When Did the Reformation End?
From 1517, when Luther’s 95 Theses sparked schism and bloodshed, the Protestant Reformation divided Europe. Can we say when – or if – the conflict concluded?
‘From the start, it was criticised as an unfinished project’
Alexandra Walsham is Professor of Modern History (1930) at the University of Cambridge
The concept of the Reformation as a discrete event, with a beginning and an end, is a relatively belated development. For much of Christian history reformation was an ongoing and open-ended process. The recurrent impulse to recover the pristine purity of the faith in its infancy took both institutional and personal forms. The medieval Church and the religious orders strove to recapture their original zeal and to correct abuses that had crept in over time. But reform was also a moral and spiritual enterprise that took place in individual hearts, souls, and minds. By definition, such initiatives could never be complete: worldly structures were always riddled with corruption and fallen human beings were frail and sinful creatures. Reformation was understood less as a noun than as a transitive verb.
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