Text 1: Historian Walters contends that the printing press caused the Protestant Reformation. Without Gutenberg's invention, she argues, Martin Luther's ninety-five theses would have circulated only among a handful of clergy. The press made mass distribution of dissenting religious texts possible for the first time, fundamentally altering the balance of power between the Church and ordinary readers.
Text 2: Historian Okeke offers a different emphasis. While he acknowledges that printing accelerated the Reformation's spread, he argues that the underlying causes — clerical corruption, economic strain on German peasants, and rising secular authority — would have produced reform with or without the press. Printing, he writes, was a multiplier, not a cause.
The authors most clearly disagree about which of the following?
- Acheck_circle
Whether the printing press should be considered a cause of the Reformation.
- B
Whether the printing press helped spread Reformation ideas.
- C
Whether clerical corruption existed in the sixteenth century.
- D
Whether Luther's theses were widely circulated.
Explanation
Both agree the press helped spread ideas; they disagree on whether it caused the Reformation. Walters says it caused it; Okeke says it merely multiplied existing forces. C captures the disagreement. A, B, and D are points of agreement or not addressed.