More Reformation—sorry

The printing press encouraged literacy, which almost all by itself brought on the Renaissance and shaped modern Western Civilization. Those pamphlets of Luther’s presented the argument that the Catholic Church needed to be reformed.

You guys are rolling your eyes now—”C’mon, Manders! Give the Reformation a rest already!” Okay, okay. There IS a reason I bring it up again: for thousands of years, the power-structure of every kingdom and empire was top-down, central-government, one-guy-runs-the-show—that is, all decisions are made by one king or emperor. In the Holy Roman Empire, the pope ran everything to do with the Church. All the Church’s power was in the Vatican, in Rome. The pope appointed priests to every last little church.

This model is ‘top-down.’ The power comes from above and works its way down.

The Reformation brought a big change: the new Protestant churches elected their own pastors. The power to choose a pastor resides in each individual member of a Protestant church. If you belong to a Protestant church, you have a say in who gets to be preacher. This was a big, new idea. It happened because a great number of people knew how to read and did read Luther’s pamphlets.

A path was being cleared for—eventually—a nation whose ordinary-shmo-citizens would elect its political leaders.

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1064/protestant-reformation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljdWWjdesMM
https://opencurriculum.org/5475/the-medieval-church/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/29/world/reformation-world-change/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_and_bottom-up_design

Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Reading & Writing.

Don’t forget: I wrote another Western Civ User’s Guide! Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space.

Going viral 1517-style

Some people are great self-promoters. Most aren’t. Johannes Gutenberg created world-changing technology but didn’t know how to capitalize on it. Martin Luther saw the printing press and knew exactly what to do.

It was movable type and the printing press that got the Protestant Reformation off to such a fiery start. Within days of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg, printed copies were circulating all over Europe. If the Pope had wanted to respond to each one, he’d have to wait for an army of monks to calligraph his remarks on parchment.

In England, across the Channel, they could read what Luther had posted in Saxony just a few days earlier. Can you imagine what it was to have news delivered so quickly? Well, of course you can. Nowadays Martin Luther would take a selfie in front of All Saints Church and post it on Instagram with a link to his blog where there’d be a pdf of his 95 Theses and you’d download it a few moments later. But it was 1517, so he used Gutenberg’s hot new technology to spread his ideas. He followed up the Theses with cheap, easy-to-read printed pamphlets where he defended his arguments in German. These were bestsellers and Luther even got big-shot artist Lucas Cranach to draw illustrations for them—his drawings were made into woodcuts. Luther’s pamphlets would be carried to every port city and printers there would run up copies and sell them.

Luther translated the Bible into German. It was a bestseller, too—5,000 copies.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-power-of-luthers-printing-press/2015/12/18/a74da424-743c-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html
https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance
https://www.nls.uk/exhibitions/treasures/the-reformation/95-theses/
Yes, it’s a word https://www.dictionary.com/browse/calligraph

Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Reading & Writing.

Don’t forget: I wrote another Western Civ User’s Guide! Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space.

Fixing Julius Caesar’s calendar

A couple of posts ago, we saw that by the late 1500s the Julian calendar was seriously off. How to fix it?

A doctor, Aloysius Lilius, thought there were too many leap years. The Julian calendar adds a day—February 29th—every 4 years, no exceptions. What if on some leap years we didn’t add the extra day? His idea was that any leap year that ends in 00—unless it can be divided by 400—gets no extra day.
That would solve the problem! Pope Gregory XIII liked the idea so much he made it official on February 24, 1582. Later that year, ten days disappeared! October 4th was followed by October 15th in order to reset the calendar. The new calendar is called the Gregorian calendar. We still use it today.

The last year that ended in 00 was 2000. Because it can be divided by 400, it was a leap year with February 29 added. The next one will be 2100—it will be a common year with no extra day. I’ve been cutting out the fatty snacks so maybe I’ll live to see that happen.

Here’s the inside-baseball, blow-by-blow account of how the new calendar was adopted by Pope Gregory: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09247c.htm

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/15151/

Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space

Have a blessed Good Friday!

Charlemagne & Pope Leo III from yesterday

Here’s the painting I did yesterday. Still a bit rough; needs some tightening up. Charles’ right hand doesn’t look like it’s holding the hilt of that sword. I have to figure out how to mount my camera (phone) so it’s not in the way when I paint. I kept bumping into it.