The Reformation is one of those rare, single events in history upon which everything that would come after hinged on to some degree. In European history there aren't that many of them, though I have talked about another (the Battle of Hastings) on this blog before. The reformation brought about too many changes for me to count, so today I am only going to discuss one in brief.
Let's Get the Myth Out of the Way
There is no evidence that Martin Luther ever actually nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg (then part of the Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire and now in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany). What we know for sure (because Doctor Luther discussed it at length in his writings) is that after writing his Theses he submitted them to the staff of Wittenberg University and to the Archbishop of Mainz by mail. The 95 Theses were a series of arguments designed to spark academic debate and internal reform, and such lists of arguments were common among academics like Doctor Luther. He never mentioned nailing the Theses to the door, and the story doesn't appear to have popped up until years after the fact.
It IS true that the door of All Saint's served as a sort of university and town billboard at Wittenberg, Students and staff at the school would often post debate topics (and other notices) on the door, but Luther at the time of the posting was a relatively senior lecturer at the university and no contemporaries mention the theologian taking part in the practice.
So moving on to why the Reformation was such an important event...
The Reformation Popularized Literacy and Created Modern Language
At the time of Doctor Luther's Theses-writing, the literacy rate in the Holy Roman Empire was only around 11%. The majority of literate people were clergy and theologians, but a large portion of the merchant and noble classes were likely at least semi-literate. These rates varied based on demographics, the average city probably had a literacy rate of around 30%, while it wouldn't have been unusual for there to be no literate people in a small village.
Around 1440 the Printing Press had been invented by Gutenberg which greatly reduced the cost to produce and purchase books and allowed publishers to go into business for the first time. However, it was Luther and his Biblia: das ist die Gantze Heilige Schrift Deutsche (The Bible: That is the Whole Holy Book in German) that sparked the need for literacy. Luther, after the publication of his 95 Theses, became the best-selling author in Europe, and his writings accounted for nearly 20% of all purchased publications in Europe during his lifetime (by the way, this makes him the best-selling single author per capita in western history).
Luther's argument was that Christians should read and study the bible. For the first time people had a real need to learn how to read, as legal documents and the like among the poor were still relatively rare. The average farmer or soldier was more concerned with mere survival, and the time which it would take to learn to read was better spent working. Books had become more affordable, but until the Reformation there was little urge among the lower class to learn the skill.
Within a century of Doctor Luther's death literacy rates in Europe rose from perhaps 5-10% throughout Europe to around 60% in Protestant countries (with Catholic countries catching up not long after). This is especially impressive when you realize that there was little available in the way of an organized educational system. Instead, people were taught to read largely using vernacular bibles.
The development of a national languages is another major accomplishment of the Reformation. In Luther's time language was a diverse thing; spelling was often non-standard and dialects were extremely regional. In the Holy Roman Empire the type of German spoken in each state was wildly different to the point of often being mutually unintelligible. Likewise in places like England or France regional dialects were so strong that provincial people living in those kingdoms had a difficult time communicating with people in the centers of power.
The introduction of Bibles in common languages changed that. In Germany the type of German used to write Doctor Luther's bible became the basis for Hochdeutsch, modern standardized High German. In England the Tyndale Bible had a similar impact on the English language. The establishment of national churches and common vernacular liturgies would continue the cementing of standardized language throughout the Protestant world.
