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Carrie Williams
Bennett
Humanities II 5
26 January 2016
The Negative Effects of the Catholic Protestant Schism
Europe, specifically the states in the Holy Roman Empire, has been plagued with
conflict for hundreds of years. Some of these conflicts were caused by internal affairs,
while others were caused externally. One of largest and most important conflicts was the
schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in 1517. This split
was one of the worst things that ever happened to Europe; it demolished the economy and
capsized the political system. Wars, monetary crises, and protests were all negatives
created by the Protestant Reformation, because they caused the annihilation of many
towns and provoked the economy to fall apart. The people in Europe, during the early
16th century, did not need to deal with any of these issues. Their lives were perfectly
normal before the split, but after, they lived in turmoil and poverty.
With the schism in the Church, there were many detriments to the economy of
Europe; many wars and many casualties caused this. In The Origins of the Thirty
Years War, Myron Gutmann speaks on how the Thirty Years War began as a conflict
in central Europe between the Catholic Habsburg emperor and his Bohemian subjects
over religion (Gutmann 752). Considering this information and adding to it that the
Bohemian people were Protestant, one can deduct that the Thirty Years War created
totally unnecessary wars that were just attempts to show how much more powerful
each religion was. This war was terrible for the economy, because there was as high as

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a 20% mortality rate among soldiers (Thirty Years War). These sacrifices were
superfluous and caused the economy to slump further into mediocrity. Another war that
weakened the economy of Europe was the French Revolution. This is explained in
Peter Mannings A History of the Protestant Reformation, when he states that the
French Revolution taught the world what Reformations can do, when pushed to their
full and natural extent the Reformation contented itself with plundering the
convents and the poor of their all (Manning 437). This destroyed the economy,
because the Protestant Reformers were going around and stealing from the poor. The
poverty-stricken people already had little to nothing and could hardly get by, now they
have even less and couldnt pay taxes to contribute to the fixing of their broken
economy.
Likewise, during the Protestant Reformation, there were many drawbacks to the
society; some of these include economic crises and protests. The Catholic Protestant
division caused a major economic problem throughout all of Europe. In The Economic
Crisis of 1619 to 1623 Charles Kindleberger states that during the time up to and
during the Thirty Years War, various states in the Holy Roman Empire fell into a
currency crisis or as others said a monetary crisis and panic (Kindleberger 150).
This economic issue was caused by the Thirty Years War, which was previously
addressed as a repercussion of the Catholic Protestant divergence; so one can conclude
that the split caused the economic dilemma. The Thirty Years War created this
economic debacle, because the taxes were increased on people who could hardly afford
to put food on their tables. Mercenaries would also go through towns pillaging for
anything that they could take to help the war efforts, this pillaging made the towns even

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more impoverished than they already were. There was also a major emotional toll
caused by the war, the approximate mortality rate was close to 20% of soldiers; many
people had loved ones that never coming home again (Thirty Years War). All
because of some inconsequential power struggle between two large religions.
Furthermore, in the Social Origins of Protestant Reformation, Robert Varickayil states
that the papal taxes, the veneration of relics, and the sale of indulgences created an
excessive drain of money from an economically weak nation [which provided] the
necessary ground for a successful protest movement (Varickayil 16). These protest
movements were a hindrance to the society, because protests tear a society apart. They
caused people to fight and worry only about themselves instead of thinking about the
betterment of the society as a whole.
When people study the Protestant Reformation, they always look at the
positives and never at the negatives. Most people would say that the positives caused
by the Protestant Reformation were some of the best things that couldve happened to
Europe, for example it increased literacy rates, allowed for more individual freedoms,
and protected the poor from unjust tithing levels. Though these were benefits, the
negatives caused by the Protestant Reformation drastically outweighed them. Without
the Protestant Reformation, countless wars could have been avoided and many social
and economic problems would never have happened. With all of this under
consideration, the Protestant Reformation unquestionably generated more issues than it
did benefits.