When Martin Luther pinned his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg in October 1517, he shook the foundations of Western Christianity. All dogmas, traditions and priorities were called into question... Luther's ideas about reforming religious doctrines and practices and the subsequent protests against the sale of indulgences split the Church. But the Reformation eventually moved beyond the theological sphere, leading to changes in the relationship between spiritual and secular authority, the perception of the supernatural, the interpretation of the past, the understanding of the role of women in society and the Church, and the clerical view of marriage and sex. Drawing on a vast a layer of modern historiography, the author of this book places the Protestant Reformation in cultural, social and political contexts, exploring its impact on changing trends in art and architecture, on the transformation of ideas about authority and understanding of the power of Scripture and theological tradition. Equipped with black and white illustrations, several maps and timeline, the book will be useful to students of higher educational institutions and their teachers, as well as to anyone interested in the history of the Reformation and, in general, the development of religious and socio-political movements in early modern Europe.