5. This order of things established a powerful landed aristocracy on the one hand, and a peasant tenantry on the other, whose vassalage was but little removed from absolute slavery. The crusades and the development of a commercial class, living chiefly in the cities, in time wrought the destruction of feudalism.

6. The Crusades, their Influence on Feudalism and Liberty—The crusades were religious wars carried on in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, between the Christian nations of the West and the Mohammedans of the East. It had for ages been looked upon as an act of piety to make a pilgrimage to Palestine and visit the various places hallowed by the presence of Messiah during his earthly career, especially his sepulchre at Jerusalem. These Christian pilgrims had been respected by the Saracens for centuries; but when the Seljuk Turks captured Jerusalem, towards the close of the eleventh century, the Christians met with insult and cruelty. The western nations, under the fervent preaching of Peter the Hermit, a native of France, who had witnessed the atrocities practiced upon Christians in the Holy Land, were lashed into a fury of resentment against the Turks. Pope Urban II took up the cause, and advocated wresting the Holy Land from the dominion of the infidels. Europe responded, "God wills it," and preparations were made for the holy war.

7. To raise the money necessary to equip and transport their soldiers to the distant East, the barons had to sell their lands, which had the effect of breaking down to a very great extent the feudal system of land tenure, and with it the obligations that it imposed. The direct result of this was to enlarge the liberties of the people. For the same purpose—to raise money for carrying on the holy wars in the East—kings granted to the towns political privileges, a circumstance which also contributed vastly to the progress of popular liberty. Thus the way was prepared for that religious revolution of the sixteenth century known in history as the Reformation.

8. Martin Luther.—The Reformation is usually considered to have begun with the fearless preaching of Martin Luther against the sale of indulgences, A. D., 1517. Luther was born at Eisleben [Is-la-ben], Germany, A. D., 1483. His father was a miner of Mansfield in the same country. After attending the school of Magdeburg [Mag-de-boorg] and Eisenach [Is-sen-ak] he was sent to study philosophy and jurisprudence at Erfurt [Er-foort]. Much against the will of his father, he abandoned the pursuit of these studies, and joined himself to the Augustine Eremites, a rigid order of mendicant monks. His good temper, industry and abilities won for him the good opinions of his superiors. In 1508 he was sent by his vicar-general to be professor of philosophy at Wittemburg. While here he applied himself to Biblical theology and soon discovered a wide discrepancy between the religion of the scriptures and that of the church. Two years after becoming a professor at Wittemburg, he made a journey to Rome on some business connected with the Augustine order of monks; and was not a little shocked at the corruption and depravity of the Italian clergy. That visit to Rome did much to dispel the veneration in which he had held the "Holy See," and armed him for his subsequent conflict with it.

9. Indulgences and their Origin.—The thing which provoked Luther's opposition to the church of Rome was the reckless sale of indulgences by the agents of the pope in Germany. The origin of indulgences, according to the learned Schlegel, must be sought in the earliest history of the church. In the first centuries of the Christian era, such Christians as were excluded from the communion of the church on account of their apostasy in the times of persecutions, or on account of other heinous sins, had to seek a restoration to fellowship by a public penance, in which they entreated the brethren to forgive them, frequently standing before the door of the church clothed in the garb of mourning. This punishment was regarded as a sort of "satisfaction" made to the community of saints, and was called by that name. In the case of aged or infirm Christians this "satisfaction" was sometimes omitted, and this omission was called "indulgence." Originally, therefore, indulgences were merely the remission of ecclesiastical punishments imposed on grave offenders against church laws.[[6]]

10. It is maintained, however, in the decretal of Pope Clement VI, that "one drop of Christ's blood being sufficient to redeem the whole human race, the remaining quantity that was shed in the garden and upon the cross, was left as a legacy to the church, to be a treasure from whence indulgences were to be drawn and administered by the Roman pontiffs."[[7]] The doctrine was held that Messiah had atoned for the eternal punishment of sins, but not for its temporary punishment. The temporary punishment the Catholic Church divided into that of the present life and that of the future life, or of purgatory. It was held that every man who attained salvation, must suffer the temporary punishment of his sins, either in the present world or in the flames of purgatory. It was also held that the priest to whom a man confessed his sins, had the power to adjudge and impose the necessary punishment.

11. The punishment usually consisted of fastings, pilgrimages, whippings, etc.; but people of distinction and wealth were permitted to employ substitutes to receive this punishment; and there were monks ever ready to endure the punishment of the transgressor for a consideration paid in money. This penance was finally changed to paying to the church the money instead of employing monks to endure the punishment. Whoever, for instance, was bound to whip himself with so many stripes each day for several weeks might pay to the church or to the monastery a certain sum of money, or give it a piece of land and then be released from the penance. As the popes perceived that something might be gained in this way, they assumed to themselves the right of commuting penances for pecuniary satisfactions, which every bishop had before exercised in his own diocese. At first they released only from the punishments of sin in the present world; but in the fourteenth century they extended this release also to the punishment in purgatory.

12. The Traffic in Indulgences.—When such indulgences were to be published, the disposal of them was commonly farmed out. The papal court could not always wait to have the money conveyed from every country of Europe; and there were rich merchants at Genoa, Milan, Venice, and Augsburg, who purchased the indulgences for a particular province and paid to the papal treasury handsome sums for them. Thus both parties were benefited. The pope came at once into possession of large sums of money; and the farmers did not fail of a good bargain. They were careful to employ skillful hawkers of the indulgences, persons whose boldness and impudence bore due proportion to the eloquence with which they imposed upon the simple people. Yet that this traffic might have a religious aspect, the pope appointed the archbishops of the several provinces to be his commissioners, who in his name published that indulgences were to be sold, and usually selected the persons to hawk them, and for this service shared the profits with the merchants who farmed them.[[8]] [See notes 3 and 4, end of section.]

13. In the beginning of the sixteenth century the sale of indulgences was pushed vigorously and became most offensive. The reason for resorting to this mode of raising revenue was justified by the pope on the plea of completing the church of St. Peter, at Rome, which had been commenced by Julius II.

14. John Tetzel.—The hawker of indulgences who traveled through Germany, where Luther was living, was John Tetzel, a Dominical monk, at once one of the boldest, most eloquent and the most profligate of men. [See note 6, end of section.] His reckless preaching of these papal wares aroused the indignation of Luther, who published ninety-five propositions against the sale of indulgences, in which he even gently censured the pope for permitting the people to be diverted from Christ.