REFORMATION

Upholding Protestantism in England - Thomas Cranmer (Book of Common Prayer) - Mary Tudor's reign - Elizabeth's reign - Middle course - Mary, Queen of Scots - Ship battle

In the short reign of Edward VI, Protestant ideas exerted an influence on the religious life of the country. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer simplified the liturgy, invited Protestant theologians to England, and prepared the first Book of Common Prayer which was later approved by Parliament. In stately and dignified English, the Book of Common Prayer included the order for all services and prayers of the Church of England. The equally brief reign of Mary Tudor witnessed a sharp move back to Catholicism. Mary rescinded the Reformation of her father's reign and restored Roman Catholicism. Mary's marriage to Philip II of Spain proved highly unpopular in England, and her execution of several hundred Protestants further alienated her subjects. During her reign, about a thousand Protestants fled to the continent. Mary's death raised to the throne her half-sister Elizabeth, Henry's daughter with Anne Boleyn, who had been raised a Protestant. Elizabeth's reign inaugurated the beginnings of religious stability. Shrewdly, Elizabeth chose a middle course between Catholic and Puritan extremes. She ordered church and government officials to swear that she was supreme in matters of religion as well as politics, required her subjects to attend services in the Church of England, and called for frequent preaching of Protestant ideas. She did not interfere with people's privately held beliefs. The Anglican Church, as the Church of England was called, moved in a moderately Protestant direction. Services were conducted in English, monasteries were not re-established, and clergymen were allowed to marry. But the church remained hierarchical. Toward the end of the sixteenth century Elizabeth's reign was threatened by European powers attempting to re-establish Catholicism. Philip II of Spain hoped that his marriage to Mary Tudor would reunite England with Catholic Europe, but Mary's death ended those plans. Mary, Queen of Scots provided a new opportunity. Mary was next in line to the English throne, and Elizabeth imprisoned her because she worried that Mary would become the center of Catholic plots to overthrow her. Mary became implicated in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth. When the English executed Mary, the Catholic pope urged Philip to retaliate. Philip prepared a vast fleet to sail from Lisbon to Flanders, where a large army of Spanish troops was stationed because of religious wars in the Netherlands. The Spanish ships were to escort barges carrying the troops across the English Channel to attack England. La felícissima armada, composed of more than 130 vessels, sailed from Lisbon harbor. The Spanish Armada met an English fleet in the Channel before it reached Flanders. The English ships were smaller, faster, and more maneuverable, and many of them had greater firing power than their Spanish counterparts. A combination of storms and squalls, spoiled food and rank water, inadequate Spanish ammunition, and English fire ships that caused the Spanish to scatter gave England the victory. On the journey home many Spanish ships went down in the rough seas around Ireland. The battle in the English Channel has been described as one of the decisive battles in world history. Spain soon rebuilt its navy, and the quality of the Spanish fleet improved. The war between England and Spain dragged on for years. The defeat of the Spanish Armada prevented Philip II from reimposing Catholicism on England by force

The Great European Witch-Hunt

Increasing persecution for witchcraft began before the Reformation in the 1480s, but it became especially common about 1560, and the mania continued until roughly 1660. Religious reformers' extreme notions of the Devil's powers and the insecurity created by the religious wars contributed to this increase. Both Protestants and Catholics tried and executed witches. The heightened sense of God's power and divine wrath in the Reformation era was an important factor in the witch-hunts. Nearly all premodern societies believe in witchcraft and make some attempts to control witches, who are understood to be people who use magical forces. In the later Middle Ages, however, many educated Christian theologians, canon lawyers, and officials added a demonological component to this notion of what a witch was. For them, the essence of witchcraft was making a pact with the Devil. Witches were people used by the Devil to do what he wanted. Witches were thought to engage in wild sexual orgies with the Devil, fly through the night to meetings called sabbats that parodied Christian services, and steal communion wafers and unbaptized babies to use in their rituals. Trials involving this new notion of witchcraft as diabolical heresy began in Switzerland and southern Germany in the late fifteenth century, became less numerous in the early decades of the Reformation when Protestants and Catholics were busy fighting each other, and then picked up again in about 1560. Between 75 and 85 percent of those tried and executed were women. Ideas about women and the roles women actually played in society were thus important factors shaping the witch-hunts. Some demonologists expressed hatred of women and emphasized women's powerful sexual desire, which could be satisfied only by a demonic lover. People viewed women as weaker and so more likely to give in to an offer by the Devil. Women were associated with nature, disorder, and the body, all of which were linked with the demonic. Women's lack of power in society and gender norms about the use of violence meant that they were more likely to use scolding and cursing to get what they wanted instead of taking people to court or beating them up. Curses were generally expressed in religious terms; "go to Hell" was calling on the powers of Satan. Legal changes also played a role in causing witch trials. One of these was a change from an accusatorial legal procedure to an inquisitorial procedure. This change made people much more willing to accuse others, for they never had to take personal responsibility for the accusation or face the accused person's relatives. Areas in Europe that did not make this legal change saw very few trials. Inquisitorial procedure involved intense questioning of the suspect, often with torture. The use of inquisitorial procedure did not always lead to witch-hunts. The most famous inquisitions in early modern Europe were in fact very lenient in their treatment of people accused of witchcraft. Inquisitors believed in the power of the Devil and were no less misogynist than other judges, but doubted very much whether the people accused of witchcraft had actually made pacts with the Devil that gave them special powers. They viewed such people not as diabolical Devil worshippers but as superstitious and ignorant peasants who should be educated rather than executed. Most witch trials began with a single accusation. Individuals accused someone they knew of using magic. Tensions within families, households, and neighborhoods often played a role in these accusations. After the initial suspect had been questioned the people who had been implicated were brought in for questioning. This might lead to a small hunt, involving from five to ten suspects, and it sometimes grew into a much larger hunt, which historians have called a "witch panic." Most of this area consisted of very small governmental units that were jealous of each other and, after the Reformation, were divided by religion. The rulers of these small territories often felt more threatened than did the monarchs of western Europe, and they saw persecuting witches as a way to demonstrate their piety and concern for order. Moreover, witch panics often occurred after some type of climatic disaster, such as an unusually cold and wet summer, and they came in waves. In large-scale panics a wider variety of suspects were taken in. Mass panics tended to end when it became clear to legal authorities, or to the community itself, that the people being questioned or executed were not what they understood witches to be, or that the scope of accusations was beyond belief. As the seventeenth century ushered in new ideas about science and reason, many began to question whether witches could make pacts with the Devil or engage in the wild activities attributed to them. Doubts about whether secret denunciations were valid or whether torture would ever yield truthful confessions gradually spread among the same type of religious and legal authorities who had so vigorously persecuted witches. Prosecutions for witchcraft became less common and were gradually outlawed. The last official execution for witchcraft in England was in 1682, though the last one in the Holy Roman Empire was not until 1775.

The Radical Reformation and the German Peasants' War - Radicals / Anabaptists - Execution of Radicals - Luther and the peasants - German Peasants' War

Some individuals rejected the idea that church and state needed to be united. Groups in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands sought to create a community of believers separate from the state. These individuals and groups varied widely generally termed "radicals" for their insistence on a more extensive break with prevailing ideas. Some adopted the baptism of adult believers, for which they were called by their enemies "Anabaptists," which means "rebaptizers." Some groups attempted communal ownership of property, living very simply and rejecting anything they thought unbiblical. Some religious radicals thought the end of the world was coming soon. Combined armies of Catholics and Protestants executed its leaders. The insurrection at Münster and the radicals' unwillingness to accept a state church marked them as societal outcasts and invited hatred and persecution. Anabaptists and other radicals were banished or cruelly executed. Radical reformers sometimes called for social as well as religious change. In the early sixteenth century the economic condition of the peasantry varied from place to place but was generally worse than it had been in the fifteenth century. Nobles had aggrieved peasants. The peasants made demands that they believed conformed to the Scriptures, and they cited radical thinkers as well as Luther as proof that they did. Luther wanted to prevent rebellion. Initially he sided with the peasants, blasting the lords for robbing their subjects. But when rebellion broke out, peasants who expected Luther's support were soon disillusioned. Freedom for Luther meant independence from the authority of the Roman Church; it did not mean opposition to legally established secular powers. Luther maintained that Scripture had nothing to do with earthly justice or material gain, a position that Zwingli supported. Luther wrote the tract Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of the Peasants. The nobility ferociously crushed the revolt. Historians estimate that more than seventy-five thousand peasants were killed in 1525. The German Peasants' War of 1525 greatly strengthened the authority of lay rulers. The Reformation lost much of its popular appeal after 1525, though peasants and urban rebels sometimes found a place for their social and religious ideas in radical groups. Peasants' economic conditions did moderately improve, however.

The Reformation in Eastern Europe

Ethnic factors often proved decisive in eastern Europe. In Bohemia in the fifteenth century, a Czech majority was ruled by Germans. Lutheranism appealed to Germans in Bohemia in the 1520s and 1530s, and the nobility embraced Lutheranism in opposition to the Catholic Habsburgs. The forces of the Catholic Reformation promoted a Catholic spiritual revival in Bohemia. This complicated situation would be one of the causes of the Thirty Years' War in the early seventeenth century. The population of Poland-Lithuania was very diverse; Germans, Italians, Tartars, and Jews lived among Poles and Lithuanians. Such peoples had come as merchants. Luther's ideas took root in Germanized towns but were opposed by King Sigismund I, who held strong anti-German feeling. The Reformed tradition of John Calvin appealed to the Polish nobility. The fact that Calvinism originated in France also made it more attractive than Lutheranism. Doctrinal differences among Calvinists, Lutherans, and other groups prevented united opposition to Catholicism, and a Counter-Reformation gained momentum. By 1650, due largely to the efforts of the Jesuits, Poland was again staunchly Roman Catholic. Hungary's experience with the Reformation was even more complex. Lutheranism was spread by Hungarian students who had studied at Wittenberg, and sympathy for it developed at the royal court of King Louis II in Buda. But concern about "the German heresy" by the Catholic hierarchy and among the high nobles found expression in a decree of the Hungarian diet in 1523. Before such measures could be acted on, a military event on August 26, 1526, had profound consequences for both the Hungarian state and the Protestant Reformation there. On the plain of Mohács in southern Hungary, the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent inflicted a crushing defeat on the Hungarians, killing King Louis II, many of the nobles, and more than sixteen thousand soldiers. The Hungarian kingdom was divided into three parts: the Ottoman Turks absorbed the great plains, including the capital, Buda; the Habsburgs ruled the north and west; and Ottoman-supported Janos Zapolya held eastern Hungary and Transylvania. The Turks were indifferent to the religious conflicts of Christians, whom they regarded as infidels. Christians of all types paid extra taxes to the sultan, but kept their faith. Many Hungarian nobles accepted Lutheranism; Lutheran schools and parishes headed by men educated at Wittenberg multiplied; and peasants welcomed the new faith. The majority of Hungarian people were Protestant until the late seventeenth century, when Hungarian nobles recognized Catholic rule and Ottoman Turkish withdrawal in 1699 led to Catholic restoration.

The Christian Church in the Early Sixteenth Century - Religious People - Catholic Church Criticism - Attack of Catholic Church (3 reasons) - Privileges

Europeans in the early sixteenth century were deeply pious. People of all social groups devoted an enormous amount of their time to religious causes and foundations. Despite, or perhaps because of, the depth of their piety, many people were also highly critical of the Roman Catholic Church. The papal conflict with the German emperor Frederick II in the thirteenth century, followed by the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism, damaged the prestige of church leaders. Papal tax collection methods were attacked. Some criticized the papacy itself as an institution, and even the great wealth and powerful courts of the entire church hierarchy. In the early sixteenth century, court records, bishops' visitations of parishes, and popular songs and printed images show widespread opposition to the clergy. The critics concentrated on three problems: clerical immorality, clerical ignorance, and clerical pluralism, with the related problem of absenteeism. Many priests, monks, and nuns lived pious lives of devotion, learning, and service and had strong support from the laypeople in their areas, but everyone also knew stories about lecherous monks, lustful nuns, and greedy priests. There was also local resentment of clerical privileges and immunities. Priests, monks, and nuns were exempt from civic responsibilities. Religious orders frequently held large amounts of urban property, in some cities as much as one-third. City governments were determined to integrate the clergy into civic life by reducing their privileges and giving them public responsibilities. Urban leaders wanted some say in who would be appointed to high church offices, rather than having this decided far away in Rome.

The Netherlands Under Charles V

In the Netherlands, Emperor Charles V had inherited the seventeen provinces that compose present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. Each was self-governing. The provinces were united politically only in recognition of a common ruler, the emperor. The cities of the Netherlands made their living by trade and industry. In the Low Countries, corruption in the Roman Church of the Renaissance provoked pressure for reform, and Lutheran ideas took root. Charles V had grown up in the Netherlands and he was able to limit their impact. But Charles V abdicated in 1556 and transferred power over the Netherlands to his son Philip II, who had grown up in Spain. Protestant ideas spread. By the 1560s Protestants in the Netherlands were primarily Calvinists. Calvinism appealed to urban merchants, financiers, and artisans. Whereas Lutherans taught respect for the powers that be, Calvinism tended to encourage opposition to political authorities who were judged to be ungodly. When Spanish authorities attempted to suppress Calvinist worship and raised taxes in the 1560s, rioting ensued. Calvinists sacked thirty Catholic churches in Antwerp. From Antwerp the destruction spread. Philip II sent twenty thousand Spanish troops under the duke of Alva to pacify the Low Countries. Alva interpreted "pacification" to mean ruthless extermination of religious and political dissidents. To Calvinists, all this was clear indication that Spanish rule was ungodly and should be overthrown. Between 1568 and 1578 civil war raged in the Netherlands between Catholics and Protestants and between the seventeen provinces and Spain. Eventually the ten southern provinces came under the control of the Spanish Habsburg forces. The seven northern provinces, led by Holland, formed the Union of Utrecht and declared their independence from Spain. The north was Protestant; the south remained Catholic. Philip did not accept this, and war continued. England was even drawn into the conflict, supplying money and troops to the northern United Provinces. Hostilities ended in 1609 when Spain agreed to a truce that recognized the independence of the United Provinces.

Calvinism - What Calvin believed - Calvin's ideas - Free will to humans - Predestination - Calvin & Geneva - Geneva's the model - International Protestantism - John Knox of Scotland

John Calvin believed that God had specifically selected him to reform the church. He accepted an invitation to assist in the reformation of the city of Geneva. There, Calvin worked to establish a well-disciplined Christian society in which church and state acted together. Calvin's ideas were embodied in The Institutes of the Christian Religion. The cornerstone of Calvin's theology was his belief in the absolute sovereignty of God and the total weakness of humanity. Before the infinite power of God, men and women are as insignificant as grains of sand. Calvin did not ascribe free will to human beings because that would detract from the sovereignty of God. God in his infinite wisdom decided at the beginning of time who would be saved and who damned. This viewpoint constitutes the theological principle called predestination. Many people consider the doctrine of predestination, to be a pessimistic view of the nature of God. But this did not lead to pessimism or fatalism. Instead, many Calvinists came to believe that although one's own actions could do nothing to change one's fate, hard work, thrift, and proper conduct could serve as signs that one was among the "elect" chosen for salvation. Calvin transformed Geneva into a community based on his religious principles. The most powerful organization in the city became the Consistory, a group of laymen and pastors charged with investigating and disciplining deviations from proper doctrine and conduct. Geneva became the model of a Christian community for many Protestant reformers. Religious refugees from France, England, Spain, Scotland, and Italy visited Calvin's Geneva, and many of the most prominent exiles from Mary Tudor's England stayed. The church of Calvin served as the model for the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, the Huguenot Church in France, and the Puritan churches in England and New England. Calvinism became the compelling force in international Protestantism. Calvinists believed that any occupation could be a God-given "calling," and should be carried out with diligence and dedication. This encouraged an aggressive activism in both work and religious life, and Calvinism became the most dynamic force in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism. John Knox was determined to structure the Scottish Church after the model of Geneva. In 1560 Knox persuaded the Scottish parliament, which was dominated by reform-minded barons, to end papal authority and rule by bishops, substituting governance by presbyters, or councils of ministers. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was strictly Calvinist in doctrine.

Marriage, Sexuality, and the Role of Women - What marriage brought (according to Luther/Zwingli) - Marriage by God - What women should be - Marriage is a contract - Brothels - Convents

Luther and Zwingli both believed that marriage brought spiritual advantages and so was the ideal state for nearly all human beings. Most Protestant reformers married. They were living demonstrations of their husband's convictions about the superiority of marriage to celibacy, and they were expected to be models of wifely obedience and Christian charity. Though they denied that marriage was a sacrament, Protestant reformers stressed that it had been ordained by God. A proper marriage was one that reflected both the spiritual equality of men and women and the proper social hierarchy of husbandly authority and wifely obedience. Women were advised to be cheerful, for in doing so they demonstrated their willingness to follow God's plan. Men were urged to treat their wives kindly, but also to enforce their authority. European marriage manuals used the metaphor of breaking a horse for teaching a wife obedience. Protestants saw marriage as a contract in which each partner promised the other support. In Protestant eyes, marriage was created by God as a remedy for human weakness. The only solution might be divorce, which most Protestants came to allow. Protestant allowance of divorce differed from Catholic doctrine, which viewed marriage as a sacramental union that could not be dissolved. As Protestants believed marriage was the only proper remedy for lust, they condemned prostitution. The brothels that were a common feature of late medieval urban life were closed. Many Catholic cities closed their brothels as well, although Italian cities favored stricter regulations rather than closure. Selling sex was couched in moral rather than economic terms, as simply one type of "*****dom," "*****" was a term that reformers used for their theological opponents; Protestants compared the pope to the biblical ***** of Babylon, a symbol of the end of the world, while Catholics called Luther's wife a ***** because she had first been married to Christ as a nun before her marriage to Luther. Smaller illegal brothels were established. The Protestant Reformation had a positive impact on marriage, but its impact on women was more mixed. Many nuns were in convents because their parents placed them there. Convents provided women of the upper classes an opportunity to use their talents if they could not or would not marry. The Reformation brought the closing of convents, and marriage became virtually the only occupation for upper-class Protestant women. Women in some convents recognized this and fought the Reformation, or argued that they could still be pious Protestants within convent walls. Most nuns left and we do not know what happened to them. The Protestant emphasis on marriage made unmarried women suspect, for they did not belong to the type of household regarded as the cornerstone of a proper society.

Religious Wars in Switzerland and Germany - Luther and Germans - War in Switzerland - Imperial Diet of Augsburg - Fight! - Resolution

Luther's ideas appealed to German rulers for a variety of reasons. Luther frequently used the phrase "we Germans" in his attacks on the papacy. Some German rulers were attracted to Lutheran ideas, but material considerations swayed many others to embrace the new faith. The rejection of Roman Catholicism and adoption of Protestantism would mean the legal confiscation of lush farmlands, rich monasteries, and wealthy shrines. Charles V was a vigorous defender of Catholicism, so it is not surprising that the Reformation led to religious wars. The first battleground was Switzerland. Some cantons remained Catholic, and some became Protestant, and in the late 1520s the two sides went to war. Zwingli was killed on the battlefield in 1531, and both sides quickly decided that a treaty was preferable to further fighting. The treaty allowed each canton to determine its own religion. Trying to halt the spread of religious division, Charles V called an Imperial Diet to meet at Augsburg. The Lutherans developed a statement called the Augsburg Confession and the Protestant princes presented this to the emperor. Charles refused to accept it and ordered all Protestants to return to the Catholic Church and give up any confiscated church property. This backfired, and Protestant territories in the empire formed a military alliance. The emperor could not respond militarily, as he was in the midst of a series of wars with the French: the Habsburg-Valois wars, fought in Italy along the eastern and southern borders of France and eventually in Germany. Fighting began in 1546, and initially the emperor was very successful. This success alarmed both France and the pope who did not want Charles to become even more powerful. Finally, in 1555 Charles agreed to the Peace of Augsburg, which officially recognized Lutheranism. Most of northern and central Germany became Lutheran, while the south remained Roman Catholic. The Peace of Augsburg ended religious war in Germany for many decades. His hope of uniting his empire under a single church dashed, Charles V moved to a monastery, transferring power to his son Philip and his imperial power to his brother Ferdinand.

Martin Luther - Early Life (had religious calling to join Augustian friars) - Fear / His Motto - Indulgences - Archbishop Albert's Indulgence - The Theses - Luther's Debate of Theses -

Luther's observance of religious routine, frequent confessions, and fasting gave him only temporary relief from anxieties about sin and his ability to meet God's demands. Through his study of Saint Paul's letters in the New Testament, he arrived at a new understanding of Christian doctrine. His understanding is summarized as "faith alone, grace alone, Scripture alone." He believed that salvation and justification come through faith. Faith is a free gift of God's grace, not the result of human effort. God's word is revealed only in Scripture, not in the church. According to Catholic theology, individuals who sin could be reconciled to God by confessing their sins to a priest and by doing penance. But in the twelfth century learned theologians emphasized the idea of purgatory, a place where souls on their way to Heaven went to make further amends for their sins. Both penance and time in purgatory could be shortened by drawing on what was termed the "treasury of merits." This was a collection of all the virtuous acts that Christ, the apostles, and the saints had done. An indulgence was a piece of parchment, signed by the pope or another church official, that substituted a virtuous act from the treasury of merits for penance or time in purgatory. The papacy and bishops had given Crusaders such indulgences, and by the later Middle Ages they were offered for making pilgrimages or other pious activities and also sold outright. Archbishop Albert's indulgence sale, run by Dominican friar Johann Tetzel, promised that the purchase of indulgences would bring forgiveness for one's own sins or release from purgatory for a loved one. The slogan "As soon as coin in coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs" brought phenomenal success, and people traveled from miles around to buy indulgences. Luther was troubled that many people believed they had no further need for repentance once they had purchased indulgences. He wrote a letter to Archbishop Albert on the subject and enclosed "Ninety-five Theses on the Power of Indulgences." His argument was that indulgences undermined the seriousness of the sacrament of penance, competed with the preaching of the Gospel, and downplayed the importance of charity in Christian life. Biographies reported that the theses were nailed to the door of the church at Wittenberg Castle. The papacy responded with a letter condemning some of Luther's propositions, ordering that his books be burned, and giving him two months to recant or be excommunicated. Luther retaliated by publicly burning the letter. Luther's theological issues had become interwoven with public controversies about the church's wealth, power, and basic structure. In this highly charged atmosphere, the twenty-one-year-old emperor Charles V held his first assembly of the nobility, clergy, and cities of the Holy Roman Empire in Worms and summoned Luther to appear. Luther refused to take back his ideas..

New and Reformed Religious Orders

New religious orders were founded. The Ursuline order of nuns, for example, founded by Angela Merici, focused on the education of women. The daughter of a country gentleman, Angela Merici worked for many years among the poor, sick, and uneducated around her native Brescia in northern Italy. In 1535 she established the first women's religious order concentrating on teaching young girls. The Ursulines rapidly spread to France and the New World. The most significant new order was the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. Founded by Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits played a powerful international role in strengthening Catholicism in Europe. While recuperating from a severe battle wound in his legs, Loyola studied books about Christ and the saints and decided to give up his military career and become a soldier of Christ. During a year spent in seclusion, prayer, and asceticism, he gained insights that went into his great classic, Spiritual Exercises. This work , set out a training program of structured meditation designed to develop spiritual discipline and allow one to meld one's will with that of God. The Society of Jesus developed into a highly centralized organization. In addition to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, professed members vowed special obedience to the pope. Flexibility and willingness to respond to the needs of time and circumstance formed the Jesuit tradition, which proved attractive to young men. The Jesuits achieved phenomenal success for the papacy and the reformed Catholic Church. Within Europe the Jesuits brought southern Germany and much of eastern Europe back to Catholicism. Jesuit schools adopted the modern humanist curricula and methods, educating the sons of the nobility as well as the poor.

Papal Reform and the Council of Trent

Pope Paul III and his successors supported improvements in education for the clergy, the end of the selling of church offices, and stricter control of clerical life. Pope Paul III established the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, often called the Holy Office, with jurisdiction over the Roman Inquisition, a powerful instrument of the Catholic Reformation. The Roman Inquisition was a committee of six cardinals with judicial authority over all Catholics and the power to arrest, imprison, and execute suspected heretics. The Holy Office published the Index of Prohibited Books, a catalogue of forbidden reading that included works by Christian humanists such as Erasmus as well as by Protestants. Within the Papal States, the Inquisition effectively destroyed heresy, but outside the papal territories, its influence was slight. Pope Paul III also called a general council, which met intermittently at Trent, an imperial city close to Italy. It was called not only to reform the Catholic Church but also to secure reconciliation with the Protestants. Lutherans and Calvinists were invited to participate. In addition, the political objectives of Charles V and France both worked against reconciliation: Charles wanted to avoid alienating the Lutheran nobility in the empire, and France wanted the Catholics and Lutherans to remain divided in order to keep Germany decentralized and weak. Nonetheless, the decrees of the Council of Trent laid a basis for the spiritual renewal of the Catholic Church. It gave equal validity to the Scriptures and to tradition as sources of religious truth and authority. It reaffirmed the seven sacraments and the traditional Catholic teaching on transubstantiation. It tackled the disciplinary matters that had disillusioned the faithful, requiring bishops to reside in their own dioceses, suppressing pluralism and simony, and forbidding the sale of indulgences. Clerics who kept concubines were to give them up, and bishops were given greater authority. The council required every diocese to establish a seminary for the education and training of the clergy. Seminary professors were to determine whether candidates for ordination had vocations, genuine callings to the priesthood. This was a novel idea, since from the time of the early church, parents had determined their sons' (and daughters') religious careers. For the first time, great emphasis was laid on preaching and instructing the laity, especially the uneducated. One decision had especially important social consequences for laypeople. The Council of Trent stipulated that for a marriage to be valid, the marriage vows had to be made publicly before a priest and witnesses. Trent thereby ended the widespread practice of private marriages in Catholic countries. Although it did not achieve all of its goals, the Council of Trent composed decrees that laid a solid basis for the spiritual renewal of the church. The doctrinal and disciplinary legislation of Trent served as the basis for Roman Catholic faith, organization, and practice through the middle of the twentieth century.

The Appeal of Protestant Ideas - Printing press - Educated people's thoughts on the teachings - What the printing press did with Luther - Political relationships

Pulpits and printing presses spread the Protestant message all over Germany, and by the middle of the sixteenth century people of all social classes rejected Catholic teachings and become Protestant. Educated people were attracted by Luther's teachings. He advocated a simpler personal religion based on faith, a return to the spirit of the early church, the centrality of the Scriptures in the liturgy and in Christian life, and the abolition of elaborate ceremonies. The Protestant insistence that everyone should read and reflect on the Scriptures attracted literate and thoughtful city residents. This included many priests and monks who left the Catholic Church to become clergy in Protestant churches. In addition, townspeople who envied the church's wealth were attracted by the notion that the clergy should pay taxes and should not have special legal privileges. After Zurich became Protestant, the city council taxed the clergy and placed them under the jurisdiction of civil courts. Scholars in many disciplines have attributed Luther's fame and success to the invention of the printing press. Many printed works included woodcuts and other illustrations, so even those who could not read could grasp the main ideas. Equally important was Luther's skill with language, as seen in his hymns that he wrote for congregations to sing. Luther's linguistic skill led to the acceptance of his dialect of German as the written version of German. Both Luther and Zwingli recognized that for reforms to be permanent, political authorities as well as concerned individuals and religious leaders would have to accept them. Zwingli worked closely with the city council of Zurich, and city councils themselves took the lead in other cities and towns of Switzerland and south Germany. They appointed pastors who they knew had accepted Protestant ideas, required them to swear an oath of loyalty to the council, and oversaw their preaching and teaching.

Henry VIII and the Reformation in England - Reformation in England - Henry VIII and his marriages - Henry's removal of English from papal jurisdiction - Henry's political views - The nationalization of the church and the dissolution of the monasteries - Support of Henry's changes - Ireland

The Reformation in England had economic and political as well as religious causes. The impetus for England's break with Rome was the desire of King Henry VIII for a new wife, though his motives included political, social, and economic elements. Henry VIII was married to Catherine of Aragon, the widow of Henry's older brother, Arthur. Marriage to a brother's widow went against canon law, and Henry had been required to obtain a special papal dispensation to marry Catherine. The marriage had produced only one living heir, a daughter, Mary. Henry decided that God was showing his displeasure with the marriage by denying him a son, and he wanted the marriage annulled. He was in love with Anne Boleyn and assumed that she would give him the son he wanted. Charles V was the nephew of Catherine of Aragon and was vigorously opposed to an annulment. With Rome thwarting his matrimonial plans, Henry decided to remove the English Church from papal jurisdiction. Henry used Parliament to end the authority of the pope and make himself the supreme head of the church in England. Some opposed the king and were beheaded, among them Thomas More. When Anne Boleyn failed twice to produce a male child, Henry VIII charged her with adulterous incest and had her beheaded. His third wife, Jane Seymour, gave Henry the desired son, Edward, but she died in childbirth. Henry went on to three more wives. Henry was conservative, and the English Church retained traditional Catholic practices and doctrines. Under the influence of his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, and the man he had appointed archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, he did agree to place an English Bible in every church. He decided to dissolve the English monasteries, primarily because he wanted their wealth. Working through Parliament, between 1535 and 1539 the king ended nine hundred years of English monastic life. Their proceeds enriched the royal treasury, and hundreds of properties were sold to the middle and upper classes. The dissolution of the monasteries did not achieve a more equitable distribution of land and wealth; rather, the redistribution of land strengthened the upper classes and tied them to both the Tudor dynasty and the new Protestant Church. The nationalization of the church and the dissolution of the monasteries led to important changes in government administration. New departments of state were set up. This balancing resulted in greater efficiency and economy, and Henry VIII's reign saw the growth of the modern centralized bureaucratic state. Did the religious changes under Henry VIII have broad popular support? Some English people had been dissatisfied with the existing Christian Church before Henry's measures, and Protestant literature circulated. Traditional Catholicism exerted an enormously strong and vigorous hold over the imagination and loyalty of the people. Most clergy and officials accepted Henry's moves, but all did not quietly acquiesce. Popular opposition in the north to the religious changes led to the Pilgrimage of Grace, a massive rebellion that proved the largest in English history. The "pilgrims" accepted a truce, but their leaders were arrested, tried, and executed. Recent scholarship points out that people rarely "converted" from Catholicism to Protestantism overnight. People responded to an action of the Crown that was played out in their own neighborhood with a combination of resistance, acceptance, and collaboration. Some enthusiastically changed to Protestant forms of prayer, for example, while others recited Protestant prayers in church. Loyalty to the Catholic Church was strong in Ireland. Ireland had been claimed by English kings since the twelfth century, but the English had firm control of only the area around Dublin, known as the Pale. The Irish parliament soon approved the English laws severing the church from Rome. The Church of Ireland was established on the English pattern. Most of the Irish people remained Roman Catholic, thus adding religious antagonism to the ethnic hostility. Irish armed opposition to the Reformation led to repression by the English. Catholic property was confiscated and sold, and profits were shipped to England. The Roman Church was driven underground, and the Catholic clergy acted as national as well as religious leaders.

The Rise of the Habsburg Dynasty - Marriage of Habsburg - What Charles V was left with

The benefits of an advantageous marriage stretched across generations. The Holy Roman emperor Frederick III acquired only a small amount of territory and a lot of money with his marriage to Princess Eleonore of Portugal. He arranged for his son Maximilian to marry Europe's most prominent heiress, Mary of Burgundy. She inherited the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the County of Burgundy. Through this union with the rich and powerful duchy of Burgundy, the Austrian house of Habsburg became an international power. The marriage of Maximilian and Mary angered the French who considered Burgundy French territory. Maximilian learned the lesson of marital politics well, marrying his son and daughter to the children of Ferdinand and Isabella, the rulers of Spain. His grandson Charles V fell heir to a vast and incredibly diverse collection of states and peoples, each governed in a different manner and held together only by the person of the emperor. Charles's Italian adviser, the grand chancellor Gattinara, told the young ruler, "God has set you on the path toward world monarchy."

French Religious Wars

The costs of the Habsburg-Valois wars forced the French to increase taxes and borrow heavily. King Francis I tried two new devices to raise revenue: the sale of public offices and a treaty with the papacy. The former proved to be only a temporary source of money: once a man bought an office, he and his heirs were exempt from taxation. But the latter gave the French crown the right to appoint all French bishops and abbots, ensuring a rich supplement of money and offices. Because French rulers possessed control over appointments and had a vested financial interest in Catholicism, they had no need to revolt against Rome. Significant numbers of those ruled were attracted to the Reformed religion of Calvinism. Calvinism drew converts from among reform-minded members of the Catholic clergy, industrious city dwellers, and artisan groups. Most French Calvinists, called Huguenots, lived in major cities, such as Paris, Lyon, and Rouen. By the time King Henry II died in 1559, perhaps one-tenth of the population had become Calvinist. The three weak sons of Henry II who occupied the throne could not provide the necessary leadership, and were often dominated by their mother, Catherine de' Medici. The French nobility took advantage of this monarchical weakness. French nobles frequently adopted Protestantism as a religious cloak for their independence. Armed clashes between Catholic royalist lords and Calvinist antimonarchical lords occurred in many parts of France. Both Calvinists and Catholics believed that the others' books, services, and ministers polluted the community. Calvinist teachings called power of sacred images into question, and mobs in many cities took down and smashed statues, stained-glass windows, and paintings, viewing this as a way to purify the church. This destruction of religious images is an example of ordinary men and women carrying out the Reformation themselves. Catholic mobs responded by defending images, and crowds on both sides killed their opponents, often in gruesome ways. A savage Catholic attack on Calvinists in Paris on Saint Bartholomew's Day followed the usual pattern. The occasion was the marriage ceremony of the king's sister Margaret of Valois to the Protestant Henry of Navarre. Instead, wedding guests in Paris were massacred, and other Protestants were slaughtered by mobs. Religious violence spread to the provinces, where thousands were killed. This Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre led to a civil war that dragged on for fifteen years. What ultimately saved France was a small group of moderates of both faiths called politiques, who believed that only the restoration of strong monarchy could reverse the trend toward collapse. They favored accepting the Huguenots as a recognized and organized group. The death of Catherine de' Medici, followed by the assassination of King Henry III, paved the way for the accession of Henry of Navarre, a politique who became Henry IV Henry's willingness to sacrifice religious principles to political necessity saved France. He converted to Catholicism but issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which granted liberty of conscience and liberty of public worship to Huguenots in 150 fortified towns. The reign of Henry IV and the Edict of Nantes prepared the way for French absolutism in the seventeenth century by helping restore internal peace in France.

Scandinavia - Accept reformation outside of Empire - Sweden

The first area outside the empire to accept the Reformation was the kingdom of Denmark-Norway under King Christian III. Danish scholars studied at the University of Wittenberg, and Lutheran ideas spread very quickly. In the 1530s the king officially broke with the Catholic Church, and most clergy followed. The process went smoothly in Denmark, but in northern Norway and Iceland there were violent reactions, and Lutheranism was only gradually imposed on a largely unwilling populace. In Sweden, Gustavus Vasa, who came to the throne during a civil war with Denmark, took over control of church personnel and income. Protestant ideas spread, though the Swedish Church did not officially accept Lutheran theology until later in the century.

Protestant Thought - Zwingli - Protestants - How is a person saved / where does religious authority reside? - What is the church? / highest form of church life?

The most important early reformer other than Luther was the Swiss humanist, priest, and admirer of Erasmus, Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli was convinced that Christian life rested on the Scriptures, the pure words of God and the sole basis of religious truth. He attacked indulgences, the Mass, the institution of monasticism, and clerical celibacy. He had the strong support of the city authorities, who had long resented the privileges of the clergy. The followers of Luther, Zwingli, and others came to be called Protestants. The word Protestant derives from the protest drawn up by a small group of reforming German princes at the Diet of Speyer in 1529. The princes "protested" the decisions of the Catholic majority, and the word gradually became a general term applied to all non-Catholic western European Christians. Luther, Zwingli, and other early Protestants agreed on many things. First, how is a person to be saved? Traditional Catholic teaching held that salvation is achieved by both faith and good works. Protestants held that salvation comes by faith alone. Second, where does religious authority reside? Christian doctrine maintained that authority rests in the Bible and in the teaching of the church. For Protestants, authority rested in the Bible alone. Third, what is the church? Protestants held that the church is a spiritual priesthood of all believers, which differed from the Roman Catholic practice of a hierarchical clerical institution headed by the pope in Rome. Fourth, what is the highest form of Christian life? The medieval church had stressed the superiority of the religious life over the secular. Protestants disagreed and argued that every person should serve God in his or her individual calling.