The Protestant Reformation didn’t just happen overnight. It wasn’t like some Catholic person woke up one morning saying, "Man, the Catholic Church is sorry. I’m going to start my own church." There were many factors that contributed to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and its early success.

One group of factors was the worldliness of the Catholic Church and the two great scandals of the Church: the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism. The Catholic Church seemed to get too worldly during the 1300s and 1400s. This was very evident in the splendor of the papal court. In 1506, Pope Julius II had St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome rebuilt, and he hired architects and artists such as Michelangelo to design and decorate the rebuilt church. To pay for such projects, Renaissance popes increased the fees that Christians paid for baptism, marriage, and funerals. Popes also permitted the sale of indulgences which are reductions of the punishment a sinner would suffer in purgatory after death. People were granted indulgences in exchange for specific services and money contributions to the Church. Many faithful Christians protested such practices and objected to the worldliness of the Church. They said Christians should live simple lives like in the Bible. They called for reforms to be made. There were also two great scandals which tarnished the image of the Church. In the first one, known as the Babylonian Captivity, King Philip IV of France tried to tax the clergy, but the pope ordered them not to pay. To show he had support of the people, Philip called the first Estates General and eventually kidnapped the pope. He then engineered the election of a new French Pope who moved the papacy to Avignon. During this period, popes were no more than pawns of the French kings. Later, another crises arose called the Great Schism. In it, a new pope was finally elected in Rome. At this time there were two popes competing for power: one in Avignon and one in Rome. Each pope excommunicated the other, and no one was sure who was really in power. Finally, a Church council ended the crisis by electing an Italian pope to rule from Rome and persuading the French king to accept the new pope. These three factors either reduced the power of the Church or tarnished its reputation in one way or another. They all made people question the motives of the Church and wonder whether or not what it did was always right.

Another group of factors was the teachings of the early reformers such as Wycliffe, Huss, Savonarola, and the writings of Erasmus. John Wycliffe was a teacher of theology at Oxford University. He questioned the spiritual authority of the Church and claimed that the sacraments and the priests who administered them were not necessary for salvation. He encouraged his followers to translated the Bible into English so people could read it themselves. Wycliffe’s ideas spread across Europe. The Church persecuted Wycliffe’s supporters as heretics. In Bohemia, John Huss preached against corruption in the Church. Huss was accused of heresy and burned at the stake. For years afterwards, the Church waged a crusade against the Hussites, as his followers were called. In the 1490s, an outspoken monk, Girolamo Savonarola, preached reform in Florence. He attacked the Church and condemned immorality. He urged his listeners to reject worldly possessions. Eventually, Savonarola was executed for heresy, but his death did not silence the voices of protest. Christian scholars such as Desiderius Erasmus also urged reform. Erasmus was a Dutch scholar and priest who led the Christian humanists in northern Europe. Erasmus knew Greek, so he could study the earliest-known versions of the New Testament, which were written in Greek. In his most famous work, In Praise of Folly, Erasmus used witty dialogues to point out the ignorance of some clergy. He also criticized the Church for emphasizing pomp and ritual rather than the teachings of Jesus. Despite his criticism of Church practices, Erasmus accepted its teachings. He remained in the Church even when other reformers rejected its authority and set up their own churches. The teachings and writings of these men were important because they made the problems within the Church well-known. They showed that the Church was doing many things with only self-interest and no consideration for the interests of the people. Even though some of them were killed for heresy, they were still around long enough to get the message out that the Church had problems and that something needed to be done about it.

One last group of factors that contributed in some way to the beginning or early success of the Protestant Reformation was Tetzel’s sale of indulgences and Luther’s "95 theses," and the support of the Reformation by townspeople, peasants, and some nobles. Martin Luther was a monk who came to believe that God would grant salvation whether or not a person did good works such as fast and pray. Luther’s beliefs led to denounce the practice of granting indulgences. In 1517, the monk Johann Tetzel was actively selling indulgences near Luther’s home at the University of Wittenberg. Tetzel was quoted as saying, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs." Tetzel was collecting huge sums of money to be sent to Rome. Luther was outraged at Tetzel’s activities. He posted 95 theses, or questions for debate, on the door of the Wittenberg castle church. In the 95 theses, he condemned the selling of indulgences. He argued that indulgences could neither release a soul from purgatory nor cancel a person’s sins. Within weeks after Luther’s attack, his message had been printed and spread across Europe. Forced to defend his statements, Luther expanded his criticism of the Church. Soon he was denying Church authority in other matters. He claimed that the authority of the Bible and a person’s own conscience outweighed the pope’s authority. Pope Leo X became alarmed at the activities of the "wild boar," as he called Luther. In 1520, he excommunicated Luther. The next year, the Holy Roman emperor Charles V questioned Luther before the Imperial Diet, or assembly, then meeting at worms. Luther stood firm and refused to withdraw his criticisms of the Church. Instead, he declared, "I cannot go against my conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me." Luther’s stand made him the leader of reform-minded churches in the Holy Roman Empire. The Reformation was also supported by townspeople, peasants, and some nobles. Many townspeople supported Luther and the Reformation because they resented having to pay Church taxes. Many town governments eagerly took over Church property and set up independent churches. Some German princes supported Luther and his followers. They wanted to assert their independence of the Holy Roman emperor. When the emperor tried to force the German princes to remain loyal to the pope, they protested and became known as Protestants. Luther’s reforms also appealed to the peasants, who bore a heavy burden of Church taxes. In 1524, peasants in southern Germany began an armed rebellion against the nobility and the Church. They protested against efforts to increase their feudal dues, and they demanded the right to choose their own priests and the right to cut wood and take game from the lords’ forests. These factors were important to the Protestant Reformation because they really set it off. They were not the only factor, but they were "the straw that broke the camel’s back." They really got the Protestant Reformation started and got people not only seeing the wrongdoing of the Church but taking action against the Church, also.

I believe the event which was most significant to the development of the Protestant Reformation was Tetzel’s sale of indulgences and Luther’s 95 theses and the support of the Reformation by townspeople, peasants, and some nobles. It was not so much the fact that Tetzel was selling indulgences that was significant, but the fact that it led Martin Luther to post the 95 theses. Since this became widely-known very fast, a great many people found out about Luther and his ideas. They became interested and agreed with his teachings. They agreed with his teachings so much that some, such as the peasants, fought and put their lives on the line to stand up for them. As mentioned earlier, Luther’s teachings were "the straw that broke the camel’s back." He and his teachings are responsible for the Reformation taking place when it did. If he had not posted the 95 theses, it could have been years before another "straw" came along that had enough "weight" to set off the Protestant Reformation. Every Protestant Church as we know it would be totally different if Martin Luther hadn’t posted the 95 theses.