When these people came to confession, they presented their indulgences which they had paid good silver money for they told Martin Luther that they no longer had to repent of their sins, since the document they had purchased promised to forgive all their sins. Even though the prince of the part of Germany where Luther lived, Frederick III, and the prince of the neighboring territory, George, Duke of Saxony, forbade the sale of indulgences in their respective lands, the people who went to the church where Luther was a priest traveled to purchase them. He agreed to allow the sale of the indulgences in his territory in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. There was a saying at the time, attributed to Tetzel: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs."Īlbert of Mainz, the Archbishop of Mainz in Germany, had borrowed heavily to pay for his high church rank and was deeply in debt. People believed that if they bought them, they would be free from suffering for their sins in Purgatory after death. Indulgences were documents that members of the Catholic church could buy that said that their sins were forgiven. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Johann Tetzel, a Catholic priest, began the sale of indulgences in the German lands. Luther strongly disputed the Catholic Church's claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money.Īs part of a fund-raising campaign commissioned by Pope Leo X to finance the renovation of St. The Reformation began in 1517 with the actions of Martin Luther, a German monk and Catholic priest. During the Protestant Reformation, Protestant churches and denominations separated from the Catholic church, which had dominated Europe in earlier centuries.
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