Early European History Part 116

ACT OF SUPREMACY, 1534 A.D.

Henry's next step was to procure from his subservient Parliament a series of laws which abolished the pope's authority in England. Of these, the most important was the Act of Supremacy. It declared the English king to be "the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England." At the same time a new treason act imposed the death penalty on anyone who called the king a "heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper." The great majority of the English people seem to have accepted this new legislation without much objection; those who refused to do so perished on the scaffold. The most eminent victim was Sir Thomas More, [19] formerly Henry's Lord Chancellor and distinguished for eloquence and profound learning. His execution sent a thrill of horror through Christendom.

THE MONASTERIES SUPPRESSED

The suppression of the monasteries soon followed the separation from Rome.

Henry declared to Parliament that they deserved to be abolished, because of the "slothful and unG.o.dly lives" led by the inmates. In some instances this accusation may have been true, but the real reason for Henry's action was his desire to crush the monastic orders, which supported the pope, and to seize their extensive possessions. The beautiful monasteries were torn down and the lands attached to them were sold for the benefit of the crown or granted to Henry's favorites. The n.o.bles who accepted this monastic wealth naturally became zealous advocates of Henry's anti-papal policy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF MELROSE ABBEY The little town of Melrose in Scotland contains the ruins of a very beautiful monastery church built about the middle of the fifteenth century. The princ.i.p.al part of the present remains is the choir, with slender shafts, richly-carved capitals, and windows of exquisite stone- tracery. The beautiful sculptures throughout the church were defaced at the time of the Reformation. The heart of Robert Bruce is interred near the site of the high altar.]

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI, 1547-1553 A.D.

Though Henry VIII had broken with the Papacy, he remained Roman Catholic in doctrine to the day of his death. Under his successor, Edward VI, the Reformation made rapid progress in England. The young king's guardian allowed reformers from the Continent to come to England, and the doctrines of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were freely preached there. At this time all paintings, statuary, wood carvings, and stained gla.s.s were removed from church edifices. The use of tapers, incense, and holy water was also discontinued. In order that religious services might be conducted in the language of the people, Archbishop Cranmer and his co-workers prepared the _Book of Common Prayer_. It consisted of translations into n.o.ble English of various parts of the old Latin service books. With some changes, it is still used in the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States.

THE CATHOLIC REACTION UNDER MARY TUDOR, 1553-1558 A.D.

The short reign of Mary Tudor, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, was marked by a temporary setback to the Protestant cause. The queen prevailed on Parliament to secure a reconciliation with Rome. She also married her Roman Catholic cousin, Philip of Spain, the son of Charles V. Mary now began a severe persecution of the Protestants. It gained for her the epithet of "b.l.o.o.d.y," but it did not succeed in stamping out heresy. Many eminent reformers perished, among them Cranmer, the former archbishop.

Mary died childless, after ruling about five years, and the crown pa.s.sed to Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth. Under Elizabeth Anglicanism again replaced Roman Catholicism as the religion of England.

234. THE PROTESTANT SECTS

EXTENT OF PROTESTANTISM

The Reformation was practically completed before the close of the sixteenth century. In 1500 A.D. the Roman Church embraced all Europe west of Russia and the Balkan peninsula. By 1575 A.D. nearly half of its former subjects had renounced their allegiance. The greater part of Germany and Switzerland and all of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, England, and Scotland became independent of the Papacy. The unity of western Christendom, which had been preserved throughout the Middle Ages, thus disappeared and has not since been revived.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, EXTENT OF THE REFORMATION, 1524-1572 A.D.]

COMMON FEATURES OF PROTESTANTISM

The reformers agreed in subst.i.tuting for the authority of popes and church councils the authority of the Bible. They went back fifteen hundred years to the time of the Apostles and tried to restore what they believed to be Apostolic Christianity. Hence they rejected such doctrines and practices as were supposed to have developed during the Middle Ages. The Reformation also abolished the monastic system and priestly celibacy. The sharp distinction between clergy and laity disappeared, for priests married, lived among the people, and no longer formed a separate cla.s.s. In general, Protestantism affirmed the ability of every man to find salvation without the aid of ecclesiastics. The Church was no longer the only "gate of heaven."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAINED BIBLE In the church of St. Crux, York.]

DIVISIONS AMONG PROTESTANTS

But the Protestant idea of authority led inevitably to differences of opinion among the reformers. There were various ways of interpreting that Bible to which they appealed as the rule of faith and conduct.

Consequently, Protestantism split up into many sects or denominations, and these have gone on multiplying to the present day. Nearly all, however, are offshoots from the three main varieties of Protestantism which appeared in the sixteenth century.

LUTHERANISM AND ANGLICANISM

Lutheranism and Anglicanism presented some features in common. Both were state churches, supported by the government; both had a book of common prayer; and both recognized the sacraments of baptism, the eucharist, and confirmation. The Church of England also kept the sacrament of ordination.

The Lutheran churches in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as well as the Church of England, likewise retained the episcopate.

CALVINISM

Calvinism departed much more widely from Roman Catholicism. It did away with the episcopate and had only one order of clergy--the presbyters. [20]

It provided for a very simple form of worship. In a Calvinistic church the service consisted of Bible reading, a sermon, extemporaneous prayers, and hymns sung by the congregation. The Calvinists kept only two sacraments, baptism and the eucharist. They regarded the first, however, as a simple undertaking to bring up the child in a Christian manner, and the second as merely a commemoration of the Last Supper.

THE REFORMATION AND FREEDOM

The break with Rome did not introduce religious liberty into Europe.

Nothing was further from the minds of Luther, Calvin, and other reformers than the toleration of Reformation beliefs unlike their own. The early Protestant sects punished dissenters as zealously as the Roman Church punished heretics. Lutherans burned the followers of Zwingli in Germany, Calvin put Servetus to death, and the English government, in the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, executed many Roman Catholics. Complete freedom of conscience and the right of private judgment in religion have been secured in most European countries only within the last hundred years.

THE REFORMATION AND MORALS

The Reformation, however, did deepen the moral life of European peoples.

The faithful Protestant or Roman Catholic vied with his neighbor in trying to show that his particular belief made for better living than any other.

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in consequence, were more earnest and serious, if also more bigoted, than the centuries of the Renaissance.

235. THE CATHOLIC COUNTER REFORMATION

THE REFORMING POPES

The rapid spread of Protestantism soon brought about a Catholic Counter Reformation in those parts of Europe which remained faithful to Rome. The popes now turned from the cultivation of Renaissance art and literature to the defense of their threatened faith. They made needed changes in the papal court and appointed to ecclesiastical offices men distinguished for virtue and learning. This reform of the Papacy dates from the time of Paul III, who became pope in 1534 A.D. He opened the college of cardinals to Roman Catholic reformers, even offering a seat in it to Erasmus. Still more important was his support of the famous Society of Jesus, which had been established in the year of his accession to the papal throne.

ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA, 1491-1556 A.D.

The founder of the new society was a Spanish n.o.bleman, Ignatius Loyola. He had seen a good deal of service in the wars of Charles V against the French. While in a hospital recovering from a wound Loyola read devotional books, and these produced a profound change within him. He now decided to abandon the career of arms and to become, instead, the knight of Christ.

So Loyola donned a beggar's robe, practiced all the kinds of asceticism which his books described, and went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The turning-point of his career came with his visit to Paris to study theology. Here Loyola met the six devout and talented men who became the first members of his society. They intended to work as missionaries among the Moslems, but, when this plan fell through, they visited Rome and placed their energy and enthusiasm at the disposal of the pope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA]

THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

Loyola's military training deeply affected the character of the new order.

The Jesuits, as their Protestant opponents styled them, were to be an army of spiritual soldiers, living under the strictest obedience to their head, or general. Like soldiers, again, they were to remain in the world, and there fight manfully for the Church and against heretics. The society grew rapidly; before Loyola's death it included over a thousand members; and in the seventeenth century it became the most influential of all the religious orders. [21] The activity of the Jesuits as preachers, confessors, teachers, and missionaries did much to roll back the rising tide of Protestantism in Europe.

JESUIT SCHOOLS

The Jesuits gave special attention to education, for they realized the importance of winning over the young people to the Church. Their schools were so good that even Protestant children often attended them. The popularity of Jesuit teachers arose partly from the fact that they always tried to lead, not drive their pupils. Light punishments, short lessons, many holidays, and a liberal use of prizes and other distinctions formed some of the attractive features of their system of training. It is not surprising that the Jesuits became the instructors of the Roman Catholic world. They called their colleges the "fortresses of the faith."

JESUIT MISSIONS

The missions of the Jesuits were not less important than their schools.

The Jesuits worked in Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and other countries where Protestantism threatened to become dominant. Then they invaded all the lands which the great maritime discoveries of the preceding age had laid open to European enterprise. In India, China, the East Indies, j.a.pan, the Philippines, Africa, and the two Americas their converts from heathenism were numbered by hundreds of thousands.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER, 1506-1552 A.D.

The most eminent of all Jesuit missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, had belonged to Loyola's original band. He was a little, blue-eyed man, an engaging preacher, an excellent organizer, and possessed of so attractive a personality that even the ruffians and pirates with whom he had to a.s.sociate on his voyages became his friends. Xavier labored with such devotion and success in the Portuguese colonies of the Far East as to gain the t.i.tle of "Apostle to the Indies." He also introduced Christianity in j.a.pan, where it flourished until a persecuting emperor extinguished it with fire and sword.

COUNCIL OF TRENT, 1545-1563 A.D.

Another agency in the Counter Reformation was the great Church Council summoned by Pope Paul III. The council met at Trent, on the borders of Germany and Italy. It continued, with intermissions, for nearly twenty years. The Protestants, though invited to partic.i.p.ate, did not attend, and hence nothing could be done to bring them back within the Roman Catholic fold. This was the last general council of the Church for over three hundred years. [22]

WORK OF THE COUNCIL