BOHEMIA
Religious reform in Bohemia was rooted in incipient nationalism at the beginning of the 15 th century. Jan Hus (c. 1372-1415), executed at the Council of Constance, had advocated a classless society and communal ownership of property. He also spoke out against clerical immorality in his sermons and translated a prohibited work by Wycliffe into Czech. After the Hussite Wars (discussed later), a reform group known as the Bohemian Brethren, or Unity of the Brothers, spread in Bohemia. They believed in communal living and were located in rural areas. During the 1530s, the Brethren became interested in Lutheran theology, especially his doctrine of the Eucharist. Persecuted by the emperor, many of them fled to Poland and formed alliances with the Calvinists there. (Poland welcomed religious exiles of all persuasion.) Those who remained in Czech lands established the head of their church in Moravia and were the spiritual ancestors of present-day Moravians. They followed a strict Calvinist version of Reformed Protestantism.
Hussite Wars
The rebellion in central Europe known as the Hussite Wars began when local parishes in Bohemia
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Drove away their Catholic priests to protest the murder ofJan Hus. As the protest movement grew, Hussites became bolder in their actions. In 1419 a group of angry Hussites marched through the streets of Prague to the town hall, where they threw the magistrates out of the windows. This famous Defenestration of Prague accelerated the conflict, as King Sigismund led a crusade against the Bohemian rebels after Pope Martin V declared war in 1420. In spite of repeated invasions by Imperial troops, the Hussites held firm. Their representatives were invited to the Council of Basel in 1433, but the opposing groups could not agree to a peace treaty. In 1436 the conflict was settled by the Compacta of Prague, which also recognized the Czech national church and Sigismund as king of Bohemia.
Reformed Protestantism spread in French-speaking Switzerland through the leadership of Jean Calvin (1509-64). Trained at French universities in humanities and civil law, Calvin was destined for a career in the church. After the Augsburg Confession, however, he became attracted to Lutheran doctrine and fell into disfavor. Calvin fled from Paris to Basel, where in 1536 he first published his Institutio religionis chris-tianae (Institute of the Christian religion). Invited to Geneva to help spread the Reformation, he ran into difficulties with the Zwinglians (discussed later). This group, based in Bern, disagreed with some of the stricter aspects of Calvin’s proposed church discipline, and he moved to Strasbourg. There, Calvin preached and wrote for three years, translating his
GERMANY
Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), a leading theologian of the Lutheran Reformation, assumed Luther’s position of leadership while the latter was held in the Wartburg (see pages 46-48). Melanchthon had defended those who preached in the German vernacular, a practice forbidden by the church. During the 1530 Diet of Augsburg, Melanchthon wrote and Luther approved the Augsburg Confession. This historic document set forth the new confession of faith, which included a list of ecclesiastical abuses that the Lutherans demanded be corrected. It also set forth Luther’s conviction that faith, not good works, merited divine grace. This doctrine was known as justification by faith alone. Luther also argued that priests, monks, and nuns be allowed to marry. A revised version of the Augsburg Confession was published in 1531; as a result the doctrinal points of Lutheranism could be easily disseminated. The printing press, in fact, was a major agent in the spread of Protestantism. Anticlerical prints and images on printed broadsides proliferated from Reformation presses. Members of the clergy were sometimes shown as deformed or involved in obscene acts. These publications served as an important tool of propaganda, especially among people who could not read. In popular German poetry such as the Fastnachtspiele, the satire often extended beyond the clergy to ridicule the pope.
2.9 Portrait of Jean Calvin in his study. Engraving in his Works, 1671. (Note that books in the Renaissance were typically shelved with their spine to the wall). (Photograph courtesy of Sotheby’s, © 2003)
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Institutes into French. Finally he settled in Geneva, where he established a dogmatic government that functioned as a watchdog of public morality.
Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531) helped spread Reformed Protestantism in German-speaking Switzerland. In 1518 Zwingli moved to Zurich, appointed as a priest in the Old Minster, and the following year he preached the first Reformation sermons in the Swiss Confederation. Zwingli began publishing Protestant tracts, denouncing the authority of bishops and the pope. Zwingli’s break with the church was initially based on the issue of the celibacy of priests. In a public disputation of 1523, he persuaded the Zurich council to adopt his theses and announce its independence from Catholic authority. In a debate with an advocate of the pope, Zwingli had successfully defended 67 theses detailing his beliefs. In 1531, Swiss cantons loyal to Catholicism attacked Zurich and Zwingli was killed during the battle.
THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands had a diversity of religions, including a large community of converted Jews in Amsterdam. Anabaptists (whose name means “rebaptized”), considered heretical by Luther, had several sects in the Netherlands. Believing that infant baptism was insufficient, they required that adults be baptized. As pacifists, they refused to take oaths of allegiance or to serve in the military. Thousands of Anabaptists were executed for their aberrant doctrinal stance and unorthodox behavior. Menno Simons (1496-1561) was a leader of Dutch Anabaptists. Renouncing practices such as polygamy and public nudity, for which Anabaptists had become infamous, Simons called for his followers to live meekly, away from the world. Adherents to Anabaptism outside the Netherlands, such as members of the Swiss Brethren, joined the Mennonites to escape persecution.
The two major Reformation groups in the Netherlands were Lutherans and Calvinists, and the latter became the dominant force. Dutch Calvinists seemingly took the fiercely moralistic overtones of Calvin’s doctrine and transformed it into an aggressively militaristic crusade against Catholic troops sent by the king of Spain. In the Netherlands, Calvinism helped propel the United Provinces to independence in the 17th century.
Henry YIII, king of England (1491-1547), was responsible for establishing a modified form of Protestantism in England. Because his wife, Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), was unable to produce an heir, the king wanted to marry Anne Boleyn (1507-36). When the pope refused to grant him a divorce or annulment, Henry denied all papal authority in England, and he assumed the role of head of the Church of England (Anglican Church) in 1534. In doctrine, the Church of England followed a compromise between Protestantism and Catholicism, its rituals explained in the Book of Common Prayer (1549-59, see pages 52-53). After Henry broke away from the church, the statesman Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485-1540) became his secretary as well as vicar-general of the Church of England. Cromwell engineered the dissolution of English monasteries between 1536 and 1540, when most of the property was seized and distributed to members of the nobility. This redistribution of property worth millions of dollars, more than any other factor, assured the success of the Reformation in England. Cromwell also had Miles Coverdale’s (1488-1568) English translation of the Bible published in 1535, and he commissioned work for the Great Bible of 1539.
During the reign of Mary I (1516-58, ruled 1553-58), Protestants were persecuted in England. The daughter of a Spanish princess and married to the king of Spain, Mary had been raised in a strict Catholic household. Her chief goals as queen were to exterminate Protestant rebels and to restore England to the Catholic fold. After her death, Elizabeth I (1533-1603) established herself as head of the Church of England and reinstated Protestantism. During the first decade of her reign, a group of reformers voiced the complaint that the Church of England was not strict enough in its doctrine and standards of behavior. They became known as Puritans for the purity of their morality and beliefs.
SCOTLAND
Calvinism prevailed in Scotland, opening the way for Scotland to become politically united with England in the early 17th century. Mary, queen of Scots (1542-87), a devout Catholic, was never accepted by
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Her subjects because of the rising tide of Calvinist faith. The reformer who did more than anyone else to establish Protestantism in Scotland was John Knox (c. 1513-72). Fleeing to Europe after Mary I became queen, he met with Calvin in Geneva. Although Knox was banned from England by Elizabeth because of his rather unflattering book First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558), his influence in Scotland was pervasive. He helped write the Scottish Book of Common Order.
FRANCE
French Protestants, known as Huguenots, practiced Calvinism. Their first synod was established in Paris in 1559. During the reign of Francis I (1494-1547), he at first was tolerant of religious reformers, partly because of his sister, Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549), who had evangelical tendencies and sheltered dissidents at her court. But in 1534 the Affaire des Placards caused the king to respond with ruthless persecutions. Broadsides (placards) denouncing the mass had been posted all over Paris, including the door of the royal bedchamber. This event demonstrated the radical nature of French Protestantism, which until then had not been fully understood. Ten years later, Francis permitted the slaughter of Waldenses in Provence who had formally renounced the Catholic Church. These violent actions toward reformers in France set the stage for the Wars of Religion (discussed in the following section).
Wars of Religion in France
The kings of France were closely connected to the papacy and the Catholic Church; their oath of coronation included a vow to eradicate heretics and support the faith. One of the king’s titles, in fact, was “Most Christian King.” Ta understand the forces that led to the eight devastating Wars of Religion in France between 1562 and 1598, one must look at the personal relationships among several families. The stage was set for violence in 1559, after the death of Henry II, who had been planning to persecute heretics, notably the Huguenots. His son, Francis II (1544-60), was only 15 when he became king. Francis’s wife was Mary, queen of Scots (1542-87), who happened to be the niece of the two Guise brothers, Charles of Guise, cardinal of Lorraine (1525-74), and Francis of Lorraine, duke of Guise (1519-63). The latter was a militant Catholic who dominated court politics during the two years of Francis’s reign, causing a group of Protestants to plot to kidnap the young king in 1560. Their plot was exposed, and hundreds were hanged in retribution, many of their bodies swinging for days from the window ledges of the palace in Amboise for all to see. This massacre galvanized Huguenot members of the nobility as well as those in the middle and lower classes.
When Francis II died, his brother, a boy of 10, was crowned as Charles IX (1550-74). Their mother, Catherine de’ Medici (1519-89), acted as regent, even after Charles was of age. She was the real power behind the throne until 1588. Initially Catherine de’ Medici attempted to establish a compromise between Protestants and Catholics, allowing Protestants the freedom to preach openly. This moderate path led only to heightened hostility among powerful Catholics, who used the printing press to propagandize against the Huguenots. War was the result; Catholic troops mowed down Protestants as they gathered to worship outside city walls, as required by the government. Huguenots once again plotted to kidnap the king, and he panicked, ordering that the Huguenot leaders in Paris be assassinated. His order was applied in the broadest sense, and some 2,000 people were killed in Paris on August 24, 1572, the infamous Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre. France was in religious turmoil for much of the next quarter-century. Charles IX was succeeded in 1574 by his brother, Henry III (1551-80), who failed to produce a male heir. The nearest heir was Henry of Navarre (1553-1610), an arch-Protestant who had fought alongside Gaspard of Coligny (1519-72), commander in chief of the Huguenots. When Henry III was assassinated in 1589, Henry of Navarre, Catherine’s son-in-law, claimed the throne as Henry IV. He converted to Catholicism, uttering the famous words “Paris is well worth a mass.”
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