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60 free Reformation trivia questions with answers. The Protestant Reformation split Western Christianity, redrew the map of Europe and put the Bible into ordinary people's languages. This quiz covers the whole story: the forerunners Wycliffe and Hus, Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses and his stand at Worms, the year hiding in the Wartburg, Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva, the Anabaptists, Henry VIII's break with Rome, Cranmer and Tyndale, the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent, and the religious wars that ended at Westphalia. It works for a Reformation Day event, a church youth group, a history class or anyone who wants to test what they remember from the 1500s. Easy questions ask what Luther nailed to the church door and where; the hard ones want the Swiss sausage incident, the pope's medal after St Bartholomew's Day and the printer of the 1534 Luther Bible. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the people, documents and events involved, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
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Q 01What is the most commonly cited starting date of the Reformation?
31 October 1517
That is the day Luther is said to have posted his Ninety-five Theses in Wittenberg; the date is now Reformation Day.
Q 02In which town did Luther post his Ninety-five Theses?
Wittenberg
He was a professor at the town's young university, founded in 1502.
Q 03The Ninety-five Theses attacked the sale of what?
Indulgences
Buyers were promised reduced time in purgatory for themselves or their dead relatives.
Q 04The 1515 indulgence that provoked Luther was meant to finance the building of what?
St. Peter's Basilica
Pope Leo X needed the money for the vast new church in Rome; the Archbishop of Mainz also took a cut to repay his debts.
Q 05Which Dominican friar's indulgence-selling campaign in nearby towns prompted Luther to act?
Johann Tetzel
A jingle attributed to him claimed that as soon as the coin rang in the coffer, a soul sprang from purgatory.
Q 06In what language were the Ninety-five Theses written?
Latin
They were framed as propositions for an academic debate; friends translated them into German in January 1518.
Q 07Which invention allowed the Reformation's ideas to spread across Europe so quickly?
The printing press
Gutenberg's press had been running for about 60 years, and pamphlets in the vernacular did the rest.
Q 08Where was Martin Luther born in 1483?
Eisleben
He also died there, in 1546, while visiting to settle a dispute between local counts.
Q 09What was Luther's father's line of work?
Copper mining
Hans Luther leased mines and smelters and wanted his son to become a lawyer.
Q 10Caught in a thunderstorm in 1505, Luther vowed to become a monk if he was spared. Whom did he call on?
Saint Anne
Two weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, to his father's fury.
Q 11Luther belonged to which religious order?
Augustinians
He entered St Augustine's Monastery in Erfurt on 17 July 1505.
Q 12Which papal bull of 1520 threatened Luther with excommunication, and which he publicly burned?
Exsurge Domine
He burned it along with books of canon law at Wittenberg's Elster Gate.
Q 13Which Holy Roman Emperor presided over the Diet of Worms in 1521?
Charles V
He was 21, ruled Spain and the Netherlands as well, and would spend decades fighting Protestant princes.
What did Luther refuse to do at the Diet of Worms?
Q 21How many children did Martin and Katharina Luther have?
6
Hans, Elisabeth, Magdalena, Martin, Paul and Margarethe; two of the girls died young.
Q 22What did Katharina von Bora run to support the Luther household and its student boarders?
A brewery
She also bred and sold cattle and managed the farm at Zulsdorf; Luther called her the boss of Zulsdorf.
Q 23Luther's hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God paraphrases the opening of which biblical text?
Psalm 46
He wrote both the words and the tune between 1527 and 1529, and it became known as the Battle Hymn of the Reformation.
Recant his writings
He said it was neither safe nor right to go against conscience; the famous 'Here I stand' is a later tradition.
Q 15What did the Edict of Worms do?
Declared Luther an outlaw
Anyone could kill Luther without penalty, and his writings were banned.
Q 16After Worms, Luther was hidden in which castle by Frederick the Wise?
Wartburg
Frederick staged a fake highway kidnapping to get him there; Luther grew a beard and went by Junker Jörg.
Q 17How long did it take Luther to translate the New Testament into German while in hiding?
Eleven weeks
The 'September Testament' appeared in 1522; the complete Bible followed in 1534.
Q 18Luther's complete German Bible of 1534 was printed by whom?
Hans Lufft
The edition carried 117 original woodcuts, and the translation helped shape modern High German.
Q 19Katharina von Bora, whom Luther married in 1525, had been what?
A nun
She escaped her Cistercian convent hidden among fish barrels in a covered wagon.
Q 20How did Katharina von Bora and her fellow nuns escape their convent in 1523?
Hidden among fish barrels
A Torgau merchant who delivered herring to the abbey smuggled twelve nuns out on Easter eve.
Q 24What was Luther's response to the German Peasants' War of 1524-25?
He urged the nobles to crush the rebels
His pamphlet Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants shocked many of his supporters; up to 100,000 peasants were killed.
Q 25Which radical preacher led the peasant army to defeat at Frankenhausen in 1525?
Thomas Müntzer
He was captured, tortured and beheaded days after the battle.
Q 26Where does the word 'Protestant' come from?
A protest at the Diet of Speyer in 1529
Six princes and fourteen free cities protested the diet's decision to enforce the Edict of Worms.
Q 27Which Swiss city was the base of reformer Huldrych Zwingli?
Zurich
He became people's priest at the Grossmünster in 1519 and preached straight through the Gospel of Matthew.
Q 28What food was defiantly eaten during Lent in 1522 in an incident that launched Zwingli's reformation?
Sausages
Zwingli was present at the printer Froschauer's house but did not eat; he defended the act in a sermon anyway.
Q 29Luther and Zwingli met at Marburg in 1529 but could not agree on what?
Christ's presence in the Eucharist
They agreed on fourteen of fifteen articles; the last one recorded their split over the Lord's Supper.
Q 30How did Zwingli die in 1531?
Killed in battle
He fell at Kappel fighting Catholic cantons; his body was quartered and burned.