Nicknamed “Il terrible” by his contemporaries and the “Warrior Pope” by historians, Julius II’s early sixteenth-century pontificate marked a notable political and militaristic expansion of the papacy. Born Giuliano della Rovere on December 5, 1443 in Albissola (in the Savona region), he was the nephew of the future Pope Sixtus IV, Francesco della Rovere. His […]

Known mostly as pastor of the city church in Wittenberg during the spread of the Reformation and as Luther’s own father confessor, Johannes Bugenhagen played a significant role in translating early Protestant theology into actual church practice. A humanist rather than a theologian, Bugenhagen accepted the Reformation and became instrumental in its propagation and organization […]

During his time as Luther’s supervisor in the Augustinian order, Johann von Staupitz had a direct influence upon his spiritual and theological development and Luther later attributed much to his former monastic superior. It was Staupitz who heard Luther’s confessions, served as his spiritual advisor during the spiritual struggles of his early career, and eventually […]

Hadrian VI proved to the last non-Italian pope until the twentieth century, but his place in the Reformation is most noteworthy because of both the high hopes for his tenure and its remarkable brevity. Born Adrian Florensz on March 2, 1459 in Utrecht, he received his early education among the influential Dutch Brethren of Common […]

The fourth pope during the period of the Reformation, Paul III became the first to take proactive reform measures in response to Protestantism. His reforms help shape Roman Catholicism for centuries thereafter, chiefly by bringing about a doctrinal response to Protestant theology. Born Alessandro Farnese on February 28, 1468, his family was prominent in the […]

A Dominican prior and inquisitor, Johannes Tetzel became notable at the outset of the Reformation as the preacher of indulgences who instigated Luther’s 95 Theses. Born 1465 in Pirna near Meissen, he would receive education in Leipzig from 1482 to 1487, earning the bachelor of arts, before joining the Dominican order in 1489. He ascended […]

Sylvester (Mazzolini) Prierias entered the early controversy over indulgences when, as papal court theologian, he drafted a theological critique of the 95 Theses that were attached to the letter summoning Luther to Rome in 1518. Born Sylvester Mazzolini in 1456 in the town of Priero, part of the Piedmont region in northwestern Italy, Prierias would […]

One of the more significant diplomatic efforts to remedy the early Reformation conflicts was spearheaded by Karl von Miltitz, a papal ambassador to Germany who met with Luther during the tense years of 1519 and 1520. Born in 1490 in the town of Rabenau near Dresden, Miltitz was the son of a nobleman from Meissen. […]

Leo X was the last of the Renaissance popes before the dawn of the Reformation, but his role in the indulgence controversy left the indelible impression of his pontificate. Born Giovanni de’Medici in Florence on December 11, 1475, he was the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, patriarch of the powerful mercantile Medici family that […]

Lucas Cranach the Elder made an impression on the Reformation not through his ideas, his books, or his ecclesiastical service, but his art. As the Saxon court painter in Wittenberg for Frederick the Wise, he produced many works of art that were emblematic of Protestant theology at the time of the Reformation. He also became […]

The second Medici to wear the papal tiara in three pontificates, Clement VII’s tenure was marked by his relative inability to make progress in the face of political and ecclesiastical challenges. Together with his cousin, Leo X, he represented nearly twenty years of Medici governance in Rome and he stood in stark contrast to his […]

(Cardinal Cajetan) Cardinal Cajetan, baptized Giacomo de Vio, is best known for his interview of Luther at Augsburg in 1518, but he was also a prolific theologian in his own right who authored more than 150 works and would produce an influential—and controversial—interpretation of Thomas Aquinas. Born in Gaeta, Italy, on 20 February 1469, he […]

Georg Spalatin played a critical role in the Saxon court during the early days of the Reformation and was an ardent supporter of reforms throughout northern Germany. Born January 17, 1484 as Georg Burckhardt in Spalt near Nuremburg, he was the illegitimate son of a Franconian tanner. After early education in Nuremberg, he proceeded to […]

As professor at Ingolstadt in Bavaria during the outbreak of the Reformation, John Eck would play a significant role in opposing Luther’s reform and winning Bavaria for the Catholic party. Born Johann Maier in the Swabian village of Eck, he would go on to study at Heidelberg, Tübingen, Cologne and Freiburg, earning his master’s at […]

The most pivotal figure of the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation (or, alternately, the Catholic Reformation) was Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order who established new directions for Catholic education, missions, catechesis, and spiritual formation. Born Iñigo de Loyola, he was the thirteenth child of Spanish nobility. He spent his childhood in Case […]

Born in 1500, Charles I of Spain was successor of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty and ruled the majority of Europe during the Reformation as Emperor Charles V. On the side of his father, Philip of Burgundy, were the Habsburg Austrian Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. On the side of his mother, Joana “The Mad” of […]

Few figures were as resistant to categorization during the years of the Protestant Reformation as Desiderius Erasmus. He was a staunch critic of church abuses, an advocate for humanism, and a prominent exponent of biblical criticism cited by Protestants and opposed by Catholics, yet he remained Catholic himself and throughout the years distanced himself from […]

If religious and political concerns were often inseparable during the Protestant Reformation, then they were borderline indistinct in the life and career of Philipp of Hesse. Known most prominently as the Landgrave of Hesse, or as Philipp the Magnanimous, he was a leading political advocate for the right of Lutheran princes to reform their churches […]

A humanist and canon lawyer at the outset of the Reformation, Justus Jonas became a trusted confidant of the Wittenberg reformers and stood alongside them at some of the more significant events of the period. Born as Jodocus Koch on June 5, 1493 in Nordhausen, a free imperial city, his father was a senator in […]

The fifteenth-century church reformer Jan Hus is known as much for his controversial execution at the Council of Constance in 1415 as he is for his teachings. His legacy for the Protestant Reformation remains that of a controversial late medieval pastor who sought the reform of the church in his lands. It was in fact […]

One of the more dramatic scenes of political and religious reform preceding the Protestant Reformation owed to the preaching of the late fifteenth-century Dominican, Girolamo Savonarola. A famous mendicant preacher who combined republican politics, millenarian prophecy, observant monasticism, humanist learning, and biblical theology, Savonarola found himself at odds with the Roman curia and the powerful […]

The Devotio moderna proved to be one of the more significant movements of religious piety in the later Middle Ages, and it owes its existence to the influence of the Dutchman Gert Groote, or as his disciples referred to him, Gerardus Magnus. Born October 16, 1340 in the Netherlands town of Deventer, his father was […]

While not as recognizable as contemporaries Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, or even Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Bucer’s influential role in the early Protestant Reformation may only stand behind that of Luther himself. As a parish pastor, reformer, diplomat, preacher, and scholar, the former Dominican Bucer would help initiate and stabilize reform throughout the Holy […]

(Faber Stapulensis) Along with Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Italian cardinal Gasparo Contarini, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples is one of the more notable sixteenth-century humanist reformers that did not join the Protestant Reformation, but instead remained in communion with Rome. Like Erasmus and Contarini, Lefèvre was a humanist biblical scholar who shared many Protestant criticisms of […]

The most famous devotional text produced on the eve of the Reformation was The Imitation of Christ, and the author most closely associated with it happens to be Thomas à Kempis. Though his authorship remains in question and the text is quite possibly a compilation of ideas about devotion that Kempis merely packaged for broader […]

Between the years that Martin Luther joined the Augustinian order at Erfurt and became embroiled in the Indulgence Controversy at Wittenberg, the prior general of his order was the famed humanist Giles of Viterbo. Though Luther likely never met him, the prior general embodied the ideals of Renaissance humanism and monastic reform that would make […]

Johannes Oecolampadius occupied an important place in the Reformation at the intersection of northern humanism, Protestant theology, and the Reformed tradition. As a young humanist, he was an expert in the biblical languages and a colleague with the most prominent German humanists of his day, including Erasmus, Johannes Reuchlin, Jakob Wimpfeling, and Philipp Melanchthon. Yet […]

Andreas Bodenstein, most commonly known as Karlstadt for the town of his birth, embodied the tumultuous early years of the Reformation and the difficulty of categorizing many reformers according to theological allegiances. At first opposed to Luther’s theological opinions, Karlstadt soon came to embrace them and the Augustinian theology that influenced them, only to go […]

Called the “bishop of Lower Saxony” by Luther, Urbanus Rhegius served as an evangelical preacher in Augsburg after the start of the Reformation and finished the remainder of his career as superintendent and reformer in the Saxon duchy of Lüneberg. A trained humanist and conciliatory voice within Protestantism, he prioritized unity in the gospel over […]

A humanist, reformer, and theologian, Andreas Osiander embodied the various circles in which many Protestants ran, but also the complicated relationship between those various circles that led to tensions and divisions within the Reformation. A trained humanist, he would master Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, study the Jewish Kabbalah, and produced his own revision of the […]

Frederick III of Ernestine Saxony, commonly known as Frederick the Wise, became the first patron of the Protestant Reformation due to his defense of Luther during the early days of the Wittenberg reforms. A known patron of humanist letters and art, especially the work of painters Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach, his founding of the […]

While many of the so-called “radical reformers” took up arms in their fight for ecclesiastical and political independence, Menno Simons came to teach a pacifistic Anabaptism. A priest who remained an active reformer in the Dutch Catholic churches well after his conversion to evangelical doctrine, Simons shaped a new direction among Anabaptists that would prove […]

Alongside Johannes Bugenhagen, Johannes Brenz takes his place as a leading church administrator in the first generation of the Protestant Reformation who was responsible for the start of reform in numerous German lands. He became a leading defender of Lutheran Eucharistic doctrine against the Swiss, especially through his articulation of the doctrine of the ubiquity […]