The Reformation of the 16th Century (by Ronald H. Bainton)

The Renaissance shifted interest from heaven to earth.

Nationalism enfeebled the Holy Roman Empire and weakened the papal theocracy.

The essential note [of the Reformation movement] was the recovery of the uncorrupted Christianity.

Three periods are discernable in midieval history: dissimination, domination, and disintegration.

Prosperity itself corrupts.

A medieval monk formulated the law of monastic cycle: "Discipline begets abundance, and abundance, unless we take the utmost care, destroys discipline; and discipline in its fall, pulls down abundance."

The ground on which [the papal theocracy] rested was the sacramental system.

Thomas Aquinas ... gathered up the threads from Christian and classical antiquity, from the wisdom of the Abrabs and the philosphy of the medieval Jews into an integrated theological system.

The underlying theory (of "indulgencies") was that Christ and the saints had more merits than were needful for their own salvation. The superfluous credits were stored in a treasury placed by God at the disposal of the popes and capable of transfer to those whose sins were in arrears.

The pope [John XXII] spent 63% of his enrmous income [three times thatof the king of France] on wars for recovery of his lost Italian estates.

The pope often could not make up his own mind whether he was the successor of Peter or of Caesar.

The Renaissance invaided the Vatican.

To hold the Reformation responsible for the destruction of the great papal theocracy of the 13th century is to forget the condition into which it had already fallen.

Indignant reformers concluded that if correction on a universal scale were no more successful, the attempt must be renewed with select units of those personally committed.

The very concept of the end of the age was subversive to the security of a great ongoing institution like the medieval Church.

[I]f morality be the touchstone [of the elect] the inference is obvious that an immoral pope is neither the head of the Church nor even a member. Predestination and millenarianism were sometimes combined and the Church as an earthly institution was then undercut both from before and from behind.

The most devastting attack on the structure of the Church came from a denial of the efficacy of the sacraments of priestly power to dispense them.