In this course we will discuss the history of some ideas that have been hugely influential in the modern west and that were taken out to the rest of the world. The discussion centers on an extraordinary and historically important figure, a sixteenth century German man named Martin Luther. Luther is recognized today as the originator of many of the most significant ideas that continue to affect and shape who we as modern people are and how we see the world and ourselves for better and for worse. In the first section, we will explore why Luther thought the Bible was the most important volume for everyone to have and read. Included here will be a careful consideration of Luther's anti-Judaism, which contributed to western antisemitism and some of the greatest horrors of the twentieth century. In the second section, we will talk about the idea of freedom and how Luther's understanding of freedom in Christ affected the way modern thinkers understood what it means to be human in community. Important in this section is the consequential contradiction between freedom and slavery in western thought and their co-existence in western societies. The third section will be all about the many complicated relations between religion and politics. NOTE: Students wishing to sign up for free access to all instructional course content should click on the "Sign-In" button in the upper right hand corner. Those who wish to take the course and complete a certificate that requires payment, please click the Enroll button on the left side of this page.
Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire
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来自 Northwestern University 的课程
Luther and the West
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与讲师见面
Christine HelmerArthur E. Andersen Teaching and Research Professor, Professor of Religious Studies and German
Department of Religious Studies
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The year was 1521.
twenty-one year old Charles V, newly elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of
German Nations summoned the most powerful religious and political authorities of his
realm to the town of Worms for an Imperial Diet, as such august meetings were called.
He put a public hearing for
the Augustinian heretic, Martin Luther, on the agenda.
Known as the “Universal Monarch,” Charles V ruled over most of Europe
as well as Spain and its new world territories.
The prosecutor asked Luther to recant his writings.
Exhausted after a sleepless night, Luther replied with the famous words,
“Here I stand. I can do no other, so help me God.”
Charles immediately banned Luther from the Empire, which marked him as a dead man.
Luther's presence at the Imperial Diet ended when Frederick the Wise, Duke of
Saxony, whisked Luther to safety in the castle where Frederick could protect him.
Modern people find the story of the Diet of Worms puzzling.
Why did Charles V hear Luther's case, which had to do with theology and
church matters and not imperial politics?
Pope Leo X had already excommunicated Luther.
Why did this religious offense also warrant a political trial?
Over the next three lectures we'll examine the complicated relations between church
and state in the middle ages in order to understand how it was that Luther was both
excommunicated, which was a religious punishment, and
banned from the empire, which was a political sentence.
We will discover how Luther's reform of the church involved an inextricable
political dimension.
As a young man, Luther lived in Electoral Saxony.
This was once part of a larger territory which Frederick II
divided between his two sons in the late 1400s.
He gave Ducal Saxony to Albert,
whose own son George would later defend Catholic interests against Luther.
Across the border, George's cousin, Frederick the Wise, kept Luther safe.
This map shows how the Holy Roman Empire was subdivided into many territories,
duchies, city states, and even small zones of papal authority.
The Holy Roman Emperor reigned over all the territories,
acquiring some of them by inheritance,
and others through negotiation with, and approval from, the Electors or
territorial rulers of particular states
who had traditionally been granted the power to elect the emperor.
Frederick the Wise was such an Elector.
To make matters even more complicated,
although Charles V ruled the Holy Roman Empire, the same territory, more or
less, was also subject to the Popes,
who regarded it as Christendom because its official religion was Christianity.
The papacy had its own diplomatic corps, military, lawyers, and
tax collectors, as well as a hierarchy of bishops and
cardinals, who oversaw the everyday life of the Church.
But who really ruled this vast territory,
the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor?
The overlapping jurisdictions provoked endless conflict.
In the eleventh century, the Pope at the time, Gregory VII clashed bitterly with
Emperor Henry IV over who had the right to appoint local bishops.
While the appointment of bishops might seem like a religious matter,
bishops also had political powers over their own lands and private armies.
Although the church leaders were forbidden to shed blood,
they were obligated to mobilize the knights attached to the church's lands
when the temporal ruler requested the knights' service.
At stake in this conflict, which is known as the Investiture Controversy,
were basic questions about who could make war and who could sue for peace.
The conflict between political and
religious authorities was clearest when it came to crowning the emperor.
This was usually the pope's role,
a sign that the leader of Christendom had power over the imperial ruler.
While a pope always had the power to excommunicate, in the eleventh century,
he additionally claimed the right to depose any emperor he disliked,
as Pope Paul III tried to do with England's Henry VIII
because of the king's immorality and violent anti-Catholic policies.
The entwined relationship between church and empire lasted until 1804,
when thirty-five year old Napoleon Bonaparte, about to be crowned emperor, is said to have
wrested the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII and placed it on his own head.
Although the story is not true, it signals a sea change in European culture.
Two years later, Emperor Napoleon I dissolved the Holy Roman Empire.
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