What would have happened if Luther was never excommunicated by the Catholic Church for the 95 theses? What would be required for that to not happen? A more liberal pope?
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Luther never expelled by Catholic Church
- Thread starter joeyanonymous
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actually, it wouldn't actually take all that much. Luther's criticism of the sale of indulgences was what snowballed. This was nothing new. Wycliffe, Hus and von Wesel had all trod this same path already. The French universities had condemned the practice in 1482.
The timeline
Luther originally, wasn't criticizing the pope directly. He was criticizing the abuses (which there were) in the sale/collection of them. Protestant hagiography (see above) paints Luther as criticizing the money going out of Germany to the pope's pockets. If he was criticizing the pope, it was indirectly (until Eck got involved). Rather he was criticizing Tetzel (who even Cajetan laid the blame for the whole mess squarely at his feet*) and indirectly, his boss. Not the pope (who likely didn't even know who Tetzel was), but Albrecht, Archbishopric of Mainz.
Blame 19th century German (Protestant) nationalism for histories of the reformation leaving out a very important part of the story: greed.
When the see of Mainz had gone vacant after the death of its last holder, there was a bidding war going on. A war with two candidates: Albrecht of Brandenburg and a brother of Luther's patron, Friedrich III of Saxony, over who would get the see. Both were bribing for the post. Albrecht bid larger and better (thanks to some timely loans from Jakob Fugger). The Wettins and the Hohenzollerns already had a feud going on over the bishopric of Magdeburg (among others), so it wasn't anything new.
Unfortunately, Leo X was the pope at the time. And if anything, he was probably as liberal as you could get and not be thrown out of the church (Kajetan's criticism of Leo as a "spiritual dwarf" springs to mind). But Leo had inherited a church with empty coffers thanks to Julius II's whole never-ending-war schtick. He needed to fill them. Hence why he accepted Albrecht's (bigger) bribe. And then authorized the sale of indulgences. Leo's behaviour of ordering sale of indulgences/relics to fill church coffers was again, nothing new. And nobody bought more relics than Luther's employer, the elector of Saxony (he even got a golden rose from the pope for his piety*)
However, there was a key difference. The money being collected in Germany wasn't going directly to Rome. It was going to Mainz (now belonging to the Wettins' hated rival). Albrecht was the one who sent Tetzel out**. Albrecht was the one authorized to "skim off the top" by the pope, in order so that he could recoup what he had spent on bribes.
Even the emperor, originally regarded the matter as an "inconsequential" dust up between the Wettins and the Hohenzollern. Nobody planned for it to play out as it did.
How do you prevent Luther's expulsion? Recant. Kajetan got him to agree to do it, the night before the famous line "here I stand, God help me". It was only the next day that Luther had changed his mind. He'd signed the recanting and everything, he just needed to make the sign of subservience to the emperor to be reconciled. Simply have him not change his mind. Or let Albrecht not get the loan from Fugger so he doesn't get the see or have the ability to recoup his losses.
*rather like Henry VIII getting the "Fidei Defensor" title from the pope for criticizing Luther, it proves intensely ironic
**in a weird twist, Luther sent Tetzel both money (presumably from a patron, since as a monk, Luther wouldn't have had an income) and a letter to assure him that he was not to blame for all of Luther's protests. Even Tetzel's call for the monk to be burned was a) nothing nobody else had said and b) something that even Friedrich III of Saxony feared as he watched the situationi spiralling out of control.
@Nuraghe
about the same chance as getting a Pope Hus or a Pope Savonarola
You can read an AltHistory that had a Pope Germanian I (Luther) in its past in The Alteration by Kingsley Amis.
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The driver of the excommunication and condemnation of Luther was the Emperor, not the Pope. Although theologically important, this was basically a political crisis. To change the outcome one needs to butterfly the election of or drastically change the personality of Charles V.
I fully agree with Kellan's comment above, first of all it is very true that Luther at the beginning was mainly heavily criticizing the policies of the Archbishop of Mainz ( who was also simultaneously Archbishop of Magdeburg, Apostolic Administrator of Halberstadt and Primate of Germany) which had begun since he took the tonsure in 1506 ( and immediately obtained benefits and prebends from the canonships of the chapters of Mainz, Magdeburg and Trier ) and his subordinates, primarily the Dominican Teznel ( it should be remembered that there was bad blood between Augustinians and Dominicans, and Luther was in fact an Augustinian ) which greatly pleased his protector and patron Frederick III of Saxony ( like Kellan has already said the Wettin and the Hohenzollern were in a fierce competition for the control of the rich and important northern dioceses of the Reich for decades ( at least from 1415 onwards ), and they had no qualms about competing in a bidding race to buy the control of the latter), to make this situation worse we also have the papal weakness ( which was slowly emerging from a very serious internal crisis caused by the Western schism ) made the situation worse because the pontiffs knew that they really did not have the means to be respected beyond the Alps ( just think that even the much closer Urbino and Romagna had declared themselves independent from Rome, so the direct power of the Papacy was very fluctuating ), furthermore with the intensification of the Italian wars, which also involved the Holy See, they absorbed all the attention of Rome ( see how both Leo ( 1 ) and subsequently Clement greatly underestimated the Luther problem ) which was engaged in a vital struggle for its credibility and independence ( Rome had a fixed rule for centuries, never to be surrounded by a single power, because it would mean the end of papal power and influence as an independent and superpartes entity, something that became even more evident after Avignon, something that was demonstrated again with the sack of 1527, which sanctioned the end of the Papacy as an important political actor in international level ( 2 ), furthermore it should be remembered that Luther's ideas were immediately used as a political means by the principles of the HRE to escape from the renewed central control created by the Habsburgs ( who through the alliance with Rome ( 3 ) used their influence on the imperial church to broaden their base of government in the Reich to the detriment of the princes ( electors and minor princes excluded, given the role that these two factions held in the imperial ideology )
ironically all this then merged into Protestant propaganda to demonstrate the decadence and subsequent corruption of the Papacy ( especially after the pontiffs believed that Luther's ideas were wrong and the result of logical errors, and it is good to remember that our Martin was not really very sympathetic to anyone who didn't think like him ) so to avoid such an escalation, at least three things would be needed: the first is a more stable Papacy that manages to recover influence in the European ecclesiastical hierarchy on its own, the second is no Italian wars or at least shorten their duration, so as to relieve Rome of the enormous quantity of resources (both economic and human (4) that it used in them, so that he could finally seriously concentrate on addressing the problem of the Protestant movement, instead of continually postponing the question ( the same applies also to the Council of Trent which due to wars and some pontiffs ( see Paul IV or Clement VII ) was delayed for several years ( Clement had promised Charles V to convene it in 1534, then Paul III tried to organize it in 1537/38 but the war blocked all his attempts ) and then once convened was continually interrupted and continued from 1545 to 1563 or finally allow Charles V to have a free hand in the HRE to handle the issue calmly ( but this would require an avalanche of other changes ), so yes Luther resigning in Worms would be the easiest thing to do, especially if he is demolished in a direct confrontation with the Pope himself ( but maybe this is just me wanting to have a few laughs at his expense ) so that at least not manages to obtain the enormous sounding board that the Otl diet was for him, actually for Luther, having to deal with weak or distracted popes like the Otl Leone, Hadrian and Clemente was a godsend, because it allowed him to spread and consolidate the bases of his doctrine among the princely and non-princely elite of the HRE with much calm ( I think if he had found a pontiff like Giuliano della Rovere or Rodrigo Borgia, things would have gotten very bad for him straight away )
1 ) Leone X at the beginning he obtained from his chancellery some little specific information on the chaos that was happening in Germany, most of which dismissed the issue as a simple struggle between the clergy and the minor orders ( a topic that the Pope himself had addressed in the fifth Lateran council ) it was only in 1520 that I began to understand the real scope of this movement, hence the subsequent excommunication for Luther, but unfortunately then he died ( it was rumored that he actually intended to take part in the Diet of Worms or a subsequent one to discuss the point to point with the monk, once the situation in Italy had calmed down, nothing so strange he was still relatively young, as he died at 48 ), and as pontiff he was succeeded by Giuliano de Medici / Clemente VII ( who in terms of political ideals was quite similar to Julius II, but without having the same skills ) Adriano VI was a non-entity in OTL so I almost don't consider him, if he had survived longer and managed to gain the favor and respect of the Roman curia and nobility then things could have taken a different turn
2 ) certainly the Papacy remained an important political actor at the Italian level, but the wrong choices and hesitations of Clement and some of his successors forced Rome to maintain a vague neutrality from the political point of view ( which, speaking to us clearly, was not a bad thing, but other, given the many things in common between Rome and the Habsburgs ( antagonism against the Turks, France and Protestants, maintaining a stable balance of power between the Italian princes and fighting corruption in the clergy ) but which cost the Papacy a natural loss of influence and prestige ( because many Catholic princes believed that Rome was too servile to the Habsburgs, mainly France, which coincidentally was the other power with enormous interests in the curia ) without forgetting that the Urbe itself took decades to recover from the traumas resulting from the sack carried out by the Landsknechts, just think that before 1527 the city had 50 thousand inhabitants and then due to the occupation of the latter ( which lasted 8 months ) it saw its population drop to almost half ( with 8 thousand Romans dying in just the 3 days following the breach made in the Borgo district on 6 May 1527 ) I'll give an example that I hope is clear, the renovation works around St. Peter's district ( started seriously under Rodrigo Borgia but largely financed by Giulio II and Leone X ) were timidly resumed in the 1570s
3 ) the pontiffs post the Western schism, they used to request the help of the monarchs to recover at least a minimum of the control they previously had over the clergy beyond the Alps, in exchange for this support, Rome was willing to cede / recognize privileges or regalia ( previously exclusive to the pontiffs ) to the monarchs, and the Habsburgs were among the major beneficiaries of this policy ( as were France, the Iberian kingdoms and to a lesser extent England )
4) given that the Holy See was the one that simultaneously financed the attacks against the French, supported the Italian populations affected by the war disaster, and the fight against the Turks
p.s
although I believe @Kellan Sullivan may find my previous comments on the matter more in-depth than this one ( please forgive me but I am currently hospitalized for routine checks )
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certainly avoiding the schism would be the best for the church ( in fact, as I often say, the Avignon captivity was not really an irremediable evil for the Papacy, what did the most serious damage was the schism ) so either Urban V does not feel the need to escape again to Avignon because Rome is considered to be in danger or the 3 most important non-French cardinals do not die from the plague, this caused for the first time, a clear French majority in the conclave ( 11 French out of 19 curiates in 1370 ) which was the cause of the schism, but in any case all this would have the effect of distorting the following centuries so Luther wouldn't even exist, ergo I don't think it's the ideal solution for the discussion