Christendom is God’s kingdom here on earth. The term comes from the Latin Christianus, and refers to the Christian world, the community of believers who have accepted Jesus as God’s son and as the Christ, or Messiah, the Savior of mankind. Through his suffering and death Christ atoned for the sins of man; his resurrection three days later was proof of victory over Satan and death, and is thus the starting point for Christianity. While singular faith is the cornerstone of Christianity, the concept of Christendom has geopolitical connotations as well, referring to those nations and political entities that embrace Christianity even when, aside from a predominant religion, they hold little else in common. Through the ages the exact relationships between political leaders, clergy, and populace have varied widely and dramatically.
From the time of Christ until Martin Luther’s appearance in the 16th century, Christendom might be roughly divided into periods of growth, expansion, and sporadic unity. The first was a heroic, if not primitive era, those years immediately after Jesus’ time on earth, where a small group of believers (Jews, like Jesus himself, and then Gentiles) shared their common faith through worship and fellowship. Led by the first apostles and inspired by martyrs, the early Christians persisted in the face of brutal Roman persecution and oppression, shaking off the trappings of secrecy and evangelizing the story of their Savior, while steadily becoming more visible and vocal.
The conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early years of the 4th century ushered in the next great era of Christendom. Under his rule the Church was officially recognized by the Empire and Christians were granted full legal and citizenship rights. Constantine established the concept that a political leader was responsible to God for the spiritual wellbeing of his subjects, and was further charged with rooting out heresy or misbehavior to ensure order in society. Once persecuted by government, church leaders now allied with it and came to share in its burgeoning power and wealth. The age of church as defining institution had begun.
With legitimatization came structure. In AD 325 a council of bishops convened by Constantine in Nicaea, Bithynia produced the Nicene Creed, the Christian profession of faith which declared allegiance to “one holy catholic [universal] and apostolic Church.” Over the next one hundred and fifty years basic features of Christianity emerged: the mystery of the Holy Trinity; the belief in Christ as God and man; the designation of Holy Scripture; the identification of the Sacraments, including the structure of the Mass and the manner of distribution of the Eucharist; canon law; monasticism; the liturgical calendar; missionary expansion; and division into sees, dioceses, and parishes. The status of clergy was elevated and eventually organized into a hierarchy of bishops (the Bishop of Rome said to be first among equals), priests, and deacons, some of whom could be traced back to the apostles themselves. Although the exact nature and extent papal authority was often a source of dispute, eventually the concept of papal supremacy emerged, and the pope’s absolute authority came to dominate Western Europe for centuries.
Constantine’s empire gave way to the rise of the Germanic Franks, and with it came the emergence of feudalism and the continued, if uneven, expansion of the faith. The Christian world underwent a dramatic transformation on Christmas Day 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. This unexpected event represented a new and cataclysmic ideal: all of central Europe would now be united by a common faith and moral culture, a single society within a wide variety of peoples. And indeed Christendom was triumphant in the medieval age, reaching the heights of its prestige and power, corresponding with the new artistic and intellectual achievements of the emerging Renaissance. Even as the Empire itself faltered, the Catholic Church firmly established itself as the main civilizing force in Europe and its most powerful institution. Its influence manifested itself throughout the continent: Christianity took root in the British Isles, and then spread to multiple countries and populations: Franks, Lombards, and Angles converted in the sixth and seventh centuries; next came Hessian Germans and Saxons; then northern Germans and Slavs; and finally the Baltics and the Scandinavians of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
Owing to divergent populations, languages, and cultures, expansion necessarily brought controversy, secular and non-secular alike. Great divisions within the Church, called schisms, highlighted the theological differences between the Byzantine and Orthodox Christians of the East and the Latin and Roman Catholics of the West. In 1305 Pope Clement V moved the Holy See to Avignon in southeastern France, and there it remained until 1372 when Gregory XI returned it to Rome. After Gregory’s death, however, the college became hopelessly split. The same church that had united Europe was now ruled by two Vicars of Christ in two different countries, a scandal that persisted for thirty years.
Conflict was also inevitable, evidenced most notably by the bloody Crusades of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. Designed to stop invading Muslims and reclaim Christian holy places in and around Jerusalem, the Church’s forces also battled to control the lucrative trade routes of the Middle East. The series of inquisitions which begin in the 12th century were designed to discover and punish heretics and to reestablish fundamental theological thought. All too often, however, the Church was guilty of authorizing and condoning theft, plunder, imprisonment, torture, and death as it carried out its missions.
Yet for all her struggles the Church remained the dominant institution in European life. The four great powers of the age, France, Germany, England, and Spain, all rivaled for military and economic power while at the same time embracing, to one degree or another, their religious roots and traditions. But it was Germany that was set apart, because of its unique political system, and it was Germany that would give rise to the Reformation.
By the High Middle Ages of the 15th century, Germany and her surrounding territories—essentially central Europe—made up the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. This cultural nation of twenty million people, known historically as the First Reich, consisted of some three hundred sovereign states and free cities. Unlike neighboring France, however, which benefitted from the strong centralized government of the monarchy, the authority of the German emperor was limited; real political power was held by the princes, nobles, lords, dukes, margraves, counts, and knights in the various states. In many places—perhaps about one-sixth of the empire—Catholic bishops, archbishops, or abbots, appointed by the pope in faraway Rome, held political power as well. Three of these (the archbishops of Cologne, Treves, and Mainz) joined four other non-ecclesiasticals (the King of Bohemia, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Count Palatine, and the Elector of Saxony) to form the college of electors that chose the emperor, a fact that would play a monumental part in Luther’s rise.
The vast majority of Germans were peasants who lived in small villages of fewer than one hundred people. Some worked in shops or markets but most worked to scratch out meager livings in fields and pastures. All were accountable to the Catholic Church, which permeated every aspect of peasant life. The largest building in the village was the church, and the clergyman was the village’s most prominent resident. Every birth, baptism, communion, marriage, and death was marked by the Church’s rules and formalities. Devout Christians were admired as upstanding members of the community, while slackers were ostracized. The week centered on Sunday Mass (conducted in Latin, which peasants could not understand), and attendance was essentially mandatory. One could achieve salvation only through adherence to the teachings of the Church, and through receipt of the Sacraments, which the Church administered. The Eucharist was offered once per year, as was repentance or confession. The Bible existed, but since only clergymen could read, its contents were more or less a mystery to the peasantry. Most remained ignorant even of the lessons of the Gospel. Yet prayer was a constant feature in every home, and the Rosary was faithfully recited. Picture books, illustrating the life of Christ and prominently featuring the Virgin Mary, were popular. The Holy Trinity, it was often suggested, had become “the Virgin, the Father, and the Son.”
But the Church that dominated peasant life was unquestionably corrupt. Over the centuries the papacy had become obsessed with ceremony and form over substance. Popes lived beyond their means in divine opulence, constructed magnificent buildings, and patronized the arts. They financed wars and defended their territory, which included vast holdings of property throughout the continent. Accordingly, popes constantly needed cash, and they found a steady stream of revenue in Germany, the wealthiest country in Christendom. With no strong central government to protect them, German peasants had no alternative but to grumble and comply.
Popes collected their monies through bishops, who imposed taxes through their dioceses. Bishops established transactional taxes on contracts, mortgages, marriages, probates, and disputes in papal courts between clergy and parishioners. Rome even found a way to impose taxes on the new bishops the pope had just appointed. But these appointees who would now hold political and ecclesiastical power were seldom, if ever, Germans, a fact that did not sit well with the increasingly nationalistic populace. In fact, the new appointees often didn’t even travel to Germany, but sent vicars to fulfill their duties instead. These lower clergy, as they were called, were often poorly educated in both spiritual and non-spiritual matters. Worse, they behaved not as men of God, but as men of the world.
Bribery was rampant at all levels of the Church, and avarice was commonplace. Clerical concubinage was an open secret throughout the regions, and many parish priests held common law wives and children. Monastic compliance with their vows varied from order to order. (The Benedictines and Teutonic Knights seemed to have been most worldly, while the Dominican, Franciscan, and Augustinian friars were known to more strictly cling to their vows and perform regular acts of charity and benevolence.) For generations, even popes had been less than discreet with their own dalliances, and Pope Alexander, for one, had publicly acknowledged his own child. Historians agree that the condition of the Church as a whole, from top to bottom, gave great cause for alarm.
At the height of the Church’s power, and perhaps of its corruption, the Plague struck Europe in 1347. In just a dozen years nearly two hundred million people, somewhere between one-third and one-half of the population, perished. If the Black Death was not the end of the world, as many thought, then it surely was a sign of God’s wrath. Catholics believed what they were taught, that their God had two sides: one loving and merciful, the other judgmental and vengeful. Perhaps, then, the Church insisted, if parishioners could please God, they might avoid the awful punishment God was now inflicting. In order to accomplish this, priests devised lists of transgressions, catalogs of sin which warranted confession. Each and every sin had to be atoned for: sins of words and thought, of action and inaction. Sin could take the form of gluttony, or lust, or sloth, or temptation. Pride, ambition, tyranny, laziness, gambling, blasphemy, seduction, profanity—all sins could be identified, categorized, and confessed. Increased emphasis was then placed on the sacrament of penance, and thus the peasant parishioner relied even more on the priest.1
It was a fearful time, and fear was not limited to calamitous disease or invading enemies. Christians in the Middle Ages lived in terror of Satan and his depraved powers. The devil was a real, tangible force of evil, taught the Church, ever present and pervasive. The word Satan itself is Hebrew, meaning “adversary” or “destructor.” The Devil was said to be God’s archenemy, a wickedly powerful spirit of iniquity. After a monumental battle in heaven, according to Scripture, Satan had been hurled to earth, along with his dark angels, to continue his eternal struggle with God for the souls of men. Now he perched on the shoulder of every peasant and prince, old man or young child, heinously whispering, cajoling, and tempting his prey. He lurked in every cottage and shop, in every orchard and field. Jesus had conquered death, believed the Christian, but black Lucifer still roamed, spreading his poison and disrupting God’s holy reign.
Satan commanded all manner of minions who did his evil bidding. They sometimes took the form of demons, with tongues of fire and teeth of iron. They often inhabited swine, crows, and cats. They were present in strange noises. They were howling winds in the treetops and rafters. They were present in creaking floorboards and wisps of smoke, in the scurrying of rats and the bellowing of cattle. They took the form of headaches and bellyaches and all manner of unexplained circumstance. Satan was the Prince of Darkness, a lurking villainous mystery, truly the scourge of mankind.
Fear of Satan corresponded with superstition, and most people in the late Middle Ages believed firmly in witchcraft. Witches had frightening powers. They cast spells and produced illnesses of all kinds. Witches possessed elderly, defenseless people, providing a convenient explanation for odd behavior. They also lived in innocent children and manifested themselves in misbehavior or naughtiness. Witches were the cause of all kinds of mischief. They ruined orchards and vineyards. They caused pastures to wither, streams to go dry. They could sour the milk, spoil the meat, spill boiling water on the children. Witches turned butter to dung, eggs to stones. They caused fruit to fall prematurely from orchard trees, and then inhabited the bellies of horses that ate it. Witches turned conversation to argument, musings to murder. They caused distemper and perversion of thought. By their incantations witches caused men to become impotent and women to fail to conceive or worse, miscarry. Witches were sexual predators, taught Saint Augustine. Sometimes witches took the form of angels, and coupled with unsuspecting women, producing disease or a scandalous pregnancy.
While Satan was everywhere on earth, and witches and demons lurked unseen, the German peasant remained in his village. All the protection he needed, he was told, was provided by the Church, for despite its many imperfections, it remained the unchanging constant in medieval life.
Thus was Germany in the 15th century, a land far north of Rome, yet at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. It was filled with hardworking people whose allegiance was given without question to the only Church they had ever known, a Church unsurpassed in power and influence, a Church that prescribed the way to salvation and provided the only sure refuge against evils, both real and imagined. German medieval life had stood still, it seemed, for five hundred years, but it was about to be torn apart by challenge, crisis, and tumultuous reform. In the north central part of Germany was Saxony, a region that contained flat land and mountains, rivers and black forests, cities and hamlets. In the center of Saxony was the tiny village of Eisleben. And it was here, at just a few minutes before midnight on Friday, November 10, 1483, in a modest, half-timbered two-story house on Lange Strasse, where Martin Luther was born.