Setting Off a Religious Reform Movement

In 1517 John Tezel, a Dominican friar, set off a religious reform movement that had been 500 years in the making. By selling off indulgences to the Christian followers of Martin Luther he initiated a chain of events that would eventually split Christendom into two parties. Martian, upset when his followers started to come to him with official Church documents that lessen their time in purgatory, wrote his Ninety-Five Theses. In his Thesis, Luther wrote his ninety-five arguments of the Church and its use of indulgences that would spark the Protestant reform movement. From the first Crusades to the time Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses; economical, political and cultural changes to the medieval world would establish the stage for his reforms.
With the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe fell into a dark age of economic ciaos. The economy fell back to a system of bartering where luxuries did not exist and most people where on the verge of starvation. Towns fell apart and a system of Feudalism, where people, land and merchandise where all owned by a ruling landlord, emerged. This dim economical outlook would begin to change with the onset of the Crusades. The Crusaders would have to travel long and hard from their homes in the west to the far south east of the Muslim lands. Along these traveling routes new trading hubs would be established that would supply the men and the knights of the Christian army. These trading routes would also bring Arab luxuries and technologies that would reshape the medieval market places. With this new and exciting influx to the economy, towns started to reemerge. Within these towns people come in search of new and exciting jobs, but before this could fully happen there had to be new advances in agriculture.
Agriculture would be the next big boost to the dim medieval economy.   Useful agricultural techniques, such as the heavy plow and the horse harness, increased the productivity of the local farmers. Land management would be one of the... [continues]

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