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could be worn, banning gold and silver chains, gilding of hair, and prescribing
the number of courses at public banquets. We might find this overly restrictive
and intrusive, but in its context, it was an attempt to provide some form of
social levelling, and narrow the gap between rich and poor in the city.
It has been said that Calvin’s Geneva was one of the first attempts to
establish a welfare state in modern Europe without the need for begging. The
result was a serious attempt in Reformation cities to banish poverty. It did not
always work, and sometimes betrayed a fussy and intrusive form of social con-
trol, but it was nonetheless a theologically motivated programme to eliminate
destitution and poverty, in favour of a much more egalitarian view of social life.

3. The Revolt Against the Elites

As we have already noted, a sense of disenfranchisement was common in the
16th century. Whether it was the rise of the new educated Humanist elites, or
the distant power of Rome, or the financial banking houses that concentrated
economic power in a very few hands, many people in late mediaeval Europe felt
distanced from the centres of power and decision-making. At Imperial diets of
the Holy Roman Empire, tradition had developed which enumerated the griev-
ances of the nation in the gravamina nationis germanicae, over against the papacy.
The focus of these were complaints about papal taxation, and appointments to
benefices. In fact, the famous Diet of Worms in 1521, alongside its condemna-
tion of Martin Luther, also drew up a new list of 102 papal abuses as a verbal
act of resistance to the distant power of Rome.
Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith implicitly and explicitly lead in
a more egalitarian direction. For Luther, Christian faith has at its heart trust in
the promise of God. Although he still held a place for pastors and ministers, for
the sake of good order, in a sense it no longer mattered who uttered the prom-
ise, whether in verbal or sacramental form; the crucial thing was whether the
Christian believed the word when it was offered to him or her.
In addition, Luther gradually became aware of the reality that the
priests and the bishops were not going to reform the church, and therefore
argued that many people had as much right to reform it as the clerics, based on
their common baptism. This then led to Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of
the whole church, and the idea that every Christian has the responsibility to
stand in the place of Christ, offering advice, assistance and a reminder of the
promise of forgiveness to his or her fellow Christian, in other words, what later
became known as the priesthood of all believers. This was a doctrine that lev-

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