Causes,_Key_Events_and_Results_of_the_Reformation

CAUSES, KEY EVENTS AND RESULTS OF THE REFORMATION The Gathering Storm Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries the Church was faced with numerous direct challenges. Dissatisfaction with the Church could be found at all levels of European society. Many devout Christians were finding the Church's growing emphasis on rituals unhelpful in their quest for personal salvation. People began to have a different outlook on salvation, no longer focusing on salvation of whole groups of people, but rather to something more personal and individual. The sacraments had become forms of ritualized behavior that no longer "spoke" to the people of Europe. They had become devoid of meaning. And since more people were congregating in towns and cities, they could observe for themselves and more important, discuss their concerns with others. Another problem facing the Church was that in the 16th century there were a multitude of reformers who were openly criticizing the Church for its numerous offenses. Priests married and then took mistresses, holy offices were bought and sold for the highest price, incompetence among the clergy became the rule. In a word, the problem was corruption. Popes and bishops were acting more like kings and princes than they were the spiritual guides of European men and women. Because so many people were now crowding into cities, the lavish homes and palaces of the Church were noticed by more and more people from all walks of life. Meanwhile, peasants in England, Italy, France, Germany and elsewhere were also on the move. They began to revolt openly against both the clergy and the aristocracy. Their grievances were the most complicated of all - their revolt was against political, economic, social and religious authority. And despite the Inquisition, the work of the Dominicans and Franciscans, and even a holy crusade, heretics and heresies continue to grow more numerous and more vocal These abuses called for two major responses. On the one hand, there was a general tendency toward anti-clericalism, that is, a general but distinct distrust and dislike of the clergy. Some people began to argue that the layperson was just as good as the priest, an argument already advanced by the Waldensians of the 12th century. On the other hand, there were calls for reform. These two responses created fertile ground for conflict of all kinds, and that conflict would be both personal and social. Early Reform Movements There had been numerous attempts to reform the Catholic Church before the 16th century, but they had always been squelched by the Inquisition. There were also groups outside the Roman Church, such as the Albigensians and Waldensians. They had opposed the Catholic Church and their blood had flowed like water in martyrdom. The Waldensians had believed in poverty and austerity, promoting true poverty, public preaching and the personal study of the scriptures. The Albigensians, a sect that went back as far as the Council of Nicaea, were more radical. They believed that the material world was created by Satan, that hell is imprisonment in the human body, that Jesus=s mission was a failure (why they spit on the cross), that all of the sacraments were in error, and that people should not marry. In 1208 the Pope launched the Albigensian Crusade to attack and destroy the Albigensian movement. The Albigensians also inspired the Inquisition. The Inquisition in its original form was an improvement over the trials of the time. The following trials were common in Northern Europe: trial by fire, trial by water, and trial by combat. In the original formulation of the Inquisition, although the Inquisitors couldn=t execute the accused person, they could cut off their tongue, ears, nose, or could even castrate them. Eventually the Inquisition progressed to torture to get the accused to talk and name others. The Cluniacs, a 10th century monastic order from Cluny, France were very strict. They became disenchanted with the Catholic Church practices of the day. Because of their excellent reputation for piety they were able to push several reforms through, namely the end of the practice of simony, election of the Pope by clergy with clear guidelines (to end corruption), and priests were now forbidden to marry (to eliminate nepotism). As the chaos of the late Middle Ages subsided, trade became safer, and cities began to develop and grow. There was a shortage of priests due to the rising prosperity. The rising prosperity was accompanied by a rise in sin. Religious guidance became the province of friars, who were more like street preachers (although they were authorized by the Church to preach). Two significant factions of friars arose: 1) the Dominicans, who stressed reform through education, especially of the parish priests. Many universities were started by the Dominican Order. 2) the Franciscans, led by Francis of Assisi. Francis criticized the Church, especially the expenditure of vast sums for the construction of huge cathedrals. He felt that the money should be given to the poor (charity). Although he was critical of the Dominican educational movement (he thought that all non-practical education was vanity), when he died the Franciscan order changed to be more like the Dominicans. As Europe recovered from the era of the Black Death, a dramatic urbanization continued as did the growth of universities spurred by the Dominicans and Franciscans. The printing press, perfected by the moveable type of Gutenberg in 1451, had created the ability to produce books cheaply and in larger quantities. And this was indeed important since the Renaissance created a literate public eager for whatever came off the presses. The "humanism" of the Renaissance period stimulated unprecedented academic conversations, and a concern for academic freedom. Ongoing, earnest theoretical debates occurred in the universities about the nature of the church, and the source and extent of the authority of the papacy, of councils, and of princes. The Reformation Begins Martin Luther's spiritual predecessors included John Wycliffe and Johannes Hus, who likewise had attempted to reform the Catholic Church. John Wycliffe (1320-1384), a university theologian, translated the Bible into English. As the printing press had not yet been invented, his translation was not widespread and not a threat to Rome. For this reason he was never excommunicated. Wycliffe attacked what he saw as corruptions within the church, including the sale of indulgences, pilgrimages, the excessive veneration of saints, and the low moral and intellectual standards of ordained priests. Wycliffe also repudiated the doctrine of transubstantiation, felt that faith was more important than reason, held that the Bible was the sole standard of Christian doctrine, and argued that the authority of the Pope was not grounded in Scripture. The Peasant=s Revolt in England in 1381 was due more to economic issues than religious reform. A march on London led by the Lollards (evangelistic street preachers) sought to confiscate Church property and redistribute it to the poor, kill all the lawyers and government officials, and end the Feudal system. King Richard II ostensibly agreed to their demands, then reneged and had the leaders put to death. John Hus (1369-1415) was a theologian at the University of Prague. Hus was excommunicated in 1410, and burned at the stake for heresy in 1415. His death led to the Hussite Wars in Bohemia. Hus followed Wycliffe's teachings closely. He criticized the primacy of the Pope, the selling of indulgences, felt that lay people should be able to drink from the chalice at Holy Communion, and favored Bible translations into the vernacular. After his death, and several years of savage fighting, the Hussites agreed to give up on the other issues if they would be allowed to drink from the chalice at Holy Communion. Giralamo Savonarola was a Florentine Dominican Friar. Florence was the center of the Italian Renaissance and was a very wealthy city. As with many wealthy cities, liberal attitudes prevailed. In 1498 Savanarola, a very charismatic figure, convinced the youth of the city to save their parents by destroying pornographic art, mirrors, dice and fancy clothes by burning them at the town main square. This became known as the ABonfire of the Vanities.@ Eventually when he decreed that Athe Pope is the personification of the Devil,@ he was burned at the stake in 1498. Martin Luther (1483-1546) was shocked by the corruption of the clergy on a trip to Rome in 1510. Sixtus IV (1471B1484) was the first Pope to impose a license on brothels and a special tax on priests who kept a mistress. He also established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, thereby establishing a virtually infinite source of revenue. Pope Alexander VI (1492B1503) was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance Popes. He fathered seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, by at least two mistresses. Fourteen years after his death, the corruption of the papacy that Alexander VI exemplified B particularly the sale of indulgences B prompted Martin Luther to nail a summary of his grievances on the door of a church in Germany and launch the Protestant Reformation. The 95 Theses were Latin propositions opposing the manner in which indulgences (release from the temporal penalties for sin through the payment of money) were being sold in order to raise money for the building of Saint Peter's in Rome. Word of Luther's Theses spread and spurred on by Luther's friends at the university, many people called for the translation of the Theses into German. A student copied Luther's Latin text and then translated the document and sent it to the university press and from there it spread throughout Germany. It was the printing press itself that allowed Luther's message to spread so rapidly. By attacking the issue of the indulgences, Luther was really attacking the entire theology and structure of the Church. By making salvation dependent on the individual's faith, Luther abolished the need for sacraments as well as a clergy to administer them. For Luther, faith alone, without the necessity of good works, would bring salvation. This was obviously heretical thinking. After a debate between John Eck and Luther in which Luther reaffirmed these beliefs, he was excommunicated. Frederick of Saxony, the Elector of Saxony offered Luther protection. He may have been convinced that Luther was right, or in a more cynical vein, if he broke with the Catholic Church, he wouldn=t have to tithe to the Pope in Rome and would also be able to confiscate Church property. At the time, there was a great deal of resentment about German taxes going to build enormous basilicas and monuments in Rome. Many princes in the German principalities followed his lead. In these cases, the decision whether to become a Lutheran principality or not was a top down decision made by the local prince. For the wealthy, becoming a Lutheran was one way to keep their wealth yet still be given a chance for salvation without paying homage to Rome. In other words, it can be said that the wealthy followed Luther as a form of protest against the Church. For the very poor, Luther offered individual dignity and respect. Not good works or servitude to Rome could guarantee salvation. Instead, faith held out the possibility of salvation. The bottom line is this - Luther told people exactly what they want to hear. Luther appeared as an alternative to the Roman Church. Whereas the Catholic Church appealed to men and women as members of a group (i.e., members of the Church), Lutheranism meant that faith was now something individual, and this would have profound consequences. Eventually, most of the germanic speaking north in Europe became Lutheran, while the latinate southern European countries remained Roman Catholic. Luther challenged the necessity of the regular clergy (monks and nuns), the requirement for celibacy, the Agood deeds@ path to heaven, all of the sacraments except two - baptism and marriage, and the concept of transubstantiation. He supported confiscation of church property, particularly monasteries and convents, vernacular translations of the Bible, the Bible as the only source of authority, the laity drinking from the chalice at Holy Communion, and proposed a different theory of Holy Communion, that of consubstantiation. In the course of this religious upheaval, the Peasants' War of 1524B1525 swept through the Bavarian, Thuringian and Swabian principalities, leaving scores of Catholics slaughtered at the hands of Protestant bands. Martin Luther condemned the revolt, thus contributing to its eventual defeat. Some 100,000 peasants were killed There were also across Europe a growing number of humanists who were attracted by Luther's message. Luther's call for a more personal and immediate religion based on faith, the focus on the Scriptures in the liturgy and in life as well as the abolition of Catholic ceremony were just the kind of reforms that northern Christian humanists had been willing to address. John Calvin (1509-1564) represents the second wave of the Protestant Reformation. On All Saints Day in 1533, Calvin delivered an address at Paris which clearly defended the doctrine of "justification by faith alone." Renouncing his Catholicism, Calvin settled at Basel, in Switzerland, and there wrote a book, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. The core of what became known as Calvinism, was that man was a helpless being before an all-powerful God. He concluded that there was no such thing as free will, that man was predestined for either Heaven or Hell. Man can do nothing to alter his fate. It was Calvin, and not Luther, who gave to the Swiss and French reformers of this time a rallying point for Church reform. Calvin instituted the first theocracy in Christianity in Geneva with enforcement of a strict moral discipline in the community by the pastors and members of the church. The restrictions included no alcohol, no dancing, no gambling, no prostitution, no theater and no fancy clothes. In some ways, his career at Geneva is remarkably similar to that of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. Genevan men and women were told to wake up early, work hard, be forever concerned with good morals, be thrifty at all times, abstain from worldly pleasures, be sober, and above all, serious. Calvin also introduced his concept of the "calling." While some men were greedy, lazy, and amoral, there were others who seemed to work happily in their lifetime, accomplishing much and in the right spirit. In other words, they had been "called" to do a certain thing here on earth. Of course, by waking up early, working diligently, being thrifty, sober and abstaining from frivolity, there is an unintended consequence. That consequence was the acquisition of wealth. So, while Calvin did not invent free enterprise, nor did he invent capitalism, or the desire for wealth, he did rationalize that desire by arguing that certain men are Acalled@ to pursue other occupations than that of the clergy. These characteristics later came to be known as the Protestant Work Ethic. As this was the first religious movement to embrace businessmen, they converted to Calvinism in droves. Calvinism was a grass roots evangelical movement, converting on a 1:1 basis. Calvinists in France became known as Huguenots; in England as Puritans; and in Scotland as Presbyterians. By 1564, the year of Calvin's death, there were more than a million French Calvinists or Huguenots, Scotland had been won over to Calvinism, and the religion also found a home in England, the Low Countries and Hungary Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531), was a Swiss theologian and leader of early Reformation movements in Switzerland. Zwingli criticized monasticism, the concept of celibacy, the concept of fasting, the veneration of saints, and Luther=s consubstantiation theory. He favored public confessions and public supervision of private morality. Zwingli and Luther met to resolve their differences and ended up excommunicating each other. He later died attacking a Catholic town. Luther and Zwingli had argued that infant baptism marked the moment of one's entry into the Church, even though this had no sanction in the Bible. The Anabaptists believed the first baptism did not count since only mature adults could make a conscious choice for Jesus. The Anabaptists were a diverse group of people. Some rejected the Trinity while others refused to take oaths, pay taxes, hold public office or serve in the army. Since the Anabaptists gave the individual free choice, it was indeed possible that Church organization was unnecessary since many believed in personal communication with God. Many practiced a primitive communism in which everything was held in common, including property. They firmly believed that there should be a separation of church and state. In England, King Henry VIII (1491-1547) was originally very critical of the Protestants. He wanted to marry Catherine of Aragon, but since she had been married before, required dispensation from the Pope to do so. This request was granted. After twenty years, Catherine had bore him only a single child, Mary. As England had recently gone through a lengthy dynastic conflict (the Wars of the Roses), Henry feared that his lack of a male heir might jeopardize his descendants' claim to the throne. Henry requested an annulment of the marriage from the Pope. As Catherine was the aunt of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor (who was in Rome at the time Henry=s request arrived), the Pope declined Henry=s request. Henry VIII was excommunicated by the pope in 1533 for marrying Anne Boleyn and having the archbishop of Canterbury sanction the divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. In 1534, Henry had Parliament pass an act appointing the king and his successors supreme head of the Church of England, thus establishing an independent national Anglican church. Church of England precepts included the acceptability of divorce and that the pope was not supreme in religious matters. As in Germany, Catholic Church property was confiscated and the practice of tithing to the Pope in Rome ended. After the American Revolution, followers of the Anglican in the new country renamed it the Episcopalian Church. The success of the Counter Reformation on the Continent and the growth of a Puritan party dedicated to further Protestant reform polarized the Elizabethan Age, although it was not until the 1640s that England underwent religious strife comparable to that which its neighbors had suffered some generations before. The early Puritan movement (late 16th century 17th century) was Reformed or Calvinist and was a movement for reform in the Church of England. The desire was for the Church of England to resemble more closely the Protestant churches of Europe, especially Geneva. The Puritans objected to ornaments and ritual in the churches as idolatrous, which they castigated as "popish pomp and rags.@ They also objected to ecclesiastical courts. The later Puritans were often referred to as dissenters and nonconformists. The most famous and well known emigration to America was the migration of the Puritan separatists from the Anglican Church of England, who fled first to Holland, and then later to America, to establish the English colonies of New England, which later became the United States. Other dissident religious groups also existed, the Unitarians and the Quakers among them. The Unitarians challenged the concept of the Holy Trinity. The Quakers, although they came from the Anabaptist tradition, held very quiet services. Originating in England with George Fox, they held no sermons, had no clergy, and went to the meeting house to meditate and wait for God to speak to them. They were the only religious denomination that criticized slavery, that favored gender equality and that treated everyone with respect. In England, although upper class members were to be addressed as Athou@ and lower class persons as Ayou,@ they addressed everyone as Athou.@. Interestingly, the lower class Ayou@ is used today. The Counter-Reformation It can be assumed that the Catholic Church could never have predicted the force of the Protestant Reformation. The Church did try responding, but their response, via internal reform driven by the Council of Trent from 1545-1560, was weak. One reform did come, from a man who was not even a member of the clergy. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) was a former Basque soldier and reformer who sought to create a new religious order. Ignatius founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1534. The Jesuits became the backbone of the Catholic or Counter Reformation. The Jesuits combined the ideas of traditional monastic discipline with a dedication to teaching and preaching. Why they did this is pretty clear -- they wanted to win back converts. As a brotherhood or society, the Jesuits sought to bypass local corruption by not attaching themselves to local bishops or local authorities, but by appealing to the papacy for permission to lead an international movement. By the 17th century, the Jesuits had become some of the greatest teachers in Europe, especially in France. They had also become one of the most controversial religious groups within the Church. Was their religion merely a disguise for political power' Or, where they the true voice of a reformed Church' At any rate, the Jesuits helped to build schools and universities and design churches. Religious Wars Between 1560 and 1715, Europe witnessed only thirty years of international peace. The greatest "international" conflict of the period was the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), a war that had its origins in the complicated religious and political environment of the period. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg brought an end to religious wars in Central Europe by dividing the numerous German states between Catholic and Lutheran authority. Although each prince had the right to determine the religion of his subjects, it happened that Lutheranism continued to spread into catholic-held lands. The spread of Calvinism, not recognized at Augsburg, also increased tensions. By 1609, the Holy Roman Empire had fragmented into two hostile alliances - the Protestant Union and the Catholic League. The Thirty Years' War began in Bohemia, an area in which Germans and Czechs, and Lutherans, Calvinists and Catholics lived in relative peace. The peace was shattered when Ferdinand II (1578-1637) became the king of Bohemia in 1617. Ferdinand was a zealous Catholic and the Bohemian Protestants feared he would recatholicize Bohemia. In May 1618, the imperial governors were thrown from the windows of Prague Castle. Ferdinand was deposed and the crown was offered to Frederick V (1596-1632) of the Palatinate. This act extended the war from Bohemia to the Holy Roman Empire itself. The Protestant Union under Frederick now faced the Catholic League behind Ferdinand, who was now emperor. With the Spanish Habsburg intervening in the Protestant states of north Germany and numerous Catholic League victories, Protestantism faced a grave challenge. It was at this time that France entered the war. Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) had been following the events of the Thirty Years' War for some time. Aiming to crush the Austrian and Spanish Habsburg, Richelieu accepted any allies regardless of their religion. In 1635, he declared war on Spain and formed an alliance with Sweden and Germany. Peace negotiations were carried out between 1644 and 1648 at the Congress of Westphalia. The Treaty of Westphalia, signed October 24, 1648, allowed the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire into more than three hundred sovereign states. Switzerland and the Dutch Netherlands became independent states and France acquired the rights to Alsace. Brandenburg and Bavaria increased their territory. In terms of religion, the Treaty confirmed the Peace of Augsburg and added Calvinism to Lutheranism and Catholicism as a recognized faith. The Holy Roman Empire lost one quarter of its inhabitants and its fragmentation into hundreds of small states delayed economic recovery as well as any hope for a unified Germany. Some historians believe that the era of the Reformation came to a close when Catholic France allied itself, first in secret and later on the battlefields, with Protestant states against the Habsburg dynasty. For the first time since the days of Luther, political and national convictions again outweighed religious convictions in Europe. Results of the Reformation The Reformation split Europe irreparably, both politically and religiously. The Church, as an institution, suffered a severe setback in terms of its moral authority and political power. By strengthening the power of monarchs, the Reformation helped to produce the modern state. Protestant rulers, of course, rejected papal claims to power. Not only that, these rulers asserted their own authority over their own churches (e.g., Henry VIII in England). In an indirect way, Protestantism contributed to the growth of political liberty. Liberty as an ideal, however, was still 200 years in future. There were tendencies unleashed during the Reformation that provided justification for challenging the authority of monarchs. Since all men are governed by the laws of God, punishment should be given to those who break these laws - kings included. The Reformation also contributed to the establishment of an ethic of individualism. Protestants interpreted the Bible for themselves. They faced salvation or damnation on their own. Calvinism praised Athe calling@ for businessmen and artisans, providing a religious underpinning for early capitalism and the beginning of what came to be known as the Protestant Work Ethic. The Reformation split Europe, a division which would eventually lead to European wars, civil wars, regicide, revolts and rebellion. In the New World, the Puritan separatists were also known as "the Pilgrims.@ After establishing a colony at Plymouth (which would become part of the colony of Massachusetts) in 1620, the Puritan pilgrims received a charter from the King of England which legitimized their colony, allowing them to do trade and commerce with merchants in England, in accordance with the principles of mercantilism. This successful, though initially quite difficult, colony marked the beginning of the Protestant presence in America (the earlier French, Spanish and Portuguese settlements had been Catholic), and became a kind of oasis of spiritual and economic freedom, to which persecuted Protestants and other minorities from the British Isles and Europe fled to for peace, freedom and opportunity. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, contribution to the world of the Puritans was the establishment of public schools in Massachusetts in 1644 to promote literacy, the first public schools in the world. Finally, the Anabaptist tradition colony in Rhode Island established by Roger Williams brought a strong belief in the separation of church and state to the New World.