Free A Short History of Europe: From Charlemagne to the Treaty of Europe by Gordon Kerr Page A

became Holy Roman Emperor, succeeding his grandfather,Maximilian I (ruled 1508–19). Charles spent a large part of his reign tussling with the French over the rich but politically unstable Italy. It was a struggle that would continue sporadically for the next 150 years.
    However, the real threat to Europe at the time was from the Ottoman Turks. Since Sultan Mehmet II had secured Constantinople for the Ottoman Empire in 1453, they had made advancesinto Europe. Thrace, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Albania had all fallen to them. They took Belgrade in 1521 and, by the middle of that decade, were close to Vienna, posing a danger to the Holy Roman Empire itself. Meanwhile, they had rallied Muslim troops into threatening Spain once more from North Africa.
    Charles believed the only solution to the Turkish threat was a ‘Universal Concord’ amongstEuropean states. He believed that Christian sovereigns had a duty to stop fighting each other so that they could unite against the Ottomans. He famously gave a speech in Spanish on the subject in front of Pope Paul III. It was never going to happen, especially if the French king, Francis I, had anything to do with it. Francis and Charles went to war again. In 1521, following Francis’ captureafter defeat at the Battle of Pavia, he was coerced into signing the Treaty of Madrid in which he surrendered to the Emperor the duchies of Milan and Burgundy.
    The Pope, Clement VII (Pope 1523–34), meanwhile, led the Italian states against the Empire in a series of inconclusive battles that ended in the Peace of Cambrai in 1529. Burgundy was handed back to the French and Spanish supremacy inItaly was recognised. Further wars followed. But, soon, other matters began to demand the attention of Charles and his fellow monarchs. Not only was there the advance of the Turks to worry them but there was also the rise of Protestantism in France and Germany in the religious revolution known as the Reformation.

Reformation Europe
    Religious Revolt
    On 31 October 1517, the German monk, theologian and university professor, Martin Luther, pinned a notice containing 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Church doors were often used as notice boards and the one at the Castle Church provided a very efficient way of getting information to everyone in the university. Luther’s notice, however,was meant for a far bigger audience. Within months it had launched a religious revolution that changed Europe forever.
    In 1516, Johann Tetzel (1465–1519), a Dominican friar, was sent to Germany by the Pope to raise money for the construction of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome by selling indulgences. Indulgences were, effectively, forgiveness for sins and their sale had become one of the CatholicChurch’s biggest abuses. However, selling indulgences was just one of many abuses that had become everyday practice amongst the clergy and such malfeasance went all the way to the top. Nepotism was rife in the Vatican and friends and relatives of the pope, whoever he was, were routinely appointed to positions for which they were unworthy. Even out in the parishes, priests were neglecting their duties.These abuses were coupled with growing religious discontent, following the Church’s inability to do anything about the famine, war and pestilence that had bedevilled Europe in the last 200 years.
    Dissenters such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus and theologians such as Erasmus, with their new, humanist values, had been unable to bring about change. Pope Julius II (Pope 1503–13) had promised reformwhen he was elected and eventually called the Fifth Lateran Council – but it failed to make any changes. It ended in 1517, by which time Julius had died and been replaced as pope by Leo X (Pope 1513–21). This was the very year that Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door. By this time, Germany was ripe for religious change. The Pope was extremely unpopular, having just levied a tax, andthe emperor had been