There were many different “heresies” that managed to gain popularity in the Catholic World in the previous centuries, like the Cathar in Southern France and most famously the Hussite in Bohemia, whatever no one of those trigger a Schism in the interior of the Western Christianity like the Reformation did, nor did they survived the Catholic repression over the centuries. So what made the Reformation not follow the same destiny as their previous “heretical” counterparts?
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The key, I see it, was support from political authorities who had similar grown frustrated with the Vatican’s governance over their region in Europe.
Martin Luther certainly faced the same criticisms as the other reformers. The main difference, however, was that German princes shielded Luther from any potential punitive measures from the Catholic Church itself. For example, Prince Frederick III ensured that en route to the Diet of Worms that nothing would befall Luther, when this would be when other reformers might be imprisoned and tried for heresy. While he would be found guilty of heresy and a warrant for his arrest issued, Frederick III whisked him away to Wartburg Castle under the prince’s protection. He would eventually be free to return to Wittenburg when another more hereteical group came and made his critiques of the Catholic Church seem tame.
John Calvin was similarly protected by his connections in Strausbourg, which grew to be a sort of refuge for reformers, and subsequently in Geneva where he would famously (and controversially) stay and implement his ideas. Ulrich Zwingli’s Swiss Reformation was a beneificary of conflicts between Franch and the papal states at the later stages of the War of the League of Cambrai.
Most famously, the English Reformation was initiated by none other than Henry the VIII himself, who had the political power to oppose the papacy, at a time when many other European political powers were similarly beginning to break with the Holy Roman Empire. Some would argue that it was the popularity of Reformation ideas spreading throughout Britain that preceded Henry VIII’s own reforms. However, on the question of what allowed it to survive earlier years of persecution was that political figures and officials were themselves growing interested in backing Protestants instead of Catholics. Had Mary I been the one confronted with an emerging Protestantism before Henry made it more official via the Church of England, it may have gone the way of the earlier reformers and there would have been a more succesful return/preservation of Catholicism as with Spain.