SOURCE: "Problems and Perspectives," in The Impact of the Reformation, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994, pp. 173-200.

In the following excerpt, Oberman examines the influence of the Protestant Reformation upon education and literary publications of the sixteenth century.

[Battle] is exactly the theme and center of a revealing treatise by Sylvester Mazzolini, named after his birthplace Prierias. On closer scrutiny, the treatise proves to be a pseudepigraphic satire in two distinct parts.¹ The first is dated Rome 1553 and assigned to Prierias, professor of Thomistic philosophy in Rome from 1514 until his death in 1523; from December 1515, Prierias was Magister sacri Palatii, chief inquisitor, and responsible for preparing the Roman process against Reuchlin and Luther.

Will Durant on the lessons of the Reformation:

… [Our sympathy can go to all the combatants of the Reformation.] We can understand the anger of Luther at Roman corruption and dominance, the reluctance of German princes...