Book: A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

C >> Carlton J. H. Hayes >> A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.




[Sidenote: Separation of Luther from the Catholic Church]

Separation from the traditional Church was the only course now open to
Luther and this was consummated in the year 1520. In a series of three
bold pamphlets, he vigorously and definitely attacked the position of
the Church. In the first--_An Address to the Nobility of the German
Nation_--Luther stated that there was nothing inherently sacred
about the Christian priesthood and that the clergy should be deprived
immediately of their special privileges; he urged the German princes to
free their country from foreign control and shrewdly called their
attention to the wealth and power of the Church which they might justly
appropriate to themselves. In the second--_On the Babylonian
Captivity of the Church of God_--he assailed the papacy and the
whole sacramental system. The third--_On the Freedom of a Christian
Man_--contained the essence of Luther's new theology that salvation
was not a painful _progress_ toward a goal by means of sacraments
and right conduct but a _condition_ "in which man found himself so
soon as he despaired absolutely of his own efforts and threw himself on
God's assurances"; the author claimed that man's utter personal
dependence on God's grace rendered the system of the Church
superfluous.

In the midst of these attacks upon the Church, the pope excommunicated
Luther, and in the following year (1521) influenced the Diet of the
Holy Roman Empire, assembled at Worms, to pronounce him an outlaw. But
the rebel calmly burnt the papal bull and from the imperial ban he was
protected by the elector of Saxony. He at once devoted himself to
making a new German translation of the Bible, which became very popular
and is still prized as a monument in the history of German literature.
[Footnote: The first edition of the Bible in German had been printed as
early as 1466. At least eighteen editions in German (including four Low
German versions) had appeared before Luther issued his German New
Testament in 1522.]

[Sidenote: Spread of Lutheranism]

Within the next few years the Lutheran teachings carried everything
before them throughout the northern and central Germanies. Nor are the
reasons for Luther's success in defying pope and emperor and for the
rapid acceptance of his new theology hard to understand. The movement
was essentially popular and national. It appealed to the pious-minded
who desired a simplification of Christian dogma and a comprehensible
method of salvation. It also appealed to the worldly minded who longed
to seize ecclesiastical lands and revenues. Above all, it appealed to
the patriots who were tired of foreign despotism and of abuses which
they traced directly to the Roman Curia. Then, too, the Emperor Charles
V, who remained a loyal Catholic, was too immersed in the difficulties
of foreign war and in the manifold administrative problems of his huge
dominions to be able to devote much time to the extirpation of heresy
in the Germanies. Finally, the character of Luther contributed to
effective leadership--he was tireless in flooding the country with
pamphlets, letters, and inflammatory diatribes, tactful in keeping his
party together, and always bold and courageous. Princes, burghers,
artisans, and peasants joined hands in espousing the new cause.

[Sidenote: Luther and the German Peasants]

But the peasants espoused it in a manner altogether too logical and too
violent to suit Luther or the desires of the princes. The German
peasants had grievances against the old order compared with which those
of the knights and towns-folk were imaginary. For at least a century
several causes had contributed to make their lot worse and worse. While
their taxes and other burdens were increasing, the ability of the
emperor to protect them was decreasing; they were plundered by every
class in the community, especially by the higher clergy. Thus, under
the influence of social and economic conditions, various uprisings of
the peasants had taken place during the latter part of the fifteenth
century. These insurrections became almost regular in the southwestern
Germanies, and were called _Bundschuhe_, a shoe fastened upon the
end of a pole serving as a standard of revolt. When Luther urged the
princes to assail the ecclesiastics, to seize church lands, and to put
an end to financial abuses, the peasants naturally listened to his
words with open ears and proceeded with glad hearts to apply his advice
themselves.

The new Lutheran theology may have been too refined for the peasants,
but they imagined they understood its purport. And spurred on by
fanatics, whom the religious ferment of the times produced in large
numbers, [Footnote: Many of these radical religious leaders were more
consistent and thoroughgoing than Luther in maintaining the right of
each Christian to interpret the Scriptures for himself. Since they
generally refused to recognize infant baptism as valid and insisted
that baptism should be administered only to adults, they were
subsequently often referred to as "Anabaptists." Many of the
"Anabaptists" condemned oaths and capital punishment; some advocated
communism of worldly goods, in several instances even the community of
women. Nicholas Storch (d. 1525), a weaver, and Thomas Munzer (d.
1525), a Lutheran preacher, spread these doctrines widely among the
peasants. Luther vehemently denounced the "Anabaptists."] the peasants
again took arms against feudal oppression. That the peasants' demands
were essentially moderate and involved no more than is granted
everywhere to-day as a matter of course, may be inferred from their
declaration of principles, the Twelve Articles, among which were:
abolition of serfdom, free right of fishing and hunting, payment in
wages for services rendered, and abolition of arbitrary punishment. So
long as the peasants directed their efforts against the Catholic
ecclesiastics, Luther expressed sympathy with them, but when the
revolt, which broke out in 1524, became general all over central and
southern Germany and was directed not only against the Catholic clergy
but also against the lay lords,--many of whom were now Lutheran,--the
religious leader foresaw a grave danger to his new religion in a split
between peasants and nobles. Luther ended by taking strong sides with
the nobles--he had most to expect from them. He was shocked by the
excesses of the revolt, he said. Insisting upon toleration for his own
revolt, he condemned the peasants to most horrible fates in this world
and in the world hereafter. [Footnote: Although Luther was particularly
bitter against the "Anabaptist" exhorters, upon whom he fastened
responsibility for the Peasants' Revolt, and although many of them met
death thereby, the "Anabaptists" were by no means exterminated.
Largely through the activity of a certain Melchior Hofmann, a widely
traveled furrier, "Anabaptist" doctrines were disseminated in northern
Germany and the Netherlands. From 1533 to 1535 they reigned supreme,
attended by much bloodshed and plenty of personal license, in the
important city of Munster in western Germany. Subsequently, Carlstadt
(1480-1541), an early associate of Luther, though his later antagonist,
set forth Anabaptist views with greater moderation; and in course of
time the sect became more or less tinged with Calvinistic theology.] He
furiously begged the princes to put down the insurrection. "Whoever
can, should smite, strangle, or stab, secretly or publicly!"

[Sidenote: The Peasants' Revolt]

The Peasants' Revolt was crushed in 1525 with utmost cruelty. Probably
fifty thousand lost their lives in the vain effort. The general result
was that the power of the territorial lords became greater than ever,
although in a few cases, particularly in the Tyrol and in Baden, the
condition of the peasants was slightly improved. Elsewhere, however,
this was not the case; and the German peasants were assigned for over
two centuries to a lot worse than that of almost any people in Europe.
Another result was the decline of Luther's influence among the
peasantry in southern and central Germany. They turned rapidly from one
who, they believed, had betrayed them. On the other hand, many Catholic
princes, who had been wavering in their religious support, now had
before their eyes what they thought was an object lesson of the results
of Luther's appeal to revolution, and so they cast their lot decisively
with the ancient Church. The Peasants' Revolt registered a distinct
check to the further spread of Lutheranism.

[Sidenote: Diets of Speyer 1526, 1529]
[Sidenote: The Word "Protestant"]

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 Zuerich 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 Zuerich 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 Zuerich 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."

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