An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 46

[Sidenote: Charles V's confidence in the settlement of the religious differences by a council.]

Charles V, who did not fully grasp the irreconcilable differences between Protestant and Catholic beliefs, made repeated efforts to bring the two parties together by ordering the Protestants to accept what seemed to him a simple statement of the Christian faith. He had great confidence that if representatives of the old and the new beliefs could meet one another in a church council all points of disagreement might be amicably settled. The pope was, however, reluctant to see a council summoned in Germany, for he had by no means forgotten the conduct of the Council of Basel. To call the German Protestants into Italy, on the other hand, would have been useless, for none of them would have responded or have paid any attention to the decisions of a body which would appear to them to be under the pope's immediate control. It was only after years of delay that in 1545, just before Luther's death, a general council finally met in the city of Trent, on the border between Germany and Italy.

[Sidenote: The Council of Trent, 1545-1563, sanctions the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.]

As the German Protestants were preoccupied at the moment by an approaching conflict with the emperor and, moreover, hoped for nothing from the council's action, they did not attend its sessions.

Consequently the papal representatives and the Roman Catholic prelates were masters of the situation. The council immediately took up just those matters in which the Protestants had departed farthest from the old beliefs. In its early sessions it proclaimed all those accursed who taught that the sinner was saved by faith alone, or who questioned man's power, with G.o.d's aid, to forward his salvation by good works. Moreover, it declared that if any one should say--as did the Protestants--that the sacraments were not all inst.i.tuted by Christ; "or that they are more or less than seven, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Ordination, and Matrimony; or even that any one of these is not truly and properly a sacrament, let him be accursed." The ancient Latin translation of the Bible--the Vulgate--was fixed as the standard. No one should presume to question its accuracy so far as doctrine was concerned, or be permitted to publish any interpretation of the Bible differing from that of the Church.

[Sidenote: Reform measures of the council.]

While the council thus finally rejected any possibility of compromise with the Protestants, it took measures to do away with the abuses of which the Protestants complained. The bishops were ordered to reside in their respective dioceses, to preach regularly, and to see that those who were appointed to church benefices should fulfill the duties of their offices and not merely enjoy the revenue. Measures were also taken to improve education and secure the regular reading of the Bible in churches, monasteries, and schools.

[Sidenote: Final sessions of the Council of Trent, 1562-1563.]

[Sidenote: Importance of the council's work.]

When the council had been in session for something more than a year, its meetings were interrupted by various unfavorable conditions. Little was accomplished for a number of years, but in 1562 the members once more rea.s.sembled to prosecute their work with renewed vigor. Many more of the doctrines of the Roman Church in regard to which there had been some uncertainty, were carefully defined, and the teachings of the heretics explicitly rejected. A large number of decrees directed against existing abuses were also ratified. _The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent_, which fill a stout volume, provided a new and solid foundation for the law and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, and they const.i.tute an historical source of the utmost importance.[310] They furnish, in fact, our most complete and authentic statement of the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. They, however, only restate long-accepted beliefs and sanction the organization of the Church briefly described in an earlier chapter (XVI).

[Sidenote: Ignatius Loyola, 1491-1556, the founder of the Jesuits.]

168. Among those who, during the final sessions of the council, st.u.r.dily opposed every attempt to reduce in any way the exalted powers of the pope, was the head of a new religious society, which was becoming the most powerful organization in Europe. The Jesuit order, or Society of Jesus, was founded by a Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola. He had been a soldier in his younger days, and while bravely fighting for his king, Charles V, had been wounded by a cannon ball (1521). Obliged to lie inactive for weeks, he occupied his time in reading the lives of the saints, and became filled with a burning ambition to emulate their deeds. Upon recovering he dedicated himself to the service of the Lord, donned a beggar's gown, and started on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When there he began to realize that he could do little without an education. So he returned to Spain and, although already thirty-three years old, took his place beside the boys who were learning the elements of Latin grammar.

After two years he entered a Spanish university, and later went to Paris to carry on his theological studies.

In Paris he sought to influence his fellow-students at the university, and finally, in 1534, seven of his companions agreed to follow him to Palestine, or, if they were prevented from that, to devote themselves to the service of the pope. On arriving in Venice they found that war had broken out between that republic and the Turks. They accordingly gave up their plan for converting the infidels in the Orient and, with the pope's permission, began to preach in the neighboring towns, explaining the Scriptures and bringing comfort to those in the hospitals. When asked to what order they belonged, they replied, "to the Society of Jesus."

[Sidenote: Rigid organization and discipline of the Jesuits.]

In 1538 Loyola summoned his disciples to Rome, and there they worked out the principles of their order. The pope then incorporated these in a bull in which he gave his sanction to the new society.[311] The organization was to be under the absolute control of a _general_, who was to be chosen for life by the general a.s.sembly of the order. Loyola had been a soldier, and he laid great and constant stress upon the source of all efficient military discipline, namely, absolute and unquestioning obedience. This he declared to be the mother of all virtue and happiness. Not only were all the members to obey the pope as Christ's representative on earth, and undertake without hesitation any journey, no matter how distant or perilous, which he might command, but each was to obey his superiors in the order as if he were receiving directions from Christ in person. He must have no will or preference of his own, but must be as the staff which supports and aids its bearer in any way in which he sees fit to use it. This admirable organization and incomparable discipline were the great secret of the later influence of the Jesuits.

[Sidenote: Objects and methods of the new order.]

The object of the society was to cultivate piety and the love of G.o.d, especially through example. The members were to pledge themselves to lead a pure life of poverty and devotion. Their humility was to show itself in face and att.i.tude, so that their very appearance should attract those with whom they came in contact to the service of G.o.d. The methods adopted by the society for reaching its ends are of the utmost importance. A great number of its members were priests, who went about preaching, hearing confession, and encouraging devotional exercises. But the Jesuits were teachers as well as preachers and confessors. They clearly perceived the advantage of bringing young people under their influence, and they became the schoolmasters of Catholic Europe. So successful were their methods of instruction that even Protestants sometimes sent their children to them.

[Sidenote: Rapid increase of the Jesuits in numbers.]

[Sidenote: Their missions and explorations.]

It was originally proposed that the number of persons admitted to the order should not exceed sixty, but this limit was speedily removed, and before the death of Loyola over a thousand persons had joined the society. Under his successor the number was trebled, and it went on increasing for two centuries. The founder of the order had been, as we have seen, attracted to missionary work from the first, and the Jesuits rapidly spread not only over Europe, but throughout the whole world.

Francis Xavier, one of Loyola's original little band, went to Hindustan, the Moluccas, and j.a.pan. Brazil, Florida, Mexico, and Peru were soon fields of active missionary work at a time when Protestants scarcely dreamed as yet of carrying Christianity to the heathen. We owe to the Jesuits' reports much of our knowledge of the condition of America when white men first began to explore Canada and the Mississippi valley, for the followers of Loyola boldly penetrated into regions unknown to Europeans, and settled among the natives with the purpose of bringing the Gospel to them.[312]

[Sidenote: Their fight against the Protestants.]

Dedicated as they were to the service of the pope, the Jesuits early directed their energies against Protestantism. They sent their members into Germany and the Netherlands, and even made strenuous efforts to reclaim England. Their success was most apparent in southern Germany and Austria, where they became the confessors and confidential advisers of the rulers. They not only succeeded in checking the progress of Protestantism, but were able to reconquer for the pope districts in which the old faith had been abandoned.

[Sidenote: Accusations brought against the Jesuits.]

Protestants soon realized that the new order was their most powerful and dangerous enemy. Their apprehensions produced a bitter hatred which blinded them to the high purposes of the founders of the order and led them to attribute an evil purpose to every act of the Jesuits. The Jesuits' air of humility the Protestants declared to be mere hypocrisy under which they carried on their intrigues. The Jesuits' readiness to adjust themselves to circ.u.mstances and the variety of the tasks that they undertook seemed to their enemies a willingness to resort to any means in order to reach their ends. They were popularly supposed to justify the most deceitful and immoral measures on the ground that the result would be "for the greater glory of G.o.d." The very obedience of which the Jesuits said so much was viewed by the hostile Protestant as one of their worst offenses, for he believed that the members of the order were the blind tools of their superiors and that they would not hesitate even to commit a crime if so ordered.

[Sidenote: Decline and abolition of the Jesuits, 1773.]

[Sidenote: Reestablishment of the order, 1814.]

Doubtless there have been many unscrupulous Jesuits and some wicked ones, and as time went on the order degenerated just as the earlier ones had done. In the eighteenth century it was accused of undertaking great commercial enterprises, and for this and other reasons lost the confidence of even the Catholics. The king of Portugal was the first to banish the Jesuits, and then France, where they had long been very unpopular with an influential party of the Catholics, expelled them in 1764. Convinced that the order could no longer serve any useful purpose, the pope abolished it in 1773. It was, however, restored in 1814, and now again has thousands of members.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Philip II of Spain]

[Sidenote: Philip II, the chief enemy of Protestantism among the rulers of Europe.]

169. The chief ally of the pope and the Jesuits in their efforts to check Protestantism in the latter half of the sixteenth century was the son of Charles V, Philip II. Like the Jesuits he enjoys a most unenviable reputation among Protestants. Certain it is that they had no more terrible enemy among the rulers of the day than he. He closely watched the course of affairs in France and Germany with the hope of promoting the cause of the Catholics. He eagerly forwarded every conspiracy against England's Protestant queen, Elizabeth, and finally manned a mighty fleet with the purpose of overthrowing her. He resorted, moreover, to incredible cruelty in his attempts to bring back his possessions in the Netherlands to what he considered the true faith.

[Sidenote: Division of the Hapsburg possessions between the German and Spanish branches.]

Charles V, crippled with the gout and old before his time, laid down the cares of government in 1555-1556. To his brother Ferdinand, who had acquired by marriage the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, Charles had earlier transferred the German possessions of the Hapsburgs. To his son, Philip II (1556-1598), he gave Spain with its great American colonies, Milan, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the Netherlands.[313]

[Sidenote: Philip II's fervent desire to stamp out Protestantism.]

Charles had constantly striven to maintain the old religion within his dominions. He had never hesitated to use the Inquisition in Spain and the Netherlands, and it was the great disappointment of his life that a part of his empire had become Protestant. He was, nevertheless, no fanatic. Like many of the princes of the time, he was forced to take sides on the religious question without, perhaps, himself having any deep religious sentiments. The maintenance of the Catholic faith he believed to be necessary in order that he should keep his hold upon his scattered and diverse dominions. On the other hand, the whole life and policy of his son Philip were guided by a fervent attachment to the old religion. He was willing to sacrifice both himself and his country in his long fight against the detested Protestants within and without his realms. And he had vast resources at his disposal, for Spain was a strong power, not only on account of her income from America, but also because her soldiers and their commanders were the best in Europe at this period.

[Sidenote: The Netherlands.]

170. The Netherlands,[314] which were to cause Philip his first and greatest trouble, included seventeen provinces which Charles V had inherited from his grandmother, Mary of Burgundy. They occupied the position on the map where we now find the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium. Each of the provinces had its own government, but Charles had grouped them together and arranged that the German empire should protect them. In the north the hardy Germanic population had been able, by means of dikes which kept out the sea, to reclaim large tracts of lowlands.

Here considerable cities had grown up,--Harlem, Leyden, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. To the south were the flourishing towns of Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, and Antwerp, which had for hundreds of years been centers of manufacture and trade.

[Sidenote: Philip II's harsh att.i.tude toward the Netherlands.]

Charles, in spite of some very harsh measures, had retained the loyalty of the people of the Netherlands, for he was himself one of them and they felt a patriotic pride in his achievements. Toward Philip their att.i.tude was very different. His sour face and haughty manner made a disagreeable impression upon the people at Brussels when Charles V first introduced him to them as their future ruler. He was to them a Spaniard and a foreigner, and he ruled them as such after he returned to Spain.

Instead of attempting to win them by meeting their legitimate demands, he did everything to alienate all cla.s.ses in his Burgundian realm and increase their natural hatred and suspicion of the Spaniards. The people were forced to house Spanish soldiers whose insolence drove them nearly to desperation. A half-sister of the king, the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma, who did not even know their language, was given to them as their regent. Philip put his trust in a group of upstarts rather than in the n.o.bility of the provinces, who naturally felt that they should be given some part in the direction of affairs.

[Sidenote: The Inquisition in the Netherlands.]

What was still worse, Philip proposed that the Inquisition should carry on its work far more actively than hitherto and put an end to the heresy which appeared to him to defile his fair realms. The Inquisition was no new thing to the provinces. Charles V had issued the most cruel edicts against the followers of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin. According to a law of 1550, heretics who persistently refused to recant were to be burned alive. Even those who confessed their errors and abjured their heresy were, if men, to lose their heads, if women, to be buried alive. In both cases their property was to be confiscated. The lowest estimate of those who were executed in the Netherlands during Charles' reign is fifty thousand. Although these terrible laws had not checked the growth of Protestantism, all of Charles' decrees were solemnly reenacted by Philip in the first month of his reign.

[Sidenote: Protest against Philip's policy.]

[Sidenote: The 'Beggars.']

For ten years the people suffered Philip's rule; but their king, instead of listening to the protests of their leaders who were quite as earnest Catholics as himself, appeared to be bent on the destruction of the land. So in 1566 some five hundred of the n.o.bles, who were later joined by many of the citizens, pledged themselves to make a common stand against Spanish tyranny and the Inquisition. Although they had no idea as yet of a revolt, they planned a great demonstration during which they presented a pet.i.tion to the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma requesting the suspension of the king's edicts. The story is that one of the d.u.c.h.ess' councilors a.s.sured her that she had no reason to fear these "beggars." This name was voluntarily a.s.sumed by the pet.i.tioners and an important group of the insurgents in the later troubles were known as "Beggars."

[Sidenote: The image-breaking Protestants.]

[Sidenote: Philip sends the duke of Alva to the Netherlands.]

The Protestant preachers now took courage, and large congregations gathered in the fields to hear them. Excited by their exhortations, those who were converted to the new religion rushed into the Catholic churches, tore down the images, broke the stained gla.s.s windows, and wrecked the altars. The d.u.c.h.ess of Parma was just succeeding in quieting the tumult when Philip took a step which led finally to the revolt of the Netherlands. He decided to dispatch to the low countries the remorseless duke of Alva, whose conduct has made his name synonymous with blind and unmeasured cruelty.

171. The report that Alva was coming caused the flight of many of those who especially feared his approach. William of Orange, who was to be the leader in the approaching war against Spain, went to Germany. Thousands of Flemish weavers fled across the North Sea, and the products of their looms became before long an important article of export from England.

[Sidenote: Alva's cruel administration, 1567-1573.]

[Sidenote: The Council of Blood.]