Chapter IV: The Protestant Revolt and the Catholic Reformation (2)

The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire which assembled at Speyer in 1526 saw the German princes divided into a Lutheran and a Roman Catholic party, but left the legal status of the new faith still in doubt, contenting itself with the vague declaration that "each prince should so conduct himself as he could answer for his behavior to God and to the emperor." But at the next Diet, held at the same place in 1529, the emperor directed that the edict against heretics should be enforced and that the old ecclesiastical revenues should not be appropriated for the new worship. The Lutheran princes drafted a legal protest, in which they declared that they meant to abide by the law of 1526. From this protest came the name _Protestant_.

[Sidenote: Confession of Augsburg, 1530]

The next year, Luther's great friend, Melancthon, presented to the Diet of Augsburg an account of the beliefs of the German reformers, which later became known as the Confession of Augsburg and constitutes to the present day the distinctive creed of the Lutheran Church. The emperor was still unconvinced, however, of the truth or value of the reformed doctrine, and declared his intention of ending the heresy by force of arms.

[Sidenote: Religious Peace of Augsburg, 1555]

In this predicament, the Lutheran princes formed a league at Schmalkald for mutual protection (1531); and from 1546 to 1555 a desultory civil war was waged. The Protestants received some assistance from the French king, who, for political reasons, was bent on humiliating the emperor. The end of the religious conflict appeared to have been reached by the peace of Augsburg (1555), which contained the following provisions: (1) Each prince was to be free to dictate the religion of his subjects [Footnote: _Cuius regio eius religio_.]; (2) All church property appropriated by the Protestants before 1552 was to remain in their hands; (3) No form of Protestantism except Lutheranism was to be tolerated; (4) Lutheran subjects of ecclesiastical states were not to be obliged to renounce their faith; (5) By an "ecclesiastical reservation" any ecclesiastical prince on becoming a Protestant was to give up his see.

[Sidenote: Lutheranism in the Germanies]

Thus, between 1520 and 1555, Martin Luther [Footnote: He died in 1546, aged 62.] had preached his new theology at variance with the Catholic, and had found general acceptance for it throughout the northern half of the Germanies; its creed had been settled and defined in 1530, and its official toleration had been recognized in 1555. The toleration was limited, however, to princes, and for many years Lutheran rulers showed themselves quite as intolerant within their own dominions as did the Catholics.

[Sidenote: Lutheranism in Scandinavia]

The triumph of Lutheranism in the Scandinavian countries has been traced largely to political and economic causes. When Martin Luther broke with the Catholic Church, Christian II (1513-1523) was reigning as elected king over Denmark and Norway and had recently conquered Sweden by force of arms. The king encountered political difficulties with the Church although he maintained Catholic worship and doctrine and apparently recognized the spiritual supremacy of the pope. But Christian II had trouble with most of his subjects, especially the Swedes, who were conscious of separate nationality and desirous of political independence; and the king eventually lost his throne in a general uprising. The definite separation of Sweden from Denmark and Norway followed immediately. The Swedes chose the celebrated Gustavus Vasa (1523-1560) as their king, while the Danish and Norwegian crowns passed to the uncle of Christian II, who assumed the title of Frederick I (1523-1533).

[Sidenote: Denmark]

In Denmark, King Frederick was very desirous of increasing the royal power, and the subservient ecclesiastical organization which Martin Luther was advocating seemed to him for his purposes infinitely preferable to the ancient self-willed Church. But Frederick realized that the Catholic Church was deeply rooted in the affections of his people and that changes would have to be effected slowly and cautiously. He therefore collected around him Lutheran teachers from Germany and made his court the center of the propaganda of the new doctrine, and so well was the work of the new teachers done that the king was able in 1527 to put the two religions on an equal footing before the law. Upon Frederick's death in 1533, the Catholics made a determined effort to prevent the accession of his son, Christian III, who was not only an avowed Lutheran but was known to stand for absolutist principles in government.

The popular protest against royal despotism failed in Denmark and the triumph of Christian III in 1536 sealed the fate of Catholicism in that country and in Norway. It was promptly enacted that the Catholic bishops should forfeit their temporal and spiritual authority and all their property should be transferred to the crown "for the good of the commonwealth." After discussions with Luther the new religion was definitely organized and declared the state religion in 1537. It might be added that Catholicism died with difficulty in Denmark,--many peasants as well as high churchmen resented the changes, and Helgesen, the foremost Scandinavian scholar and humanist of the time, protested vigorously against the new order. But the crown was growing powerful, and the crown prevailed. The enormous increase of royal revenue, consequent upon the confiscation of the property of the Church, enabled the king to make Denmark the leading Scandinavian country throughout the second half of the sixteenth century and the first quarter of the seventeenth. In time national patriotism came to be intertwined with Lutheranism.

[Sidenote: Sweden]

In Sweden the success of the new religion was due to the crown quite as much as in Denmark and Norway. Gustavus Vasa had obtained the Swedish throne through the efforts of a nationalist party, but there was still a hostile faction, headed by the chief churchman, the archbishop of Upsala, who favored the maintenance of the union with Denmark. In order to deprive the unionists of their leader, Gustavus begged the pope to remove the rebellious archbishop and to appoint one in sympathy with the nationalist cause. This the pope peremptorily refused to do, and the breach with Rome began. Gustavus succeeded in suppressing the insurrection, and then persevered in introducing Protestantism. The introduction was very gradual, especially among the peasantry, and its eventual success was largely the result of the work of one strong man assisted by a subservient parliament.

At first Gustavus maintained Catholic worship and doctrines, contenting himself with the suppression of the monasteries, the seizure of two- thirds of the church tithes, and the circulation of a popular Swedish translation of the New Testament. In 1527 all ecclesiastical property was transferred to the crown and two Catholic bishops were cruelly put to death. Meanwhile Lutheran teachers were encouraged to take up their residence in Sweden and in 1531 the first Protestant archbishop of Upsala was chosen. Thenceforth, the progress of Lutheranism was more rapid, although a Catholic reaction was threatened several times in the second half of the sixteenth century. The Confession of Augsburg was adopted as the creed of the Swedish Church in 1593, and in 1604 Catholics were deprived of offices and estates and banished from the realm.

CALVINISM

The second general type of Protestantism which appeared in the sixteenth century was the immediate forerunner of the modern Presbyterian, Congregational, and Reformed Churches and at one time or another considerably affected the theology of the Episcopalians and Baptists and even of Lutherans. Taken as a group, it is usually called Calvinism. Of its rise and spread, some idea may be gained from brief accounts of the lives of two of its great apostles--Calvin and Knox. But first it will be necessary to say a few words concerning an older reformer, Zwingli by name, who prepared the way for Calvin's work in the Swiss cantons.

[Sidenote: Zwingli]

Switzerland comprised in the sixteenth century some thirteen cantons, all of which were technically under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Empire, but constituted in practice so many independent republics, bound together only by a number of protective treaties. To the town of Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz came Huldreich Zwingli in the year 1516 as a Catholic priest. Slightly younger than Luther, he was well born, had received an excellent university education in Vienna and in Basel, and had now been in holy orders about ten years. He had shown for some time more interest in humanism than in the old-fashioned theology, but hardly any one would have suspected him of heresy, for it was well known that he was a regular pensioner of the pope.

Zwingli's opposition to the Roman Church seems to have been based at first largely on political grounds. He preached eloquently against the practice of hiring out Swiss troops to foreign rulers and abused the Church for its share in this shameless traffic in soldiers. Then he was led on to attack all manner of abuses in ecclesiastical organization, but it was not until he was installed in 1518 as preacher in the great cathedral at Zürich that he clearly denied papal supremacy and proceeded to proclaim the Scriptures as the sole guide of faith and morals. He preached against fasting, the veneration of saints, and the celibacy of the clergy. Some of his hearers began to put his teachings into practice: church edifices were profaned, statues demolished, windows smashed, and relics burned. Zwingli himself took a wife.

[Sidenote: Zwinglian Revolt in Switzerland]

In 1523 a papal appeal to Zürich to abandon Zwingli was answered by the canton's formal declaration of independence from the Catholic Church. Henceforth the revolt spread rapidly throughout Switzerland, except in the five forest cantons, the very heart of the country, where the ancient religion was still deeply intrenched. Serious efforts were made to join the followers of Zwingli with those of Luther, and thus to present a united front to the common enemy, but there seemed to be irreconcilable differences between Lutheranism and the views of Zwingli. The latter, which were succinctly expressed in sixty-seven Theses published at Zürich in 1523, insisted more firmly than the former on the supreme authority of Scripture, and broke more thoroughly and radically with the traditions of the Catholic Church. Zwingli aimed at a reformation of government and discipline as well as of theology, and entertained a notion of an ideal state in which the democracy would order human activities, whether political or religious. Zwingli differed essentially from Luther in never distrusting "the people." Perhaps the most distinctive mark of the Swiss reformer's theology was his idea that the Lord's Supper is not a miracle but simply a symbol and a memorial.

In 1531 Zwingli urged the Protestant Swiss to convert the five forest cantons to the new religion by force of arms. In answer to his entreaties, civil war ensued, but the Catholic mountaineers won a great victory that very year and the reformer himself was killed. A truce was then arranged, the provisions of which foreshadowed the religious settlement in the Germanies--each canton was to be free to determine its own religion. Switzerland has remained to this day part Catholic and part Protestant.

[Sidenote: Calvin]

By the sudden death of Zwingli, Swiss Protestantism was left without a leader, but not for long, because the more celebrated Calvin took up his residence in Geneva in 1536. From that time until his death in 1564 Calvin was the center of a movement which, starting from these small Zwinglian beginnings among the Swiss mountains, speedily spread over more countries and affected more people than did Lutheranism. In Calvinism, Catholicism was to find her most implacable foe.

John Calvin, who, next to Martin Luther, was the most conspicuous Protestant leader of the sixteenth century, was a Frenchman. Born of middle-class parentage at Noyon in the province of Picardy in 1509, he was intended from an early age for an ecclesiastical career. A pension from the Catholic Church enabled him to study at Paris, where he displayed an aptitude for theology and literature. When he was nineteen years of age, however, his father advised him to abandon the idea of entering the priesthood in favor of becoming a lawyer--so young Calvin spent several years studying law.

[Sidenote: Calvin in France]

It was in 1529 that Calvin is said to have experienced a sudden "conversion." Although as yet there had been no organized revolt in France against the Catholic Church, that country, like many others, was teeming with religious critics. Thousands of Frenchmen were in sympathy with any attempt to improve the Church by education, by purer morals, or by better preaching. Lutheranism was winning a few converts, and various evangelical sects were appearing in divers places. The chief problem was whether reform should be sought within the traditional Church or by rebellion against it. Calvin believed that his conversion was a divine call to forsake Roman Catholicism and to become the apostle of a purer life. His heart, he said, was "so subdued and reduced to docility that in comparison with his zeal for true piety he regarded all other studies with indifference, though not entirely abandoning them. Though himself a beginner, many flocked to him to learn the pure doctrine, and he began to seek some hiding-place and means of withdrawal from people."

[Sidenote: "The Institutes"]

His search for a hiding-place was quickened by the announced determination of the French king, Francis I, to put an end to religious dissent among his subjects. Calvin abruptly left France and found an asylum in the Swiss town of Basel, where he became acquainted at first hand with the type of reformed religion which Zwingli had propagated and where he proceeded to write a full account of the Protestant position as contrasted with the Catholic. This exposition,--_The Institutes of the Christian Religion_,--which was published in 1536, was dedicated to King Francis I and was intended to influence him in favor of Protestantism.

Although the book failed of its immediate purpose, it speedily won a deservedly great reputation. It was a statement of Calvin's views, borrowed in part from Zwingli, and in part from Luther and other reformers. It was orderly and concise, and it did for Protestant theology what the medieval writers had done for Catholic theology. It contained the germ of all that subsequently developed as Calvinism.

[Sidenote: Calvin and Luther]

It seemed for some time as if the _Institutes_ might provide a common religious rule and guide for all Christians who rebelled against Rome. But Calvin, in mind and nature, was quite different from Luther. The latter was impetuous, excitable, but very human; the former was ascetic, calm, and inhumanly logical. Then, too, Luther was quite willing to leave everything in the church which was not prohibited by Scripture; Calvin insisted that nothing should remain in the church which was not expressly authorized by Scripture. The _Institutes_ had a tremendous influence upon Protestantism but did not unite the followers of Calvin and Luther. Calvin's book seems all the more wonderful, when it is recalled that it was written when the author was but twenty-six years of age.

[Sidenote: Calvin at Geneva]

In 1536 Calvin went to Geneva, which was then in the throes of a revolution at once political and religious, for the townsfolk were freeing themselves from the feudal suzerainty of the duke of Savoy and banishing the Catholic Church, whose cause the duke championed. Calvin aided in the work and was rewarded by an appointment as chief pastor and preacher in the city. This position he continued to hold, except for a brief period when he was exiled, until his death in 1564. It proved to be a commanding position not only in ordering the affairs of the town, but also in giving form to an important branch of Protestant Christianity.

The government of Geneva under Calvin's regime was a curious theocracy of which Calvin himself was both religious leader and political "boss." The minister of the reformed faith became God's mouthpiece upon earth and inculcated an unbending puritanism in daily life. "No more festivals, no more jovial reunions, no more theaters or society; the rigid monotony of an austere rule weighed upon life. A poet was decapitated because of his verses; Calvin wished adultery to be punished by death like heresy, and he had Michael Servetus [Footnote: A celebrated Spanish reformer.] burned for not entertaining the same opinions as himself upon the mystery of the Trinity."

Under Calvin's theocratic despotism, Geneva became famous throughout Europe as the center of elaborate Protestant propaganda. Calvin, who set the example of stern simplicity and relentless activity, was sometimes styled the Protestant pope. He not only preached every day, wrote numerous theological treatises, and issued a French translation of the Bible, but he established important Protestant schools-- including the University of Geneva--which attracted students from distant lands, and he conducted a correspondence with his disciples and would-be reformers in all points of Europe. His letters alone would fill thirty folio volumes.

[Sidenote: Diffusion of Calvinism]

Such activities account for the almost bewildering diffusion of Calvinism. French, Dutch, Germans, Scotch, and English flocked to Geneva to hear Calvin or to attend his schools, and when they returned to their own countries they were likely to be so many glowing sparks ready to start mighty conflagrations.

Calvinism was known by various names in the different countries which it entered. On the continent of Europe it was called the Reformed Faith, and in France its followers were styled Huguenots; in Scotland it became Presbyterianism; and in England, Puritanism. Its essential characteristics, however, remained the same wherever it was carried.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in Switzerland]

We have already noticed how Switzerland, except for the five forest cantons, had been converted to Protestantism by the preaching of Zwingli. Calvin was Zwingli's real theological successor, and the majority of the Swiss, especially those in the urban cantons of Zürich and Bern as well as of Geneva, cheerfully accepted Calvinism.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in France: the Huguenots]

Calvinism also made converts in France. The doctrines and writings of Luther had there encountered small success. Many French reformers believed that greater good would eventually be achieved within the Catholic Church than without. There appeared to be fewer abuses among the French clergy than among the ecclesiastics of northern Europe, for they possessed less wealth and power. The French sovereign felt less prompted to lay his hand upon the dominions of the clergy, because a special agreement with the pope in 1516 bestowed upon the king the nomination of bishops and the disposition of benefices. For these reasons the bulk of the French people resisted Protestantism of every form and remained loyally Catholic.

What progress the new religion made in France was due to Calvin rather than to Luther. Calvin, as we have seen, was a Frenchman himself, and his teachings and logic appealed to a small but influential body of his fellow-countrymen. A considerable portion of the lower nobility, a few merchants and business men, and many magistrates conformed to Calvinism openly; the majority of great lawyers and men of learning adhered to it in public or in secret. Probably from a twentieth to a thirtieth of the total population embraced Calvinism. The movement was essentially confined to the middle-class or _bourgeoisie_, and almost from the outset it acquired a political as well as a religious significance. It represented among the lesser nobility an awakening of the aristocratic spirit and among the middle-class a reaction against the growing power of the king. The financial and moneyed interests of the country were largely attracted to French Calvinism. The Huguenots, as the French Calvinists were called, were particularly strong in the law courts and in the Estates-General or parliament, and these had been the main checks upon royal despotism.

[Sidenote: Edict of Nantes]

The Huguenots were involved in sanguinary civil and religious wars which raged in France throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century and which have already been treated in their appropriate political aspect. The outcome was the settlement accorded by King Henry IV in the famous Edict of Nantes (1598), which contained the following provisions: (1) Private worship and liberty of conscience were allowed to the Calvinists throughout France; (2) Public Protestant worship might be held in 200 enumerated towns and over 3000 castles; (3) A financial grant was made to Protestant schools, and the publication of Calvinist books was legalized; (4) Huguenots received full civil rights, with admission to all public offices; (5) Huguenots were granted for eight years the political control of two hundred towns, the garrisons of which were to be maintained by the crown; and (6) Huguenots were accorded certain judicial privileges and the right of holding religious and political assemblies. For nearly a hundred years France practiced a religious toleration which was almost unique among European nations, and it was Calvinists who benefited.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in the Netherlands]

The Netherlands were too near the Germanies not to be affected by the Lutheran revolt against the Catholic Church. And the northern or Dutch provinces became quite thoroughly saturated with Lutheranism and also with the doctrines of various radical sects that from time to time were expelled from the German states. The Emperor Charles V tried to stamp out heresy by harsh action of the Inquisition, but succeeded only in changing its name and nature. Lutheranism disappeared from the Netherlands; but in its place came Calvinism, [Footnote: Many Anabaptist refugees from Germany had already sought refuge in the Netherlands: they naturally found the teachings of Zwingli and Calvin more radical, and therefore more appropriate to themselves, than the teachings of Luther. This fact also serves to explain the acceptance of Calvinism in regions of southern Germany where Lutheranism, since the Peasants' Revolt, had failed to take root.] descending from Geneva through Alsace and thence down the Rhine, or entering from Great Britain by means of the close commercial relations existing between those countries. While the southern Netherlands eventually were recovered for Catholicism, the protracted political and economic conflict which the northern Netherlands waged against the Catholic king of Spain contributed to a final fixing of Calvinism as the national religion of patriotic Dutchmen. Calvinism in Holland was known as the Dutch Reformed religion.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in Southern Germany]

We have already noted that southern Germany had rejected aristocratic Lutheranism, partially at least because of Luther's bitter words to the peasants. Catholicism, however, was not destined to have complete sway in those regions, for democratic Calvinism permeated Württemberg, Baden, and the Rhenish provinces, and the Reformed doctrines gained numerous converts among the middle-class. The growth of Calvinism in Germany was seriously handicapped by the religious settlement of Augsburg in 1555 which officially tolerated only Catholicism and Lutheranism. It was not until after the close of the direful Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century that German Calvinists received formal recognition.

[Sidenote: Scotland]

Scotland, like every other European country in the early part of the sixteenth century, had been a place of protest against moral and financial abuses in the Catholic Church, but the beginnings of ecclesiastical rebellion are to be traced rather to political causes. The kingdom had long been a prey to the bitter rivalry of great noble families, and the premature death of James V (1542), which left the throne to his ill-fated infant daughter, Mary Stuart, gave free rein to a feudal reaction against the crown. In general, the Catholic clergy sided with the royal cause, while the religious reformers egged on the nobles to champion Protestantism in order to deal an effective blow against the union of the altar and the throne. Thus Cardinal Beaton, head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, ordered numerous executions on the score of protecting religion and the authority of the queen-regent; on the other hand several noblemen, professing the new theology, assassinated the cardinal and hung his body on the battlements of the castle of St. Andrews (1546). Such was the general situation in Scotland when John Knox appeared upon the scene.

[Sidenote: John Knox]

Born of peasant parents about 1515, John Knox [Footnote: John Knox (c. 1515-1572).] had become a Catholic priest, albeit in sympathy with many of the revolutionary ideas which were entering Scotland from the Continent and from England. In 1546 he openly rejected the authority of the Church and proceeded to preach "the Gospel" and a stern puritanical morality. "Others snipped the branches," he said, "he struck at the root." But the Catholic court was able to banish Knox from Scotland. After romantic imprisonment in France, Knox spent a few years in England, preaching an extreme puritanism, holding a chaplaincy under Edward VI (1547-1553), and exerting his influence to insure an indelibly Protestant character to the Anglican Church. Then upon the accession to the English throne of the Catholic Mary Tudor, Knox betook himself to Geneva where he made the acquaintance of Calvin and found himself in essential agreement with the teachings of the French reformer.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in Scotland]

After a stay of some five years on the Continent, Knox returned finally to Scotland and became the organizer and director of the "Lords of the Congregation," a league of the chief Protestant noblemen for purposes of religious propaganda and political power. In 1560 he drew up the creed and discipline of the Presbyterian Church after the model of Calvin's church at Geneva; and in the same year with the support of the "Lords of the Congregation" and the troops of Queen Elizabeth of England, Knox effected a political and religious revolution in Scotland. The queen-regent was imprisoned and the subservient parliament abolished the papal supremacy and enacted the death penalty against any one who should even attend Catholic worship. John Knox had carried everything before him.

Mary Stuart, during her brief stay in Scotland (1561-1567), tried in vain to stem the tide. The jealous barons would brook no increase of royal authority. The austere Knox hounded the girl-queen in public sermons and fairly flayed her character. The queen's downfall and subsequent long imprisonment in England finally decided the ecclesiastical future of Scotland. Except in a few fastnesses in the northern highlands, where Catholicism survived among the clansmen, the whole country was committed to Calvinism.

[Sidenote: Calvinism in England]

Calvinism was not without influence in England. Introduced towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII, it gave rise to a number of small sects which troubled the king's Anglican Church almost as much as did the Roman Catholics. Under Edward VI (1547-1553), it considerably influenced the theology of the Anglican Church itself, but the moderate policies of Elizabeth (1558-1603) tended to fix an inseparable gulf between Anglicans and Calvinists. Thenceforth, Calvinism lived in England, in the forms of Presbyterianism, Independency, [Footnote: Among the "Independents" were the Baptists, a sect related not so immediately to Calvinism as to the radical Anabaptists of Germany. See above, pp. 134 f., 145, footnotes] and Puritanism, as the religion largely of the commercial middle class. It was treated with contempt, and even persecuted, by Anglicans, especially by the monarchs of the Stuart family. After a complete but temporary triumph under Cromwell, in the seventeenth century, it was at length legally tolerated in England after the settlement of 1689. It was from England that New England received the Calvinistic religion which dominated colonial forefathers of many present-day Americans.

ANGLICANISM

Anglicanism is the name frequently applied to that form of Protestantism which stamped the state church in England in the sixteenth century and which is now represented by the Episcopal Church in the United States as well as by the established Church of England. The Methodist churches are comparatively late off-shoots of Anglicanism.

The separation of England from the papacy was a more gradual and halting process than were the contemporary revolutions on the Continent; and the new Anglicanism was correspondingly more conservative than Lutheranism or Calvinism.

[Sidenote: English Catholicism in 1500] [Sidenote: Church of England]

At the opening of the sixteenth century, the word "Catholic" meant the same in England as in every other country of western or central Europe --belief in the seven sacraments, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the veneration of saints; acceptance of papal supremacy and support of monasticism and of other institutions and practices of the medieval Church. During several centuries it had been customary in legal documents to refer to the Catholic Church in England as the _Ecclesia Anglicana_, or Anglican Church, just as the popes in their letters repeatedly referred to the "Gallican Church," the "Spanish Church," the "Neapolitan Church," or the "Hungarian Church." But such phraseology did not imply a separation of any one national church from the common Catholic communion, and for nearly a thousand years--ever since there had been an _Ecclesia Anglicana_--the English had recognized the bishop of Rome as the center of Catholic unity. In the course of the sixteenth century, however, the great majority of Englishmen changed their conception of the _Ecclesia Anglicana_, so that to them it continued to exist as the Church of England, but henceforth on a strictly national basis, in communion neither with the pope nor with the Orthodox Church of the East nor with the Lutherans or Calvinists, abandoning several doctrines that had been universally held in earlier times and substituting in their place beliefs and customs which were distinctively Protestant. This new conception of the Anglican Church-- resulting from the revolution in the sixteenth century--is what we mean by Anglicanism as a form of Protestantism. It took shape in the eventful years between 1520 and 1570.

[Sidenote: Religious Opposition to the Roman Catholic Church in England]

In order to understand how this religious and ecclesiastical revolution was effected in England, we must appreciate the various elements distrustful of the Catholic Church in that country about the year 1525. In the first place, the Lutheran teachings were infiltrating into the country. As early as 1521 a small group at Cambridge had become interested in the new German theology, and thence the sect spread to Oxford, London, and other intellectual centers. It found its early converts chiefly among the lower clergy and the merchants of the large towns, but for several years it was not numerous.

In the second place, there was the same feeling in England as we have already noted throughout all Europe that the clergy needed reform in morals and in manners. This view was shared not only by the comparatively insignificant group of heretical Lutherans, but likewise by a large proportion of the leading men who accounted themselves orthodox members of the Catholic Church. The well-educated humanists were especially eloquent in preaching reform. The writings of Erasmus had great vogue in England. John Colet (1467?-1519), a famous dean of St. Paul's cathedral in London, was a keen reformer who disapproved of auricular confession and of the celibacy of the clergy. Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), one of the greatest minds of the century, thought the monks were lazy and indolent, and the whole body of churchmen in need of an intellectual betterment. But neither Colet nor More had any intention of breaking away from the Roman Church. To them, and to many like them, reform could be secured best within the traditional ecclesiastical body.

[Sidenote: Political Opposition to the Roman Catholic Church in England]

A third source of distrust of the Church was a purely political feeling against the papacy. As we have already seen, the English king and English parliament on several earlier occasions had sought to restrict the temporal and political jurisdiction of the pope in England, but each restriction had been imposed for political reasons and even then had represented the will of the monarch rather than that of the nation. In fact, the most striking limitations of the pope's political jurisdiction in the kingdom had been enacted during the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, when the papacy was under French influence, and had served, therefore, indirectly as political weapons against the French king. Before that war was over, the operation of the statutes had been relaxed, and for a century or more prior to 1525 little was heard of even a political feeling against the bishop of Rome.

Nevertheless an evolution in English government was in progress at that very time, which was bound sooner or later to create friction with the Holy See. On one hand, a sense of nationalism and of patriotism had been steadily growing in England, and it was at variance with the older cosmopolitan idea of Catholicism. On the other hand, a great increase of royal power had appeared in the fifteenth century, notably after the accession of the Tudor family in 1485. Henry VII (1485-1509) had subordinated to the crown both the nobility and the parliament, and the patriotic support of the middle class he had secured. And when his son, Henry VIII (1509-1547), came to the throne, the only serious obstacle which appeared to be left in the way of royal absolutism was the privileged independence of the Catholic Church.

[Sidenote: Early Loyalty of Henry VIII to the Roman Catholic Church]

Yet a number of years passed before Henry VIII laid violent hands upon the Church. In the meanwhile, he proved himself a devoted Roman Catholic. He scented the new Lutheran heresy and sought speedily to exterminate it. He even wrote in 1521 with his own royal pen a bitter arraignment of the new theology, and sent his book, which he called _The Defence of the Seven Sacraments_, with a delightful dedicatory epistle to the pope. For his prompt piety and filial orthodoxy, he received from the bishop of Rome the proud title of _Fidei Defensor_, or Defender of the Faith, a title which he jealously bore until his death, and which his successors, the sovereigns of Great Britain, with like humor have continued to bear ever since. He seemed not even to question the pope's political claims. He allied himself on several occasions with Leo X in the great game of European politics. His chief minister and adviser in England for many years was Thomas Wolsey, the most conspicuous ecclesiastic in his kingdom and a cardinal of the Roman Church.

[Sidenote: The Marriage Difficulty of Henry VIII]

Under these circumstances it is difficult to see how the Anglican Church would have immediately broken away from Catholic unity had it not been for the peculiar marital troubles of Henry VIII. The king had been married eighteen years to Catherine of Aragon, and had been presented by her with six children (of whom only one daughter, the Princess Mary, had survived), when one day he informed her that they had been living all those years in mortal sin and that their union was not true marriage. The queen could hardly be expected to agree with such a definition, and there ensued a legal suit between the royal pair.

To Henry VIII the matter was really quite simple. Henry was tired of Catherine and wanted to get rid of her; he believed the queen could bear him no more children and yet he ardently desired a male heir; rumor reported that the susceptible king had recently been smitten by the brilliant black eyes of a certain Anne Boleyn, a maid-in-waiting at the court. The purpose of Henry was obvious; so was the means, he thought. For it had occurred to him that Catherine was his elder brother's widow, and, therefore, had no right, by church law, to marry him. To be sure, a papal dispensation had been obtained from Pope Julius II authorizing the marriage, but why not now obtain a revocation of that dispensation from the reigning Pope Clement VII? Thus the marriage with Catherine could be declared null and void, and Henry would be a bachelor, thirty-six years of age, free to wed some princess, or haply Anne Boleyn.

[Sidenote: Difficult Position of the Pope]

There was no doubt that Clement VII would like to do a favor for his great English champion, but two difficulties at once presented themselves. It would be a most dangerous precedent for the pope to reverse the decision of one of his predecessors. Worse still, the Emperor Charles V, the nephew of Queen Catherine, took up cudgels in his aunt's behalf and threatened Clement with dire penalties if he nullified the marriage. The pope complained truthfully that he was between the anvil and the hammer. There was little for him to do except to temporize and to delay decision as long as possible.

The protracted delay was very irritating to the impulsive English king, who was now really in love with Anne Boleyn. Gradually Henry's former effusive loyalty to the Roman See gave way to a settled conviction of the tyranny of the papal power, and there rushed to his mind the recollection of efforts of earlier English rulers to restrict that power. A few salutary enactments against the Church might compel a favorable decision from the pope.

Henry VIII seriously opened his campaign against the Roman Church in 1531, when he frightened the English clergy into paying a fine of over half a million dollars for violating an obsolete statute that had forbidden reception of papal legates without royal sanction, and in the same year he forced the clergy to recognize himself as supreme head of the Church "as far as that is permitted by the law of Christ." His subservient Parliament then empowered him to stop the payment of annates and to appoint the bishops without recourse to the papacy. Without waiting longer for the papal decision, he had Cranmer, one of his own creatures, whom he had just named archbishop of Canterbury, declare his marriage with Catherine null and void and his union with Anne Boleyn canonical and legal. Pope Clement VII thereupon handed down his long-delayed decision favorable to Queen Catherine, and excommunicated Henry VIII for adultery.

[Sidenote: Separation of England from the Roman Catholic Church: the Act of Supremacy]

The formal breach between England and Rome occurred in 1534. Parliament passed a series of laws, one of which declared the king to be the "only supreme head in earth of the Church of England," and others cut off all communication with the pope and inflicted the penalty of treason upon any one who should deny the king's ecclesiastical supremacy.

One step in the transition of the Church of England had now been taken. For centuries its members had recognized the pope as their ecclesiastical head; henceforth they were to own the ecclesiastical headship of their king. From the former Catholic standpoint, this might be schism but it was not necessarily heresy. Yet Henry VIII encountered considerable opposition from the higher clergy, from the monks, and from many intellectual leaders, as well as from large numbers of the lower classes. A popular uprising--the Pilgrimage of Grace--was sternly suppressed, and such men as the brilliant Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, the aged and saintly bishop of Rochester, were beheaded because they retained their former belief in papal supremacy. Tudor despotism triumphed.

[Sidenote: The "Six Articles"]

The breach with Rome naturally encouraged the Lutherans and other heretics to think that England was on the point of becoming Protestant, but nothing was further from the king's mind. The assailant of Luther remained at least partially consistent. And the Six Articles (1539) reaffirmed the chief points in Catholic doctrine and practice and visited dissenters with horrible punishment. While separating England from the papacy, Henry was firmly resolved to maintain every other tenet of the Catholic faith as he had received it. His middle-of-the- road policy was enforced with much bloodshed. On one side, the Catholic who denied the royal supremacy was beheaded; on the other, the Protestant who denied transubstantiation was burned! It has been estimated that during the reign of Henry VIII the number of capital condemnations for politico-religious offenses ran into the thousands-- an inquisition that in terror and bloodshed is comparable to that of Spain.

[Sidenote: Suppression of the Monasteries]

It was likewise during the reign of Henry VIII that one of the most important of all earlier Christian institutions--monasticism--came to an end in England. There were certainly grave abuses and scandals in some of the monasteries which dotted the country, and a good deal of popular sentiment had been aroused against the institution. Then, too the monks had generally opposed the royal pretensions to religious control and remained loyal to the pope. But the deciding factor in the suppression of the monasteries was undoubtedly economic. Henry, always in need of funds on account of his extravagances, appropriated part of the confiscated property for the benefit of the crown, and the rest he astutely distributed as gigantic bribes to the upper classes of the laity. The nobles who accepted the ecclesiastical wealth were thereby committed to the new anti-papal religious settlement in England.

[Sidenote: Protestantizing the Church of England: Edward VI]

The Church of England, separated from the papacy under Henry VIII, became Protestant under Edward VI (1547-1553). The young king's guardian tolerated all manner of reforming propaganda, and Calvinists as well as Lutherans preached their doctrines freely. Official articles of religion, which were drawn up for the Anglican Church, showed unmistakably Protestant influence. The Latin service books of the Catholic Church were translated into English, under Cranmer's auspices, and the edition of the _Book of Common Prayer_, published in 1552, made clear that the Eucharist was no longer to be regarded as a propitiatory sacrifice: the names "Holy Communion" and "Lord's Supper" were substituted for "Mass," while the word "altar" was replaced by "table." The old places of Catholic worship were changed to suit a new order: altars and images were taken down, the former service books destroyed, and stained-glass windows broken. Several peasant uprisings signified that the nation was not completely united upon a policy of religious change, but the reformers had their way, and Protestantism advanced.

[Sidenote: Temporary Roman Catholic Revival under Mary Tudor]

A temporary setback to the progress of the new Anglicanism was afforded by the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558), the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, and a devout Roman Catholic. She reinstated the bishops who had refused to take the oath of royal supremacy and punished those who had taken it. She prevailed upon Parliament to repeal the ecclesiastical legislation of both her father's and her brother's reigns and to reconcile England once more with the bishop of Rome. A papal legate, in the person of Cardinal Reginald Pole, sailed up the Thames with his cross gleaming from the prow of his barge, and in full Parliament administered the absolution which freed the kingdom from the guilt under Mary incurred by its schism and heresy. As an additional support to her policy of restoring the Catholic Church in England, Queen Mary married her cousin, Philip II of Spain, the great champion of Catholicism upon the Continent.

But events proved that despite outward appearances even the reign of Mary registered an advance of Protestantism. The new doctrines were zealously propagated by an ever-growing number of itinerant exhorters. The Spanish alliance was disastrous to English fortunes abroad and distasteful to all patriotic Englishmen at home. And finally, the violent means which the queen took to stamp out heresy gave her the unenviable surname of "Bloody" and reacted in the end in behalf of the views for which the victims sacrificed their lives. During her reign nearly three hundred reformers perished, many of them, including Archbishop Cranmer, by fire. The work of the queen was in vain. No heir was born to Philip and Mary, and the crown, therefore, passed to Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, a Protestant not so much from conviction as from circumstance.

[Sidenote: Definite Fashioning of Anglicanism: the Reign of Elizabeth]

It was in the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) that the Church of England assumed definitely the doctrines and practices which we now connect with the word "Anglicanism." By act of Parliament, the English Church was again separated from the papacy, and placed under royal authority, Elizabeth assuming the title of "supreme governor." The worship of the state church was to be in conformity with a slightly altered version of Cranmer's _Book of Common Prayer_. A uniform doctrine was likewise imposed by Parliament in the form of the _Thirty-nine Articles_, which set a distinctively Protestant mark upon the Anglican Church in its appeal to the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith, its insistence on justification by faith alone, its repudiation of the sacrifice of the Mass, and its definition of the Church. All the bishops who had been appointed under Mary, with one exception, refused to accept the changes, and were therefore deposed and imprisoned, but new bishops, Elizabeth's own appointees, were consecrated and the "succession of bishops" thereby maintained. Outwardly, the Church of England appeared to retain a corporate continuity throughout the sixteenth century; inwardly, a great revolution had changed it from Catholic to Protestant.

Harsh laws sought to oblige all Englishmen to conform to Elizabeth's religious settlement. Liberty of public worship was denied to any dissenter from Anglicanism. To be a "papist" or "hear Mass"--which were construed as the same thing--was punishable by death as high treason. A special ecclesiastical court--the Court of High Commission--was established under royal authority to search out heresy and to enforce uniformity; it served throughout Elizabeth's reign as a kind of Protestant Inquisition.

[Sidenote: English Dissent from Anglicanism]

While the large majority of the English nation gradually conformed to the official Anglican Church, a considerable number refused their allegiance. On one hand were the Roman Catholics, who still maintained the doctrine of papal supremacy and were usually derisively styled papists, and on the other hand were various Calvinistic sects, such as Presbyterians or Independents or Quakers, who went by the name of "Dissenters" or "Non-conformists." In the course of time, the number of Roman Catholics tended to diminish, largely because, for political reasons which have been indicated in the preceding chapter, Protestantism in England became almost synonymous with English patriotism. But despite drastic laws and dreadful persecutions, Roman Catholicism survived in England among a conspicuous group of people. On the other hand, the Calvinists tended somewhat to increase their numbers so that in the seventeenth century they were able to precipitate a great political and ecclesiastical conflict with Anglicanism.

THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION

We have now traced the origins of the Protestant Revolt against the Catholic Church, and have seen how, between 1520 and 1570, three major varieties of new theology--Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism-- appeared on the scene and divided among themselves the nations of northern Europe. The story of how, during that critical half-century, the other civilized nations retained their loyalty to the Catholic Church virtually as it had existed throughout the middle ages, remains to be told. The preservation of the papal monarchy and Catholic doctrine in southern Europe was due alike to religious and to political circumstances.

It must not be supposed that pious critics of ecclesiastical abuses were confined to countries which subsequently became Protestant. There were many sincere Catholics in Italy, Austria, France, and Spain who complained of the scandals and worldliness that afflicted the Church at the opening of the sixteenth century: they demanded sweeping reforms in discipline and a return of the clergy to a simple apostolic life. They believed, however, that whatever change was desirable could best be achieved by means of a reformation within the Catholic Church--that is, without disturbing the unity of its organization or denying the validity of its dogmas--while the critics of northern Europe, as we have seen, preferred to put their reforms into practice by means of a revolution--an out-and-out break with century-old traditions of Catholic Christianity. Even in northern Europe some of the foremost scholars of that period desired an intellectual reformation within Catholicism rather than a dogmatic rebellion against it: with Luther's defiance of papal authority, the great Erasmus had small sympathy, and Sir Thomas More, the eminent English humanist, sacrificed his life for his belief in the divine sanction of the papal power.

Thus, while the religious energy of northern Europe went into Protestantism of various kinds, that of southern Europe fashioned a reformation of the Catholic system. And this Catholic reformation, on its religious side, was brought to a successful issue by means of the improved conditions in the papal court, the labors of a great church council, and the activity of new monastic orders. A few words must be said about each one of these religious elements in the Catholic reformation.

[Sidenote: Reforming Popes]

Mention has been made of the corruption that prevailed in papal affairs in the fifteenth century, and of the Italian and family interests which obscured to the Medici pope, Leo X (1513-1521), the importance of the Lutheran movement in Germany. And Leo's nephew, who became Clement VII (1523-1534), continued to act too much as an Italian prince and too little as the moral and religious leader of Catholicism in the contest which under him was joined with Zwinglians and Anglicans as well as with Lutherans. But under Paul III (1534-1549), a new policy was inaugurated, by which men were appointed to high church offices for their virtue and learning rather than for family relationship or financial gain. This policy was maintained by a series of upright and far-sighted popes during the second half of the sixteenth century, so that by the year 1600 a remarkable reformation had been gradually wrought in the papacy, among the cardinals, down through the prelates, even to the parish priests and monks.

[Sidenote: The Council of Trent]

The reforming zeal of individual popes was stimulated and reinforced by the work of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). The idea of effecting a "reformation in head and members" by means of a general council of the Catholic Church had been invoked several times during the century that preceded the Protestant Revolt, but, before Luther, little had been accomplished in that way.

With the widening of the breach between Protestantism and the medieval Church, what had formerly been desirable now became imperative. It seemed to pious Catholics that every effort should be made to reconcile differences and to restore the unity of the Church. The errors of the manifold new theologies which now appeared might be refuted by a clear statement of Catholic doctrine, and a reformation of discipline and morals would deprive the innovators of one of their most telling weapons against the Church.

It was no easy task, in that troublous time, to hold an ecumenical council. There was mutual distrust between Catholics and Protestants. There was uncertainty as to the relative powers and prerogatives of council and pope. There were bitter national rivalries, especially between Italians and Germans. There was actual warfare between the two chief Catholic families--the Habsburgs of Germany and Spain and the royal house of France.

Yet despite these difficulties, which long postponed its convocation and repeatedly interrupted its labors, the Council of Trent [Footnote: Trent was selected largely by reason of its geographical location, being situated on the boundary between the German-speaking and Italian- speaking peoples.] consummated a great reform in the Church and contributed materially to the preservation of the Catholic faith. The Protestants, whom the pope invited to participate, absented themselves; yet such was the number and renown of the Catholic bishops who responded to the summons that the Council of Trent easily ranked with the eighteen cumenical councils which had preceded it. [Footnote: Its decrees were signed at its close (1563) by 4 cardinal legates, 2 cardinals, 3 patriarchs, 25 archbishops, 167 bishops, 7 abbots, 7 generals of orders, and 19 proxies for 33 absent prelates.] The work of the council was twofold--dogmatic and reformatory.

Dogmatically, the fathers at Trent offered no compromise to the Protestants. They confirmed with inexorable frankness the main points in Catholic theology which had been worked out in the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas and which before the appearance of Protestantism had been received everywhere in central and western Europe. They declared that the tradition of the Church as well as the Bible was to be taken as the basis of the Christian religion, and that the interpretation of the Holy Scripture belonged only to the Church. The Protestant teachings about grace and justification by faith were condemned, and the seven sacraments were pronounced indispensable. The miraculous and sacrificial character of the Lord's Supper (Mass) was reaffirmed. Belief in the invocation of saints, in the veneration of images and of relics, in purgatory and indulgences was explicitly stated, but precautions were taken to clear some of the doctrines of the pernicious practices which at times had been connected with them. The spiritual authority of the Roman See was confirmed over all Catholicism: the pope was recognized as supreme interpreter of the canons and incontestable chief of bishops.

[Sidenote: Reformatory Canons of the Council of Trent ]

A volume of disciplinary statutes constituted the second achievement of the Tridentine Council. The sale of church offices was condemned. Bishops and other prelates were to reside in their respective dioceses, abandon worldly pursuits, and give themselves entirely to spiritual labors. Seminaries were to be established for the proper education and training of priests.

While Latin was retained as the official and liturgical language, frequent sermons were to be preached in the vernacular. Indulgences were not to be issued for money, and no charge should be made for conferring the sacraments.

[Sidenote: Index and inquisition ]