was Secretary of State for both Edward VI of England (r. 1547-1553 CE) and Elizabeth...

Grossmünster (“large cathedral” in German) is a Romanesque ex-cathedral situated in the heart of Zürich, Switzerland, which was built over the course of the 11th and 13th centuries CE. According to legend, the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne...

The medieval indulgence was a writ offered by the Church, for money, guaranteeing the remission of sin, and its abuse was the spark that inspired Martin Luther's 95 Theses. Luther (l. 1483-1546) claimed the sale of indulgences was unbiblical...

Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531) broke with the Church in 1522 and defended his beliefs at the First Disputation in 1523, encouraging many people in Zürich to embrace his teachings. Among his followers was a group, soon known as Anabaptists...

A Very Useful Epistle (Epistre tres utile, 1539) is an open letter by the female reformer Marie Dentière (l. c. 1495-1561) to Marguerite of Navarre (l. 1492-1549) advocating for a greater role for women in the work of the Protestant Reformation...

In response to Martin Luther's 95 Theses, as well as his other works, Pope Leo X sent a papal bull threatening him with excommunication in June 1520. Luther publicly burned the bull at Wittenberg on 10 December 1520 and was officially excommunicated...

"The Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire," wrote Voltaire, and this interpretation still dominates the popular imagination, so the Holy Roman Empire is treated as a bad joke, a pale parody of the glory of Rome...

Defending Clerical Marriage (1524) is an open letter by reformer and theologian Katharina Zell (nee Schütz, l. 1497-1562), written to justify the marriage of Christian clergy. The Catholic Church prohibited clerical marriage, but Katharina...

The Autobiography of Saint Ignatius is the story of the life of Ignatius of Loyola (l. 1491-1556) dictated by him to the Jesuit priest Father Louis Gonzalez between 1553-1555, shortly before Loyola's death in 1556. It is an account of his...