• The English Reformation to 1553 – Centrally resisted Pope’s influence since late Medieval.

• The Preconditions to Reform – 1520s – Cambridge discuss smuggled Lutheran writings. – Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (ca. 1475-1530), King Henry VIII

(r. 1509-47) Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) led royal opposition to Protestantism.

– King receive “Defender of the Faith” from Pope Leo X • More wrote Response to Luther in1523.

• The King’s Affair – Henry and Catherine only produce female heir to

throne.• Female monarch unstable. Unnatural for women to rule

over men.• Henry believed God cursed him marriage because of

Catherine’s previous marriage to his brother Arthur. – Henry becomes infatuated with Anne Boleyn, one of Catherine’s

lady-in-waiting. – Problem: Pope Leo was prisoner of Charles V and couldn’t annul

marriage; Charles was Catherine’s nephew.– Cardinal Wolsey aspired to be Pope; put in charge of securing

annulment and failed; dismissed.

– Lutheran sympathizers Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) and Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540) became King’s advisers. Advised him to declare King supreme in English spiritual affairs.

• The “Reformation Parliament” – Convocation – legislative assembly representing English

clergy recognize Henry as head of English church– Parliament published grievances against church; Submission

of the Clergy – put canon law under royal control, clergy under royal jurisdiction.

– Henry weds Anne Boleyn• Parliament makes King the highest court of appeals• Cranmer became archbishop of Canterbury; led invalidating marriage

to Catherine. • Ended English clergy payments to Rome; King authority of church

appointments.• Act of Succession: Anne’s children were legit heirs to the throne.• Act of Supremacy: Henry only supreme head in earth of Church of

England.– Executed Thomas More and John Fisher when they refused Acts.

• Dissolved monasteries and nunneries.

• Wives of Henry V – Anne executed for (alleged)

treason, adultery – Elizabeth and Mary declared illegit.

– Marriage with Jane Seymour ends when she dies giving birth to future Edward VI

– Marriage with Anne of Cleves intended to ally with Protestant German Princes; Thomas Cromwell executed for the suggestion; marriage is annulled by Parliament

– Marriage to Catherine Howard ended with her beheading for adultery

– His last wife Catherine Parr survived Henry

• The King’s Religious Conservatism – Ten Articles of 1536 only minor

protestant concessions; Catholic sentiment remained strong; Six Articles of 1539 – reaffirm Catholic doctrines.

• The Protestant Reformation Under Edward VI – Edward VI and regency of Edware

Seymour allowed for Protestant ideas to flourish

• Act of Uniformity enforced Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer.

• German Protestant leaders fled to England in refuge after Charles VIII’s Victory over princes.

• Second Act of Uniformity; revised Common Prayer; moderate Protestant doctrine.

– Catherine’s daughter Mary I succeeded Edward VI restoring Catholic doctrine

• Catholic Reform and Counter-Reformation • Sources of Catholic Reform

– Many reform proposals made, but popes squashed them because they had already lost enough power in Council of Constance and Basel.

– New orders within church• Theatines reform-minded, founded by Bishop Gian Pietro

Carafa who becomes Pope Paul IV• Caupuchins return to Saint Francis ideals.• Somaschi and Barnabites repair Italy morally and

physically.• Ursulines – covents in France and Italy for all social

classes.• Oratorians – elite clerics to promote religious literature

and music.• Medieval monasticism: revived by St. Teresa of Avila and

St. John of the Cross

• Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits – Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

originally courtier and soldier; conversion when he was wounded and passed time reading Christian classics. Impressed by self-sacrifice of Saints; wanted to be soldier of Christ.

• Spiritual Exercises encouraged absolute spiritual self-discipline; Control own behavior; Teach to submit unquestioningly to church authority; attached traditional spirituality and mysticism; drew back some Protestants.

• The Council of Trent (1545-1563) – Success of Reformation and Charles V pushed

Pope Paul III (r. 1534-1549) to call a general council of church.

• The Pope appointed reform commission chaired by Caspar Contarini (1483-1542), liberal theologian.

– His report was so critical the pope tried to suppress it; distributed

amongst protestants as justification for their criticism.

• Trent is an imperial city in northern Italy. – 3 sessions over 18 years

because of war, plague and politics; Spanned four different Pope reigns.

– Reformed internal rules. • Curtail selling of church offices or

goods.• Bishops must move back to diocese

and preach regularly.• Parish priests had to be educated,

well-dressed, celibate and active in their parishes.

• Reaffirm traditional Catholic doctrine; ended Scholastic quarrels in favor of St. Thomas Aquinas enhancing his authority within the Church.

• Pope promised only religious reforms, no gain in political power. Rulers gradually accept.

• The Social Significance of the Reformation in Western Europe – Luther, Zwingli, Calvin were

politically conservative. • “magisterial reformers” – used

magistrates to coerce populace.• Some say this made them

compromise principles; Others say they didn’t want to change reigning laws and institutions – they encouraged acceptance of sociopolitical status quo

• The Revolution in Religious Practices and Institutions

• Religion in 15th Century Life – Clergy 6-8% population; political and spiritually powerful. – 1/3 of year was some religious observation. 100 days could

not eat eggs, butter, fat, meat. – Children of most powerful lived in Monasteries, Nunneries;

Aristocrats donated to churches and chapels; building walls recorded their lineage.

– Mass completely in Latin.– Pilgrims gathered at shrines in search of cure or miracle.

Some entertainment– Indulgences sold many times a year. – Complaints about clergy

• Clergy in public with concubines and children. Church tolerated if they paid penitential fine. Clergy exempt from tax, often civil criminal law too. Poorly trained and paid substitutes of church offices “take care of souls.”

• Religion in 16th Century Life – Clergy decrease 2/3; Religious

holidays decrease 1/3. Churches reduced 1/3.

– Cloisters gone; many transformed into hospices or schools.

– Church Service in vernacular.– Shrines closed; fined and

punished those venerating saints.

– Encouraged meditation of Bible.

– Clergy under civil jurisdiction. Could marry; most did.

– Not everybody happy; ½ original converts converted back before 1600. Only 1/5 protestant by 1650.

• The Reformation and Education – humanist tools of primary sources better suited for

Protestantism than scholasticism • Ignatius encouraged adopting authoritative scholastic

theologians’ perspectives. • Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), the “praeceptor of

Germany,” argue Scholasticism undermined sound Biblical doctrine; he bred contempt for sacred studies, mathematics, and oratory and focused on other humanist disciplines like history and poetry.

– Luther and Melanchthon reformed University of Wittenerg curriculum - Scholastic ideas dropped.

– John Calvin and Theodore Beza found University Of Geneva. Similar goals to Wittenberg.

• Some feared Protestantism narrowed Humanism (Erasmus) but Protestant educational institutions preserved many humanist works and achievements for the modern world.

• The Reformation and the Changing Role of Women – Rejected medieval tendency to degrade

women as temptresses and instead they exalted them as virgins

• praised women in own right focusing on “biblical job” as mother and housewife.

– Luther and Calvin were greatly helped by wives. They had companionate marriages – coworkers in God-ordained family.

– Expansion of Women’s Rights• Women gain divorce rights. • Expose: nunnery administered by men; just as

abusive as husband.• Reformation encouraged literacy of women to

model lives after own reading of Bible• Also gave roles as independent authors for

Reformation.

• Family Life in Early Modern Europe

• Later Marriages– Men marry 25-30; women 20-

25 instead of accepted age of male 14 and female 12

– After Reformation, marriage required parental consent and public vows in Church.

– Took longer to prepare materially for marriage.

– 1/5 women never married; 15% unmarried widows.

– Higher childbirth mortality rates meant more remarriage for men.

– Increased premarital sex, illegitimate children.

• Arranged Marriages – Parents discussed first but by the 1400s

it was normal for partners to have had some prior relationship.

– Parents respected emotional feelings; Coerced marriages invalid.

• Family Size – Nuclear family: father and mother with

2-4 children who survive as adults.– Lived in larger household with in-laws,

servants, laborers, and boarders.– Couples had 6-7 children; 1 birth every

2 yrs; 1/3 die by age 5; ½ die by teen years.

• Birth Control – By 13th and 14th century the church

prohibited contraceptives– Aquinas’ doctrine morality said not to

frustrate nature’s goal.

• Wet Nursing – Increase risk of mortality:

strange, shared milk supply; nurse less healthy and sanitary.

– Noble men preferred wives not to nurse; other men used it as natural family planning.

– Church forbade lactating mother to have sex.

– Some women wanted vanity, convenience.

• Loving Families? – Children sent to school,

apprenticeship, employment. • loving to prepare child for future

– Widowers, widows remarried within months.

– remarry soon to survive

• Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: Rejection of Idealism– Spanish literature intertwined

with Catholic Church, piety and political power and chivalry.

• Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616): focused on the strengths and weaknesses of traditional religious idealism

– Wrote Don Quixote in prison. – On the surface it is a satire of

chivalric romance but it also appeals to philosophers and theologians; story show the need for balance between realism and

idealism

• William Shakespeare: Dramatist of the Age – viewed governments as rulers instead

of focusing on ideal systems or goals; was socially conservative and accepted the social and political structure of the day; patriotic

• his tragedies are considered his unique achievement – Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet

• his works struck universal human themes many of which were rooted in contemporary religious traditions

– English drama blended many forms: classical comedy and tragedy, medieval morality, contemporary Italian short story.