| Timeline |
|---|
| 1500 CE | Pope Alexander VI proclaimed a Year of Jubilee with a call for a crusade against the Turks. | |
| 7 Jun 1502 CE | Pope Gregory XIII was born. He introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582. | |
| 1502 CE | Granada Moslems forced to convert to Catholicism. | |
| 1503 CE | Thomas a Kempis published his 'Imitation of Christ' in an English translation and it had great religious influence. | |
| 1503 CE | Canterbury Cathedral was finished after 433 years of construction. | |
| 1503 CE | Pope Alexander VI died. | |
| 17 Jan 1504 CE | Pius V, future Pope between 1566-1572, was born. | |
| 1505 CE | Michelangelo was called to Rome by Pope Julius II. | |
| 1506 CE | The Swiss Guard was founded by Pope Julius II to protect the pope and the Vatican. | |
| 1507 CE | Pope Julius II announced an indulgence for the re-building of St. Peter's. | |
| 1507 CE | Martin Luther was ordained. | |
| 27 Apr 1509 CE | Pope Julius II excommunicated the Italian state of Venice. | |
| 10 Jul 1509 CE | John Calvin (1509-1564), founder of Calvinism, the basis for modern Protestantism, was born in France. | |
| 1509 CE | Erasmus lectured at Cambridge and dedicated his 'In Praise of Folly', a witty satire on church corruption and scholastic philosophy, to Thomas More. | |
| 1510 CE | Pope Julius II excommunicates the republic of Venice. | |
| 1510 CE | John Colet, English churchman and humanist, founded St. Paul's School in London. | |
| 1510 CE | Martin Luther became professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg. | |
| 1511 CE | Having won battles over Muslim forces the Portuguese advanced their control over spice producing areas of India, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra and (by 1514)the Spice Islands. | |
| 1511 CE | Pope Julius joined the Holy League with Aragon and Venice against the French. Papal forces captured Modena and Mirandola from the French. | |
| 1512 CE | Julius II convened the 5th Lateran Council (18th ecumenical council) to try for the first time to reform abuses within the Church of Rome. | |
| 20 Feb 1513 CE | Pope Julius II died. He was laid in rest in a huge tomb sculptured by Michelangelo. | |
| 1513 CE | Giovanni de' Medici chosen Pope Leo X. | |
| 1513 CE | Niccolo Machiavelli wrote 'The Prince' in which he gave reasons for the rise and fall of states. It was not published until 1532. He justified the ruthless subjection of religion and morality to politics. | |
| 1514 CE | The Complutensian New Testament in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin is completed. | |
| 1514 CE | Pope Leo X issued a papal bull against slavery. | |
| 1515 CE | Raphael succeeded Bramante as chief architect of St. Peter's in Rome. | |
| 1516 CE | Erasmus published his version of the New Testament. He began by copying manuscripts found in monasteries and given to him by his friend Thomas More. His Latin translation and commentary and an improved Greek text differed in many places from the Vulgate of St. Jerome, and was immediately recognized as the most accurate translation so far. | |
| 31 Oct 1517 CE | Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Thesis to the door of the Wittenberg Palace All Saints' Church. This event signaled the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany and Protestantism in general. | |
| 1517 CE | Pope Leo X signs 5th Council of Lateranen. | |
| 1517 CE | Pope Leo X's calendar reform fails. | |
| 1518 CE | Luther was summoned to the Diet of Augsburg where he refused to recant. | |
| 1518 CE | Ulrich Zwingli, a Swiss clergyman, supported Martin Luther's Reformation. | |
| 1518 CE | Raphael painted a portrait of Leo X which showed spectacles with concave lenses for short-sightedness. | |
| 24 Apr 1519 CE | Envoys of Montezuma II attended the first Easter mass in Central America. | |
| 6 Jun 1519 CE | Charles of Spain was elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona. The Catholic heir to the Hapsburg dynasty. | |
| 1519 CE | The first Altenburger sermon by Luther and Karl von Miltitz. | |
| 1519 CE | St. George's Chapel, Windsor, England, was completed after 46 years of work. | |
| 1519 CE | The Italian influenced medieval church at the Moscow Monastery of Peter the Metropolitan was constructed. | |
| 1519 CE | Martin Luther disputed with Johann Eck in the Leipzig Disputation and questioned the infallibility of the Pope. | |
| 1519 CE | Ulrich Zwingli initiated the Swiss Reformation with his preaching in Zurich. | |
| 1519 CE | Corregio began painting the ceiling frescoes in the dining room of the abbess of St. Paul's Convent in Parma. | |
| 10 Dec 1520 CE | Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding that he recant, or face excommunication. | |
| 1520 CE | The Pope threatens to excommunicate Luther from the Catholic Church. | |
| 1520 CE | The Anabaptists, Protestants who baptized believers only and not infants, grew as a movement in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. Some emigrated to America and established themselves as the Amish of Lancaster, Pa. | |
| 3 Jan 1521 CE | Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther from the Roman Catholic Church. | |
| 17 Apr 1521 CE | Under the protection of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, Luther first appeared before Charles V and the Imperial Diet. Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. | |
| 18 Apr 1521 CE | Martin Luther confronted the emperor Charles V in the Diet of Worms and refused to retract his views which led to his excommunication. | |
| 21 Apr 1521 CE | Martin Luther was called before an Imperial Diet in Worms. He was already accused of heresy and excommunicated by the Pope. Here he was absolved of all charges. | |
| 8 May 1521 CE | Emperor Charles V and the Diet issued the Edict of Worms. It banned Luther's work and enjoined his detention but was not able to be enforced. | |
| 1521 CE | The 'Diet of Worms' and Luther refuses to back down. | |
| 1521 CE | Edict of Worms outlaws Martin Luther and his followers. | |
| 1521 CE | Pope Leo X signs treaty with German emperor Charles V. | |
| 1521 CE | Pope Leo X conferred the title of 'Defender of the Faith' on Henry VIII of England. | |
| 1522 CE | Marten Luther preaches his 'Invocavit'. | |
| 1522 CE | Martin Luther completed his translation of the New Testament into German and returned to Wittenberg. His supporter, Ulrich Zwingli, condemned Lenten fasting and celibacy. | |
| 1522 CE | Head inquisitor Adriaan Florisz Boeyens of Utrecht was elected Pope Adrian VI. He was the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II. | |
| 1522 CE | A Bible was printed in Alcala, Spain, in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Aramaic. | |
| 1523 CE | Pope Adrian VI died and was succeeded by Pope Clement VII, nephew of Lorenzo de' Medici [until 1534]. Adrian VI was the last non-Italian Pope until 1978 when Cardinal Wojtyla, Archbishop of Cracow, became Pope Paul II. | |
| Apr 1524 CE | The Peasant's War, in which Protestants fought against Catholics and demanded an end to feudal services and oppression by the landed gentry, broke out in Germany. | |
| 1524 CE | Martin Luther and Johann Walther produced jointly a German hymnal called 'Geistliche Lieder'. | |
| 1524 CE | Ulrich Zwingli abolished the Catholic mass in Zurich. | |
| 19 Jul 1525 CE | The Catholic princes of Germany formed the Dessau League to fight against the Reformation. | |
| 1525 CE | Church reformer John Pistorius caught in the Hague. | |
| 1525 CE | Paris' parliament begins pursuit of Protestants | |
| 1525 CE | Thomas Munzer, a German Anabaptist, set up a communistic theocracy at Mulhausen, Germany. | |
| 1525 CE | William Tyndale's translation of the New Testament was published in Worms, Germany. | |
| 1525 CE | Martin Luther got married and served chicken to his guests. | |
| 1525 CE | Luther wrote 'Against the Murderous and Thieving Hordes of Peasants'. | |
| 1525 CE | The Capuchin order of friars was founded in Italy. They become among the most effective Catholic preachers and missionaries in the Counter-Reformation. | |
| 1525 CE | The Mennonites, a Protestant branch of the Anabaptists, were established in Zurich, Switz. | |
| 1526 CE | German evangelical monarchy joins Schmalkaldische League. | |
| 1526 CE | Pope Clemens VII, France, Genoa, Venice, Florence and Milan form the Anti-French League of Cognac. | |
| 1526 CE | The Sermon of Bathe preaches evangelical theology. | |
| 1526 CE | Pope Clement VII formed the League of Cognac against Emperor Charles V. | |
| 1526 CE | William Tyndale, priest and translator, completed and published the first complete version of the New Testament in English at Worms, Germany. Tyndale was the first translator of the biblical texts from their original Greek and Hebrew into English. | |
| 1526 CE | The Teutonic Knights, a German military and religious order of knights and priests, broke away from the Catholic Church to become Lutherans. | |
| 30 May 1527 CE | The University of Marburg was founded. It is the oldest Protestant University in Germany. | |
| 1527 CE | Henry VIII appealed to the Pope for permission to divorce Catherine of Aragon. | |
| 1527 CE | (1527-1528) Henry VIII imprisoned Pope Clement VII for disobedience. It was to Clement that Henry appealed for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which had been granted under special dispensation in the first place. | |
| 1528 CE | Treaty of Dordrecht between the emperor and the ecclesiastical powers. | |
