Para 1 - Cengage



CHAPTER 14

Reformations and Religious Wars, 1500–1600

Instructional Objectives

After reading and studying this chapter, students should be able to discuss the central ideas of religious reformers and explain their appeal to different social groups. They should be able to explain how the political situation in Germany shaped the course of the Reformation. They should also be able to identify factors that contributed to the spread of Protestant ideas and institutions beyond German-speaking lands. They should be able to assess the response of the Catholic Church to the challenge of Protestantism. Finally, they should able to identify the causes and consequences of the various forms of religious violence that plagued sixteenth-century Europe.

Chapter Outline

I. The Early Reformation

A. The Christian Church in the Early Sixteenth Century

1. External signs suggested that Europeans in the early sixteenth century remained pious and loyal to the Roman Catholic Church.

2. Many people were, however, highly critical of the church and its clergy.

3. Critics of the church concentrated on clerical immorality, clerical ignorance, and clerical pluralism.

4. There was also local resentment of clerical privileges and immunities.

B. Martin Luther

1. Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a conscientious friar, but observance of the religious routine did not bring him a sense of security in salvation.

2. Eventually he concluded that only simple faith in Christ led to salvation.

3. Luther was spurred to public action by his objection to the sale of indulgences.

4. His “Ninety-five Theses” argued that indulgences undermined true Christianity.

5. Luther’s positions brought him into conflict with the church and he was eventually excommunicated.

6. Luther’s ideas spread rapidly in the politically charged atmosphere of early sixteenth-century Germany.

C. Protestant Thought

1. Luther’s followers came to be called Protestants.

2. The most important early reformer other than Luther was Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531).

3. Protestants held that salvation comes by faith alone.

4. Protestants held that religious authority resided in Scripture alone, not Scripture in combination with traditional Church teachings.

5. Protestants asserted that the Church consisted of the whole community of believers, not just the clergy.

6. The Catholic Church claimed transubstantiation(that is, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist literally became Christ’s body and blood—but Luther disagreed.

a) Luther argued for consubstantiation(that Christ was really present in the host in spirit, but that the bread and wine were not transformed.

b) Zwingli argued that the Eucharist was a memorial of the Last Supper and nothing more.

c) John Calvin agreed with Luther on consubstantiation.

D. The Appeal of Protestant Ideas

1. Educated people and humanists were attracted to Luther’s simpler, personal vision of Christianity.

2. Many urban Europeans were attracted to Luther’s call for an end to clerical privilege.

3. The printing press played a key role in the rapid spread of the Protestant message.

4. Luther and Zwingli worked closely with political authorities to gain support for Protestantism.

E. The Radical Reformation

1. Some individuals and groups rejected the idea that the church and state needed to be united and, instead, sought to create voluntary communities of believers.

2. Such groups arrived at their own interpretations of Christianity, interpretations that often set them at odds with the authorities and many of their fellow citizens.

3. Secular and religious leaders responded with harsh punitive measures.

F. The German Peasants’ War

1. Following crop failures in 1523 and 1524, Swabian peasants demanded an end to death taxes, new rents, and noble seizure of village common lands in 1525.

2. Luther initially backed the peasants.

3. When the peasants turned to violence, however, Luther egged the lords on as they crushed the rebellions.

4. Lutheranism came to exalt the state and subordinate church to the secular rulers.

G. The Reformation and Marriage

1. Many Protestant reformers, including Luther and Zwingli, married.

2. Many Protestant reformers praised marriage. In their view, a good marriage demonstrated the spiritual equality of men and women and the proper social hierarchy of a husband’s authority and his wife’s obedience.

3. While Catholics viewed marriage as a sacrament, Protestants saw it as a contract.

4. Most Protestants came to allow divorce.

5. Protestants uniformly condemned prostitution.

6. The impact of the Protestant Reformation on the lives of women was mixed.

II. The Reformation and German Politics

A. The Rise of the Habsburg Dynasty

1. In 1477, the marriage of Maximilian I of the House of Habsburg and Mary of Burgundy united the Austrian Empire with Burgundy and the Netherlands, making the Habsburgs the strongest ruling family in the Holy Roman (German) Empire.

2. The Habsburg Charles V (1500–1558) inherited Spain, and Spanish possessions in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, in addition to the lands mentioned above.

3. In 1519, Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He believed that it was his duty to maintain the unity of Christendom.

B. The Political Impact of the Protestant Reformation

1. Spiritual and material concerns swayed many German princes to convert to Protestantism.

2. The Reformation led to religious wars, first in Switzerland and then elsewhere.

3. In 1530, Charles V called an Imperial Diet at Augsburg to try to halt the spread of religious division.

4. When Charles rejected Protestant demands, Protestant princes formed a military alliance.

5. Numerous outside powers became involved in Germany’s political and religious upheaval.

6. In the Peace of Augsburg (1555) Charles accepted the religious status quo in Germany.

III. The Spread of the Protestant Reformation

A. The Reformation in England and Ireland

1. In 1534, in order to legitimize his divorce and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn, English King Henry VIII convinced Parliament to approve the Act of Supremacy, making him head of the English Church.

2. Later, Henry seized monasteries and distributed their lands to the upper classes.

3. Henry’s policies provoked some popular opposition, including the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536.

4. Loyalty to the Catholic Church was particularly strong in Ireland.

5. On orders from London, the Church of Ireland was established in 1536.

6. Armed Irish opposition to the Reformation led to harsh repression by the English.

7. The nationalization of the church and the dissolution of the monasteries led to important changes in government administration in both England and Ireland.

8. Henry’s son Edward VI (r. 1547–1553) steered England in a strongly Protestant direction.

9. Mary Tudor (r. 1553–1558) swung the country back toward Catholicism.

10. Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), daughter of Henry VIII, steered a middle course between Catholicism and the “Puritans” who wanted a “pure” church free of Catholic influences.

11. The Elizabethan Settlement embodied Elizabeth’s religious policies.

B. Calvinism

1. Calvinism was the most important new form of Protestantism.

2. Proceeding from the idea of God’s absolute sovereignty and his omnipotence, the founder of Calvinism, John Calvin, concluded that human beings could do nothing to save themselves. God decided at the beginning of time who would be saved and who would not (predestination).

3. Predestination did not lead to fatalism. Rather, Calvinists, convinced they were saved, were ready to endure great hardship in the struggle against evil.

4. Calvin and the city government of Geneva attempted to regulate people’s conduct in order to create a godly city on earth. Card playing, dancing, and so on were banned.

5. The Genevan government prosecuted heretics, burning fifty-eight at the stake between 1542 and 1546, including the Spanish heretic Servetus.

6. The Calvinist ethic of “the calling” glorified all vocations as pleasing to God. This doctrine encouraged hard work and vigorous activism.

C. The Establishment of the Church of Scotland

1. Scottish nobles tended to support the Reformation, while the monarchs, King James V and his daughter Mary (r. 1560–1567), opposed it.

2. John Knox, a minister who studied in Geneva with Calvin, was instrumental in getting the Scottish Parliament to set up a Calvinist church as the official state church of Scotland (Presbyterianism).

D. The Reformation in Eastern Europe

1. Ethnic factors shaped the Reformation in Eastern Europe.

2. In Bohemia, ethnic grievances of the Czech majority fused with resentment of the Roman church.

3. By 1500, most Czechs had adopted the utraqism position.

4. During the Counter-Reformation, a Catholic revival was promoted in Bohemia.

5. By 1500, Poland and Lithuania were joined in a dynastic union.

6. Luther’s ideas spread to the Baltic towns and then to the University of Cracow.

7. King Sigismund I of Poland banned Luther’s teachings, limiting its success there.

8. The Polish szlachta found Calvinism appealing.

9. The Counter-Reformation cemented the identification of Poland with Catholicism.

10. Lutheranism reached Hungary via Polish merchants.

11. Military defeat by the Ottomans left Hungary divided into three parts.

12. Many Magyar magnates accepted Lutheranism.

13. Recognition of Habsburg rule led to a Catholic restoration in 1699.

IV. The Catholic Reformation

A. The Reformed Papacy

1. Despite their desire for reform, early sixteenth-century popes resisted calls for a general council to discuss the church’s problems and challenges.

2. This changed with Pope Paul III (r. 1534–1549) who became the center of a reform movement.

3. In 1542, Pope Paul III established the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office with jurisdiction over the Roman Inquisition.

4. The influence of the Inquisition outside of the papal territories was slight.

B. The Council of Trent

1. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) reaffirmed the equal authority of Scripture and of Church tradition. It reaffirmed also the seven sacraments and transubstantiation.

2. The Council required bishops to reside in their own dioceses, ended pluralism and simony, and forbade the sale of indulgences.

3. The Council ordered that for a marriage to be valid the vows had to be exchanged publicly.

C. New Religious Orders

1. The new order of Ursuline nuns fought heresy with religious education for girls.

2. Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuit order to fight the Reformation, again largely through education.

V. Religious Violence

A. French Religious Wars

1. In an effort to raise revenue to pay for the Habsburg-Valois Wars, Francis I sold public offices and concluded the Concordat of Bologna with the papacy.

2. Luther’s tracts first appeared in France in 1518. Calvin’s Institutes was published in 1536.

3. French Calvinists were called Huguenots.

4. Monarchial weakness combined with religious division to create civil war.

5. Popular Calvinism was manifested in iconoclasm.

6. Thousands of Protestants were killed in the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre (August 24, 1572), an event that sparked a fifteen year civil war.

7. The politiques believed that only the restoration of a strong monarchy could save France from collapse.

8. The accession of Henry IV (r. 1589 – 1610), himself a politique, brought new stability to France.

9. For the sake of peace, Henry converted to Catholicism and issued the Edict of Nantes.

B. The Netherlands Under Charles V

1. Under Charles V (r. 1519–1556), the Netherlands remained relatively calm.

2. In the 1560s, the policies of Philip II of Spain led to rebellion in the Netherlands.

3. Philip tried to quell the violence by sending twenty thousand troops to the Netherlands under the command of the duke of Alva. Alva’s harsh policies only intensified the conflict.

4. Eventually, the ten southern Catholic provinces came under the control of the Spanish Habsburgs, while the seven northern Protestant provinces formed the Union of Utrecht in 1581 and declared their independence from Spain.

5. Spanish efforts to retake control of the North led the leaders of the United Provinces to look for help from outside powers, particularly Protestant England.

C. The Great European Witch-Hunt

1. The relationship between the Reformation and the upsurge of witchcraft trials in the mid-sixteenth century is complex.

2. In the Middle Ages, a demonological element was added to the European understanding of witchcraft. The essence of witchcraft became a pact with the devil.

3. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft.

4. Between 75 and 85 percent of those tried and executed were women.

5. Learned ideas about witchcraft filtered down to ordinary people.

6. Legal changes facilitated massive witch trials.

7. Most witch trials began with a single accusation, but often grew to include numerous alleged witches.

8. Doubts and skepticism eventually brought the trials to a halt.

Lecture Suggestions

1. “Luther and Calvin.” How was the theology of these reformers alike? How did it differ? Sources: J. Pelikan, Reformation of Church and Dogma (1986); M. Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation (1985); J. T. McNeill, History and Character of Calvinism (1954).

2. “Women and the Reformation: How Did Their Roles Change?” Sources: S. M. Wyntjes, “Women in the Reformation Era,” in R. Bridenthal and C. Koonz, eds., Becoming Visible: Women in European History (1977); S. Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family in Reformation Europe (1983); M. Wiesner, Women in the Sixteenth Century: A Bibliography (1983).

3. “The Reformation and the People at Large.” What was the impact of the Protestant Reformation on the lower classes of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? How did the ideas of Luther and Calvin reach the masses and in what form did they reach them? Sources: S. Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland (1975); K. von Greyerz, ed., Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe (1984);

K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971).

4. “Religion, Politics, and War.” Why did the Protestant Reformation lead to civil war and rebellion? Were the conflicts in France and the Netherlands primarly religious or political? Sources: M.P. Hold, The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 (1995); A. Duke, ed., Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (1990).

Using Primary Sources

Read the selections from Machiavelli and Luther in the “Primary Sources” section of this manual. Have students list the similarities and differences in their works. Discuss specific passages in class. Finally, have students write a short paper on how both Machiavelli and Luther represented the new order of the sixteenth century.

classroom Activities

I. Classroom Discussion Suggestions

A. Why did Protestantism and capitalism complement each other?

B. How did the Society of Jesus combat the influence of Protestantism?

C. What were Luther’s views on marriage and sexuality?

D. Why did Henry VIII try to purge England of monastic communities?

E. What role did the printing press play in the Protestant Reformation?

F. Why were older women the primary targets of witchcraft accusations? What does this tell us about the social and cultural anxieties of the early modern period?

II. Doing History

A. Have students read Erik Erikson’s pioneering study, Young Man Luther (1962), as an introduction to the psychohistorical approach. This can lead to a class discussion of the uses of psychohistory and to a discussion of other psychohistorical works on other historical characters.

B. Have students read selections from Reginald Scot’s 1584 Discovery of Witchcraft (). Then lead a discussion about Scot’s analysis of the causes and implications of witchcraft accusations. Was Scot “ahead of his times” or can his skepticism be placed in the larger context of the Reformation?

III. Cooperative Learning Activities

A. Music of the Age

Have student teams check out Reformation music from the university library. Each team selects a piece by composers such as Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Boh, and Bach. Each team plays a selection for the class and reads or explains how they think the particular composition expresses the mood of the age.

B. Prosopography of the Reformation

Have student teams select a specific reformer and focus research on the reformer’s “power supports,” his political and financial backers—in essence, the networks to which he belonged that helped him make his voice heard. Teams might select Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, or Knox, among others.

Map Activity

1. Consulting the map in the text, have students shade in the religious groups of Europe in the sixteenth century on an outline map of Europe.

2. Consulting the map in the text, have students shade in the dominions of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs on a blank outline map of Europe.

3. Using Map 14.1 (The Global Empire of Charles V) as a reference, answer the following questions.

a. What events led to the creation of the vast empire under the rule of Charles V?

b. How much control did Charles have over his territories? What were the most important obstacles to effective central administration?

Audiovisual Bibliography

1. The Return of Martin Guerre. (111 min. Color. Films, Ltd.)

2. The Last Valley. (130 min. Color. Films, Inc.)

3. The Dissolution of the Monasteries. (27 min. Color. Encyclopedia Britannica Films.)

4. A Man for All Seasons. (121 min. Color. Films, Inc.)

5. The World of Martin Luther. (30 min. B/W. Columbia Pictures.)

6. Paradise Lost. (Videodisc. Color. 52 min. Films for the Humanities and Sciences.)

7. Credo: An Introduction to the Major Religious Traditions of Europe. (Videodisc. Color. 10 Discs. Films for the Humanities and Sciences.)

a. Russian and Ukrainian Jews (30 min.)

b. Dutch Jews (30 min.)

c. The Greek Orthodox Church (30 min.)

d. The Russian Orthodox Church (30 min.)

e. The Roman Catholic Church: The Vatican and Italy (30 min.)

f. The Roman Catholic Church in Poland (30 min.)

g. Muslims in France (30 min.)

h. Muslims in Bulgaria (30 min.)

i. The Hungarian Reformed Church (30 min.)

j. The Swedish Lutheran Church (30 min.)

8. Luther. (DVD, 2004.)

9. Pieter Bruegel the Elder (cgfa.sunsite.dk/bruegel1/index.html)

10. Counter Reformation Art ()

internet resources

1. The Council of Trent (chalcedon/X0020_15._Council_of_Trent.html)

2. Project Wittenberg (pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-home.html)

3. Reformation: John Calvin (wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REFORM/CALVIN.HTM)

4. Elizabeth I (renlit/eliza.htm)

5. Jesuits and the Sciences (libraries.luc.edu/about/exhibits/jesuits)

6. Sixteenth-Century Ballads (~lindahl/ballads/ballads.html)

7. Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and America ()

suggested reading

A. Levi, Renaissance and Reformation: The Intellectual Genesis (2002), surveys the ideas of major Reformation figures against the background of important political issues. J. Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1500–1700 (1985) offers a lively, brief overview. The best reference work is H. J. Hillerbrand, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, 4 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). E. Cameron, The European Reformation (1991), provides a comprehensive survey of the Protestant Reformation, and C. Lindbergh, The European Reformations (1996) includes some discussion of Catholic issues.

For Luther, H. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (1989) provides a thorough grounding in his thought, while R. Marius, Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death (1999) presents a very different interpretation of his thought. On the spread of the Reformation in Germany, see R. W. Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (1988) and M. Edwards, Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther (1994). Students interested in the left wing of the Reformation should see the profound, though difficult, work of G. H. Williams, The Radical Reformers (1962). L. Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg (1991), is an important study in local religious history as well as the history of gender, and M. E. Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 2d ed. (2000) includes a chapter on religion and one on witchcraft. Two solid studies of political developments surrounding the Reformation are A. Wheatcroft, The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire (1995) and P. H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 (1995).

On the English Reformation, G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England, 1509–1558 (1977), combines religious, political, and social history. E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (1992) and E. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (2003) analyze the process of the Reformation. Works that examine eastern Europe are D. Stone, The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795 (2001) and K. Maag, ed., The Reformation in Eastern and Central Europe (1997).

The best study of John Calvin is W. J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (1988), an authoritative study that situates Calvin within Renaissance culture. W. E. Monter, Calvin’s Geneva (1967), shows the effect of Calvin’s reforms on the social life of that Swiss city, and P. Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (2002) examines Calvinist reforms more broadly.

J. W. O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (2000), provides an excellent historiographical review of the literature and explains why and how early modern Catholicism influenced early modern European history. Other good studies of the Catholic Reformation include M. A. Mullett, The Catholic Reformation (1999) and R. P. Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770 (1998), which includes coverage of colonial Catholicism. For the Jesuits, see W. W. Meissner, Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (1993), and J. W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (1993). Perhaps the best recent work on the Spanish Inquisition is W. Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (1990). For the impact of the Catholic Reformation on ordinary Spanish people, see H. Kamen, The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and the Counter Reformation (1993).

M. P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (1995) is a thorough survey designed for students. A. Duke, ed. Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (1990) contains many interesting articles. The literature on witch trials is vast; B. Levack, The Witchhunt in Early Modern Europe, 2d ed. (1995) provides a good introduction and helpful bibliographies.

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