The Age Of Reformation - free ebook by Preserved Smith

THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION

by PRESERVED SMITH, Ph.D. New York Henry Holt and Company American Historical Series General Editor Charles H. Haskins Professor of History in Harvard University Copyright, 1920 by Henry Holt and Company...

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VITÂ CARIORI FILIOLAE PRISCILLAE SACRUM PREFACE

The excuse for writing another history of the Reformation is the need for putting that movement in its proper relations to the economic and intellectual revolutions of the sixteenth century. The labor of love necessary for the accomplishment of this task has employed most of my leisure for the last six years and has been my companion through vicissitudes of sorrow and of joy. A large part of the pleasure derived from the task has come from association with friends who have generously put their t

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CHAPTER II. GERMANY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

1. The Leader. Luther's early life. Justification by faith only. The Ninety-five Theses . The Leipzig Debate. Revolutionary Pamphlets of 1520. 2. The Revolution. Condition of Germany. Maximilian I. Charles V. The bull Exsurge Domine burned by Luther. Luther at Worms and in the Wartburg. Turmoil of the radicals. The Revolt of the Knights. Efforts at Reform at the Diets of Nuremberg 1522-4. The Peasants' Revolt: economic causes, propaganda, course of the war, suppression. 3. Formation of the Prote

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CHAPTER III. SWITZERLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

1. Zwingli. The Swiss Confederacy. Preparation for the Reformation. Zwingli's early life. Reformation at Zurich. Defeat of Cappel. 2. Calvin. Farel. Calvin's early life. The Institutes of the Christian Religion . Reformation at Geneva. Theocracy. The Libertines. Servetus. Character and influence of Calvin....

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CHAPTER IV. FRANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

1. Renaissance and Reformation. Condition of France. Francis I. War with Charles. The Christian Renaissance. Lutheranism. Defection of the humanists. 2. The Calvinist Party. Henry II. Expansion of France. Growth and persecution of Calvinism. 3. The Wars of Religion. Catharine de' Médicis. Massacre of Vassy. The Huguenot rebellion. Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The League. Henry IV. Edict of Nantes. Failure of Protestantism to conquer France....

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CHAPTER V. THE NETHERLANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

1. The Lutheran Reform. The Burgundian State. Origins of the Reformation. Persecution. The Anabaptists. 2. The Calvinist Revolt. National feeling against Spain. Financial difficulties of Philip II. Egmont and William of Orange. The new bishoprics. The Compromise. The "Beggars." Alva's reign of terror. Requesens. Siege of Leyden. The Revolt of the North. Division of the Netherlands. Farnese. The Dutch Republic....

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CHAPTER VI. ENGLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

1. Henry VIII and the National Church. Character of Henry VIII. Foreign policy. Wolsey. Early Lutheranism. Tyndale's New Testament. Tracts. Anticlerical feeling. Divorce of Catharine of Aragon. The Submission of the Clergy. The Reformation Parliament 1520-30. Act in Restraint of Appeals. Act of Succession. Act of Supremacy. Cranmer. Execution of More. Thomas Cromwell. Dissolution of the monasteries. Union of England and Wales. Alliance with the Schmalkaldic League. Articles of Faith. The Pilgrim

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CHAPTER VII. SCOTLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Backward condition of Scotland. Relations with England. Cardinal Beaton. John Knox. Battle of Pinkie. Knox in Scotland. The Common Band. Iconoclasm. Treaty of Edinburgh. The Religious Revolution. Confession of Faith. Queen Mary's crimes and deposition. Results of the Reformation....

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CHAPTER VIII. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION . . . . . . . . . . 371

1. Italy. The pagan Renaissance; the Christian Renaissance. Sporadic Lutheranism. 2. The Papacy 1521-90. The Sack of Rome. Reforms. 3. The Council of Trent. First Period (1545-7). Second Period (1551-2). Third Period (1562-3). Results. 4. The Company of Jesus. New monastic orders. Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises . Rapid growth and successes of the Jesuits. Their final failure. 5. The Inquisition and the Index. The medieval Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition. The Roman Inquisition. Censorship o

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CHAPTER IX. THE IBERIAN PENINSULA AND THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

1. Spain. Unification of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella. Charles V. Revolts of the Communes and of the Hermandad. Constitution of Spain. The Spanish empire. Philip II. The war with the Moriscos. The Armada. 2. Exploration. Columbus. Conquest of Mexico and of Peru. Circumnavigation of the globe. Portuguese exploration to the East. Brazil. Decadence of Portugal. Russia. The Turks....

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CHAPTER X. SOCIAL CONDITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

1. Population. 2. Wealth and Prices. Increase of wealth in modern times. Prices and wages in the Sixteenth Century. Value of money. Trend of prices. 3. Social Institutions. The monarchy, the Council of state, the Parliament. Public finance. Maintenance of Order. Sumptuary laws and "blue laws." The army. The navy. 4. Private life and manners. The nobility; the professions; the clergy. The city, the house, dress, food, drink. Sports. Manners. Morals. Position of Women. Health....

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CHAPTER XI. THE CAPITALISTIC REVOLUTION . . . . . . . . . 515

1. The Rise of the Power of Money. Rise of capitalism. Banking. Mining. Commerce. Manufacture. Agriculture. 2. The Rise of the Money Power. Ascendancy of the bourgeoisie over the nobility, clergy, and proletariat. Class wars. Regulation of Labor. Pauperism....

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CHAPTER XII. MAIN CURRENTS OF THOUGHT . . . . . . . . . 563

1. Biblical and classical scholarship. Greek and Hebrew Bibles. Translations. The classics. The vernaculars. 2. History. Humanistic history and church history. 3. Political theory. The state as power: Machiavelli. Constitutional liberty: Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Hotman, Mornay, Bodin, Buchanan. Radicals: the Utopia . 4. Science. Inductive method. Mathematics. Zoölogy. Anatomy. Physics. Geography. Astronomy; Copernicus. Reform of the calendar. 5. Philosophy. The Catholic and Protestant thinkers.

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CHAPTER XIII. THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES . . . . . . . . . 641

1. Tolerance and Intolerance. Effect of the Renaissance and Reformation. 2. Witchcraft. Causes of the mania. Protests against it. 3. Education. Schools. Effect of the Reformation. Universities. 4. Art. The ideals expressed. Painting. Architecture. Music. Effect of the Reformation and Counter-reformation. 5. Reading. Number of books. Typical themes. Greatness of the Sixteenth Century....

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CHAPTER XIV. THE REFORMATION INTERPRETED . . . . . . . 699

1. The Religious and Political Interpretations. Burnet, Bossuet, Sleidan, Sarpi. 2. The Rationalist Critique. Montesquieu, Voltaire, Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, Goethe, Lessing. 3. The Liberal-Romantic Appreciation. Heine, Michelet, Froude, Hegel, Ranke, Buckle. 4. The Economic and Evolutionary Interpretations. Marx, Lamprecht, Berger, Weber, Nietzsche, Troeltsch, Santayana, Harnack, Beard, Janssen, Pastor, Acton. 5. Concluding Estimate....

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CHAPTER I

Though in some sense every age is one of transition and every generation sees the world remodelled, there sometimes comes a change so startling and profound that it seems like the beginning of a new season in the world's great year. The snows of winter melt for weeks, the cold winds blow and the cool rains fall, and we see no change until, almost within a few days, the leaves and blossoms put forth their verdure, and the spring has come. Such a change in man's environment and habits as the world

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SECTION 2. THE CHURCH

Over against "the world," "the church." . . . As the Reformation was primarily a religious movement, some account of the church in the later Middle Ages must be given. How Christianity was immaculately conceived in the heart of the Galilean carpenter and born with words of beauty and power such as no other man ever spoke; how it inherited from him its background of Jewish monotheism and Hebrew Scripture; how it was enriched, or sophisticated, by Paul, who assimilated it to the current mysteries

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SECTION 3. CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION

[Sidenote: Corruption of the church not a main cause of the Reformation] In the eyes of the early Protestants the Reformation was a return to primitive Christianity and its principal cause was the corruption of the church. That there was great depravity in the church as elsewhere cannot be doubted, but there are several reasons for thinking that it could not have been an important cause for the loss of so many of her sons. In the first place there is no good ground for believing that the moral c

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SECTION 4. THE MYSTICS

One of the earliest efforts to transcend the economy of salvation offered by the church was made by a school of mystics in the fourteenth and fifteenth {30} century. In this, however, there was protest neither against dogma nor against the ideal of other-worldliness, for in these respects the mystics were extreme conservatives, more religious than the church herself. They were like soldiers who disregarded the orders of their superiors because they thought these orders interfered with their supr

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SECTION 5. PRE-REFORMERS

The men who, in later ages, claimed for their ancestors a Protestantism older than the Augsburg Confession, referred its origins not to the mystics nor to the humanists, but to bold leaders branded by the church as heretics. Though from the earliest age Christendom never lacked minds independent enough {35} to differ from authority and characters strong enough to attempt to cut away what they considered rotten in ecclesiastical doctrine and practice, the first heretics that can really be conside

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SECTION 6. NATIONALIZING THE CHURCHES

Inevitably, the growth of national sentiment spoken of above reacted on the religious institutions of Europe. Indeed, it was here that the conflict of the international, ecclesiastical state, and of the secular governments became keenest. Both kings and people wished to control their own spiritual affairs as well as their temporalities. [Sidenote: The ecclesia Anglicana] England traveled farthest on the road towards a national church. For three centuries she had been asserting the rights of her

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SECTION 7. THE HUMANISTS

But the preparation for the great revolt was no less thorough on the intellectual than it was on the religious and political sides. The revival of interest in classical antiquity, aptly known as the Renaissance, brought with it a searching criticism of all medieval standards and, most of all, of medieval religion. The Renaissance stands in the same relationship to the Reformation that the so-called "Enlightenment" stands to the French Revolution. The humanists of the fifteenth century were the "

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SECTION 2. THE REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: Germany] Although the Germans had arrived, by the end of the fifteenth century, at a high degree of national self-consciousness, they had not, like the French and English, succeeded in forming a corresponding political unity. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, though continuing to assert the vast claims of the Roman world-state, was in fact but a loose confederacy of many and very diverse territories. On a map drawn to the scale 1:6,000,000 nearly a hundred separate political

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SECTION 3. THE FORMATION or THE PROTESTANT PARTY

[Sidenote: Defections from Luther] In the sixteenth century politics were theological. The groups into which men divided had religious slogans and were called churches, but they were also political parties. The years following the Diet of {96} Worms saw the crystallization of a new group, which was at first liberal and reforming and later, as it grew in stability, conservative. At Worms almost all the liberal forces in Germany had been behind Luther, the intellectuals, the common people with the

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SECTION 7. NOTE ON SCANDINAVIA, POLAND, AND HUNGARY

A few small countries bordering on the Empire, neither fully in the central stream of European culture, nor wholly outside of it, may be treated briefly. All of them were affected by the Protestant revolution, the Teutonic peoples permanently, the others transiently. Scandinavia looms large in the Middle Ages as the home of the teeming multitudes of emigrants, Goths and Vandals, who swarmed over the Roman Empire. Later waves from Denmark and the contiguous portion of Germany flooded England firs

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SECTION 2. CALVIN

On January 15, 1527, Thomas von Hofen wrote Zwingli from Geneva that he would do all he could to exalt the gospel in that city but that he knew it would be vain, for there were seven hundred priests working against him. This letter gives an insight into the methods by which new territory was evangelized, the quarters whence came the new influences, and the forces with which they had to contend. Among the early missionaries of "the gospel" in French-speaking lands, one of the most energetic was W

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SECTION 2. THE CALVINIST PARTY. 1536-1559

[Sidenote: Truce of Nice, 1538] The truce of Nice providing for a cessation of hostilities between France and the Hapsburgs for ten years, was greeted with much joy in France. Bonfires celebrated it in Paris, and in every way the people made known their longing for peace. Little the king cared for the wishes of his loyal subjects when his own dignity, real or imagined, was at stake. The war with Charles, that cursed Europe like an intermittent fever, broke out again in 1542. Again France was the

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SECTION 2. THE CALVINIST REVOLT

When Charles V, weary of the heaviest scepter ever wielded by any European monarch from Charlemagne to Napoleon, sought rest for his soul in a monk's cell, he left his great possessions divided between his brother Ferdinand and his son Philip. To the former went Austria and the Empire, to the latter the Burgundian provinces and Spain with its vast dependencies in the New World. [Sidenote: Spain and the Netherlands] The result of this was to make the Netherlands practically a satellite of Spain.

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SECTION 3. THE CATHOLIC REACTION UNDER MARY. 1553-58

[Sidenote: Proclamation of Queen Jane, July 10, 1553] When Edward died on July 6, 1553, Northumberland had taken such precautions as he could to ensure the success of his project. He had gathered his own men at London and tried to secure help from France, whose king would have been only too glad to involve England in civil war. The death of the king was concealed for four days while preparations were being made, and then Queen Jane was proclaimed. Mary's challenge arrived the next day and she (M

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SECTION 4. THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT. 1558-88.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth, 1558-1603] However numerous and thorny were the problems pressed for solution into the hands of the maiden of twenty-five now called upon to rule England, the greatest of all questions, that of religion, almost settled itself. It is extremely hard to divest ourselves of the wisdom that comes after the event and to put ourselves in the position of the men of that time and estimate fairly the apparent feasibility of various alternatives. But it is hard to believe that the con

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SECTION 5. IRELAND

If the union of England and Wales has been a marriage—after a courtship of the primitive type; if the union with Scotland has been a successful partnership—following a long period of cut-throat competition; the position of Ireland has been that of a captive and a slave. To her unwilling mind the English domination has always been a foreign one, and this fact makes more difference with her than whether her master has been cruel, as formerly, or kind, as of late. [Sidenote: English rule] The sadde

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SECTION 2. THE PAPACY. 1522-1590

Nothing can better indicate the consternation caused at Rome by the appearance of the Lutheran revolt than {378} the fact that for the first time in 144 years and for the last time in history the cardinals elected as supreme pontiff a man who was not an Italian, Adrian of Utrecht. [Sidenote: Adrian VI, 1522-September 1523] After teaching theology at Louvain he had been appointed tutor to Prince Charles and, on the accession of his pupil to the Spanish throne was created Bishop of Tortosa, and sh

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SECTION 3. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

While the popes were enjoying their jus incorrigibilitatis —as Luther wittily expressed it—the church was going to rack and ruin. Had the safety of Peter's boat been left to its captains, it would apparently have foundered in the waves of schism and heresy. No such dangerous enemy has ever attacked the church as that then issuing from her own bosom. Neither the medieval heretics nor the modern philosophers have won from her in so short a time such masses of adherents. Where Voltaire slew his tho

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SECTION 4. THE COMPANY OF JESUS

If the Counter-reformation was in part a pure reaction to medievalism it was in part also a religious revival. If this was stimulated by the Protestant {397} example, it was also the outcome of the rising tide of Catholic pietism in the fifteenth century. Still more was it the answer to a demand on the part of the church for an instrument with which to combat the dangers of heresy and to conquer spiritually the new worlds of heathenism. Great crises in the church have frequently produced new rev

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SECTION 2. EXPLORATION

[Sidenote: Division of the New World between Spain and Portugal] When Columbus returned with glowing accounts of the "India" he had found, the value of his work was at once appreciated. Forthwith began that struggle for colonial power which has absorbed so much of the {435} energies of the European nations. In view of the Portuguese discoveries in Africa, it was felt necessary to mark out the "spheres of influence" of the two powers at once, and, with an instinctive appeal to the one authority c

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SECTION 2. WEALTH AND PRICES

[Sidenote: Gigantic increase in wealth since 16th century] If the number of Europe's inhabitants has increased fourfold since Luther's time, the amount of her wealth has increased in a vastly greater ratio. The difference {459} between the twentieth and the sixteenth centuries is greater than anyone would at first blush believe possible. Moreover it is a difference that is, during times of peace, continually increasing. During the century from the close of the Napoleonic to the opening of the Gr

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SECTION 2. THE RISE OF THE MONEY POWER

[Sidenote: Money crowned king] In modern times, Money has been king. Perhaps at a certain period in the ancient world wealth had as much power as it has now, but in the Middle Ages it was not so. Money was then ignored by the tenant or serf who paid his dues in feudal service or in kind; it was despised by the noble as the vulgar possession of Jews or of men without gentle breeding, and it was hated by the church as filthy lucre, the root of all evil and, together with sex, as one of the chief i

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SECTION 4. SCIENCE

[Sidenote: Inductive method] The glory of sixteenth-century science is that for the first time, on a large scale, since the ancient Greeks, did men try to look at nature through their own eyes instead of through those of Aristotle and the Physiologus . Bacon and Vives have each been credited with the discovery of the inductive method, but, like so many philosophers, they merely generalized a practice already common at their time. Save for one discovery of the first magnitude, and two or three ot

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CHAPTER IV

A. Molinier, H. Hauser, E. Bourgeois (et autres): Les Sources de l'histoire de France depuis les origines jusqu'en 1815 . Deuxième Partie. Le XVIe siècle, 1494-1610, par. II. Hauser. 4 vols. 1906-1915. (Valuable, critical bibliography of sources). Recueil générale des anciennes lois francaises , par Isambert, Decrusy, Armet. Tomes 12-15 (1514-1610). 1826 ff. Ordonnances des rois de France . Règne de François I. 10 vols. 1902-8. Michel de L'Hôpital: Oeuvres complètes, ed. Dufey. 4 vols. 1824-5. J

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CHAPTER VII. SCOTLAND

Acts of the Parliament of Scotland . 12 vols. 1844 ff. B. J. Kidd: Documents of the Continental Reformation , 1911, pp. 686-715. Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland 1509-1603 . 2 vols. ed. M. J. Thorpe. 1858. State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots 1542-81, ed. J. Bain and W. K. Boyd. 5 vols. 1898 ff. Hamilton Papers, 1532-90 , ed. J. Bain. Much in the English calendars for which see bibliography to chap. VI. John Knox's Works, ed. Laing, 1846-64. R. Lindsay of Pitsco

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CHAPTER VIII. THE COUNTER REFORMATION

SECTIONS 1 and 2. The Papacy and Italy 1521-1590 . C. Mirbt: op. cit. Consilium delectorum cardinalium et aliorum praelatorum de emendanda ecclesia 1537. In Mansi: Sacrorum Conciliorum et Decretorum collectio nova , 1751, Supplement 5, pp. 539-47. The same in German with Luther's notes in Luther's Werke , Weimar, vol. 50. L. von Pastor: A History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages . English translation ed. by R. F. Kerr. Vols. 9-12. 1910 ff. (These volumes cover the period 1522-1549.

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CHAPTER IX.

Colección de documentos ineditos para la historia de España . 112 vols. 1842 ff. Nueva Colección de documentos ineditos &amp;c . 6 vols. 1892-6. Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers, Spanish , &amp;c., 15 vols. covering 1509-1603, except 1555-8. 1862 to date. A. Morel-Fatio: Historiographie de Charles Quint . 1913. (Contains a new French version of the Commentaries of Charles V). F. L. de Gomara: Annals of the Emperor Charles V , ed. by R. B. Merriman. 1912. Rafael Altamira y

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CHAPTER X

As the sources for this chapter would include all the extant literature and documents of the period, it is impossible to do more than mention a few of those particularly referred to. Moreover, as most political histories now have chapters on social and economic conditions, a great deal on the subject will be found in the previous bibliographies. General Wm. Harrison's Description of England (1577, revised and enlarged 1586) ed. F. J. Furnivall. 1877 ff. 7 parts. Social Tracts , ed. A. Lang from

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CHAPTER XI

Many of the books referred to in the last chapter and many general histories have chapters on the subject. Their titles are not repeated here. English Economic History . Select Documents ed. by A. E. Bland, P. A. Brown and R. H. Tawney. 1914. (With helpful bibliographies and well-selected material). H. G. Rosedale: Queen Elizabeth and the Levant Company . 1904. E. Levasseur: Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l' industrie en France avant 1789 .[2] 2 vols. 1900-1. G. Avenel: Paysuns et Ouvriers

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CHAPTER XII

Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. recognitum et emendatum . Basileae . 1516 . (Nearly 300 editions catalogued in the Bibliotheca Erasmiana. In Erasmi Opera Omnia, 1703, vol. VI.) Novum testamentum graece et latine in academia Complutensi noviter impressum . 1514 . Vetus testamentum multiplici lingua nunc primum impressum . In hac praeclarissima Complutensi universitate . 1517. C. R. Gregory: Die Textkritik des Neuen Testaments . 3 parts. 1900-9. Articles "Bible," in Encyclopaedi

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CHAPTER XIII

Lord Acton: The History of Freedom . 1907. "The Protestant Theory of Persecution," pp. 150-187. (Essay written in 1862). T. Ruffini: Religious Liberty , translated by J. P. Heyes. 1912. N. Paulus: Protestantismus und Toleranz . 1912. G. L. Burr: "Anent the Middle Ages." American Historical Review . 1913, pp. 710-726. P. Wappler: Die Stellung Kursachsens und Philipps von Hessen zur Täuferbewegung . 1910. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics , ix, s. v. "Persecution." S. Castellion: Traité des Hér

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CHAPTER XIV

The purpose of the following list is not to give the titles of all general histories of the Reformation, but of those books and articles in which some noteworthy contribution has been made to the philosophical interpretation of the events. Many an excellent work of pure narrative character, and many of those dealing with some particular phase of the Reformation, are omitted. All the noteworthy historical works published prior to 1600 are listed in the bibliography to Chapter XII, section 2, and

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