Melvyn Bragg TV - Kenneth Clark TV - Diarmaid MacCulloch TV - Andrew Graham-Dixon TV - Bettany Hughes TV - Janina Ramirez TV - Michael Woods TV - Jonathan Foyle TV - Ann Widdecombe TV - Ulinka Rublack - Ian Paisley - Jonathan Miller TV - Martin Luther TV - Alister McGrath TV - John Milton - Martin Luther - Stanley Hauerwas - Simon Schama TV - Carved With Love: The Genius of British Woodwork TV - Peter Ackroyd - David Starkey TV - Andrew Marr TV - Andrew Graham-Dixon TV -
The Reformation in Germany in 1517 led by Martin Luther. It was an emotional and intellectual earthquake throughout Europe. It undermined the seemingly all-powerful Roman Catholic Church and demanded that everyone should have the right to read the Bible in their own language. Melvyn Bragg, The King James Bible: The Book that Changed the World, BBC 2011
In the late Middle Ages the civilisation of northern Europe seemed designed to last for ever. Rich merchants, self-satisfied guilds, a conveniently loose political organisation, no material reasons for change. And yet in a few years in a single generation came the first of those explosions that were to create contemporary man – what we call the Reformation. Kenneth Clark: Civilisation 6/13: Protest & Communication, BBC 1969
The fifteenth century had been the century of revivalism. ibid.
It was still an age of internationalism. ibid.
He’d [Erasmus] seen enough of religious life to know that the Church must be reformed not only in its institutions but in its teachings. It was once the great civiliser of Europe, and now it was aground, stranded on forms and vested interests. ibid.
The first man to take advantage of the printing press was Erasmus. It made him and unmade him ... Erasmus’s Praise of Folly was an outburst of this kind. ibid.
Whatever else he may have been Luther was a hero. ibid.
One fancies that Nordic man took a long time to emerge from the primeval forest. ibid.
H G Wells once made a useful distinction between what he called communities of obedience and communities of will. ibid.
The lady chapel at Ely – all the painted glass smashed ... There wasn’t much religion about it; it was an instinct. ibid.
Luther gave his countrymen words. ibid.
The wars of religion evoked a figure new to European civilisation, although familiar in the great ages of China, the intellectual recluse. ibid.
His crime was translating the Bible into English. His name is William Tyndale. Melvyn Bragg, The Most Dangerous Man in Tudor England, BBC 2013
William Tyndale was a matchless scholar whose heroic life of principle took on the great forces of Henry VIII with only an army of words. ibid.
His act was thought to be a work of revolution. ibid.
Luther’s study of the Bible led him to radical new beliefs which struck at the heart of the Catholic Church. ibid.
In 1526 copies of Tyndale’s translation began to arrive on English shores. ibid.
A thousand years of history was going to be junked ... The Reformation was a watershed. Diarmaid MacCulloch, How God Made the English II: A Tolerant People? BBC 2012
The English Church was born in the sixteenth century out of that revolution in Christianity we call the Protestant Reformation. Diarmaid MacCulloch, How God Made the English III: A White and Christian People?
By the sixteenth-century all through Europe the Church was selling certificates called Indulgences to show how much time in Purgatory you had avoided. The cash paid for new churches and hospitals. When the Pope wanted to finish the re-building of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome he launched an indulgence campaign. Some might think this a worthy cause but it raised big questions in the mind of a German monk ... Martin Luther ... Over the next decade this open defiance of ancient authority was Christened Protestantism. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, BBC 2009
She [Mary] adds a femininity to Catholicism which Protestantism rather lacks. You also have the confessional, a brand-new invention of the counter-Reformation. So that you can unburden yourself of sin to a priest. So what the counter-Reformation offered you was a sense of companionship – companionship with holy Mother Church. This was the Counter-Reformation’s answer to Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin. ibid.
In spite of The Enlightenment Revolution the Catholic Church had emerged stronger than ever. ibid.
All across the German lands there was growing unhappiness with the Catholic Rome ... In 1517 a monk called Martin Luther nailed a list of theological objections to the door of his local church. It sparked the Reformation and a new breakaway religion of Protestantism. Andrew Graham-Dixon, The Art of Germany, BBC 2010
That rich, hugely powerful and profoundly medieval institution the Roman Catholic Church ... Catholic magic was giving way to Protestant pragmatism. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain: The Seventh Age: 1530 A.D. – 1700 A.D. Channel 4 2003
The Reformation caused the destruction not just of monasteries across the country but also many of their illuminated manuscripts. Janina Ramirez, Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings 3/3, BBC 2012
The Reformation is an amazing story – the greatest destruction of our heritage in British history. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History V: Lost Worlds & New Worlds, BBC 2012
The [Protestant] Revolution would turn out to be an attack on the very way of life of the people. ibid.
Up in the north, in the kingdom of Scotland, the Protestant Reformation unfolded later than in England and Wales. ibid.
Ireland – here the Protestant Reformation had made no headway. ibid.
In Ireland, England began a policy of plantations. ibid.
Rome had refused to sanction Henry’s divorce of Catherine. Henry now rejected Rome. Jonathan Foyle, Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer? II BBC 2012
Henry decided on doctrine; his was the Word of God. ibid.
Their power was about to come crashing down and with it the most wonderful architectural legacy. ibid.
There had already been attacks on power-crazed bishops, ignorant priests, and fake holy relics. Luther targeted a set of corrupt documents called Indulgences. In 1517 he made them the launch pad of his religious rebellion. Ann Widdecombe, Christianity: A History s1e5: Reformation, Channel 4 2009
What Luther was unleashing was one of the greatest political and religious revolutions in history. ibid.
For me this is the triumph of the Reformation: the Luther Bible. With his own notes hand-written in the margin. ibid.
The Pope was the official head of the Church in England. And gave Henry the title Defender of the Faith for his loyal zeal. Yet it was this same Henry that eventually brought the Reformation to England. ibid.
It continued for five days. The River Seine ran red with blood and copy-cat attacks occurred throughout France ... The Reformation had led ordinary Christians to butcher one another. ibid.
Christianity needed a reformation, but I think the way it worked out in practice was the most appalling tragedy. ibid.
Many were critical of Indulgences ... but nobody before had written really ninety-five thesis attacking this as a practice in the church. In 1520 Luther is declared a heretic. Dr Ulinka Rublack, author Reformation Europe
It has been claimed that when Luther recognised the papacy as Anti-Christ, it was only then that the Reformation gained momentum. Reverend Ian Paisley
The fabric of Christian faith and dogma was torn in pieces and continued to undergo even further schisms. For the first time in its history Christianity starts to come apart. It’s no longer one Catholic church. And for potential disbelievers these disagreements, this sectarianism, was seen as evidence that perhaps none of the dogma might be true. Dr Jonathan Miller, A Rough History of Disbelief, BBC 2004
Germany 1493: a time of desolation and disease. Where the plague could wipe out entire towns in days. And a quarter of all children died before they were five. In this world there was one great consolation: the Church and its promise of heaven. Martin Luther I: Driven to Defiance PBS 2010
Also corrupt and tyrannical. An empire that would be overturned by one man: Martin Luther. ibid.
The church exerted as much control over life on Earth as it did in Heaven. ibid.
The Black Death had killed almost a half of Europe’s population in the previous hundred years. ibid.
The more his despair the more Luther threw himself into the rituals of the Church. ibid.