What affect you think the Protestant Reformation had on changing the power structure of Europe and how it split Europe?

larry1

The Protestant Reformation is known in history for changing power from the 5% aristocrats to also the 20% upper middle class. This was huge! 25% of the populace could take part in running things. It sowed the seeds of democracy It 'split ' Europe, because in Catholic countries the Pope said only the 5% plus the Church could ever rule.

Anonymous

It clearly divided north and south Europe. Protestantism also brought with it a change in attitudes toward monarchy and its divine foundations.

Enguerarrard

There were multiple effects, and it provoked a civil war (the Peasant's War of 1524 in the Germanies) almost immediately, provoked a war with the Holy Roman Empire under the Schmalkaldic League, and provoked the Dutch war of independence, a Protestant war against Catholic Spain that lasted some 70 years. Then of course there was the disaster of the 30 Years War. Germans had long been resenting the flow of German wealth to Rome in the form of tithing, fees, and abusive practices like selling indulgences. Plain folk believed that if they threw off the yoke of Rome, that all that money would stay at home, reducing taxes and tithes and creating more prosperity. This was simple minded; the princes simply stepped into the place of the Church authorities, and kept all the money for themselves. Right from the beginning Lutheranism and Protestantism were national movements, which was a heretical departure from the international, cosmopolitan, and universalist Catholic church. That divide is still very active in American politics. The Protestant KKK still hates the Catholic Church for being international, multiracial and universalist. In Catholic theology (though not in practice), national boundaries are meaningless. Nationalism existed to an extent before the Protestant Reformation, but Protestantism made nationalism a shiboleth.

Atheist Dude

Nothing Catholics dominated Europe the Protestant were runner-ups .