Protestant Reformation

Background:

Early Reform Movements:

-the Great Western Schism of 1378 (1378 to 1417)

-there were 2 popes claiming to be the sole pope, one in Rome and

one in Avignon

-the Avignon Papacy -- 1305 to 1378 during which seven

popes resided in Avignon (modern-day France)

-based there since Pope Clement V, who was from

southern France, decided not to move to Rome but

to establish his court in Avignon

-mainly b/c he owed his election to the

French clerics

-the troubles reached their peak in 1378 when,

having returned the Papal court to Rome, Gregory

XI died

-a conclave met and elected a new pope, who was

Roman (Pope Urban VI)

-this was against the wishes of French

cardinals who held a second conclave

electing one of their own (Clement VII) to

succeed Gregory XI

-this sparked calls for reform, starting with John Wycliffe in

England and Jan Hus in Bohemia who attacked the church

hierarchy as being corrupt

-by 1409, there were 3 men simultaneously claiming to be

the true pope

-this happened b/c a church council was held at Pisa

in 1409 under the auspices of the cardinals trying

to solve the dispute, but it added to the problem by

electing another pope, Alexander V

-England -- John Wycliffe (1320-1384)

-an English theologian and an early dissident in the Roman

Catholic Church

-Theologian at the Univ. of Oxford

-felt that all Christians should have access to the Bible in

the vernacular

-the first person to give a complete translation of the

Bible into English (called Wycliffe's Bible)

-first appeared over a period from

approximately 1382 to 1384

-attacked the temporal rule of the clergy

-also against the collection of indulgences and simony

(the buying or selling of a church office)

-his fundamental belief was that the Church should

be poor, as in the days of the apostles

-said the head of the Church is Christ, no Pope may say he

is the head of it; “Our pope is Christ.”

-founded the Lollard movement, a precursor movement to

the Protestant Reformation

-Following of people following the ideas of

Wycliffe

-believed in consubstantiation and predestination,

and advocated apostolic poverty and taxation of

Church properties

-against the papacy

-thus he became known as "The Morning Star of the

Reformation"

-Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic) -- Jan Hus 1369-1415

-philosopher and theologian at Charles University in

Prague

-denounced papal authority, superstition,

indulgences, and other church abuses, and preached

only in Czech, not Latin

-His followers became known as Hussites (Czech nobles

and people)

-as Prague was mostly poor farmers, they liked the

idea of going against the Church not just

theologically, not also socio-economically

-Roman Catholic Church considered his teachings

heretical

-Hus was called in by the King of Bohemia to

discuss the schism that was in the midst, but Hus

walked into an inquisition and was arrested

-Hus was excommunicated in 1411 and

banned from preaching, and his books

burned

-Council of Constance (1414-1418)

-ended the schism by securing the resignations of

the other claimants of the throne and electing Pope

Martin V

-the council also put Jan Hus on trial, and in 1415

they labeled him a heretic and burned him at the

stake

-his death enraged the Czech people against

the Catholic bishops

-in 1415, over 450 Bohemian nobles

signed a letter rejecting the Church’s

decision to execute Hus, marking the

1st time an ecclesiastical decision

was publicly defied

-known as the Bohemian

Protest

-revolution was brewing

-Hussites insisted on clerical poverty, among other

Hus reforms

-Hussite Wars (1420-1434)

-based in Prague

-like the Lollards

-The knights and nobles of Bohemia and

Moravia, who were in favor of church

reform

-a key contributor to the Protestant movement whose

teachings had a strong influence on the states of Europe and

on Martin Luther himself

1517-1648 (writing of the 95 Theses to the Treaty of Westphalia at the end of the 30 Years’ War)

Ever hear of the Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences? (95 Theses)

Martin Luther (1483-1546), a German Catholic monk/priest

-born in Eisleben, studied at the Univ. of Erfurt where he became acquainted with

the new movement of humanism

-originally wanted to become a lawyer, but in 1505 a thunderstorm scarred

him and made him make a vow to St. Anne (Mary’s mother) to become a

monk

-he thus entered the Erfurt monastery of the Augustinian monks

-in 1507, he was ordained a priest, and in 1508 he moves to Wittenberg to lecture

on moral philosophy at the Univ. of Wittenberg

-also is a priest in St. Marien Church in Wittenberg

-traveled to Rome in 1510 to see the true nature of the Church

-this was the Rome of Pope Julius II (1503-1513)

-full of immorality: prostitutes, money, thieves, crime,

corruption, wars, and indulgences

-in 1512 Luther earned his Doctor of Theology degree and became a

professor of Bible interpretation

-starts learning Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the

Bible

-in Letter to the Romans, he finds that Christians receive salvation

solely through faith in God’s given righteousness

-by 1515, Luther was appointed district vicar, overseeing 11 monasteries of the

Augustinian order

-also in 1515, indulgences are sold throughout the Archbishop Albert of

Magdeburg’s (who is also the archbishop of Mainz) episcopal territories,

which include Wittenberg

-indulgence was a certificate, which when purchased, and when confession was made, was a “get out of jail card”

-in the Catholic Church, two punishments for sin; one is

called eternal and is inflicted in hell, and the other is called

temporal and is inflicted in this world or in purgatory

-purgatory -- a place of suffering where

imperfections are scrubbed away in preparation for

entering heaven

-confession erases eternal punishment, but temporal

punishment remains

-indulgences are the equivalent of a get-out-of-purgatory-

free card

-a buyer could purchase one, either for himself or for one

of his deceased relatives

-cost different prices for kings and queens vs. merchants

and others

-indulgences provided a considerable part of church

income, administered as a kind of capital

-Luther, as a priest, sees that numerous believers are not coming to

confession anymore, but instead are relying on indulgences

-starting in 1517, he starts preaching against indulgences in

the pulpit

-in 1517, the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel was enlisted to travel throughout

Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg and Mainz's episcopal territories promoting and

selling indulgences to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome

-authroized by the Pope Leo X in 1517 as the Jubilee Indulgence

-a quote attributed to him says: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, a

soul from purgatory springs."

German Reformation:

October 31, 1517

Wittenberg, Germany

Luther wrote in Latin his 95 Theses and posted it on the door of Castle Church calling for

debate on the use and power of indulgences

-originally called “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”

-Door used as a university bulletin board

-Looking for a discussion on what he saw as abuses of the Church

-Not a rebel, just trying to bring church back to what he felt it had deviated from

long ago

-Stressing faith, which he believed the church got away from with all of its

political works

-Christians are freed from sin through Christ, not through their own

actions

-Did not intend to set up a separate religious body

-also sent a copy to his superior, Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg and Mainz

-Albert passes it on to Rome on suspicion of heresy

95 Theses

-abuses include the “sale” of indulgences, which took away punishment time for

sins

-you can erase your sins if you give money to the church

-condemned greed and worldliness in the Church as an abuse

-Said people were saved by faith alone, not by paying off priests

-key Theses:

-Thesis 1: “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent",

He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

-Thesis 5: “The pope has neither the will nor the power to remit

any penalties beyond those imposed either at his own discretion or

by canon law.”

-Thesis 27: “There is no divine authority for preaching that the soul flies

out of the purgatory immediately the money clinks in the bottom of

the chest.”

-Thesis 36: “Any Christian whatsoever, who is truly repentant, enjoys

plenary remission from penalty and guilt, and this is given him

without letters of indulgence.”

-Thesis 43: “Christians should be taught that one who gives to the poor,

or lends to the needy, does a better action than if he purchases

indulgences.”

-Thesis 50: “Christians should be taught that, if the pope knew the

exactions of the indulgence-preachers, he would rather the church

of St. Peter were reduced to ashes than be built with the skin, flesh,

and bones of the sheep.”

-Thesis 62: “The true treasure of the church is the Holy gospel of the glory

and the grace of God.”

-Thesis 75: “It is foolish to think that papal indulgences have so much

power that they can absolve a man even if he has done the

impossible and violated the mother of God.”

-Thesis 79: “It is blasphemy to say that the insignia of the cross with the

papal arms are of equal value to the cross on which Christ died.”

-Thesis 86: "Again: since the pope's income to-day is larger than that of

the wealthiest of wealthy men, why does he not build this one

church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the

money of indigent believers?”

-Pope Leo X disregarded Luther as "a drunken German” who "when sober will change

his mind"

-after he didn’t, the Pope summoned him to Rome determined to suppress his

views in 1518, thus starting Luther’s heretic trial

-but Luther was living and protected by his prince, Frederick III of Saxony

(Frederick the Wise), who refused to extradite his professor to Rome

-in 1519 the Leipzig Disputation

-Luther states that the Pope’s leadership of the church would not be necessary for

salvation

-“How do I get a merciful God? Through grace alone, through faith alone,

through the Holy Scriptures alone.”

-Luther declared that the papacy formed no part of the original essence of

the Church

-“I believe neither in Pope or councils alone, since…they have often erred

and contradicted themselves.”

-“The Roman Pontiff claims for himself that by divine right he is above all

bishops and pastors…Such superiority is impossible.”

-June 15, 1520 a papal bull (official ruling from the pope) condemned Luther’s teachings

as heresy

-threatened Luther with excommunication if he didn’t recant his ideas in 60 days

and demands he burn his writings

-Luther begins to publish his writings

-May 1520 “On Good Works”

-faith is what is most important, not fasting or other “works”

-Aug. 1520 “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation”

-“all Christians are priests”

-“it is through baptism that each and every one of us is consecrated a

priest”

-“every man his own priest”

-“spiritual authorities are by no means above secular ones”

** If religion is wholly a matter between “man and God,” is an organized

Church necessary?

-Oct. 1520 “On the Babylonia Captivity of the Church”

-reduces the traditional 7 sacraments to the 2 Biblical ones: baptism and

communion

-“I know of only one single sacrament: the word of God”

-against relics

-Castle Church in Wittenberg had over 5,000 relics that were on

display once a year

-included containers with particles of Christ, Mary, and

other saints, as well as things they supposedly touched

-against sainthood

-Luther says the veneration of saints violates the 1st Commandment

as Jesus Christ is the sole path to salvation

-Luther rejects the sculptures and portraits of saints

-the first Catholics that were revered as saints were martyrs who

died under Roman persecution in the first centuries after Jesus

Christ was born

-these martyrs were honored as saints almost

instantaneously after their deaths, as Catholics who had

sacrificed their lives in the name of God

-but over the next few centuries, the criteria for

canonization became less and less strict, and the number of

saints soared

-sainthood was extended to those who had defended the faith and

led pious lives, which Luther felt every Catholic should do, and

bishops could nominate anyone they wanted

-in around 1200, Pope Alexander III, outraged over the

proliferation of saints, decreed that only the pope had the power to

determine who could be identified as a saint

-in the 1600s the Vatican's standards for sainthood were formalized

-a non-martyr would need to have performed 4 posthumous

miracles, usually spontaneous healings

-today, the church requires a team of doctors to verify their

veracity and prove that miraculous healings were not the

result of modern medicine

-under Pope John Paul II the procedures for

investigating and recognizing a saint were

streamlined, as the number of miracles required for

beatification and canonization was reduced to 2

-over his 27-year tenure, Pope John Paul II

named more saints than all his predecessors

combined, beaitifying more than 1,300

people and canonizing nearly 500

-in 2005, within a month after Pope John Paul II’s

death, Pope Benedict XVI waived the 5-yr. waiting

period usually required between a candidate's death

and the beatification process and began the

beatification process for John Paul II

-the process included two major steps: beatification, the pope's

recognition that a person is worthy of consideration, which begins

a lengthy investigation process; and canonization, the pope's

formal recognition that a person is truly a saint

-Dec. 10, 1520 Luther publicly burns the books of canon law, as well as the papal bull

that threatened him with excommunication

-Luther responded:

-“Let her condemn and burn my books; I, in turn, will condemn and publicly

burn the whole pontifical law, that swamp of heresies”

-1521 – Luther excommunicated by Pope Leo X (cut off from being a Catholic)

-1521 “The Passional of Christ and Antichrist”

-includes 13 pairs of pictures comparing Christ’s life and work with the

unchristian behavior of the pope

-“the Antichrist sits in the Curia in Rome, the Pope himself is the antichrist”

-created by Luther with drawings done by Albrecht Durer

-Elector Frederick of Saxony (Frederick III or Frederick the Wise) convinced the HRE

Charles V that Luther should be heard before being banned from the HRE

-Diet of Worms (April 17, 1521) led by HRE Charles V

-Luther called in to see if he still believed in the works that he had written

-“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scripture – for I do

not trust the pope, since it is well known that they have lied and

contradicted themselves – I will be bound by the scriptural passages I have

quoted. I cannot and do not recant anything.”

-Charles V thus issued the Edict of Worms

-Luther is banned from the Holy Roman Empire, which made him

an outlaw

-Charles V: "We want him to be apprehended and punished

as a notorious heretic"

-also made it illegal to “buy, sell, read, keep, copy, or print only

writings of Martin Luther”

-Hid away in seclusion b/c he was an outlaw in Wartburg Castle is Eisenach on May 4,

1521

-assumed the pseudonym Junker Jörg (Knight George), grew out his hair from his

monk hairdo (“ton-churd”) and grew a beard and dressed like a knight to change

his appearance

-lived in seclusion for 10 months until March 1522

-Luther translated the New Testament from its Greek original into German for the

first time (there were already Latin into German translations, but no Greek into

German translations)

-printed in September 1522

-translated the entire Bible from Hebrew into German in 1534 (the first

German Bible)

-1524-1525 German Peasants Revolt

-German peasants linked the Protestant ideas to social and political ideas

-theologian Thomas Muntzer led the uprising

-was a preacher who had broken with Luther

-said that Christ’s promise can only be experienced if the human

heart is first cleansed from all desire of richness,

acknowledgement, and power

-then God’s spirit can find room in a believer’s heart

-called for a fight against the Godless without compromise

-aroused the peasants, who were angry about worsening

living conditions due to increased taxes

-Peasants demands: The Twelve Articles

-peasants drew it up in 1525 expressing their grievances, combining both

social and religious demands

-based their protest on the Gospels

-demanded equality of rights and property

-condemned lay and ecclesiastical lords

-demanded abolition of serfdom

-demanded free choice of their priests

-demanded their nobles to ease their tithes (tie-ths -- taxes) as it

was not in the Bible for nobles to tax excessively

-wanted social and economic justice

-asked for help from Luther, but although he was sympathetic to them, he

did not agree with their use of violence if the nobles didn’t change things

-Luther’s response: Admonition to Peace (1525)

-he mainly wanted to prevent rebellion at all costs

-“We have no one on Earth to thank you for this

mischievous rebellion except you lords and princes,

especially you blind bishops and mad priests and

monks…In your gov’t you do nothing but flay and rob your

subjects in order that you may lead a life of splendor and

pride until the poor common folk can bear it no longer.”

-but he also said that nothing justified the use of

armed force: “The fact that rulers are unjust and

wicked does not excuse tumult and rebellion; to

punish wickedness does not belong to

everybody…”

-nobles refused to accept their demands, and thus the peasants launched a

bloody revolt

-the conflict, which took place mostly in southern, western and central

areas of modern Germany but also affected areas in neighboring modern

Switzerland and Austria

-reflected deep-seated social discontents

-an estimated 300,000 peasant insurgents

-Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising before the

1789 French Revolution

-Luther called them “un-Christian” for killing in his name as Lutherans,

and urged the German princes to crush the revolt mercilessly

-Luther felt the freedom of the Christian lay in inner spiritual

release, not in revolutionary politics

-100,000 peasants were killed during the revolt, including Muntzer, who

was tortured and executed in the end

-June 13, 1525 Luther married former nun Katharina von Bora

-Luther had helped her and other nuns escape from a nearby convent in 1523

-had 6 kids

-symbolized the reintroduction of the practice of clerical marriage

-1530 Augsburg Diet

-Luther refused to go to Rome to meet with Pope Clement VII, and his prince,

Frederick III of Saxony, refused to turn him in to the Pope or the HRE Charles V

-Charles V called together the princes of cities of his German territories in a Diet

at Augsburg

-He sought unity among them against Luther and his ideas

-decreed that the Reformation was to be repressed

-He called upon the Lutheran nobility to explain their religious

convictions, with the hope that the controversy swirling around the

challenge of the Reformation might be resolved

-the resulting document, the Augsburg Confession, was presented to the emperor

in June 1530

-presented to Charles V in both Latin and German

-the princes and nobles refused to condemn Luther and refused to turn him

in

-showed their support for him and his ideas

-beginning of the split amongst German princes and the HRE

-saw the formation of the Schmalkaldic League in 1531, also known as the

Protestant Confederation of Germany

-a defensive alliance of Lutheran princes within the Holy Roman

Empire

-had a substantial military to defend its political and religious

interests

-led the HRE to turn to military force

-Luther’s anti-Semitism

-On the Jews and Their Lies, published in 1543

-Luther spoke of the need to set synagogues on fire, destroy Jewish

prayerbooks, forbid rabbis from preaching, seize Jews' property and

money, smash and destroy their homes

-ensure that these "poisonous envenomed worms" be forced into labor or

expelled "for all time."

- "We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow them to live freely

in our midst despite their murder, cursing, blaspheming, lying and

defaming."

-400 yrs. later, a first edition of the pamphlet was given to Julius Streicher, editor

of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, by the city of Nuremberg in honor of his

birthday in 1937

-the newspaper later described the pamphlet as the most radically anti-

Semitic tract ever published

-the German philosopher Karl Jaspers said of it: "There you already have

the whole Nazi program."

- On the Jews and Their Lies was publicly exhibited in a glass case at the

Nuremberg rallies

-1938 Kristallnacht even fell on Luther's birthday

-Luther died in 1546, and was buried in Castle Church in Wittenberg where he posted his

original theses

Lutherans – a return to the original intentions of Christ

Clergy could marry

Pope not highest member of church, God is – no hierarchy

No sainthood, only 2 of the 7 sacraments are recognized

Valued images as illustrations of faith, but against iconoclasm

Believed in consubstantiation – body and blood of Christ is actually in bread and wine

-Roman Catholics believed in transubstantiation (change of the substance of bread

and wine into that of the body and blood of Christ, the change that according to

the belief of the Roman Catholic Church occurs in the Eucharist)

Not an alternative to the Roman Catholic Church, but the one true church

By mid 16th Century, it had become the state religion in northern Germany and

Scandinavia

Lutheran Church became the first of many “protesting” (Protestant) churches

Anglican, Calvinist, Baptists, Unitarians, and dozens more

-Luther’s ideas were advanced by more radical reformers like Zwingli and Calvin

-these called not just for a revolution of the church, but a reformation of life

-there were the Lutherans and then the Reformed Protestants (Zwingli and Calvin)

-Lutherans were secured with the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, while the Reformed

Protestants not until the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia

Swiss Reformation:

Ulrich Zwingli

-Swiss who attacked the Catholic Church in 1522

-Switzerland was split up into 13 autonomous states (still ruled by HRE, though)

-said Erasmus set him on the path to reform, not Luther

-against indulgences and called for an end to clerical celibacy and right for clerical

marriage

-wrote Sixty-Seven Articles about the errors of the Church

-became the people’s priest in Zurich

-engineered the Swiss Reformation

-whatever lacked literal support in Scripture was to be neither believed nor

practiced

-against fasting

-against the worship of God in the form of pictures as idolatry

-in terms of the Eucharist, they said that the bread and wine symbolized

their fellowship with God

-Lutherans said the Son of God was actually present in the bread

and wine (known as consubstantiation)

-Catholics said that the bread and wine transformed themselves

into the body and blood of Christ through a priest (referred to as

transubstantiation)

-against worship of saints, clerical celibacy, church attendance,

transubstantiation and consubstantiation, etc.

-superstitions of the ignorant

-fought the perversion of primitive Christianity that gave priests a

miraculous power over the laity

-puritanical simplicity

-Zurich was an example of puritanical Protestantism

Anabaptists (Greek for “to re-Baptize”)

-started by Conrad Grebel in 1525 in Zurich

-was a co-worker of Zwingli’s

-Biblical literalist

-broke with Zwingli as Zwingli wanted reform gradually, but Grebel wanted to

rush to perfection

-separated themselves from established society and modeled themselves after the

first Christians

-did not want to be part of the state, rejected military service

-supported by the rural agrarian class

-16th cent. Ancestors of the Mennonites and Amish

Baptism of Catholics is wrong b/c the infant is too young to believe or understand

Baptized their members as adults when they voluntarily joined the church

-Jesus was baptized as an adult, so they said that was the correct way

-radical individualism in the church

-Luther and Zwingli believed in infant baptism, though

-said the congregation “believed for the infant”, though, and that’s why infant

baptism was good

-in 1529, HRE made re-baptism a capital offense

-5,000 people were executed from 1525-1618 for re-baptizing themselves

-in the German city of Munster in 1534, Anabaptists set up a type of Old Testament

theocracy

-set up by Jan van Leiden, who named himself the King of Zion in Munster

-saw Munster as “New Jerusalem” and it was there that he set up the self-

proclaimed empire of Baptists

-forced Lutherans and Catholics to convert or emigrate

-established polygamy as a matter of social control to deal with recently widowed

and deserted women left behind in the city

-women who opposed this were allowed to leave these marriages, though

-shocked the outside world

-also established communal property

-Lutherans and Catholics joined to crush these radicals

-the city fell to the Prince-Bishop of Munster in 1535, who executed Jan

van Leiden

-Menno Simons, from the Netherlands

-Catholic priest originally

- Around 1526, questions surrounding the doctrine of transubstantiation

caused Menno to begin a serious and in-depth search of the scriptures,

which he confessed he had not previously studied, even being a priest

- A renewed search of the scriptures left Menno Simons believing that

infant baptism was not found in the Bible

-heard about Anabaptism by a group of them preaching in the Netherlands about

adult baptism

-after meeting some of the Munster Anabaptists, he regarded them as

misled and fanatical, yet he was drawn to their zeal and their view on the

Bible and the church

-converted to Anabaptism and was baptised again

- by 1544, the term Mennonite was used in a letter to refer to the Dutch

Anabaptists

-founder of what would later be called the Mennonites (his example of a

non-provocative type of Anabaptism)

John Calvin

-Left Catholic church and France and joined the budding Reformation in Geneva,

Switzerland in 1535

-Geneva:

-in 1536 the Greater Council of Geneva voted to adopt the Reformation officially

and rid itself of the rule of the bishop and rule of the Duke of Saxony

-“to live according to the Gospel and the Word of God…w/out any more

Masses, statues, idols, or other papal abuses.”

-the newly-founded Republic of Geneva allied itself with the Swiss

Confederation

-this was the Geneva that Calvin arrived to

-Calvin set about to make up articles for the governance of the new church

-Calvin’s ministry turned the city into the center of Reformed Protestantism

-included strict church discipline

-but many Genevans were afraid of losing their rights and liberties

b/c of this new strict religion

-people feared he was starting to create a “new papacy”, so he was

exiled from Geneva for 5 years before being asked to return

-made Geneva into a magnet for Protestant refugees from all over Europe

-Became center of international Protestantism

-Beliefs

-Divine Predestination – chosen by God for salvation or damnation, ways of God

for choosing who was who was mysterious

-Different than Luther

-denied the existence of human free will

-humans are in God’s hands for eternity

-Pastors, teachers, presbyters, and deacons were elected to their official positions

by members of the congregation

-Strict codes of belief and behavior

-ban on pictures and sculptures of the saints, as well as crucifixes or

images of Christ crucified

-against the worship of God in the form of pictures as idolatry

-differed from Luther’s view of religious images

-the choir and organ music lost its liturgical function

-the altar was replaced by a simple communion table

-in terms of the Eucharist, they said that the bread and wine

symbolized their fellowship with God, which differed from

Lutherans

-sermons held in the local language

-the church should be a tribute to God in the word, not by external things

-usually just the 10 Commandments on the wall in a Calvinist (Reformed

Protestant) church

-ex. Reformed Protestant Church in Leipzig, Germany

-Sex is meant to continue life, not for pleasure

-individual’s responsibility to reorder society according to God’s plan

-Scottish Calvinists (Presbyterians), French Calvinists (Huguenots), English Calvinists

(Puritans)

-in the 2nd half of the 1500s, Calvinism replaced Lutheranism as the dominant Protestant

force in Europe

-Early on, reformed meant Calvinist, as opposed to the more conservative

Lutheran

-Lutheranism was for established powers in German and Scandinavian states,

Calvinism was the faith of a determined minority who ignited religious and

political disorder throughout Europe

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Term “protestant” comes from 1529

“protest” with the Holy Roman Empire, “reform” is what they wanted in Christianity

-Not only religious intentions, but also social, economic, and intellectual revolution

Protestant Reformation to everyone except the Catholic Church, they called it the

Protestant Revolt

Protestantism – Pope not head of church, no hierarchy

-Clergy could marry, Latin did not have to be language of ritual, abolition of

confessions to priests, and the no more naming of saints

-women could be priests

-in Catholicism, there is a modern movement to have women become

ordained

- part of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement, which

began in 2002

-in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said women ordained as ministers would be

excommunicated

-reason is that Christ chose only men as his Apostles so therefore

only men should be ordained as priests

-called this ordination a “crime”

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-English Reformation:

-more of a political than a theological dispute

King Henry VII of England (1485-1509)

-had a number of children:

-his first son and, therefore, heir, was Arthur Tudor

-he arranged for Arthur, at 2 yrs. old, to marry the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon

(youngest daughter of Ferdinand II and Isabella I)

-eager to make his kingdom stronger through this alliance with newly-united

Spain, for he wanted the Catholic Monarchs to back him up if France attacked

-Henry arranged a Papal dispensation from Pope Julius II for his younger son

(future Henry VIII) to marry his brother's widow

-Arthur and Catherine finally met in England in 1501 when Arthur was 15

-married in 1501 in England, but Arthur died weeks later in 1502,

supposedly of tuberculosis

-but the question remains, was the marriage ever consummated?

-his younger brother, Henry, became the new heir

-in place of the dead Arthur, Henry was offered up to Spain for

marriage to Prince Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon

-Pope Julius II granted his dispensation to the new marriage

-Thus, 14 months after her young husband's death,

Catherine found herself betrothed to his brother

-married in early June 1509

-in 1509, Henry VII died

King Henry VIII –Tudor England (was Catholic) – 1509-1547

-took over at the age of 18, weeks after his marriage to Catherine of Aragon

-he took to the challenge of trying for a male heir with her

-Thomas More (1478-1535):

-In 1515, More was appointed by King Henry VIII (a Tudor) to a delegation

negotiating with the Low Countries (present-day Holland and Belgium)

-More visited Peter Gilles at Antwerp, where Gilles was the town clerk

-the two men, predisposed to like each other by their mutual friend

Erasmus, spent considerable time discussing contemporary social

and political problems

-Book I of Utopia, which is set against this visit, focuses more on

the diagnosis of Europe's, and especially England’s, social

problems

-all of the truly revolutionary ideas are put into the mouth

of a fictional character, Raphael Hythlodaeus (Nonsenso),

the only fictional character in Book I

-during this visit, More wrote a preliminary account of an imaginary

kingdom, which would become Book II of Utopia

-the ideal society is situated in an unknown country, acted to

protect More from political attack

-a rationally organized society, Utopia, found by an explorer who discovers it - Raphael Hythlodaeus (Nonsenso)

-The evils of society, eg: poverty and misery, are all removed -rarely sends its citizens to war, but hires mercenaries from among its war-prone neighbors (these mercenaries were deliberately sent into dangerous situations in the hope that they would be killed, thus ridding the world of a parasite)

-his utopia talked about where private property does not

exist, money is abolished as it is the root cause of all

problems, there is religious tolerance, state ownership of all

land, and provision for the elderly

-Utopia was published in 1516

-largely based on Plato's Republic

-coined the word "utopia" (Greek for “nowhere”) -Is it calling for a purely pure Catholic community? Is it calling for communism?

-In 1518, More was appointed to the Privy Council by Henry VIII, and eventually

his private secretary and, later, as Lord Chancellor of England (equivalent to

today’s Prime Minister)

-Henry’s chief minister, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, guided him to oppose rising English

Protestantism

-argued against Luther’s ideas, earning him the title of “Defender of the

Faith” by Pope Leo X

-More even wrote Response to Luther in 1523 arguing against his ideas

-In 1525, Henry's increasing impatience with what he perceived to be Catherine's

inability to produce the desired heir was given a new spur when he became attracted to a

charismatic young courtier in the Queen's entourage, Anne Boleyn

-Catherine had numerous miscarriages and stillbirths

-had only one surviving child, a daughter named Mary

-women could inherit the throne, but he feared his kingdom would fall

under a woman ruler, so he ruled her illegitimate

-Henry ordered Cardinal Wolsey to begin formal proceedings with Rome to annul

his marriage on the grounds that Catherine's brief marriage to the sickly Arthur

had been consummated

-this would mean that Henry's marriage to Catherine was invalid

-Henry wanted to marry a woman Anne Boleyn, whom he had got pregnant, in

hopes she could give him a male heir

-needed to get out of his marriage, though, and this needed a papal

annulment of the marriage to Catherine

-Catherine was the daughter of the Catholic Monarchs – Spain’s

Ferdinand II and Isabella I, who were extremely close to Pope

Clement VII

-Catherine’s nephew was Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

-Pope Clement VII was under the influence of the Holy Roman

Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew

-keen to retain political influence in England, Charles saw

the value of preserving the legitimacy of his English cousin

-therefore, Pope Clement VII did not want to make him

mad, so he did not want to grant the annulment

-Henry, without the Pope’s approval, searched for a strong ally

-wrote to King Francis I of France which explained why Henry

was divorcing Catherine and trying to validate his intended

marriage to Anne Boleyn

-he wanted to make sure France was kept as an ally

-he put Cardinal Wolsey in charge of securing papal agreement to the

annulment, but when he failed to do so he was dismissed

-led to Wolsey's dismissal as Lord Chancellor by Henry in 1529

-his replacement, Sir Thomas More

-More did not support the king’s desire for an annulment, and resigned his

position as Lord Chancellor in 1532

-Henry then put Thomas Cranmer as his new advisor, who advised him to

declare himself supreme in English spiritual affairs, then he could settle

his affair himself

-Henry was recognized by Parliament as head of the church

in England

-in 1533, Pope Clement VII refused to sanction the annulment of

Henry VIII of England's marriage to Catherine of Aragon

-Cranmer, who became the archbishop of Canterbury,

annulled the marriage with Catharine then

-in 1533 Henry wed the pregnant Anne Boleyn, officiated

by Cranmer (Boleyn was crowned Queen of England)

-had a child, Elizabeth, in 1533

-Act of Succession -- any children born to Anne

were recognized as rightful heirs to the throne

-Catherine's daughter, Mary, was declared

illegitimate, and Anne's children were

declared next in the line of succession

-all adults in the Kingdom were required to

acknowledge the Act's provisions by oath

-those who refused to do so were

subject to imprisonment for life

-separated the Pope from Henry’s church as

Henry rejected the decision of the Pope

-isolated England politically and

religiously

-in 1534 Parliament thus ended all English clergy and laity payments to

Rome and gave Henry the power to appoint clergy in England

-Act of Supremacy

-established the king, not the pope, as the chief authority on

religious matters in England

-King became the supreme head of the Church of England

(Anglican)

-Thomas More refused to recognize the annulment, the

marriage, or the Act of Supremacy

-Henry had him arrested for heresy and beheaded in

1535

-in 1935, four hundred years after his death, More

was canonized in the Catholic Church by Pope Pius

XI

-Pope Clement VII responded by excommunicating Henry and declaring

the annulment as invalid

-by 1536, Queen Anne had at least two pregnancies that ended in either

miscarriage or stillbirth, resurrecting old frustrations that Henry had

experienced with Catherine

-Determined to father a male heir, Henry had Anne arrested on

charges of using witchcraft to trap him into marrying her, of

having adulterous relationships with five other men, of incest with

her brother, conspiring to kill the King, which amounted to treason

-in 1536 Henry had Anne killed for alleged treason and adultery

-Anne, her brother, and the other 4 men she was accused of

sleeping with were all beheaded

-Henry declared Elizabeth illegitimate, just like Mary

- One day after Anne's execution in 1536 Henry became engaged to, and

10 days later married Jane Seymour, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting

-the Act of Succession 1536

-declared Henry's children by Queen Jane to be next in the

line of succession

-Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate, thus excluding

them from the throne

-the King was granted the power to further determine the

line of succession in his will

-Jane gave birth to a son, the future Edward VI, in 1537, but she

died later that year

-Henry VIII had 3 more marriages

-next was Anne of Cleves in 1540, then Anne Boleyn’s cousin

Catherine Howard in 1540(later executed), and Catherine Parr in

1543

-Parr helped reconcile Henry with his first two daughters,

Mary and Elizabeth

-in 1543, an Act of Succession put them back in the line of

succession after Edward

-w/out heirs, Edward’s throne was to pass to Henry

VIII's daughter by Catherine of Aragon, Mary and

her heirs

-If Mary had no heirs, the crown was to go

to Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn,

Elizabeth, and her heirs

-Finally, if Elizabeth's line also became

extinct, the crown was to be inherited by the

descendants of Henry VIII's deceased

younger sister, Mary Tudor

-Mary Tudor was originally

betrothed to HRE Charles V, but

eventually became the Queen of

France by marrying King Louis XII

-Cardinal Wolsey negotiated

a peace treaty with France,

and in 1514, at the age of 18,

Mary married its 52-year-old

king Louis XII

-the descendants of Henry's older sister Margaret

Tudor - the royal family of Scotland - were

excluded from succession according to this act

-the fates of Henry's wives is "annulled, beheaded, died, annulled,

beheaded, survived"

Henry did not consider himself a Protestant, though

He wanted to retain Catholic doctrines, all the action he took was to dissolve the

monasteries and deny the Pope’s position as head of the church in England

-But he also executed some Catholic opposition leaders

-had English Bibles in Churches, but still forbade English clergy to marry

and believed in transubstantiation

-the merchant William Tyndale translated the New Testament into

English in 1524 while in Germany, and which started to be printed

and distributed around England

Anglican Church became more Protestant than Henry would have liked

-Henry’s reign

-In 1503 Henry’s older sister Margaret Tudor married James IV, king of Scotland

-the idea of her father, Henry VII, since Margaret was only 6

-became the mother of James V and grandmother of Mary Queen of Scots

-Margaret's marriage to James led directly to the Union of the Crowns

-Cardinal Wolsey negotiated a peace treaty with France

-in 1514, at the age of 18, Henry’s younger sister Mary married its 52-

year-old king Louis XII

-Mary Tudor became Queen of France

-the two had no children, though

-in 1535, he annexed Wales, uniting England and Wales into one unified nation

-the sole use of English in official proceedings in Wales, inconveniencing

the numerous speakers of the Welsh language

-put down Irish rebellions and brought Ireland under the reign of England in

1541

-HISTORY:

-Ireland had been taken over by England since the

12th century and King Henry II

-the native Gaelic Irish had been expelled

from various parts of the country and

replaced with English peasants

-the east coast of Ireland became

known as the Pale -- a defended area

in which English language and

culture predominated and where

English law was enforced by a

government established in the city of

Dublin

-beyond the Pale, the

authority of the Dublin

government was tenuous

-Irish rebelled throughout the

14th and 15

th centuries, with

Irish barons taking back

much of their lost land

-The Gaelic-Irish

were, for the most

part, outside English

jurisdiction,

maintaining their own

language, social

system, customs and

laws

-Ireland had never been admitted as subjects of the

Crown, and was officially a lordship of England

-a long-term solution was Plantations, in

which areas of the country were to be settled

with people from England, who would bring

in English language and culture while

remaining loyal to the crown

-the "Plantation" policy saw Ireland colonized by Protestant settlers from England and Scotland

-but Irish lordships continued to fight wars

against each other, ignoring the government

in Dublin and its laws, raiding the Pale

-After Henry VIII’s death in 1547, his only son Edward VI took over in 1547 at the age

of 9

-the first Protestant monarch to rule England

-England enacted the Protestant Reformation

-corresponded with Calvin, and clerical marriage became sanctioned

-justification by faith alone, supremacy of Holy Scripture instead of the Pope,

denied transubstantiation

-all these changes were short-lived, though, as his half-sister Mary soon

took over and restored Catholic doctrine

-Anglican (called Episcopalians in the US) are now the 3rd largest Christian denomination

in the world behind Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox

-----------------------------------

Illuminism

-comes from illuminati (“enlightened one” in Latin)

-small groups come together to read the Bible, comment on it, and discuss the means of

becoming directly united with God

-internal spirituality – no need for images or an external cult

-vocal prayer, attendance at mass, and sacraments seen as obstacles that prevented the

love of God

-Inquisition denounced it as a deviant perversion

People reading Bible for themselves meant many different interpretations now

--------------------------------

-Peace of Augsburg 1555

-the HRE had been fighting the Schmalkaldic League since the Augsburg Confession in

1530

-treaty signed in Augsburg, Germany where the HRE Charles V reigned

-gave power to the German Princes (numbering 225) to decide the religion (Lutheranism

or Catholicism) for their realms according to their conscience

-legalized Lutheranism

-policy of cuius regio, eius religio ("whose territory, his religion", or "in the

Prince's land, the Prince's religion"), the religion (Catholic or Lutheran) of a

region's ruler determined the religion of its people

-“he who rules, establishes the religion”

-families could choose to move to a region where their faith was practiced

-relived tension in the HRE

-but the Anabaptists and Calvinists weren’t represented in the treaty

-led the Calvinists to take drastic measures that led to 30 Years War

-**Was the Protestant Reformation inevitable?

------------------------------------------

Catholic Reformation (Counter-Reformation)

-Pope Paul III appointed a reform commission chaired by Caspar Contarini, a liberal

theologian

-his 1537 report to the Pope was very critical of the fiscal practices

and simony (buying and selling of Church positions) of the Papacy

-Paul attempt to suppress the publication of this report, but Protestants

circulated it as justification of their criticism

-Council of Trent (1545-1563) – 18-year conference of Catholic Church to agreed to

meet to discuss the action they’d take against Protestants

-in Trent in northern Italy

-called for by Pope Paul III (but spanned the reign of 4 popes) to reassert church

doctrine

-Pope Paul III (1534-1549) was much more reform-minded than the

previous Popes

-Bishop Giovanni Pietro Carafa, who had recently been

promoted to the rank of Cardinal, convinced Paul III that it was

necessary to stamp out this Protestant heresy

-Church had lost a tremendous amount of territory to the

expanding Protestant church (including most of

Scandinavia, much of central Europe, parts of France, all of

Holland, and Italy was under siege)

-offered the Pope a solution: an Inquisition in

Rome and throughout the Italian peninsula

-voting was limited to the high levels of the clergy

-acknowledged in Italy, Portugal, Poland, and by the Catholic princes of Germany

at the Diet of Augsburg held in 1566

-they called for:

-strengthen internal church discipline by trying to curtail simony and by

having bishops actually live in their dioceses instead of Rome

-Catholic uniformity – strengthened their beliefs (didn’t budge on

indulgences, actually reaffirmed it, and maintained importance of priests)

-also reaffirmed clerical celibacy, transubstantiation, saints, relics,

etc.)

-ruled out all compromise with Protestants (not one doctrinal concession

was made)

1) Inquisitions

-Spanish Inquisition (inquisition – detailed question, investigation)

-had been started in the late 1400s, but it was to continue

-Meant to strengthen Catholic faith

-Employed against the Protestants to discover and punish heretics

starting in 1524

-boats carrying barrels of Lutheran books were sent up in

flames

-Roman Inquisition

-with Cardinal Carafa’s urging, Pope Paul III created the Roman

Inquisition in 1542

-an act of desperation as they felt Catholicism was under

siege

-focused on books and science, basically against anything that

would shake the church’s view that man was the center of the

universe and that the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church

-intended to combat Protestantism

-focused on the Republic of Venice especially b/c since it

was a northern port city, a lot of ideas and books from

northern Europe came into the city

-Cardinal Carafa assumed the leadership of the Roman Inquisition

-he became known as the Father of the Roman Inquisition

-under him, the Inquisition became the most powerful

institution of the church

-unstoppable in his quest to protect the interests and morals

of the Church

-“even if my own father was a heretic, I would

gather the wood to burn him”

-Cardinal Carafa became Pope Paul IV in 1555 (1555-

1559)

-in July 1555, he then adds Jews to the Roman

Inquisition

-background of Jews in Italy:

-Venice -Jews had been allowed to live in Venice legally in 1509 -obtained the right to practice money-lending in return for financial payments to the state -they were tolerated

as revenue to the

gov’t -thus Jews were a “necessary evil” -their central role in foreign trade, loans to the state, and small- scale money lending

-but it was illegal for

Christians and Jews to marry

-also they were forced

to wear special

clothes, like red hats,

to set themselves

apart from Christians

-ghettos in Venice

-in 1516, after rejecting the

idea of all Jews being

relocated to a small island

called Giudecca, the Venetian

senate designated a section of

the city to where all Jews

were required to relocate and

live

-“ghetto” (Italian for “foundry,” which is what this section of Venice originally was – an iron factory) was first used here to refer to the Jewish quarter of a city

-Ghetto was, and still

is, a neighborhood of

Venice, one of the

oldest in town

-non-Jewish citizens could

not live there, nor could the

Jews live elsewhere

-sealed off with high walls

and wooden gates, guarded

by Christians, and were

opened at sunrise and locked

at sunset

-Jews had to wear red hats

outside of the ghetto so they

could be known from other

men

-Venetian ghetto was not

abolished until 1797, but

Jews still lived there after

that

-in 1555, by Pope Paul IV followed suit,

confining the Jewish inhabitants of Rome

to a single neighborhood, too (the Roman

Ghetto)

-“Jews are condemned to live in a

quarter set apart from the

Christians.”

-“It is absurd and improper that these Jews have erupted into insolence. They

presume to dwell side by side with Christians with no distinction in their dress to

separate them. Therefore we do issue the following ordinance: Jews are to own no

real estate, Jews are to hire no Christian servants, Jews are no longer to ignore the

ancient requirement to wear distinctive clothing and badges, the taxes of Jews are

to be increased, and Jews are to live in a distinct quarter cut off from other

sections of the city. This quarter is to have only one entrance and to be locked at

sundown.” -Pope Paul IV in 1555

-the area was sealed off, with just

two points of entry and exit; the

gates were guarded, barred at

sundown and opened at sunrise

-it was in Rome upon the orders of

Pope Paul IV that that the color

yellow, either as a garment or a patch

of color sewn on men and women's

clothes, was first imposed to

distinguish Jews

-Venetian ghetto served as a model

for other Italian cities, including Rome,

Florence, Padua, etc.

-curfew for all Jews where they had to be

inside the ghettoes at sundown and the walls

of the ghetto were then locked for the night

-ordered the collection and burning of all

copies of the Talmud

-forced to attend Catholic church services

-Roman ghetto was the last ghetto to be

abolished in Western Europe when Pope

Pius IX did it (1846–78)

-made sure Florence abided by the Index as Cosimo

I de Medici was a typical Medici in that he

supported free thinking and the arts

-in order not to alienate the Pope, Cosimo

organized a public book burning of

questionable books

-in response, the Pope crowned

Cosimo I the Grand Duke of

Tuscany in 1569

-Medici had gone from

merchants and money lenders

to the papacy to controlling

all of central Italy from coast

to coast

-Roman Inquisition eventually had to deal with the Galileo’s

heliocentric views in the 1600s, too

2) Index of Prohibited Books in 1559

-created by Pope Paul IV

-way to finally crack down on the printing press

-the printing press had made it more difficult for the Church to

control theology, science, literature, etc.

-a list of 583 books that Catholics were forbidden to read (including

Erasmus, Luther, anything by a Protestant, and translations of the Bible in

any other language other than Latin)

-terminated in 1966 by Pope Paul VI

3) New orders of clergy greatly aided the Catholic renewal

Society of Jesus – known as the Jesuits

-started by Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) in 1530s

-canonized in 1622

-The soldiers of the Catholic Church – their leader was known as general

tried to win back lands and people from Protestantism, especially in

Austria and Germany

-meant to teach Catholics to submit without question to high

church authority and spiritual direction

-uncompromising loyalty to the church

-professing direct service to the Pope in terms of mission

“the end justifies the means” in terms of their tactics of dirty fighting

sent missionaries to far corners of the earth to convert “heathens”

-women

-Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) – Spain

-parents were conversos (Jewish converts)

-major figure of the Catholic Reformation as a prominent Spanish

mystic and monastic reformer

-nun who helped rebirth of Spanish Catholicism

-said she had a very personal relationship with God

-Crippled by disease in her youth, which she was cured

after prayer to Saint Joseph

-her mother died when Teresa was 12, and she

prayed to Our Lady to be her replacement

-she became firmly convinced that Christ was present to

her in bodily form, though invisible. This vision lasted

almost uninterruptedly for more than two years

-said her convenent was too lax in its rule, so she started a

number of new “reformed” convents

-new regulations like the discipline of

ceremonial flagellation (whipping the body) every

week, living in complete poverty with charity

supporting the nuns, all sisters (especially those of

aristocratic backgrounds) must share in all the work

-went before the Spanish Inquisition for a number of

charges, which said her visions were delusions

-Jesuits examined her and said the visions were holy

and true

-canonized as St. Theresa of Avila in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV

-Patron saint of bodily ills; headaches; loss of parents;

people ridiculed for their piety; sick people; sickness

-Feminism reading

-Protestants exalted women as virgins, following the model of the

Virgin Mary, instead of the medieval model of degrading women

as temptresses, following the model of Eve

-praised women, but in the Biblical vocation of woman and

housewife

-supported clerical marriage

-encouraged the education of girls to literacy in the

vernacular, hoping they would then model their life after

the Bible