Position:Home>History> How did Magellan's voyage instigate the reformation?

Hmmm!. I suspect a teacher gave you this question, but it doesn't make a lot of sense!. Do you think it is a trick question perhaps!?

The Reformation was instigated primarily by Martin Luther who posted his 95 objections to existing Roman Catholic Church practices in 1517!. The Diet of Worms was in 1521!. The one surviving ship of the Magellan expedition did not return to Europe until 1522!. The reformation had already been instigated and was underway before news of Magellan's circumnavigation came out!. Even though he did not survive the voyage and only one of his ships made it back to Spain in September 1522, Ferdinand Magellan proved to the world and all those who rejected his ideas that one could sail around the world!. Your idea might be OK, but I think that only the most obtuse or narrow minded churchmen still thought the world was flat after the voyages of Columbus 20 years earlier!.

The Roman Catholic Church did still insist that the earth was the center of the universe!. Those who could prove that the earth revolved around the sun were still being killed or imprisoned by the Church in the 1500's and as late as 1642 when Galileo died under house arrest unable to publish his findings!.

Added note (it took me awhile to find this) - if you really want some good ideas about this question, look at William Manchester's 1992 book "A World Lit Only By Fire!." The last chapter is entirely about Magellan's voyage and the impact it had on Renaissance Europe and the Roman Catholic Church - especially page 291 (paraphrasing) "Magellan's voyage exposed the central myth that Europe was not the center of the world and the world was not the center of the universe!." Manchester notes on the same page that the Roman Church did not accept the ideas of Galileo until 1822 - - incredible backward thinking on the part of the Church!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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No connection exists!.

Magellan, a Portuguese, sought the patronage of the the Spanish king, Charles V to finance his voyage, just as Columbus got his commission form King Ferdiand and Queen Isabella, the so-called Most Catholic Monarchs!. It would have been out of the question for these loyal monarchs to finance a voyage that would counter the teachings of the Catholic Church!. In fact, the Catholic Church of the 16th century believed like everyone else the world was not flat because ancient maps derived from Constantinople had shown this as a fact!.

It was Magellan's quest to prove the verity of the belief, not so much to establish scientific credentials for himself as to find a trade route to the Spice Islands and circumvent the Treaty of Tordesillas that gave Portugal all lands east of the Azores!. Armed with his belief that the earth is a sphere, he proposed to get to the east by sailing west!.

Many people confuse the flat-earth vs!. round earth controversy with the heliocentric theory first proposed by Copernicus in the 15th century and taken up by Galileo Galilei eaqrly in the 17th century!. These are two different ball games but some people intentionally combine the two to paint a sordid picture of the Catholic Church as scientifically backward!. The fact is much more complicated and one wonders why Copernicus escape censure from the church while Galileo was banned from publishing the same theory!. Nor was he tortured or imprisoned for long, in fact he was ordered under house arest in his estate by a friendly archbishop!. In the 1830's the Catholic Church dropped all its reservations against the heliocentric theory!.

Magellan started his voyage of exploration in 1519 and remnants of his expedition made it back to Europe only in September of 1522!. Meanwhile, the Reformation had started earlier in 1517 with the publication of Luther's 95 on the doors of Wittenberg church!. no records ever existed to make one surmise Magellan's voyage was an offshoot of the great religious question of the time and he remained a good Catholic until his death in Cebu, Philippines in 1521!.

That it took almost 200 years for the Catholic church to reverse its stand against the Galileo's heliocentric theory can be explained, thus:
1!. The Catholic Church is not a scientific body per se!. It only entered into the controversy regarding the real position of the sun in relation to the rest of the solar system because of the possible implication on the faith engendered by such a revolutionary theory!.
2!. The Catholic Church has always believed in the doctrine that "Hurry is to the Devil," thus, it would normally take centuries for even religious questions to be resolved!. The case of Joan of Arc was not only settled until the early 20th century and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was only settled by Papal Infallibility pronouncement only in 1854, centuries after its theologians first debated on the issue!. Even the dogma of the Assumption of Mary was decided on positively by the church only in 1950 even as it has already been floated about since the earliest years of Christianity!.

If the Catholic Church moves prudently slow even in formulating its most important religious doctrines, it is simply unfair to brand the church so backwardly unscientific for deciding on a purely scientific matter under two hundred years!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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