Zwingli - Father of Swiss Reformation Issue 4 | 1984 Purchase this issue

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It was an age reaping the benefits of events of the 1450’s—when Constantiople’s fall to the Turks threatened all of Europe and Gutenberg’s innovation of movable type gave more than a select few the privelege of coming to their own conclusions. In Zwingli’s lifetime—a mere fifty years—scholars of the church questioned the faith as Rome had tought it, and courageous explorers thrust through ancient myths and fears to discover new horizons. It was a world encountering a new kind of trade, including tasty foods from exotic lands. It was a world becoming stronger—in England, France, and Spain. It was a world equipping itself with giants—moneyed families such as the Medici and the Fuggers, geniuses of form such as Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael, singleminded leaders such as Columbus, Henry VIII, Ferdinand and Isabella, and Luther. It was an age to give people hope in princely powers as well as in personal ideals. It was an age beginning to change at a faster pace, yet it was an age when one could still burn as a heretic.

Event

1477

Swiss pikemen [Swiss pikemen ] distinguish themselves at Battle of Nancy, making them much sought after as mercenaries

1480

Ferdinand and Isabella appoint Inquisition [Inquisition ] against heresy among converted Jews

1480

Ivan III [Ivan III ] styles himself Czar of the Russians

1482

Portuguese explorers discover bananas on west coast of Africa

1483

Martin Luther [Martin Luther ] born

1484

“At Hammel in Saxony, on the 20th of June, 1484, the Devil, in the likeness of a pied piper [pied piper ] , carried away 130 children, that were never after seen.”
Japan’s shogun Yoshimasa introduces the tea ceremony

1484

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1485

Battle of Bosworth on August 22 ends England’s 15-year Wars of the Roses; Henry VII ...