Christianity - The First Three Thousand Years Part 11

It was the Spanish Inquisition's unfavourable interest in this devotional activity which led to Loyola's hasty exit from Spain for the University of Paris in 1528, a year before Valdes's own flight. Around the exiled Spaniard gathered a group of talented young men who were inspired by his vision for a new mission to the Holy Land. To their severe disappointment, the international situation in 1537 made it impossible for them to take ship, but the friends resolved to look positively on their setback and create yet another variant on the gild/confraternity /oratory model: not a religious order, but what they called a Compagnia Compagnia or Society of Jesus. Soon the Society's members were known informally as Jesuits: a weapon to be placed in the pope's hand as a gift to the Church. Ignatius never lost his courtly skills, particularly with pious n.o.ble ladies of exceptional political power, and his pastorally sensitive intervention in a papal family crisis was the main spur to secure the Society Pope Paul III's generous Bull of Foundation in 1540. It was an astonishingly quick promotion for such an unformed organization, whose purposes were at that stage unclear. or Society of Jesus. Soon the Society's members were known informally as Jesuits: a weapon to be placed in the pope's hand as a gift to the Church. Ignatius never lost his courtly skills, particularly with pious n.o.ble ladies of exceptional political power, and his pastorally sensitive intervention in a papal family crisis was the main spur to secure the Society Pope Paul III's generous Bull of Foundation in 1540. It was an astonishingly quick promotion for such an unformed organization, whose purposes were at that stage unclear.7 The early history of the Jesuits has been interestingly obscured in light of their extraordinary later success and inst.i.tutionalization. The reasons for that obscurity are enmeshed in the turbulent politics of the 1540s which decided the future direction of the Catholic Reformation. Before this outcome, the Jesuits were part of that multiform movement of spiritual energy, the Spirituali Spirituali, and like much else in Spirituale Spirituale activity, their work could easily have been destroyed. activity, their work could easily have been destroyed.8 That they and their work were not is a tribute to the inspired political talents of both Ignatius and his successors. A curious feature of Ignatius's voluminous surviving correspondence is that almost all of it concerns matters of business. One has difficulty gauging from it what spiritual qualities singled out the writer to be a saint - this author of that key text of Catholic spirituality, the That they and their work were not is a tribute to the inspired political talents of both Ignatius and his successors. A curious feature of Ignatius's voluminous surviving correspondence is that almost all of it concerns matters of business. One has difficulty gauging from it what spiritual qualities singled out the writer to be a saint - this author of that key text of Catholic spirituality, the Exercises Exercises. The silence indicates a huge missing body of letters. Evidently an efficiently comprehensive hand, probably in the 1560s, refashioned the early years of the Society by deleting large portions of the story.9

REGENSBURG AND TRENT, A CONTEST RESOLVED (1541-59).

There was good reason for this prudence. In the early 1540s the Spirituali Spirituali might seem to be shaping the future of reform in the Church; yet against Cardinal Contarini's energetic efforts to find common ground with Protestants, particularly on justification by faith, was ranged the hostility of Cardinal Carafa to any such concession. Carafa's suspicion of the newly formed Jesuits was equally heartfelt, for he detested Ignatius Loyola. The dislike may have been personal, but in the Neapolitan Carafa's mind the crucial factor was that Loyola came from Spain. might seem to be shaping the future of reform in the Church; yet against Cardinal Contarini's energetic efforts to find common ground with Protestants, particularly on justification by faith, was ranged the hostility of Cardinal Carafa to any such concession. Carafa's suspicion of the newly formed Jesuits was equally heartfelt, for he detested Ignatius Loyola. The dislike may have been personal, but in the Neapolitan Carafa's mind the crucial factor was that Loyola came from Spain. Spirituali Spirituali and Jesuits now faced a crisis. Contarini's peace-making efforts gained warm backing from the Holy Roman Emperor, but the Cardinal failed to clinch an ambitious scheme of reconciliation proposed in discussions with Protestant leaders (a 'colloquy') around the Imperial Diet at Regensburg (Ratisbon) in 1541. Within a year Contarini died a bitterly disappointed man under house arrest. After that, some of the more exposed leaders of the and Jesuits now faced a crisis. Contarini's peace-making efforts gained warm backing from the Holy Roman Emperor, but the Cardinal failed to clinch an ambitious scheme of reconciliation proposed in discussions with Protestant leaders (a 'colloquy') around the Imperial Diet at Regensburg (Ratisbon) in 1541. Within a year Contarini died a bitterly disappointed man under house arrest. After that, some of the more exposed leaders of the Spirituali Spirituali fled north to shelter with Protestants. Valdes avoided the emergency, having died in 1541, but Ochino and Vermigli led the stampede, their departure causing a huge sensation - Ochino was by then General of the Capuchin Order. Prominent among other defectors were wealthy merchants, more able to relocate their a.s.sets than either humble adherents or members of the n.o.bility; soon they and the intellectuals they financed were bringing a remarkable variety of religious views and free-thinking to the Reformed lands of eastern and northern Europe, with momentous long-term consequences (see pp. 640-42 and 778-9). fled north to shelter with Protestants. Valdes avoided the emergency, having died in 1541, but Ochino and Vermigli led the stampede, their departure causing a huge sensation - Ochino was by then General of the Capuchin Order. Prominent among other defectors were wealthy merchants, more able to relocate their a.s.sets than either humble adherents or members of the n.o.bility; soon they and the intellectuals they financed were bringing a remarkable variety of religious views and free-thinking to the Reformed lands of eastern and northern Europe, with momentous long-term consequences (see pp. 640-42 and 778-9).

Gian Pietro Carafa's hour had come. The conciliators had not merely failed to land a result from the Regensburg Colloquy (an enterprise which he had consistently denounced), but many of their brightest stars were revealed as traitors to the Church, and tainted all their a.s.sociates who stayed. Now Carafa could persuade the Pope to set up a Roman Inquisition, modelled on the Spanish Inquisition founded seventy years before, with Carafa himself as one of the Inquisitors-General. One of its functions (a function which remains to the present day in the Roman Inquisition's rather more bland guise as the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) was to determine what the norm for theology was within the Catholic Church. It usurped this role from the Sorbonne in Paris, a venerable academic inst.i.tution, but inconveniently beyond the pope's control. There was much less incentive now for remaining Spirituali Spirituali to feel any commitment to the traditional Church. Cardinal Pole, who always tried to avoid closing options or drawing clear boundaries, did what he could to protect his dependants, who included some of Valdes's former admirers, and to keep them faithful to the Church. His friend Cardinal Giovanni Morone held the Inquisition at bay in his religiously turbulent diocese of Modena by an extensive campaign of swearing leading citizens to a Formulary of Faith which Contarini had designed to persuade truculent evangelicals back into the fold. to feel any commitment to the traditional Church. Cardinal Pole, who always tried to avoid closing options or drawing clear boundaries, did what he could to protect his dependants, who included some of Valdes's former admirers, and to keep them faithful to the Church. His friend Cardinal Giovanni Morone held the Inquisition at bay in his religiously turbulent diocese of Modena by an extensive campaign of swearing leading citizens to a Formulary of Faith which Contarini had designed to persuade truculent evangelicals back into the fold.

Some persisted within the Church. The most influential work of Italian spirituality in these years, the Beneficio di Cris...o...b..neficio di Cristo, was published in 1543 under Pole's patronage and apparently sold in tens of thousands before being translated into other European languages. Originally written by a Benedictine monk, Benedetto da Mantova, drawing on Benedictine devotional themes, it was revised by Benedetto's friend Marcantonio Flaminio, a protege of Valdes and Pole, to heighten its presentation of the spiritual and mystical aspects of Valdesian theology, and it also silently incorporated substantial quotations from the 1539 edition of John Calvin's Inst.i.tutes Inst.i.tutes! The text emphasized justification by faith alone and celebrated the benefits of suffering for the faith, yet Cardinal Morone loved it for its eloquence on the benefits of the Eucharist. The new Roman Inquisition's opinion of it (and therefore Carafa's) can be gauged by the fact that of all the thousands of copies printed in Italian, none was seen again from the sixteenth century down to 1843, when a stray turned up in the University Library in Cambridge, England. That disappearance, proof of the Inquisition's energy when it felt the need, is an eloquent symbol of the exclusion of the Spirituali Spirituali from the future of the Catholic Church. from the future of the Catholic Church.10 Only now did a council of the Church meet, in a compromise location to satisfy the mutual distrust of Pope and Emperor. It took place south of the Alps, but in a prince-bishopric which was imperial territory, at Trent in the Tyrol. The episcopal host and chairman from 1545, Cristoforo Madruzzo, was a Spirituale Spirituale sympathizer and old friend of Reginald Pole, and Pole was one of the Pope's three legates - but soon it became clear that other forces, among whom Carafa was an sympathizer and old friend of Reginald Pole, and Pole was one of the Pope's three legates - but soon it became clear that other forces, among whom Carafa was an eminence grise eminence grise, were directing the agenda. The council's decrees rained down to shut out compromise. First was a decree on authority, which emphasized the importance of seeing the Bible in a context of tradition, some of which was unwritten and therefore needed to be exclusively expounded by an authoritative Church. Then came a decree on justification which achieved the remarkable feat of using Augustine's language and concepts to exclude Luther's theology of salvation, particularly his a.s.sertion that sinful humanity cannot please G.o.d by any fulfilment of divine law. Before that decree was pa.s.sed in January 1547, Pole had left the council, his plea of illness all too real in terms of mental anguish.

The last chance for the now dispirited Spirituali Spirituali came on Pope Paul III's death in 1549. There was a distinct possibility that Pole might become pope - the dying pontiff had been one of those recommending him - but Carafa's dramatic intervention with charges of heresy against the Englishman turned a series of close votes away from him and a safe papal civil servant was elected as Julius III. Pole was not the sort of man to put up a fight. Even though in private correspondence with trusted friends in the 1550s he was prepared to declare the Roman Inquisition satanic in its operations, he was always inclined to leave the Holy Spirit to do the political manoeuvring. One might regard that instinct as admirably unworldly. It could also be seen as unrealistic, egotistically idealistic, or even springing from an apocalyptic certainty that G.o.d's purposes were about to be summed up in the Last Days, with Pole as his agent. came on Pope Paul III's death in 1549. There was a distinct possibility that Pole might become pope - the dying pontiff had been one of those recommending him - but Carafa's dramatic intervention with charges of heresy against the Englishman turned a series of close votes away from him and a safe papal civil servant was elected as Julius III. Pole was not the sort of man to put up a fight. Even though in private correspondence with trusted friends in the 1550s he was prepared to declare the Roman Inquisition satanic in its operations, he was always inclined to leave the Holy Spirit to do the political manoeuvring. One might regard that instinct as admirably unworldly. It could also be seen as unrealistic, egotistically idealistic, or even springing from an apocalyptic certainty that G.o.d's purposes were about to be summed up in the Last Days, with Pole as his agent.11 The Holy Spirit did not oblige, and with Pole's defeat there died the last chance of a peaceful settlement of religion in Western Christendom of which his hero Erasmus might have approved. The Holy Spirit did not oblige, and with Pole's defeat there died the last chance of a peaceful settlement of religion in Western Christendom of which his hero Erasmus might have approved.

One sign of radical change and of the quashing of alternative futures in that decade after 1545 was a literally spectacular volte-face from the best-informed family in Italy, the Florentine Medici. Throughout the 1540s, Duke Cosimo de' Medici continued to extend patronage and protection to disciples of Juan de Valdes, not least because Cosimo hated both Paul III (who was not above sheltering admirers of the unmentionable Savonarola) and Cardinal Carafa, who became Pope Paul IV in 1555. Apart from his fear of the family ambitions of a Farnese pope, Cosimo shared the determination of his own patron, Charles V, to seek ways of conciliating Protestants in the fashion of the Regensburg Colloquy. He prolonged his policy dangerously late. For a decade from 1545, the Medici were paying for a new scheme of fresco decoration for the choir and family chapels in their ancestral parish church of San Lorenzo, one of Florence's oldest and most famous churches. Their frescoes were an open declaration of support for evangelical reform in the Catholic Church.

It is unlikely that the artist, Jacopo da Pontormo, himself dreamt up the iconography of this highly sensitive project, startling in what it did not depict: any emblem of Purgatory, sacraments, inst.i.tutional Church or Trinity. What it did draw on were themes from the Catechism Catechism of Valdes, already prohibited in 1549 by the authorities in Venice, later also by the Roman Inquisition - images which clearly pointed those with eyes to see to the doctrine of justification by faith. Like Valdes's tract, Pontormo's paintings approached this incendiary theme through well-known Old Testament stories such as Noah building his ark, or Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac. With Pontormo dead in 1556 and Paul IV's death in 1559 bringing a pope much more congenial to the Medici, silence descended on the conundrum of why Pontormo had painted what he had painted. Medici publicists, led by the art historian Giorgio Vasari, attributed the fresco design to the artist's mental instability, and while the Medici became devout patrons of the Counter-Reformation (gaining an augmented t.i.tle of Grand Duke from Pope Pius V), the unfortunate Pontormo has gone down in art history as a lunatic. Although his frescoes survived much criticism and perplexity up to 1738, now we only have some of his original cartoons and a few rough sketches. of Valdes, already prohibited in 1549 by the authorities in Venice, later also by the Roman Inquisition - images which clearly pointed those with eyes to see to the doctrine of justification by faith. Like Valdes's tract, Pontormo's paintings approached this incendiary theme through well-known Old Testament stories such as Noah building his ark, or Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac. With Pontormo dead in 1556 and Paul IV's death in 1559 bringing a pope much more congenial to the Medici, silence descended on the conundrum of why Pontormo had painted what he had painted. Medici publicists, led by the art historian Giorgio Vasari, attributed the fresco design to the artist's mental instability, and while the Medici became devout patrons of the Counter-Reformation (gaining an augmented t.i.tle of Grand Duke from Pope Pius V), the unfortunate Pontormo has gone down in art history as a lunatic. Although his frescoes survived much criticism and perplexity up to 1738, now we only have some of his original cartoons and a few rough sketches.12 It is worth focusing on this episode, because it illuminates the murky and uncertain background to the early development of the Jesuits. It is no coincidence that they remained aloof from the work of the Inquisitions, conscious of the hara.s.sment which their founder had suffered in Spain; indeed no Jesuit has ever sat on an inquisitorial tribunal, leaving that duty to the various orders of friars. Ignatius and his successors played their hand through those turbulent and dangerous years with consummate skill and remarkable creativity. They more or less sleepwalked into one of their future chief occupations, secondary and higher education. They quickly set up 'colleges' in certain university towns, originally just intended as lodging places for student members of the Society. Unfortunately, potential lay benefactors were not excited by the inward-looking reference of such projects, which was an incentive for the Society to think about expanding the colleges' roles. By the 1550s, city authorities across Europe were scrabbling to secure de luxe school facilities like the first Jesuit experiments in Spain and Sicily.

Although Jesuit education was proudly proclaimed as free of charge (the Society put a huge and increasingly professional effort into fund-raising to ensure this), their limited manpower was concentrated on secondary education. It was very difficult for children of the poor to get the necessary primary grounding to enter schools at such an advanced level; so without any single policy decision, a Jesuit educational mission emerged to secure the next generation of merchants, gentry and n.o.bility - in other words, the people who mattered in converting Europe back to Catholic obedience. In time, Jesuits allied with another unconventional religious organization, the Ursulines, and steered Ursuline energies towards parallel female education, which was obviously problematic for males to undertake. It was a fruitful cooperation, which did not end the Ursulines' ability to mark out for themselves new initiatives in charitable and educational work.13 The Jesuits created a highly unusual form of the religious life: while keeping tight central control through their Superior-General, they had no regular decision-making community gatherings corporately 'in chapter', or a daily round of communal worship, gathering 'in choir' in church. Moreover they refused to require a distinct dress or habit for members, nor were they even necessarily ordained, despite the fact that their core tasks, preaching and hearing confessions, were the same as the orders of friars. It was not surprising that the Society soon attracted resentment from friars for what could be regarded as wilful selectivity from past disciplines - Jesuits did not always help themselves by their patronizing att.i.tude to other organizations, an unfortunate side effect of the fact that they were very well trained and mostly very clever. Whatever their faults, their non-clerical style (given that laymen were among their numbers) did address the excessive pretensions of clergy which had provoked much of the pa.s.sion behind the Protestant revolution. They did not wish to become an enclosed monastic order because Ignatius pa.s.sionately wanted to affirm the value of the world, and believed that it was possible to lead a fully spiritual life within it. He had after all seen more of the world than most Europeans, in wanderings as far as London and Jerusalem.

During the 1540s, Ignatius delicately finessed the Society's const.i.tution so that it was clearly understood that the Superior-General and not the pope was responsible for directing Jesuit mission policy.14 Jesuits were very determined to keep their own ident.i.ty. They resisted amalgamation with Carafa's Theatines, even though in many ways they resembled that organization. When Carafa became Pope Paul IV on the death of Marcellus III in 1555, he was intent on settling many old scores, especially against remnants of the Jesuits were very determined to keep their own ident.i.ty. They resisted amalgamation with Carafa's Theatines, even though in many ways they resembled that organization. When Carafa became Pope Paul IV on the death of Marcellus III in 1555, he was intent on settling many old scores, especially against remnants of the Spirituali Spirituali like the Society of Jesus. He began remodelling it into a conventional religious order, but fortunately for the Jesuits, the pontificate of this choleric and vindictive old man proved brief. In the wake of that trauma came a quiet reshaping of the Society for the service of the Church. Central was a new stress on a mission which seemed urgent after the Peace of Augsburg had recognized the existence of Lutheranism in 1555 (see p. 644). In a revised statement of purpose in 1550, the Society had added to 'propagation of the faith' the idea of 'defence' - that is, confronting Protestants. The programme this implied was accelerated after Ignatius Loyola's a.s.sistant Jeronimo Nadal visited Germany in 1555. Protestantism's dominance there profoundly shocked him, and convinced him that the Society must devote itself to reversing the situation. This represented a major change in direction: Nadal, prominent in Jesuit rebranding, now deliberately promoted the idea that the Society had been founded to combat the Reformation. like the Society of Jesus. He began remodelling it into a conventional religious order, but fortunately for the Jesuits, the pontificate of this choleric and vindictive old man proved brief. In the wake of that trauma came a quiet reshaping of the Society for the service of the Church. Central was a new stress on a mission which seemed urgent after the Peace of Augsburg had recognized the existence of Lutheranism in 1555 (see p. 644). In a revised statement of purpose in 1550, the Society had added to 'propagation of the faith' the idea of 'defence' - that is, confronting Protestants. The programme this implied was accelerated after Ignatius Loyola's a.s.sistant Jeronimo Nadal visited Germany in 1555. Protestantism's dominance there profoundly shocked him, and convinced him that the Society must devote itself to reversing the situation. This represented a major change in direction: Nadal, prominent in Jesuit rebranding, now deliberately promoted the idea that the Society had been founded to combat the Reformation.15

COUNTER-REFORMATIONS AFTER TRENT: ENGLAND, SPAIN AND THE MYSTICS.

The Jesuits thus moved into an era which can truly be styled 'Counter-Reformation', the aftermath of the Council of Trent's final session. Paul IV had refused to summon the council, disinclined to share decision-making with others, so Trent was not convened between 1552 and 1562, by which time Pope Paul had been safely dead for three years. By the end of 1563 it had completed its work, producing a coherent programme for a Catholicism conveniently labelled 'Tridentine', from the Latin name for Trent. The work was sealed with a uniform catechism of the Catholic faith, and a uniform liturgy: this uniformity of worship had no precedent in the history of the Western or indeed any other branch of Christianity, with the recent but significant exceptions of England and some Lutheran Churches. Naturally the Tridentine liturgy remained in Latin and not, like Protestant worship, in vernacular languages, but here there was a major complication, in the shape of the Greek, Eastern or Armenian Churches affiliated to Rome, all of which had long enjoyed their worship in their own various languages. So with a brevity and restraint which did not reflect any concern for Protestants, but rather a consciousness of that other expanding field of papal concern on the frontier with Orthodoxy, the Council had commended Latin mainly by deploring the a.s.sertion that liturgy should always be in the vernacular. The equally muted tone in the council's commendation of obligatory celibacy for the clergy is likely to have had the same diplomatic motivation in regard to the Eastern Churches, with their tradition of married clergy. Greater flexibility and imagination in implementing the celibacy requirement would greatly have helped the Church's world mission in societies where an insistence on celibacy was countercultural and baffling.16 Everything nearly collapsed over one issue: where ultimate authority lay in the Church. This began with attempts to compel bishops to reside in their dioceses, and by a general and rather necessary debate about the nature of ordination - had the office of bishop been const.i.tuted by Christ or by the Church in its early development? If the latter, it implied that the authority of bishops came from the pope, successor of Peter, chosen by Christ to be the rock on which he built his Church (Matthew 16.18), rather than that every bishop was a direct representative of Christ's authority. Prince-bishops in the empire were only the most prominent members of the episcopate to feel unenthusiastic about an exclusive affirmation of the pope's position. The issue was too explosive to resolve, and it took some masterly drafting to create a formula which would not definitively place exclusive divine authority in either the papacy or the general body of the episcopate. In practice, many centralizing reforms later in the century put the advantage in the hands of the papacy, particularly because these reforms gave the pope and his officials prime responsibility for interpreting what the decrees and canons of Trent actually meant. In the very different situation of the nineteenth century, the first Vatican Council of 1870 formally made the resolution in favour of papal primacy which had been impossible in the 1560s (see pp. 824-5).

Trent bequeathed the Church a programme which had first been tried out in the kingdom of England in the reign of Queen Mary, after her unexpected accession in 1553 (see p. 632). Mary's reign has not often been seen as a Tridentine experiment, partly because it hardly had time to get going in the five years of life left to her, so it has been treated by Protestant English historiography as a sterile interlude in a smoothly developing Protestant Reformation. Mary deserves pity for the disappointment of her pa.s.sionate hopes for a son who would carry on her work, making her believe in pregnancies long after it was sadly obvious to all those around her that they did not exist. She did not improve her historical legacy by sponsoring the burning of Protestants as heretics, a campaign whose intensity was, in comparison with other parts of Europe, a decade or two out of date. It only bred a celebration of martyrs to which English Protestantism rallied for centuries. At the same time the Queen was not helped by Pope Paul IV, who after his accession, among his many efforts to settle old scores, tried to bring down his old adversary Cardinal Pole, as a pestilential survivor of the Spirituali Spirituali. Pole was now back in his native land, having succeeded the executed Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury. Julius III had very sensibly chosen Pole as papal legate (representative) to the newly Catholic England, but now Paul summoned the Cardinal Archbishop to Rome to face charges of heresy. Pope Paul also declared war on Mary's husband, King Philip II of Spain. Poor Mary, devout daughter of the Church, found herself in the crazy position of defying the Pope and forbidding Pole to leave her realm for what would almost certainly have been a heretic's death in Rome. The equally Catholic King of Poland had a similar experience of Paul's paranoia.17 Yet if we look past the ghastly mistake of the burnings and the dismal relations with the papacy, creative re-examination reveals Mary's Church as a forerunner of much which happened in the Tridentine world, led after all by an archbishop who had devoted his career to meditating on Church reform.18 England undertook a remarkably efficient operation to discipline clergy who had married in King Edward VI's reign, in no more than a couple of years separating them from their wives and successfully redeploying most of them in new parishes; Rome spent the next half-century trying to secure such uniform clerical celibacy in central Europe. In the synod of the English Church which he was able to summon as papal legate, Pole sorted out decades of deteriorating Church finance and pioneered new eucharistic devotions; his bishops encouraged preaching and published official sermons to match those of Protestants, and crucially set out to implement a programme of clergy training schools, seminaries, for each diocese: the first time that the Catholic Church had seriously addressed the problem of equipping a parish clergy to equal the developing articulacy of Protestant ministers. England undertook a remarkably efficient operation to discipline clergy who had married in King Edward VI's reign, in no more than a couple of years separating them from their wives and successfully redeploying most of them in new parishes; Rome spent the next half-century trying to secure such uniform clerical celibacy in central Europe. In the synod of the English Church which he was able to summon as papal legate, Pole sorted out decades of deteriorating Church finance and pioneered new eucharistic devotions; his bishops encouraged preaching and published official sermons to match those of Protestants, and crucially set out to implement a programme of clergy training schools, seminaries, for each diocese: the first time that the Catholic Church had seriously addressed the problem of equipping a parish clergy to equal the developing articulacy of Protestant ministers.

In the five years of Mary's reign, the Jesuits did not begin work in England. For the time being they left the task to distinguished Spanish Dominicans imported by King Philip, since they had much else to do and currently had no trained English members for the Society - but an English version of Ignatius's Exercises Exercises went on sale, and Jesuits actually arrived in 1558 poised for action, only to be pre-empted by Mary's death. went on sale, and Jesuits actually arrived in 1558 poised for action, only to be pre-empted by Mary's death.19 English Catholicism now faced a disaster, since Philip could only have succeeded to the English throne if Mary had borne him an heir, under the stringent terms of the marriage deal of 1554, negotiated by English politicians whose suspicion of Habsburg acquisitiveness had outweighed their Catholic sentiment. Instead, the new queen, last of the Tudors, was Protestant Elizabeth, who did not expend great energy in responding to some rather unconvincing courting from her half-sister's widower. Now the Jesuits were banned from the realm, together with all other Catholic clergy trained abroad, facing execution if they arrived in England and were captured, yet Catholics still felt an urgent need to sustain the minority who wanted to remain loyal to Rome. In the face of often savage though inconsistent repression (and also amid some bitter internal disagreements about future strategy), Jesuit and non-Jesuit clergy alike patiently and heroically built up a community of Catholics, led by gentry families scattered throughout England and Wales. It survived Elizabeth's death in 1603 and persisted through seventeenth-century persecutions and eighteenth-century marginalization, embodied in a formidable set of discriminatory legislation, into modern times. English Catholicism now faced a disaster, since Philip could only have succeeded to the English throne if Mary had borne him an heir, under the stringent terms of the marriage deal of 1554, negotiated by English politicians whose suspicion of Habsburg acquisitiveness had outweighed their Catholic sentiment. Instead, the new queen, last of the Tudors, was Protestant Elizabeth, who did not expend great energy in responding to some rather unconvincing courting from her half-sister's widower. Now the Jesuits were banned from the realm, together with all other Catholic clergy trained abroad, facing execution if they arrived in England and were captured, yet Catholics still felt an urgent need to sustain the minority who wanted to remain loyal to Rome. In the face of often savage though inconsistent repression (and also amid some bitter internal disagreements about future strategy), Jesuit and non-Jesuit clergy alike patiently and heroically built up a community of Catholics, led by gentry families scattered throughout England and Wales. It survived Elizabeth's death in 1603 and persisted through seventeenth-century persecutions and eighteenth-century marginalization, embodied in a formidable set of discriminatory legislation, into modern times.20 In Elizabethan Ireland, Franciscan friars led a parallel mission which was able to enjoy far wider success, partly because the Protestant Reformation there quickly became fatally identified with Westminster's exploitation of the island and made little effort to express itself in the Gaelic language then spoken by the majority of the population. Ireland became the only country in Reformation Europe where, over a century, a monarchy with a consistent religious agenda failed to impose it on its subjects: an extraordinary failure on the part of the Tudors and Stuarts. Yet there is irony in that exceptional story. It was Catholic Queen Mary who implemented a policy of planting settlements of English incomers in Leix and Offaly, counties which were officially known until the revolution of 1918-22 as King's and Queen's Counties, a commemoration of both Mary and her husband, Philip of Spain, already the proprietor of the spectacularly successful Spanish colonies in Central and South America. If the English monarchy had remained Catholic, perhaps Ireland would have become as Protestant as the Dutch Republic in reaction to this alien colonial occupation; but as it was, Mary's early death and Protestant Elizabeth's accession made it increasingly easy for both the Gaelic- and English-speaking Irish to identify Catholicism as a symbol of Irish difference from the English.

With England lost, and most of northern Europe in Protestant hands, Tridentine Catholicism looked to Habsburg power. Charles V on his abdication as emperor in 1556, exhausted by the effort of governing his vast empire, had divided his family inheritance: his younger brother Ferdinand had been elected Holy Roman Emperor and took the other Habsburg territories of central Europe, while Charles's son Philip had received Spain and all its overseas dominions. Although both branches of the family were determined to uphold papal Catholicism, their priorities differed, and the Austrian Habsburgs were themselves divided. Ferdinand I was mindful of the Habsburgs' recent defeat at the hands of Lutheran princes of the empire which had forced him to sign the Peace of Augsburg (his brother Charles could not bring himself to do this). He was ruler over three powerful varieties of Western Christianity: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Bohemian Utraquist Hussitism. Both Ferdinand and his son Maximilian II sought accommodations with Lutherans, wheedled a reluctant pope into allowing Catholic laity into receiving the Eucharist Hussite-style in both bread and wine, and maintained a Court in Vienna sheltering a remarkable variety of religious belief. Maximilian's younger brother Archduke Ferdinand felt very differently, and he implemented an aggressive Catholic agenda in the various family dominions which he administered in the course of a long life. A further brother, Karl, joined the Archduke Ferdinand in his intransigence, and entered a marriage alliance with the one prominent imperial princely family who had remained Catholic, the Wittelsbach Dukes of Bavaria.21 In concert they encouraged the Jesuits to set up inst.i.tutions in towns and cities under their control, and they also made sure that important bishoprics of the empire did not slide into the hands of Lutherans in the manner pioneered by the Hohenzollern Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (see p. 615). In concert they encouraged the Jesuits to set up inst.i.tutions in towns and cities under their control, and they also made sure that important bishoprics of the empire did not slide into the hands of Lutherans in the manner pioneered by the Hohenzollern Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (see p. 615).

King Philip II of Spain, freed by bereavement from his unexciting and ultimately embarra.s.sing marriage to Queen Mary of England, returned to Spain in 1559 to sort out a rising tide of turbulence and financial chaos; in tackling this, he saw the Spanish Inquisition as a chief ally. Ruling from a monumental but bleak new monastery-palace, the Escorial, which also incorporated his future tomb, Philip brought his temperamental workaholism to the task of being a world ruler as significant in G.o.d's plan as his father before him - the Escorial's grid-pattern plan was based on Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, although it is not surprising that visitors commonly supposed it to have been based on the gridiron which legend said had been the instrument of torture and death for the palace's patron saint, Lawrence.22 Philip and his government committed themselves to the proposition that there was only one way to be a Spaniard: a traditionalist Catholic, untainted by unsupervised contact with alien thought, now Protestant as well as Islamic or Jewish. The King was readily persuaded to back the Spanish Inquisition's busy efforts to achieve this end. Philip and his government committed themselves to the proposition that there was only one way to be a Spaniard: a traditionalist Catholic, untainted by unsupervised contact with alien thought, now Protestant as well as Islamic or Jewish. The King was readily persuaded to back the Spanish Inquisition's busy efforts to achieve this end.

Some unlikely figures became victims of the Inquisition's implementation of the policy. The Society of Jesus was still as much an object of suspicion as the young Inigo de Loyola, and the n.o.bleman who had pioneered Jesuit general education projects, no less a figure than Francisco de Borja, Duke of Gandia, former Viceroy of Catalonia now turned Jesuit, was hounded out of the country before becoming an outstanding Superior-General for the Society.23 The Inquisition even ruined the career of Bartolome Carranza, Archbishop of Spain's primatial see of Toledo, and a distinguished Dominican theologian. He had been an important a.s.sistant to Cardinal Pole in the English Marian experiment, but he had made the mistake of learning too much about Protestant heresy during his conscientious efforts to refute it. As a result Carranza spent nearly seventeen years in prison deprived even of attendance at Ma.s.s, and although briefly rehabilitated, he died a broken man when he might have been an ideal Counter-Reformation leader for Spain. Moreover, Carranza's arrest had been triggered by the Inquisition's alarm at the content of the Catechism which he had drafted for use in Marian England, and which was eventually to appear as a banned book in the Indexes issued by both the Roman and Spanish Inquisitions. Carranza's Catechism was nevertheless taken up to form the basis for the Tridentine Catechism authorized by the Pope after the Council of Trent, a final touch of black comedy in this dismal affair. The Inquisition even ruined the career of Bartolome Carranza, Archbishop of Spain's primatial see of Toledo, and a distinguished Dominican theologian. He had been an important a.s.sistant to Cardinal Pole in the English Marian experiment, but he had made the mistake of learning too much about Protestant heresy during his conscientious efforts to refute it. As a result Carranza spent nearly seventeen years in prison deprived even of attendance at Ma.s.s, and although briefly rehabilitated, he died a broken man when he might have been an ideal Counter-Reformation leader for Spain. Moreover, Carranza's arrest had been triggered by the Inquisition's alarm at the content of the Catechism which he had drafted for use in Marian England, and which was eventually to appear as a banned book in the Indexes issued by both the Roman and Spanish Inquisitions. Carranza's Catechism was nevertheless taken up to form the basis for the Tridentine Catechism authorized by the Pope after the Council of Trent, a final touch of black comedy in this dismal affair.24 Also troubled by Spanish officialdom were two religious later to become among the most famous personalities in the history of Christian mysticism, Teresa of Avila and Juan de Yepes (John of the Cross). In the Inquisition's terms, both were automatically suspect by the fact that their families were conversos conversos, and they might be seen as emerging from that maelstrom of religious energy released by the religious realignment of Spain in the 1490s (see pp. 584-91). They both joined the Carmelite Order (and their close personal relationship also attracted official worries); Teresa sought to bring the Carmelites to realize more intensely the significance of their origins in the wilderness by a refoundation of the order in which the men and women of the Reform would walk barefoot (Discalced). She struggled to persuade the Church authorities to make a leap of imagination, to allow the women who joined her to engage in a Carmelite balance of contemplation and activism. The journeyings of the soul characteristic of the mystic in every century would be paralleled by journeyings through the physical world, as and when necessary. Through many troubles and setbacks, Teresa developed what one of her admirers has called 'a gift for making men give her the orders she wanted to obey'.25 Teresa is often remembered now in the dramatic and highly s.e.xualized statue of her ecstasy which Gianlorenzo Bernini sculpted for the Church of Our Lady of Victory in Rome. She would not have been pleased by this, because (according to one of her nuns) in a typically precise and much more decorous piece of self-fashioning, she made sure that she breathed her last posed as the penitent Mary Magdalene was commonly seen in paintings.26 She spoke plainly, and told her ascetics to do the same: She spoke plainly, and told her ascetics to do the same: Let them also be careful in the way they speak. Let it be with simplicity, straightforwardness, and devotion. Let them use the style of hermits and people who have chosen a secluded life. They should not use the new-fangled words and affectations - I think that is what they call them - that are popular in worldly circles, where there are always new fashions. They should take more pride in being coa.r.s.e than fastidious in these matters.27 Teresa certainly spoke of her meetings with the divine in the pa.s.sionate and intimate terms that mystics (mostly but not exclusively female) had employed for centuries. She spoke of the piercing of her heart, of her mystical marriage with the divine, although she managed to avoid quite the degree of physical relish exhibited by Agnes Blannbekin (see p. 421). She was very conscious of the tightrope which any woman walked in the Spain of her time when putting herself forward to speak on spiritual matters, but she still grittily insisted that women had something distinctive to say, and that it was their Saviour who made them say it: 'Lord of my soul, you did not hate women when You walked in the world; rather you favored them always with much pity and found in them as much love and more faith than in men.'28 For both Teresa and Juan, the erotic biblical poem the Song of Songs became a key text for the divine revelation. Juan was not afraid of repeatedly picturing himself as the lover, and frequently the bride, of Christ, appropriating for himself the image which is more conventionally given to the inst.i.tution of the Church or the female soul, and as a result, expressing himself in ways which now sound startlingly h.o.m.oerotic: Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover. Lover transformed in the Beloved! Upon my flowery breast, Kept wholly for himself alone, There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him, And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.The breeze blew from the turret. As I parted his locks; With his gentle hand, he wounded my neck. And caused all my senses to be suspended.I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved. All ceased, and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.29 Juan found that even the ancient technical language of theology, the Chalcedonian Definition of 451, could be fired with his own sense of what the Song of Songs might mean: After the soul has been for some time the betrothed of the Son of G.o.d in gentle and complete love, G.o.d calls her and places her in his flowering garden to consummate this most joyful state of marriage with Him. The union wrought between the two natures and the communication of the divine to the human in this state is such that even though neither change their being, both appear to be G.o.d.30 He spoke not only of love in such very physical modes, but also searingly explored the ultimate loneliness of humanity - the loneliness and sense of rejection and debas.e.m.e.nt to which he himself had sunk during nine months' close solitary confinement in 1577-8 at the hands of the leadership of his own Carmelite Order, from which imprisonment he had to effect a dramatic escape. His incomplete meditation Dark Night of the Soul Dark Night of the Soul was the culmination of the treatise which he called was the culmination of the treatise which he called The Ascent of Mount Carmel The Ascent of Mount Carmel. The Ascent Ascent described this 'dark night' as the third stage of the soul's experience after its early sensuality and subsequent purification, 'a more obscure and dark and terrible purgation'. described this 'dark night' as the third stage of the soul's experience after its early sensuality and subsequent purification, 'a more obscure and dark and terrible purgation'. 31 31 The treatise presents itself as an exposition of the eight-stanza love poem, whose later stanzas have already been quoted. It breaks off before no more than a few lines have been subjected to John's intense scrutiny: in its detailed and patient explanation of the myriad meanings which they present to the reader, it reveals how far the mystic might travel beyond the deep sensuality of the poetry, which has the power to astonish the modern secular reader. This journey in the poem is what Juan describes as purgative contemplation, which causes pa.s.sively in the soul the negation of itself and of all things referred to above. And this going forth it says here that it was able to accomplish in the strength and ardour which love for its Spouse gave it for that purpose in the dark contemplation aforementioned. Here it extols the great happiness which it found in journeying to G.o.d through this night with such signal success that none of the three enemies, which are world, devil and flesh (who are they that ever impede this road), could hinder it. The treatise presents itself as an exposition of the eight-stanza love poem, whose later stanzas have already been quoted. It breaks off before no more than a few lines have been subjected to John's intense scrutiny: in its detailed and patient explanation of the myriad meanings which they present to the reader, it reveals how far the mystic might travel beyond the deep sensuality of the poetry, which has the power to astonish the modern secular reader. This journey in the poem is what Juan describes as purgative contemplation, which causes pa.s.sively in the soul the negation of itself and of all things referred to above. And this going forth it says here that it was able to accomplish in the strength and ardour which love for its Spouse gave it for that purpose in the dark contemplation aforementioned. Here it extols the great happiness which it found in journeying to G.o.d through this night with such signal success that none of the three enemies, which are world, devil and flesh (who are they that ever impede this road), could hinder it.32

After all the conflicts which Teresa and Juan experienced and to some extent initiated, the Discalced Carmelites were left flourishing, backed at the highest levels of Spanish society. The order was determined not merely that Rome should recognize its foundress as a saint (achieved in 1612, only thirty years after her death) but, in a much more ambitious project, that she should replace Santiago himself as the patron saint of Spain. This was both a devotional act and a political self-a.s.sertion against all the forces of the Church which had made life so difficult for Teresa and Juan: luckily for the Carmelites, it had the backing of the Spanish monarchy. In 1618 King Philip III, strongly seconded by the Castilian a.s.sembly, the Cortes, persuaded the Pope to designate Teresa co-patron of Spain, though opposition was by no means at an end, and became much entangled in Spanish high politics.33 John of the Cross had to wait until 1726 before he was finally officially declared to be a saint of the Church. John of the Cross had to wait until 1726 before he was finally officially declared to be a saint of the Church.

TRENT DELAYED: FRANCE AND POLAND-LITHUANIA.

In the early sixteenth century, the Habsburgs had been balanced by the 'Most Christian King' of France, and the Valois dynasty which looked back to Clovis's conversion remained consistently loyal to Rome all through the Reformation years. Circ.u.mstances nevertheless conspired long to prevent the French Church implementing the major decisions made at the Council of Trent on such vital matters as uniformity of worship, doctrinal instruction and clergy training and discipline. In a ghastly irony, the Valois monarchy was crippled when, in 1559, Henri II died in agony after an accident in a tournament which was celebrating the end of more than half a century of Valois war with the Habsburgs, through a treaty signed on their mutual frontier at Cateau-Cambresis. His death left the realm in the hands of his wife as regent for her young sons. Queen Catherine de' Medici's real talents for government were not equal to the dire religious crisis which then engulfed France and led to four decades of frequently atrocious civil war between Catholics and Protestants (see Plate 54). A very substantial community of Huguenots, led by powerful n.o.blemen, proved impossible to defeat, even though they were still a minority across the realm.

The Ma.s.sacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day in 1572 was the worst incident, and ill.u.s.trated just how deep the pa.s.sions in France now ran. It was sparked by an event intended to heal the kingdom's wounds: the marriage of the King of France's sister Marguerite to Henri, King of Navarre, now the head of the Huguenot party in France. An a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on the Protestant leader, Gaspard de Coligny, a provocatively self-invited guest at the wedding, spurred Huguenots to fury, and their reaction in turn frightened Catherine and her royal son to allow counter-attacks by their own troops. Catholic crowds took the hint, and around five thousand Protestants were murdered and many more terrorized throughout the realm.34 St Bartholomew's Day long remained for Protestants across Europe a symbol of Catholic savagery and duplicity, but at the time many French Catholics were also shocked by the extremism displayed by their co-religionists. French Catholics bitterly disagreed among themselves as to how far - if at all - concessions should be made to the Huguenots, and the talented but unstable Henri III found it impossible to impose any sort of statesmanlike settlement. In 1589 he was stabbed to death by a Catholic extremist, and since he was the last of the Valois line, his heir was that same Henri of Navarre, who in the end was able to unite moderate (' St Bartholomew's Day long remained for Protestants across Europe a symbol of Catholic savagery and duplicity, but at the time many French Catholics were also shocked by the extremism displayed by their co-religionists. French Catholics bitterly disagreed among themselves as to how far - if at all - concessions should be made to the Huguenots, and the talented but unstable Henri III found it impossible to impose any sort of statesmanlike settlement. In 1589 he was stabbed to death by a Catholic extremist, and since he was the last of the Valois line, his heir was that same Henri of Navarre, who in the end was able to unite moderate ('politique') Catholics behind him against the ultra-Catholic Ligue (League), after his adroit conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism.

When negotiating with moderate Ligueurs in 1593, Navarre, now Henri IV of France, is often said to have mused, 'Paris is worth a Ma.s.s.' Although this famous quotation is even more insecurely founded than Martin Luther's precisely contradictory sentiment, 'Here I stand, I can do no other', it should not be jettisoned from history, for it likewise encapsulates a vital moment in the Reformation. In its weary rejection of rigid religious principle, the phrase echoes what many of Europe's politicians and rulers felt after seventy years of religious warfare across Europe.35 Taking advantage of France's war-weariness, in 1598 Henri brokered a settlement, the Edict of Nantes, a version of schemes which Henri III had never been able to enforce in the face of bitter opposition from the Ligue. Taking advantage of France's war-weariness, in 1598 Henri brokered a settlement, the Edict of Nantes, a version of schemes which Henri III had never been able to enforce in the face of bitter opposition from the Ligue.36 Now Huguenots had not universal toleration but a guaranteed privileged corporate status within the realm, with their own churches and fortified places. Henri IV's much more sincerely Catholic successors spent the next nine decades whittling away these privileges, but during that time, France represented western Europe's most large-scale example of religious pluralism, despite a major upsurge of French Catholic renewal and rebuilding. In the end they created one of Europe's most impressive Counter-Reformations. Now Huguenots had not universal toleration but a guaranteed privileged corporate status within the realm, with their own churches and fortified places. Henri IV's much more sincerely Catholic successors spent the next nine decades whittling away these privileges, but during that time, France represented western Europe's most large-scale example of religious pluralism, despite a major upsurge of French Catholic renewal and rebuilding. In the end they created one of Europe's most impressive Counter-Reformations.

This belated Counter-Reformation in France was linked to another delayed Catholic Reformation far away in Poland-Lithuania, through the peculiar circ.u.mstance that for a few months in 1574 they shared a common monarch, Henri, Duke of Anjou. We have met Henri in Poland, as the distinctly unwilling agent in 1573 of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's remarkable enactment of religious toleration, the Confederation of Warsaw (see pp. 643-4). The hopes which all sides placed in that agreement for a golden future under their imported French king were not to be fulfilled, for Henri did not prolong his stay in his new kingdom. He was dismayed not only by a seemingly boundless and unfamiliar realm, but by intimidating excitement from his middle-aged prospective bride (last of the previous Jagiellon dynasty), and by his dawning consciousness that the Polish n.o.bility were even less deferential than their French counterparts. Then only a few months after his coronation in Cracow, he received astonishing news: his brother Charles IX of France was dead and consequently he had become King of France, as Henri III. Henri's secret flight across Europe and back to Paris in June 1574 was a bitter blow to his subjects in the Commonwealth, and they swiftly disabused him of any illusion that he could rule the Commonwealth in addition to France (it might have been better for Henri if he had stayed). After two years of political chaos, a replacement candidate emerged who could once more block the Habsburgs: Istvan Bathori, the current Prince of Transylvania, better known when King of Poland as Stefan Bathory.37 Bathory proved to be an excellent choice in his exceptional wisdom and military capacity. He was a devout Catholic, but was not going to jeopardize his chances of the Polish throne by objecting to the toleration clause in the Confederation of Warsaw, which in any case had been antic.i.p.ated eight years earlier in the declaration of his native Transylvania at Torda. Yet it was from Bathory's reign that the demoralized and divided Catholic Church in the Commonwealth began consolidating its position which eventually produced one of the very few successes for Catholic recovery in northern Europe. Against the great variety of Protestant activity in Poland-Lithuania, Roman Catholicism already had some advantages. It never lost control of the Church hierarchy or the landed endowments of the old Church - in any case rather more modest than further west in Europe, and therefore perhaps less vulnerable to secular greed.

Crucially, the Polish monarchy never finally broke with Catholicism, and that, combined with unbroken adherence from most of the lower orders in the countryside, proved decisive over a century and a half. Already before Stefan Bathory's reign, in 1564, the Society of Jesus had established a foothold in Poland. Now King Stefan was responsible for founding three major Jesuit colleges in the far north-east of the commonwealth at Polotsk, Riga and Dorpat, deliberately chosen as cities where the Reformed Churches were at their strongest. From the late 1570s there was a Jesuit-run academy (university college) in Vilnius, chief city of Lithuania, and by the early seventeenth century, every important town (more than two dozen scattered throughout the Commonwealth) had a Jesuit school. Lutheran, Reformed and anti-Trinitarian schools could not compete with such large-scale educational enterprise. The steady work of the Society of Jesus in providing schools and colleges attracted members of the gentry and n.o.bility, even Protestants, to send their children for a good education, and that schooling remorselessly thinned the ranks of the Protestant elite.

Sometimes the story of the Polish Counter-Reformation has indeed been presented as a one-man-band achievement by the Jesuits. This is dangerously oversimplified. In reality, many Polish-Lithuanian Catholics deeply distrusted the Society, which they saw as too inclined to uphold the monarchy or even advocate increases in royal power, and so threaten the liberties of n.o.blemen in the Commonwealth. Poland, after all, from the time of the Council of Florence, had been one of the strongholds of conciliarism (see pp. 560-63), and at the end of the sixteenth century that tradition remained strong in the face of the Jesuits' Tridentine papalism. Yet in a strange paradox only recently perceived by historians, this level of Catholic distrust of the Jesuits, which one might think would have encouraged defections to Protestantism, equally benefited Catholicism in Poland-Lithuania. The Polish Dominicans, long-established in the venerable University of Cracow and in major towns of the Commonwealth, hated the Jesuits, rightly suspecting them of wanting to take over existing Dominican educational inst.i.tutions, and they frequently obstructed Jesuit work, earning themselves sad and angry royal rebukes. The Dominicans' consistent and open hostility to the Jesuits demonstrated that it was perfectly possible to be a good Catholic and still detest the Society of Jesus: one did not have to go over to the Protestant side.38 Equally significant was King Sigismund III's triumphant Catholic diplomacy which led to the creation of the Greek Catholic Church in the Commonwealth through the Union of Brest in 1596 (see pp. 534-6). The existence of the Greek Catholic Church, whatever its subsequent troubles in relation to Russian Orthodoxy, meant that there was yet a third possible ident.i.ty for those Poles and Lithuanians who wished to keep their allegiance to the Holy See in Rome. Ultimately they had the choice of placing their faith in the Society of Jesus, applauding cussed Dominican hara.s.sment of the Society, or exercising their religion in churches of Orthodox tradition, adorned with icons, whose clergy wore beards and had wives and families. All these options represented Catholicism. Accordingly, the Catholic Church increasingly flourished in its diversity, while a long slow decay affected the divided ranks of the Protestants in the Commonwealth. Polish const.i.tutional toleration was undermined by the monarchy's steadily more confessional Catholicism and by the circ.u.mstance that further dynastic problems, which gave the kings of Sweden a claim to the Polish throne, ranged Lutheran Sweden against Poland in war. It was easy in that traumatic era to see Protestantism as an enemy of the Commonwealth's independence. The Socinians were expelled en ma.s.se from the Commonwealth in 1660, although in their dispersal they were to have a remarkable effect on western Europe and the Christian story generally (see pp. 778-9). This sign of a new intolerance in Poland-Lithuania came amid the growing stream of conversions back to Catholicism among its Protestant elites.

Thus the future of Poland, once such a fertile seminary of Protestant experiment, proved against all the odds to be bound into that of the Catholic Church. When the political inst.i.tutions of Poland-Lithuania were wrecked and then utterly destroyed by the selfish acquisitiveness of eighteenth-century monarchs in Prussia, Russia and Austria, the Catholic Church was all the Poles and Lithuanians had left to carry forward the ident.i.ty of their once-mighty commonwealth. One extraordinary twentieth-century product of the alliance between Polish national ident.i.ty and an increasingly monolithic Catholic Church was the career of Karol Wojtyla, who as Pope John Paul II might be seen as a belated embodiment of the Counter-Reformation (see pp. 994-1000). Yet beyond his quarter-century papacy, the consequences of destroying the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and of the painful rebuilding of national ident.i.ties in eastern Europe aided by the Catholic and Greek Catholic Churches, are still unfolding in the politics of our own age.

LIVES SEPARATED: SAINTS, SPLENDOUR, s.e.x AND WITCHES.

The Reformation and Catholic Reformation dividing Latin Christendom, previously remarkably united across a whole continent, produced a rift in the rhythms of life to a degree without parallel in Christian history. The shape of the year became experienced in very different ways in Protestant and Catholic regions. Protestant societies which had rejected the power of the saints observed few or no saints' days, so holidays ceased to be the 'holy days' of the saints and some (usually not many) were reinvented as Protestant feasts. In England, yearly November bonfires and celebrations reminded the English of their new Protestant heritage in defeating the Spanish Armada (1588), foiling a Roman Catholic who tried to blow up the king and Parliament (1605) and eventually ejecting a Roman Catholic king who appeared to threaten the whole Protestant settlement of the British Isles (1688). By contrast, the Europe loyal to Rome discovered new saints and festivals to emphasize that loyalty. A happy coincidence helped: in 1578 a large number of Christian catacombs (see p. 160), almost unknown for centuries, were rediscovered beneath the soil of Rome and seemed to be full of the bones of early Christian martyrs. The bones were exported all over the Catholic world, a great morale-booster against Protestants in underlining the glorious history of suffering in the Roman Church, and they were joined in their fruitful travels by countless fragments of Ursula's eleven thousand virgins from Cologne. The Jesuits were chief brokers in this sacred commerce.39 The greatest separation came in the way in which Protestants and Catholics approached their G.o.d in church. In most Reformed Churches, it quickly became the norm to lock church buildings between services to discourage superst.i.tious devotio