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Unit 2: Age of Reformation (c. 1450 to c. 1648)

8 dot points across 8 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How did religious upheaval reshape society, family, gender roles, and everyday life in the sixteenth century?

Topic 2.6 16th-Century Society and Politics: the social hierarchy, family and gender roles, the witch hunts, and the impact of religious change on ordinary life.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 2.6, covering sixteenth-century society and politics: the social hierarchy, the family and changing gender roles, how the Reformation reshaped marriage and women's lives, the witch hunts, and the effects of religious change on everyday life.
11 min answer →

How did Mannerist and Baroque art reflect the religious conflicts and emotional intensity of the age?

Topic 2.7 Art of the 16th and 17th Centuries: Mannerism and Baroque: the styles that followed the High Renaissance and how Baroque art served the Catholic Reformation.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 2.7, covering Mannerism and Baroque art: how Mannerism broke from High Renaissance balance, how the dramatic, emotional Baroque style served the Catholic Reformation, and how art reflected the religious conflicts of the age.
10 min answer →

How do historians reason about the causes and effects of the Reformation and the wars of religion?

Topic 2.8 Causation in the Age of Reformation and the Wars of Religion: applying the historical reasoning skill of causation to the Reformation's causes and to the religious conflicts it produced.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 2.8, the causation reasoning skill applied to Unit 2: the causes of the Reformation, the effects of religious division (the wars of religion and the Catholic Reformation), and how to structure a causation LEQ or DBQ that ranks causes and effects.
11 min answer →

What challenges and developments set the stage for the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century?

Topic 2.1 Contextualizing 16th- and 17th-Century Challenges and Developments: the religious, social, economic, and political tensions that framed the Reformation and the wars of religion.
Sets the scene for AP European History Unit 2, covering the corruption and criticism facing the late-medieval Church, the legacy of Christian humanism, social and economic change, and rising state power, and how to write contextualization for a DBQ or LEQ on the Reformation.
11 min answer →

How and why did Martin Luther break with the Catholic Church and launch the Protestant Reformation?

Topic 2.2 Luther and the Protestant Reformation: Luther's challenge to the Church, his core doctrines, and why the Reformation spread so rapidly across the German lands.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 2.2, covering Martin Luther's challenge to the Catholic Church, his core doctrines (justification by faith, scripture alone, the priesthood of all believers), the role of indulgences and printing, and why the Reformation spread so quickly.
12 min answer →

How did Protestantism diversify beyond Luther into Calvinism, the radical reformation, and the English church?

Topic 2.3 Protestant Reform Continues: the spread and diversification of Protestantism into Calvinism, the Anabaptists and other radicals, and the English Reformation.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 2.3, covering how Protestantism spread and split after Luther: Calvinism and predestination, the radical Anabaptists, the English Reformation under Henry VIII, and how these movements differed from one another and from Catholicism.
12 min answer →

How did the Catholic Church respond to the Protestant challenge?

Topic 2.5 The Catholic Reformation: the Council of Trent, the Jesuits, the reformed papacy, and the tools the Church used to reform itself and resist Protestantism.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 2.5, covering the Catholic Reformation (Counter-Reformation): the Council of Trent and its reaffirmation of doctrine, the founding of the Jesuits, the reformed papacy, the Inquisition and Index, and how the Church both reformed itself and resisted Protestantism.
11 min answer →

How did religious division lead to a century of war, and how was it finally settled?

Topic 2.4 Wars of Religion: the religious conflicts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the French wars of religion to the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 2.4, covering the wars of religion: the French wars of religion and the Edict of Nantes, the conflicts within the Holy Roman Empire, the Thirty Years' War, and the Peace of Westphalia, and how political ambition mixed with religion.
12 min answer →