Western Civilization I
Notes from 6/27 and 6/28

As humanist ideas spread along with the new technology of the printing press, other thinkers emerged, including Thomas More (1478-1535) in England.  More's Utopia was a criticism of contemporary society, and described a utopian world in which everyone worked and owned property in common.  These ideas had a special appeal among Northern Europe's growing bourgeoisie, who would be pivotal to the Northern Renaissance and its defining event, the Protestant Reformation.

Since the 14th century (particularly after the Black Death), lay people (non-clericals) in towns were becoming increasingly active in their local churches.  However a number of factors contributed to increasing lay criticism of the Church.  For one thing, with greater stability, wealth and now reading materials, the laity was becoming more knowledgeable about the world, and therefore more likely to question centuries-old Church authority.  Second, the middle class laity had embraced a humanist ideal of "simplicity" in imitation of Jesus, and often viewed the Church as too worldly and materialistic.  The Church's long history of meddling in politics (which had led to the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism) no doubt affected this perception.  Third, the bourgeoisie increasingly viewed the established Roman Catholic Church as a tool of the feudal aristocracy, and sought a more egalitarian institution.  Finally, an increasing sense of nationalism among lay people and princes meant they would become less willing to abide by the dictates of the Roman papacy.

However, it was the sale of indulgences that most disturbed the laity, and actually set off the Protestant Reformation.  Since the Crusades, the Church had allowed individuals to cut time off their stay in purgatory by making contributions of land, cash or other valuables to the Church.  In the midst of the Black Death, Pope Clement VIII (r. 1342-52) proclaimed an "infinite treasury of merit" that could be dispensed at the pope's discretion.  The wealthy could even shorten the stay in purgatory for their deceased loved ones, if the contribution was of sufficient size.  In 1517, Pope Julius II proclaimed a special Jubilee Indulgence, intended to raise funds for the renovations of St. Peter's in Rome.  Indulgence preachers, working in conjunction with an Augsburg banking house, scoured Germany for contributions, hitting up the poor and middle class with promises of an earlier salvation.

This Jubilee Indulgence was the last straw for a German monk (with a doctorate in religion) named Martin Luther (1483-1546).  According to tradition, on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed protest document, the 95 Theses, on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg.  Each thesis was an argument against the practice of selling indulgences, although Luther initially stopped short of condemning the practice altogether.  Luther's protest seized upon the discontent of Germany's bourgeoisie, who rallied to his cause.  Many of Germany's princes also stood behind Luther, seeing the protest as an opportunity to assert the primacy of secular authority over the Church.

Luther would subsequently challenge the doctrine of papal infallibility, appealing in June of 1519 to the authority of Scripture alone.  In 1520, he would signal a new direction with the publication of three famous pamphlets (note the importance of the printing press to Luther's movement).  In Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, he urged the German princes to force reforms on the Catholic Church, especially to curb its political power within Germany.  In Babylonian Captivity, he attacked the seven traditional sacraments of the Church, arguing that only two -- Baptism and the Eucharist -- were biblical.  In Freedom of the Christian, he summarized his important teaching of "salvation by faith alone."

Not surprisingly, on January 3, 1521, Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther.  Luther spent most of the year following his excommunication hidden away at a secluded castle, where he translated the New Testament into German, relying on Erasmus' new Greek and Latin versions.  German peasants saw Luther's message about Christian freedom as sympathetic to their own desire to be emancipated from serfdom.  In 1524, the peasants rose in revolt.  However, rather than supporting the uprising, Luther condemned it as "un-Christian."  He urged the German peasants to crush the revolt without mercy, and by the time it was over in 1525 some 100,000 peasants were dead.  However, having assured them that he was preaching religious reformation, not social revolution, Luther had secured the support of the German nobility, and thus ensured the survival of his movement.

Soon, the Protestant Reformation spread outside Germany.  In 1522, Ulrich Zwingli began a comparable movement in Switzerland.  Like Luther, Zwingli stood for what he considered a literal interpretation of Scripture.  This meant rejecting all sorts of traditional practices such as fasting, saint worship, pilgrimages, clerical celibacy, and most of the sacraments.  Zwingli's city of Zurich was transformed into a model of puritanical Protestantism, with harsh discipline and a literal reading of the Bible.  A Protestant "ethic" soon developed that prohibited ostentatious displays of wealth or status, rejected the sensuality of the Italian Renaissance, forbade most games, dancing and fun, and encouraged hard labor.  This ethic was consistent with the middle class values that had developed in Europe's growing towns and cities.

Zwingli disagreed with Luther on a number of points, the most important of which was the meaning of the Eucharist.  Zwingli saw the taking of communion as symbolic, a re-enactment of Jesus' last supper.  However, Luther held on to the Catholic view that the bread and wine were in some sense also the body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation).  This doctrinal difference went unresolved, and Protestantism would soon become splintered among many different denominations.  More radical movements such as Anabaptism, Spiritualism, and Antitrinitarianism soon developed.  Anabaptists emphasized the importance of adult baptism, or being "born again" into a life of Christ.  The movement attracted a more rural, agrarian population, and it was persecuted in the cities.  In 1529, rebaptism even became a capital offense (punishable by death) throughout most of central Europe.  Spiritualists rejected nearly all traditions and institutions, believing that the only religious authority was God's spirit, which could be revealed directly to every individual.  Antitrinitarians rejected the medieval doctrine to the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Ghost) and argued for a "commonsense, rational and ethical" religion.  Although they developed a reputation as defenders of religious freedom an toleration, like the other groups they themselves were brutally suppressed.  Unfortunately for the Europeans, religious toleration had not come with the Reformation.

Next to Martin Luther, perhaps the most important person in the Reformation was John Calvin (1509-1564).  Calvinism would replace Lutheranism as the dominant Protestant force during the second half of the 16th century.  Calvinists believed in predestination, the idea that there was an "elect" that was already chosen by God for salvation.  Even though individuals were predestined for either damnation or salvation, they were still commanded, according to the Calvinists, to live their lives in a manifestly God-pleasing way.  Hence, the communities established by Calvinists in Geneva, Switzerland, throughout northern and western Europe, and eventually at Massachusetts Bay, enforced the strictest moral discipline.

The last phase of the Protestant Reformation came in England, during the reign of King Henry VIII.  

Henry initially had no quarrel with the Pope or the Catholic Church. However, in 1527 he sought a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, because she was not bearing him a male child to inherit the throne. The Pope refused to grant Henry’s divorce, since Catherine was a member of the Spanish royal family and Spain was a big supporter of the Church. Henry eventually decided to break away from the Catholic Church. In 1534 his Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy which made him the head of a new church, the Church of England (also called the Anglican Church).

So the Reformation in England was more for political reasons than religious ones. Nevertheless, when England broke away from the Catholic Church, it opened the door for many people to embrace the new, more radical religions that were taking hold in some other parts of Europe. One such religion was Calvinism, which stressed God’s power over man. In England, followers of Calvinism became known as Puritans. They felt that the Anglican Church had not gone far enough in separating itself from Catholic religious practices, and wanted a more sweeping Reformation.

Henry VIII finally had a son, but the son died after having been king for only 6 years. After that, Henry’s first daughter, Mary I became Queen. Mary was a Catholic, and during her 5-year reign (1553-1558) she tried to restore the Catholic Church in England. She was particularly brutal to Protestants who refused to switch, and many were executed. Although "Bloody" Mary died in 1558, English Protestants never quite got over this period. Even when she was succeeded by Elizabeth I, many felt they would be better off going somewhere else.

It is during Elizabeth’s reign (1558-1603) that things calm down and England begins to prosper. As a Protestant, Elizabeth restores the Church of England, but retains most Catholic rituals and sacraments.  This compromise is known as the Elizabethan Settlement.  The compromise did not please the more die hard Puritans, who hoped that Elizabeth's successor, James I, would be more sympathetic to their cause.  But James (r. 1603-1625) made clear that he was not interested in undertaking further reforms of the Anglican Church, thus fueling the Separatist movement in England that would in 1620 give birth to the Plymouth colony.

James had been able to smooth over many of the differences that arose between him and his subjects, and had a long, successful reign.  However, his son, Charles I (r. 1625-1649) had no such luck.  Married to a French Catholic, Charles was suspected of having papist (pro-pope) leanings.  His lavish spending and elaborate court also offended Puritan middle class sensibilities, as did his belief in absolute monarchy.  In 1642, when Charles raised his army against an irate Parliament, he touched of the English Civil War.  Those who supported Charles (largely the pro-Anglican aristocracy) were known as Cavaliers.  The urban, middle class Puritans who opposed him were called the Roundheads.  By 1645, the Roundheads, led by Oliver Cromwell, had won a number of decisive victories, and Charles himself was captured and finally beheaded in 1649.

The execution of Charles I is a critical event in English history, and in the history of western civilization.  Although subsequent kings would try to establish absolute rule in England again, for all practical purposes the age of absolute monarchs in England was coming to an end.  We will return to the subject of constitutionalism in England (beginning with the Stuart Restoration in 1660) on Monday.

In Germany and Central Europe, the Reformation also brought political and social strife.  In 1555, the Religious Peace of Augsburg gave each German prince the right to determine whether his subjects would be Lutheran or Catholic, but this peace would only be temporary.  Since the time of Charlemagne (800's), central Europe was supposed to be under the rule of a single, "Holy Roman Emperor."  However, after the mid 1300's, agreements between the German princes and the Holy Roman Emperor had limited the Emperor's control, and protected the autonomy of the 360 or so principalities, free cities and regions in the area.  In 1618, a prince named Ferdinand became king of Bohemia.  A member of the Hapsburg dynasty, Ferdinand was also next in line to become Holy Roman Emperor.  Ferdinand was a staunch Catholic, and he was determined to restore Roman Catholicism to the eastern Hapsburg lands under his control -- Bohemia, Austria, and Poland.  He revoked the religious freedoms of Bohemian Protestants, whose nobility responded by throwing Ferdinand's ministers out a window.  This Defenestration of Prague (1618) touched off the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), a religious conflict that soon escalated into an international conflict. 

What began as an uprising of Bohemian nobles soon embroiled the Lutheran kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, as well as Catholic France and Spain, and most of the German states (where the fighting took place).  The War ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which restored the autonomy of the German princes and permanently weakened the Holy Roman Empire.  Germany would be devastated by the conflict, and would remain politically divided and underdeveloped until the 19th century.

France also was violently torn between its Catholic majority and Protestant minority, culminating in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572.  The slaughter of some 3000 Parisian Protestants was commemorated by a medal ordered by Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572-85).  However, in 1598, the French king, Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted freedom of worship to French Protestants (although they were still barred from government posts and restricted to certain areas of the country).  This limited experiment in religious toleration ended less than a century later, with the reign of Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715), whose revocation of the Edict of Nantes led to the emigration of French Protestants (called Huguenots) to the New World.

The Protestant Reformation forced the Roman Catholic Church to consider its own internal reforms; however perhaps the most prominent change was the creation of the Jesuit Order (or the Society of Jesus). Founded by a Spanish nobleman named Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), the Jesuits sought to revitalize the learning of the Catholic Church and reaffirm papal authority.  They were central to the Church's new missionary movements, which aimed at spreading Catholicism to the New World, and eventually to Asia and Africa.  Unfortunately, in Spain and elsewhere the Church also took more heavy-handed measures to combat Protestantism.  The Inquisition, originally aimed at the Jews and Muslims of Spain, was now turned against fellow Christians.  Like the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, the civil strife in countries like France and England, the Inquisition was part of a long period of religious intolerance in Europe which fueled emigration from Europe to the New World and would not dissipate until the dawn of a new era, known as the Enlightenment.  More on that in Western Civilization II.